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GM's Reaches Tentative New Deal With Workers; Is Child Pictured Missing British Girl Madeleine McCann?

Aired September 26, 2007 - 11:00   ET

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

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Heidi Collins. Developments keep coming into CNN NEWSROOM on Wednesday the 26th of September. Here's what's on the rundown. This man says he was forced to wear a bomb in a bank robbery. Police aren't so sure, though. We'll tell you why.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: GM's tentative new deal with workers, if approved, GM would shift retiree health care costs to the union.

COLLINS: Is this child missing British girl Madeleine McCann? You can barely see the picture there, but, boy, police experts are trying it find out. Puzzling picture, in the NEWSROOM.

HARRIS: Right off the top here, want to get you back to Fredricka Whitfield in the CNN NEWSROOM. Fred is following these amazing pictures out of Denton County, Texas. That's that whole Dallas Metroplex. And I'll leave it there because the pictures are amazing, Fred.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The Metroplex, I almost forgot about that. I used to live there. Well yes it's a nasty mess there on the 35-W particularly because this huge FedEx delivery truck, 18-wheeler, simply turned over. It happened about 3:45 in the morning local time. Remarkably, Tony, an update on the driver. We understand there to be no reported injuries.

So we understand he just might be, he or she, just might be okay. Meantime, this truck overturned sending all of the packages just kind of strewn about there on the road as well as in that median that you see right there. And if we were to pull out further on this new video that we've received, you'll see there's a ravine down below, too. So some of those packages being retrieved out of the water. We have seen some other updated images that show that there has been an effort under way to actually pick up a lot of those packages put them in the trucks that they just might be able to make it to their destinations close to being on time. But this is a situation here and it's caused quite the traffic headache there in the Metroplex area. The good thing out of all of this, no reported injury.

HARRIS: Driver's OK.

WHITFIELD: Yes. That's what we understand.

HARRIS: What about traffic? I don't know if we can get a wide shot here. These are not live pictures.

WHITFIELD: This is video but there was quite the backup there on the 35-W earlier as well as off a feeder, the 114, which is sort of parallel to this portion of the highway. It was pretty nasty for a while, pretty snarled up mostly because folks were rubber necking not because you know of the packages that were still on the roadway. They managed to kind of scoot those aside. But a real nightmare for morning rush hour.

HARRIS: They usually say nothing to see plenty see here. All right. Fred, good to talk to you. Thank you for that update.

WHITFIELD: OK.

COLLINS: We're following a bizarre story out of Florida. A bank robbed, an employee used as a weapon in the heist. Susan Candiotti has new some details in the case. Susan, what do you know?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, we are hearing more about what the man who said he was part of -- made to be part of the robbery, what he is telling police. We do know this, we now know the dollar amount of the money that was stolen from that bank. Police telling us it was more than $25,000. But now we're getting, for the first time, details about what police have learned from this man who had this apparent bomb strapped to his body.

Remember, they have been questioning him for, let's say, since 6:00 in the evening until 2:00 in the morning before finally letting him go home. Here's what he's saying. He told police that three masked men showed up at his house yesterday afternoon and questioned him about bank procedures.

Again, these are masked robbers he said he didn't recognize them couldn't give you a very good description. An hour into this questioning he said that his girlfriend came home and she became a part of sitting in on all of this. He said, at that point, these robbers strapped what he was told was a bomb to his body and then they made this man get into his car, sit in the driver's seat, made his girlfriend get into the passenger's side and one of the three masked robbers sat in the backseat, again, armed with a weapon. Then they made him drive over to the bank. He knocked on the door. Now this man is a bank vault employee. He went into -- this is a building adjacent to the main bank building where they have drive-thru business. He went inside and he went inside the vault and was given, again, more than $25,000.

Now, authorities tell us that they have no evidence that a silent alarm was sounded. They have no evidence of that. Nor was security alerted. They don't know why. However, the employees did call 911. And then, after the money was taken, the victim here walked outside, handed the money to the robber, one of the robbers, who took off on foot.

Now that's his story. That's what they were questioning him. And then as we all saw on camera, the authorities came up and took this device off his body and it was diffused. We don't know at this hour whether they were real explosives or not. So, the story continues to unfold.

