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Tornadoes Wreak Havoc in Midwest; David Copperfield's Warehouse Raided; Judge to Consider Bail for Rap Star; President Bush Issues More Sanctions Against Myanmar; RNC Chair to Step Down; Autistic Teen Found in Woods

Aired October 19, 2007 - 13:00   ET

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

DAN SIMON, CNN ANCHOR: The master magician and the FBI. Feds raid a Las Vegas warehouse owned by David Copperfield. But the case is cloaked in secrecy. We do know an investigation stretches from the Bahamas all the way to Seattle. And you will hear the latest here in the NEWSROOM.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And for hip-hop star T.I., freedom won't be free, not by a long shot. But it won't be absolute freedom either. We're live at the federal bail hearing for the rapper accused of trying to buy machine guns.

Hello, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield, in today for Kyra Phillips at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.

SIMON: And I'm Dan Simon in today for Dan Lemon. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

WHITFIELD: First happening right now. Take a look at these images right here. Houses obliterated. And this is happening across Michigan. And many people there are shocked because of these overnight deadly storms.

Severe weather is blamed for three deaths in the state, and we're just getting in these pictures of one of the hardest hit areas, the town of Williamston.

Tornadoes and hail are reported across much of Michigan as the line of storms swept through. And unfortunately, it sounds like more storms are still going to be sweeping through across the country.

Chad Myers is in the severe weather center and targeting Michigan once again or other parts of the country?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Well, north and east of there, I think, probably, Fred, today. Back where the heat is. The cold air is already in Michigan now. The cold front has moved by. So the potential for real severe weather is gone.

Now, that said, you can always get what's called a cold air funnel, a very small rope-type funnel that will fall out of these storms just because there's so much cold air aloft. It's trying to suck up any warm air, and then you can get a little bit of a spin. But they're minor compared to the damage that they saw there in Michigan. The storms are kind of firing here a little bit in the warmer air, Dover, Washington, D.C., all the way on up into New York City, as well.

Now, the story yesterday is this Williamston tornado. There's Lansing, East Lansing. And that storm right there, as it moved across Owosso, that was the tornadic storm. And this is some of the worst damage we've seen now, from WXYZ, actually my old affiliate up there in Detroit.

This is closer to Lansing, though. You fly out past Brighton and west of there. And I'm seeing damage probably equal to what's called an EF-2 or 3 damage here. We will cut this and find the best video, or the worst video, depending on your point of view, and show you exactly what went on there.

There were at least 30 different tornadoes yesterday, all on the ground in place from Michigan to Mississippi, Fred. It was a big line of storms.

WHITFIELD: Huge.

MYERS: This is from yesterday. This isn't live. This is what happened yesterday.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

MYERS: All that weather has moved off to the east now.

WHITFIELD: Yes. It was pretty remarkable. I remember you saying it was around a dozen to expect earlier on in the afternoon, and they just kept coming one after the other.

All right.

MYERS: And they came at night, so you couldn't see them coming. Right?

WHITFIELD: Yes. That's when it's most frightening.

MYERS: That's tough.

WHITFIELD: And most damaging. Chad, we'll be hearing more from you later on. Thanks so much.

MYERS: You bet.

SIMON: A real-life mystery surrounds illusionist David Copperfield. Police in Seattle say a police report was filed over the summer from an alleged female victim, making an accusation against Copperfield, an accusation that police are not revealing right now.

Word of that investigation follows an FBI raid this week on a Las Vegas warehouse owned by Copperfield. Seattle police say the raids stem from something that allegedly happened in the Bahamas, but they're not saying what that incident was. Copperfield's attorney says he is confident the investigation will end in his client's favor.

We have CNN's Katharine Barrett on the phone in Seattle.

Katharine, I understand you were at the police department. What are you picking up over there?

KATHARINE BARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I spoke to the police department media relations office this morning, and when -- the Seattle office of the FBI is apparently leading this investigation. The FBI is being quite tight-lipped about it.

The Seattle Police Department, though, said that they did take what they called a courtesy report from an alleged victim, a woman, back in midsummer, late June or July. The dates, they weren't sure of without the actual document.

They told me the incident took place, alleged incident took place in the Bahamas, so it was out of Seattle police jurisdiction, but that the alleged victim lives in Seattle and that, because of what they called the seriousness of the alleged incident, they documented it and took, again, what they call a courtesy report. And presumably, the seriousness of that alleged incident was what floated it up to the level of the FBI.

