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Florida Wildfires; Iraq Security Plan; Killer Dad May Walk
Aired May 11, 2007 - 10:59 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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Fredricka Whitfield, in for Heidi Collins.
Today developments keep coming in to the NEWSROOM on this Friday morning, May 11th.
And here is what's on the rundown.
Flames racing across California's Catalina Island this hour. Hundreds of residents and tourists are making a beeline for the mainland today.
HARRIS: Candid commander. A U.S. Army general admits he needs more troops in one dangerous corner of Iraq.
WHITFIELD: The Virginia Tech class of 2007 forever linked to that awful day of bloodshed in April. Graduation and a fresh start, perhaps, today in the CNN NEWSROOM.
From north Florida to southern California, high temperatures and little rain creating a recipe for disaster.
This is Catalina Island, about 25 miles west of Los Angeles. Several homes have burned, and hundreds of people have heeded the warning to voluntarily evacuate. Some are in sections that have mandatory evacuations under way. And now the U.S. military is helping to contain the windswept fire. In less than one day, more than 4,000 acres on Catalina Island have burned.
And fires are growing rapidly along the Georgia-Florida state line. Hundreds of homes are now under evacuation orders, and nearly 300 square miles have burned.
We have CNN correspondents posted near the fire lines.
Let's begin in the Southeast, where a bad situation is quickly getting worse.
CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is in Lake City, Florida, where last hour you talked about visibility being about a half mile. Now it looks like far less.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: ... how thick the smoke is here right now. It's just sitting here.
In fact, you can see in my hands -- the firefighters that have been standing by ready to get out in the fire have given us these masks because the smoke is so thick and there's ash in the air. So it can protect us. And also, the smoke can really give you a headache and burn your eyes, so they're telling us we should wash our eyes on a regular basis if we start to have real problems with them getting red, and we should use this whenever we're not on the air and have our break.
You can see the incredible amount of smoke behind us. And the fire is still -- it's about six miles at least up to the north of us. But it has been advancing very, very rapidly. And they're very concerned about if this thing crosses I-10, it's going to come here where we are (INAUDIBLE) will have to take place. Already, 600 families have had to leave their families in these counties.
Now, in addition to that, we've had a lot of firefighters leave their homes to come here and help out from all over the state. Look at the line of fire trucks lined up along here. We've counted at least two dozen down the line, and it's at least two deep.
So we're talking about 50 (ph) crews, about four guys on each of these trucks, waiting to get out in the fire. Many of them have been waiting and driving overnight, and they're ready to get out. So they're waiting to hear the word and relieve some of the crews that have been fighting so hard here over the last couple of days.
I also wanted to show you one thing about the conditions here. Of course, they're in a very deep-wooded area, but look at the grass here. Look how brown everything is. It takes very little to get the fire going through here and burning things down at a very rapid pace.
Now, the weather has been somewhat cooperative. And the reason why you see all this smoke around us, Fredricka, is because we've had an inversion in place in the morning, a warm layer of air above us that's been trapping everything in. But we've been feeling the wind picking up, and that inversion is expected to be lifting in the next hour.
When that happens, we'll see more sunshine and possibly better visibility, but the temperatures are going to heat up and the humidity is going to start to drop like that. So that's what we're concerned about, the aggressiveness that this fire could take as we head into the afternoon hours, and the potential for possibly shutting down I-10 and maybe evacuating Lake City. So we'll have to watch this closely over the next couple of hours.
I understand a meeting is taking place right now to give us a better perspective on how much this thing has grown. We're talking tens of thousands of acres probably grown just in the last 12 to 24 hours.
WHITFIELD: Wow. Lots of dangerous components there.
Jacqui Jeras, thanks so much. (WEATHER REPORT)
WHITFIELD: And our Ted Rowlands is on Catalina Island. He's going to be checking in with us momentarily to talk a little bit more about the challenges that the firefighting efforts are facing, because as Reynolds was saying, it's mostly an air assault because the terrain is very challenging where the concentration of this fire is right now.
An update from Ted coming up.
ROBERTS: Candid comments, a call for help from a U.S. commander in Iraq. He says he needs more troops to get a handle on the violence.
Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr joins us live with details.
And Barbara, it felt a bit -- and maybe it's a slight overstatement -- you'll back me off the ledge here -- as if the general was sending out a bit of an SOS, I need help.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, a bit of an SOS, indeed, Tony.
