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American Morning
TB Scare: Who's Really at Risk?; America Votes 2008: Candidate Thompson?; Movie Monitor
Aired May 31, 2007 - 06:58 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): Putting out the call.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The EU nationals who are concerned will be contacted by their national health authorities.
CHETRY: This morning they want to test everyone who flew with the man infected with the deadliest form of tuberculosis.
Two of his fellow passengers speak out to us on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: And welcome. It is Thursday, May 31st.
Thanks for being with us today.
I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Roberts.
Stories "On Our Radar" this morning.
Fred Thompson quitting his job on "Law & Order," expected to get into the presidential race in July, according to some reports. The big question this morning, how much will he shake things up if he gets in?
We'll talk to John King, our chief national correspondent, and part of the best political team on television. John's been working his sources, knows all about this. He'll have some good insight to it.
CHETRY: Yes. He's going to tell us which campaigns are the most nervous about this announcement, because he really is -- Fred Thompson is this, you know, darling at the time right now. We'll see how long that lasts. We'll talk to John about that a little later.
Also, the world's first spam king -- did you know they even had spam kings -- well, what does it mean? This is guy who was responsible for possibly billions of junk e-mails, and the feds are saying that his arrest actually will reduce the number of junk in our e-mail boxes today.
ROBERTS: Wouldn't that be nice?
CHETRY: Yes, certainly.
ROBERTS: We've got spam filters, but still, yes, you get an awful lot. An awful lot comes through.
Sick of people making too much noise while you are trying to watch a movie? Technology is coming to the rescue.
It's not a Taser gun. It's something else. We'll tell you what it is and how it works.
A man infected with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis remains under federally-ordered medical isolation this morning, but he is expected to be transferred from Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta to the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, Colorado.
The Centers for Disease Control, meanwhile, is tracking down people who flew on two transatlantic flights with the now quarantined patient -- air France Flight 385, from Atlanta to Paris, on May 12th, and Czech Air Flight 0104 from Prague to Montreal on May the 24th. The CDC is recommending that those people be tested for TB.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now from Atlanta with more on the risks of potential exposure.
And Sanjay, the CDC has actually expanded its call for people to be tested. They wanted people who sat two rows in front and two rows behind where this fellow sate, which was believed to be row 51. Now they're issuing a call to say anybody who was on those flights should be tested.
What's going on?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I mean, I think that what this demonstrates more than anything else is that this is brand new to a lot of people, to have someone with such an infectious, potentially problematic disease actually flying on two transatlantic flights. They are not quite sure what do with this information.
I think you and I talked about this yesterday, saying this is all based on modeling, as opposed to actual patient data. So they're not exactly sure how to -- how to proceed here.
I think a couple rows in front, a couple of rows in back, still very, very -- the most likely people to be infected. Not that anyone is likely to be infected, but the highest risk. Anybody else, you have a lot of people traveling on these planes, John, who may be immunocompromised for some reason.
Small children may be at greater risk. Elderly people may be at greater risk. So, those people. And particularly, even if they are sitting further away than those two rows, should probably be tested. But I think it's erring on the side of caution more than anything else -- John. ROBERTS: Sanjay, what do you know about this specialty center out in Denver that he's apparently being taken to?
GUPTA: Well, you know, the interesting thing, John, in this country, there's been so few cases of what's called XDR, Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, so there's n no center that can boast a particularly high number of cases. They just don't take care of many.
This center probably takes care of more respiratory disease and infectious diseases like Multi Drug-Resistant or Extensively Drug- Resistant Tuberculosis than anywhere else in the country. What they do is they basically are able to test all these different antibiotics quickly, trying to determine if one of them is going to work, if one of them is going to stick or not, and then treat them as such.
They also have the option, if none of the antibiotics work, to recommend an operation to basically try to cut out the area of infection and treat him that way. I don't think they have a plan right now.
We talked to people at the hospital yesterday, they said, "We don't know what the plan is. We're going to wait for the guy to get here, we're going to test him like we would any other patient and determine how to proceed from there."
ROBERTS: Sanjay, thanks for that. We'll get back to you a little bit later on.
GUPTA: All right.
ROBERTS: We're going to be doing Sanjay's mailbag coming up in our next hour of AMERICAN MORNING.
And at the bottom of this hour, we're going to talk with two people who flew with the infected man on the flight from Atlanta to Paris. One of them was sitting in row 49, which would put her just two rows in front of where this fellow was sitting.
The man that the British government calls a spy killer is lashing out at his accusers this morning. Andrei Lugovoi held a press conference in Moscow just a couple of hours ago. He claims that British intelligence agents poisoned former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive Polonium in London last November.
The British government says Lugovoi is the killer. They want him extradited from Russia, but so far the Russian government has refused. Lugovoi also claims that Litvinenko was working for British intelligence at the time of his death, and that MI-6, which is Britain's intelligence agency, even tried to recruit Lugovoi.
