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American Morning

Spy vs. Spy: Ex-KGB Accused of Poisoning; Immigration Bill: Could it Force Jobs Overseas?

Aired May 22, 2007 - 06:59   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Firefight. A battle raging for a third day. Can Lebanon get control of Islamic fighters before more innocent lives are lost?

Dustup.

JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Maybe he can get out that varmint gun of his and chase those Guatemalans off his lawn.

CHETRY: What is John McCain talking about this time?

Plus, silver bullet. Viagra offering new hope for travelers on this AMERICAN MORNING.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: And good morning. Thanks for so much for being with us. It is Tuesday, May 22nd.

I'm Kiran Chetry.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Roberts.

Thanks very much for joining us.

Good to be with you here in New York.

CHETRY: Good to have you here.

ROBERTS: Stories "On Our Radar" this morning.

(NEWSBREAK)

CHETRY: British officials issuing a warrant for the arrest of ex-KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi to charge him with the murder of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, died last year. He was poisoned with radioactive Polonium, we found out. Litvinenko died last year in London, and he was, as we said, a big critic of the Kremlin.

The incident has raised diplomatic tensions between Moscow and London. The two countries do not have an extradition treaty. Russia and the U.K., that is. Russia responding, saying it will not extradite Lugovoi. CNN's Matthew Chance is following the story from Moscow. He joins us live right now.

So, the British police think that they have a case, but if Moscow says we're not giving you this guy, where do they go next?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the big question. It's another twist in a mystery which really has read from the outset like the pages of a Cold War spy novel. And British authorities now saying that they believe they have enough evidence to charge Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer, with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, another KGB officer who defected to Britain in 2000 and became a very vocal critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

British investigators for several months now, since November, when Litvinenko died of that Polonium 210 poisoning, have been essentially following a radioactive trail of Polonium which roughly matches the movements they say of Andrei Lugovoi to various hotel rooms across London, at restaurants where he sat and ate, and eventually to the hotel where he sat down in November with Alexander Litvinenko and had a cup of tea with him, leaving contamination on the teapots, on the cups, on all the waitresses and waiters that served him in that hotel.

And so British police say they have a lot of forensic evidence connecting Andrei Lugovoi with this crime, but as we've heard, the Russians say they won't extradite him -- Kiran.

CHETRY: All right. Moscow saying they're not going to extradite him right now.

How deep does this go in terms of Litvinenko being such a harsh critic of the KGB and the Kremlin, and, of course, Vladimir Putin himself?

CHANCE: Well, he made a lot of enemies, Alexander Litvinenko did, when he was a KGB officer. One of his last jobs was to take part in an anti-corruption unit inside the Russian security services. He possibly made a lot of enemies then.

But I think he really became a point of -- you know, an enemy of the Russian state, as it were, when he decided to reveal that there was a plot to assassinate key Russian (INAUDIBLE). Most notably, Boris Berezovsky, an exiled Russian billionaire, by the Russian security services. Soon after that he defected to Britain, and really became a figure of hatred amongst the security services.

In the years since then, back in 2000, he has been really critical of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin's policies in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. And so there's all sorts of enemies that he's made, all sorts of possible motives for his killing.

And what we may not know at the end of all this, even if we find out who actually carried out the killing and the allegation from the British security services, is this character Andrei Lugovoi. But even if that's found to be true after some trial, we still may never find out what the real motive is -- Kiran.

CHETRY: No, or who was behind it.

Matthew Chance, thank you so much.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Twelve minutes after the hour.

Electrical storms can be frightening, but sometimes they can be downright awesome, as is the case with this storm, the pictures of which were sent into us by an I-Reporter in Arizona. Ralph Score of Sunsites took this video last Wednesday. Just look at how incredible and powerful that storm is.

Sunsites is a little southeast of Tucson, Arizona, where they get an awful lot of heat building up during the day. And there's a good example of what happens when that meets some cold air.

(WEATHER REPORT)

CHETRY: Well, the immigration bill hits the Senate floor for debate today, and we want to take a look at some of the key areas of specifically how it relates to businesses.

The new bill calls for a point-based system, where each immigrant would be judged by their job skills, rather than just companies being able to sponsor individuals based on the company's work needs. Sixty- five thousand visas will be issued for skilled workers, like computer programmers and engineers. And another 20,000 visas will go to workers with Master's degree from a U.S. college. But some in big business are saying now that the changes might actually force them to send jobs overseas.

