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New Government Plan Set to Help More Borrowers; General Motors Offered Buyouts to Union Workers; Decision Day in Potomac Primaries; Earthquake in Mexico
Aired February 12, 2008 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Heidi Collins. Watch events come into the NEWSROOM live on Tuesday, February 12th. Here's what's on the rundown.
A new government plan to help all borrowers facing foreclosure. The announcement live.
Also, GM's $38 billion in the red and shedding more jobs.
And there's decision day in the Potomac primaries. Voters making presidential choices right now in Virginia, Maryland and D.C.
So you want to live a full century? One factor, an aggressive doctor. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has new findings. One hundred candles in the NEWSROOM.
Quickly we want to get this news to you right away off the top here. We're learning about an earthquake in Mexico, 6.6 magnitude quake hitting southern Mexico. You see the point there, Oaxaca. This is all according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Also no immediate reports of damage at this time. Apparently, though, it was felt about hundreds of miles along the east, along the Gulf Coast there. Again, you can see that area on the map there.
It hit about 6:50 a.m., that'll be 7:50 Eastern Time, centered in the region of, as I said, Oaxaca, again, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in southern Mexico. We're going to keep an eye on this one for you and bring any new information just as soon as we get it here.
Also this hour, the mortgage crisis spreads beyond subprime. In two hours from now, the Bush administration rolls out a new plan to help more people avoid foreclosures.
CNN's Ali Velshi live in New York this morning.
So Ali, everybody -- it's going to cover everybody, huh?
ALI VELSHI, CNN SR. BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, more than the last plan covered.
COLLINS: Yes.
VELSHI: You remember we talked about the last plan, and once you started checking off all the criteria, a lot of people didn't fall into the category that could be helped. Here's what this plan. It's called project lifeline. As you said, we're hearing -- we're expecting to hear from the administration in a couple of hours. This is designed to help people who are seriously delinquent on their mortgages. And that means more than 90 days past due.
At 90 days past due, that's typically where the bank starts foreclosure procedures on you. This will suspend those foreclosure procedures for 30 days. And basically it's meant to force the conversation between the homeowner and the lender about coming to better terms, refinancing, doing something, you know, getting out of trouble if possible, because the banks don't want to end up holding on to these homes.
Hopefully this will help more people. We haven't yet got an estimate on how many people this will help. But we're working on that and we'll be reporting on this all day. And as soon as we sort of find out the fine print and the details.
I should tell you there are six banks involved, Heidi, Bank of America, Citigroup, Countrywide, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, the same six banks that were involved in the last plan that the White House announced.
COLLINS: Yes. OK. All right. Very good. You'll definitely let us know what more information you get.
Also this morning, something that people are talking about. General Motors offering buyouts to a lot of employees. What more can you tell us about that?
VELSHI: Seventy-four thousand unionized employees. Those are all of the hourly UAW workers at General Motors in the United States. They are being offered buyouts. This is something General Motors has done before. The other automakers have done the same thing. The idea here is that a certain percentage of this people take these buyouts rather than face the risk that they are going to be laid off again.
What the buyouts involve is payouts of 45,000 to 65,000 depending on what job you've been in, plus you get full health benefits and full pension. Once those buyouts are taken, GM can replace up to 16,000 of those workers with non-unionized workers assuming they are not on the assembly line.
So it's a way of trying to unload your workers without official layoffs. It puts a little it of choice in the hands of the workers, although the choice is not fantastic. If you're not a worker today, take the buyout now or risk getting laid off later.
COLLINS: Yes. Boy, not great choices.
All right. CNN's Ali Velshi with us this morning. Ali, thank you.
VELSHI: See you, Heidi. COLLINS: Battle along the beltway. Presidential primaries are under way this hour. Voters are making choices in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. We're calling them the Potomac primaries. But the keyword may actually be momentum.
Republican frontrunner John McCain looking to sweep the three contests. Underdog Mike Huckabee is rejecting calls to drop out of the race. Meanwhile, Democrat Hillary Clinton could be looking at another sweep by Barack Obama. Today, she's traveling to other states and focusing on delegate-rich contests in Ohio and Texas.