Heidi.

COLLINS: Boy, I should say so. All right. Susan Candiotti working this one for us. Thanks so much, Susan.

Classes are back in session this morning at the University of Wisconsin. But police still have not found a man who had officers scrambling last night. Police received calls about gunshots and bomb threats. They believe it was all a hoax. A troubled 19-year-old's attempt to provoke a deadly shootout. But officers never found him. Some classes were canceled last night. Students told to stay in their rooms. Police don't believe the man they're looking for is on campus today but say he could still be in the Madison area.

HARRIS: While you were asleep, the nation's largest automaker appears to have ended a strike by its union workers attended at the old stops a two-day walkout at General Motors at least. They've got to ratify this deal. CNN's Ali Velshi in New York. Ali, if you would, walk us, talk us through this deal.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Here's what happened. They've been negotiating as you know for a few weeks and then on Sunday night the United Auto Workers told GM if we don't have a deal by Monday morning, we're walking. So at 11:00 they walked off the job. That caught a lot of people by surprise. They've been on strike for two days. And now it looks like they've got a deal, looks like GM got something it wanted and the UAW kind of got something it wanted.

Here's how it goes. GM gets to hand off the responsibility for dealing with the health care expenses of 340,000 people. These are former employees and their spouses. The union is now going to run the retiree health care trust. GM's going to put some money in some stock and they're going to try to fund about two-thirds of it. They're going to transfer money into it. The union will run it. The workers will get some lump sum payments in what they earn. Looks like there's going to be two tiers of salary, new earners -- new hires are going to earn less.

What the union wanted was guarantees that the company wouldn't close more factories and wouldn't outsource more jobs to China or Mexico or Canada. GM didn't give them that promise but GM said, because the union is taking over this health care fund, GM's going to save money. Because of that saving, it may be more inclined to try and save some factories or continue to invest in the United States. Sounds like it's what the union had to take, Tony. So that's what happened. What happens next, the union is recommending that its members vote for the contract, as you said, ratify it. It is in recess, the strike is in recess until they do so. If this contract is ratified, it's going to set the pattern for the UAW's negotiations with Ford and Chrysler, which should begin next week. It will start with one of the two and later this week we'll find out which one it picks and will try and have the same contract with those two companies.

HARRIS: So 73,000 workers and I don't know how many retirees all impacted by this new deal? VELSHI: Actually the number's going to be much bigger because, fundamentally, the contract will be the contract that some 180,000 workers, if you take the GM ones and the Chrysler and the Ford, and then I think if you add up retirees you're almost looking at 600,000 people. This deal is going to you know affect close to 1 million people very directly and then there are all of these other people who are in other unions or who have companies handling retirement health care who are probably affected by the outcome of this.

HARRIS: Ali Velshi for us this morning. Ali, great to see you. Thank you, sir.

VELSHI: You too.

HARRIS: Well, a single photo getting some international attention this morning. The question will it provide a break in the case of missing toddler Madeleine McCann? A couple vacationing in Morocco took the picture late last month. It appears to show a local woman carrying a little blond girl on her back walking along a road. Take a look at this. Experts are using forensic techniques to analyze the photo to figure out if it is Madeleine. The 4-year-old disappeared during a family vacation in Portugal in May. A family spokesman talked with our John Roberts on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."

CLARENCE MITCHELL, MCCANN FAMILY SPOKESMAN: This clearly it's possibly significant. It does, as you say, look like her. It is a digital image. It doesn't suffer expansion very well. You lose a little detail if you enlarge it and that is why technical experts, with the police, are now analyzing this material and they are keeping Gerry and Kate McCann fully informed of course.

HARRIS: The spokesman says Madeleine's parents don't plan to comment on the photo.

COLLINS: War dollars debate. The Bush administration expected to request more money today for the war in Iraq. The White House is asking Congress for another $42 billion. That's in addition to the $150 billion already requested for the fiscal year that begins on Monday. Much of the additional money would be used for mine resistant armored vehicles. They provide more protection against roadside bombs.

