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American Morning
Homebuyers Beware; Better, But Not Great; State of Emergency
Aired November 06, 2007 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Broken borders. A shocking, new report exposing the holes, not in the middle of nowhere, but at the checkpoint.
Extreme weather. The growing emergency in Mexico. Now deadly mudslides on top of dramatic flooding.
Plus, TV land in reruns.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our production will stop within the next couple of days because we have stopped writing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Stars rally for the writers. Shows already shut down. How long could it last? Find out on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Yes, it's probably weird for a lot of people not to watch Letterman and Leno.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Already went into reruns that first day. My goodness.
CHETRY: Exactly. We're going to talk more about that throughout the hour.
Also, it's Tuesday, November 6th. Thanks for being with us. I'm Kiran Chetry
ROBERTS: And good morning to you. I'm John Roberts.
We begin this morning with breaking news on the security watch. Twenty terror suspects arrested across Europe today. According to Italian police, more than half were nabbed in Italy alone, specifically in northern cities like Milan, where the investigation started. They are suspected of involvement in trying to recruit suicide bombers for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Italian police say they found al Qaeda manuals that detailed how to make and detonate explosives and concoct various poisons.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, brutal police beatings are taking place in the streets today. About 25 percent of the country's lawyers are now in jail since President Musharraf ordered a crackdown on protesters. People who live there tell CNN, it's not safe for them to go outside. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AYESHA TAMMY HAQ, PAKISTANI LAWYER IN HIDING: From the military, obviously, there's been a huge crackdown of anyone who's out, anyone who's protesting against General Musharraf is being arrested. So I'm trying to stay out of jail. It's not just brutal, it's violently brutal, and they seem to enjoy themselves. They seem to actually take pleasure in what they're doing. Very shocking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: President Bush is calling on Musharraf to hold elections and resign as general as soon as possible. The U.S. has given Pakistan $10 billion to help fight al Qaeda and has suggested future aid might be in jeopardy.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Some alarming news this morning about security breaches at our borders. The General Accountability Office found as many as 21,000 people were able to slip through U.S. border checkpoints last year. At one point of entry, GAO investigators found no agents in the inspection booth. The report did not specify where these security breaches happened. The deputy administrator of Customs and Border Protection says that part of the problem is a lack of consistent rules.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAYSON AHERN, CBP DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: Today there is currently not a requirement, either statutorily or regulatory requiring everyone to have a document coming across the border. So, no, they're all being checked.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: The GAO report blames, among other things, staffing shortages and poor management.
His confirmation as attorney general appears almost certain this morning. In just a few hours, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to approve Michael Mukasey's nomination and send it to the full Senate for confirmation. Mukasey's reluctance to define waterboarding as torture, even though he called the interrogation "repugnant," put his nomination in jeopardy. But two, key Senate Democrats agreed to vote with Republicans and approve Mukasey.
So what do Americans think about waterboarding? A CNN/Opinion Research poll found that 69 percent of people surveyed do consider it torture, 40 percent say, yes, it should be used to get information from terror suspects and 58 percent say, no, it should not be used.
John.
ROBERTS: It's coming up on three minutes after the hour. In southern Mexico, as many as 18 people are feared dead after a wave of water and mud swept through the remote village of Villahermosa. It follows a week of heavy rain and flooding that has forced about a half a million people out of their homes. President Bush is proposing emergency aid to help the flood victims.
Back in this country, we're experiencing strong winds in the Midwest. Powerful gusts up to 45 miles an hour knocked down two light poles in downtown Milwaukee yesterday. The winds ahead of a sharp cold front moving in.
And check out this amazing footage from Charleston, West Virginia. Thunderstorms there brought drenching rains, and as you can see, some pretty fierce lightning.
So where's the extreme weather today? It's here in New York. Rob Marciano at our weather desk tracking it this morning.
We've got some storms out there, Rob. Obviously going to cause some big problems with air traffic as well.
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: Well, the first night without TV writers featured reruns of all the late night talk shows. That freed up Jay Leno to show some support for his strikers. He showed up at the picket line during the day with doughnuts for the writers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY LENO, "TONIGHT SHOW" HOST: I've been working with these people for 20 years, so I support them. And people kind of get the wrong idea how much writers make. I know I'm real cheap and I don't pay them anything. So unless they get anything from these DVD sales and all those other stuff. So, I mean, I think it's a good cause.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Other stars, such as Tina Fey -- she's also the head writer for "Saturday Night Live," was picketing. And even presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton weighed in on the issue, urging the two sides to come up with a deal. The main issue is how to distribute revenue from new media, such as DVDs and internet downloads.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologizing to the father of a Ground Zero worker for saying that his son was "not a hero." Bloomberg made the comment after a city medical examiner ruled that James Zadroga died from abusing prescription drugs, not from dust inhaled at the World Trade Center site. Bloomberg caught a lot of flack for the comment and met with Zadroga's father yesterday. The family insist Zadroga did not abuse any drugs.
