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American Morning
Gore Wins Peace Prize; Husband's Frantic Calls; Stock Market Roller Coaster; Student Arsenal; Minding Your Business
Aired October 12, 2007 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news. Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared by IPCC and Albert Arnold "Al" Gore Jr.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Recognized for his work on climate change.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AL GORE, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: The arctic is experiencing fast (INAUDIBLE) melt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The announcement, the reaction and the speculation about his future plans on this AMERICAN MORNING.
And good morning to you on this auspicious Friday, the 12th of October. I'm John Roberts/
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Thanks for being with us.
Just in, Al Gore awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It happened just an hour ago. He shares the price with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their efforts to raise awareness about climate change and for laying the foundation to do something about it. Here's the announcement from Oslo, Norway.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared in two equal parts between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, and Albert Arnold "Al" Gore Jr., for their efforts to gain and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to relay (ph) the conditions for the measures of (INAUDIBLE) to (INAUDIBLE) such . . .
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: John Dickerson is a CNN political analyst and chief political analyst for slate.come. He joins me this morning.
Hi, John. Good to see you.
JOHN DICKERSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.
CHETRY: What do you think the reaction's going to be from his former political colleagues on the news that Al Gore won the Peace Prize?
DICKERSON: Well, there are lots of people who will be delighted and they'll note that the Supreme Court won't have anything to say about this one. So there will be a lot of end zone dancing. The question is, whether it will mean anything for his presidential chances. And one of his close people I talked to last night said that they don't think this will change anything. But that, of course, was before the news came about.
CHETRY: You know, it's interesting, how do you think former President Bill Clinton is reacting this morning? He was gunning for the peace prize, many say.
DICKERSON: Well, you know, who knows? That's a very complex relationship that we don't get a chance to see inside of. I think, you know, Clinton still has a chance, I guess.
CHETRY: That's right, especially with the Global Initiative, right?
There's an opinion piece in "The Telegraph" written because he certainly has his share of critics as well. It was written right before the announcement saying, if he should win, and the article was highly critical of the Peace Prize going to Al Gore. In fact, this op-ed said, "climate change is a threat to the environment, not to peace and international order. The prize has gone so some sleazy recipients in the past, but at least you can make the case that their actions staved off bloodshed." Will critics seize upon the fact that perhaps he didn't deserve to win the Peace Prize for environmental activism?
DICKERSON: Well, I suppose critic will seize on anything. I think the Nobel Peace Prize is a pretty stable and unassailable prize for one to win. And so while I'm sure there will be plenty of critics, for Gore, who has had a pretty rough up and down in his political career, this seems like a win that's pretty hard to take away from him.
CHETRY: You know, and, in fact, could it lead perhaps to a persuasion, a louder persuasion for him to actually run for president. Here's one interesting thing. This was an ad in Wednesday's New York Times that said, "your country needs you now, as do your party and planet you're fighting so hard to save." Any chance we'll see Al Gore jump into the race?
DICKERSON: Well, you know, politicians, it's usually in a room of 100 people, they'll listen to the one person who tells them to run and ignore the 99. Gore is in the other position here, where he might have lots and lots of people telling him to run and he ignores him.
The advisor I talked to last night said, look, this only puts more emphasis on the issue that he was trying to bring forward and so he'll channel this victory back into discussion of global warming. Who knows, though, you know. This is a huge moment. Lots of people will be calling for him to get into the race. And it's pretty hard to guess what he'll do.
CHETRY: All right. John Dickerson, always great to see you. Thanks.
DICKERSON: Thank you.
CHETRY: By the way, we just got a statement from Al Gore moments ago. He says, "I'm deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it's a moral and spiritual challenge to all humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level." Again, that was Al Gore weighing in on the news that he won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning.
ROBERTS: Al Gore's activism on the environment began long before "An Inconvenient Truth" came about and so did the criticism. I asked him about that when we spoke back in July.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Back in 1992 in the campaign, George Bush Sr. referred to you as ozone man. And there are still a lot of critics out there of you, saying that you're too alarmist about the environment. Are you ever going to be able to win those people over?
AL GORE, "AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH": I hope so. It's not a political issue. It really is a moral issue. And it is hard to think about this because nothing in our prior history prepares us for the fact that we have this new relationship to the earth.
We have quadrupled human population in less than a century. We're using these very powerful technologies to exploit the earth now. We're putting 70 million tons of global warming pollution every day into the earth's atmosphere, as if it's an open sewer.
