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American Morning

Ann Richards Dies; New Details Emerging on Montreal Shooting; Summit of Non-Aligned Nations to Take Place in Cuba

Aired September 14, 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, it's Thursday, September 14. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Miles O'Brien.

Here's a look at what is happening this morning.

In Montreal, questions and shock this morning after that shooting rampage at Dawson College. A man with a mohawk and a black trench coat opening fire without uttering a word. One student killed, 19 wounded before police shot him dead. No word yet on his identity or motive.

S. O'BRIEN: One of the most colorful figures in American politics is being remembered this morning. The former Texas Governor, Ann Richards, lost her battle with cancer last night. She was 73 years old.

Got new pictures this morning of the Cuban President Fidel Castro. He's recovering, of course, from intestinal surgery. The photos are now raising expectations that he's going to appear at a summit of world leaders that's taking place in Havana.

M. O'BRIEN: President Bush pushing his anti-terrorism legislation on Capitol Hill later today. He's up against some opposition in his own party. Some Republican lawmakers concerned about giving the administration a blank check. The White House anxious to have a law on the books before the election.

Republican Senator John Warner among those senators with misgivings, pushing for an alternative measure. Warner says the White House plan lowers the standards for treatment for terror detainees and puts U.S. troops at risk should they be captured.

S. O'BRIEN: It is finally back to school today for kids in Detroit. The teachers union has voted to end a 16-day strike. They agreed to a new contract that includes a one-year pay freeze and followed by two raises, rather, over the next two years.

M. O'BRIEN: And a new tropical storm in the Atlantic to tell you about. Right now Tropical Storm Helene is 695 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands packing maximum sustained winds of 40 miles an hour.

Chad Myers, should we worry about Helene?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, not yet. M. O'BRIEN: OK.

MYERS: Not for the next seven days, probably, guys, it's way out there, just coming off the coast of Africa.

What you need to worry about are really how poorly the computers are doing with this storm. You know usually we like to see the spaghetti model, as we call it, from Rightweather.com all nicely packed together so we know where it's going.

But when the computers, when they diverge by about 45 degrees, there's no way to know whether this model is right and it's going to go into the island or this model is right and it just goes up in the north Atlantic and kills itself in the colder water.

This here, that right there is Gordon. What a big storm there. That thing is just going to town. And the eye is getting much smaller, which means the inside wind speeds are getting smaller and getting larger and larger as the eyewall gets smaller.

It's like going on the Tilt-A-Whirl, you know the whole thing goes around, but if you're in the Tilt-A-Whirl and you're really going around in your little car, well that's the smaller conservation of angular momentum, if you will at this time of day. Yes, it's a little early for that.

(WEATHER REPORT)

Back to you guys.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Chad.

Ann Richards, the brassy, tough-talking former Texas governor mourned this morning by people of all political persuasions. She died yesterday after a valiant battle with cancer.

Here is CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Someone once said Ann Richards wasn't born funny, but she got funny pretty quick.

ANN RICHARDS, FMR. TEXAS GOVERNOR: After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, she just did it backwards and in high heels.

LAVANDERA: There wasn't much to laugh about as a young girl during the depression. Growing up in Lakeview, a small town near Waco, she was Dorothy Ann Willis then. Her father once told her she could be anything she wanted to be. So at Baylor University, Richards joined the debate team, a career in politics was born.

She married David Richards and had four children. They immersed themselves in Texas Democratic politics, even spent their honeymoon campaigning for a congressman. Richards' first elected office was as a county commissioner in Austin.

But years of hard drinking were taking its toll. Richards' marriage ended in divorce. In 1980, she quite drinking and smoking. Richards never shied away from talking about her alcohol abuse.

RICHARDS: I had such high expectations of myself. I was going to be the best mother, the best housewife, the best entertainer, the best nurse, you know whatever it was, I was going to be the best. And I never could live up to my own expectations.

LAVANDERA: But Richards' political career continued to flourish. She became Texas state treasurer, which catapulted her to the state's biggest stage.

RICHARDS: I, Ann Willis Richards, do solemnly swear.

LAVANDERA: In 1990, Ann Richards was elected Texas governor, the first woman to hold the office in more than 50 years. In a conservative, now Republican, state, she's always remained popular, a testament to the power of personality.

Ann Richards loved to put on a show, but nothing inspired her sharpest verbal darts quite like the Bush family.

