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Wild Weather Puts Search for Mt. Hood Climbers on Hold; Rumsfeld's Last Day on the Job; Breast Cancer Decline
Aired December 15, 2006 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. You're with CNN. You're informed.
I'm Tony Harris.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Heidi Collins.
Developments keep coming into the NEWSROOM on Friday, December 15th. Here's what's on the rundown.
Winds howling like a hurricane. Wild weather puts the search for the Mt. Hood climbers on hold. We'll have live reports this hour on the storm and the search.
HARRIS: A master of words. The oldest and youngest defense secretary days shy of a record run at the Pentagon. A farewell for Donald Rumsfeld.
COLLINS: A startling drop in breast cancer rates. One doctor calls it the study of the year.
The findings in the NEWSROOM.
Hurricane-force winds, blizzard conditions making the search for three missing climbers a near mission impossible.
CNN's Chris Lawrence now from Parkdale, Oregon.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A beacon of hope in a grueling search for three missing climbers. Authorities say they detected a new cell phone signal on Tuesday from Kelly James, who was believed to be tucked in a snow cave near the summit.
FRANK JAMES, KELLY JAMES' BROTHER: My heart was in my throat when I heard that, because if it's true, it means that Kelly is alive and that he has his wits about him.
LAWRENCE: But there has been no sign of the other two, who apparently left the cave Saturday looking for help.
KAREN JAMES, KELLY JAMES' WIFE: Our spirits are still high. These are three of the most phenomenal men you could ever meet. They're smart, they're strong, and they care so deeply for one another. LAWRENCE: The brutal weather, including avalanche warnings, kept even the most experienced rescue crews well below the 10,000-foot level where James is stuck.
DEPUTY CHRIS GUERTIN, HOOD RIVER CO. SHERIFF'S DEPT.: We don't really have much of an idea where Mr. Hall and Mr. Cooke are at right now. They could be at the top with Mr. James, they could be in a snow cave down lower. That's why we're kind of continuing at some of the lower-elevation searches, for a snow cave, or whatever signs we can come up with.
LAWRENCE: The U.S. military and FBI have joined the local search. Rescuers also have high-tech drones that could detect body heat. But hurricane force winds grounded the aerial search on Thursday, despite the grim conditions, Kelly James' wife is not giving up.
K. JAMES: My husband proposed to me on Mt. Rainier, and we're planning our 50th wedding anniversary there, so I know he's coming off this mountain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Chris Lawrence joining us now from Parkdale, Oregon.
And Chris, you know they had that news conference live yesterday, and you could just see the hope coming from the brother and wife of Kelly. And I wonder now if they are actually able to pinpoint that signal, and the weather does clear up this weekend, like tomorrow, as we've been hearing, what will be the plan forward?
LAWRENCE: Well, the rescue teams are staged at two camps on the north and the south side of the mountain. If they got the go-ahead, if the weather cleared up in time, they could begin to climb up. It would take four to six hours to reach the elevation at about 10,000 feet.
The problem is, even if you got a clear day, so much snow has been built up from all these blizzards over the past few days, there's a tremendous danger of an avalanche. And the rescue teams are going to have to weigh that danger when deciding whether to send people up to those higher elevations -- Heidi.
COLLINS: The frustration must be just nearly unbearable.
All right. Chris Lawrence, thanks for that.
HARRIS: Slammed in the Pacific Northwest. A major winter storm pounding Oregon and Washington State. Heavy, rain, snow and winds as strong as a hurricane. Overnight gusts blew almost 100 miles an hour. Three deaths are blamed on the storm.
More than a million people are without power this morning. Flooding is a real concern, as you can imagine. In the higher elevations, snow is the problem. Blizzard warnings now up for the Cascade Mountains. Chad Myers, where do we go from here?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I don't know. You try to get that snow off the mountain at some point in time.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COLLINS: Today, a final salute for a key architect of the Iraq war. It's Donald Rumsfeld's last day on the job. His replacement faces big decisions about Pentagon leadership.
CNN's Jamie McIntyre has that.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
GEN. PETER PACE, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: This man's work ethic is incredible.
Is he demanding? You bet.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: No!