CHETRY: Fred Thompson, actor and former Tennessee senator, is now inching ever closer to entering the 2008 presidential race. He quit his role on TV's "Law & Order," and that's setting the stage now for a possible run at the Republican nomination.
CNN National Correspondent John King is live in Manchester, New Hampshire, to talk more about this today.
Hi there, John.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. How are you?
CHETRY: Great to see you, by the way.
Which campaign, in your opinion, is the most thrown by this announcement?
KING: Well, Kiran, just the fact that we're talking about Fred Thompson and not the 10 other Republican candidates is proof that they're all hurt, at least in the short term. We had a lot of calls on this yesterday. And the McCain camp concedes that it will probably dent its fundraising in the short term.
There were a lot of social conservatives who were giving a look at the former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, even though just a few years ago he was pro-choice on abortion rights. They were looking at him. Many of them now say they want to give Senator Thompson a chance. They want to see what they call a true conservative in the race.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, has been the star of this campaign, the man with the mythical leadership aura from post- 9/11 days. Fred Thompson will now be the Hollywood presence, if you will.
So, all of the top-tier candidates are hurt for a bit in the short term. If you're somebody like Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas saying, hey, look at me, give my campaign a chance. He's hurt a bit, too. Temporary, though.
Now the question for Fred Thompson is, now that he says he will get in, file a fund-raising committee Monday, announce probably a day or two after the Fourth of July, then he's a politician again and has to run. But the prospect of a candidacy is certainly denting the others, all of the others.
CHETRY: Now, John, can he start -- he can start raising money already. He doesn't have to wait until July for that, correct?
KING: He will file a committee on Monday. And that's his first big test. Can he generate a lot of money in the short term?
They had a big meeting in Washington, of his D.C. brain trust yesterday. They're already reaching out to fund-raisers around the country. What he wants to do is very quickly say that not only have the grassroots people been urging him to run, but he can put proof to the fact that he has support by raising several million dollars very, very quickly.
CHETRY: Right. Because let's take a look right now at what some of the other top candidates have raised. Mitt Romney number one in this department, at least for the GOP, raising $20.7 million so far. Giuliani at $14.7 million. And John McCain at $12.9 million.
So, in terms of the money, and that machine that you need behind you, he is really behind the eight ball, isn't he, John?
KING: Remarkable. It's not even June '07 and we're saying he's late getting into the race for the presidency that will be decided in November '08. But it's only six months from now that Iowa and New Hampshire, other early states, will weigh in, in the nomination contest.
So, because this campaign started so early, he is a little late. He's late in terms of the fund-raising. You noted those figures. He has a long way to go to catch up to them.
CHETRY: Right.
KING: He says he will try to raise as much as he can, but he'll also use the Internet, blog postings, things like that. He is also late in a state like this where grassroots activists help you so much.
New Hampshire and Iowa, most of them are locked up. But he's going to come in over the top, if you will, use his television skills, use his communication skills to try to disrupt this race. He says it will be an unconventional campaign, Kiran.
CHETRY: Yes.
KING: And if you look at the polling, about half of the Republicans say they're still looking around, they haven't locked in. So the voters are open-minded.
CHETRY: John King, we can talk about it all day, but we're out of time.
Thanks so much.
KING: Thank you.
CHETRY: And a big reminder. Two big debates are heading your way right here on CNN.
The Democratic presidential debate, the candidate will be squaring off this Sunday, June 3rd. And the Republicans are going to go at it two days later.
Well, now you're going to have to make another -- pull up another chair on stage, or a podium, John, because for the Tuesday, June 5th, you're going to have 11 now.
ROBERTS: Well, it remains to be seen whether or not he's going to be in that debate, though.
CHETRY: Oh, he's not going to just jump on in there? ROBERTS: He could. But we'll see. We'll see.
CHETRY: All right.
ROBERTS: Hey, good news this morning for anybody who uses e- mail. The feds say that you could see less junk e-mail today thanks to the arrest of a man described as one of the top 10 spammers in the world.
Officials say Robert Salloway (ph) was behind millions of spam e- mails. They say that he used so-called zombie computers to send them. The computers are called zombies because owners typically have no idea that their machines have been hijacked and are sending out spam.
Salloway (ph) faces 35 charges, including fraud and identity theft.
CHETRY: Tragedy in the wild topping our "Quick Hits" now.
The first panda that was released into the wild after being raised in captivity was found dead in a forest in southwest China. Officials think he fell from a tree after being chased by other pandas. He survived less than a year in the wild.
They caught a lizard, they didn't catch the lizard. Private trappers captured this lizard, thinking they had nabbed this 80-pound Monitor lizard that has been terrifying a neighborhood near Orlando, Florida. But it seems like they got the wrong one.
This is the guy that police have been looking for. Officers say they came close enough to it to know that they shot it. They weren't able to catch it, though. It got away.
So the lizard that they have, you know, in their hands now doesn't have gunshot wounds, which would lead them to believe that they probably didn't get the right one. The reason they were even given clearance to go ahead and shoot that lizard is they believe it could be a real danger to small animals, as well as children, there in Orlando.