For Republicans, today's contest may be less about the delegates and more about the message, specifically, whether John McCain can win conservatives now so he can capture the White House later.
CNN's Mary Snow is in Alexandria, Virginia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm very proud to have your support. And...
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): He won endorsements from Florida former governor Jeb Bush and evangelical leader Gary Bauer. Still, Senator John McCain really could use a strong showing in today's Potomac primaries especially after losing two contests over the weekend.
MCCAIN: I only hope that we'll do well here.
SNOW: But he didn't do well in Kansas, losing big to Mike Huckabee. He also lost in Louisiana. McCain did win Washington state by a narrow margin. That result is being challenged by the Huckabee camp which claims it was called too early. If McCain is worried, he isn't showing it.
MCCAIN: We're doing fine. We have 700, some close to 800 delegates. And the last time I checked, Governor Huckabee has very few. So I think I'm pretty happy with the situation that we're in.
SNOW: But McCain's losses are a signal some conservatives are not happy with him. Huckabee is hoping that unhappiness continues in Virginia.
MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think our victories in Kansas and Louisiana have shown them that this race is not over.
SNOW: Huckabee says he's staying in the race and that conservatives need a choice.
HUCKABEE: We want a candidate who believes in the human life amendment and in the marriage amendment. We want to vote for a president who believes that embryonic stem cell research on humans is wrong.
SNOW (voice over): As voters cast ballots in the Potomac primaries, Senator John McCain is hoping for a strong showing and not to repeat what happened last weekend. He lost two of three contests to Mike Huckabee, despite the fact that mathematically it's virtually impossible for Huckabee to catch up to McCain when it comes to delegate counts.
But Huckabee's victories are seen as a sign that conservatives remain unhappy with John McCain. He's been reaching out to them trying to unify the party particularly here in Virginia. This is seen as a test. The next test to see how well McCain's efforts are going.
Mary Snow, CNN, Alexandria, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Barack Obama looking for a second straight primary sweep today. Hillary Clinton looking down the road to states with bigger delegate prizes, as we've mentioned.
So where do things stand right now? The answer from CNN's senior political correspondent Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It looks like we're having March madness a little early.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Working off the adrenalin of a clean sweep weekend and the possibility of a Tuesday trifecta, Barack Obama pounded through Maryland, arguing his issues and playing it forward.
OBAMA: I am happy to have a debate with John McCain because we are the party of tomorrow. He's the party of yesterday. He is the past. We're the future. That's an argument I want to have with the Republican Party. Not to mention -- not to mention I want to attract some Republicans into the fold.
CROWLEY: One hundred sixty-eight delegates at stake Tuesday in the Potomac primary -- Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. All have sizable African-American populations as well as significant numbers of affluent highly educated white voters, the so-called latte liberals. Obama has significant leads in the state polls.
With the realities of those weekend caucus victories in Washington state, Nebraska, Maine and the Virgin Islands, as well as a win in the Louisiana primary, the momentum is all his at the moment. But she is having none of it.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's have the elections, you know? Instead of talking about them and pontificating or punditing about them, let's let people actually vote.
CROWLEY: Still, it's not going the way they thought it would, proof of which came in the midst of her winless weekend when Hillary Clinton threw her campaign manager overboard for a new one, while today dissing Obama's shutout. CLINTON: Louisiana, you know, a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and understand, and would expect that, you know, by the fall, we would be united and going forward to victory against the Republicans. You know my sense of caucusing. They are primarily dominated by activists. They don't represent the electorate. We know that. My husband never did well in caucus states either. So it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't affect me one way or the other.
CROWLEY: Her strategists look to early March primaries to get Clinton back on her game. Ohio and Texas are delegate rich states full of the working class mainstream Democrats who have fueled her campaign. But many of those close to the Clinton campaign say she needs a win sooner to prevent him from running away with it.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Baltimore, Maryland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: All right. Let's go ahead and take a look at one of the political events going on today. Nestled deep in that crowd there you see Senator Barack Obama. He is in Washington, D.C., sort of working the crowd outside there today talking to a few folks and the cameras, as well.
As we have mentioned here this morning, he's looking for a second straight primary sweep. So we will be watching very closely these Potomac primaries and let you know, of course, how they turn out. Senator Barack Obama in D.C. this morning.