In Illinois, cadaver sniffing dogs and mountain teams are joining the search for 23-year-old Stacy Peterson. Peterson, a mother of two, was last seen by her husband, Police Sergeant Drew Peterson, October 28th, two days after he claims she told him she wanted a divorce. Now she's his fourth wife. Sergeant Peterson is not a suspect at this point, but there are questions being raised about the bathtub drowning of his previous wife. Her sister discussed that relationship last night on "Nancy Grace."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUE DOMAN, SISTER WAS DREW PETERSON'S WIFE: In the beginning, everything was fine. And then after a few years, it did start up. He would always ask, who are you on the phone with? And she would say, just, you know, a friend or a family member. And then he would just smirk and laugh and he said, who were you on the phone with?
NANCY GRACE, CNN's "NANCY GRACE": But, Sue, let me ask you, did she ever express a fear? Did she ever say, this guy scares me. I mean . . .
DOMAN: Oh, definitely. She said it many times. She said -- many times she told family, friends, anybody she could tell, I'm scared to death of him. He's going to kill me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: So, again, that was the sister of his previous wife who died in a bathtub. We're going to have a report from Bolingbrook, Illinois, on the very latest in this case coming up in our next half hour.
ROBERTS: And later on this morning we're also going to be talking with Stacy Peterson's aunt, Candace Aikin, about this whole case.
An advisory panel will recommend to the president today that the FDA be given more power to protect Americans from tainted imports. The panel was created in response to the growing list of dangerous or unhealthy items coming into the United States. It wants the FDA to be able to order mandatory recalls. A power it currently doesn't have. It also wants more inspectors in countries that are major U.S. exporters. And in about 40 minutes time here on AMERICAN MORNING, we'll be speaking with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt about other ways to keep imports safe.
A Halloween fund-raiser, organized by the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, may have crossed the line. Some employees say they were offended by a man dressed in a prison outfit, dreadlocks and a skin bronzer to make him look African-American. The assistant Homeland Security secretary, who hosted the party, Julie Myers, has apologized for the "inappropriate and offensive costume." During the party, though, Myers and two other party judges cited the prisoner costume for its originality. There were pictures taken at that party, but they've since been deleted. Homeland Security officials plan to investigate the whole thing.
And a California National Guard unit is being investigated today for allegedly taking donations intended for wildfire victims. The 330th military police company was providing security in Potrero, about 40 miles east of San Diego. The guard launched its investigation after volunteers reported the troops were taking away cartons of snacks and diapers, items that were intended for displaced fire victims near the U.S.-Mexican border. One soldier has already been relieved of duty.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, it's time now to check in with our AMERICAN MORNING team of correspondents for other stories new this morning.
Homebuyers beware. The fallout from the credit crunch means that it is harder to get a mortgage from the bank. Ali Velshi is at the business update desk with that.
Hi, Ali.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran.
In fact, the issue here is that it's harder for people with perfectly good credit to get a mortgage from the bank. We've been hearing about this for a long time, but a survey by the Federal Reserve in October of 49 major banks says that 41 percent of those banks say that they have tightened lending standards somewhat or considerably for prime residential mortgages. Those are mortgages given to people with perfectly good credit. A month earlier, that number was only 15 percent. So 41 percent of the major banks that were surveyed by the Fed are now imposing tighter lending standards on people with perfectly good credit.
Of the 49 banks, by the way, that the Fed talked to, only nine of them continue to offer loans to sub prime borrowers, people with less than perfect credit. And of those nine, five of them have tightened the lending standards. Four banks remain offering loans to sub prime mortgage applicants without any increase in the lending standards.
A little curious about who those four are and why because that's kind of what got us into this problem in the first place. But this has definitely trickled its way up to people with perfectly good credit. We already know that if you're trying to get what's called a jumbo mortgage, for more than $417,000, even if your credit is stellar, that's also become a problem.
So this mortgage crisis is working its way up to people who otherwise would have not been affected by it.
Kiran.
CHETRY: All right, Ali, we'll check in with you throughout the morning. Thanks so much.
Also, there's a new report out this morning suggesting airlines might not be doing as badly as it feels they're doing when it comes to delays. Alina Cho has that story.
Hi, Alina.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Kiran. Good morning. You know, this is really a good news/bad news type of situation. The good news first. For the month of September, overall flight delays across the nation are down. But the bad news, the record for on time arrivals is still the worst in 13 years.
Now the key to avoiding delays, according to the Transportation Department, steer clear of New York, where flight delays are up 23 percent over last year. JFK in particular.
