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American Morning
Extreme Weather; Turks Shell Iraq; Minding Your Business
Aired October 15, 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: Nation of extreme. Hail, pounding rain. Your forecast for a stormy Monday.
Inside the inferno. The first commute today after a truck pile- up and raging fire in a tunnel. Would you know how to get out alive?
Plus, on the run.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole point is, make illegal life tenuous and hard and unpleasant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Where illegal immigrants scatter when towns crack down, on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Got a whole lot to talk to you about on this Monday, October the 15th. Thanks for joining us on this AMERICAN MORNING. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
You know, we start this hour with extreme weather in the Midwest and a storm front that stretches all the way from the Gulf Coast to Minnesota. These pictures are coming to us from Wichita, Kansas. You can actually hear the golf ball-sized hail pounding the pavement. Heavy winds also pounding the area last night into the overnight hours. You can see the trees being blown around. They say as much as three inches of rain came down across parts of Kansas.
And now we take to you Oklahoma where the system is also pummeling parts of that state. These are pictures from Oklahoma City that came in late last night. Heavy rain soaking the area for several hours as that storm slowly moves east, dropping more rain with it.
But before the rain came the strong winds. Take a look at this. These pictures are from the southwest corner of Oklahoma. A camera crew caught in the middle of a huge dust cloud that was headed, actually, right in their direction. No one was hurt.
And in Colorado, several inches of snow fell on the Rockies. At least an inch of rain fell in Denver. These were the pictures -- the snow did cause some fender benders along Interstate 70 through the mountains. Rob Marciano is tracking the extreme weather for us this morning with an update on what we can expect today.
Boy, a busy overnight for sure in the Midwest.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, this is a big storm, Kiran. It's rolled through the Rockies, down into the Plains, and it's going to affect a good chunk of the country as we move through not only today but over the next several days.
Here it is on the map, swirling around. We're into fall now. The transitional month. We'll typically see these storms fire up out of the mountains. They stretch their legs and really start to wind things up and tap that moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. So severe storms expected today across parts of northeastern Texas, the Arklatex and in through parts of southwestern Arkansas, potential there for seeing some damaging winds and some rain.
We're starting to see some showers and storms fire up already across the state of Texas. A pretty good line just to the south and to the west of Texas. So even though you saw some rain last night, you'll see a little bit more across the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metropolitan area.
Little Rock, Arkansas, you're under the gun here in the next hour or so. This line of thunderstorms is heading your way. Likely some gusty winds out ahead of it. Some hail and potentially some flooding rainfall.
Big time rain went across parts of Oklahoma and Nebraska last night. You can kind of see the swirl in the atmosphere right here. This is the center of the low pressure and that will be moving off towards the northeast as we go on through time. There are still some flash flood watches and warnings that have been posted.
Oklahoma City, Kiran, has received so far this year over 53 inches of rain. That has broken the all-time record for the entire year for rainfall. And we're not even into November. It's been pretty wet across the plains.
Back to you.
CHETRY: Wow. All right, Rob, we'll check in with you throughout the morning for updates. Thanks.
MARCIANO: You bet.
ROBERTS: Some encouraging news this morning from southern California. Those southbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Los Angeles are expected to reopen just in time for this morning's rush. Two dozen big rigs were caught in a giant pile-up on Friday that turned the tunnel into a raging inferno. Temperatures inside hit close to 14,000 degrees. That was hot enough to cause the concrete in the tunnel to actually explode. Three people were trapped and killed, including an infant, but 20 people did manage to escape. The semi trucks stuck in the tunnel were burned beyond recognition. There was almost nothing about the wreckage that even looks like it used to be a truck. And you can see the scarring there on the side of the tunnel. The cause of the crash still being investigated. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency. Interstate 5 is California's main north/south artery.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, Senator Larry Craig is scheduled to file an appeal today stemming from his arrest in the airport bathroom sex sting. Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, you may remember, back in August after he was accused of soliciting sex in a bathroom at the Minneapolis Airport in June. Now earlier this month, a Minnesota judge told Craig that he could not withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct.
Well, make that 12 Republicans now retiring from the House after this term. David Hobson of Ohio leaving after nine terms in Congress. He turned 71 this week. He says he's in good health but he wants to go out on top.
Rapper T.I. appears in court today to face gun charges. He was arrested over the weekend in an undercover, illegal weapons sting. The feds say the 27-year-old rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris, was planning to pick up machine guns and silencers from his bodyguard in an Atlanta parking lot. Three firearms were found in Harris's car, including a loaded firearm.
John.
ROBERTS: Other headlines new this morning.