Stay tuned for much more on the candidates as they crisscross the country. Don't miss a full hour of the CNN "BALLOT BOWL" today at noon Eastern. You can watch live as the candidates make their pitches.
Also in the headlines this morning, the much anticipated Roger Clemens hearing now just a day away. The star pitcher is set to testify under oath to Congress. He's expected to contradict what's in the Mitchell report on drugs in baseball. And Clemens' attorney says that could lead to a perjury investigation.
Also set to testify tomorrow, Clemens' former trainer Brian McNamee. McNamee told investigators he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. His former teammate Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch had been excused from testifying tomorrow.
Another former player named in the Mitchell report claims the league knew about performance-enhancing drug use and even condoned it. John Rocker told an Atlanta radio station about a meeting with doctors from the league and the players association.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROCKER, FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYER: ...pulled myself, Rafael Palmeiro, and Alex Rodriguez and Pedro Rodriguez aside. Just a candid conversation and, you know, just continued with the conversations, said, look, guys, if you take one kind of steroid, you don't triple stack them and take them 10 months out of the year, like what I later did, was, you know, (INAUDIBLE) he was 44-years-old, if you do it responsibly, it's not going to hurt you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Rocker also called the Mitchell report, quote, "absolutely useless." And he said investigators could have found a few hundred players who used steroids.
The Clemens hearing is scheduled to start at 10:00 Eastern tomorrow morning. We will be following it closely. You can see the testimony live on CNN.com and our sister network "HEADLINE NEWS."
A winter mess in parts of the Midwest. Check out the deep freeze in Springfield, Missouri. Some of these pictures taken by i-Reporter Erica Kreplin at Missouri State University. That's cold. Freezing rain turns this college campus into a gigantic popsicle. Classes were canceled and Erica says they were completely iced in. The freezing rain is now in Kentucky where it snowed just hours ago. They got about four inches in the central part of the state.
Thousands of people, though, are without power. Driving, obviously, treacherous. The 199th birthday party honoring Abraham Lincoln canceled. And now First Lady Laura Bush is rescheduling her visit as well.
Rob Marciano is standing by. What the heck is going on? They got to cancel the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln?
(WEATHER REPORT)
COLLINS: Living to 100. It's possible even with heart disease or diabetes. Dr. Sanjay Gupta coming up in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. A sex offender wins big. Should he keep his lottery prize?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you can buy the ticket, then why shouldn't you be able to keep it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: $10 million opinions in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: An assassination plot foiled in Denmark. The suspected target, a cartoonist. A Danish newspaper reporting the cartoonist is one of 12 who came under fire for drawings of the prophet Muhammad. These cartoons led to demonstrations and riots two years ago. You remember the story.
Danish authorities say they made several arrests in what they are calling a terror related assassination plot but have not named the intended target.
COLLINS: Turning to news now about your health this morning. Living to 100. What are your odds and do you want to do it?
Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look at some new research coming in now.
So Sanjay, what is the key to a long life?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That is why I'm here to help you, Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes.
GUPTA: You know, what's interesting is that more people than ever are living longer.
COLLINS: Yes.
GUPTA: And that's something I think a lot of people realize. But even more than that, even if you have heart disease or diabetes, you still have a pretty good shot at living to 100. You can even change things later in life that really can improve your odds, if you will, about this.
There's about 55,000 people in this country that live over 100 right now. And the fastest growing population in the country as things stand today, people older than 85, 85 and older. So that -- those are important things to keep in mind. What is it that allows certain people to live so long when others don't? That was the question. They actually surveyed 2300 people in their 70s and evaluated their lives for 25 years. And what they found was a few...
COLLINS: Clean living.
GUPTA: A pretty clean life. Heidi, I guess you're off the list.
COLLINS: OK.
GUPTA: Healthy -- sorry -- exercise, it had a 54 percent average, better than not, of living at least age 90. It starts to go down. Sedentary lifestyle now decreases your odds, 44 percent. High blood pressures, you might expect. But obesity and smoking the most so. Add all those risk factors together, Heidi, and it decreases your chance to less than 10 percent of making it past 90.