And of course it's having the effect that the scientists have long told us it would. The north pole is melting. It could be gone in 35 years unless we act. There's an area of snow the size of California in Antarctica, near the South Pole, that's been melting. These and many other -- well, look they predicted . . .
ROBERTS: Although there are some people who say that the snow pack is actually increasing in Antarctica.
GORE: Well, no, actually it was long predicted in Antarctica that the increased evaporation from a warmer ocean would cause more snowfall in the interior. But there's now new evidence showing that it's a negative balance evening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Al Gore talking to us here on AMERICAN MORNING from the 6th of July. That was on the eve of the Live Earth Concerts.
We'll have more coverage this morning on Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. We'll talk to people in this country and around the world. And interesting to note as well that there is a judge in England who says there are nine things wrong with "An Inconvenient Truth" and that when that film is shown in schools, the teachers should illuminate those what he calls errors to their students. So a lot more coming up on this morning on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.
Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Well now to a CNN exclusive. 911 tapes from the night that Carol Anne Gotbaum died in custody at the Phoenix Airport. Her husband, Noah, was frantically calling airport emergency services to warn them that his wife was suicidal and alcoholic. But neither the police, nor the 911 dispatcher, would tell him that his wife was already dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COMMUNICATIONS: Communication. This is Mark.
GEHLBACH: Rick Gehlbach back.
COMMUNICATIONS: Hey, I've got Noah Gotbaum, the subject's husband, on the line.
GEHLBACH: OK.
COMMUNICATIONS: Looking for her. OK. You going to talk to him?
GEHLBACH: Uh, you know, I want somebody who's professional to be talking to him and not just blow it to him over the phone because I don't know how hel'll react.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: And AMERICAN MORNING's Alina Cho has been on this case. She has obtained a lot of exclusives in this case, including this tape.
Boy, and you can just tell, no one wants to say anything to him about the news that his wife already died.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And interesting enough, Kiran, they never did. You know, the family of Carol Gotbaum, we should mention, is also speaking exclusively to CNN. We're going to get to that in just a moment. But first what you're about to hear is the desperate voice of Noah Gotbaum, frantically trying to get in touch with police to tell them his wife was emotionally disturbed and need to be treated with kid gloves. What he didn't know at the time, as you mentioned just a moment ago, was that his beloved wife, Carol, had already died, shackled and alone in a holding cell. In fact, by the time her husband was calling, she had already been dead an hour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MR. GOTBAUM: They are waiting for her down in Cottonwood . . .
COMMUNICATIONS: OK.
MR. GOTBAUM: At the rehab center down there.
COMMUNICATIONS: OK.
MR. GOTBAUM: She is suicidal. Uh, obviously, she is, uh, she has been -- she is, uh, uh, alcohol abusive.
COMMUNICATIONS: Uh-hum.
MR. GOTBAUM: But she is also in deep depression and, um, the police have to understand that they're not dealing with someone who's been just drinking on a flight and . . .
COMMUNICATIONS: Right.
MR. GOTBAUM: Acting rowdy. That's not what's going on here.
COMMUNICATIONS: OK. Yeah, I think somebody talked to the other dispatcher on that earlier and we passed along that information.
MR. GOTBAUM: Well, but, again, I have not heard anything back.
COMMUNICATIONS: Yeah, I don't know, you know, unfortunately . . .
MR. GOTBAUM: It concerns me, Mike, that they have not called me. That they're just dealing with her. That she is all alone.
COMMUNICATIONS: Uh-hum.
MR. GOTBAUM: OK? Because, um, she should not be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: Now what is key here is that the airport and police both knew that Carol Gotbaum was dead already but they weren't telling Noah. Phoenix police tell CNN, that's because proper protocol is to finish the preliminary investigation before notifying next of kin.
Now also this morning, for the first time, the family of Noah Gotbaum is speaking out extensively about exactly who she was and how they believe she was manhandled by police.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG MULLER, CAROL GOTBAUM'S BROTHER-IN-LAW: I think the manner in which she was treated was inhumane, you know. She was shackled like a criminal and she was really just crying out for help.
CHO: When you see that surveillance video, what goes through your mind?
MULLER: What I think is that Carol must have been so desperate. So desperate. And in my heart what I believe is that she was -- it was a cry for help. She believed she needed to get onto that airplane for the sake of her children, to get help for the struggle she was going through, and she was prepared to do that at any cost.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: Now police have maintained Gotbaum accidentally strangled herself while trying to escape from the handcuffs. This happened exactly two weeks ago. Kiran, we're going to have much more throughout the morning on this story and tonight on "Anderson Cooper 360."