SIMON: Katharine, you know, there's word out that authorities in Las Vegas raided a warehouse, that they took a lot of cash, that they took some other items, as well. Any idea what the folks in Vegas, the authorities there might be looking for?

BARRETT: Not as far as the FBI has said. They are saying, again, only that they are investigating a Seattle case with connections to Las Vegas. Again, they've -- Las Vegas FBI have confirmed that they raided that warehouse. What they're looking for or -- Seattle won't even go so far as to say this case is connected to the magician who owns the warehouse.

SIMON: Are they saying why they're being so tight-lipped?

BARRETT: Just that the investigation -- the case is pending.

SIMON: The case is pending.

BARRETT: So this is still something of a moving target for them, and obviously, then, that makes it so for us.

SIMON: All right, Katharine. We will continue to follow it. That's Katharine Barrett in Seattle. Thanks very much.

WHITFIELD: Well, Dan, the suits showed up in federal court today on behalf of rapper known as T.I. He's facing serious weapons charges, but the jailed mega star got a mega show of support from some of the top movers and shakers in the recording industry, right there in court.

With the story for us live, CNN's Rusty Dornin.

This hearing was quite unusual, right?

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really was, because usually these bond hearings, especially in federal court, are very dry, Fredricka. This was anything but.

When the defense started talking about their preconditions that they were willing to put on, they had his whole family stood up, about 35 people. Three quarters of the courtroom stood up.

But then he brought out the real coup d'etat. It was six record executives. Two of them were CEO and chairman of Warner Music and Atlantic Music, to stand up and say they believed in T.I., that he was reliable and that he would not be a flight risk and that he was not a danger to the community. They were going to pledge money, millions.

The defense said, "We'll keep him at home. We'll pay for the monitoring." And all of that trying to convince the judge to let him out of jail. And still Judge Baverman said, "I want to think about it."

WHITFIELD: And so, Rusty, the next step is -- when the judge says he wants to think about it, that's over about a couple weeks' time?

DORNIN: No, it's going to still be next Friday. But I think the most interesting thing here is -- and, also, the idea that -- I've never heard this before. I've never heard a federal judge compliment a defendant so thoroughly during a hearing. He called him an exceptional and gifted musician, that he was extraordinarily generous to the underprivileged and gave so much.

And he said, that's why he was perplexed. On the very day he was supposed to achieve a huge reward, a very important day in his life, he shows up at a parking lot, armed, trying to buy machine guns. He said, "That's very perplexing. I really want to think about this before I decide to release him, no matter how strict the circumstances are and no matter how much money people put up."

WHITFIELD: And so the judge wanted to think about his past criminal record, as well, maybe? Even though it didn't go, you know, with his remarks on that today?

DORNIN: Well, they brought a lot of that up. I mean, the interesting thing is this man, T.I. -- his real name is Clifford Harris. He used to use three or four false names to give to police in the past. He's been busted for drugs. He's failed to -- for court appearances.

But the defense says, hey, wait, that's when he was younger. That's between the time of 17 and 23. He's 27 now, and he hasn't done anything except maybe some traffic citations since then.

But the judge says, "Wait a minute, you know, he's possessing illegally some very dangerous weapons." And he says, "I want to think about that."

WHITFIELD: All right. And so he will for at least a week. Thanks so much, Rusty Dornin there in Atlanta -- Dan.

SIMON: This time yesterday, Pensacola, Florida, was getting slammed by a tornado. It damaged a shopping mall, a church and its day care center there. But so far as we know, no one was hurt. Today, folks, they were really cleaning up.

And CNN's Sean Callebs, he's there as well, giving us a look around.

Sean, looks pretty bad behind you there.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, but it's -- it's actually a lot better than it was several hours ago. The rain has stopped here, Dan. And if you look behind me, a couple of cherry pickers, as well as crews up on the roof of this church, putting some plywood over an area where the aluminum roof is ripped off.

And on the other side, which you can't see, is pretty much a mirror image of that, a gaping hole. The information we are getting from construction crews here, it's going to take at least until tomorrow to get plywood over that facility.

Very scary for residents here yesterday, because this church also operates a day care center. This is an area that really doesn't get hit by tornadoes very often. So when they heard a tornado had slammed into the area, especially where children were, a number of panicked parents rushed to the scene. But to their relief, no kids inside the facility were injured at all.