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace is one Donald Rumsfeld's biggest fans and often showers him with public praise, as he did last week at Rumsfeld's farewell Pentagon town hall meeting.
PACE: This is a man of very strong loyalty.
MCINTYRE: But as principal military adviser, Pace is also supposed to be a critic, capable of providing harsh truth to the defense secretary and the president.
As Robert Gates takes over, he needs to decide if Rumsfeld's handpicked chairman is really who he wants to get his advice from or whether, when Pace's first two-year term expires next summer, he should be replaced.
One possibility would be Marine General Jim Jones, who Rumsfeld also interviewed for the chairman's job. Jones warned his close friend Pace, who got the position, that Iraq could be a debacle and not to be a parrot on the shoulder of the secretary.
In fact, some critics argue Gates should ease out all the generals in charge of a Iraq War, starting with top commander, John Abizaid.
COL. DOUG MACGREGOR, U.S. ARMY (RET.): General John Abizaid has always known what was right, but he simply has been unable to act on it. He's a product of this system that rewards officers for being charming and compliant, but presenting no resistance to their bosses.
MCINTYRE: Gates will have to decide if Generals Pace, Abizaid and George Casey have been too cowed by Rumsfeld to say what they really think. But some argue firing commanders for saluting smartly and doing their best would be a mistake. MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: If you fire General Abizaid and General Casey, you're firing two of the most competent Army officers that we've ever produced in this country, because there is no solution. They're working hard to solve a problem, a big problem that they've been handed and walked into the middle of and you can't simply hold them responsible.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COLLINS: Jamie McIntyre joining us now live from the Pentagon.
Jamie, what do we know about the relationship between Gates and Rumsfeld?
MCINTYRE: Well, it appears to be pretty good. Gates and Rumsfeld have both met several times since President Bush announced his nomination, and he's subsequently been confirmed. They were together at the meeting with the president.
Gates also has a reputation of being very sharp and a good manager, like Rumsfeld. And Rumsfeld appears to be, you know, very comfortable during this hand-over period.
So he's given some advice to Gates, but Gates is his own man as well. And Rumsfeld will be sort of exiting gracefully from the stage today.
COLLINS: And we should remind everybody, too, Jamie, coming up at 1:15 today, that armed forces full honor review on the last day for Donald Rumsfeld. Robert Gates will not be there. Probably going to afford him the full spotlight there.
Appreciate it.
Jamie, thanks.
HARRIS: In a league of their own. Blues man B.B. King, human rights activist Nathan Sharansky and the late John Buck O'Neil, Major League Baseball's first African-American coach.
COLLINS: All are among 10 inspiring recipients of the Medal of Freedom. That's the nation's highest civilian award. President Bush doing the honors this morning at the White House.
I wish we could have heard them play it a little bit.
And the heroic Medal of Freedom of winner will join us a little bit later in the NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: Yes. He rode out Hurricane Katrina with the students and made sure they got to safety. Xavier University president Norman Francis talks with NEWSROOM'S Kyra Phillips about the challenges of keeping the school going, fighting insurance companies, and also about this year's graduation speaker, Barack Obama.
That is at 1:00 p.m. right here in the NEWSROOM. Drum roll, please. May I have a drum roll?
Time to name that Panda.
COLLINS: The winner is Mei Lan. It means "Atlanta beauty." There's Mei Lan now. Oh, it's just way too cute.
Quality time with mom, of course.
HARRIS: Finally.
COLLINS: Zoo Atlanta having a big bash today, just announcing the results of an online poll. Fifty-seven thousand votes cast to name its 100-day-old giant panda cub. The naming ceremony is a custom in much of China, because for panda cubs a 100-day milestone is significant due to a high infant mortality rate. They're very, very pleased when they get to that 100th day.
HARRIS: They're just happy to see mom.
COLLINS: Yes. It's sweet.
Meanwhile, more big news and a big drop in breast cancer rates. New questions about hormone replacement therapy. Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be in the NEWSROOM.
And one woman says this was a house of horror. Nine months later, the woman who accused Duke players of rape becomes a mother. Another odd turn in the case in the NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: Facing the fury of Mother Nature.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a biting cold. It's hard to see. In fact, it's downright painful.