Robert Hoffman is the vice president of Oracle Technologies. He joins us with more on this now.

And thanks for being here, by the way.

ROBERT HOFFMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, ORACLE: Oh, my pleasure.

CHETRY: One of the things that we talk about this is merit-based system. If you look at it, you think it sounds good for business. But you're, in fact, saying that it could put American workers in a worse situation than they currently are now.

Why is that?

HOFFMAN: Well, currently, right now, an employer is the one that drives the worker's path to a green card. And that system, by and large, works if there are a sufficient number of visas. Those countries that have used merit-based systems, countries like Australia or Canada, they're trying to use those systems to attract workers to their countries and build an innovation economy in those nations. We don't have that problem of attracting workers. We have got a great university system. Our economy awards innovation. Our quality of life is second to none.

The problem is not attracting workers from other countries. The problem is the visas, making sure there are enough temporary visas and enough green cards to make sure that we can recruit and retain the very best and brightest to address our innovation economy.

CHETRY: Some of the critics may say it's really about control. Businesses want to be able to control the visa situation and the process, and that you guys are against this because you no longer have control of that.

HOFFMAN: Well, imagine if George Steinbrenner had to rely on Major League Baseball to determine the talent pool that he has to select from in order to rebuild the Yankees. And I've got to be careful of what I say or they're going to need to escort me out of the city. But basically, for the same reason, we don't need the federal government to set a point system that could create a situation where you may have a skill imbalance because of the types of people that are applying for the green cards at any one time.

For example, five or six years ago, there was no real, critical, intense need for mathematicians in the Silicon Valley. Then along came Google, and suddenly there's an upsurge in the need for qualified mathematicians with master's and Ph.D.s. It's the need to have a flexible system, and who best to adjust as the economy changes than the employers themselves?

CHETRY: We also have Ali Velshi, who's our business guru here. And he's going to be asking you a couple of things, as well.

We talked about the feasibility, whether or not this actually makes sense for business.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Robert, you speak for Oracle and this consortium of other big companies, including Microsoft, which has been at the front of this whole battle.

There are some people in this country who say it's simply not true, there are enough skilled workers in the United States. What do you say to them? Because you seem to have the evidence that you can't get these people.

These students come in to our universities, they get their educations. And under the current system, they have to leave pretty much when they graduate.

HOFFMAN: Well, that's certainly the case right now. When the temporary visas were exhausted on the very first day -- and the last couple of weeks we've seen colleges and universities have graduations, people trying to look for jobs, and in cases of math and engineering, graduates who have Master's and Ph.D.s constitute about half of the population. Half of the student population for those fields are foreign-born. And for small businesses, what options do they have? They have very few.

Imagine, for example, going back to the baseball analogy, there are no restrictions on baseball to recruit from all over the world and bring them in to play even Minor League Baseball. We, on the other hand, face these arbitrary caps and potentially this arbitrary point system. And we're simply asking the U.S. Senate for the Master's and Ph.D. graduates of our major colleges and universities, they shouldn't be subject to any arbitrary caps or point systems.

Andy Grove, the founder of Intel, said it best. We should be stapling a green card on the diplomas of Master's and Ph.D. graduates of foreign-born individuals.

About the question of unemployment and whether or not the workers are there, let me tell you about Oracle and Microsoft. For example, software engineers are the name of the game for both of those companies.

The unemployment rate currently for software engineers is 1.7 percent. That's an extraordinary low level. It's not only well below the national unemployment rate, but it's even below the unemployment rate for skilled workers.

There are hundreds of job openings at Oracle. Microsoft reports that there are 3,000 job openings here in the United States. So, when you combine those statistics of unemployment, along with the job openings in the United States, we have a skilled worker challenge that really needs to be addressed. And immigration reform is a critical part of it.

CHETRY: We also have about seven million U.S. workers that are out of work right now. Why not focus on getting them into jobs before we start talking about foreign people that want to come in?

HOFFMAN: Well, we don't see it as an either/or proposition, especially when you have unemployment rates of 1.7 percent for software engineers. I know there are other fields where they may have higher unemployment rates, but in companies like Oracle and Microsoft, we have a specific skill set that we're trying to look for, and it's becoming increasingly hard as these immigration restrictions clamp down on our ability to recruit and retain workers.