First at the expense of President George Bush at the 1998 Democratic Convention.

RICHARDS: Poor George, he can't help it, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

LAVANDERA: Then six years later in a heated campaign for governor against George W. Bush after he accidentally shot a protected bird on a hunting trip.

RICHARDS: You can't get dressed up in a hunting jacket, borrow somebody's shotgun and hire yourself a guide and go out in somebody's pasture and fake it.

LAVANDERA: Richards lost that election to the future president and never returned to public office.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Ann Richards dead at the age of 73 -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Police in Quebec are still searching for a motive this morning in that deadly shooting rampage that took place at a college in Montreal. It was a single shooter, killed one person, wounded 19 others before police shot and killed him.

Allan Chernoff is live for us at Montreal General Hospital.

Hey, Allan, good morning.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad. And the headline in "The Globe and Mail" says it all, carnage and courage. It was a scene of complete terror at Dawson College when one man suddenly started shooting at students.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF (voice-over): A scene of panic and terror after a gunman opens fire at Dawson College in the center of Montreal. Students pour out in a frenzied stampede to safety.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some guy came in the cafeteria, out of nowhere, and started shooting. He shot like three, four shots. Everybody got down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw one man go down. He was shot either in the head or the neck because there was a lot, a lot of blood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He shot the people right next to us. We were all running. We were hiding in the bushes and there was debris flying from the bullet shots right next to us.

CHERNOFF: Emergency personnel wheeled stretchers to ambulances. Police sealed off the campus. In the confusion, it was thought there was more than one shooter. But police say they killed the lone gunman described as wearing a black trench coat and having a mohawk haircut.

CHIEF YVAN DELORME, MONTREAL POLICE: The first policeman took charge of the situation and shoot in the direction of the suspect and he died. The suspect died.

CHERNOFF: The college is closed for now after a horror reminiscent of scenes played out in American high schools.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's the Canadian version of Columbine.

CHERNOFF: A dozen students and a teacher died in that Colorado tragedy after two students went on a shooting rampage and then committed suicide.

Yesterday was not the first time Montreal has seen such terror. Nearly 17 years ago, 14 female students were killed at another school and 13 others were wounded before the gunman killed himself.

RICHARD FILION, DIR. GENERAL, DAWSON COLLEGE: We are never expecting such a situation. Dawson is a very tight community and it's very sad for Dawson. It has been a very long day for all of us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF: Eleven of the wounded were brought here to Montreal General Hospital yesterday. Six of them had surgery last night and they are in intensive care -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Allan Chernoff for us this morning in Montreal.

Thanks, Allan. Happening in America this morning, Hollywood heading to the United Nations today. Actor George Clooney, yum, is expected to address the Security Council on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. He's an outspoken advocate for the people of Darfur which has been plagued by mass genocide and ethnic cleansing. Clooney visited refugees in Darfur back in April.

Another big wildfire in southern Montana doubles in size and that is forcing more evacuations this morning. Three hundred and twenty- five homes in the celebrity-studded section of Montana have been evacuated. The fire has grown to 19,000 acres. Former "NBC News" anchor Tom Brokaw and homeowners are being told an evacuation might be necessary.

Better weather is helping fire crews battle a big fire north of Los Angeles this morning. It's called the Day Fire. Cooler temperatures and higher humidity are a welcome change. The fire has burned more than 27,000 acres. This caused some temporary closures of Interstate 5.

Lots of people in the northwest and southwest Indiana waking up to a big mess, mud and water everywhere after major flooding there. You're looking at pictures from Evansville where up to eight inches of rain fell yesterday.

People in Philadelphia will find out today if they're going to join the growing number of cities with indoor smoking bans. A bill passed the city council three months ago. The mayor still has reservations, though, about signing it. He wants the ban to extend to outdoor cafes.

And take a look at this guy. He's the guy that police in Virginia Beach are looking for. Apparently he's been pulling off an ATM scam. This caught by surveillance cameras police say. He is suspected of reprogramming a gas station ATM to give out four times more cash than requested.

M. O'BRIEN: Clever.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, that's a neat trick.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come in the program, America's strongest critics meeting just 90 miles off our shores. We'll tell you who is doing what in Cuba this morning.

Also, check out this scene, no, that is not from MTV's "Jackass," although the term might apply. In fact, police aren't laughing, though.

And Carrie Lee.