HARRIS: A senator tries to erase a sex sting plea. Larry Craig's lawyers make their case in front of a judge today.

COLLINS: Monks defy military leaders. A look what the led to the showdown on the streets in Myanmar.

HARRIS: From best-selling novel to upcoming Hollywood movie, real life kite runners are fighting for supremacy of the skies.

COLLINS: And a FedEx tractor trailer split in two. Look really closely. Might be one of your packages down there.

HARRIS: Heidi!

COLLINS: We know the driver's OK so we can make jokes now. We'll show you more video of this. Do you believe it? What a mess.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Welcome back, I'm Heidi Collins. You are in the CNN Newsroom. Monks bloodied after they stand up to the military and against an oppressive government.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

HARRIS: Reports of violence as Buddhist monks protest in Myanmar, a country formerly known as Burma. The opposition reports at least one monk shot dead.

CNN's Emily Chang reports on how it came to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EMILY CHANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The military has been in power in Myanmar for more than 40 years pursuing a Burmese form of socialism that has pushed the country toward economic ruin. These protests started when the government raised fuel prices sharply, even as it spends lavishly on building a new capital in the north of the country. Amid scattered protests in August, monks joined in, but one of their demonstrations was reportedly broken up by government agents. Thousands more than took to the street, demanding an apology from the government.

PATRICK CRONIN, INTL. INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES: The monks are revered by the average person in Burma because they represent a much more harmonious path, a true path, a way of life that is the ideal and for them to get involved means that there is a real problem inside the society.

CHANG: The government has historically responded to descent with force. Security forces killed more than 3,000 pro-democracy protesters in 1988. The leader of that movement has been under house arrest for most of the last 18 years.

AMARJIT SINGH, ASIA DIVISION, EXCLUSIVE ANALYST: There hasn't really been any issue in terms of protest in Myanmar because the reaction from the army can be very, very extreme.

CHANG: Fear has kept descent at bay until now.

CRONIN: Civil resistance throughout history, but certainly in recent decades, has proven to be an extraordinarily powerful force and so if you're in the military right now, you're very worried that what grew from 1,000, 10,000 to 50,000 to 100,000 you know may keep growing.

CHANG: Emily Chang, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: President Bush gets a progress report on the fight for Afghanistan. The president met this morning with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. President Bush praised the Afghan leader for strides made in education, women's rights and health care. Afghanistan is also battling remnants of the Taliban and a soaring opium trade.

On the domestic front the president's focus, education. He's pushing for renewal of the no child left behind law. The administration says new national test scores showing improvement in math are evidence the program is working. Critics say the law is too narrow and too focused on punitive measures.

HARRIS: Idaho Senator Larry Craig looking to reverse his guilty plea in an airport bathroom sex sting. His attorneys go before a Minnesota judge this afternoon.

CNN's Congressional correspondent Dana Bash is in Edina, Minnesota. Well, Dana, who gets to -- how do I ask this? Who gets a guilty plea overturned in America? I've got some friends, but that's another story. What are Craig's attorney planning to argue today?

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think to start to answer the first question, who gets a guilty plea overturned, not many people. That is why what Senator Craig's attorneys will try to do is such an uphill climb.

What they are going to argue before the judge that is it would be a manifest injustice, that is a legal term. They will be talking about here today, it will be a manifest injustice not to overturn Larry Craig's guilty plea because we heard him say publicly he maintains now he was actually innocence.

A couple of arguments if you read the senator's attorney's brief before the court what they are going to argue, first of all, that the senator was in a state of panic primarily because of an investigation in his hometown of Boise, that his state newspaper was looking into for months allegations, rumors that he was gay because he -- it was under stress and duress that is why his attorneys will argue he decided to plead guilty though he is innocent, they say.

And also, because the senator actually pleaded guilty by mail. He did not come here to Minnesota, appear in a court before a judge, and his attorneys will argue that he did not have the benefit of a judge really explaining the consequences of this guilty plea.