Also have some pretty dramatic pictures that were taken from the dash cam of an Escambia County sheriff's office vehicle. This guy's job, this sheriff's deputy job was actually to follow the funnel cloud, relay information to the dispatcher. And she was trying to keep traffic away from the area and also warn people who were in the path of this.

It cut a pretty wide swathe of destruction, about seven Miles long, about 150 -- about 150 yards wide.

We heard Chad earlier talk about the EF-2 or 3 up in the Michigan area. This, we're told, is about an EF-1. Still, very significant damage to an area that doesn't really get a whole lot of tornadoes. So Dan, the big challenge is going to be to try and clean up and hope that no more thunderstorms move into this area.

It's been a very frightening 24 hours for people here.

SIMON: CNN's Sean Callebs live in Pensacola, Florida. Thanks, Sean.

When weather becomes the news, count on CNN to bring it to you first. And if you see severe weather happening in your area, please send us an I-Report. You can just go to CNN.com and click on I-Report or type ireport@CNN.com into your cell phone, and you can share your photos or video -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, the White House says President Bush would like to see oil prices fall. Well, who wouldn't? The price of crude topped $90 a barrel for a while today. That's a number that could have a ripple effect, and not just at the gas station.

CNN's Ali Velshi joins us now from New York.

How might this impact us all?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fred, well, this is where it closed yesterday. This is where oil settled, $89.47.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

VELSHI: And by this morning, as you said, above $90: $90.07. We've never seen those kind of raw numbers for a barrel of oil.

Well, the first place, obviously, where you're going to feel that is in gasoline. We've already seen about a five- or six-cent increase per gallon this week. I just spoke to somebody who predicts that could be another 15 to 20 cents over the coming week.

So there's all these people who say you're not actually seeing that translate to gas. Nonsense. You're obviously going to see it translate to gas.

No. 2, heating oil. You're going to see a big increase in the cost of heating oil. Early projections a few weeks ago was it will be 20 to 25 percent more for the winter. That was before we thought we were getting $90 oil. That was before oil was over $80 a barrel. So that's going to affect you.

Then everything that we buy, all the things get shipped to these stores in trucks across America. That's going to cost more. Airplanes, all sorts of transportation, things that are made in factories, all of that costs more, things that are shipped to U.S. shores.

And then the number of products that we buy, Fred, that actually are made with petroleum products, most plastic things that we buy -- toys, electronics -- everything ends up costing more.

So whether or not you drive or heat a home with gas -- with oil, this is going to affect you: $89.47, $90.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

VELSHI: Anywhere in this region is really going to affect you.

WHITFIELD: That is a crazy number. I could have sworn it wasn't that long ago when we were wincing over $60 plus.

VELSHI: That's right. Well, it was $70 in August. Then -- and most people said then it's probably going to go down before it goes up, or maybe it will go up a little bit. This is not something that most people expected.

But now people are readily saying you're going to see $100 oil. That's not such a stretch.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

VELSHI: That's ten bucks away. And the bottom line is, when you look back in, you know, the last 30 or 40 years, big spikes like this in oil have triggered recessions. Now, we're in a different economy but that's a concern to people.

WHITFIELD: Does this mean we have weeks or days before we start, you know, filling up those tanks and knowing that we're going to be experiencing much bigger prices at the pump or even like those airline tickets? I mean, we're coming on the holidays.

VELSHI: You're going to see those fuel surcharges again. And you know, Fred, between filling up the tank and that the fact that you -- people that use heating oil for their homes buy it in chunks -- it's bigger than a tank of gas -- you're going to start seeing people really feel the pinch.

And guess what? We're headed into the holiday shopping season.

WHITFIELD: Right.

VELSHI: The one that matters the most for retailers. This starts to affect people's behavior. They start to pull back on their spending because the money has got to come from somewhere.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

VELSHI: Most Americans are not sitting around with big piles of trash.

WHITFIELD: Depressing. Depressing. Thanks so much for the information, though, Ali Velshi.

VELSHI: Good to see you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Good to see you, too.

SIMON: You may have noticed something a little different on the bottom of your screen this hour. Take a look at that. CNN logo, it has turned green. That's because CNN is going green over the next week.