CHETRY: All right, Alina, thank you.
John.
ROBERTS: Nine minutes after the hour now. Other headlines new this morning. A 14-year-old boy is to appear in juvenile court today in Philadelphia to face charges of plotting a Columbine-style attack at a high school in Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania. Police showed off the weapons arsenal found in the teen's bedroom. Some 30 air- powered BB guns, swords, knives and hand grenades. One of them apparently active. A video about Columbine and a .9 millimeter semiautomatic assault rifle that authorities say his mother bought for him at a gun show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRUCE CASTOR, MONTGOMERY CO. DISTRICT ATTORNEY: People don't always use good sense and I think that that's what you have here. My suspicion is that we're going to find that the parents have a great deal of answering to do for permitting this to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The boy's parents could face criminal charges. Police say the teen used to attend a middle school in the area but had been home schooled for the past 18 months. Police say he tried to recruit another boy for the attack and that that boy tipped them off to the plan.
One of the Jena Six teens is back in jail today. Mychal Bell sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention facility. A judge ruled the fight that put Bell in the national spotlight violated his probation agreement for earlier convictions. Bell and five other black teenagers were charged with attempted murder for that attack on a white classmate. Critics protested saying that the charges were excessive.
CHETRY: Also new this morning, you can add beef now to the chicken and turkey pot pies previously linked to salmonella cases nationwide. And after ConAgra Foods first issued a consumer alert for those Banquet pies, they are now officially recalling them today. ConAgra says customers should throw the pot pies away and send the package to the company for a refund.
Also concern about high levels of red in lipstick. A consumer group called Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found lead in half of the 33 big names of lipstick tested. And those include bit names like L'Oreal, Cover Girl and Christian Dior. There is no federal standard for acceptable lead level in lipstick.
And lead again, this time in paint, behind another recall of 70,000 toys sold by JC Penney, including Chinese made Winnie The Pooh playsets. This is the fifth major recall of products because of excessive lead paint since the beginning of summer. You can find a full list of all these recalled products on our website, cnn.com/am.
John.
ROBERTS: Time to check in now with our AMERICAN MORNING team of correspondents for other stories new that we're following this morning.
Stocks closed lower on Thursday after a roller coaster of a ride. Stephanie Elam in for Ali Velshi at our business update desk.
And how are things looking for today, Stephanie?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're still gaging how everything's going to shake out after yesterday, John. At one point the Dow was up as much as 120 points and then it was down as much as 120 points on the Dow. We even hit a new intraday high during that early part of the session.
But in the end, it was the tech sector that actually caused for the selloff. The Nasdaq actually losing 1.4 percent on the day. So as you can see, the Dow off 63 points and Nasdaq losing 39 points.
What also did not help yesterday were oil prices. Oil prices jumped $2 a barrel yesterday, coming close actually to their all-time high of $83.90. But as you can see, hitting $83.08 yesterday.
Surprise drop in U.S. crude inventories played a part. Also a strike at Chevrons operations in Nigeria. And there was a fire in Alaska at an oil field there. It's actually the fifth fire in two months. That played a part as well in oil prices. All of that factoring in to the loss that we saw yesterday.
Also, we have some more economic data coming out today that we'll be keeping our eyes on.
Back to you, John.
ROBERTS: Look forward to your reporting on that.
Stephanie Elam for us this morning, thanks very much. Rob Marciano is on assignment this morning. Reynolds Wolf is in for him at the CNN weather desk, tracking some extreme weather. Heavy rain in the northeast.
Reynolds, I had to wear my spiffy CNN rain jacket into work today for the first time in weeks.
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: Well, if you're just joining us this morning, there is some big news while you were sleeping. Former Vice President Al Gore awarded the Nobel Peace Price, along with a U.N. panel, for their efforts to spread awareness about climate change. We'll be following this story all morning long. And we want to hear what you think about it. Did Al Gore deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Cast your vote, cnn.com/am. We'll have results all throughout the show today.
And still ahead, a teenager accused of plotting a Columbine-style massacre. Those weapons found in this kid's bedroom. Police say guns, knives, hand grenades all in plain sight and some new questions this morning for the boy's parents. Will they be charged as well? We're going to talk more about this potentially deadly plot ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the most news in the morning here on CNN.
New pictures of a deadly mudslide in Costa Rica. At least four people were killed when a hillside gave way. Rescue workers using heavy machines are sniffer dogs are searching for at least 14 missing families. Some homes are completely buried.