Three University of Texas students rescued and doing well today after more than 30 hours lost in a cave. The group, made up of two women and a man, went into Airman's Cave in Austin on Saturday morning. They told friends to call 911 if they were not back by midnight on Saturday. Searchers found them on Sunday afternoon in a 500-foot crawl space. We'll talk with one of the rescuers coming up at the bottom of the hour.
A new study out this morning says overall cancer death rates are falling. One of the biggest successes, colorectal cancer. Death rates in men were down almost 5 percent and 4.5 percent in women. Our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, joins us a little bit later on with more on this good news.
Now if you worry that your child might be showing signs of autism, there is a new website that could help. It shows videos of autistic versus normal behavior. The address, www.autismspeaks.org. It's run by two nonprofit groups, Autism Speaks and First Signs. Of course, you should always get medical help if you think that your child is exhibiting persistent, unusual behavior.
California is the first state to ban the sale of toys and baby products containing more than a trace amount of a chemical linked to health and developmental problems. The chemical is widely used to soften plastics found in many products for infants and children under three. It's called phthalates. Beginning in 2009, any product with more than 10 percent of the chemical can't be made, sold or distributed in California. Oregon, Maryland and New York are also said to be considering similar laws.
The Colorado Rockies are flying high in the post season as three- run homer lifted the Rockies past the Arizona Diamondbacks and now lead the National League Championship Series 3 games to none. The Rockies have yet to lose in the playoffs. They've won 20 of their last 21 games and they can finish off the Diamondbacks tonight at home.
And the New England Patriots took down the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL's battle of the unbeaten. Tom Brady tossed five touchdowns, leading the Patriots to a 48-27 win. The Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts are now the only two teams in the NFL left unbeaten.
Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Poor Cowboys.
Well, have you ever Googled your own name to just see what's out there? Well, thanks to one professor at the University of Berlin, now it may be actually a status symbol to show off your electronic ego. Take a look. This is called the new vanity ring. When it goes on the market next year, it could sell for upwards of $700. And what it is, is it displays how many hits you get when a Google search happens on your name. So at night you plug it into a docking station and your Google stats will be updated. Of course the only problem with this system is that Google shows the most common results, so you automatically win if your last name is Pitt or Spears. You can't buy the vanity ring. It's still a project design. But like we said last year. So I Googled -- first when you just Google John Roberts, 50 million.
ROBERTS: Well, that's because of the Supreme Court judge.
CHETRY: When you do John Roberts anchor, 1.7 million.
ROBERTS: And when you do Kiran Chetry, which is a fairly easy name?
CHETRY: A measly 135,000 hits.
ROBERTS: We'll have to change that. We will have to change that.
CHETRY: Although Paris Hilton's got you beat. She is the number one Google with 1.75 mil.
ROBERTS: Wow, can you imagine. That's incredible.
CHETRY: How about it. I know what to get you for Christmas now. Problem solved. ROBERTS: All right. Thank you.
CHETRY: Well, word of a stunning plot to assassinate Russia's president. It tops your "Quick Hits" now. The kremlin investigating reports that suicide bombers planned to attack Vladimir Putin as he visits Iran. He's visiting the country tonight. Well Iranian officials are calling the assassination claim "baseless" and the kremlin says there are no plans to cancel Putin's trip.
Pope Benedict XVI pleading for the release of two catholic priests kidnapped in Iraq. The priests served the Syrian catholic church in Mosul. The church's archbishop says that they were ambushed Saturday on their way to a funeral. About 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million people are Christian.
The Iraqi government says that Blackwater killed innocent civilians and should be kicked out. Well, some investigations support that store, but coming up, we're going to hear details that tell a different story.
Also, a soccer player's head scarf (ph) keeps her benched at a tournament this weekend. Do the rules cover religion? We're going to find out more about what happened coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Eleven minutes past the hour.
Now we wanted to show you some of the shots that caught our eye this morning. This one looks scary, but it's actually just a mock terror drill taking place on the high seas in Japan. A Japanese bioterrorism unit getting hosed down during the Pacific Shield Exercises. And these took place near Tokyo. Ships and planes from seven countries taking part in the drills aimed at intercepting dangerous weapons technology.
These are fireworks at a vegetarian festival in Phuket, Thailand. The annual event is a celebration of vegetarianism and body purification. Organizers ban herbs like garlic and coriander because they believe they stimulate sexual desire.
And extreme flooding in Central America after six days of heavy rain. You can see that tractor trailer there stuck in the mud, up on its side almost. This is in the Pan American Highway in Nicaragua. More than 4,000 people have been forced out of their homes. A banana growing region has been put on red alert and close to 10,000 people said to be at flood risk.
John.
ROBERTS: Twelve minutes after the hour.