The question now is, if you were stuck in these conditions, what do you do? How do you survive?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: CNN's Rick Sanchez finds out in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: A look now at a medical story that could impact millions of women, a sudden and dramatic decline in breast cancer rates. The focus is not on what women and doctors did, rather what they didn't do.
Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's good to report some good news every now and then, and we do have some of that about breast cancer. Some numbers going down, actually, as you pointed out. A 7 percent decrease overall in breast cancer incidents for 2003.
This is especially good news if you consider that breast cancer incidents has actually gone up from 1975 to 2000 sort of steadily. Researchers have been trying to pinpoint exactly what's causing this decrease, and they strongly believe that it probably has to do with the fact that hormone replacement therapy had so much negative publicity surrounding it that the number of hormone replacement therapy prescriptions, or HRT prescriptions, have started to decrease.
In fact, when HRT prescriptions decreased initially, you started to see some trickle down of breast cancer incidents, but now you're getting some definitive data looking at this. And in women who are over 50, who may have had an estrogen positive type of breast cancer, the most common type of breast cancer, the numbers have actually gone down about 14 percent.
So decreased hormone replacement therapy leading to some decreased breast cancer rates. It is only one year's worth of data, so it is hard to say that it's a trend by any means at this point. But certainly some very encouraging data.
A lot of women out there asking themselves, so, what now? There's about 13 million women who still take hormone replacement therapy, and they take it because of the debilitating symptoms of menopause.
Talk to your doctor about trying to take the smallest doses that you possibly can for the shortest amount of time. That is still the best advice.
We'll keep you posted as more details come on in, but a very important story about breast cancer.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: To get your "Daily Dose" of health news online, log on to our Web site. You'll find the latest medical news, a health library, and information on diet and fitness. That address, cnn.com/health.
HARRIS: Hey, you may not recognize his name, but you certainly know the faces he made famous. Atlantic Record founder Ahmet Ertegun has died at the age of 83. Ertegun's label was home to a who's who of recording greats: Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin, among others. Even near the end of his life, Ertegun was a part of the music scene.
He fell backstage at a Stones concert in New York in October and suffered a head injury. He never record. Ertegun came to America the son of a Turkish ambassador. He will be buried in Turkey.
COLLINS: Middle class Americans, many are cutting it close financially. Are you living paycheck to paycheck?
We'll tell you about that, coming up in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: We are so happy to have Carol Lin sitting next to us, because tomorrow night you have a terrific special coming up, 10:00 Eastern Time, about living paycheck to paycheck. And during the holiday time, this is really a good issue to be bringing up about people and their finances.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely, Heidi. And you'd be surprised how many people are actually in that situation if they really had to think about their expenses.
This is not your typical homeless at the holidays special. You know, we want you to forget about the stereotypes that you know about, the homeless, the sleeping under bridges, the shopping carts, the begging. This weekend we are talking about working class Americans who once had a house, a car and a job but now they are homeless for the holidays.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand where society has sort of misplaced their values in terms of homeless people. Homeless people are just normal, regular citizens. If afforded the opportunity, would really proliferate in America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Now, this weekend, CNN primetime reveals a different face of homelessness, American who were pushed out of the middle class and trying to survive. How did they end up like this?
You're looking at one of the family shelters that some of these folks ended up in. Could it happen to you?
Tune in Saturday night, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, for "A Paycheck Away." You meet gentlemen like him, you'll meet a woman who had a job as construction office manager. She had to carry two jobs just to make the rent.
It's not to say that the folks sleeping under the bridges are not -- you know, we don't -- we have compassion for them.
COLLINS: Sure. Of course.
LIN: But this is a -- it's a whole different class of people, that even in producing this special in-house, we met people right here who worked on the special who realized...
COLLINS: Really?
LIN: "Hey, you know what? If I really think about it, I'm just a paycheck away from not being able to pay the rent." COLLINS: Yes. Wow.
LIN: And -- but we're offering solutions, too.
COLLINS: OK, Carol. Good. We'll be watching. Saturday night, 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
LIN: 10:00.
HARRIS: Outstanding. Outstanding.
COLLINS: Carol Lin, thank you.