And check out this picture of a boat on its side near Long Beach Island, New Jersey. The Karen Ell (ph) was on its way back from a scallop run when it ran aground in a sandbar. Two people were on board the 57 foot fishing board when it started to list. They jumped in the water and were rescued by nearby boaters.
And this picture comes to us from a terrorism drill. A department store in Seoul, South Korea. As part of the exercise, citizens had to escape from chemical materials and red smoke meant to mimic a terrorist attack.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, a 14-year-old boy in a Philadelphia suburb is accused of plotting an attack on his high school. His local high school. Police search the boys room after they were tipped off by another boy that he tried to recruited to be part of the plan.
And check out what they found, 30 different air rifles, or BB guns, swords, knives, hand grenades, four of which were active, a bomb making book, videos of the 1999 Columbine attack and violence-filled notebooks all in his room. Much of it in plain sight. Police also found a .9 millimeter assault rifle in the house. It had no ammunition. The boy's mother recently bought that rifle for him, according to reports.
Joining me now, former prosecutor and AMERICAN MORNING legal contributor Sunny Hostin joins us now.
Seems like we've been talking about school violence over the past couple of days with what happened in Cleveland as well. But in what cases are parents also legally liable? In this case it looks like the parents did know that he had this in his room because of the reports that his mother actually bought him the assault rifle.
SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actually bought it for him. It's really unbelievable.
But this notion of parental responsibility for a child's crime is nothing new. Typically you see parents being held responsible if their child breaks a neighbor's window, property damage, and a parents will have to pay for that. Seventy-five percent of people really believe the parents should be held responsible if their child commits a violent crime. But that has to be legislated in most states and that is not necessarily the case.
I think what we're going to see in this case is that she's, the mother who purchased this rifle, is going to be held responsible for her conduct. Maybe contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, which you've seen before in the law, or perhaps purchasing this gun and -- but her son did not commit the crime but was certainly planning it. And there really is a movement to holding parents responsible for their child's actions. And it's a movement that has a lot of teeth and I think we're going to see a lot more because of these high profile cases.
CHETRY: Yes, and I think that the prosecutors are considering some charges against the parents. But, as you said, it would be for their actions, buying the gun, perhaps not for what their son was planning.
HOSTIN: That's right. That's right.
CHETRY: Let's talk about something else that's really interesting. This is a new study that just came out from the Department of Justice, taking a look at deaths in custody. Meaning when people were arrested, there were over 2,000 suspects died in custody nationwide. This was over a three-year period. The report says that during the same period as those 2,000 deaths, there were 40 million arrests. So it really is a very, very small amount. But at the same time, it's interesting to take a look at, you know, exactly how these suspects died in custody. More than 50 percent were at the hands of at resting officers.
HOSTIN: That's right. More than -- actually I think it was 55 percent, which is really not that unusual, because you figure arrests are very confrontational. And of those -- of that 55 percent, 80 percent involved arrestees having weapons, attacking the police officers, the arresting officers or attempting to flee. Only 13 percent out of the 2,000, and remember, as you said, 40 million -- out of 40 million arrests, only 13 percent involved alcohol or drug intoxication. And so what we saw in Arizona which is, you know, front page news, is really, really unusual.
CHETRY: The Gotbaum case you're saying at the airport.
HOSTIN: That's right.
CHETRY: Yes, what are we to take away from these numbers that come out?
HOSTIN: Well, I have to say, the takeaway really is that a small percentage of arrests lead to death and a very, very small percentage of those arrests involve intoxication or alcohol use. And so our law enforcement officers are, by all accounts, really doing the right thing. They're trained properly. We can always do better. But by the Department of Justice's report, they're doing fairly well.
CHETRY: Forty million arrests. That was a big number, too.
HOSTIN: A huge number.
CHETRY: Sunny Hostin, always great to see you. Thanks for being with us.
HOSTIN: Thank you.
CHETRY: John.
ROBERTS: America's income gap is now wider than ever. The wealthiest America's share of nation income hits a post-war record. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
And maybe you really do have the chocolate bug. A new study says that there's a reason chocolate cravings sometimes feel as if they're coming from deep in your stomach. We'll tell you why, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up now to 27 minutes after the hour. Stephanie Elam in for Ali Velshi, "Minding Your Business" for you today.
Good morning to you, Steph.
ELAM: Good morning.
We're talking about the income inequality. We're taking a look at the Internal Revenue Service releasing data for 2005. And take a look at this. It says the top earners, if you look at this, the wealthiest 1 percent earned more than 21 percent of national income. Compare that to the bottom 50 percent earned, just 12.8 percent. So you're looking at a very wide gap here.