COLLINS: Yes.
GUPTA: But look at those numbers still there. We think 100, we think that's just for a very select few. More and more people are actually getting to that mark. COLLINS: Yes. No question about it. I do wonder how much of it is genetics and can you start increasing your chances of living longer later in life or is it just too late?
GUPTA: A couple of interesting things came out of this. One is that you absolutely can. You can make changes later in life to address heart disease or diabetes and still have a significant impact.
COLLINS: Good.
GUPTA: With regards to genetics, they actually did twin studies on this, Heidi. And what they concluded after looking at twins was that about a quarter of your lifespan is due to your genes, which means about 75 percent is due to the things that you do every day. Modifiable risk factors. So that's good news for people who actually want to take charge of their health.
But even more than that, they found that aggressively treating heart disease and high blood pressure and diabetes later in life made a huge impact. It's sort of reversing something that people call ageism. You think someone's too old to benefit from the therapy, therefore don't treat them. That seems to simply not be true. No matter how old they are, they should get treatment and they might live much longer.
COLLINS: Interesting. I like the genetics part, too, because my grandmother Ver, you know, was 93.
GUPTA: Yes.
COLLINS: Yes.
GUPTA: You do have good genes and that will work for you regardless.
COLLINS: I hope so as long as I take care of myself. So obviously, you've done an awful lot of reporting on longevity, you even wrote it about in your book, "Chasing Life."
GUPTA: Right.
COLLINS: And you have this calculator. And I'm so excited because this is now the part when we get to see what Sanjay looks like a long time from now. What is it, when you're 80? Yours goes up to 81.
GUPTA: Mine goes to a 100 from 37, which is a year ago. I don't look much different now I think.
COLLINS: Not at all.
GUPTA: 37 to 100. And basically they did a drawing to figure out what I might look like. But more than, as you pointed out, Heidi, there's a living to 100.com calculator. You can take it yourself and figure out how long you might live. Stop laughing.
COLLINS: There you are, Bob Barker.
GUPTA: That's right. Bob Barker. That's good. Now I see it now that you say that. 81 was my life expectancy, which is, you know, I was a little disappointed by that, quite frankly, I thought I should live longer than that. But you can do it yourself and figure out how long you might live. We had a draw -- an artist, D'Lynn Waldron, actually, age-progress me to 100. They kept my teeth, they kept my hair. Not so bad, Heidi.
COLLINS: You know, it's all the clean living.
GUPTA: It's clean living. Healthy, exercise. That's me.
COLLINS: That's right. It's only 81.
All right. Sanjay, thanks so much. I think people will be really interested this. Great ideas. All right. Thanks.
GUPTA: Thanks. All right. Thank you.
COLLINS: Still ahead now this morning, former police officer charged with killing his pregnant lover. Was it an accident? The jury gets ready to decide.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Live breaking news, unfolding developments. See for yourself in the CNN NEWSROOM.
COLLINS: In court this hour, a former Ohio police officer charged with killing his pregnant lover. Final arguments in the murder trial of Bobby Cutts Jr.
Here now CNN's Rusty Dornin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't want to get in trouble until I decide what to do.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Bobby Cutts is pleading not guilty to aggravated murder. His attorney told the jury in opening statements there was no evidence linking the former police officer to the killing of his former girlfriend Jessie Davis.
So when Cutts took the stand to testify, the courtroom gave an audible gasp.
BOBBY CUTTS JR., DEFENDANT: I did not kill her. I didn't do what they were saying. Aggravated murder. I didn't kill anyone.
DORNIN: Cutts told the stunned courtroom he went to pick up his 2-year-old son but said Davis grabbed hem and wouldn't let him leave.
CUTTS: I pulled my arm and I took my elbow back. (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And where did the elbow land?
CUTTS: The throat area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In her throat area?
CUTTS: Yes. She hit the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How hard did she fall?
CUTTS: She fell pretty hard.
DORNIN: On cross-examination, prosecutors had Cutts re-enact that moment.
CUTTS: I come back and I catch her with my elbow.