To Iraq now the growing tension in Turkey and Kurdish rebel forces or the PKK. Over the weekend, Turkish forces stepped up their campaign against the rebels, shelling several Kurdish villages along the Turkish/Iraq border. The volatile, cross border skirmish could impact U.S. troops fighting the Iraq War. The United States is urging restraint, appealing to Turkey to find a diplomatic solution to the escalating conflict. Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is on the Turkish/Iraq border with this exclusive report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There have been no casualties that we've been told about so far. But we have been told by officials here in the Kurdish controlled north of Iraq that there has been shelling into at least one village next door, which is very close to the Turkish border. There are reports of shelling into other villages. Some reports say that the shelling has been going on through the day.
What we were told by the officials here is that the shelling had been into the village, been hitting around the area of that village. That it had, obviously, caused a great deal of concern in this particular village and along the border as Kurds, who are living in that area, are concerned about the possibility of an incursion by Turkish forces, that they have not told us about any casualties, and certainly not heard about it.
But what we've seen as we've driven out closer to the border area in the north of Iraq is the security checkpoints on the road driving into this area have become noticeably tighter the closer to the border you get. And the real concern is here that as the Turkish parliament meets next week to consider whether or not that it will send troops across the border in hot pursuit of the PKK, the Kurdish workers party, the concern here is that that could destabilize northern Iraq that's been very stable until now. That it could hurt the economy here.
However, some people advise us, they say, look, if Turkey was really going to go ahead and send troops into the north of Iraq, it would have already taken steps like closing down the border crossings. And so far that hasn't happened.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: All right. That's Nic Robertson, a taped report earlier. We do have Nic live now from along the Turkish/Iraq border.
Nic, Turkey's got 60,000 troops amassed on their side of the border. If they launched a cross border strike that went beyond the shelling that you were talking about, what could the effect be on the Iraq War there and relations between Turkey and the United States, which are already tense over this Armenian genocide resolution?
ROBERTSON: Well it can certainly sour the relations further because if there was an incursion here and flighting was to flare up, then one of the first things to happen would be the border across -- between Turkey and Iraq would close. And that border is absolutely essential for U.S. troops. A lot of their fuel supplies come through there. A lot of their water supplies. Food supplies. The new anti- mine armored vehicles, 95 percent of those vehicles are driving across that border. So if a conflict begins here, immediately, U.S. troops would feel the impact because their food and water would stop getting to them.
Right behind me on the hillside, over my shoulder, you can see the burnt out woods. This was an area that was shelled just on Saturday night. Local people here told us 20 to 22 shells rained in here. What you can't see just on the other side of the camera is a small village. And the people we were talking to from there just earlier on told us they're very concerned, very frightened. They're right on the border before and already that village on the border, they've have had to send their women and children way.
John.
ROBERTS: And very briefly here, before we let you go, what's your sense of it? Do you believe Turkey will actually launch a cross- border incursion?
ROBERTSON: The hope on this side is that it won't happen. They say they'll do everything to de-escalate the situation and remove the tension. If you look at what's happened in the past, 19 different incursions by Turkish troops into Iraq, only one of them has ever happened in the winter.
If they were going to make an incursion, they would have to close the border. They haven't closed the border yet. The indications are that this might just be political pressure by Turkey on the United States. An incursion may not come until spring. But nobody here is ruling it out. Right around here, they're very worried.
John.
ROBERTS: All right. With a close eye on it from the Iraq/Turkey border, our Nic Robertson this morning.
Nic, thanks very much.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, the U.S. and Iraq are negotiating to try to figure out how to deal with the Blackwater situation. Iraq is demanding the U.S. stop doing business with the private security company within six months. They say Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians last month in an unprovoked attack. The head of the company says that's simply not the case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIK PRINCE, FOUNDER, BLACKWATER: All I can say is, these reports I've seen, at least three of our armored vehicles were hit by small arms fire, incoming, and one of them was damaged, which actually delayed their departure from the traffic circle while they tried to rig a tow. So there was definitely incoming small arms fire from insurgents.
MOHAMMED ABDUL RAZZAQ, WITNESS AND FATHER OF VICTIM, (through translator): The company said they were attacked by mortars. Then they said it was a car bomb. Then they came back and said, no, it was gunfire. They changed their story three times.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, the FBI is still investigating the shooting. American diplomats in Iraq are telling the Associated Press that other private contractors could take over Blackwater's responsibilities but that it would take longer than six months.
ROBERTS: President Bush says he wants to compromise with the Democrats on health insurance for poor children. He is expected to talk about the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, in a budget speech today. In his weekly radio address on Saturday, President Bush said that he would be willing to accept a larger increase for a Children's Health Insurance Program than the $5 billion over five years that he has proposed. Democrats are planning to vote on Thursday to override the president's veto of their bill, which would provide for an increase of $35 billion over five years. If they fall short in that effort, they plan to introduce a new version of the bill.