We are certainly also very interested in trying to raise the bar and increase the number of U.S.-born individuals pursuing math and science. That is a long-term challenge for all of our companies. And we invest literally billions in educational institutional institutions from kindergarten, all the way up through college.

CHETRY: And that's where it starts, really.

HOFFMAN: Absolutely.

CHETRY: All right. Robert Hoffman, vice president of Oracle. Thanks for your time today.

HOFFMAN: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.

CHETRY: John.

ROBERTS: An update now on a story that we showed you yesterday, the fire on board the historic British clipper ship the Cutty Sark.

The bow and stern remain intact. The mast and much of the teakwood had already been removed to restore it before the fire. The total cost of restoration was originally budgeted at $50 million. It's going to take a few million more to complete the job now.

The queen's husband, by the way, Prince Philip, himself a naval historian, visited the charred ruins yesterday. He urged the Cutty Sark trust to redouble its effort to restore the ship.

And rescuers in California will try again today to get those two wayward whales back on their journey down river. They're banging on underwater pipes, trying to encourage the whales back down towards San Francisco Bay.

They were able to get a tracking device on the mother whale. As of last night, those whales, though, are still in a shipping canal about 50 miles away from the Golden Gate Bridge.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: There you go. A beautiful shot of Central Park this morning. The view from the sky. Everything is so lush and green right now, right before we head into summer.

ROBERTS: That is lovely, isn't it?

CHETRY: Yes. After the show you should maybe play some ball at the ball field, or maybe take a run around the reservoir.

ROBERTS: A run around the reservoir might not be a bad idea. I left my baseball glove at home.

CHETRY: All right. You can borrow my running shoes if you need them.

Welcome back. It's Tuesday, May 22nd.

I'm Kiran Chetry.

ROBERTS: And I'm John Roberts.

Good morning to you.

Stories "On Our Radar" this morning, and there are lots of them.

Concern about the safety of Chinese imports after that poison pet food crisis, and also discovering that some animals in the human food chain had been fed food that contains melamine and other components that were deadly to those pets. So, all of this, too, at the same time that China is being accused of cheating on trade with the United States.

We're going to toss all of this around with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, coming up in just a couple of minutes.

CHETRY: And also some hope this morning for the stranded whales. Will they finally make it out of the Sacramento river and into the open waters?

We had such high hopes yesterday, when I think it was late Sunday night they did turn around and start heading back toward the bay, and eventually the ocean. That hit a bit of a snag. We're going to get a live update a little bit later.

But first, we begin with a developing story this morning, major developments in the sensational case of a former Russian spy who died after being poisoned last year in London. British officials issuing a warrant for the arrest of ex-KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi to charge him for the murder of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, Litvinenko an outspoken critic of the Kremlin died last year after he was poisoned with radioactive polonium 210. The incident raising diplomatic tensions between Moscow and London. Moscow saying this morning it will not honor a request to extradite Lugovoi.

To Iraq now where some 6,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops involved in the search for three missing soldiers are coming up with a new plan today. The U.S. military saying it will follow up on more than 200 intelligence reports, troops raiding suspected safe houses yesterday south of Baghdad. A military spokesman says that U.S. pressure is forcing the kidnappers to move the soldiers around.

Well, it looks like the Democrats are blinking in the standoff over paying for the war. They're trying to finish a funding bill by the end of the week that President Bush will be willing to sign. Party officials saying they're going to be dropping the calls for timelines for troop withdrawals, as well as billions of dollars in domestic spending that is tacked on to that bill. Those were two things that the president had been insisting on.

Also, Senate Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for a fierce fight today to reshape the controversial immigration bill. The final vote now being pushed back until at least next month after the long Memorial Day recess. Republicans want to scrap the bill's provision that would allow illegal immigrants to gain citizenship. Democrats looking to change or eliminate the proposed guest worker program.

Myspace agreeing to turn over the names of registered sex offenders who use the Web site. Myspace also saying it will continue to promote legislation that would require sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses on some sort of national database so it can be kept by social networking sites in the first place. Last week, U.S. law enforcement authorities criticized myspace for not handing over the information from profiles of convicted sex offenders sooner.