DORNIN: Cutts told the court he tried CPR on his girlfriend. Police found a large bleach stain on the rug. He said he used the bleach to try and revive Davis. He said he didn't want his young son to see her body so he wrapped her in a comforter and then...
CUTTS: Put her in the back of my truck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And why did you place her there?
CUTTS: I just did. How the hell am I going to explain this?
DORNIN: Thousands of people last summer searched for the young woman when she disappeared in June. Cutts met with police nine times before finally leading them to her body a week later dumped in a park. If convicted, Cutts could get the death penalty. Most defense lawyers are very hesitant to let their clients testify in their own defense.
AVERY FRIEDMAN, ATTORNEY: The second you put your client on the stand, the game is over. And the fact is, the prosecution has a great case. This is a prosecutorial smack down in this case. And they have done everything they're supposed to do. How in the world they actually thought that Bobby Cutts could engender sympathy from this jury to me is utterly, utterly mind boggling.
DORNIN: Closing arguments in the case are set to wrap up Tuesday.
Rusty Dornin, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Too close for comfort. A Russian bomber on a dangerous path buzzing an American aircraft carrier. The story of what happened, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Opening Bell brought to you by...
COLLINS: There you have the opening bell for this Tuesday morning as we are watching your money today. We're going to be talking more about this big news coming out of General Motors. 74,000 buyouts being offered. We'll talk about what that means to those workers and to the rest of the economy.
Meanwhile, yesterday, Dow Jones industrial averages gained 57 points when it was all said and done. This morning, not sure where things stand but we'll be watching it very closely and bring up Susan Lisovicz shortly.
Welcome back, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins.
One of the other stories we are watching today regarding your finance, helping more troubled homeowners. The mortgage crisis spreads beyond sub prime now. About an hour and a half from now, this Bush administration rolls out a new plan to help people at risk of foreclosure. It's called Project Lifeline.
The plan applies to seriously delinquent homeowners, those whose payments are 90 days or more overdue. It will allow them to suspend foreclosures for 30 days. In the meantime, they'll work with lenders to create more affordable terms. The country's six largest lenders are backing the plan including Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.
Also for some veterans, the fighting doesn't end when they come home from Afghanistan or Iraq. They are fighting demons and, sadly, losing. Associated Press has obtained new government data on the suicides of returning vets. 144 veterans killed themselves between 2001 and 2005.
More than half of them, 53 percent, were National Guard or reserve troops, this despite the fact that reservists and guard troops have made up just over 25 percent of military forces serving in the wars. Activists are calling for long-term screening and better access for treatment for returning reservists and guard members.
If you need help or know someone who does, there's a toll-free veterans affairs suicide hot line. I want to give you that number now. It is 1-800-273-talk.
Missing in Iraq. CBS News reports two of its journalists in the southern city of Basra have disappeared. The network says all efforts are being made to find them. CBS is not releasing the journalists' names but the network says it has been in touch with the journalists' families.
We did nothing wrong. That's the reaction from Russia after one of their bombers comes close to a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon with more this morning.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It's the "USS Animists." It is, indeed. Here's what the pentagon says happened Saturday south of Japan out in the western pacific. They say the "USS Nimitz" aircraft carrier was operating out there when four Russian bare bombers began approaching. The U.S. navy sent up four F-18 bombers to intercept, but as they were tracking them, one of those Russian bombers flew twice over the deck of the "Nimitz" at an altitude of 2,000 feet. A little too close for comfort. The F-18s trailed all of the bombers until they turned and went away. Actually two of the Russian bombers stayed at some considerable distance. One threw over the deck. One stayed about 50 miles away. Not the news the Navy likes to see happen.
But, you know, they have seen the Russians engage in more long- range air missions in the last several months as the Russians are trying to demonstrate to the world, it's believed, that their military is out there and operating. This was just the latest. We are told there were no shots fired. There were no, as we might politely say, international hand signs of communication cockpit to cockpit. Everyone was very polite, we are told.
COLLINS: And we know what you mean by that. When you say that it makes you wonder, is this just gamesmanship or could this be a potentially dangerous situation?