So we want to know what you think about all of this. Should President Bush's veto on the children's health insurance program stand? Cast your vote at cnn.com/am. We'll have the results of our poll a little bit later on this hour.
CHETRY: Well, some controversy after a ref's call down in Florida. A 15-year-old Muslim girl was taken out of the game during a soccer tournament after a referee ruled that her head scarf violated uniform rules.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANK VILLAIZAN, UNITED SOCCER ASSOCIATION: This referee steps on the field. He is the governing body of the field.
IMAN KHALIL, BANNED FROM PLAYING IN HEADSCARF: I thought, well, it's not fair. I should be able to play, because I was doing it for the longest time, and I felt like I was letting my team down a little bit.
LISA ALLEN-KHALIL, IMAN'S MOTHER: She sat out the first half and phone calls were made and it came back that it was OK for her to play.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, the United Soccer Association has apologized for the mistake and they have brought referees up to speed, they say, on a rule that says any religious article of clothing can be worn in a game, as long as it doesn't pose any threat to any of the players. Well despite being forced to sit for the game, Khalil cheered on their team. They won 4-0 and she was back on the field for Sunday's game.
ROBERTS: Glad to hear she was back out playing. A deadly tasering incident at the airport in Vancouver, Canada, tops your "Quick Hits" now. An autopsy is planned today on a man in his 40s who died after being tasered by police on Sunday morning. Officers shocked him after he started throwing luggage, chairs and a computer. They don't yet know if the taser actually caused his death.
Royal girlfriend Kate Middleton is getting chummy with the prince, but it's not the prince that you'd expect. We'll tell you who's she's hunting with when AMERICAN MORNING continues.
And oil prices at a record high. What that means to home owner this weekend. Ali Velshi "Minding Your Business" ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Is Prince William's girlfriend ready to take a shot at being part of the royal family? Well, here's a shot from Britain's "Sunday Telegraph." They published some pictures of Kate Middleton hunting with the prince, Prince Charles that is. According to the paper, it's the first time that Middleton and Charles have been photographed together. It's fueling speculation that a royal wedding may be in sight for Kate and William.
And they went to a fishing tournament hoping to land some grouper, but six friends in Florida ended up landing that massive shark instead. Many describe it as something out of jaws. They say that's what the experience felt like. It was a mako shark weighing 844 pounds, 11 feet long. It took them more than an hour to land it. They couldn't even get it on the boat. They had to tie it to the stern for the four-hour trip home and it turned out to be a winner for them because they broke the tournament's previous record by 338 pounds. And John and I were just looking up some mako shark recipes. Several good ones.
ROBERTS: Yes, mako shark steak and herb butter. A little, you know, light grilling (INAUDIBLE).
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'd have given up the battle after a while because, you know, you're a shark, I'm going to leave you there.
CHETRY: They said they realized they were in trouble because this whatever it was they were catching was gating the grouper (Ph) along the way.
VELSHI: Yes, at that point I'd give up.
ROBERTS: Remember that famous line, "I think we need a bigger boat."
VELSHI: Yes.
ROBERTS: Twenty-four minutes after the hour. Ali Velshi here "Minding Your Business." I remember talking to T. Boone Pickets (ph) just a few years ago and he said, oil will hit 50 before it hits 30. Now it looks like it's on its way to $90.
VELSHI: Unbelievable. I mean, I was coming here to tell you this morning that oil closed at its highest level ever on Friday, $83.69. Then going up at some point during the day to $84. Then this morning, above $84. And now moments before I got here, oil hit $85 a barrel for the first time in history.
This is remarkable. Back in August, oil was in the 70s. It was up 20 percent in August. It's up more than four-fold since 2002. In five years, oil is up more than four-fold.
Now gas prices are not u. They're down, actually. It's down about $2.75 for a gallon of unleaded gasoline. That's the national average. But that's just because we've got a little bit more gas supply. We've got less oil supply in the world. And you can't make gas without oil. So that's not going to continue to go in that direction.
This is a bit of an issue, regardless of whether you buy oil for your home or you have a car because it affects every single thing you buy that's shipped to a store or shipped on a boat.
CHETRY: And I was going to ask you as we head into the cold season, home heating bills.
VELSHI: Well, we already know the estimates for people, particular here in the Northeast, where you're feeling a bit of a chill, is an increase of more than 20 percent this year. And as John likes to point out, as we head into the holiday shopping season, the fact that these oil bills, which are paid in chunks, get higher, affect people's decisions to spend. So watch out for that.