Major General Benjamin Mixon, who commands the area in northern Iraq, especially the increasingly violent Diyala province, spoke to Pentagon reporters earlier this morning and was remarkably blunt, remarkably candid, said violence, of course, on the rise in Diyala province, and he does need more help. He said flat out, he needs more troops.
Have a listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. BENJAMIN MIXON, U.S. ARMY: I do not have enough soldiers right now in Diyala province to get that security situation moving. We have plans to put additional forces in that area. I can't discuss the details of that.
We have put additional forces in there over the last couple of months, an additional Stryker battalion. But I'm going to need additional forces in Diyala province to get that situation to a more acceptable level.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: What is the situation in Diyala? Well, it's well acknowledged that it basically has become a stronghold for al Qaeda elements, violence on the rise there.
General Mixon said he is talking to top U.S. commanders about trying to get more troops into the area, but he hasn't gotten all that he needs so far. And you know, we're just a couple of weeks away from basically the higher troop levels, the extra 30,000 or so U.S. troops, all being in place in Iraq. That's going to be finished up fairly soon. But this commander says he still needs more -- Tony. HARRIS: Barbara, I have to ask the question. General Petraeus was testifying before Congress members on Capitol Hill just a few weeks ago, and I'm wondering if General Mixon's comments are a bit ahead of comments from even General Petraeus.
STARR: Well, what the commanders, what the top commanders have been saying all along, is they will give the troops everything that they need. What has happened in Diyala clearly is it is an area where, as they crack down in Baghdad and they try to get a handle on the violence in Baghdad, which is what General Petraeus has mainly been focusing on, they know that the insurgents and some of these networks of terrorists have been moving towards Diyala, leaving Baghdad, going to this other area, setting up shop there.
So, while they thought they had a pretty good handle on Diyala, in the last several weeks the violence has taken an upturn yet again. And that's why General Mixon now says he needs still more help -- Tony.
HARRIS: Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr for us this morning.
Barbara, thank you.
WHITFIELD: Well, here's a complicated mix -- both sadness and celebration on the Virginia Tech campus. A bittersweet graduation ceremony planned later on this evening.
A live report coming up in the NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: The time, well, forgot. But residents haven't. How a flood moved hundreds of Missourians for good, but left eight behind. Just eight.
That story in the NEWSROOM.
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SR. CORRESPONDENT: A father is about to walk free, even after confessing to killing his 2-year-old son.
I'll have details of this tragic story straight ahead in the NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: More politics and public opinion. Iraq a hot topic on talk radio. Two syndicated talk show hosts take the public pulse in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: So, a father admits to killing his young son, but he's ready to walk away a free man now after the child's mother agrees to a plea deal.
Our Allan Chernoff is following this tragic story live from Jersey City -- Allan.
CHERNOFF: Fredricka, a judge has OK'd a plea deal that will set Curtis Williams free after serving only 20 months in prison, even though he confessed to killing his own 2-year-old son back in 1989. This, a plea deal that the mother had agreed to because she was desperate to find the remains of her son, desperate to find out where Curtis Williams had buried the body. Tragically, that search found absolutely nothing.
In court this morning, La Shawn McCoy, the mother, begged the judge to overturn this plea agreement. She said, "Where is the justice for me? Where is the justice for my son?" And then she turned to Curtis Williams.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LA SHAWN MCCOY, CURTIS MCCOY'S MOTHER: I trusted you with him. After everything you did to me I trusted you with him. And you laughed about me.
How many times I came to your car. And you know you did. You asked me what I was looking for. And what would I say? "My son."
And you would just give me this smirk, knowing all the time you didn't have him. You had killed him. But I used that for comfort. I used that to comfort me, thinking that you had him and you were taking care of him and you just didn't want to give him back.
I used that to comfort me. Now what do I have? What do I have to ease the pain? Nothing. And you stand there and you can't say nothing? You can't shed a tear because you're so coldhearted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHERNOFF: After the judge approved the plea deal, La Shawn McCoy was beyond distraught.
Making this all more tragic is the fact that for 16 years this was a cold case. Williams had claimed that he had lost his son while shopping in Newark, and only two years ago the case was reopened after pressure by the mother, and Williams was charged with murder. But the prosecution says this would have been a very difficult case to win -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: So, Allan, is part of the conflict here -- does the judge not have the authority to even consider overturning this plea deal since the defendant is not living up to his side of the bargain?