HARRIS: So you get your change, but you don't know if you've been shortchanged. It is a daily reality for more than a million Americans. And it is why they say things have to change.
CNN's Deborah Feyerick reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARC GROSSMAN, LEGALLY BLIND: Pay here or pay down there?
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Imagine handing over a $20 bill and having no idea if you're getting back the right change.
GROSSMAN: This is a five? And this is a 10? OK, great. Thank you very much.
FEYERICK: This is what Marc Grossman goes through every time he pays in cash.
Like more than a million Americans, Grossman is legally blind. And every cash transaction is a risk. Grossman says he heard stories of visually impaired people being ripped off by dishonest sales people.
Remember this scene from the movie "Ray?"
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five, 10, 15, 20.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, would you like to start counting that again?
FEYERICK: Grossman doesn't think it's happened to him, but he says he doesn't know for sure.
GROSSMAN: We need to have some way to identify money so that we can live independent lives without having to rely on sighted assistance.
FEYERICK: It certainly made sense to one federal judge, who recently ordered the U.S. Treasury to show blind people the money -- possibly by changing the size of each bill or adding texture to reflect the dollar amount, the same way blind people identify coins. GROSSMAN: Now, if I hand you this coin...
FEYERICK (on camera): This is smooth, so I know that this is a nickel.
(voice-over): But this week, Treasury officials appealed the ruling, arguing it would cost upwards of $300 million to make the changes, and that it would force the revamping of things like ATMs and vending machines.
(on camera): This travel exchange in Times Square handles currency from all different countries, and there are about 180 that print their own paper money.
Take a look. This is the pound. This is the peso, and here you've got the euro. All different sizes to reflect the different denominations. Only U.S. currency is the same size for each dollar amount.
JEFFREY LOVITKY, ATTORNEY, AMERICAN COUNCIL OF THE BLIND: Blind people in the United States have simply been deprived.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Jeffrey Lovitky represents the American Council of the Blind, the organization that brought the lawsuit and has been trying for more than three decades to change U.S. currency sizes.
LOVITKY: People with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations. I think that's all that is being asked for in this case.
FEYERICK: Lovitky says it is incomprehensible that the Treasury Department won't help blind people, especially since it plans to make bill changes anyway every seven to nine years to stop counterfeiters.
As for Marc Grossman?
GROSSMAN: What are these two? These are singles?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're dollar bills.
FEYERICK: He's figured out a system of folding his bills to know what he spends.
GROSSMAN: And this is 10?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
GROSSMAN: Excellent. Thank you very much.
FEYERICK: But when it comes to the change, he relies on blind faith.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Our Deborah Feyerick reporting there. Meanwhile, a wild winter storm whipping the Pacific Northwest, complicating a desperate search in the mountains. We're covering it this hour in the NEWSROOM.
And taking leave. Donald Rumsfeld's last day on the job. A legacy of war. His farewell today in the NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: But first, how do you get your kids off the sofa and into the habit of exercising? Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has the story of one teacher who is challenging kids to get fit.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): Like most physical education teachers, Todd Sisneros wanted his students to be healthy and fit, but he noticed a disturbing trend.
TODD SISNEROS, FIT NATION WINNER: It is a different world. We can't expect kids to put down video games, and put away the computers, and go outside and play all the time. As much as we would like that to happen, it's not going to.
GUPTA: Add to that the energy sapping 100-plus degree temperatures in Laughlin, the Nevada desert town where he teaches and the high number of low-income single parent families, and you have the making of an obesity crisis.
TIM FRYE, PRINCIPAL: I think we and education always face the dilemma that we only have the students for the six hours a day. If we try to provide a healthy lunch here at school, but we don't get that opportunity to really monitor what they eat outside of the school setting.
GUPTA: So with the principal's support, Todd set out to level the playing field.
SISNEROS: I was just trying to find a way to get kids to exercise, despite the obstacles that are there.
GUPTA: The result was "Mr. S.," DVD workouts for kids, an interactive workout Todd created with just a simple camcorder, a DVD burner and some seed money that he raised with his students in the community.
The program has been an overwhelming success with both kids and parents. The only complaint Todd has gotten...