ROBERTS: All right. We'll see you then.
All right, Ali, thanks. We'll see you back here soon.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROBERTS: Here's a look at a story coming up in our next half hour that you just can't miss. If you've got claustrophobia, you don't want to see some of these pictures.
CHETRY: I know. No, it makes you go weak in the knees. Three students were stuck in a cave for more than 30 hours. And when you look at it, it's a 500-foot crawl space that's literally about the width of a sewer.
ROBERTS: Yes. And it's in a cave that's 12,000 feet long.
CHETRY: So, yes, how did they manage to get out? We're going to be speaking to one of the rescuers who saved them coming up in a couple of minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. It's Monday, October 15th. I'm Kiran Chetry.
ROBERTS: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts.
New this morning.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the Middle East this morning visiting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. She met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday. All of this ahead of a peace conference next month that the U.S. is sponsoring.
An encouraging sign of reconciliation from Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis. Ahmad al-Hakim (ph) from Iraq's largest Shiite party traveled to the Sunni city of Ramadi and praised Sunni leader for fighting against al Qaeda.
And 30 suspected Islamic terrorists are on trial in Madrid this morning in the very same courthouse they are charged with plotting to blow up. Prosecutors say the plot back in 2004 included plans to use a truck bomb to kill judges, prosecutors and staff at the national court, as well as destroy files of other suspected terrorists, including those charged in the Madrid train bombings.
CHETRY: Well, the first sentence comes down today in the Alaska political corruption scandal. Former State Representative Tom Anderson is convicted of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and money laundering. Prosecutors want him to serve at least eight years in prison. Federal investigators are looking into the oil industry's influence in Alaska. Senator Ted Stevens and Congressmen Don Young are both under scrutiny but they both deny any
CHETRY: Down in the Alaska political corruption scandal. Tom Anderson, former state representative, is convicted of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and money laundering. Prosecutors want him to serve at least eight years in prison.
Federal investigators are looking into the oil industry's influence in Alaska. Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young are both under security, but they both deny any wrongdoing. They have not been charged with a crime.
And they're supposed to save lives but there is some scary news this morning about certain implants for heart patients. Medtronnics, the largest maker of heart devices, pulling a defibrillation lead from the market. They can fracture, sending a deadly electrical jolt or completely fail. Five deaths are being blamed on it. Patients who have the implant are being asked to check in with their doctor.
We learned within just the last couple of minutes that the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Los Angeles are back open again. These are the stunning pictures that shut the entire thing down Friday, a chain reaction pile-up involving some 28 commercial vehicles in a truck tunnel underneath I-5. Two dozen big rigs caught in a crash that turned the tunnel into a raging inferno. Three people were trapped and killed, including an infant. Twenty people managed to escape. The cause of the crash is still being investigated. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency.
A 14-year-old Boy Scout attacked by a bear over the weekend and lived to tell about it. The bear tore down the tent and started attacking Chris Malasics while he was camping in northeastern Pennsylvania.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS MALASICS, SURVIVED BEAR ATTACK: The bear comes up and he sits on top of the tent or stands on it, whatever, and then he opens it up. And then he gets his mouth and spins me around and I see him standing there up on his legs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Malasics played dead while a Scout leader started banging pots and pans to distract the bear, who eventually wandered. Chris and his dad will be here to tell us all about it coming up in our next hour.
ROBERTS: One lucky fellow.
Some other lucky folks. Three university of Texas students apparently did everything right when their cave exploring trip went wrong this weekend. The students, two women and a man, were missing for more than 30 hours after getting lost in the Airman's Cave in Austin, Texas. The three left a trail of leaves that helped rescuers find them yesterday.
D.J. Walker, with the Austin Fire Department, was part of the rescue effort. He joins us live from Austin, Texas.
D.J., good to see you. I tell you, I've seen the pictures of the inside of this cave. This is not a place you want to go if you're claustrophobic any way.
D.J. WALKER, AUSTIN FIRE DEPARTMENT: It's pretty tight down there, low crawl-in.
ROBERTS: You were one of the first rescuers in there. How did you find these folks?
WALKER: Well, my job was to get down in there and more or less confirm there were people underground. I found a cell phone, a couple bottles of water, all indications people were in the cave. We came back out. We put together a game plan, a search plan to find these people.
ROBERTS: When people think of a cave they think of large rooms with stalactites and stalagmites, fairly large space. What's the terrain like inside that cave?
WALKER: Very much different than the typical vision that most people have of caves. This isn't Carlsbad Cavern. It has a low ceiling. The majority of the time that you're traveling in this cave, you're either on your hands and knees crawling or on your belly shimmying along. It's really, really tight quarter.
ROBERTS: For example, the entrance to the cave is called the birth canal?