We are digging deeper on environmental issues, covering stories that really affect all of us, from the air we breathe to the fuel we use. It all coincides with the premier of "Planet in Peril", a special report from Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin. That is coming up next Tuesday and Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

Meanwhile, today in the NEWSROOM, Miles O'Brien, he's going to be looking at the man who's really become the political face of environmental issues and the people who disagree with the guy you see right there, former Vice President Al Gore.

Plus Gerri Willis, she's going to show us the latest technology to make your home greener. That's coming up here in the NEWSROOM.

WHITFIELD: And cheaters beware. The water police are on the lookout for your sprinklers as the southeast drought continues. The latest on the extreme measures.

SIMON: Plus, a happy ending for a teenage hiker. Hear how rescuers found this autistic boy deep in the mountains of West Virginia.

WHITFIELD: And if you or someone you love takes erectile dysfunction drugs, well, listen up. A new warning for those popular pills.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Some breaking Florida news. Let's go straight to Betty Nguyen in the NEWSROOM.

Betty, what do you have?

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, hi, Fred. We are learning that Mel Martinez is stepping down as chairman of the Republican National Committee, just after nine months of serving at that post.

We understand that announcement, official announcement will be planned for a little bit later today. But we already have an announcement from the president today. A statement issued by the president says Mel Martinez has served his party with the same distinction he served his country.

Also goes on to say, "I am grateful for his leadership at the RNC, his service in my cabinet and his continued service as a member of the United States Senate."

So CNN's John King, obviously, will have much more on this story in just a few moments, but it does appear that Mel Martinez will be stepping down as chairman of the RNC. And of course, we'll bring much more you to you on that matter -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Betty -- Dan.

SIMON: Heading home after a four-day ordeal in the West Virginia woods. Jacob Allen, he is the autistic teenager we've been telling you about who wandered off from a hike last Sunday afternoon.

CNN's Allan Chernoff, he has been following the search from the very beginning, and he's at the hospital where Jacob spent last night -- Allan.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Jacob is doing very, very well. In fact, his sister says not a single scratch on his body. He did arrive here yesterday evening dirty and dehydrated, so the hospital overnight did give him an I.V. drip, and he's also been drinking plenty of Gatorade to rehydrate himself, get those electrolytes going.

But he certainly is doing so well that the hospital says he'll be discharged this afternoon.

It is such a happy ending to a drama that attracted hundreds of volunteer searchers, who were just combing the trail in the Appalachian woods, hunting for Jacob.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRITTNEY ALLEN, JACOB ALLEN'S SISTER: I didn't even know most of the people that were there. And, you know, we had a lot of family and friends that came out. But just everyone that was there, they felt what we were feeling. They were so happy when we found him.

And every day, they were telling us, you know, we're going to find him. There was just a lot of good spirit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: Jacob has severe autism. His family says he's nonverbal and would not respond to a call for his name, so the hunters were actually calling out in the woods, "We have ice cream." To the best of my knowledge, none of them was carrying vanilla or chocolate ice cream cones.

Jacob did first get a candy bar and then some peanut butter sandwiches. So now the Allen family owes him a few ice creams. They say they're going to have a big ice cream party to celebrate -- Dan.

SIMON: Well, the ice cream got his attention. Has anything like this ever happened to Jacob before?

CHERNOFF: Actually, it has, not quite as serious. There was one time when the family was hiking near Morgantown, where they're from, and they say Jacob was lost for about an hour, but they found him. So it wasn't anything of this magnitude. This really gave everyone a scare.

SIMON: Well, what a great conclusion to this story, Allan. Thanks so much for your report.

WHITFIELD: All right. We've gotten new pictures now on that deadly line of storms, particularly of what happens after a tornado touches down. And Indiana is the latest location.

Chad Myers is in the severe weather center.

So, Chad, Indiana being hit, as well. And it looks from these images a number of homes that have been decimated by these twisters.

MYERS: Yes, this is up in northern Indiana, Nappanee. And what happened here last night is the same storm -- it very well may have been the same cell -- hung together all the way from Kokomo, all the way north of Kokomo, south of South Bend and ran right through Nappanee.

Now there's actually -- there's two "E's" on the end of Nappanee, instead of two "N's", but whatever.

This Nappanee storm, as it was coming across, went right back and into Michigan. The video here -- I was talking to storm chaser. We have a network now. And this is actually just the amazement of the Internet.