We'll keep you posted on the lizard.
Still to come, he's come into contact with hundreds of people, but we still don't know the name of the man infected with the deadliest form of tuberculosis. Should we?
There's a fight between private medical records and a public health threat that we're going to talk more about next on AMERICAN MORNING.
The most news in the morning right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Eleven minutes after the hour now.
Bitten by the bee. Some "Quick Hits" for you.
Two hundred and eight-six brilliant young spellers started, but only 59 remain now. Tonight they crown the queen or the king of the Scripps National spelling Bee championship in Washington, D.C.
Hope to have the winner here with us tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, and challenge them to see if they're really as good as they should be.
Coming up, party in Chicago. Five endangered red wolf pups making their first public appearance yesterday at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Veterinarians at the zoo giving them a quick check up as well.
Red wolves were declared extinct in the wild back in 1980, but they have since rebounded. A hundred of them now in the wild. Two hundred in zoos.
And Tropical Storm Barbara gaining steam, expected to head toward Acapulco in the next few days. The National Hurricane Center warning folks living along the western coasts of Mexico and Guatemala to monitor this storm. And, of course, the Atlantic hurricane season begins tomorrow.
Chad Myers down at the weather center in Atlanta now tracking Barbara.
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: Well, the CDC says it did everything in its power to keep a Georgia man infected with a deadly form of tuberculosis from flying. He did it anyway. Now he's in federally-ordered isolation, while health officials are trying to round up people that he may have infected along the way.
Court TV's Savannah Guthrie joins us now from Washington to talk more about the legal implications.
And one of the things, Savannah -- good to see you, by the way -- the health officials are saying, you know, we did everything we could under the law.
Let's listen.
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DR. MARTIN CETRON, CDC GLOBAL MIGRATION QUARANTINE DIV.: The patient had from his own perspective compelling reasons to travel. And there were no legal orders in place preventing his travel, and no laws were broken.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: And Savannah, are there any legal measures in place at all that could have stopped him?
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, COURT TV: Well, possibly, but it sounds like the authorities there in Georgia didn't seek them. I mean, you heard the guy from the CDC just saying there weren't any legal orders in effect.
Presumably, they could have sought orders preventing him from travel, but they didn't. From what they're telling us, there were no criminal laws broken by this guy.
You know what's interesting here, Kiran? Public law experts, some of them say that the very authority that the CDC is now using to isolate and quarantine this guy may itself be unconstitutional. So, believe it or not, some legal scholars will tell you, if this patient decided to sue the government for isolating him, he might win.
CHETRY: You see, that is fascinating, because we were asking today just around the newsroom, is the government culpable in any way for not stopping this guy from flying, if, say, some of these passengers come down with TB?
GUTHRIE: It's possible, although as a general rule it's really hard to sue the government. The better case of the passengers would be in the event that they got sick against the man, probably for negligence. If they got sick they could probably sue him in civil court.
CHETRY: That's my other question. Not necessarily even if they get sick, but imagine -- let's say you had your child on that -- on that plane, the days and the hours spent with the testing, wondering if they're OK. And not to mention, how much money it might cost you to have to go under that specialized medical care just to be screened.
I mean, would people have a case for that against this man?
GUTHRIE: I think it's a less strong case if they don't end up sick, unfortunately. That's the way the law works. I think the damages would be greater if they really were sick. But it's possible that you could bring a case for negligent infliction of emotional distress if they could prove they really were in this zone of danger, their health really was at risk.
CHETRY: Another quick question before we let you go. Authorities so far are not revealing this patient's identity. Should they? Is it a matter of public health?
GUTHRIE: Well, this is a really tricky balancing test. As I understand it, they do have the authority to release this guy's name, but they would do that as a last resort.
That's a very blunt tool. As far as things go right now, he's cooperating, he's giving them people he's been in contact with. So they're going to do the contact chase, try to run down people that way, as opposed to this blanketing the airwaves with this guy's name.
CHETRY: Very interesting.
Court TV's Savannah Guthrie.
Always great to talk to you.
GUTHRIE: Nice to see you.
CHETRY: And coming up, we're going to be talking with passengers who flew with that infected passenger. We're going to talk with doctors who will be giving him specialized treatment for this extreme form of tuberculosis.
ROBERTS: Seventeen minutes after the hour now.
How about a 51st state for America? Some "Quick Hits," starting on Capitol Hill now.
The House expects to vote on a bill next month that would pave the way for a historic couple of votes in Puerto Rico. Residents could eventually decide whether to stay an American territory or become a full U.S. state. They've discussed the question before, considered it. They've always decided to remain a territory, but things could change.
And the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia pleads guilty to drunken driving. Ann Banaszewski faces 18 months of court supervision, as well as community services and counseling. She was arrested in February near Chicago. Her three children were in the car when she was stopped.
Movie watchers unite, fight back against those annoying people on cell phones. We'll tell you how coming up.