SISNEROS: Say "Mr. S.," really upset that my child gets up at 6:00 in the morning, puts a DVD on, and I hear him stomping around in the house.
GUPTA: Todd's story inspired me and all of us here at CNN so much that we declared him the winner of our 2006 "Fit Nation" contest. Todd's response when my producer told him he won $5,000...
SISNEROS: To be honest with you, I about drove off the road. Making a teacher's salary, I might be able to go a week without having to eat ramen and dollar TV dinners.
GUPTA: Congratulations.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Fredricka Whitfield is following a developing story out of Maryland.
Fred, what are you working on?
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it looks like some pretty frightening moments out of Montgomery County, Maryland, in Silver Spring, just near where it intersects with Wheaton, Maryland and Forest Glenn (ph), well, apparently, according to our affiliate WUSA, a home there with a nanny and two children inside was invaded by what may be three armed men. The nanny and the two children escaped unharmed. That's the good news. However, police say that the three men are still at large. So a nearby school is on lockdown right now as they continue to search for these three men allegedly who carried out a home invasion in Silver Spring, Maryland.
When we get some pictures and more information, we'll be able to bring that to you -- Tony.
HARRIS: Great, Fred. Thank you.
COLLINS: Heavy rain, blinding snow and wind gusts of almost 100 miles an hour. All of that in one place. The Pacific Northwest getting blasted by a wicked winter storm.
Reporting from Seattle now Jim Foreman with CNN affiliate KING.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM FOREMAN, KING CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Across the region, millions are without power. And as day breaks here, people are starting to hit the roads, finding blacked-out intersections and major freeways shutdown.
(voice-over): It may be creaking and moaning but so far the 520 floating bridge is holding its own against the storm. Now that bridge tenders have opened the draw span to relieve the incredible pressure of the wind and waves crashing into and over the aging span.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bridge is holding up fine. The bridge is designed to be safe in wind storms. Of course, this is a big one.
FOREMAN: It was a white-knuckle drive for the last cars to make it across the bridge before it closed late last night. The road moving under your tires, the water spraying over your windshield. Two cars were hit when trees came crashing down on I-405 in Brenton. State workers had the northbound lanes cleared in a few hours. Part of a downtown Seattle construction project ripped loose after. It came crashing down, crushing several cars. The area around the Bank of California was cordoned off in case more debris came flying. Authorities do not believe the project's crane is in danger.
At this apartment complex in Seattle's East Lake neighborhood, the brick facade came crashing down. No one hurt in either of those incidents. No one hurt here either when the windows blew out of this downtown optician. And most people who braved headed out overnight just held on the best they could.
(on camera): Power crews that had been kept indoors because it was too dangerous to head out are starting the job of slowly getting the lights back on. But it could be days before everyone is back online.
In Seattle, I'm Jim Foreman. Now back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(WEATHER REPORT)
HARRIS: Holding out hope, family members of the missing climbers in Oregon say morale is high despite the weather setbacks. We're expecting another update on the search in the noon Eastern hour. The brother and sister of two of the missing men spoke to CNN's Larry King.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANK JAMES, BROTHER OF MISSING CLIMBER: We do know he's in a snow cave. But, again, we know that even though the weather has been bad, as Angela said, the efforts of the rescue workers are just tremendous, and so we're so grateful for what they're doing.
LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Angela, do we know if all three men are still together?
ANGELA HALL, SISTER OF MISSING CLIMBER: We don't know, but we feel that it's entirely possible, and in fact probable that they're together, given that that would give them the best chance at survival. Given the shared heat source that they would share, and also the camaraderie that they would give one another, and the fact they would be there together with that cell signal on the mountain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Rescuers hope to resume their search when the weather breaks. Sometime tomorrow.
COLLINS: Hard to imagine what the missing climbers are going through today. Our Rick Sanchez braved, the cold and snow and wind to give us a look. He's at Loveland Pass in Colorado.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): From a distance, Rocky Mountains' summits seemed to melt into the clouds. As we get closer, though, they reveal their danger.
That cut is called Seven Sisters. See the seven parallel paths? Each one is a known avalanche zone, where skiers and mountaineers have been trapped or killed.