CHERNOFF: Well, in fact, the judge said that the defendant had lived up to his side of the bargain, that he had made a confession, that he had brought everyone to the place where he had buried the body. He passed polygraph tests on both of those counts and, therefore, the judge said he indeed had lived up to his side of the bargain.
WHITFIELD: But the body wasn't there.
CHERNOFF: It just shows -- the body was not there, but keep in mind this happened back in 1989. And we're talking about a 2-year- old's body, which obviously, over that time, could have decomposed. So just a horrible, horrible tragedy.
WHITFIELD: Just so devastating.
All right. Allan Chernoff, thanks so much, from Jersey City.
HARRIS: Boy, let's now travel off the coast of California. CNN Ted Rowlands is on Catalina Island, west of Los Angeles.
Ted, if you can hear me, we're with you now. Just a short time ago, Inspector Ross with the L.A. Fire Department told Fred that the weather is a friend and ally in the fight against these wildfires today.
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Clearly a huge difference from last night until this morning. And you can take a look at it.
Catalina looks as beautiful as ever, and the city of Avalon just looks peaceful. And this is a stark contrast to what we saw last night, just a wall of flames descending down on this city.
You could see the charred hillside up here just above these homes. That's where these flames were actually lapping down. A couple of buildings were lost last night, but, for the most part, all of these homes you can see are intact.
But last night people were, as you might imagine, very frenzied, going in, grabbing whatever they could out of their homes. Families coming down to the beach, looking up and just looking at this wall of flames coming down on this city.
Overnight, they ferried out about 3,000 people back to southern California, to Long Beach. They were working a ferry all night long. And now this morning, they're using this break in the weather to attack the hot spots and the leading edge of the fire just over this mountain, using aircraft.
You see that helicopter there. There's also fixed-wing aircraft in the air. And firefighters, we just got done talking, are getting a briefing, say they are very confident that they're going to be able to get a hold of this.
It's only 10 percent contained now, but they expect, because of the change in the weather, they'll get a handle on this sooner than later. And a huge sigh of relief for the people that live here, the 3,000-plus people that were literally looking up at this wall of flames coming down on their little town.
Great news here. Mother Nature, who has been dealing so many blows to southern California, comes through and helps out -- Tony.
HARRIS: How about that?
Ted Rowlands for us on Catalina Island.
Ted, great news. Thanks.
WHITFIELD: Well, who can forget this videotape?
HARRIS: Yes. Yes.
WHITFIELD: This flying at the Boston Pops, of all places. Well, today meet the man who says he was on the receiving end.
HARRIS: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He turns around and tells me, "Hit me again. I'm going to throw you over the balcony."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: It's a symphony hall smackdown. Tony's favorite word, smackdown. The follow-up coming up in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Taking the public pulse on the Iraq war, the fight over funding, the debate over deadlines. All hot topics on talk radio.
Let's find out what the people are saying.
What are you saying out there, America?
Two syndicated radio talk show hosts in the NEWSROOM this morning. Leslie Marshall is in Los Angeles. She is heard in nine states on the new choice -- A New Voice, AM 1520.
Leslie, good to see you.
And Ben Ferguson joins us from Memphis. His show is carried on more than 100 stations on the radio America Network.
Ben, good to see you again. Welcome back.
BEN FERGUSON, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Good to be back.
HARRIS: Ben, let me start with you. What are your -- what are your listeners saying about this back and forth, the toing and froing, all the hand-wringing over the supplemental bill?
FERGUSON: Well, I think a lot of people want us to win this war in Iraq and to get our soldiers home as soon as possible. A lot of them -- you know, some people say, look, maybe we should pull out right now. But most people agree on one simple issue. And that is, you don't mess around with funding for troops on the ground.
You don't put families through wondering where their next paycheck is going to be or where their equipment is coming from with putting other things in the bill like supplemental funding for Katrina or supplemental funding for -- you know, having -- raising the minimum wage.
HARRIS: Yes.
FERGUSON: These things are in this bill. That's what they have a problem, is when people play politics with the soldiers. When bullets are in the air, they want the funding to be there, we'll figure out the rest later. But give them what they need.