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ROBERTS: Twenty-one minutes after the hour.
Sniffing out a shoe thief. Some "Quick Hits" for you now.
Police in Wisconsin say they found one man with 1,500 pairs of women's sneakers. They say he was smelling them for sexual pleasure. We are not making this stuff up. He was caught after he stole shoes from female students at a local high school.
Lindsay Lohan's father is revealing why she is in rehab. Michael Lohan says his daughter is hooked on the painkiller Oxycontin. And she suffers from other addictions as well, including alcohol. She is in rehab for the second time this year.
Michael Lohan just got out of prison for driving while intoxicated. It runs in the family, it would seem.
Lohan's troubles are also spelling trouble for some trendy Los Angeles nightclubs. Police want to know if any of them were serving her alcohol. You see, she is only 20 years old, won't be old enough to drink until July 2nd. But she was arrested for DUI after a car crash this past weekend, so she obviously got it somewhere.
CHETRY: Well, everybody's been there. You go to a movie theater, you are in your $11 seat, and someone next to you is either chatting away on a cell phone, having a conversation with their friends. Well, now one theater -- one theater company is giving power back to the patrons.
AMERICAN MORNING'S Lola Ogunnaike joins me now to talk more bout this.
This is -- this is pretty funny, because all of us have been there, when you are trying to see a movie and people won't shut up.
LOLA OGUNNAIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely. Or their cell phones are ringing or their babies are crying, or the sound goes out on the screen. But now there's this device that's the size of a pager, and it's really cool. It's discrete, and you can complain about the picture, you can complain about the sound, and you can complain about your noisy neighbors, as well.
CHETRY: Yes. They're making it -- this is a Regal guest response system, they're calling it. It's in 114 theaters now.
OGUNNAIKE: Yes, it started out in 13 theaters, but it did so well that they rolled it out to 114 theaters around the country.
CHETRY: OK. So, how it works is, you get this pager device.
OGUNNAIKE: Yes. Just like on your phone.
CHETRY: Everybody has one at their seat?
OGUNNAIKE: Not everyone. Only one person per auditorium.
So, yes, there's one snitch among us. You will never know who, but they're a member of their gold standard royal -- Regal's Royal Gold Standard Club. And they give these members these devices, and one in each auditorium. So, yes, you can discretely snitch on everyone.
CHETRY: And so what happens after that? Does a manager come down?
OGUNNAIKE: There's a beep that connects to the manager's pager. And he comes in and maybe tells the person next to you to please keep it down.
So you don't have to lean over and say "Shhh" or "Shut up, I can't hear Orlando Bloom talking!
CHETRY: Right.
OGUNNAIKE: Now the manager can take care of it for you.
CHETRY: The thing that's funny, though, is I imagine you get more disturbed, possibly, when somebody comes down with a big flashlight looking for the person who's talking or on their cell phone.
OGUNNAIKE: Well, more disturbed, but you can finally hear what, you know, Orlando or Johnny Depp is actually saying, as opposed to having to sit there and listen to someone drone on and on, or text message with that blinking flashing light over and over again.
CHETRY: Yes. You're right.
That's a good idea. We'll see if it catches on. Apparently, some of the theater owners were worried about a box office slump because people didn't want to be bothered.
OGUNNAIKE: The other cool thing about this device is that you can report piracy as well. So, if you see a guy pulling out a video camera and he's trying to bootleg "Pirates of the Caribbean," you can snitch on him, too. So you can be a crime fighter and watch your movie.
CHETRY: All of that. They call it the tattletale tool for moviegoers.
Lola, thanks a lot.
OGUNNAIKE: Absolutely. Thank you.
ROBERTS: Twenty-four after the hour now. Ali Velshi here "Minding Your Business".
You know, Ali, we have been.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That, of course, was the perfect example of "Minding Your Business," snitching on somebody in the theater.
ROBERTS: It was, yes, absolutely. Mind your own business. Mind everybody's business this morning.
We have been watching the Dow soar.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
ROBERTS: Some "Quick Hits" for you now.
The top story on CNN.com, seven killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan last night. The Taliban claims it shot it down. NATO is investigating. Officials say the team that responded to the crash was ambushed and had to call in an air strike.
And on CNN's most popular list, search intensifies for people at TB risk. Health officials in the United States and Europe are looking for passengers who flew on transatlantic flights with a man infected with tuberculosis. The CDC is now recommending that all passengers on those flights see their doctors for testing or evaluation.
AMERICAN MORNING is back in just a moment.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS (voice over): A summer treat -- cruising with the top down and chrome spinning. But how safe is your convertible?
AMERICAN MORNING'S Greg Hunter investigates the highs, the lows, and the dangers. The first-ever convertible crash test results next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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CHETRY: Wow. A gorgeous shot of Lady Liberty. There it is, the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island right there, on the waters off the great island of Manhattan.
It's going to be 90 degrees today. You're going to want to jump in the Hudson.