I saw one of the storm chasers' GPS location right behind this storm. His name is Adam. And I called him last night. And I said, "Adam, this is Chad from CNN. What are you seeing?"

He goes, "Oh, my gosh. I can't believe it. This was at least an EF-2, EF-3. It's on the ground. We're still chasing it. We left. The place is in shambles. Nappanee is just -- is a wreck. We're going north. We're following it."

Now I didn't call him back out of that to see how far he took this storm, because he could have taken it all the way up to the storm we showed you up in Williamston, Michigan.

WHITFIELD: Right.

MYERS: This is a very long-lived, very dangerous tornado.

What we had, we had -- we had warm air on the -- at the surface and then a cold front tried to come in and push that cold air up. We call it -- we call it dry slide convection. It was sunny all day. It was hot and muggy. And that air went up, and the tornadoes came down -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: Yes. You know what it looks like, just looking at these images? So often, Chad, we get conditioned to see tornado damage, and you know, one house is obliterated. The one right next door is intact and so on and so forth. But in this case, this cul-de- sac, it looks like every house was hit.

MYERS: Well, it was a very large and wide tornado. The storm teams now, what they need to do -- what the storm teams will do at this point, they will figure out what was hit. And you can't tell from a mobile home what the size of a tornado was.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

MYERS: You have to tell from a brick structure.

WHITFIELD: They seldom stand a chance anyway.

MYERS: You have to tell from very heavy things.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

MYERS: How far things were tossed, how big brick structures were knocked down, how frame structures were knocked down.

And there is a -- there's a big-time science to this, figuring out whether it was just one arm of a, what we call, multi-vortex tornado with little suction spots spinning around and around and around. Or was it one very large, what we call, wedge tornado.

And that's what these guys were describing yesterday. In fact, they couldn't believe I was calling them, but their phone number shows up on the Internet and their car is right behind this storm. And I had to get on the phone...

WHITFIELD: Right.

MYERS: ... and say, "What are you guys doing there," for one thing. "And do you know how dangerous where you are is?" And they did. And they were experienced storm chasers. So we chatted for a while.

I knew this damage was going to come up. And Fred, we are going to get damage from Kentucky.

WHITFIELD: Oh, boy.

MYERS: We're going to get pictures -- look at that. I mean, that literally could be more than the 3. I don't know what that structure was to start with.

But an F-1 means we knocked down some shingles, took maybe a couple of big roofs off, you know, boards off. Where a two, you start to lose shingles, boards and maybe a couple of rafters. Three, the whole roof is gone. Four, you start to lose walls. Five, well, you can't even find the walls.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

MYERS: So we're not -- we're not to that five category, but certainly we're to a major tornado up here in Nappanee, Indiana. It moved right over Kokomo, right over the industrial district of Kokomo. And I haven't heard about any damage there. So maybe it was just a funnel cloud at that point in time or just a rotating wall cloud.

But the damage I'm looking at here is -- is devastating.

WHITFIELD: This is like a giant steam roller just kind of plowed through this area.

And, you know, I wonder, Chad, are you leaning more towards more than one twister? Because when we look at the scope of the damage, I mean, that's one, you know, wide singular twister, if that were indeed the case.

MYERS: No, this was one tornado.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

MYERS: This was one tornado. I was watching the storm on radar. WHITFIELD: Unbelievable.

MYERS: It had a mezzo cyclone on the back. What that means is that the whole storm is a great updraft, and the hail on this storm was 2, 2 1/2 inches. But on the very back side, the southwestern corner of this storm is -- the whole system was rotating straight up and down. The vertical velocities were going up and down, probably 100 miles per hour in some of these storms, keeping baseball-sized hail in the air, then falling out of the sky later on.

And this what we call mezzo cyclone. It's just a big long term which means that's the part of the storm that was spinning. And there was only one part of this storm that was spinning. There were not two tornadoes.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

MYERS: That's how wide this tornado was.

WHITFIELD: It's so sad and painstaking for the people as we watch here, folks trying to rummage through, trying to salvage anything. I think we saw in some images earlier, it looked like a woman was thumbing through some photographs, trying to save that.

And, you know, this young man here, grabbing whatever he can. And often when we see these tornadoes, too, they're associated with rain. Was that also the case here? It looks kind of dry.

MYERS: It rained -- well, it rained, hailed and then tornado. Yes.