HARRIS: Ben, you're talking to mostly conservative listeners, correct?
FERGUSON: Well, I mean, most...
HARRIS: No?
FERGUSON: A lot of my audience is conservative. But I have -- I mean, I have quite a few people that disagree with this war in Iraq that called in.
They all said kind of the same thing -- is, look, give them what they need right now. They don't need to be stressed about money. They need to be fighting this war.
HARRIS: Got you.
FERGUSON: And if we figure it out when we get them home, we get them home. But don't play politics with the paychecks.
HARRIS: Got you. Got you. Got you.
Leslie, what are you hearing from the more liberal listeners, correct?
Oh, did we...
LESLIE MARSHALL, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: They're liberal, but there are a lot of conservatives who listen. They just don't like to admit it. And they're afraid to call.
But honestly, the majority of the people -- I have to agree with Ben on some of the points, which is the majority of people, regardless of their ideology politically, certainly want the troops to come home, and they want an end. The problem here is the same problem that is facing Congress, which is -- especially the Democrats -- how do we support the troops on the ground and keep that funding going?
But at the same time, you have the right, you have the president, you have the vice president still talking about more troops. What the United States people want that call into my program...
HARRIS: That's what I want to hear, not your view, but what your listeners are saying to you, Leslie.
MARSHALL: The listeners are saying that if we can't -- we can't mess with the troops on the ground, but at the same time, when is this going to end? And how do you keep putting money forth when you don't have a deadline and you don't have an exit strategy? And that's where you've got the dog chasing the tail because the president just keeps vetoing that.
HARRIS: Got you.
So, Ben, square this with me -- the president is likely to veto a second bill that does essentially what the president says he really wants to do. That is to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How are your viewers -- go ahead.
FERGUSON: No, I mean, I think the first bill said that. But the problem is, when you put other things in there, and you put pork in there, and you put timetables in there...
HARRIS: Well, there's always other stuff, Ben.
FERGUSON: No, but let me -- let's think about this for a second and be honest. And this is what most people say. Why aren't we debating the minimum wage on its own merit in Congress? Why aren't we debating Hurricane Katrina relief or farmer emergency funding for people that were affected by the storms on its own merit?
Those are important things that should be debated by Congress on their own merit. They shouldn't be attached to funding in Iraq to score political points. Because you have men and women being shot at right now. And what the Democrats wanted to do with this was to be able to say the president didn't want people to make more money.
HARRIS: Got you.
FERGUSON: The president didn't want to help people that were hurt by Katrina. The president doesn't support the farmer because he vetoed this bill. And he's saying, give me a bill with Iraq and Iraq only. And that's what he's asked for.
And the Democrats know he's going to veto it. They're wasting time.
HARRIS: All right.
And Leslie, chime in here.
MARSHALL: You know what kills me, Tony, is you said it exactly -- the president says, give me the money, show me the money. And Congress says, here's the money. And he's, like, I'm going to veto that.
Another problem that we're not talking about...-
HARRIS: Are your listeners -- are your listeners drawing that distinction?
MARSHALL: Yes, my listeners are saying -- yes. Just as Ben was just saying when he is speaking, and he is speaking about his listeners who are saying, that's what I am doing. I'm telling you the listeners are saying the president is asking for money. Congress is giving him money. He's turning his back on this.
In addition, my listeners are angry at the president...
HARRIS: All right. Ben, we keep having problems here with Leslie's end of the...
MARSHALL: ... possibility of the Iraqi leaders.
HARRIS: OK.
Very quickly, before I run out of time, I want you to listen to some reporting from yesterday from Arwa Damon. The parliament was in session. The Iraqi parliament was in session yesterday. And there was this bit of a knock-down, drag-out over the violence in Diyala province.
Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The parliamentarians were screaming at one another. One woman member of parliament stood up and demanded that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki be brought into parliament and held accountable for the security crisis in Diyala and throughout all of Iraq. This led to an even further debate about what was happening throughout the country.
And eventually, the speaker of parliament stood up and berated the members of parliament, saying to them flat out, 75 percent of you are responsible for the killings and for the displacement of people in this country. This eventually ended up in complete and total chaos, and the session was brought to an abrupt end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Very quickly, same question for both of you. And then I'm out of time and I've got to go.