ROBERTS: I'll tell you, I went for a walk in Central Park yesterday, and it was just so beautiful. And another one coming up today.
CHETRY: Very -- it's going to be hot, though. Wear your sunscreen if you're out there today.
And meanwhile, good morning to you once again. It is Thursday, May 31st.
So glad you are with us.
I'm Kiran Chetry.
ROBERTS: And I'm John Roberts. Stories "On Our Radar" this morning.
The Centers for Disease Control now urging medical tests or TB evaluation for everyone who flew on board those planes that that man quarantined with tuberculosis was on. We're going to talk with two of those passengers coming up in just a couple of seconds.
CHETRY: And we're also going to check in with the doctors that are going to be treating him at this cutting-edge hospital that specializes in these types of respiratory disorders as well.
And they're a stylish way to travel this summer, but how safe are they? We have some results of the new convertible crash tests. They actually have never done these before.
ROBERTS: No, first time.
CHETRY: There you see some of the results, good ratings on some of them. Some of the myths that we hear about the danger of convertibles may not necessarily be true. Our Greg Hunter is going to break it down for us coming up a little later.
ROBERT: All right. Well, the man infected with a rare and potentially deadly strain of tuberculosis took a total of seven airline flights, not just the two originally thought, potentially exposing hundreds of people to the disease. The Centers for Disease control is particularly concerned with passengers on two trans- Atlantic flights because they were in a confined area with him for a long time. Mark Hill and Beth Hawkins were both on the Air France flight from Atlanta to Paris on May 12th. They join us now this morning from Atlanta. Good morning to both of you.
BETH HAWKINS, FLEW WITH INFECTED MAN: Good morning.
ROBERTS: Beth, let me ask you, how long was the whole process between sort of check-in and sitting at the gate, getting on the flight, getting to the transit lounge in France. How long could you have been in proximity to this fellow?
HAWKINS: We actually had a two and a half hour delay in Atlanta. We were sitting in the airport for a couple hours before we even got on the flight. After that, we had a -- we were on the flight for about eight hours after that so we were in proximity with the man for probably 10 or 11 hours altogether.
ROBERTS: Mark what do you think about the fact that this guy, after it was recommended to him by health officials there in Fulton County, Georgia that he not fly that he got on these flights anyways?
MARK HILL, FLEW WITH INFECTED MAN: I think, as I mentioned last night, I thought he was a little irresponsible of him to do that. Almost 400 people were on that flight that could have been impacted.
ROBERTS: Now it was believed that he was sitting in row 51. Mark, I believe you were in seat 35J, Beth, you were in 49G which would have put you just a couple of rows in front of him. The Centers for Disease Control have initially recommended that people two rows in front and two behind get tested or at least evaluated by their doctors. Have you done that?
HAWKINS: Yes, sir, I went to my health department yesterday morning and I had a skin test done and I've got to go back Friday morning to have that looked at. Even still they are recommending that all the passengers go back eight weeks later to get retested because if by chance we did get infected, it's possible that it could show up negative tomorrow because the incubation period is so long. So we're still going to have to get retested after this.
ROBERTS: The incubation period can be anywhere from days to years depending on the level of exposure to the bug. Now Mark, what about yourself? As we said, you were sitting further away, but the Centers for Disease Control now probably just as a precautionary measure, recommending that everyone who was on board that flight get tested. So what are you going to do?
HILL: I went to my doctor yesterday and got tested, too. In fact, I did get a call from the CDC, a doctor last night, at around 9:30 who gave me a lot of information about the likelihood of infection or the lack of -- of infection. And walked me through process and as Beth said, it is a two-stage process. You get the skin test and then you have to go back and get an additional test. The first one is a baseline. ROBERTS: Right. Beth, you were on the plane because you were on a trip with other students from the University of South Carolina. You are a business major there. As we mentioned, you were possibly sitting about two rows away from this fellow, but you know some other folks who were sitting much closer.
HAWKINS: Yes sir, there were actually four more of my students who were on row 49 with me and they had about five students on row 51 sitting right beside this man and we had a couple more students sitting on row 52 and then about three or four more sitting on row 53. So we had about 15 students altogether within about two rows of this man.
ROBERTS: Right. So have you been talking to those friends? Are they concerned?
HAWKINS: Yes, sir, I've called about everybody that I can and we have all either have already gotten tested or made arrangements to go get tested sometime today because our main concern was if any of us picked it up, we could have potentially given it to each other because we lived with each other two weeks after that and we are sharing food and sharing drinks. We are just worried about passing it along.
ROBERTS: Did any of your friends see someone sitting there wearing a mask? Apparently this fellow who is infected, had asked the Centers for Disease Control whether he should fly and there's a story around that they said you shouldn't fly. He said what if I fly with a mask? They said that might be OK. Did you see anyone wearing a mask?
HAWKINS: I didn't recall seeing anybody with a mask and I haven't spoken with anybody that did either. Somebody might have seen one and I have not found out about it yet. But as far as I know, I don't believe any of us saw anybody wearing a mask on the flight.