But excluding New York, flight delays at the nation's 31 largest airports are actually down 8 percent over last year. Mostly because of new runways, caps on flights, and even better weather.
Now even Chicago O'Hare's and Atlanta's Hartsfield airports, two of the world's busiest, posted improvements.
Now here's the breakdown. The airlines with the highest rate of on time arrivals, Aloha Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Frontier Airlines. Those with the worst records, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, Alaska, and Northwest Airlines. And the flight you want to avoid at all cost, Comair Flight 5042 from Philadelphia to New York's JFK. Get this, late 90 percent of the time.
Now last month the airlines and the FAA met to talk about just how to fix those epidemic delays at JFK. One proposal is charging airlines fees for taking off during peak travel times and another one is putting caps on the number of flights that can take off during those times. But, Kiran, it is safe to say that there's a lot of finger pointing going on between the FAA, the airlines, and the air traffic controllers. They're going to have to stop fighting in order to come up with a solution.
And another interesting point is that the number of complaints has actually sky rocketing 60 percent over last year, which says to me that a lot of people are talking about it. People are less patient about flight delays. And, remember, we're just coming up on the holiday travel season.
CHETRY: Oh, joy. All right, Alina Cho, thanks so much.
CHO: You bet.
CHETRY: John.
ROBERTS: A friendlier France topping our "Quick Hits" now. Nicholas Sarkozy makes his first visit to the White House as president of France. That will be this evening. He's on a mission to repair relations with President Bush. Relations that were strained by his predecessor, Jacques Chirac's opposition to the war in Iraq.
The House is expected to make history today, overriding President Bush's veto for the first time. They're voting on the $23 billion Water Resources Development Act. The Senate says they also have the votes to override the veto.
Crisis in Pakistan. The constitution has been suspended. Thousands of lawyers have been arrested. How chaotic is it there on the streets and how much worse is it likely to get? We'll get a report on the ground in Islamabad. That's coming up next.
And why are so many strange men knocking on this door? We'll tell you ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Sixteen minutes now after the hour. Welcome back to the most news in the morning here on CNN.
He thought it was a rock, but the stony object that a three-year- old Wisconsin boy found in a friend's backyard was, in fact, a tooth from an ancient Wooley Mammoth. Archaeologists estimate it to be between 10,000 and 30,000 years old
He almost threw it away, but 63-year-old Chad Johnson decided to hang on to what he found at Crater Diamond State Park in Arkansas over the weekend. It was a wise decision. The translucent stone turned out to be a 4.38 carat tea-colored diamond. No word yet on how much it's worth.
And she may be small, but Thumbelina brought big smiles to children at the Shriners Hospital in Tampa yesterday. Seventeen inches tall and just 57 pounds, she has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's smallest horse. Brings an awful lot of joy, though. Good things come in small packages.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Thanks, John.
Well, conditions in Pakistan chaotic this morning. Police with batons, once again, clashing with protesters, including lawyers. Private media blacked out to stop information critical of the government. So for more on the situation, we have "Time" magazine's Aryn Baker, who is in Islamabad this morning and joins us on the phone.
Thanks for being with us, Aryn.
ARYN BAKER, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Good morning.
CHETRY: First of all, we've seen these alarming pictures over the past few days of what's been going on, both in Lahore and Karachi. Tell us about the situation in the capital of Islamabad right now.
BAKER: Well, the crackdown on protesters actually more severe in Islamabad, which means that people are a lot more afraid to go out and protest. There has been some small protests by lawyers in kind of small corner of the capitals, but not really not the masses that you're seeing elsewhere in the country.
CHETRY: You know, can you explain that phenomenon? Musharraf said that he declared a state of emergency in part because of the increased threat of terrorist attacks and extremist activity. Yet how does he explain or justify that one out of four lawyers in Pakistan are in jail and that these judges have been detained in their homes?
BAKER: Well, to be honest, he hasn't explained it very well. Many people are pointing out that, yes, the war is supposed to be on extremists, but he's actually hauling in civil society leaders. He has yet to really enunciate why this is, except everyone understands that really this seems to be a personal vendetta against the supreme court that has worked very hard to oust him from power over the past eight months.
CHETRY: Yes, and it seems to be a dramatic shift in what was hoped, at least by the international community and the U.S., to be some sort of power sharing and democratic movement. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto told CNN yesterday that she plans to lead a protest Friday if this January election date is not restored. And so she's, once again, dealing with a tough situation. Some attempts on her own life in Pakistan. Are we looking for a flash point for violence later in this week with those protests?