Now, we know from the brief that the prosecutor filed with this court, Tony that they say that this is simply not so, this is a case of buyer's remorse, the senator wants to overturn the guilty plea because it became public and it had devastating consequences for Senator Craig politically. The prosecutor has made in the brief, and we expect him in the court here in a few hours, to make several arguments against overturning the plea including the fact it would set a bad precedent that there are many guilty pleas in this court and others and that some who have engaged in this will say, wait a minute why is it OK for a United States senator to have his guilty plea overturned and not mine?

Also, the argument that the prosecutor has made in the brief before this court, Tony, is that this is the United States senator. It is his job to understand the law of the land and he, because of his background, should have known exactly what he was getting into when he signed that guilty plea.

HARRIS: He's a legislator. Dana Bash for us. Our Congressional correspondent Dana Bash, thank you.

COLLINS: Tracking polar bears, a thrilling arctic expedition. CNN's upcoming landmark documentary "Planet in Peril."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Solving problems on a global scale. That's the idea behind a gathering of some big names this morning in New York. The man behind the plan, former president, Bill Clinton. Our senior medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta is at the meeting. And earlier this morning I talked with him about finding answers to some of those really tough questions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I've been sort of fascinated by this whole idea for sometime. This idea that you really need to put in the same room, people who have money but also people who develop solutions and people who can give access as well to some of these problems to really be able to solve them. Even if the cure for AIDS, for example, came in a clean glass of water, how do you actually get it to people who need it the most? That's what happens at a place like this.

They also raise a lot of money. They have commitments for billions of dollars and you actually walk out of here with a commitment card saying I'm going to give so much money, I'm going to give so much time, I'm going to join such and such organizations. That's what's going on here today, Heidi.

COLLINS: Obviously, a very powerful combination. Sanjay, when we talk about the actual issue, children and children's health care, tell us about a little bit about some of the main issues are for children and what they're facing.

GUPTA: Well first of all, you know there has recently been some good news with regard to childhood mortality. For the first time in a long time, some of the numbers have actually gone down in terms of children under 5 specifically. Now still around the world, there are children dying every day of completely preventable diseases whether it be things like diarrhea from water-born illness or whether it be diseases that you can easily vaccinate against. It's happening in many places around the world in many places.

The question sort of comes back to what we were just talking about. How do you get some of those readily available and effective vaccines and actually put them into the arms and skin and blood of people who need it the most around the world. That is something they talk about a lot here as well. Poverty is a large part of this, there's no question in terms of not being able to actually afford this, it leads to malnutrition. It leads to unsafe drinking water practices, all sorts of different things that get discussed and hopefully specific solutions get talked about as well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: More than 1,000 world leads are in politic, health and business are a part of the global initiative this year.

To get your daily dose of health news online, you can always logon onto our website. You will find the latest medical news and also a picture of Sanjay, a health library and information on diet and fitness. The address CNN.com/health.

HARRIS: And still to come this morning, thousands of miles from home, strangers in Texas reach out to save the life of a Tibetan child.

COLLINS: A new air Nike coming out. And the company says, for the first time ever, it is targeting a specific race. Find out who the shoe fits.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Live in the CNN NEWSROOM, Tony Harris and Heidi Collins.

HARRIS: And coming up in the hour, welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Tony Harris.

COLLINS: Hi everybody. I'm Heidi Collins. The nation's largest automaker about to rev up again today. GM and its striking union come to terms on a tentative contract.

CNN's Kate Bolduan is in Warren, Michigan this morning for us. That's just outside Detroit. All right, so everybody's gone back to work, Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It looks like they are heading back to work. You can see behind me, Heidi, the picket lines are gone. Both parties calling this agreement historic. Now after a two- day work stoppage, thousands of UAW workers are heading back to work.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOULDAN (voice-over): A tentative agreement between United Auto Workers and General Motors has ended a two-day nationwide strike of 73,000 workers.

RON GETTELGINER, UAW PRESIDENT: A lot of hard work has went into it, and we successfully resolved a lot of difficult issues. This bargaining committee gave it their all under the leadership of vice president Kyle Rapsen (ph) and his staff. We feel very good about this tentative agreement. BOULDAN: The deal was reached shortly after 3:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and the UAW suspended the strike an hour later. Though details of the deal are being kept under wraps until workers vote on it later this week, GM did confirm that they finally agreed on one of the sticking points in negotiations, the future of medical benefits for UAW retirees. In the agreement, GM will shift control of retiree health care benefits to the UAW, paying billions into a fund for approximately 340,000 retired workers and their spouses.