Mark, if you had the opportunity to say something to this fellow, what would it be? Be honest.
HILL: I think that he -- you know, owes an apology to close to 400 people that possibly he could have infected. You know, I think he was certainly torn, but there are different stories about what he was told and what he says he was told. So at the end of the day I think that he owes quite a few people an apology.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, we'll see if that's forthcoming. Mark Hill, Beth Hawkins joining us this morning from Atlanta, thanks very much. Appreciate you coming in.
HAWKINS: Thank you.
HILL: Thank you.
CHETRY: He lost his job when he became a she, our quick hits now. The Sarasota City council deciding not to hire Susan Stanton as city manager. Susan used to be Steve. The city manager in Largo, Florida, he enjoyed 14 years of excellent job reviews, then lost his job after his sex change. Lubbock, Texas now in big trouble at a lingerie store. Police arrested an employee at the store called Something Sexy, raiding it for selling objects considered obscene under Lubbock's business ordinance. If convicted she will have to register now as a sex offender.
Nothing says summer like a convertible. Before you take the top down and drive around, think about buying one of these, Greg Hunter found out which ones are safest. The latest convertible crash tests. Hi, Greg.
GREG HUNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kiran. Are you driving a car that's possibly unsafe? We have a brand new crash test for convertibles coming up when AMERICAN MORNING continues.
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ROBERTS: Is a new star getting in the presidential race? Some quick hits for you now at 39 minutes after the hour. Fred Thompson quit his acting job on "Law & Order" yesterday and could start raising money and hiring campaign staff as early as tomorrow. Apparently, the official filing for testing the waters committee will happen on Monday. Thompson is a former Republican senator from Tennessee.
Dutch authorities are totally ruining the high for some marijuana smokers. Pot will still be legal in Amsterdam, but they will now check ID and fingerprints some customers buying weed. Authorities promise to crack down on shops that do not follow those rules.
And here it is, the air car. India's largest auto maker will build a zero emissions car that runs on compressed air. The car will cost $12,700. It's got a range of about 125 miles and get this, can hit 68 miles per hour.
CHETRY: Pretty cool.
Maybe you've noticed there are more people driving with the top down these days. In fact, the number of convertible cars on the road has doubled since 1990. How safe are they though? Now the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is putting these convertible cars to the test. AMERICAN MORNING's Greg Hunter is live in Rockville center in a pretty cool bright red car that doesn't even look like a convertible. Hi Greg.
HUNTER: Hey Kiran that's right. It's got a hard top. This is the Volvo C-70. I'm at Park (ph) Volvo here on Long Island and if you take a look at this, I'm putting the top down right now. Watch this little piece of engineering. It unlocks itself. I don't do anything and it comes right back. It used to be when you removed the top of a car, it wasn't quite as safe but you know what, that's not true anymore.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTER (voice-over): Despite conventional wisdom most convertibles built today are pretty safe. DAVID ZUBY, INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY: These vehicles in general are offering as good a protection as their full- roofed counterparts.
HUNTER: The Insurance Institute bought 20 brand new convertibles, two copies of each, one to crash in the front and one to crash in the side, all to find out how well they protect you in an accident. Overall, the cars performed well in frontal crash tests. Eight of the 10 cars scored good, the institute's highest rating. The top safety picks, the Saab 9-3 and the Volvo C-70.
ZUBY: The Saab is rated good in all three tests, the front, side and the rear whiplash test.
HUNTER: Volvo.
ZUBY: The Volvo C-70 is rated good in all three tests, front, side and whiplash test.
HUNTER: Both vehicles have roll bars to protect you in the event of rollover. Five of the 10 convertibles tested make this standard equipment. Not included in the study is a rollover crash test. That's because the institute hasn't come up with a way to repeat the same rollover crash over and over. For now, it's pushing auto makers to include electronic stability control as standard equipment because it greatly reduces the chance for rollover. The lowest rated car in the study is the Pontiac G6.
ZUBY: There are a number of problems. The first obvious one is that there's no inflatable protection for the driver's head.
HUNTER: So your arm is protected but not your head.
ZUBY: Right.
HUNTER: Pontiac says their car meets or exceeds all applicable Federal motor vehicle safety standards and is moving to equip all applicable passenger cars with head protection by 2009. The Institute says it was disappointed in the BMW 3 series. The most expensive convertible tested, even though it's a brand new design with side airbags, the vehicle scored only marginal in the side crash tests. In an e-mail response, BMW wrote, we are confident that on the road in the real world, BMW vehicles are among the safest. This conclusion is supported by real-world crash data not only in the U.S., but worldwide.
If you can't afford the more expensive models, the moderately priced Mitsubishi Eclipse also scored well on the Institute's front and side crash tests.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTER: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says listen, you do use some protection. You lose some protection when you lose the roof. And also if you don't wear your seat belts, all bets are off, especially when you're wearing -- when you're driving a convertible. I'm putting the roof back up and this one has this metal roof, which really is kind of like a hard top and roll bars pop up with this one if you do get into a rollover accident. So that's what you got here. It's a great test.