And the problem here -- and this is obviously -- this is where mobile homes or where trailers are actually constructed. But you don't even know where to start.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

MYERS: I was watching that man walk around his possessions. Where do you start? It just -- all you do is just pray for somebody to come help you, because you just -- you look at it and it's devastated. What do I pick up first, you know?

WHITFIELD: Yes, yes. And even after the storm, everyone has to be really careful, because you know, you forget about the wood, the exposed nails, and people are walking through all of that stuff. And sometimes you've got a lot of injuries of people stepping on debris, you know, as they are trying to salvage anything they can from their properties.

MYERS: Yes, well, here is where we're back to -- and not that an industrial site is any less damaged, but here, hopefully, because it was in the middle of the night, maybe 10 p.m., hopefully that industrial site didn't have anybody working there.

But you know, people were obviously living in these homes when this tornado hit. WHITFIELD: Yes.

MYERS: Now, there was -- there was a tornado warning on it. The weather service was all over it. You couldn't be not all over this storm. That's how devastating this storm looked on radar. So hopefully, they got the word out. Hopefully, they had their weather radios on or a TV on or something.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

MYERS: Because this was a biggie.

WHITFIELD: Our hearts go out to the folks there in Nappanee, Indiana. Chad, thanks so much. And we'll keep tabs as you give us that warning on Kentucky needing to brace for some possible severe weather. Thanks so much.

SIMON: A child sex abuse investigation, an international manhunt and now an arrest. The story ahead in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Take a look at these pictures. Devastating. This is in northern Indiana, in Nappanee, Indiana, where it's believed that some 200, to maybe even 250 homes and structures were obliterated by this tornado that swept through the area overnight.

Right now, you're looking at pictures of people trying their best to kind of clean things up or salvage what they can from their flattened homes and businesses, businesses including a recreational vehicle plant, in fact, three of them. And we understand this community to be very much an Amish community as well, so a lot of folks have been touched by this home in so many different ways. And anyone in that area, we are encouraging people to send us your I- Report images, whether you're in Indiana, or perhaps even in Michigan, which also experienced just a line of thunderstorms and tornadoes, where three people died across that state.

And our Chad Myers is in the severe weather center. We're continuing to keep tabs with him. He says Kentucky may be neck on deck for expecting any kind of severe weather, possibly even of this magnitude as well.

(NEWSBREAK)

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

SIMON: Christian conservatives, they are coming together in Washington today to hear the Republican presidential candidates ask for their support. In the eyes of the so-called values voters, all the leading contenders are flawed in one way or another.

Our chief national correspondent John King, he has been listening in on the meeting. John, what have you heard? JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATL. CORRESPONDENT: Interesting day so far, Dan. Several of the presidential candidates on the Republican side already through the Value Voters summit, several more to come over the next day and a half or so.

And remember this meeting in Washington, but taking place just 11 weeks before the kickoff Iowa caucuses, where social conservatives are the largest and most vocal Republican constituency. Root now no clear front-runner in the race, either nationally or state by state, a jumbled Republican field, and so the candidates coming before the socially conservative voters, trying to get their support and trying to get them not only to personally vote for them, but to become grassroots activists for them back in their home states.

So, among the candidates coming in this morning, Senator John McCain of Arizona kicked it off, closely followed by former Senator Thompson of Tennessee. Both of them appealing for conservative support by stressing their opposition to abortion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRES. CANDIDATE: My friend, I have been pro-life my entire public career. I believe I am the only major candidate in either party who can make that claim. I am pro-life.

FRED THOMPSON (R), PRES. CANDIDATE: As president of United States, no legislation will pass my desk that funds or supports this procedure without my veto.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And as the candidates speak, a little hardball politics in the audience. Hard to see this on television. But it's a flyer distributed by the Thompson campaign that says he has consistently anti-abortion and with the Christian right on the issue of gay rights. It says Mayor Giuliani and former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney have not been so, especially going after Governor Romney, who now says he is anti-abortion, for in the past saying he was pro-choice on abortion rights, and that he would help gay and lesbian Americans get equal rights in this country.

So, Dan, a fierce competition for the votes of social conservatives, some of it in very polite speeches, some of in not-so- polite flyers.

SIMON: And, John, you know, we're hearing that there was a little bit of a shakeup in the GOP leadership today. What do you know about that?