(on camera): You are not going to be able get out of the way once that thing gets -- gets rolling?
MICHAEL ALKAITIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN MOUNTAIN GUIDES ASSOCIATION: Oh, no, no. You will be -- you will be right in it.
SANCHEZ: Really?
ALKAITIS: Yes.
SANCHEZ: Chances of surviving?
ALKAITIS: Oh. I -- I couldn't say. Not very good.
SANCHEZ: Not good?
ALKAITIS: Yes.
SANCHEZ (voice-over): As we drive higher, we're met by a sudden ground blizzard. I expected it to be extreme, but this is unmanageable.
(on camera): There are places on Earth where you feel God's fury, but I can't imagine any of them being any worse than this that we're feeling right now.
We're at about almost 12,000 feet. This is the Continental Divide. I have been in enough hurricanes to know what hurricane-force gusts, if not winds, feel like. This is easily at least 60-mile-an- hour gusts that are blowing through here. At times, it's difficult to stand up. It's a -- it's a biting cold. It's hard to see. In fact, it's downright painful.
The question now is, if you're stuck in these conditions, what do you do? How do you survive?
(voice-over): We have elicited the help of two renowned mountaineering experts, who teach, the first order of business is to build a snow cave. Without it, you will not survive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We would just get in there, into that cave, get on our pack to insulate ourselves from the snow...
SANCHEZ (on camera): I see.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and stay warm, huddled close together all night.
SANCHEZ (voice-over): Even in a snow cave, you can still get slammed by an avalanche. But experienced mountaineers avoid it by taking into account both slope and snow density when figuring out where to camp.
(on camera): We can't see the top of that peak. Look straight up there. Because of this wind, you can't see it. But could that start an avalanche at any time?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not tall enough...
SANCHEZ: I see.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... right now to start an avalanche. If it did slide, it would -- it has no energy.
SANCHEZ (voice-over): But, by far, the biggest killer is the weather itself. Within hours of being exposed, mountaineers can suffer hypothermia, which causes them to become strangely illusional.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you would eventually become euphoric, think that the snow is really warm and soft, and lay down and go to asleep forever.
SANCHEZ: It is why some victims are found disrobed. They actually believe it's warm in freezing weather. Experts, who recommend not going into these conditions without a shovel, a backpack, a headlamp, a compact stove to melt water, and at least a sleeping bag, say, even with these items, under extreme conditions, you will still only be able to hold on for so long.
Rick Sanchez, CNN, Loveland Pass, Colorado.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Man, the pictures.
Wii players, are you a Wii player? Get a grip. Trouble with Nintendo's super hot tech toy. Now Nintendo has issued a recall. Details coming up in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Want to update you on a situation we were telling you about in Silver Spring, Maryland. Fredricka Whitfield is in the NEWSROOM now with more on this. Fred, what's the latest?
WHITFIELD: Heidi it's both a parent and a nanny's nightmare. WTOP Radio in Washington, D.C. is reporting that three, possibly even four, suspects who were armed, wearing masks, invaded a home in Silver Spring near the Forest Glenn area with the nanny and two children, a toddler and infant inside.
We understand that the nanny was able to grab the toddler, get outside, call 911. Police then came, they were able to find that in the home the baby who was still in the crib, was fine. So the baby and the toddler have now been reunited with the parents.
Meantime, a nearby school, a special-ed school is on lockdown and police are warning anyone in that community who may be home to stay inside because these three or possibly four, armed suspects with masks and handguns are believed to be still in the area.
So the search continues. But the good news out of this, the nanny and those two children are OK. But they had very frightening moments this morning in the home -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Boy you can't say that enough can you Fred -- everybody stay inside until that situation is cleared up, certainly. Three men on the loose there in Silver Spring, Maryland, area.
Fredricka Whitfield, thanks for the update on that. I want to take a moment and get over to Jim Clancy of "YOUR WORLD TODAY," which is coming up Jim in about 15 minutes.
JIM CLANCY, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. At the top of the hour, we'll take a look at international news. Looking at the Palestinian situation, the prime minister calling on his supporters to support unity within the Palestinians. But after a bloody shootout at the border with Egypt as well as more violence on the West Bank this day, the Palestinian authority indeed looks severely fractured.