HELEN SHAYA, UNION MEMBER: People fought for this for 40, 50 years, you know, and it's time for GM to wake up and realize that we want to go back to work, but give us what we're asking for.

BOULDAN: The deal is subject to approval by union members, but production is expected to resume at the nation's biggest automaker by Wednesday afternoon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOULDAN: Now the UAW members are expected to vote on this agreement this weekend. The union says it hopes to use this agreement as a model for its upcoming negotiations with Ford and Chrysler -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Yes, it will be really interesting to see how those go as well. All right, Bouldan, in Warren, Michigan this morning. Thank you, Kate.

HARRIS: War dollars debate. Defense Secretary Gates headed to Capitol Hill today to request billions more for the war in Iraq.

Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre joins us with details.

Jamie, good to see you.

Is this again war funding, or is this money for something specific?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is what the Pentagon calls the war on terror, but very generally, it's basically money for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they're asking for a significant increase over what was originally budgeted.

In fact, the new total for the fiscal year 2008 is about $190 billion. That will make 2008 the most expensive year of the war. It's up $42 billion over the original request. And that extra $42 billion includes $6 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That takes into account the end of the surge, as the troops draw down.

It also has another $11 billion for the MRAPs. That's to get 7,000 more MRAPs, the mine-resistant ambush protective vehicles, above the 8,000 they've already ordered. Also, $6 billion to train U.S. troops in the United States to get them ready to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, because that training has been lacking, and another billion dollars to train those Iraqi groups to do what they're supposed to be doing so the U.S. troops can come home.

Secretary Gates and the Joint Chief Chairman General Peter Pace will be appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee this afternoon to make this request formally and to lay out why the money is need -- Tony.

HARRIS: OK, Jamie McIntyre for us this morning. Jamie, appreciate it. Thank you.

COLLINS: Curfew in northern Iraq. It follows a string of deadly bombings. Iraqi police say at least 18 people were killed in attacks and around the city of Mosul. In one attack a suicide bomber struck a Sunni sheikh's house 60 miles from the city. The U.S. military blames the attacks on an expected surge in violence coinciding with the holy month of Ramadan.

In other news from Iraq, the military reported death of a U.S. soldier during combat in eastern Baghdad.

HARRIS: And let's quickly get you to Fredricka Whitfield in the CNN NEWSROOM following another breaking news story. Fred, a school evacuation in the Detroit area, is that correct?

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. It is, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in particular. And this very bizarre and unusual. Apparently a number of students fell ill at school this morning, feeling so sick that now a number of the students have actually been taken to the hospital. We understand that 40 kids in all have been overcome by an odor, but it seems right now, while hazardous-material teams are still surveying the situation there at this school, St. Hugo of the Hills School, they are ruling out right now any sort of carbon monoxide poisoning there at that school.

But alarmingly, we're hearing that while they have evacuated a number of the students there and taken a number of them to the hospital, we also saw many school businesses pulling up, presumably to take a lot of kids who were feeling well back home. So we have yet to find out exactly whether this school is being shut down entirely for the day, or if it's just a wing of the school. It's a fairly sizable campus. Many of the kids were actually taken to a nearby community college as well, perhaps because they need to process them or kind of assess a few things before they take them all the way home. But a very bizarre set of circumstances taking place there at Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

HARRIS: OK, Fred. Another bizarre story that we are following out of Florida this morning, police investigating a bank robbery, a bank employee involved. There he is. He say his was kidnapped and what looked like a bomb was taped to his chest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. TONY RODE, HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA POLICE: We're just at this point now where we have an opportunity to do an extensive interview of the bank employee to see if in fact, number one, is this legit? Is this all a hoax? Is he truly a victim? Did he somehow, some way participate in this alleged bank robbery that apparently, you know, procured an enormous amount of money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: What we do know is police used a robot to remove the device from the man and blow it up. They questioned him and his girlfriend until early this morning, and then released them.