BAKER: Well, actually not. Benazir Bhutto has a lot to gain from maintaining the current power sharing deal that she's working on with Musharraf. As she said, she will throw a protest if they don't hold the elections in January. However, the government is still talking about holding the elections. If that happens, what that means is that the supreme court, which is against Musharraf and his deal with Benazir, is sidelined and it can return to status quo. However, that means the rule of law in the country has been all but obliterated.
CHETRY: And how does this factor into relations with the United States as it relates to the war on terror?
BAKER: Well, for the United States, this is what they want. What the U.S. administration doesn't understand, however, is that this is going to increase like ten-fold anti-American attitudes in Pakistan and that, in the long run, will backfire on the war on terror.
CHETRY: Aryn Baker giving us a firsthand look at the situation in Islamabad, Pakistan. Some very tense times there. "Time" magazine, Aryn Baker.
Thanks for being with us.
BAKER: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Coming up to 20 minutes after the hour.
Back in this country, there is no new trial for one of the D.C. snipers. That begins our "Quick Hits" now. A Maryland state appeals court rejected John Allen Muhammad's request to have his case heard again. Ten people with killed and three wounded in the 2002 sniper attacks in the D.C. metro area.
Why are strange men making unannounced visits at the home of several Seattle area women? One was even dressed up and carrying a bottle of wine. We're going to get to the bottom of that. And a TV show, a magazine, a radio channel not enough for Oprah Winfrey. We'll tell you about Oprah's newest project. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Twenty-four minutes now after the hour.
Four out of five adults in the United States use the Internet. Makes you wonder what the fifth person is doing. And of the 79 percent who go online, they spend an average of 11 hours a week on the Internet according to the Harris Poll. No wonder they're not watching television anymore. The first year that Harris began tracking the Internet use, back in 1995, only 9 percent of people went online.
Four female roommates in Seattle have recently gotten some unusual male visitors. Men have turned up at their door responding to a fake ad posted on Craig's List. The girls don't know what the ad said, so they don't know what the men were expecting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And a bottle of wine. And he was definitely, you know, dressed to the nines, so to speak. And I was just, OK, you know, what is going on here?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: They created their own e-mail account, "stop this jerk@yahoo.com" and hope that someone will turn in the person responsible for the ad, even though police are not sure at this point whether a crime was committed.
CHETRY: Wow.
Well, all right, here's our "Hot Shot" this morning. It's a potato with a lot of spunk. Take a look at this. Can potatoes have spunk? I don't know. But look at this one. This is a three-pound Russet potato that grew into the shape of a baseball mitt. Here's a picture of nine-year-old Byron Winslow (ph) of Prescile (ph), Maine, holding it up in a photo provided by the Maine Potato News. How about that? I can see that right now, just peeled and fried up with some ketchup, some mayo if you're John.
ROBERTS: You don't think it should go into the Smithsonian? The Baseball Hall of Fame?
CHETRY: It should go into my stomach. That's where it should go.
Well, hey, if you think you have a great picture, send it in. Our address, amhotshots@cnn.com. Make sure the image is yours and not someone else. And thanks so much, because that was a very cute picture.
ROBERTS: Yes, that's terrific. A story coming up in our next half hour now that you just can't miss here on AMERICAN MORNING. You've heard of "Snakes on a Plane"? Well, how about snakes in a bathtub? Dozens and dozens of them.
CHETRY: Yes, if you're afraid of snakes, I think this is a hard picture to even look at. It's Jackie Bibby. He's known as "The Texas Snake Man." He's got a website and everything. He holds four Guinness records, all of them snake related, and this is a shot of his latest attempt -- his latest attempt to break a record.
ROBERTS: Yes, he says that his first record was set 39 years ago. He won $30 and got his name in the newspaper. So he kept doing it. How did he do this time around? And the followup stunt that he's got planned for later on today. A hint, it involves snakes, lots of snakes, rattlesnakes. That and today's headlines when AMERICAN MORNING returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: A live picture there this morning from the Houses of Parliament in Westminster in London, England, as the queen opens a new session of parliament. She made the trip from Buckingham Palace to Westminster in the Irish carriage this morning. The ceremony full of pomp, circumstance, and regalia.
CHETRY: Yes, it's actually pretty fun to look at this morning. She's going to be opening parliament, delivering her annual queen speech, as it's called. It's a ceremony that has a lot of history, tradition, and, of course, regalia behind it. And it's considered the most important constitutional event of the year and sets out the government's legislative program for the year. So there she goes.
ROBERTS: Right, that would be, I believe, a picture of the black rod (ph), who's the fellow who summons all the members of parliament to Westminster ahead of the queen's visit. So we'll keep an eye on that and we'll bring you some more of that a little bit later on.
It's Tuesday, the 6th of November. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING and thanks for being with us. I'm John Roberts
CHETRY: I'm Kiran Chetry.