Good morning to you, Carrie. What do you have?

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you and everyone else, Miles. Gotham gets a big wireless contract to help its police and firefighters and the Dow now at a four-month high. Will the gains continue today? We'll have those stories and more coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Happening this morning.

In Baghdad, five are dead after a pair of car bombings. The second one went off just a few hours ago near a passport office. Authorities say police were the target once again.

Poland says it will send up to 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan to bolster NATO forces. Polish defense officials say the soldiers will do a one-year tour of duty starting next February.

And a big day in space for the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis, they are unfurling some new solar arrays as we speak. The panels will double the electrical production of the station once they're in operation. They were delayed slightly after a software glitch yesterday -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: The health of Cuban President Fidel Castro could decide if he's going to take his place on the world stage this week. Cuba is hosting the summit of Non-Aligned Nations. Many of America's biggest critics are there this morning.

Morgan Neill is live for us in Havana.

Good morning to you, Morgan. Do you think Castro is well enough to host a summit like this?

MORGAN NEILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Soledad, that's a question everybody here wants an answer to. Since he had surgery in late July to stop internal bleeding, we've seen photos of the president, we've seen videos, but he hasn't yet made a public appearance. Now we did see some new photos last night that came out on Cuban TV. They show the president seated in his pajamas talking at a table with a representative from Argentina.

Now if he's at all able to make it, it's hard to imagine Fidel Castro would not make an appearance as he's played such an important role in this movement. But whether he comes or not we've already heard a great deal of anti-U.S. rhetoric and there's likely more to come.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NEILL (voice-over): Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and of course Cuba's Fidel Castro, all outspoken critics of the Bush administration and its policies. All, by Thursday, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. They'll be in Havana for a summit of what's known as the Non-Aligned Movement.

The movement was a Cold War creation, a platform for nations siding with neither the United States, nor the Soviet Union. The rules on membership were flexible enough that Cuban leader Fidel Castro, a close ally of the Soviet Union, gave voice to some of the movement's central themes.

"Peace for powerful countries and the small ones," he said. "Peace for all continents and all people. We understand perfectly that without a fight we'll never achieve it."

Led by Yugoslavia's Tito, Egypt's Nasser and India's Nehru, the movement had a clear sense of purpose, as long as the Cold War lasted. But now its members are left grasping for a new path, fighting charges it's a talking club with little real impact. Cuba's foreign minister says the movement needs to stay united in order to face the challenges posed by a world ruled by more powerful nations.

The Non-Aligned Movement is huge, some 116 nations belong. It's so diverse it holds oil-rich Kuwait and impoverished Burkina Faso, tiny Grenada and immense South Africa, as well as rivals India and Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And, Soledad, that kind of diversity can make it very hard to find meaningful common positions. But for many of the countries here, what this is is it's a rare chance to be heard in a large forum that doesn't include any of the permanent members of the Security Council -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Morgan, before I let you go, what's that noise behind you?

NEILL: I'm sorry?

S. O'BRIEN: What's that noise behind you? That -- it almost sounds like alarm bells going off behind you. Is that something happening behind you?

NEILL: No, I'm sorry, Soledad, there's no alarms going off here. It may actually just be a generator here in the building where we're set up.

S. O'BRIEN: It's pretty loud.

All right, Morgan Neill is going to be watching this conference for us today.

Thanks for talking with us, Morgan, appreciate it -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Time for a check of the forecast now, Chad Myers at the CNN Center with that.

Hello, -- Chad.

MYERS: Hi, Miles.

We are looking at a couple of things. We're looking at Helene out here by the Cape Verde. And also here's Gordon. And then Florence really took a swing at Newfoundland yesterday, made some winds there over 60 miles per hour right along the coast.

There goes Gordon out into the middle part of the Atlantic. And when it gets out here into the colder water, it will kill itself, right, though a big time. Maximum sustained winds at 120 right now.

And then for Helene, which here is Africa, so it's still way, way far away, 100 miles an hour by Tuesday. But still, again, way out in the middle. Still days away, even it makes a left-hand turn and heads to the U.S., not likely, but if it does, it's still probably a week and a half away from doing that anyway.

(WEATHER REPORT)

Back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Chad.