There's a new study that's raising some questions about the popular diabetes drug Avandia. Researchers saying, according to one study that it boosted the chance of dying of heart disease by 64 percent. Earlier we spoke with Dr. Steven Nissen, the author of that study.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. STEVEN NISSEN, AUTHOR OF AVANDIA STUDY: We found a 43 percent increased risk of heart attack and a 64 percent increase in death from cardiovascular causes. Those are very striking increases. We do not think this is by chance alone and we're very concerned about the drug, as I think many people in the medical community have been concerned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: GlaxosSmithKline which makes Avandia stands by the safety of its drug and says the study is based on incomplete evidence. John?

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR, AMERICAN MORNING: Thirty three minutes now after the hour. The fighting continues today between the Lebanese army and militants believed to be linked to al Qaeda. Lebanon faces its bloodiest internal conflict since civil war 17 years ago and of course there was the big war between Hezbollah and Israel last year. Brent Sadler is CNN's Beirut bureau chief. He's here in New York now on his way back to Lebanon today and he joins me now. Brent, before you go, the group that's involved here in this gun battle with the Lebanese army, Fatah al Islam, what do we know about it?

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We know that Fatah Islam's leader spent three years in a Syrian jail. We know that the Syrians have consistently said him and his group are wanted. We know that their leader was sentenced to death in absentia in Jordon for the 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley. There is a background of al Qaeda ideological energy involved in this group that is buried very deeply in this camp.

ROBERTS: Now, of course, we also know that Abu Musab al Zarqawi was suspected by the United States of being involved in the death of Lawrence Foley. So how tight are the connections between this Fatah al Islam and al Qaeda?

SADLER: Certainly there is an ideology that's shared. In terms of what's happening on the Palestinian front, remember, this camp which is a shantytown. It is runs by the sea around Tripoli, about 100 fighters in there. They've been able to get arms, clearly enough arms to hold off very large numbers of Lebanese Army troops. We know that there is a shared ideology but this group claims it is really fighting the Palestinian cause and obviously, U.S. policy in the Middle East. The Lebanese government will tell you, John as you well know, a Lebanese government weak in itself because of Hezbollah (INAUDIBLE) opposition has been trying to topple it in six months. But this is a Syrian attempt to destabilize the country to stop an international court being set up to try suspects in the Hariri assassination.

ROBERTS: Because it's believed that this group is directly funded by Syria, correct?

SADLER: Absolutely. Syria has strenuously denied this, say they want these people as much as the Lebanese. But ministers within the government say this is already a decoy.

ROBERTS: Is there a chance that the Lebanese army could lose this fight, as you said, the Lebanese army is complaining that these fighters are better armed to some degree than they are. They obviously don't have tanks, but they do have other munitions. If they won this battle and they linked up with Hezbollah could that possibly spell the end of the government?

SADLER: Unlikely that that could happen. These are two very much ideologically different groups, Hezbollah Shia and this group is extremist Sunni Muslim. That's the first point to make here. Secondly, though, if the Lebanese army were to lose this, it would be a terrible setback for the U.S. backed government (INAUDIBLE) the Lebanese prime minister. Already nearly three dozen soldiers have been killed by this group. The problem is on the civilian level is that poorly constructed buildings, teaming refugees and of course, the crossfire and of course these terrorists can hide among the civilian population.

ROBERTS: What it also demonstrates Brent is the fact that these refugee camps, like this one outside of Tripoli are almost like the swamp that President Bush talked about needing to drain because they're such a hotbed of terrorism.

SADLER: Well, this has been the problem for the past two or three years. Weapons have been smuggled into these camps. They are islands unto themselves. The Lebanese army can't get in there. It's been like this for 40 years. There's no disarmament that's been effective and they have become breeding ground for terrorists.

ROBERTS: Brent I know that you're heading back over there today, as we said, I expect that we'll probably hear from you over there in the next couple days or so. Have a good trip. Thanks for coming in to help explain all of that. Kiran?