Ben, first to you, how frustrated are your listeners with the apparent inactivity of the Iraqi government?
FERGUSON: I think they're very frustrated. I think they want them to be able to stand up and take care of themselves. But I also think you've got to put this in context of history.
You've never seen countries be able to flip this quick to democracy any where in the world ever in history as long as we've been watching. So it's unrealistic for us to expect in 30 minutes on a TV show for everything to be fixed over in Iraq.
It's going to take time.
HARRIS: All right.
FERGUSON: And as soon as they stand up -- and I think they will.
HARRIS: Got your point. Let me stop you.
Leslie, context -- did Ben just gave us...
MARSHALL: My listeners are saying...
HARRIS: Hang on a second. Did Ben just give us context or an excuse?
MARSHALL: ... versus saying that throughout the -- throughout the United States. What they're saying is, we've had time. We've had more than four years. And what we have done here is given fish rather than teach the people of Iraq to fish. They need to be able to take care of themselves and they need to be able to quell their own violence so that we can eventually bring our troops home. That's what my listeners are saying.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Thank you both for your time. I'm way long in the segment. I'm in trouble again. Thank you both. Have a great weekend.
(INAUDIBLE) Bottom of the hour, welcome back, everyone to the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Tony Harris.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: And I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
We want to take you straight to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, because it is always a great honor for any university or college to be able to invite and get an acceptance from the president of the United States to be the commencement speaker. Well, that is the case at Latrobe, Pennsylvania, St. Vincent College. Now, it's interesting here. As he's addressing folks, we also had a chance to talk to a number of students because it's a Catholic university, Catholic college. There were some students who had expressed not being completely happy that the president was going to be carrying out the commencement address with ongoing wars taking place right now. So here's what a couple students had to say when asked about their feelings about the president's arrival.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of students pointed the finger and said, he doesn't represent the values that we have here at school. But, then, I'm hearing a lot of things like the students aren't presenting the values that we have here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I personally think it's really neat that the president of the United States is coming to our school and especially since it's kind of out of the way and small and generally not well- known.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: So there you have it. We're going to hear from a lot more students. We're also going to hear more about the context of the president's address. All that coming up in "The Situation Room" later on today. HARRIS: Time now for your daily dose of health news. This morning a warning for iPod users with pacemakers. It comes in a study led by a 17-year-old high school student. The teenager tested 100 people wears pacemakers and found iPods can interfere with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart. He found interference about half the time when the iPod was held two inches from the patient's chest for five to 10 minutes. Researchers say more tests are needed.
WHITFIELD: All right. Researchers say for every 60 minutes of exercise you do, you could add two hours to your life. That's the focus of our fit nation challenge. Pledge as many hours of exercise as you can reasonably do in a week and for each hour you pledge, we add two hours to the life counter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta. With this week's fit nation Friday tip. Did you know one hour of exercise may add two hours to your life? That's according to a study by Harvard researchers and it's good news if you're planning to exercise this weekend. Lucky for you, that's not the only benefit of exercise. It can help you lose weight, give you more energy, can even help your libido. Sounds like a bargain to me. For those just starting out, exercising for long periods of time can be tough. But little changes add up. So get up and get moving. It will make a big difference in your health down the road. Have a fittastic weekend and don't forget to check in with cnn.com/fitnation to join the fit nation challenge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's graduation day at Virginia Tech. Tonight's ceremony will be part commencement and part remembrance. I'm Jim Acosta on the campus of Virginia Tech. That story coming up in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: TJ Holmes is working the breaking news from the NEWSROOM. TJ, what do you have on that situation here in Georgia?
TJ HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've got another accident here, keeping an eye on. This is just a horrible scene. We'll take you to this picture out of Barrel (ph) County. Looking at this vehicle, it just gives you chills, really. This vehicle appears to have been split in two in this accident, and we do get word that, in fact, one person has died in this accident. You see that car I'm talking about in two kind of at the bottom of your screen in that grassy area. And then up top there, you can see that 18-wheeler on its side. What has been happening here, we understand, is that the driver of that 18- wheeler is trapped in that vehicle. Authorities are having to - rescue crews are having to cut down trees around that 18-wheeler, around that cab, to get to that driver before they can get that 18- wheeler driver out. Again, this is in Barrel County. This is kind of a suburb area of Atlanta, not too far outside of Atlanta near where we are, but this is the picture here. It took a while just looking at this to figure out exactly what was happening. You couldn't believe what you were seeing. But that is, in fact, a car that to appears to have in this accident to have been split in two, two different sections of that vehicle. Don't know exactly the circumstances surrounding this happening, but there is on highway service road 316, Patrick Mill Road in Barrel County. We do know that one person has been killed in this accident and they're still working to get the driver of that 18-wheeler out of that vehicle. So back to you. This is a situation we're keeping an eye on, but just a creepy, a scary, eerie scene to see that car split like that Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: It is. All right, thanks so much TJ.