Still to come on the program, in the crosshairs, Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Military had a shot, as you can see through this surveillance video, head-up display video. We'll tell you why they didn't shoot ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think if we don't get a handle on it now, it's probably going to get worse.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I just don't understand why it's taking so long, it's the same procedure they used before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Security is good and everything, but I think it's just got too much security here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Technology can't tell what's actually in somebody's heart.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't see how you classify who is acting like a terrorist. They look just like me or you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It used to be a joy to fly, but now it's nerve-racking, it's hell.

M. O'BRIEN (on camera): It all began here five years ago, here at the site of the World Trade Center. Airline travel has not been the same ever since. But are the layers of security we have added really making us safer? Could we be missing something important?

(voice-over): Psychologist Paul Ekman says we may be focusing too much on screening bags while not paying enough attention to the body language of a terrorist.

PAUL EKMAN, PSYCHOLOGIST: Your emotions are manifest primarily in your facial expressions. Those are innate and many of them are involuntary and hard to prevent.

M. O'BRIEN: Ekman has discovered 3,000 universal facial movements that can reveal a person's concealed emotions. He says screeners could be trained to spot those tell-tale signs.

EKMAN: If you go back through the records of the 19 9/11 hijackers, some of the people who saw them on the very day they committed their act thought there's something off, but they hadn't been trained in exactly what to look for and what it meant.

M. O'BRIEN: Ekman says the idea has been tried in pilot programs and it is efficient and effective.

EKMAN: When they saw someone who showed one of the things on the checklist, they didn't have to take them out of the line. In less than 60 seconds, in almost every case, they were able to clarify that there was no problem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Some of the most popular stories on CNN.com this morning.

A really bad choice, that's what a former teacher in Florida is saying about having sex with a 14-year-old. Debra LaFave, remember her, she's serving three years house arrest for the 2004 incident. She told NBC she believes the boy might have a hard time trusting women.

Anna Nicole Smith so distraught by her son's death that she had to be sedated and she tried frantically to revive 20-year-old Daniel Smith. That word coming from her attorney. He says Anna Nicole is so devastated that she suffered memory loss about what exactly happened. Her son died while he was visiting her in the maternity ward after she gave birth to a daughter. Authorities say his death is suspicious.

Citing irreconcilable differences, singer Whitney Houston and her husband, Bobby Brown, are splitting up after 14 years. Houston filed papers in California asking for legal separation.

M. O'BRIEN: Two straight days of gains for stocks has investors and Carrie Lee feeling good.

Morning, -- Carrie.

LEE: Everyone liking the market going up. Those folks are feeling good. The Dow is right now at a four-month high after gaining 45 points yesterday, so we are now within 200 points of the all-time high set by the industrials about seven years ago. And it is looking like we could see a little bit of buying action early this Thursday morning. We will get a look at retail sales for August and that could give us some further direction.

Now one thing helping stocks lately, oil prices have been coming down. They are rising a little bit this morning, up a little bit yesterday, but still below $64 a barrel. And we did see previously seven trading days in a row where oil has been coming down. We have some big players in oil production in Saudi Arabia and Exxon saying there is plenty of oil, despite some fears that some folks might have that we're peaking out in terms of supply. So that's what's happening on the markets.

Let's turn to New York City, which of course is where we are, Northrop Grumman getting a half-a-billon-dollar contract from New York City to basically build out a big wireless network for emergencies. Now this is going to be for government use only. Police, firefighters can use it.

And the idea here is really to tap into a citywide system where, let's say police are looking for a culprit for something, they can download a mug shot. Perhaps firefighters could get an aerial view of a building beamed down from a helicopter if they're looking to fight a fire or something like that. So this is a huge deal. Operational by spring of 2008.

M. O'BRIEN: If they're going to go to the trouble, why not have a civilian site so we can all use it?

LEE: Well, maybe they will eventually.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, I mean...

LEE: That might be a little too big brotherish for some folks. But starting with government personnel, and I guess we'll see how it works.

M. O'BRIEN: I say Wi-Fi for everybody. It should be everywhere.

LEE: Well, some countries -- some countries -- some areas in California do do that,...

M. O'BRIEN: Right.

LEE: ... they offer wireless access to all of their residents who live there. But this is what they're doing in New York, though operational spring of 2008, five years to be built out completely.

M. O'BRIEN: All right.

Thank you very much, -- Carrie.

LEE: Sure.

M. O'BRIEN: See you later.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you guys watch ABC's "Dancing with the Stars?"

Excuse me.