President Bush is telling Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, to end his military crackdown. Lawyers protesting the state of emergency, getting brutal beatings again today. The U.S. is now reviewing billions of dollars in aid to the Musharraf government.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: A live picture there this morning from the Houses of Parliament in Westminster in London, England. And as the queen opens a new session of parliament. She made the trip from Buckingham palace to Westminster in the Irish carriage this morning. The ceremony full of pomp, circumstance, and regalia.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It's actually pretty fun to look at this morning. She's going to be opening parliament, delivering her annual "Queen Speech," as it's called. It's a ceremony that had a lot of history, tradition, and of course regalia behind it. And it's considered the most important constitutional event of the year and sets up the government's legislative program for the year. So, there she goes.
ROBERTS: Right, that would be, I believe, a picture of the black rod, who is a fellow who summons all members of parliament to Westminster ahead of the queen's visit. So, we'll keep an eye on that. We'll bring you more of that a little bit later on. It's Tuesday, the 6th of November. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. And thanks for being with us. I'm John Roberts.
CHETRY: I'm Kiran Chetry.
President Bush is telling Pakistan' president Pervez Musharraf to end his military crackdown. Lawyers protesting the state of emergency is getting brutal beatings again today. The U.S. is now reviewing billions of dollars in aid to the Musharraf government. It is not ready though to cut off funds to an ally against terrorism in a part of the world where al Qaeda is concentrated. Emily Chang is live monitoring the story for us from London.
Hi, Emily.
EMILY CHANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kiran. At this moment, any lawyer who tries to enter the courts in Pakistan is being arrested. The ousted head of the Supreme Court has called on all lawyers to rise up against Musharraf and stand up for the constitution. And for the second day in a row, angry protesters have filled the streets, calling Musharraf a traitor and a criminal.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHANG: More violence on the streets of Pakistan as police beat, kicked, and arrested lawyers outside courthouses in Lahore, Islamabad, and other cities. The country's judicial system is now on lockdown with one in four lawyers in custody or detained in their homes, and no courts open to free them. There's no word when the state of emergency will be lifted. The Pakistani cabinet is meeting today to discuss when elections will be held.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can assure you there will be harmony. There will be harmony. Confidence will come back into government, into law enforcement agencies.
CHANG: A spokesperson for former prime minister and political rival Benazir Bhutto called President Pervez Musharraf's declaration an act of terror. Critics say he's desperate for power.
BENAZIR BHUTTO, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: I think that what Musharraf didn't sort of plan was what would be the follow-up from the state of emergency, and he's now sort of waiting and seeing what will happen in the streets, how the politicians will react.
CHANG: President Bush condemned Musharraf's actions but emphasized he remains an ally.
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: At the same time, we want to continue working with him to fight these terrorists and extremists.
CHANG: For now, holding cells across Pakistan are bursting with political prisoners, and the world watches to see what happens next.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHANG: Opposition groups have told us more than 3,500 people have been arrested, though the government is reporting half that. Police sources are telling CNN that police officers are getting bonuses for beating and arresting people. The U.N. has called for the release of all political prisoners, and we're told right now that Benazir Bhutto is on her way back to Islamabad from Karachi. However, she says she has no plans to meet with Musharraf.
Kiran?
CHETRY: Emily Chang for us following the latest developments out of London. Thank you.
ROBERTS: Also new this morning, the U.S. is trying to get china on board with sanctions against Iran. Secretary of defense Robert Gates is meeting with China's President Hu Jintao in Beijing this morning. Both sides call the talks candid and friendly. China says it is strongly opposed to a nuclear-armed Iran but is opposed to more sanctions to get Iran to back off on its nuclear program.
Nuclear disarmament making in North Korea is off to a good start. First reports are coming in from U.S. nuclear specialists in North Korea. The American team is helping to disable the North's nuclear weapons facilities. The U.S. hopes to negotiate for the complete dismantling of those facilities some time in the future.
CHETRY: Britain's chief intelligence officer warning a growing domestic threat is happening in the country. Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5 says at least 2,000 people in Britain pose a "Direct threat to national security and public safety" because of their support for terrorism. Evans also says that British extremists are grooming young people, including children, to carry out attacks.
Well, NASA engineers are pouring over photos of "Discovery's" wings as the shuttle gets set to head back to earth. They're checking for any damage from debris that could have happen while "Discovery" was docked at the space station. "Discovery" is scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center in Florida tomorrow.
And all of the F-15s in the Air Force have been grounded indefinitely after a crash during a training exercise. A plane flown by the Missouri Air National Guard crashed. There's a shot of it. It happened last week. The Air Force says that preliminary findings show it was a structural problem with the F-15 that may have caused it. The 676 F-15s flown by the Air Force were all built by Boeing.