CHETRY: All right, thanks. Well, coming up, hurricane season is about to get under way, at least officially. The government forecast is due out today. People living along coastal areas are on alert and we're going to get some of the predictions from Chad Myers. That's all coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Thirty nine minutes now after the hour. Expect a busy hurricane season, that's what experts are saying for the upcoming storm cycle. Severe weather expert Chad Myers here to explain. Morning to you, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, there's a couple guys - good morning guys - a couple guys that actually do this forecast. One, Dr. Gray (ph), he talks about it from Colorado State. You think Colorado State. They don't have hurricanes, but that's where one of the experts is. Now the other experts, a number of them, NOAA and they're going to get their explanation out today and there's a little controversy going on.

ROBERTS: Do tell.

MYERS: Well, there's a 200-year anniversary party coming up.

ROBERTS: Oh, yeah.

MYERS: That may cost millions of dollars and $700,000 has been cut from the hurricane budget. Some people aren't so --

ROBERTS: To pay for the party?

MYERS: Some people aren't so happy about that. We'll get to that in a second. Hurricane names for this year, we're going to get to them. The Atlanta shot that I want to show you here. I mean, this is nothing to do with hurricanes, but this is certainly something to do with the outcome of what hurricane season could be. We knew it was going to be, we knew it was going to be a dry season in Florida and Georgia. That's part of when we start to switch from la Nina to el Nino and then kind of back and so this smoke in Atlanta could bring the first precursor to what could be an active hurricane season, if we are going back to that el Nino season, a dry season across the southeast.

Look at the smoke across Georgia. It's just crazy. It starts down here, couple fires. One around Lake City, another one up into Ware County, Valdosta and this smoke yesterday went all the way up into Augusta and into South Carolina, but this morning the wind shifted direction and they blew that smoke back. That wind is so good and so strong right now, that Atlanta has 385 parts per cubic meter of this smoke and 35 is unhealthy. So, that's like 10 times what you should have for any one day of particulates in the air. If you could stay away from the air today, that would be one good thing to do. Hurricane season forecast coming up at 11:00. We'll bring it to you live. Sometimes they'll give us a little preview of what they're thinking, but they're pretty tight lipped on this season. They want us to kind of sit there and look at it.

We've already had the first "A" storm. Remember it was that subtropical storm that was out there in the Atlantic, never really dissolved into anything but it did give it a name. So we're going to start really with Barry, go to Chantal, Dean, Erin and hopefully that's where we end, but if this is anything like 2005 season, we could be all the way down into Sebastian and into Tanya as well. We did make this, this is the same, the same list we had six years ago because they recycle them every six years. If you see the same name, that's why.

ROBERTS: Let's hope that we don't go alpha to omega this year.

MYERS: Do you remember when that happened?

ROBERTS: It didn't go quite to omega.

MYERS: Had to go back to my fraternity days.

CHETRY: Alpha, beta, gamma. I think by the time hurricane season finally ended...

MYERS: And then at the end they said we actually missed one. There was one that was out in the Atlantic that should have had a name and it didn't. So it's (INAUDIBLE)

CHETRY: Chad, thanks.

ROBERTS: (INAUDIBLE)

CHETRY: We'll be swapping fraternity stories later. (INAUDIBLE)

China is the world's number one exporter of fruits and vegetables, recently though as we know in a highly publicized mess contaminated gluten in pet food exposed China's weak regulations. We had more than 100 brands of pet food recalled because of a spike in an animal deaths and then the news that some of this tainted gluten may have made its way to into the human food chain. Joining me to discuss today is Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. He's going to be meeting with Chinese officials later today and he joins us from Washington. Good to see you, Mr. Secretary.

HENRY PAULSON, TREASURY SECRETARY: Kiran, good to be here.

CHETRY: How do we continue to trade with China, yet, ensure that our foods and other products are safe?

PAULSON: Kiran, what we have here today is a strategic economic dialogue where we have (INAUDIBLE) and 15 top ministers and this dialogue is to talk about the major economic issues long term and short term so that is clearly one of the issues we're going to be talking about with China today and we're going to have a very big focus on a number of other important issues.

CHETRY: U.S. companies are under increasing pressure to cut costs, to keep prices low for consumers and getting cheap ingredients from China is one of the ways, one of the strategies for being able to do that. So China knows that we need them. What is their incentive to clean up their situation?

PAULSON: Well, again, Kiran, I believe that the relationship with China is an important one. The economic relationship is one that has benefited both of our countries. Some people in this country, many people are looking at the fact that China is the fastest-growing global economy as a threat and what I want to do is seize that opportunity for American workers. Our exports to China are growing very quickly and we've got a big focus on opening up the Chinese markets for U.S. products and services. And that will be a big focus of our discussion today.