M. O'BRIEN: No, but I've heard much about it.

S. O'BRIEN: Well because of course Tucker Carlson.

M. O'BRIEN: Because of Tucker.

LEE: Did see that. Did see that.

S. O'BRIEN: Got lots of...

LEE: Jerry Springer as well.

S. O'BRIEN: Sad to say, he's out.

M. O'BRIEN: Did he deserve it?

S. O'BRIEN: The cable television host. Yes, apparently he did. Sorry, Tucker, I love you man, but your dancing -- yes.

M. O'BRIEN: I could have predicted this by the way.

LEE: Don't quit your day job.

S. O'BRIEN: He was the first person voted off the show last night. It was down to Tucker and the former Miss USA Shanna Moakler. I would think she'd be a terrific dancer.

LEE: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: In the end he...

M. O'BRIEN: Well she was fine.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, he was done. I guess back to his day job.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

LEE: He gave it a shot.

S. O'BRIEN: He had a lot of people pulling for him.

M. O'BRIEN: Who was that?

S. O'BRIEN: Reverend Sharpton. Al Sharpton was...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: ... sending out letters saying vote for Tucker. People were like, Reverend Al, watch Tucker.

M. O'BRIEN: All right.

S. O'BRIEN: Good for.

M. O'BRIEN: Best to you, Tucker,...

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: ... at whatever you do best. The morning's top stories are straight ahead, including questions in Montreal as they grapple with a Columbine-style shooting rampage. We'll tell you what police know this morning.

And sharp-tongue, straight-shooting Texan Ann Richards being remembered today. Her legacy runs deeper than the one-liners. We'll tell you about that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Take a look at this shot from space. This is a live picture from the International Space Station. The space shuttle Atlantis still attached there. That mission still under way. And this is pretty much the main events for this mission as they begin to unfurl those beautiful gold solar arrays.

They were a little bit delayed by a software glitch, but it's well under way now. They have deployed them kind of halfway, and they'll let them kind of get baked a little bit by the sun, because last time they tried to do this back in 2000, when they unfurled them, they kind of got stuck. And so this time they're going to deploy them about halfway, let them get heated up a little bit, and then continue the process on.

So far so good up there. We're watching it for you.

S, O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.

I'm Soledad O'Brien.

M. O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien.

Thanks for being with us.

Police in Quebec still searching for a motive this morning in that deadly shooting rampage in a college in Montreal.

For more on this we turn CNN's Allan Chernoff, joining us from the hospital.

Good morning, Allan.

CHERNOFF: Good morning to you, Miles.

And it was a scene of complete terror yesterday afternoon at Dawson College, just a few blocks away from where we are standing right now in downtown Montreal. A single man dressed entirely in black, witnesses said, and wearing a mohawk hair cut all of a sudden began shooting outside of Dawson College, then he stepped inside, continued the shooting.

Police responded very quickly, and it was a scene of total chaos. Students running for their lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some guy came in the cafeteria out of nowhere and started shooting. He shot, like, three, four shots.

Everybody got down and everybody slowly went towards, like, like the cafeteria. Like, to the actual cafeteria where we buy the food. And they went slowly, slowly, slowly, and then you, like, saw this guy getting alone. So he started shooting a couple people.

That I know of, three people got shot, like, the first time. Like, I just saw someone else. I don't know where that person came from. People got shot. One in the arm and the leg, and two others in the arm only.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw somebody -- somebody shot in the -- in the neck. We -- we saw a couple people be taken away. We don't really know the extent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: Police were able to shoot the man dead on the scene, but not before he shot 20 people, one of whom died right there, a 20- year-old woman. Of the wounded, 11 were brought here to Montreal General Hospital, and last night six of them had surgery. They remain in intensive care this morning -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Allan, do you have a sense that police know who this person is and they're just not releasing it yet? Or what?

CHERNOFF: That's exactly the case, that's right. Police do know the identity, they say. They're not revealing it publicly. All they're saying is that he is a Canadian. So that's all we know right now about the individual.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. I guess we'll know a little bit more later today.

Allan Chernoff in Montreal.

Thank you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Former Texas governor Ann Richards is being remembered this morning as a quintessential Texan who loved America. Richards died Wednesday evening at her home in Austin, Texas.

Richards first came to national attention at the 1988 Democratic convention. She taunted the first President Bush as a tongue-tied child of privilege. Then in 1991 she became the second woman to be elected Texas governor. She lost a reelection bid to the younger George Bush.