COLLINS: Such a weird story.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: Well, a Tibetan child thousands of miles from home, strangers in Texas work to save his life.

Matt Flener of affiliate KXAN has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT FLENER, KXAN REPORTER: At the first sight of his heartbeat, the first sounds.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The is called an atrial subtle defect.

FLENER: In a language foreign to him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's where the hole is.

FLENER: You'd think this 11-year-old would be afraid.

(on camera): Are you afraid?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a unique story.

FLENER (voice-over): Norbu Toku (ph) was born with a hole in his heart.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of congenital heart defects, this is a relatively common one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's his atrial subtle defect.

FLENER: He needed a surgery, and they couldn't do it in his home country.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am seeing this patient as part of the Heart Gift program.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hear gift basically bringing children born with heart defects in areas of the world without medical care to the United States for surgery.

For four hours Norbu will feel nothing as doctors patch his heart, a patch that will cost him nothing.

LISA RODMAN, HEARTGIFT EXEC. DIR.: If you were to have this surgery as a private patient, well over $150,000.

FLENER: But who can put a price on the heart of a monk?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In his heart there is a hole.

DR. KAREN WRIGHT, CARDIOLOGIST: In a larger defect like this one, over time, you can start to develop irreversible changes, if the surgery or an invention is not done to address that.

FLENER: Better yet, try and put a price on a 11-year-old.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I pray, I pray that my heart should be OK.

WRIGHT: I am very confident that we will be able to help this young man return to an absolutely normal lifestyle.

FLENER: Matt Flener, KXAN, Austin News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. When NEWSROOM returns, I'll talk about why health care was such an important issue for the United Auto Workers. Details, next.

You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Air Nike goes Air Native American. The athletic shoe company promoting physical fitness in a population with high obesity rates. Details from Stephanie Strickland of affiliate KGW.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANIE STRICKLAND, KGW REPORTER (voice-over): It's part of a Nike campus few get to see. Top secret Nike sports research lab opening its doors for select media and others.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I put a triad on my thigh ...

STRICKLAND: Nike's showcasing a new product developed right here in the same room where you might just find a Lebron or a Federer testing things out. But this product isn't for a multi-million dollar mega-athlete. Instead, it's for an entire community of people, underserved in many respects, Native Americans.

This is the new Nike Air Native N7 shoe. Starting with the aesthetics, it comes complete with subtle cultural cues, colors to represent sunrise to sunset, a circle with spiritual connotations, even the number 7, sacred to some. The driving force behind this: Nike's Sam McCracken.

SAM MCCRACKEN, NIKE NATIVE AMER. BUSINESS PROG.: My mom was stricken with Type 2 Diabetes and went into a diabetic coma in 2001, and passed away 12 days later. So, it's very personal to me, the complications of diabetes with native people all across the U.S.

STRICKLAND: And while a shoe is not a cure-all for anything, the program is a step in a novel, new direction. While Nike has long made a push to work with Native American tribes, this is a first, even for it. After traveling to tribes across the U.S., making more than 200 highly accurate foot scans like this, Nike specially tailored the shoe to fit the unique foot of Native Americans.

DR. RODNEY STAPP, CONSULTING PODIATRIST: Native Americans forefoot is a little bit wider than average. Their rear foot is about average, so it kind of makes it triangular.

STRICKLAND: Meaning it's typically hard to get a good fit, until now. More than 140 tribes will get these special shoes at steep discounts, offering to members foot ware that they otherwise can't just go out and buy. The shoe should fit better, feel better and perform better. All in the hopes of encouraging an active and healthy lifestyle.

MCCRACKEN: I'm hoping this product will really be a point of inspiration for the community to become more physically active.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Well, Nike says all of the profits from the sale of the shoe will be reinvested in health programs for Native Americans.

COLLINS: A major part of General Motors/United Auto Workers agreement reached this morning in something called a veba, which begs the question, what's a veba?

Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange to tell us more about that. I know what a vespa is, not a veba.

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

HARRIS: "YOUR WORLD TODAY" coming up at the top of the hour about 13, 12 minutes away. Colleen McEdwards is standing by with a preview.