CHETRY: There have been some allegations regarding whether or not China is being completely forthcoming when it comes to things and a lot of questions from senators about that aspect. How do you make sure that you have an even playing field with a trade partner that you can trust?

PAULSON: Well, again, as I explained to the Chinese, there is a lot of concern among the U.S. public. There are a lot of people that don't believe the benefits of trade are being shared equally among our two countries and Congress reflects that sentiment. And one of the benefits of having the Chinese here at this point in time is that they'll have an opportunity to go up and spend some time with Congress, learn from what our congressional leaders have to say and hopefully Congress will benefit from the opportunity to talk directly with the Chinese.

CHETRY: Another thing that Congress is going to be taking up, of course, as we pass the Memorial Day weekend is this immigration comprehensive immigration reform. I had a chance to talk a few moments ago with Robert Hoffman, the vice president of Oracle, who believes that many aspects of this plan will hurt American workers. Your reaction?

PAULSON: I think that this immigration reform is something that the president and Carlos Gutierrez and Mike Chertoff have worked on very, very hard on, worked very hard with members of the Senate and I believe that this would be a very constructive step and help us in many ways and help us economically.

CHETRY: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, thanks for joining us today.

ROBERTS: Forty six minutes now after the hour. Coming up we'll tell you all about a little lost bear and the surprising place that he turned up. He's not Knute but he's cute, as well.

And an update on those lost whales. Whale sounds didn't do the trick, so rescuers are coming up with a new noise to get them back on track. Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: It's coming up now to 50 minutes after the hour. A very cute visitor to a neighborhood in West Hartford, Connecticut. A bear wandered into a residential neighborhood, caught a snack, scratched an itch and then eventually climbed up a tree. Now when bears climb up trees, authorities usually shoot them with a tranquilizer dart which was the case in this one and they're going to relocate the black bear back into the woods. Now, of course, that bear seemed to have a fairly easy ride down the tree, unlike our old friend -- one of my favorite shots of all time. Here's what happens, no, here it comes, boom -- that's what happens when tranquilized bears typically fall out of trees.

CHETRY: You guys are so mean. Everybody's laughing in the studio. Can you imagine after you pass out to be tossed like that out of a trampoline and how much that must hurt.

ROBERTS: No bears were hurt in the filming of that, by the way.

Continuing our lost animal file by the way. Still no luck getting those two hump back whales in California to head down river towards San Francisco Bay. At last check, the whales are linger near Rio Vista. That's about 50 miles from the open waters where they belong. CNN's Dan Simon is following their story from Marin County, California, where they are hopefully going to go sooner rather than later. Dan, what is the latest on their plight?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John, these whales have essentially stalled, but scientists at this point don't appear to be too concerned, at least not yet, because the health for both of these whales appears to be OK. But to get a better sense of the mother's health, crews yesterday fired a cross bow at her to obtain a blubber sample. That sample is going to be sent to a state lab for analysis. Meanwhile, nobody likes the sounds of banging pipes, apparently whales included. So crews have been banging metal pipes under the water hoping to get these whales to go in the right direction. So far these whales have basically stalled at Rio Vista which is about 50 miles away. There is a bridge there at Rio Vista and scientists theorize that traffic on the bridge may have been the culprit. At one point they actually stalled the traffic on the bridge thinking that the whales just might go through the bridge or underneath the bridge. The whales didn't do that. They're just hanging out there and we'll see what today brings, John.

ROBERTS: Is it safe to say Dan that rescuers are going to continue this process until they get some sort of outcome?

SIMON: They're going to continue until they get an outcome, exactly. In 1985 you had Humphrey the whale. It took 26 days to get him back to the Pacific Ocean so they're going to continue to be persistent, but they're not going to be too aggressive, at least not yet, John.

ROBERTS: Dan Simon for us at the north end of the Golden Gate bridge in Marin County, just outside of San Francisco, Dan, thanks very much.

CHETRY: Coming up, we're going to tell you why Paula Abdul may not be looking her best for the big "American Idol" finale tonight, a bit of an accident. Hopefully it's not permanent.