Richards, at 73, had been battling cancer of the esophagus.

President Bush heads to Capitol Hill this morning. He's meeting with House Republicans who are concerned about the election, which is now less than two months away.

White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux has more for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Today President Bush will huddle with House Republicans on the Hill to take stock at where they are. White House press secretary Tony Snow saying it will last about an hour or so.

It's really meant to be a morale booster here for members of Congress who, of course, are facing midterm elections less than two months away. The president was invited by Speaker Denny Hastert. Essentially, Snow says it will be a chance for him to listen, to take questions from members of Congress, Republicans, to hear their concerns.

Of course, the top of the agenda it is expected to cover is President Bush's legislation to push forward to try detainees, as well as track terrorists by secret surveillance. Some other issues likely to be on the table, immigration reform and taxes.

And, of course, the big question here is whether or not President Bush and the administration will be able to push through and pass those anti-terrorism measures before the voters go to the polls. It is widely believed that the Republicans, if they can keep the majorities in the Senate, as well as the House, will allow President Bush to get something done in the next two years.

Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: The Taliban still on the offensive in Afghanistan, today raiding a police station, killing four. But as the fighting goes on, some questions now about the U.S. rules of engagement.

In July, the military watched a large group of Taliban fighters gathered in one spot, had them in their gun sights. But the order came down, hold your fire.

Why?

Jamie McIntyre has answers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The single video frame shows a large gathering of suspected Taliban militants in the crosshairs of a U.S. spy plane. Sitting ducks, except that no one pulled the trigger. The picture first surfaced on a web blog written by NBC News reporter Carey Sanders, in Afghanistan, who says the image was declassified at NBC's request.

According to what Sanders was told, the 190 Taliban members, including top leaders, were at a funeral. And Army officers frustration the group was not attacked. Why?, he wrote. Under the rules of engagement, the U.S. cannot bomb a cemetery. Actually military experts say the U.S. can bomb a cemetery in some circumstances. JAMES CARAFANO, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Commanders on the ground usually have a degree of flexibility in terms of how they operate these rules of engagement. But, again, a rule of engagement, which essentially puts cultural and religious sites off limits, that's not unusual.

MCINTYRE: Initially the U.S. military refused to comment on the photo, say it should never have been released. In a later statement, the military says the shows a July gather of Taliban insurgents that it first considered a tactically viable enemy target, but then decided not to strike, because the group was on the grounds of a cemetery and were likely conducting a funeral for Taliban insurgents killed earlier in the day.

Another reason for caution, credible intelligence can be wrong, such as the time in 2002 when U.S. planes mistakenly bombed a wedding party in Afghanistan, killing several dozen civilians.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It could be a missed opportunity. It could be a disaster averted. Again, we have had both.

MCINTYRE: The statement noted that a suicide bomber attacked the funeral of an Afghan provincial governor Tuesday, killing innocent civilians, and it said the U.S. holds itself to a higher moral and ethical standard than its enemies.

(on camera): The statement seems to confirm that the U.S. did have a large group of Taliban in its sights and held its fire out of respect for the funeral. The statement says simply the decision was made not to strike this group of insurgents at that specific location in time.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Jamie's report first aired on "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT," which you can catch at 6:00 p.m. tonight right here on CNN -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Happening "In America" this morning, an extended summer break is over in Detroit. Public school students finally headed back to class this morning after teachers voted to end their more than 2-week-old strike yesterday. The union approved a three- year contract.

In Pennsylvania, we're following a trial involving a Little League Baseball coach accused of paying one of his 8-year-old player 25 bucks to bean an autistic teammate so the little boy couldn't play.

Closing arguments in this case are expected today. The coach and the father got in a shouting match during court yesterday, each calling the other a liar.

In Illinois, a case of insurance fraud caught on tape, according to police. Police say two couples worked together to crash their van. Look at this. They're trying to collect insurance money, they allege.

An angry ex-husband turned the tape over to the cops. The couples paid the insurance money back, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges.

Time for a check of the forecast. Chad Myers at the CNN Center for us.

Hey, Chad. Good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Soledad.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MYERS: So much for summertime.

Back to you guys.

S. O'BRIEN: It's done.

MYERS: Done, over.

M. O'BRIEN: All right.

MYERS: Back to school.