Colleen, good morning.

COLLEN MCEDWARDS, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hey, good morning, Tony, Heidi. Nice to see you guys.

We are going to be covering the situation in Myanmar. You know, we're watching this really closely because it looks like the military government is starting to crack down on those monks that have been in the streets. We're going to have a Nobel prize winner on the program to talk about the situation. She's actually met with one of Myanmar's top dissidents who was a Nobel prize winner in and of her -- in her own right. So, that should be interesting.

Also, the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki is getting set in the next little while to speak at the United Nations. But you know what, maybe his side meetings that he's having with George W. Bush that are the more interesting development here. So, we'll take a look at that.

Also, want to show you a new campaign in Italy that is aimed at the fashion industry. And I think we've got a picture of it here. Some absolutely shocking, disturbing images, and I don't want to give the whole thing away here by showing you too many of them. So, you want to tune in at noon to see. This is aimed at the fashion industry, aimed at those super skinny models, aimed at fighting anorexia. And you got to see the images they're using to get people's attention. It's just unbelievable, you guys.

HARRIS: All right, Colleen ...

MCEDWARDS: Yes.

HARRIS: ...see you at the top of the hour. Appreciate it, thank you.

MCEDWARDS: OK.

HARRIS: Location, location, location. How about this? Where can you get that for?

COLLINS: That's a bad location.

HARRIS: That is not where you want to be, the house right on the freeway. Actually, yes, right on the freeway. Only in Hollyweird. The story coming up in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: "Planet in Peril," an incredible project here at CNN. Our cameras span the globe, part of an upcoming documentary hosted by Anderson Cooper. Here's an excerpt now with Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin.

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JEFF CORWIN, WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST: Searching for polar bears in northeastern Alaska isn't like looking for a needle in the haystack -- it's like looking for a haystack-colored needle in a haystack.

We have incredible terrain of ice that seeps to almost go on forever. And somewhere hidden in this ice, on this white reflective snow and ice, is a white creature that we need to catch up with.

Steve Andstra (ph), a while life biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey has been doing this for 26 years, trying to learn all he can about what polar bears can tell us about global warming.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a nice lead here that we might be able to pick up footprints on.

CORWIN: His eyes are keenly trained to find what seems impossible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See the tracks going across there? CORWIN: Oh, my goodness. Look at that, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See one big set of tracks and two smaller tracks.

CORWIN: We've got a family group.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CORWIN: However, finding the tracks is only the beginning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They did 180-degree turn here, 12:00, right off the nose.

CORWIN: Our helicopter hugs the ground as we trace the footprint through the snowy expanse, over the rubbled ice. Until finally we spot them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see the tracks are going along there, up along -- and there's a bear right there.

CORWIN: This is what it's all about right here. We have the sow. She has cubs alongside. And now we're going to move in and you're about see something absolutely incredible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Straight across. Looking good. We're right on them.

CORWIN: Andstra loads the tranquilizer dart into the gun as we circle low over the mother bear, to make sure we don't scare her away from her cubs. Then we lift up, and she takes off, racing across the ice. Our helicopter lowers down within feet of her, and Andstra hanging from the side of his window, aims and takes his shot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Wow. If you'd like to get clips online of CNN's "Planet in Peril" before it begins, you can do that. Just download the "AC360" podcast. Go to CNN.com/planetinperil to download it right now.

HARRIS: Monks bloodied after they stand up to the military and against an oppressive government.

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HARRIS: If you live in Los Angeles, you got to admit, there's strange things that happen out there sometimes. Hollywood freeway. There it is, the house, finally out of the way. Movers picked it up last night. The house had become quite a sight for drivers during 11 days it sat on the side of the road. The owner was trying to save money by moving it himself, but his trailer kept breaking down, so there it sat. Now he'll be getting a moving bill from the state.

COLLINS: CNN NEWSROOM continues one hour from now.

HARRIS: "YOUR WORLD TODAY" is next with news happening across the globe and here at home. I'm Tony Harris.

COLLINS: Bye, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins. We'll see you tomorrow.

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