Also a furry fan finds a way to watch the subway series. Boom. That's a small bear, no, I'm sorry, that's a kitten. Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: It's 56 minutes after the hour, Ali Velshi "Minding Your Business" for you today. Good morning, sir.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. New Jersey is the last state in which you can get gas at an average price of less than $3 a gallon this morning, $2.95. National average, I mean, honestly every time, you put your head down, you wake up, it's new. It's $2.95 in New Jersey, the national average now $3.21. If you take that information from AAA. If you take it from the Department of Energy, it's a much smaller survey, $3.22. I heard somebody saying earlier this week that they're going to say it's going to go to $3.25 within six months. Six months? Six hours.

ROBERTS: Inflation adjusted an all-time high.

VELSHI: This is. This is high. I used to have to qualify by saying, well, if you take 1981 prices and you add inflation, no, this is it. We are now at the highest price we've paid for gasoline. It is the kind of thing now that's going to get people to start thinking about things. Again, we have not hit Memorial Day yet. This is where we start looking at hybrids. I heard you talking about E-85 gas now available.

CHETRY: What's the deal with that, the flex fuel vehicles?

VELSHI: GM for instance is a real leader in all of their or many of their models being able to use E-85. The idea is, you can buy a car that it's unlike a hybrid, you don't have to commit to a different technology. If you're a gas station that doesn't have E-85, you can use whatever you want, but cars that are able to use flex fuels, that's a big deal. Anything we can do to take the pressure off of gasoline that comes from oil.

ROBERTS: Do you know if it is possible to convert a car that runs on regular gasoline?

VELSHI: You got to get a car that's a convertible. It's too much of an expensive. If you're going to go through that deal kind of a deal, you're basically rebuilding your car. So you buy a car that does - but many new cars come with it.

CHETRY: And then the other problem is, even if you have a car that is flex fuel friendly, we talked about how there's just not many places. Albany, New York has one. They're the one place in New York.

VELSHI: That's easy to build because it's not a whole infrastructure. When you talk about hydrogen cars, there's no where to fill up. There really is nowhere to fill hydrogen, but when it comes to adding tanks or different kinds of things to existing gas stations, that they can do. So that's a trend that we can go to. The problem is, it's kind of like the fax machine. It can't be the end game, so, what a lot of people are not willing to do is commit to what isn't going to be the next big thing.

CHETRY: What did the fax machines ever do to you?

VELSHI: They're gone. You can't find them. Somebody tried to send me a fax yesterday. I don't have a fax machine, number, can't find the fax.

ROBERTS: Literally, the entire country of Brazil runs on ethanol. VELSHI: It's possible. So there are - and a lot of car companies, Nissan Carlos Gohn (ph) said the idea is to have a portfolio of different things. Some it'll be ethanol, some of it will be flex fuels, some of it will be hybrid cars and slowly we'll wean ourselves off. This becomes a serious problem, this will be the topic of conversation for the summer.

ROBERTS: I would think.

CHETRY: So will this by the way. Talk about cat naps. A kitten sneaked into Sunday night's Mets Yankee's game without a ticket hiding in an Astroturf mat. Do you think he would have kicked it that hard if he knew that little guy was there but it was a black cat.

ROBERTS: Cat in a mat.

CHETRY: Look what happened, though. The cat was, to say the least, surprised. The Yankees ended up winning that game so maybe the black cat was actually bad luck for the Mets. There he is. He is fine.

ROBERTS: A rudely awakened black cat with an attitude.

And a dog, not a kitten causing some problems for Paula Abdul. The "American Idol" judge tripped this weekend while trying to avoid stepping on her pet Chihuahua, Tulip. The result, a fractured toe, more importantly as she hit the pavement, the broken nose. The show must go on, though. Tonight is the first part of the two-part season finale for "Idol."

CHETRY: So that's the story they're going with.

ROBERTS: That's the story they're going with.

CHETRY: Blame it on the Chihuahua.

ROBERTS: Tripped over the dog.

Next hour of AMERICAN MORNING starts right now.

CHETRY: taking shots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Maybe he can get out that varmint gun of his and chase those Guatemalans off his lawn (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Why John McCain is unloading on Mitt Romney and how the immigration fight is stirring up the race for president.

Plus, capture the flag. Is a car dealer's super sized old glory a sign of patriotism or just a sales gimmick on this AMERICAN MORNING?

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