This is actually up from 2004 for the wealthiest. They were actually 19 percent of the income for that year. And then it beats the previous high of 21 percent, which was back in 2000. Obviously that was at the tech boom at that time.
So they're looking at the discrepancies here. And part of the reason why they're saying this is happening is because of the technological changes and a lot of the globalization favors those who can go out and be the stars in whatever their field is.
ROBERTS: Great. Steph, thanks. We'll see you around soon.
ELAM: Sounds good.
ROBERTS: A story coming up in our next half hour now that you just can't miss. You've got to look at this at this one.
CHETRY: Yes, this is video from the game. This was certainly a trashy opener for the National League Championship Series. It was the Colorado Rockies at the Arizona Diamondbacks. And there was a call that didn't please some of the fans.
ROBERTS: Bottom of the seventh inning.
CHETRY: And . . .
ROBERTS: Took out the trash. Everybody became a pitcher that night. It delayed the game for eight whole minutes. We're going to have more on that and the day's headlines when AMERICAN MORNING returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Welcome back. It is Friday, October 12th. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Good morning to you, I'm John Roberts.
Breaking news this morning. Former Vice President Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Gore shares the prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
What this will mean for the former vice president politically is still a mystery at this point. That mystery will certainly fuel speculation that Gore may enter the 2008 presidential race, even though it is fairly late in the game.
For more on what Gore might do, we turn it our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider. He joins us on the telephone from Washington.
Bill, what kind of impact could you possibly see this having on Gore's intentions to enter the 2008 race?
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He says publicly many times he has no intention of running for president, and he has no plans to be a candidate again, but there is a draft-Gore committee, draftGore.com. They took out a full page ad in the "New York Times." They've collected over 100,000 signatures from people who want Gore to run. They're going to take a radio ad in Florida.
This will probably add to the pressure on Gore from rank and file Democrats who, despite his lack of intention to run, they're pressuring him to get into the race. And I think that pressure will accelerate rapidly with this prize.
ROBERTS: There was the full page ad in the "New York Times" this week. There's word that Gore's got the ambition to run, thinks he could do it and be successful but doesn't really want to take on the Hillary Clinton machine. If he saw some sort of a stumble on her part, that he might do it, but so far she's been almost flawless in her campaign and not showing any cracks at all that he could drive through.
LAWRENCE: That's right. If he were to run for president, there would be -- he and Hillary Clinton would be competing in the same gene pool, so to speak, for president, because they both come out of the Clinton administration. He was Bill Clinton's vice president. She of course is Bill Clinton's wife, and they'd be looking for the same kind of talent.
She has built a formidable machine and she's moved into the front-runner position in the Democratic Party. There really would be something like the Civil War in the Democratic Party. If there were some inexplicable problem, she had a bad mistake, if she faltered, I think Democrats would probably turn to Al Gore because their argument is, of course he's electable. He's been elected in their view.
ROBERTS: If you were a betting man, Bill, what would you expect he would do right now?
SCHNEIDER: Right now, I think he would continue doing what's he doing, and say he has no interest in running, but I expect the interest in him and the pressure on him to increase quite a bit because of this.
ROBERTS: Bill Schneider, for us from Washington. Thanks for your perspective. Good to talk to you.
Just a few minutes ago we received a statement from Al Gore. He said, quote, "I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. We place a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue. It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level"
Gore says, by the way, he's going to donate of his half of the $1.5 million prize that comes with the gold medal giving it to the Alliance for Climate Protection.
Kiran?
CHETRY: Also new this morning, Turkey recalling its ambassador to the U.S. and threatening more serious action over a House committee's genocide vote. Turkey is hinting a cut off of the main U.S. military supply route to Iraq and talking about a military operation into northern Iraq. They're warning the full House not to pass a resolution that would condemn them for the mass killing of Armenians 90 years ago.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are in Moscow today. They're going to be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin later. The U.S. is concerned Putin is planning to hold on to power when his presidency ends by trying to become prime minister.
There's a ceremony this morning to honor the 202 people killed in the nightclub bombings in Bali five years ago. There ceremony held in the gardens of the Australian consulate there. 88 of the victims were Australian. Three Islamic militants are on death row in Indonesia for their role in the bombings.
ROBERTS: Recovery operations on the plane that crashed in Washington State will begin later today, but it could be months before investigators find out exactly what caused the crash. The Cessna crashed on Sunday, killing all ten people on board.