WALKER: Most people call it the keyhole, but jokingly, a lot of people call it the birth canal. But the most common term is the keyhole, about a 15-foot-long section of 16 to 18-inch passage that only those small folks can crawl in.
ROBERTS: So where were these three folks found over the weekend?
WALKER: They were pretty deep inside the cave. So go from the entrance to the back and return to the entrance is about a 12 to 14- hour round trip for an experienced caver. These folks had spent quite a bit of time and had actually been all the way to the back and were working their way out when they got off of their trail. And they got caught up in a maisy section of the cave and they were wandering in and out of different passages trying to find the main trail.
ROBERTS: They were found in a place called Karen's Crawl, about the size of your average sewer pipe?
WALKER: Yeah, they were just beyond Karen's Crawl, in the Sherwood Forest, which is a maisy section of the cave, just beyond Karen's Crawl.
ROBERTS: So they had done everything right, though, and still got lost?
WALKER: Absolutely. These folks were really a textbook example of what you should do when you're planning a trip. Tell somebody where you're going. Take plenty of food and water. They left a bread crumb trail to find their way back out. They did do a good job of trying to prevent this from happening, but accidents happens and they got off their bread crumb trail and wound up in a maisy section of the cave and got lost.
ROBERTS: Thankfully, it doesn't happen often and this one turned out all right.
Congratulations to you and your rescuers. D.J. Walker, with the Austin Fire Department, thanks for being with us this morning. Good to see you.
WALKER: You bet, thank you.
ROBERTS: Kiran?
CHETRY: Jay Leno may be giving his bosses at NBC some late night heartburn. He has been cracking jokes about his planned exit in 2009 and NBC's decision to sell their Burbank Studios. According to this morning's "L.A. Times," those close to Leno say that, as the departure date gets ready, sources say he's not quite ready to go off the air. They inked a deal where he'd leave in 2009 and make room for Conan O'Brian and attempt to avoid another scuffle like the one that occurred in 1992 when Leno competed with Letterman to replace Johnny Carson.
NBC saying it's also trying to convince Leno to stay with the network, that there is life after "Late Night."
ROBERTS: Tyler Perry's play-turned-major motion picture is king of the box office over the weekend. "Why Did I Get Married" debuted as the weekend's top film, took in more than $21 million. It was a three-way tie for second.
New York City sex expanding the use of cash rewards for public school students who do well in advanced placement tests. High school students who get the best score on the test will earn it $1,000. The private initiative begins as New York City begins its own program to pay students for taking a test and doing well on those standardized tests.
Outed at the Vatican. A monsignor found hanging out in gay chat rooms. His creative response to his critics coming up.
And the southeast is wilting. The region in the southeast facing one of the most severe droughts in history. Farmers say they are feeling the brunt of it. Is there any end in sight in? We're tracking extreme weather ahead on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. Some "Quick Hits" now. In Greece, they started moving the ancient sculptures from the Acropolis in Athens to the new home, a museum at the foot of the Hilltop Citadel. That new museum is slated to open in early 2008.
The big pumpkins were out, were floating in Canada, the annual Pumpkin Regatta in Windsor. There you get a look. Participants paddle large pumpkins that weigh 550 pounds, over a 500 meter course.
In Colorado, a winter preview, several inches of snow falling on the Rockies. At least an inch of rain also fell in Denver. The snow causing fender benders along Interstate 70 through the mountains.
Time to check in with Rob Marciano. He's tracking all of this for us.
Is this early for them in Colorado to get snow like this? ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Not too early. We're transitioning from summer to wintertime. We'll get those Rocky Mountain snowfalls on top of those Aspen leaves, which for the most part are past their foliage.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MARCIANO: Bank up to you.
CHETRY: They could use a little bit of rain going to Oklahoma, right? There are 53 inches.
MARCIANO: Feast or famine. Last year, Oklahoma and Texas were in extreme drought and now they're on the flipside of things. Mother Nature does weird things from time to time. Hopefully, the drought will be relieved here, if not in the next three months, as we get toward spring. Right now, it looks bleak -- Kiran?
CHETRY: That's why we need you to sort it all out for us.
Okay, Rob, thanks. Check in with you in a few.
ROBERTS: John?
ROBERTS: Coming up to 43 minutes after the hour. A new poll gives Hillary Clinton a 21-point lead over Barack Obama in New Hampshire. That tops your political ticker this Monday morning. The Marist College poll puts Clinton at 41 percent, followed by Obama at 20 percent and John Edwards at 11 percent.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney comes in at 26 percent, Rudy Giuliani not far behind at 20, John McCain rounds out the top three at 17 percent. The Republicans grouped a lot more closely together than the Democrats are.