HARRIS: Focusing on a bright future, reflecting on a tragic past. Thousands of Virginia Tech students are doing both today. They graduate tonight, just 25 days after a gunman's deadly rampage. Here's CNN's Jim Acosta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Set in this rolling countryside, the scene for this year's commencement at Virginia Tech is almost picture-perfect. Almost will have to do this year. Everybody will be missing somebody.
BRICE BRADFORD, GRADUATING SENIOR: It's really hard to feel accomplished or self congratulatory right now when you know that there should be a dozen or so other people walking across the stage with you that aren't even alive anymore.
ACOSTA: Many, including graduating senior Brice Bradford, will remember Ryan Clark, the larger than life student everyone called "Stack," a fellow member of the school's marching band.
BRADFORD: He was the spirit of the band. The band's the spirit of the school.
DAVID McKEE, DIR, MARCHING VIRGINIANS: Having a five-minute walk from here to Burros (ph) Hall with him turned into a two-hour meet and greet because literally, he knew so many people on campus, he would walk two steps, meet somebody else.
ACOSTA: The marching band's director David McKee will present Clark's uniform to the slain senior's family at graduation. He says Stack would have wanted this weekend to remain a celebration.
McKEE: Stack would want us to dance. He'd want us to smile at one another. He'd want us to greet one another. He's not a guy we're going to replace. You don't replace any of these people.
ACOSTA: And the campus is still mourning them. At tech student center, banners filled with signatures from colleges across the country are everywhere. At commencement, the university plans to hand out school rings to the families of the slain graduates. PROF. NIKKI GIOVANNI, VIRGINIA TECH: I'm not seeing a whole lot of joy. I'm seeing the sadness that is going to surround this occasion.
ACOSTA: The school's renowned poet, Nikki Giovanni is reminding her graduates to take time to heal.
GIOVANNI: People say move forward. But we haven't moved backwards. So what we will continue to --
ACOSTA: What does that mean?
GIOVANNI: We haven't moved backwards. Here we stand. We just have to find a way to continue to wrap the love around ourselves.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: What a day. Jim Acosta joins us live now. Jim, what is the expected turnout for graduation? Will everyone who's eligible be showing up?
ACOSTA: Well, not exactly, no. They are expecting that some will not show up. And the university actually went out of its way to remind its graduates they do have the option to opt out of tonight's ceremony and understanding that this event is not going to be for everybody, Tony.
HARRIS: CNN's Jim Acosta for us in Blacksburg, Virginia, Jim, thank you.
ACOSTA: Sure.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. When NEWSROOM returns, I'll tell you about the mother of all holidays and how corporate America plans to cash in. Details, next. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: In Greenville, South Carolina, the story of a good heart. Kelly Owens found a fat wad of cash while sorting clothes at a Goodwill store. She could have kept it but didn't. Not mine, she said. Here's Erin Heartness (ph) of CNN affiliate WYFF with the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI OWENS, GOODWILL WORKER: Want to just carry that?
ERIN HEARTNESS, WYFF CORRESPONDENT: Goodwill is a place with low prices and big investment.
OWENS: Stains and holes.
HEARTNESS: The kind that come in people like Kelly Owens.
OWENS: It helps me get a real good job. They helped me get a job and stuff.
HEARTNESS: Good ill is training Kelly for a full-time retail gig. Part of that training is sorting through donations.
OWENS: All day. All day.
HEARTNESS: It's not unusual to find things.
OWENS: You find a little bit, you know, change here and there.
HEARTNESS: But what she found Tuesday can only be described like this.
OWENS: Like, oh, my God. I was shocked.
HEARTNESS: She was doing the exact same thing she does five days a week.