In Los Angeles, two men face murder charges for a road rage crash that killed a mother and her two children this week. Police say the suspects were arguing and driving recklessly at speeds of up to 90 miles an hour when one of them slammed into a parked car. That car plowed into the vehicle carrying the three victims. The two men are being held on $1 million bond until their arraignment next week.
FEMA is preparing for disaster my making so-called base plans for a handful of calamities, including devastating earthquakes in San Francisco and St. Louis, and plans for a category 5 hurricane hitting south Florida or Hawaii. FEMA has been taken to task for not having disaster plans in place. That's been left up to states in the past.
Kiran?
CHETRY: It was the first game of the National Championship Series and it was marched by a controversial call and then some misbehaving fans. The trouble started in the sixth inning when Justin Upton of the Arizona Diamondbacks was called for interference for a hard fly into Rockies' Kazuo Matsui. Diamondback fans started throwing bottles and other garbage onto the field. And the Rockies manager pulled his players off the field and the game was delayed for several minutes. There you see a few of the water bottles they're picking up. Didn't look like it was that big of a mess, but it did stop the game for several minutes there. When it resumed the Rockies ended up winning 5-1. So they take the first game in the National League Championship Series.
ROBERTS: An irreverent view on politics and lots of other things from Stephen Colbert on "Larry King" last night. One of the topics Colbert discussed was the bathroom incident involving Senator Larry Craig.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": Would you invite Senator Larry Craig on?
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE COLBERT REPORT": Absolutely, in a minute. He's a Senator, you know, and my character supports him.
KING: Supports him?
COLBERT: Absolutely.
KING: You like him?
COLBERT: Well, he's an oppressed minority. He's an openly gay man who...
KING: He's not openly gay.
COLBERT: He's openly gay. He used gay code. One, he said, "I am not gay." He's gay. It's well known...
KING: That's the gay code?
COLBERT: That's the gay code. Actually, the best way to prove that you are not gay is to say, "I am so gay." Larry, are you gay?
KING: No.
COLBERT: Loud and clear, sir, loud and clear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Colbert has a new book out, reflecting his trademarked mangled syntax called, "I am America and So Can You."
CHETRY: Thank you for that.
There's a scientific explanation apparently for chocolate cravings. Researchers say bacteria in the digestive system triggers the desire for chocolate. In fact, they found that chocoholics had different compositions in bacteria than those who are immune to chocolate's allure. The study could eventually lead to new treatments for some types of obesity.
ROBERTS: I am chocolate and so can you.
A Democrat under fire for recommending his aide get shots before going to a NASCAR race. That's ahead on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. I was looking at them, they're so cute. The Crawling Baby Derby topping your "Quick Hits" now. It is the Babies "R" Us Derby. It takes place in Manhattan where crawling babies participate in a 100-yard dash as their moms scream furiously on the opposite side, "Come on. Come on." The event is a preview for the American Baby Fair in Long Island. They say all babies are encouraged to enter the race. There she is, ahead of the pack. What are they putting, like, blackberries and handheld devices to lure the babies to crawl?
Here's another gorgeous picture a panda bear, but it's really a hot air balloon. It's one of the hundreds of balloons filling the skies at the International Balloon Fiesta. It takes place every year in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They had flying bears, a bunny, turtle, in the skies over Albuquerque. There you see the bunny ears. The festival takes place through Sunday.
It's not just humans that are gearing up for Halloween. The gorillas at the Cincinnati Zoo are already trick or treating. There's a shot of one of the big silverbacks. He's playing with a ghost filled with Halloween treats. They say, no, it's not candy. Its healthy treats that the zookeepers give the gorillas. How about that one?
42 minutes past the hour now. Reynolds Wolf in for Rob Marciano today, at the CNN Weather Desk tracking extreme weather.
And, boy, we had some extreme weather in these parts, a brief tornado warning for parts of Long Island yesterday.
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right.
(WEATHER REPORT)
WOLF: Let's send it back to you in New York.
CHETRY: Reynolds, thank you.
John?
ROBERTS: Topping the political ticker this morning, Ohio Republican Congressman Ralph Regula is expected to announce he'll retire at the end of his term in January 2009. He's held his seat in the Canton area since 1973. The 82-year-old Congressman is the third ranking Republican on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. And his departure could make it tough for the Republicans to retake the House in 2008
Barack Obama's campaign says the campaign is moving into a new phase.
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BARACK OBAMA, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think that now is the time where we're going to lay out a very clear contrast between myself and Senator Clinton.