ROBERTS: New details are emerging about the relationship between Stacy Peterson and her husband, police sergeant Drew Peterson. Stacy Peterson disappeared more than a week ago. CNN's Keith Oppenheim is in Bolingbrook, Illinois, where he spoke with her friends and family members. What did you find out, Keith.
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're learning a lot today, John. First of all, I'm at a church, which is going to be a sort of a volunteer command center in the search for Stacy Peterson today. In fact, there has been out of state firm called Texas Equisearch, which will be specializing in this kind of thing, and they will be setting up right here. Now, keep in mind, Stacy Peterson is just 23 years old. Her husband, 53 years old. They've been married four years, and he is her fourth wife. And her family is really expressing a lot of suspicion about the husband Drew Peterson. Stacy was first reported missing on Sunday of last week, which she did not meet her sister.
Her husband does not believe that she missing, and he says that he believes that she has left with another man. But friends and family discount that. In fact, in one e-mail to a friend named Steve Cesare, she apparently wrote that she described her husband as controlling, manipulative, and abusive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE CESARE, STACY'S FRIEND: I knew they had problems. Her phone calls were limited. So, we had to keep distant, you know, over the summer and what not. But the part where it says that he was becoming abusive, that concerned me. And I didn't know what to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OPPENHEIM: John, on top of all this, a local prosecuting attorney is looking into old police files about Drew Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, who died in 2004. Now, our coroner had ruled back then she died accidentally, by drowning, but her family, the third wife's family, is suspicious of Drew Peterson. Meantime, police are searching in all kinds of ways. They're using tracking dog. They have divers that are looking in a local pond. And as I mentioned earlier, there are going to be local groups that are searching here today. But so far, no sign of Stacy. And keep in mind; she's got two young kids, ages 2 and 4, and her family members say that she would not have voluntarily left without them.
John?
ROBERTS: We should point out that Drew Peterson's third wife drowned in a bathtub, Keith. And what's the status of the search for Stacy Peterson at this point? Is it still being treated as a missing persons case?
OPPENHEIM: Exactly. It's not being called a criminal investigation as of yet. But as many of these cases have gone, sometimes these cases which start as missing person cases can quickly turn into criminal investigations.
ROBERTS: Keith Oppenheim for us this morning in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Keith, thanks. We'll check back with you a little bit later on.
Kiran?
CHETRY: Your "Quick Hits" now. A California National Guard Unit being investigated for allegedly taking donations intended for wildfire victims. The guard launched its investigation after volunteers reported troops taking away cartons of snacks and diapers, items intended for displaced fire victims near the U.S.-Mexico border. One soldier has already been relieved of duty.
Kelsey Peterson, the middle school teacher accused of having sex with a 13-year-old student and taking him to Mexico faces a court hearing tomorrow in California. It will determine if she'll waive the tradition in Nebraska. Peterson faces charges there of kidnapping, child abuse, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She also faces federal charges for transporting the minor to Mexico for sexual activity.
Ron Paul sets a fund-raising record. So, is he ready to take on his better known Republican presidential rivals? That's ahead. Our "Political Ticker" coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. 6:41 right now. Rob Marciano at the extreme weather center for us in Atlanta. And we could be talking lake effect snow as well as other things in the northeast.
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ROBERTS: Its 43 minutes after the hour. Topping our "Political Ticker" this morning, GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul yesterday set a one-day record among Republican candidates, raising more than $4 million in campaign contributions in nearly 24 hours. The financial outpouring was aided mostly by internet backers who adopted a Guy Fox Day theme of remember, remember, the 5th of November. Fox, you'll remember, was the British rebel who tried to blow up parliaments in 1605. They think that Ron Paul is a modern day sort of rebel.
Bill Clinton on the defensive last night. The former president struck back at Republican critics who attacked Hillary Clinton's position on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. Clinton said the issue was too complex to talk about in sound bites. He also compared the attacks to the swift boat ad that helped torpedo John Kerry's White House bid back in 2004.
One of Fred Thompson's advisers quit the campaign after a decades old conviction for drug dealing came to light. Philip Martin says he deeply regrets any embarrassment the episode may have caused to Thompson. Thompson had been traveling around the country in a plane owned by Martin but will no longer use it.
It's a low-key election day across the country. Many people already focused on next year's presidential elections. Still, today voters in Kentucky and Mississippi will be choosing governors while mayoral elections are being held in several big cities, including Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City. You can find all the day's political news around the clock at cnn.com/ticker.
CHETRY: Well, Steven Colbert's presidential bid is officially over. The TV comic says he's shocked and saddened by the decision of South Carolina Democrats to keep him off of the state's presidential primary ballot. Colbert did not see a silver lining, though. He says the 13-3 vote against him in South Carolina means that he lost by the slimmest margin in presidential election history, only ten votes.