OWENS: I was sorting through a bin of clothes and come across a pair of pajama bottoms. When I picked them up and a shook them, some envelopes fell out.
HEARTNESS: When she opened the envelopes, she saw this.
OWENS: A big shock because I thought I would never find that big amount of money.
HEARTNESS: More than $5,000, the single mother of three immediately took to her manager's office.
OWENS: I can't keep it because it belongs to somebody else, you know. I couldn't live with myself knowing that.
BILL WYLIE, CEO, GOODWILL OF UPPER S.C.: There has to be a great deal of value in that person's soul to be able to say the right thing to do is turn this in.
HEARTNESS: Workers found a note with the money saying this had been saved over a period of time for a particular person and the giver hoped he or she would spend the money wisely.
OWENS: I hope maybe it will go back to the right owner.
WYLIE: Everything can be going bad and all of a sudden you hear about something like that and it's, like, being able to scale Mt. Everest in about 15 minutes.
HEARTNESS: Because rewards don't have to be monetary.
OWENS: I was happy all day long.
HEARTNESS: And sometimes the greatest investment of all is the chance we give someone else.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Isn't that nice? It's a lovely sentiment.
WHITFIELD: Yeah.
HARRIS: The Goodwill store.
WHITFIELD: That kind of honesty is contagious, let's hope.
HARRIS: It is. I might have pitched -- pinched off a little.
WHITFIELD: I know what you would have done.
HARRIS: I would have pinched off a little handling fee. So the Goodwill store in Greenville --
WHITFIELD: you're being honest. That's good.
HARRIS: Exactly. Here's the thing. If no one claims it, it becomes a donation. There you go.
WHITFIELD: To her?
HARRIS: There you go. That's what I'm talking about.
WHITFIELD: Or to the Goodwill?
HARRIS: Goodwill.
WHITFIELD: Follow-up story. We'll promise you that one.
All right, well, the mother of all holidays is just two days away, count them, which is why so many companies are in crunch mode today. Susan, I have noticed so many more advertisements than ever for Mother's Day.
LISOVICZ: And a lot of people flooding the stores today looking for the cards, yes. Prepare to be honored yourself Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: That's right!
LISOVICZ: That's right. Mothers never think about themselves, one of the many reasons why we love them so much. FedEx, for instance Fred, says it will make nearly 25 times more domestic flower deliveries today than on an average day because of Mother's Day. Just one of many ways we show our appreciation, love for mothers. All told, consumers plan to spend nearly $16 billion on Mother's Day gifts this year, according to the National Retail Federation. The average shopper will spend about $140, which is up 14 percent from last year when the average person spent $122. Here's our quiz -- Fred and Tony, what will people be spending the most money on?
HARRIS: Flowers. That's easy flowers, flowers, flowers.
LISOVICZ: Fred?
WHITFIELD: I kind of do think flowers, too. But just to be different, I'll say dinner. LISOVICZ: And you are right, Fred. You are right!
WHITFIELD: OK! (INAUDIBLE)
LISOVICZ: Flowers are more popular but restaurants cost more, right? Two-thirds of people said they would treat mom to a special dinner or brunch at her favorite restaurant, projected spending more than $3 billion. Good luck in getting a reservation.
HARRIS: There you go.
LISOVICZ: $2.3 billion will be spent on flowers. Again, more people send flowers. A little more than $2 billion on bling, clothes and accessories, also make the list as well as a nice day of pampering at the spa and salon. That gift has actually been gaining in popularity and understandably.
WHITFIELD: Not surprised there.
LISOVICZ: Taking a look at the markets. We've got pampering here for the bulls. Investors in rally mode on this Friday before Mother's Day. Stocks extending earlier gains rebounding from yesterday's drop, which was the worst one-day drop in two months. The reason? Easing inflation worries today after a key report on wholesale prices came in better than expected. Right now the Dow is up 93 points or about three-quarters much a percent. The Nasdaq is up by a similar amount. Tony, Fred, back to you and Fredricka, happy Mother's Day.
WHITFIELD: Thank you so much! Thank you, thank you. Appreciate it.
HARRIS: Susan, thank you.
Coming up in just a couple of minutes, "Your World Today." With a preview right now, it's great to see Hala Gorani back from covering the French elections. Hala, great to see you.