M. O'BRIEN: We'll miss it.

MYERS: Play football.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. We'll look forward to next summer, I guess. Alas.

MYERS: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you, Chad.

Still to come in the program, a look at a major summit in Cuba. Some people who really hate us gathering just over the horizon. Why?

And here's a pretty sight in space. Well, that's not as pretty as the live picture. Let's take the live picture.

Take a look at those solar arrays as they deploy.

Can we -- there you go. There's a live picture as the shuttle astronauts go for the main event and hopefully provide a little more juice for the space station.

Details coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Here's a look now at stories that CNN correspondents around the world are covering today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAL PERRY, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: I'm Cal Perry in Baghdad, where today the Saddam trial continues. The prosecution putting forward more witnesses telling harrowing stories of fleeing from poison gas, poison gas that killed tens of thousands during the Anfal campaign in the late '80s.

The antics do continue this week. Saddam at one point threatening to crush the heads of the witnesses. One witness replied, "Congratulations, Saddam, you're in a cage."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paula Hancocks in Jerusalem.

Palestinian leaders are hoping that a new unity government currently being formed will unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars in withheld aid. But the U.S. and Israel are more skeptical. Both say a new government must accept Israel's right to exist, and also renounce violence, otherwise it will not receive a penny.

And 18 Hamas leaders who are expected to be free today may not be. Israeli prosecutors are appealing to keep them behind bars.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NEILL: I'm Morgan Neill in Havana, where things are set to heat up today as dozens of heads of state converge for a summit of the nonaligned movement, including the leaders of Iran, Venezuela and other vocal critics of U.S. policy. The question on everyone's lips here is, will President Fidel Castro show up?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: If you want more on this -- these stories, or any of our top stories, you can go right to our Web site at CNN.com.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, some golden wings unfurling in space. It is a pretty sight. Electrifying for the astronauts on board, and hopefully for the station.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Happening this morning, five people are dead in Baghdad after a pair of car bombings. The second one went off just a couple of hours ago near a passport office. Authorities say police were the target.

Poland saying it's going to send up to 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan to bolster NATO forces there. Polish defense officials say the soldiers will do a one-year tour of duty starting next February.

And House Republicans today plan a new vote on a border fence proposal. It calls for a 700-mile-long fence along the border with Mexico. A spokesman says Republican House leaders see the fence as an emergency measure -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Two hundred and eight miles above us right now, the middle of the Atlantic, the space shuttle Atlantis and the International space Station having an electrifying moment as we speak. Take a look at these live pictures.

You're seeing just the base of the solar array. Sort of a close- up shot. What you're seeing there are some of the power cables there. And that's the solar array, which they just got about halfway out.

We'll get a bigger picture out there for you in just a moment. But they're just checking -- now there's -- there's the beginning of the unfurling of the first of two arrays. They're going to do it a little bit differently than they did back in 2000, when they did something similar on the twin to this solar array combination.

It got stuck as they tried to deploy it then. So what they'll do this time is deploy it about halfway, give it a chance to heat up a little bit, and then deploy it the full way. Apparently, last go- around the combination of the temperatures and the fact that it was compressed inside these little carrier things for so long made it difficult. It got stuck like a bad blind, if you will.

So, the combination of that makes them take their time in all of this. You can see how it kind of flexed and got -- it was loose, and it took them a little while to get those solar arrays up and running, as they should.

Once this is all done this will double the power production of the space station and set the groundwork for additional modules. NASA in the midst of a very aggressive campaign to build out as much of the space station as they can before the space shuttle retires at the end of 2010.

So we're watching that in space for you. And, oh, once it's done, this is how it works: as the space station rotates the Earth once every 90 minutes, 16 sunrises and sunsets, the rays just spin around to meet up with the sun.

So they're always at the proper angle to gather as much sun as possible. Keeping the place well juiced, so to speak.

And you know it is Thursday.

S. O'BRIEN: It doesn't mean Prince Spaghetti Day. It means...

M. O'BRIEN: No, it doesn't.

S. O'BRIEN: ... Miles Cam today. M. O'BRIEN: It's Miles Cam today. And, of course, we'll probably do a space version of Miles Cam today.

S. O'BRIEN: A special space edition of Miles Cam on CNN.com/pipeline at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

Be sure to join us.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad O'Brien playing the hits for you this morning.

All right.