KING: An interesting decision. Florida Senator Mel Martinez had agreed about 10 months ago to come on in and serve as general chairman of the Republican Party. The president personally asked him to do this, as a friend. Mel Martinez was once in the Bush cabinet; to come in, help the Republican Party raise money, help the Republican Party have a national spokesman after the drubbing the Republicans took in the 2002 midterm elections. Well, Senator Martinez has stepped down today as general chairman. The president has issued a statement thanking him for his service. Senator Martinez says he's accomplished what he came to do, help the party raise more money after that 2006 midterm losses.

But we're also told by some sources that he was finding it more and more difficult to speak his mind as an individual senator and cater to his politics back home in Florida when he was the party's national chairman. He's not up for re-election for three years, but we're told it became a concern to him. He thought his own standing back home was suffering, so he thought it was best to step down from that national role so he could focus more and more on his personal politics in the state of Florida -- Dan.

SIMON: CNN's chief national correspondent John King. John, thanks a lot.

And if you want the most up to the minute political news anywhere, just go to CNNpolitics.com. It is your one-stop shop, get behind the scenes details from the best political team on television, and really see why it is the Internet's premier destination for all of your political news, that is CNNpolitics.com.

WHITFIELD: All right, go ahead, turn on those sprinklers, then pull out your wallet. If you live in north Georgia, you are going to pay. The truth and consequences of drought.

SIMON: And more on these pictures from Indiana. Really a devastating scene where a tornado hit. We're going to have more on this ahead in the NEWSROOM.

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

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WHITFIELD: Well, let's go back to the news room and Betty Nguyen, who has more details now on a Maryland stolen tanker truck.

NGUYEN: Yes.

WHITFIELD: What happened?

NGUYEN: This is quite a story. OK, essentially, the truck driver was putting fuel in it. And as he got in the vehicle, a man came up to him with a semiautomatic weapon and forcibly took that vehicle.

Now, this tanker carried 7,100 gallons of No. 2 diesel fuel. What that is is some of the fuel that's used for home heating oil, and it's not as combustible as, say, high octane fuel but it is indeed flammable.

So, this was a problem. The Homeland Department was on this and Homeland Security Department was looking into it, and we understand that D.C. police have been able to find this tanker. What they don't have at this point is the driver, the person who took that vehicle. And at this point, we also don't know whether any of the fuel was taken out of that tanker or what the condition of the vehicle is at this time, but ...

WHITFIELD: Or why they would want to do this.

NGUYEN: Exactly. What is that all about?

WHITFIELD: A colossal undertaking, isn't it, to try and ...

NGUYEN: Well, the good news is ...

WHITFIELD: ..steal some of that fuel?

NGUYEN: ...especially when you have 7,100 gallons of diesel out there just somewhere, someone taking it, you don't know what they're up to.

WHITFIELD: Right.

NGUYEN: But the good news is they found it and now they're just looking for the person who took that truck. We'll stay on top of it.

WHITFIELD: All right, the hunt is on.

NGUYEN: Yes.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, Betty.

SIMON: There's going to be some new warning labels on the way for popular impotence drugs. What men need to know, ahead here in the NEWSROOM.

WHITFIELD: And we're also standing by for a live event from the White House. President Bush is expected to speak about the protests in Myanmar and possibly some new American sanctions.

The news keeps coming and we keep bringing it to you right here from the NEWSROOM. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

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WHITFIELD: All right, want to take you straight to the White House. We'll have news from medicine in a moment. But President Bush now talking about possible sanctions against Myanmar?

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To the streets in peaceful marches to demand their freedom and call for Democratic change.

The world has also been horrified by the response of Burma's military junta. Monks have been beaten and killed. Thousands of pro- democracy protesters have been arrested. And Burma's dictator, Than Shwe, continues to hold captive the leader of Burma's largest Democratic party, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Burma's rulers continue to defy the world's just demands to stop their vicious persecution. They continue to dismiss calls to begin peaceful dialogue aimed at national reconciliation. Most of all, they continue to reject the clear will of the Burmese people to live in freedom under leaders of their own choosing.

Last month, the United States tightened economic sanctions on the leaders of Burma's regime and imposed an expanded Visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights as well as their family members. The Treasury Department designated 14 top leaders of the Burmese regime for sanctions, including Than Shwe and his deputy vice senior general, Maung Aye. And the State Department added 260 names of Burmese officials and their family members to the Visa ban list.