HALA GORANI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Great to see you, too. Good to be back. One of the issues with Mother's Day is that it's on a different Sunday all around the world. I always get my mother confused when I call her on the wrong day. All right, but I'll call her this Sunday.
Now, we're going to take you to Iraq, a very serious story on how the war is affecting children there. We're going to look at an excerpt from a Michael Holmes documentary which airs this weekend. But Hugh Rimington will tell us, that what we all need to survive on a daily basis is actually the deadliest - it's actually proving very deadly for Iraqi children and one of the biggest killers there. We'll look at that.
Also, while there is going to be a change of leadership in the United Kingdom at the end of June, Gordon Brown, this man, set to become the next UK prime minister. How will the relationship between the U.S. and the UK change if and when he takes over? Also, we're going to be taking a look at this story from Portugal of a missing English girl, this cute four-year-old girl here, Madeline (ph). She is turning four tomorrow and her parents are set to spend her fourth birthday without their child. This story has gripped Europe. We'll bring you the latest on the investigation. All that at the top of the hour. "Your World Today," noon eastern. Join Jim Clancy and myself. Back to you guys.
WHITFIELD: All right, look forward to that. Thanks a lot Hala.
HARRIS: Twice bitten and still not shy. An elderly woman speaks her mind after she's bitten by a masked intruder, raccoon attack in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Your favorite story of the day.
HARRIS: I'm just having a bit of a difficult time with it. All right, we told you about this yesterday, popped at the pops. Yesterday we showed you the fight.
WHITFIELD: Yeah.
HARRIS: Well, the one-sided fight. Now we hear from one of the men involved. Reporter Ryan Shultise (ph)...
WHITFIELD: One sided explanation.
HARRIS: Yes, Boston affiliate WHDH has the follow-up.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN SHULTISE, WHDH CORRESPONDENT: It's the fight heard and watched around the world.
MATT ELLINGER, INVOLVED IN FIGHT: I just got cold cocked pops.
SHULTISE: Matt Ellinger, the blonde-haired guy and a 44-year-old Massachusetts man wearing a blue shirt got into a major brawl on the opening night of the Boston pops.
ELLINGER: One solid pretty good punch.
SHULTISE: Ellinger, who was attending his first pops performance with his girlfriend says this man, who was in front of him, would not stop talking.
ELLINGER: So after the first piece, they keep talking through the second piece. I tap the guy on the shoulder with my program, give him the shush.
SHULTISE: According to Ellinger, that did not work. So he once again asked the man to be quiet.
ELLINGER: He turns around and tells me, if you hit me again, I'm going to throw you over the balcony.
SHULTISE: Ellinger then goes to tell the usher what is going on. He sits back down and lets the man know that someone is coming over.
ELLINGER: Just like that, stands up, cold cocks me with the right hand and at the same time grabs my hair with his left. Just pulls me down. Whoa!
SHULTISE: The other man is escorted out. Eventually Ellinger and his girlfriend are kicked out, too, the brawl making news all over the country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was an unusual opening night at Boston symphony hall. An all-out brawl...
SHULTISE: And all over the world, including Croatia, Russia and even Australia.
ELLINGER: I'm going international, people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Man, throw a punch or something.
WHITFIELD: Oh, come on! You're not advocating that.
HARRIS: The girlfriend is doing all the heavy lifting here.
WHITFIELD: That's the problem. You don't like --
HARRIS: She could have been hurt. No. Do something. Here's a story.
WHITFIELD: Talk to your son.
HARRIS: Please. Please. So Ellinger is considering pressing charges against the other man. We should know the other man involved in this fight has not yet gone on the record with his side of the story. Good point, Fred.
WHITFIELD: Interesting stuff. We thought we'd follow up for you.
How about this? This is an attack of a different sort, unprovoked and taking place in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The victim, this woman, 87-year-old woman. The assailant? A brazen raccoon. It sneaked up on her in her backyard, bit her and then had the nerve to run off. Ursie Swaby calls it the worst day of her life, but there was another that came in a second close -- a close second.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
URSIE SWABY, ATTACKED BY RACOON: I had been attacked by a pit bull before and now a raccoon. What's next?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Well, that was next. She will have to have a skin graft surgery. Officials don't yet know if the raccoon was rabid. Wow. But it was fierce.
HARRIS: Wildfires coast to coast, the battles really inch by inch. The latest in the NEWSROOM.
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