STARR: That's really the U.S. military's point in all of these. We've seen it with the Russian bombers. Seesaw it a few weeks ago when Iranian ships came too close to the U.S. navy. And many people may recall that incident several years ago when actually a U.S. p-3 crash landed after being clipped if you will, by a Chinese military airplane. That's the problem. When two militaries get too close to each other, the danger is miscalculation and an accident and nobody wants to see that happen.
COLLINS: Absolutely not. Barbara, thanks. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr this morning.
Three more primaries today. Another chance for the presidential candidates to gain momentum or not. Here's senior political analyst Bill Schneider now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Front-loading the primaries meant one candidate would build momentum fast. The big mo. Didn't happen. About Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton split the early states, instead of big mo, we got no mo. Now something else may be happening.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think if on Saturday we come out of here with momentum, you know, and with additional delegates, that will be helping to lay the groundwork for what happens in Maryland and Virginia, two days, three days later and that will have an influence on how voters in Ohio and Texas perceive my candidacy.
SCHNEIDER: Call it slow mo. The primary calendar slows down. One candidate starts piling up victories and the impression grows, encouraged by the media, that the candidate is on a role. The news of Obama piling up victories could erode Clinton's support. TAD DEVINE, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: If someone goes out and begins to win state after state, I think the message of that person's campaign is going to be predominantly that they are winning.
SCHNEIDER: Senator Clinton has a counter theory. That she wins the states that are really important to democrats.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And we want states democrats have to win in November. It's highly unlikely we'll win Alaska or North Dakota or Idaho, or Nebraska. But we have to win Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan.
SCHNEIDER: Ted Devine, veteran of democratic presidential campaigns who is unaligned this year, argues that Clinton is taking a static view of the process.
DEVINE: This is a very dynamic process. That, in fact, the course of events, particularly winning or losing, have an impact on the way voters received information, how they digest it and what they do with it. And in a nominating process, where both candidates are well liked, this momentum is available to either one.
SCHNEIDER: Most democrats could vote for either Clinton or Obama, which means they can shift with the momentum of the campaign. Picking and choosing your states and ignoring the dynamic of the campaign carries a risk. Look at what happened to Rudy Giuliani.
Bill Schneider, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Want to take a moment to talk more about the weather because it seems like there's an awful lot of it going on today. Lots of freezing rain and snow sort of in the middle of the country.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We've got it all and thunderstorms to boot. Take a look at it, Heidi. This map paints the big old mess that's encompassing about the eastern half of the country. The eastern third east of the Mississippi River. Back west of the Mississippi, problems with severe thunderstorms.
Here's your winter storm watches or warnings that are posted from Paducah through Louisville, Cincinnati, up to Cleveland. And we've had a slew of nasty weather heading through Louisville. Although you have kind of picked up temperature-wise over the freezing mark. A tremendous amount of heavy rain heading into subfreezing air. Cincinnati, you are getting it right now. Let's take a look at the live picture for you. WLWT, thanks in Cincinnati, the queen city. The skyscrapers there shrouded in low cloud cover.
A temperature reading, Covington has a temperature reading of about 30 degrees. In Dayton, down at 20 and it's raining. So southwest Ohio, now on the list to get hammered with an ice storm over the next few hours. The good news, with some of the spots is that some spots are getting above freezing shortly after they ice over. That's not the case for Springfield, Missouri, which are still caked in ice. Memphis back through Camden in through the Arklatex region, heavy rain here. A decent line of storms heading through Nacogdoches. Northeast, you'll start at snow, change over to freezing rain and eventually over to all rain as well. New York City, just a few inches before it turns.
Just want to mention briefly that we've got a slew of delays already reporting in from Pittsburgh to Chicago to D.C. and to LaGuardia. So not the best day to travel.
COLLINS: No, not at all. Still trying to find a really good day to travel.
MARCIANO: Just hanging out at home feels so good.
COLLINS: Yeah, it's nice. OK, Rob. Thanks.
BlackBerry users panicking after service went down. What the devices maker is saying and what to do if an outage happens again. The story up ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: A CNN security watch now. Memories of the cold war. This time, it's China on the other end accused of recruiting spies to steal American secrets.
CNN national security correspondent Jeanne Meserve has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Secrets about the space shuttle. A sophisticated military rocket and U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan. All given to China, the government alleges, in two espionage cases.