CHETRY: That is so cool. Greg, do you remember the old days where you actually had to wheel it down yourself and push and pull all the different contraptions? That is so cool. It just goes back. You don't have to do a thing.
HUNTER: You don't do anything. Even the worst car in this test, according to the Institute, the worst car in this test is by far light years better than a car 10, 15 years ago, a convertible. Cars are really much better.
CHETRY: How much is that one going to run us again if we need to get our hands on that?
HUNTER: I don't know. Fellows, how much is this car? 40 grand, I think it's 40 grand.
CHETRY: Nice.
ROBERTS: Several paychecks for you, Kiran.
CHETRY: Looks good on you, it looks good on you Greg. All right. Thanks so much. Go ahead.
HUNTER: It makes me look 10 pounds lighter.
CHETRY: It sure does. Red is your color. Well, we're going to recap the results for you now, the Saab 9-3 and the Volvo C-70 are the top picks for safety achieving good in all three categories. The Mitsubishi Eclipse coming in third. Bottom three, BMW-3 series, the Audi A-4 Cabriolet and the last one on the list, the Pontiac G-6. John.
ROBERTS: Coming up now to 45 minutes after the hour. Chad Myers at the weather center in Atlanta tracking something on the west coast of Mexico. What's going on over there Chad?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hurricane season already in the eastern Pacific. Good morning John. It's hurricane season starting tomorrow in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. But we are seeing tropical storm Barbara. This is the second. This is the B storm. We had Alvin a couple of days ago. Only the third time in over 100 years there's ever been two named storms in the month of May. But Barbara is going to make a run at Acapulco as a hurricane, 70 knots, about 80 miles per hour. We do have something developing in the Caribbean here east of Cancun, south of Cuba. Don't expect it to ever really become a tropical storm or a named storm because there is just too much sheer, there's too much of a jet stream up through here.
What that jet stream is going to do, it's going to take some of this moisture and drag it up over Florida. We talked about this before. One of the greatest things you can do to break a drought is take a minimal tropical cyclone, tropical system, big tropical depression and put it over Florida or over Georgia, over Alabama where it has been so very dry. In the next 48 hours, there will be a lot of rain over Cuba, but after that John, that rain does move into Tampa, into Sebring all the way down to Lake Okeechobee. And the story earlier how that lake is nearly as dry as it's ever been. Back to you.
ROBERTS: It will be good for them to have some rain. It would be great as well Chad if that sheer continued and knocked all the hurricanes (INAUDIBLE).
MYERS: That would be beautiful wouldn't it?
ROBERTS: Wouldn't it? Thanks Chad. Some quick hits now, a close call in Indiana the pilot of an F-15 ejected from the jet before it crashed. He parachuted safely to the ground and walked away from it. The Air National Guard says the pilot's got 15 years of flying experience. You can see nothing left of the aircraft there. He was engaged in practice maneuvers with seven other jets.
And look at this, a beltway disaster. It started with a police chase, police pursuing a speeding motorcycle. It touched off a seven- car chain reaction pile-up near Forestville, Maryland. Apparently the motorcycle cut in front of a car. The police car rammed into that car, sent it over the guard rail into oncoming traffic. Two people were killed, 15 hurt, including two police officers. All lanes of the inner loop were shut down for nearly five hours yesterday.
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine taking a big step in his comeback from a car crash. We'll explain coming up next. You are watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It looks like big girls do cry. Some quick hits now. Paris Hilton not enjoying her last days of freedom before she reports to jail next Tuesday. A source close to Paris says that she is crying a lot and she's not eating well. According to tmz.com her cell mate has been selected. She will be bunking with an inmate that's doing time for reckless driving.
Big bucks for a movie dress, $192,000 for this one, you may remember it "Breakfast at Tiffany's." It's the pink cocktail dress that Audrey Hepburn wore in the 1961 film. It went for more than six times what Christie's auction house thought they'd get for it. The dress went to a private European buyer. How about that? What's old is what's new because that look is back again.
Maybe coming soon to the town near you, the world's smallest horse. She's a sweety. Her name's Thumbelina and she kicks off a tour of 47 states. She's going to be visiting children at a New Jersey hospital. They are hoping that Thumbelina can raise $1 million for children's charities.
ROBERTS: Tonight former First Lady Nancy Reagan sits down with our Larry King. She'll talk about the Reagan diaries and what they reveal about the former president. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Did he like writing?
NANCY REAGAN, FMR FIRST LADY: He loved writing.
KINGS: Letters, too, the last of the letter writers.
REAGAN: Letters, yes. Isn't it sad?
KING: He wouldn't have been an e-mail guy.
REAGAN: No, he wouldn't. No, he wouldn't. Isn't is sad now that nobody writes anymore. I mean -- this, of course, the diary is out of the question. Nobody is going to do that. Imagine historically to see the diary with his handwriting.