Star power and social activism. We're going to be talking live with actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle. They're going to join us at the United Nations. They've been in talks with the U.N. Secretary- General today on the desperate situation in Darfur. They'll be live with us. What do they have to offer? What can you do to help?
Plus, a prince poised to serve. The second in line to the British throne graduates from Sandhurst Military Academy, but the focus really shifts to the gallery where the Queen was joined in the Royal box by Kate Middleton, the officer's stunning interest.
All the news with an international perspective. And Don Cheadle and George Clooney, live, Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Everybody will be watching that. Thank you, Jim Clancy.
We want to go ahead and get it over to Chad Meyers now for a cold and flu report and that humongous stethoscope. I love that thing.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Where is it? There it is -- it's huge. Anyway, where you wouldn't expect the cold and flu bug to be popping up is where it actually is. Florida now. Widespread influenza and cold activity. And I can attest to the fact that Georgia is in the blue.
And then purple everywhere else there and then some no activity sections right in the middle part of the country. And maybe the safest place to be this flu season is Alaska. Very few reports up there. Be sure to drink your orange juice and stay healthy this weekend -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Who would have thought, Alaska. The things we learn from Chad Myers. Thank you.
Wii players get a grip. Trouble with Nintendo's super hot tech toy. Now Nintendo has issued a recall. Details on this in business news coming up in the NEWSROOM.
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HARRIS: We want to take you out to Issaquah, Washington. We've been talking about the weather out there in Oregon and Washington throughout the morning, the last few days it seems.
And Chris Daniels is with our affiliate there and he has the latest on the conditions out there. Chris, give us a sense of what is going on on the ground out there.
CHRIS DANIELS, KING REPORTER: Well I can tell you that this morning here in the Puget Sound region, there are more than a million people without power because of those fierce winds that we had here overnight. 60 to 90 miles per hour guts reported here through the region.
And what that has done, you can see right behind me, all sorts of tress have toppled. There are power lines hanging like spaghetti strings right now. And you can see this tree here, east of Issaquah, is hanging down on those power lines and pulling those power lines closer and closer to the roadway.
Again, this is about a half hour east of Issaquah and this entire area is without power. There are a lot of roads that are impassable at this point. In fact, I was talking to a local firefighter here a short time ago who tells me that he was responding to a call of a tree into a house, but that the firefighters couldn't get to that house because there was a tree down on a roadway.
There are several roadways and highways and byways that are shut down at this point. In fact, a lot of school districts have already canceled school for the day and several freeways were also shut down. The floating bridges in the Seattle area had to be shut down for most of the morning because of the high winds that we had here and the concern about Lake Washington in particular and the stability of the 520 Floating Bridge. Now the cleanup begins and we're hearing that power could be out for several days.
That's the latest, live from Issaquah, I'm Chris Daniels. Now back to you.
HARRIS: OK, Chris. Appreciate it, thank you.
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COLLINS: Hey, you know what, somebody is 100 days old today. And you know what that means? They get a name. We'll tell you after the break. All is not lost in case you missed it when it was announced. Stick around after the break.
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COLLINS: Kyra Phillips joining us now to talk a little bit more about CNN NEWSROOM. PHILLIPS: Hi guys, that's right. Well a lot of eyes on Washington today for a high-level sendoff. It's Donald Rumsfeld's last day on the job as U.S. Defense Secretary. Vice President Cheney and President Bush both slated to speak at his farewell ceremony. We will take it live from the Pentagon, 1:15 Eastern.
We're also talking with Dr. Norman Frances of New Orleans Xavier University. Along with B.B. King, William Safire, Buck O'Neil, other notable Americans, he's just one of the many receiving the Medal of Freedom.
He's going to tell us what it means to be chosen for the nation's highest civilian honor. You remember what he did during Katrina, boy he saved his students and he saved that university. Great man.
COLLINS: We'll be watching. Thank you. Panda's name Mei Lan -- means Atlanta beauty. Aren't you glad you didn't miss it.
HARRIS: "YOUR WORLD TODAY" is next.
COLLINS: Great day, everybody and good weekend.
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