KENENTH WAINSTEIN, ASST. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The threat is simple. It's a threat to our national security and economic position in the world.
MESERVE: In New Orleans, the FBI searched a home in connection with the case of Greg Bergerson, a 51-year-old analyst with the defense cooperation agency, part of the defense department. As recently as this month, court documents they Bergerson provided a Chinese-American businessman with secret information about past and future sales of weapons to Taiwan.
A second case in California involves Dong Fan Chung, a former aerospace engineer with Rockwell International and Boeing. He allegedly gave China inside information about the radar system. The c-17 military transport plane and more. According to court documents, Chung, a naturalized U.S. citizen, wanted to contribute to the modernization of what he called the mother land. Experts say it is common for China to recruit Chinese-Americans. KENNETH DEGRAFFENREID, FMR. COUNTERINTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL: The Chinese intelligence services do it very aggressively through blackmail, through friendships, through appeals to Chinese heritage.
MESERVE: All of those charged have made initial court appearances but have not entered pleas. Authorities say it's too early to tell exactly how much damage they may have done but claim these cases are part of a Chinese espionage operation that has now reached Cold War proportions.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.
GM losing money and getting rid of jobs. The company announced this morning it's offering buyouts now to 74,000 workers in the United States. That's its entire hourly workforce. Buyout packages are worth up to $140,000. They are being offered to workers represented to employees represented by United Auto Workers.
GM says it had a better than expected fourth quarter earning a narrow profit of $46 million when special expenses are excluded.
They are back and running today. But blackberry users like some of us here at CNN are still trying to get over yesterday's massive outage. Amazing what happens when you don't have your BlackBerry.
Veronica De La Cruz is here now to explain what happened.
VERONICA DE LA CRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can you say it? I am Heidi Collins and I'm a Crackberry addict.
COLLINS: I am. If I don't say it, my husband will.
DE LA CRUZ: Well as you know, Heidi Crackberry addicts out there having a hard time yesterday. Research in Motion or RIM, the company that makes the devices. This is posted on their Web site. Nothing is posted to their Web site explaining why the service was out for a number of hours across the U.S. and Canada. And in the past, RIM has been noticeably slow to offer explanations.
I do want to say, however, we just received this statement from them which says "it is still too early to determine the root cause at this time but RIM does have a team addressing this issue in order to define the problem and prevent it in the future." So we still don't know. Still don't know what caused the outage.
COLLINS: Interesting. How many times do these outages happen? When they do, it really stops you in your tracks.
DE LA CRUZ: It really, really makes you panic. It has happened at least twice in the past year. The last time was back in April. But I do want to mention that problems overall, Heidi, are pretty rare. This device has been around for nine years. Like you said, when it does happen, however, people do panic.
We were checking the blogs. There are plenty of people out there angered, outraged. People demanding answers from RIM. Others want to concentrate on the lighter side of things. One blogger on Valleywag.com wrote this. Quick, call a meeting. People will pay attention for lack of anything else to do. How many times have you been in a meeting and this is all you see.
COLLINS: See, I'm looking up because I'm not doing it.
DE LA CRUZ: No, not Heidi Collins.
COLLINS: Is there anything BlackBerry users can do? A lot of people turn it off, turn it back on and use that pin thing in the back.
DE LA CRUZ: Forget all of that. A lot of you don't know but what you can do is this. You can do something called pin to pin messaging. Each device has an eight-digit ID. Go to your options and enter your status in your phone. That will give you your pin number. When you compose a message, enter pins where you'd put an e-mail address. Pin to pin messages were not affected yesterday. So there is one way out there.
And there's also this. BlackBerry is the most popular service of its kind. There are 12 million-plus users. It is not the only one out there. If you are unhappy with the service, you can always switch to its rival Palm which makes the Trio.
COLLINS: Yeah, there are options. Veronica De La Cruz, thank you.
Now to this story. A house on fire and stranger drive-by and does much.
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COLLINS: Embassy shutdown. Norway has closed its embassy in Afghanistan due to an unspecified threat. Norwegian official would not discuss the nature of the threat nor how long the embassy would stay closed. Last month Norway's foreign minister escaped unharmed when a Kabul hotel was bombed. A Norwegian journalist was killed in that attack.