KING: Is it hard for you -- hard for you to look at it?
REAGAN: In a way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Nancy Reagan, a rare and emotional hour right here later on tonight, 9:00 Eastern time, "Larry King Live."
On the road to recovery, quick hits now, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine getting over a big hurdle. He made it up the steps and into the New Jersey state house yesterday for the first time since his accident. Just seven weeks ago, he was in a hospital with a broken leg, collarbone, sternum, 11 broken ribs, cracked vertebrae as well.
The Feds are taking a very close look at the expensive remodeling of Senator Ted Stevens' home. Agents are investigating corporate bribery and corruption in Alaska, but they said Senator Stevens himself is not a target.
Still to come this morning, Secret Service protection for your kids? How agents are helping keep America's kids safe. You are watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.
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CHETRY: Dealing with flight delays in the big apple, your quick hits now. The group that runs New York City's major airport is setting up a task force to try to speed up arrivals and departures. Kennedy, la Guardia and Newark Liberty rank among the worst in on-time performance.
Thieves took several thousand dollars and a gun from the driver of an armored truck in Miami Beach, Florida. The driver went into a Walgreens to deliver bags of money when he was robbed by two men in broad daylight. Police are now reviewing the surveillance video from inside of the store.
And talk about a cold-blooded marketing stunt down under, how about that, how about running into that when you are hang out in the park for the day? An Australian museum sent a staffer dressed up in a dinosaur suit roaming around Sydney trying to drum up business for a new exhibit and he also managed to surprise the lunch crowd and scare a few kids.
ROBERTS: As dino suits go, that was an excellent one. 56 minutes after the hour now, I feel like we are in a Monty Python skit because we're talking about spam.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I heard you guys talking about this guy who was arrested in Seattle. He's been dubbed by authorities the spam king. His name is Robert Solloway (ph), 27 years old. That's a picture of him in court. The "Seattle Post Intelligencer" has been doing some reporting on this. He's accused of sending, he's accused of 35 courts of fraud, money laundering and identity theft. He's pleaded not guilty to all of those charges, but some people say that he was sending billions, maybe tens of billions of spam e-mails a day. It goes back to what do you do about this? If he really was doing that or anybody's doing that, they take them out of the system, you are still getting billions. It's estimated that 80 percent of all Internet traffic is spam and 95 percent of my inbox is spam.
CHETRY: What is spam?
VELSHI: Unsolicited e-mail offering you some commercial service. But there are certain thresholds that make it spam. Some things you can get unsolicited because you signed up on some list. The idea here, Bill Gates and Microsoft have been working on an idea since 2001. His idea is that if postal mail were free, we would get nothing but mail. Why not charge senders for sending you e-mail, might be a penny an e- mail, it might be -- this is an interesting one a small mathematical computation that would take a few seconds. If you are sending billions of e-mails a day, the amount of computing power you would need to do a little computation before each e-mail would crush you and if want...
CHETRY: Those are all creative ways to get spam and unwanted junk mail down.
VELSHI: If I want e-mail from you guys, I could free you up from having to do that. But unsolicited e-mail, if you send lots of it, you have to do something.
ROBERTS: Some websites, you'll see before you type in -- you have to type in that little...
VELSHI: Because if you are using a computer to do that, it's going to take more computing power. It's going to become more expensive. Interesting.
CHETRY: It's a creative way to think (INAUDIBLE) It really is a pain for many people. Ali, that's cool. Thanks a lot.
We know the Simpsons live in Springfield, but where is Springfield?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
"THE SIMPSON: Will be revealed.
You can see the four states that border Springfield, Ohio, Nevada, Maine and Kentucky.
An empire will rise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, now 16 U.S. cities all named Springfield have agreed to take part in a nationwide contest. It's 1to promote the new "Simpsons" movie and the winner will be named as the cartoon family's official hometown, get a free preview screening of the film. Springfield, Minnesota though, they're saying no to that offer. The city manager says that unlike the fictional town Springfield, Springfield, Minnesota has no pollution, no waste dump and quote nobody misbehaving all the time.
ROBERTS: No sense of humor either.
Next hour of AMERICAN MORNING starts now.
CHETRY: Up in the air.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAWKINS: We had about five kids sitting right beside this man.
HILL: He owes quite a few people an apology.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Passengers speaking out about sharing a plane with a man infected with the deadliest form of tuberculosis. Plus, new questions, is America ready and able to guard against deadly germs?
And Secret Service protection for your kids? A new push from special agents to prepare for the unthinkable. On this AMERICAN MORNING.
Welcome back. It's Thursday, May 31st. I'm Kiran Chetry.
ROBERTS: And I'm John Roberts. Good morning to you. Good to see you again. Stories on our radar this morning, Fred Thompson quitting his job as an actor on "Law and Order" expected to get into the presidential race sometime at the beginning of July. How much will he shake things up in the race? Wolf Blitzer will join us live and we will also ask Wolf whether or not Fred could appear in our CNN debate.
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