Senator Larry Craig is trying again. He says he'll appeal a judge's refusal to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea stemming from his arrest at an airport bathroom sex sting. Craig was also inducted into the Idaho Hall of Fame this weekend.
After nine terms, David Hobson will step down. The Ohio Republican made the announcement last night. He is the 12th GOP House member to announce his retirement ahead of next year's election. He says he wants to leave, quote, "on top."
And a promise to pass. House Democrats are vowing this week to pass another version of the Children's Health Insurance Bill. President Bush vetoed the original measure, which would ensure millions of mostly low-income children.
We want to know what you think this morning. Should President Bush's veto on the Child Health Care Bill stand in cast your vote at cnn.com/am? 29 percent of you say yes it should stand, 71 percent say no. We'll continue to update the results through the morning and we'll bring them to you as time goes on.
Kiran?
CHETRY: Still ahead, caught in the act. An official at the Vatican comes one a unique excuse after being found trolling gay chat rooms. We'll hear his story coming up.
Also, Vicente Fox surviving six years at the top of Mexico's government, but didn't last the morning on the streets of one Mexican town. We'll show you what they did to his statue ahead on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Well if you're just waking up this morning, here is a look at some of the new headlines. This just in from the Mideast. A security scare for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A short time ago her convoy was diverted into an Israeli fire station. Bodyguards getting nervous about a suspicious vehicle near an entrance to the West Bank. They just checked it out, found no threat. Secretary Rice has a meeting with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a few hours.
We're watching extreme weather that's pounding parts of the Midwest this morning. This is some overnight video that came to us from Oklahoma City. Heavy rain, soaking the area for several hours, as that storm slowly moves east. Before the rain came, some strong winds. Look at these pictures from Warren, Oklahoma. The camera crew caught in the middle of a huge dust cloud headed right for them. No one was hurt.
Southbound lanes of Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles are back up and running after a fiery truck pile-up inside of a tunnel Friday. Two men and a baby were killed. Amazingly, ten people escaped unharmed. The fire was so hot it actually melted steel and pulverized chunks of concrete.
Three college students are doing all right this morning after spending more than 30 hours trapped in a cave near Austin, Texas. They got lost in a two-mile long Airman's Cave Saturday. These are photos were from I-reporter Robert Hollingsworth. Rescuers found the three last night, following a trail that students were smart enough to leave behind. Look how tight that space is.
ROBERTS: That is not a place for the faint of heart to go or the inexperienced, but apparently they did everything right and still got lost.
A Vatican official caught making advances to a young boy says it was part of his work as a psychoanalyst. He told the local paper that he is not gay and was pretending to be so to gather information on people who "damaged the image of the church with homosexual activity." He frequented gay chat rooms and met with gay men. The Vatican suspended him while they investigate.
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox brought down by the opposition, literally. Protestors in Boco del Rio woke up on Saturday morning to a newly erected 10-foot high statute of their former political rival. First they threw eggs at it. Then they put a rope around its neck and pulled it down. A lot like what happened to the statue of Saddam Hussein after the U.S. takeover of Baghdad.
Former President in Fox in Texas, highly critical of a crackdown on illegal immigrants. Protesters in Irving, Texas, this weekend clashed over the crackdown. It's a controversial federal program that allows local police to turn illegal immigrants over to federal authorities. Programs, like Irving's, have illegal immigrants on the run to other states and cities where they feel safer.
Ed Lavandera has been looking into this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's a major reshuffling of the illegal immigrant population in the United States, happening in Little Rock where you'd least expect to see growing populations of illegal immigrants.
As more and more states and cities across the country pass their own laws, cracking down on illegal immigrants, these people are looking for safer places to live. And they end up in places like this, but advocates of these laws say that the laws are working, and actually in some cases forcing people to leave the United States all together.
MARK KRIKORIAN, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: The whole point is to make illegal life in the United States tenuous and hard and unpleasant, so the people, who are here, leave and new ones think twice about sneaking across the border.
LAVANDERA: 43 states have passed legislation dealing with the issue of illegal immigration and it's a trend that doesn't appear to be slowing down, which forces illegal immigrants to continue moving and finding a safer place to be so they can stay ahead of the crackdown.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Little Rock, Arkansas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: A deadly ferry accident topping your "Quick Hits". At least six people drowned in Egypt Sunday when a railing and ramp collapsed on a small overcrowded ferry. That ramp collapsed as people were getting on and off the boat. Dozens of people fell into the Nile River and at least ten are still unaccounted for.