House on fire. A disabled man trapped inside. It took a stranger to save him.
Reporter Marisa Cleaver of KSHB has the story.
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BRAD SHUCK, SAVED MAN IN BURNING HOUSE: It looked like steam at first. Then I noticed it was smoke. And it was smoking pretty good by the time I got up here.
MARISA CLEAVER, KSNB REPORTER: Brad Shuck was driving on West 27th in Lawrence when he saw smoke coming from this house.
SHUCK: Opened the door up and was hollering in and I didn't think there was anyone there. Then I heard a voice. And the smoke, of course, was so bad. I couldn't see anything.
CLEAVER: The voice was George Robson, a man in his late 60s who relies on a cane to walk. Firefighters were still removing smoldering boxes hours after the fire. It's nothing compared to the smoke and flames that greeted Shuck.
SHUCK: When I got in, it hit me like a wall. It took about three times of going in to finally find him. As soon as I got his hand, I just pulled him out as quick as I could.
CLEAVER: Firefighters and an ambulance arrived shortly after Robson was pulled to safety.
STEVE ROBSON, HOMEOWNER'S SON: He's doing good. They are going to keep him overnight in the hospital. Keep him on oxygen. Other than that, he's going to be all right.
CLEAVER: Despite all the praise from Robson's family, Shuck says he doesn't feel like he did anything special.
SHUCK: You kind of always wonder what you would do in that situation. And, you know, I kind of wondered myself as I pulled up. But, you know, I just did what I think anybody else would have done.
CLEAVER: Steve Robson surveys the damage to his father's home. He sees gutted windows and ashes. He is grateful for what Shuck did.
ROBSON: Hero to me. You know, takes a good man to put himself in danger for somebody he doesn't even know.
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COLLINS: Fire officials tell me Lawrence Journal World the cause of the fire was accidental.
Candidates on message and on point. They are making moves. But what's it all about?
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COLLINS: Coming up at the top of the hour, facing foreclosure? A new government plan may rescue your home. The live announcement right here in the NEWSROOM.
A big scare in Mexico, a strong earthquake. It shook the Oaxaca region in southern Mexico. It had a magnitude of 6.4. So far, no reports of major damage or injuries. But the tremor did make buildings sway back and forth as far as Mexico City. That's about 400 miles away. Many people ran into the streets and just sort of hung around outside afraid of possible aftershocks.
When gestures speak louder than words, our Jeanne Moos has pointers for the presidential candidates.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When it comes to what matters in the presidential race, this is completely beside the point. But why do they point like that? Hillary's even managed a two-finger point. Huckabee's finger deserted his guitar. What exactly is the point? Our favorite body language expert Dan Hill describes the candidate's entrance before an adoring crowd as a moment of vulnerability.
DAN HILL, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: If you don't do something, I think you run the risk of looking listless, forlorn, marooned.
MOOS: So to project confidence and to connect with the crowd, they salute, give a thumbs up and they point.
HILL: You have these big forced social smiles. She's waving. Her eyes are going wide like she's so surprised and delighted to see someone she knows.
MOOS: It's not like we're the only ones to notice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She engaged in her traditional pre-victory speech game. Clap, clap, point, point, clap, clap, point, point. That is good. Take a look at her audience. Kids love the Clinton campaign. Or as they call it, lady in yellow jacket. Oh, wait, clap, clap, point, point.
MOOS: Obama clapped just as much but he appears to point less preferring a casual wave.
HILL: He has disdain for doing something really cheesy.
MOOS: Because of Vietnam War injuries, John McCain has trouble raising his arms high.
HILL: He will push his hands out and he'll do thumbs up.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. Thank you.
MOOS: Body language experts like to gauge smiles as natural or forced.
HILL: Obama, when he does flash a smile, has the best smile in the race.
MOOS: You know, this is so unfair. Putting these candidates every single gesture under the magnifying glass. I mean, what do we want? Do we want them to act like wax figures? Speaking of which, there's wax Obama. Lifelike down to the mole next to his nose. He just joined Bill and Hillary at Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum in Washington but enough of this.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
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