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ROBERTS: Phase two of the Obama campaign. He says he is the better candidate to unite the country.
Republicans coming down on Democratic Congressman Benny Thompson for a crack he made about NASCAR. The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee recommended his aides get shots for hepatitis, tetanus and diphtheria before going on a fact-finding mission to a NASCAR event. They're studying health preparedness as large events. Republicans had a field day with the warning. Linda Davies, chairwoman of the North Carolina Republican Party, said, quote, "Democrats should know there was no preventative measure yet designed to ward off the blue collar values and patriotism that NASCAR fans represent."
Find all the day's political news around the clock at cnn.com/ticker.
CHETRY: Britney Spears convincing a judge that she can get her kids back at least for one night a week. Spears spoke for herself and at the end of the hearing the judge agreed to allow her one overnight visit per week, overseen by a court-appointed monitor. That's a change from last week when she was told her husband had sole custody of the children. Her ex, Kevin Federline, did not object to that change.
An accused stalker topping your "Quick Hits" now. A former psychiatric patient, who sent Uma Thurman e-mails and letters, was indicted in New York on stalking as well as other charges. 35-year- old Jack Jordan arrested outside of Thurman's Greenwich Village home last week. He was jailed on $10,000 bond. He's accused of stalking the film star for two years.
British media reporting that Paul McCartney and Heather Mills may be near settlement for their divorce. They appear for about seven hours in a London court Thursday. There's speculation the eventual agreement could cost McCartney between $40 million and $100 million. The 65-year-old McCartney and the 39-year-old Mills have a 3-year-old daughter together, Beatrice.
Coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING," airport screening for the 21st century.
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CHETRY: If you're just waking up, here is a look at some of the top headline this morning. Al Gore awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today. He shares the prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their efforts to raise awareness about climate change and for laying the foundation to do something about it.
A CNN exclusive in the heartbreaking 911 tapes from the night that Carol Gotbaum died in custody at the Phoenix Airport. Her husband, Noah, was frantically calling airport emergency services, trying to warn them that his wife was suicidal and an alcoholic. Neither the police nor the 911 dispatch would even tell him that his wife was already dead.
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COMMUNICATIONS: Communications. This is Mark.
GEHLBACH: Rick Gehlbach back.
COMMUNICATIONS: Hey, I've got Noah Gotbaum, the subject's husband, on the line.
GEHLBACH: Okay.
COMMUNICATIONS: Looking for her. Okay, you gonna talk to him?
GEHLBACH: Uh, you know, I want somebody who's professional to be talking to him and not just blow it to him over the phone because I don't know how he'll react.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Some of those calls taking place some 50 minutes after Carol Gotbaum had died. The family is speaking out for the first time. CNN talked with them exclusively. We're going to show you more of that coming up in our next hour.
A teenager's weapon stash on display. He heads to court today to face charges of plotting a Columbine-style attack at a local high school in Pennsylvania. Police found 30 air-powered BB guns, an assortment of swords, knives, hand grenades in the boy's bedroom and also an assault rifle his mother apparently bought for him at a recent gun show.
A judge sending one of the Jena 6 teens back to jail. Mychal Bell sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention facility, ruling that the fight that put bell in the national spotlight violated his probation for earlier convictions. Bell and five other black teenage hers were charged with attempted murder for that attack on a white classmate. Critics protested saying the charges were excessive. They were lowered.
ConAgra now officially recalling all frozen pot pies under the Banquet and generic store names because of links to salmonella cases nationwide. ConAgra also added beef pot pies to the recall. They said customers should throw them away and send the package to the company for a refund.
ROBERTS: Nine minutes before the top of the hour. Privacy versus security. We told but this yesterday, a new airport screening system being tested in Phoenix that makes it almost impossible to hide a weapon. The reason? It's pretty revealing. And privacy advocates have got their concerns about it.
Chris Lawrence went to Phoenix for an inside look.
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CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is you, a 3-D image of your entire body, open for examination by an agent of the TSA. Passengers flying through Phoenix are the first to be scanned by the new millimeter wave portals.
WAYNE LOEB, FREQUENT FLYER: It was quick, unobtrusive, piece of cake.
LAWRENCE: The portal uses electromagnetic waves to produce an image so clear, theoretically, it would be impossible to conceal any weapon, including rubber, wire or plastic.
MATTHEW GILLESPIE, FREQUENT FLYER: If it makes it faster and safer, that's fine with me. I mean, I really don't see a problem.