The remains of a U.S. Marine who fought in the Korean War have been identified nearly six decades after his death. Donald Morris Walker was 19 when he was killed in December of 1950. He was buried in an area that fell under North Korea and Chinese control. The U.S. was allowed to exhume the remains in 1954, but then he was buried at a military cemetery in Hawaii as an unknown soldier. Now his remains are on their way home to Kentucky.
Talk about a field cam camera. A big surprise appearance on the field last night at the Seahawks-Saints game. What happened coming up?
A major step to protect children against toxic toys. What the state of California is doing to ban a common chemical in plastic. That's ahead on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: The Seattle Seahawks weren't the only ones to land with a thud in their game on Sunday night against the New Orleans Saints. An NBC camera mounted on wires over the field collapsed onto the turf -- there is it on the lower left-hand portion of the screen -- luckily, during a time-out in the first quarter. It fell a few yards from where the Seahawks were huddling. After the camera was righted off the ground, it fell off again, nearly hit a Seattle player as he was walking to the side lines. The Saints beat the Seahawks 28-17. The camera, we understand, is okay now.
CHETRY: They were petrified they were going to get hit any moment by a flying camera, couldn't concentrate on their game. They said, at times, we were looking around and trying to duck out of the way. Technology hazards.
ROBERTS: That's right.
CHETRY: 56 past the hour. Ali Velshi "Minding Your Business."
You're going to show us how to make lemonade out of lemons.
ALI VELSHI, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS ANALYST: Right. And you'll get a lot of lemons potentially this week. This is one of those weeks, every now and then, I start off by telling you, if you don't typically pay attention to business, pay attention this week. There's a lot going on. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, will speak tonight but, more importantly, this is earnings week. There are lots of earnings coming out, the quarterly report card basically from the companies in which you invest either directly or through your 401K. We've heard from Citigroup this morning. Earnings were disappointing.
Fundamentally, you'll hear from a lot of major companies this week, Bank of America, Google, Yahoo! McDonald's, IBM, the biggest of the big names and they'll tell you how you're doing. You're going to hear a common theme. Things are okay here in the United States, maybe flat, maybe not so great, but they are selling lots of goods and services to people in other countries, other countries that are doing better than the United States, other countries that are paying in currencies stronger than the U.S. dollar. When they convert the currencies back to U.S. dollars, they're making more money than before.
So that's why in your own investments, you have to make sure you're diversified, even if you don't have companies that are based in other countries, most of the top countries -- companies in America are making more money from their overseas investments than they are back home.
Of the 30 Dow companies, most of the income comes from the rest of the world. If you're not fully invested, you're not getting a piece of the action. That's the good news you get, even if things aren't good at home.
CHETRY: Good to keep in mind. Maybe you have to make changes in your portfolios.
VELSHI: You should look at it. This is one of the weeks you pay attention to what you're investing in.
CHETRY: Thanks, Ali.
ROBERTS: Ali, thanks for that good tip.
Got some extreme weather across the Midwest and the plains. We'll have that for you.
The next hour of "AMERICAN MORNING" starts right now.
Out of the dark.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're all safe and sound.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: College kids lost in a cave finally see the light of day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: They really did a good job trying to prevent this from happening. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Tunnel inferno. The rush to ready a highway and tunnel burned into a deadly truck pile-up.
Plus, always prepared. A 14-year-old attacked by a bear while sleeping in his tent. How his Boy Scout training helped save his life on this "AMERICAN MORNING."
Imagine that, you're in your tent. You're safe in your tent. You're a Boy Scout. You're safe in your sleeping bag, safe and warm and suddenly a bear breaks in.
CHETRY: I know. We're going to have him on the show. His dad is going to join us. And they're bringing the tent that was just ripped to shreds by the black bear. He'll tell us how he got out alive.
ROBERTS: Oh, my goodness.
Welcome back. Thanks for joining us on this Monday, October the 15th. I'm John Roberts.
CHETRY: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
We start with our extreme weather in the Midwest and a massive storm stretching from the Gulf Coast northward to Minnesota. These are pictures coming to us from Wichita, Kansas. You can hear the golf ball-sized hail falling in the roadways. Heavy winds pounded the area last night and into the early morning hours, as much as three inches of rain also coming down across parts of the state.
In Oklahoma, also getting pummeled. These pictures from Oklahoma City late last night. Heavy rains soaked the area as the storm slowly moved east but before the rain came, strong winds also a big problem. These are pictures from Warren, Oklahoma. The camera crew became caught in the middle of a huge dust cloud headed right for them. No one was hurt, though.
It was snow that caused some treacherous driving conditions in parts of Colorado, including Interstate 70, up to a foot fell in the mountains. There were reports of fender benders but no major accidents.
Rob Marciano is tracking all of this for us.
It's that time of year, certainly, tracking extreme weather from the CNN Weather Center.
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