CHETRY: There are new plans in the works to stop tainted and dangerous goods from being imported into the United States. So will the steps be effective, and how are we going to pay for them? We are going to be talking with Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt after the break.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. 6:48 right now on the east coast and if you're just getting up and joining us, here's a look at what's making headlines this morning.
20 suspected terrorists arrested in Europe this morning. 11 of those arrests were in Italy, where the investigation started. These people are suspected of recruiting suicide bombers to send to Iraq and Afghanistan.
To Pakistan now, where there's no end in sight to the chaos. Yet another day of clashes between police and lawyers protesting outside of several courthouses in several cities. About a quarter of the country's lawyers have been arrested. President Pervez Musharraf also suspended the constitution.
President Bush is once again promising to help Turkey defeat Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq. During a meeting yesterday with Turkey's prime minister, Bush offered to share intelligence. Turkish troops are massed along the Turkish-Iraqi border. The White House has expressed concern that an incursion could destabilize the region.
Attorney General Designate Michael Mukasey will clear a major hurdle when the Senate Judiciary Committee meets in just a couple of hours. The committee is expected to approve Mukasey's nomination and send it to the full senate for confirmation. Mukasey's reluctance to define waterboarding as torture even though he called the interrogation tactic personally repugnant put his nomination in jeopardy, but two key Senate Democrats did agree to vote along with Republicans to approve Mukasey.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologizing to the father of a police officer and ground zero worker for saying that his was quote "Not a hero." Bloomberg made the comment after a city medical examiner word that James Zadroga died from abusing prescription drugs, not from dust inhaled at the World Trade Center site. The family insists Zadroga did not use any drugs.
ROBERTS: Responding to a growing public concern over import safety, the White House is likely to impose significant new powers for agencies that regulate food and consumer goods. The man who is recommending those changes is Health And Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. And he joins us now live from Washington. Secretary, it's good to see you again.
MIKE LEAVITT, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Thank you. Nice to see you.
ROBERTS: The chief recommendation that you're going to present to the president today is to give the FDA the power to order mandatory recalls, a power which currently doesn't have. The FDA is already complaining that it is understaffed and overburdened. So, how will it cope with this new responsibility?
LEAVITT: The report actually has 50 different recommendations in 14 categories. The one you've spoken of is one of them. There are many new areas of authority. We need, for example, the ability to require goods to be certified as safe before they come to the United States. Authority to make certain that people are using best practices and make it harder on those who don't. Also, higher penalties if they break the law. There are a number of areas in which this report will call for more authority.
ROBERTS: Right. You also suggest increasing the presence of inspectors from customs, border patrol, Consumer Products Safety Commission in countries that are major exporters to the United States. But let me come back to this idea of funding and manpower. Here's what Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush said about the Consumer Products Safety Commission. Let's take a listen, I'll ask you about it.
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BOBBY RUSH, (D) ILLINOIS: At one time there were 1,000 employees, and now they're down to about 400 employees. Their budget has been decimated. I mean, you know, under the Bush administration, there has been a diminishing of the resources to this agency.
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ROBERTS: So I notice, Secretary Leavitt, you sort of swerved away from that issue of staffing and funding, but these are agencies that say that they are just inundated right now. How do they deal with that extra responsibility?
LEAVITT: Actually, our report is quite specific that this will require more resources and calls on us to use the regular budget process not just in one year but in ongoing years to make sure that it's adequately funded. That's a very important part of our report. But it also deals with more authority, the need for best practices, stiffer penalties when people break the law, and the ability to have higher standards when they need them.
ROBERTS: One thing you'd also like to do is give the Consumer Products Safety Commission greater recall authority itself. I haven't seen any details on that yet. How would that work?
LEAVITT: Well, simply, if people are at risk of sending us improper or unsafe products, we need the ability to either require that they certify them safe, and if we find out, in fact that, they're not safe, to be able to mandate a recall.
ROBERTS: Now, at least with the FDA, Congress would have to approve this recommendation to give it mandatory recall authority. Is Congress in a mood to give that to you?
LEAVITT: Oh, I think Congress is very interested in this subject and anxious that we have the authorities necessary. I've had several members of congress, key committee chairs say to me, tell us the authority that you need to get this job done, and we're prepared to do it.
ROBERTS: But as you know, they wanted to hand the Consumer Product Safety Commission more authority, more staffing, but that was seen by this administration as being onerous new regulation.
LEAVITT: Well, you'll see in this report that if we do call for more authority in areas where it's needed. Now, there are logically going to be people who think we ought to have more government intervention than others, but I believe this report finds the balance between the need for government authority and also the need for a free market to operate.