In light of the ongoing atrocities by these men and their associates, the United States has today imposed additional sanctions. First, the Treasury Department has designated 11 more leaders of the Burmese junta for sanctions under existing authorities.

Second, I've issued a new executive order that designates an additional 12 individuals and entities for sanctions. This executive order grants the Treasury Department expanded authority to designate for sanctions individuals responsible for human rights abuses as well as public corruption and those who provide material and financial backing to these individuals or to the government of Burma.

Third, I've instructed our Commerce Department to tighten its export control regulations for Burma.

Burmese authorities claim they desire reconciliation. Well, they need to match those words with actions. A good way to start would be to provide the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations access to political prisoners, to allow Aung San Suu Kyi and other detained leaders to communicate with one another, and to permit Special Envoy Gambari to enter their country immediately.

And ultimately, reconciliation requires that Burmese authorities release all political prisoners and begin negotiations with the Democratic opposition under the auspices of the United Nations.

We will continue to review our policies and consider additional measures if Burma's leaders do not end the brutal repression of their own people, whose only offense is the desire to live in freedom. Business as usual is unacceptable.

So, I applaud the efforts of the European Union and nations like Australia that have announced targeted sanctions on the Burmese regime. I commend nations such as Japan that have curtailed their assistance to Burma in response to the atrocities. I appreciate nations such as Singapore and the Philippines and Indonesia who have spoken out against the atrocities.

I ask other countries to review their own laws and policies, especially Burma's closest neighbors, China, India and others in the region. People of Burma are showing great courage in the face of immense repression. They are appealing for our help. We must not turn a deaf ear to their cries.

They do have many friends around the world, including Laura. I'm proud of Laura for all she's done to awaken the consciousness of the world to the plight of the Burmese people.

I believe no nation can forever suppress its own people, and we are confident that the day is coming when freedom's tide will reach the shores of Burma.

Thank you.

WHITFIELD: President Bush there at the White House talking about how he has signed an executive order asking for sanctions to be imposed against individuals in Burma, or Myanmar, for human rights abuses as well as for corruption. This coming on the heels of First Lady Laura Bush also speaking out her support for those pro-democracy demonstrators. Some 3,000 who were taken political prisoner. President Bush also asking for their immediate release.

We'll have much more in the NEWSROOM right after this.

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SIMON: Hey, guys, listen up. If you are taking drugs like Viagra or Cialis, you may soon see a new warning on the actual label itself.

Details now from CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The FDA has announced some new labeling changes, specifically for these medications that we're talking about here, impotence medications such as Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, saying specifically that they may cause sudden hearing loss.

Now, we want to put this in perspective a little bit. First of all, the class of medications that we're talking about here are something known as phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors. You don't need to remember that, but you should know that there have been 29 adverse effects since 1996. Yes, that's a very small number.

What they talked about specifically was hearing loss, vertigo, or dizziness. Vertigo and dizziness are sort of similar things there. About two-thirds of the time, the hearing loss seemed to be ongoing. About a third of the time, it seemed to be temporary.

Now, they're not exactly sure why this would happen. It could be some problem related to the blood flow to the ear, might be some mechanism where these medications actually somehow impede that blood flow, but it's unclear. We did talk to the makers of these medications, at least one of them, Pfizer. Here's what they had to say, "It is not possible to determine whether these reported events are related directly to the use of pde5 inhibitors" -- that's a class of drugs -- "or other factors such as the patient's underlying medical conditions, risk factors for hearing loss, or to other factors."

The makers of Levitra went on to say that "The number of patients affected is very small and the hearing loss in patients taking Levitra were temporary."

Again, not sure why this is happening. It is very rare, as you can tell. There is another medication that does fall into this class as well, known as Revatio, that's a drug for pulmonary hypertension. This is something they're going to be looking at as well.

Message here now, if you are taking that medication, don't stop it suddenly. It has a lot of effects that you need to be taking it for, but certainly talk to your doctor.

This story will be developing. We'll certainly bring you new details as they develop. Back to you for now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, much more on pictures out of Indiana. A horrible scene there where twister -- a twister, a monster of a twister overnight seemed to just pummel an area, Nappanee, Indiana. We're going to be joined by the town's mayor right after this.

You're in the NEWSROOM.

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