LAWRENCE: Privacy advocates do. The electronic privacy information center is raising legal questions, envisioning a government system that collects and stores naked pictures of American travelers.
NICO MELENDEZ, TSA SPOKESMAN: We worked very hard to address privacy concerns.
LAWRENCE: Nico Menendez, TSA spokesman says, the officer with the passenger never sees the image, and the one who examines the image sits in a separate room and never sees the passenger. All the faces are blurred out.
MELENDEZ: The technology is unable to transmit, print or save any kind of an image. So once we take the picture, we're done with it. It's gone forever.
LAWRENCE: That is the one thing that spooked passengers, making sure their picture is not saved.
CATHY LIU, FREQUENT FLYER: Just so I know that my image is not there, if it's permanently deleted.
LAWRENCE: Radiation is another concern. But the TSA says millimeter waves emit less radiation than your cell phone.
(on camera): Technically, its radio waves bouncing off your body, so there's no rush of air or any feeling of any kind.
(voice-over): Passengers selected for secondary screening can choose the portal instead of being searched by hand.
LOEB: I would much prefer this to being pat down because it's less personal and less invasive.
LAWRENCE: But more expensive. Each portal costs $150,000. The TSA says, the price it pays to stay one step head.
Chris Lawrence, CNN, Phoenix.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: After the testing at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, the machines are supposed to come to Los Angeles International and JFK here in New York.
Kiran?
CHETRY: Countrywide, America's largest mortgage lender, is in the hot seat. The company's CEO accused of stuffing his pockets amid huge losses. We'll talk more about that ahead on "AMERICAN MORNING." There's also a cosmetic concern, our lipstick. Lead showing up in lipstick in surprisingly high levels and many popular brands. We're going to tell you what you need to know, coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING,"
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CHETRY: Coming up on 3 minutes before the top of the hour.
Stephanie Elam is in today for Ali Velshi, "Minding Your Business."
And some questions regarding the largest mortgage company, Countrywide.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS ANALYST: Right. And as we've been hearing all year long, Countrywide is having a tough time with the mortgage fallout and they've been the stock hit the hardest. Now there's questions coming about the timing of some of the CEOs stock sales. The North Carolina state treasurer, Richard Moore, asked the SEC to investigate the Mozilo's stock sales, claiming that Morzilo is stuffing his pockets. He's pointing to an SEC filing that shows the CEO exercised options for nearly 140,000 shares on Wednesday at $9.94 each, seeing as he sold them on the same day at $18.74 each. Obviously, a big discrepancy in one day.
The company is saying, in an SEC filing, this was done under a prearranged agreement set up in October, 2006, for this trading plan to be in effect. But Moore says Morzilo changed the overall format of the sales, actually three times over five months since October, 2006. Obviously the stock has been hit by the mortgage crisis. Since this happened, year-to-date, the stock is off 56 percent, so taking a huge hit because of this. So obviously we'll be looking at it.
One thing else to mention, Moore is the trustee of a pension fund that has 500,000 Countrywide shares, so with $9.6 million, that's why he has a vested reason. And he's also a Democrat running for president. There's also that.
CHETRY: Stephanie, thanks so much.
ROBERTS: A story coming up in the next half hour that you can't miss. All of the cleaners that you have around your home, it's so much convenience, as well in a spray can. They are making you sick, though?
CHETRY: There are new findings about spray cleaners and whether or not they're safe to use as often as many of us -- well, no me but -- my husband likes to joke around, I think you're allergic to the smell of clean, not the cleaners -- But you do sometimes notice that you feel -- maybe you're having trouble breathing or feel a little woozy after a heavy-duty bathroom scrub.
ROBERTS: My wife is convinced she has asthma because her mother, when she was about 12 years old, made her scrape the floors with ammonia. CHETRY: Is there any truth to this? Elizabeth Cohen is going to take a look for us when the next hour of "AMERICAN MORNING" starts right now.
ROBERTS: Breaking news.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared by IPCC and Albert Arnold Al Gore Jr.
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ROBERTS: Al Gore shares the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming.
A CNN exclusive.
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COMMUNICATIONS: We can't tell him what's going on right now.
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ROBERTS: Police tapes from the night a woman died in custody, and her husband frantically called for help.
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NOAH GOTBAUM, HUSBAND OF CAROL GOTBAUM: She is suicidal. She is all alone. She should not be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Plus, lowering the bar? Convicts, high school dropouts, new questions about how the Army is filling the ranks on this "AMERICAN MORNING."
And what impact that might have on the military years down the road.
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