Send your -- send your e-mails to milescam@cnn.com. I'll read them and answer them at CNN.com/pipeline at 10:30 Eastern Time.

See you the.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, we're going to take you to a school for little geniuses. A one-of-a-kind classroom where gifted kids learn at their own, much faster pace. The third part of Dr. Sanjay Gupta's "Genius" series.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Well, that scandal at Hewlett-Packard is getting curiouser and curiouser.

Ellen McGirt in for Andy Serwer today.

Ellen, good to see you.

ELLEN MCGIRT, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good to see you. Thanks for having me.

This Hewlett-Packard thing is a big old mess. As we know, chairwoman Patricia Dunn has been called on the carpet for authorizing an investigation into possible media leaks from some of the board members. But it looks like many, many more people are affected now.

The scope is widening. The company disclosed yesterday that the investigation extends way beyond board members and includes several employees and people outside the company, including at least nine reporters that we know about. Not me. But the methodology of the investigation has certainly come under fire.

Not only is it -- is it disturbing that there's spying going on, but certainly it's the methodology. It's pretexting. They used an outside investigator to actually illegally potentially get the phone records of all these people, and they actually used Social Security numbers to pretend that they were board members and reporters to actually get the phone records, and that's the big problem.

M. O'BRIEN: You know, in this pretexting situation, the chairwoman has said that she did not know they were pretexting.

MCGIRT: Correct.

M. O'BRIEN: The question is, though, how did those private investigators get those Social Security numbers? Presumably, HP would have those numbers in their files.

MCGIRT: This is certainly going to be an interesting investigation, wouldn't it?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

MCGIRT: Because chances are they got it from some source within the company, and chances are, then they went on and looked and talked to other providers into giving them the information. So the AG is taking this very, very seriously, as you can imagine, and we're going -- he believes that there's going to be enough to indict several people involved, including the outside investigators, within a week.

M. O'BRIEN: Now, this whole notion of pretexting...

MCGIRT: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: ... you know, a lot of people hadn't really thought about this or heard about this, but this is -- does this happen all the time?

MCGIRT: It's more common than we think. And when you think about disputes like this, anybody who's going to be looking for you, law firms, in all kinds of disputes, and banks and financial institutions if you're late paying, they're going to want to track you down.

And so what we're seeing -- and privacy advocates are actually happy about this because we're getting this out in the open. Privacy laws vary from state to state. And now is a good time to talk about, how are we going to handle this going forward? It's a big issue.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. But people -- if they get a hold of your Social Security number, that's like the keys to your kingdom, isn't it?

MCGIRT: It really is. We are so vulnerable these days. The flip side of technology.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

Ellen McGirt with "Fortune."

What do you got next coming up?

MCGIRT: We're going to be looking at Ford. And they've got a board meeting coming up and a lot of things happening.

M. O'BRIEN: A lot of things to talk about there, too.

S. O'BRIEN: Hopefully good things.

MCGIRT: I know.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. All right.

MCGIRT: Thanks.

M. O'BRIEN: Thanks.

S. O'BRIEN: Ellen, thanks.

We're going to take a look at some of the stories we're working on for you this morning as well.

Political maverick Ann Richards being remembered today. She died. She was 73 years old.

Police are searching for a motive in the Montreal school shooting.

President Bush is rallying the GOP on Capitol Hill this morning.

Critical computer systems are being tested by Homeland Security.

And California firefighters are getting a break. Wildfires are within a mile of a mobile home park right now, but cool, moist weather is on the firefighters' side.

We'll take a look at all that just ahead.

First, the forecast, and Chad.

Hello.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MYERS: The next hour of AMERICAN MORNING starts right now.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad.

Chaos and confusion grips one Canadian college after a lone gunman goes on a rampage. This morning police are still wondering why.

M. O'BRIEN: Remembering Ann Richards, the hard-charging former governor of Texas. She broke some barriers for herself and for others.

S. O'BRIEN: And raging wildfires are gaining some ground out West. More homes this morning are in danger.

M. O'BRIEN: And they're calling it the best thing since seatbelts. New rules expected today for a device you're going to want to have on your car.

S. O'BRIEN: And there's no other place like it, a school for little geniuses that lets everybody learn at their own much faster pace. Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes us there on this AMERICAN MORNING.

And welcome back, everybody.

I'm Soledad O'Brien.

M. O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien.

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