ROBERTS: So this plan, this series of proposals that you'll present to the president today, what's the bottom line for consumers? Will this fix the problem if these recommendations are adopted? Will they be able to be assured that no more tainted goods, no more dangerous products, no more tainted food will come in from overseas?
LEAVITT: We'll never inspect our way to safety. What we can do is make certain that products that would come into the United States are certified as safe and that people are using best practices. The best advice for consumers is shop with people you trust. It's very important that retailers know that consumers have confidence, and they do everything they can to protect that confidence and the integrity of their brand.
ROBERTS: Well, obviously, there's a tremendous amount of interest in all of this based on what we've seen happening over the past few months. Good luck to you. Be looking for more on this as you go forward with it. Secretary of Health And Human Services Mike Leavitt, good to see you again. Thanks for being with us.
Kiran?
CHETRY: Well, the debate over whether to give driver's license to illegal immigrants is being waged in several states across the country. In fact, in New Mexico illegal immigrants can get licenses. In New York State, though, a proposal by Governor Eliot Spitzer has gotten lukewarm support. There's been a lot of outcry against it. And even from the state senators, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, there's been some questions. Schumer has suggested that social security cards with photo I.D. would be needed still in order to get a job.
ROBERTS: Which brings us to this morning's quick vote question. Should illegal immigrants be granted driver's licenses? Cast your vote this morning at cnn.com/am. We'll have the first tally of the votes coming up in our next hour.
CHETRY: All right, time now is 54 minutes after the hour.
Ali Velshi here "Minding Your Business." And you're telling us the Christmas shopping season or the holiday shopping season getting under way little early.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I don't know how much earlier you can make it. We just wrapped up Halloween. And every year you notice that immediately retailers change their sets from Halloween stuff to...
CHETRY: Before you can slide out the pumpkins, boom, and its there.
VELSHI: And partially what you were talking to Secretary Leavitt about, there's sort of three major concerns. The housing slump continues. The credit crunch continues. And a lot of people are worried about the things that they're going to buy for the holidays. So, a lot of major retailers are kicking up the sales. Wal-Mart started it. You know, it's had some blockbuster sales earlier this weekend. Target's holiday insert is out. J.C. Penney is holding what it calls, the biggest sale of them all. Kohl's has major sales. Even Sachs will give you 30 percent to 40 percent off some online purchases this week. I mean, this isn't just the normal sales.
Take a look at what Wal-Mart was offering this weekend. A 14 inch laptop for $348. Sanyo 50-inch HDTV plasma for $998. These are the kinds of things you're used to seeing closer to the holiday shopping season. Now, the good news and bad news here. Good news is for consumers; your sales are starting now. The bad news is for the retailers who are worried about how people are spending because you're going to take all the fizzle out of Black Friday.
CHETRY: All right and this is the other question too. Where there two of those laptops and one plasma? I mean, you know what it's like when you go there and say, hey, I want to get this deal. There like, oh, those were gone a week ago.
VELSHI: Remember last year Wal-Mart is the one that forced the price of the plasma TVs down by cutting prices on them. So, they've actually become the place that you go for this. But nonetheless, we'll have to see how it goes. Sales starting early this year. Happy shopping.
CHETRY: Hey, stick around for this next story. I think you'll get a kick out of it.
ROBERTS: This one you've got to watch. It's really going to make you squirm by the way.
Snakes not on a plane, but in a tub. 87 of them in all, all rattlesnakes. Take a look at this picture. That's Jackie Bibby, also known as the Texas Snake Man. Spent 45 minutes in the tub breaking his own world record by 12 snakes. He also holds the record for sharing a sleeping bag with snakes, bedding down with 109 of them. Also tops for suspending rattlesnakes from his mouth with a current record of ten at the same time. He's actually trying to break that one today. He'll try to squeeze 11 rattlers in there. We'll keep you posted on how he does it.
He says, in 39 years of doing this, he's been bitten seriously eight times. And if you take a look at his left thumb, it looks awfully weird. It's sort of like the top of his thumb is gone, and there's just like the little bone barely that's fairly covered by flesh there at the end.
VELSHI: Will Bibby have a lot of friends?
ROBERTS: Some of the tissue around the top of his thumb died from a snake bite.
CHETRY: Well, in that picture it looks like he's almost only at 86. One of them is about to get out of the tub. He is like, what the heck am I doing here? This is too crowded.
ROBERTS: Yes. I'm tired of your stunts, mister.
CHETRY: All right, well, good luck with the 11. Hope you have anti-venom serum handy.
When you think of heart problems, you don't think necessarily that what your kids are eating for lunch could be the problem. But could the Mac and cheese or the fast food at a young age be setting them up for heart disease as they turn into adults? Elizabeth Cohen is taking a closer at this ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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