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American Morning
Marine Murder Manhunt Over: Arrested in Mexico; Frontier Airlines Files for Bankruptcy; Passenger Bill of Rights Could Prevent Air Chaos
Aired April 11, 2008 - 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: A marine who was wanted for killing a pregnant fellow marine is now in custody. Captured in Mexico, Corporal Cesar Laurean. He was wandering up to a roadblock apparently. U.S. authorities are now awaiting extradition.
Laurean headed south after police found the burned body of 20- year-old marine Maria Lauterbach in his backyard. She was eight months pregnant at the time and had accused Laurean of rape.
CNN's Harris Whitbeck has followed this story since day one. He's on the phone with us from Jacksonville, North Carolina, this morning. Harris, give up an update, first of all, how they nabbed in. I know this was, as we said, a three-month-long manhunt that took them out of the country. And what's going on this morning?
ON THE PHONE: HARRY WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kiran, authorities in the Mexican State of Michoacan, which is about 120 miles from Mexico City, say that a government anti-kidnapping task force had set up a routine road block in the town of San Juan Vina, when Laurean apparently wandered by. They stopped him, asked him for his identity papers and he gave his real name. They ran an identity check with him and discovered that he was in fact on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. So they then proceeded to detain him.
At the time, Laurean did not deny who he was. He is now in the custody of federal agents in Mexico awaiting the extradition process.
CHETRY: So he went through all that trouble to run. Why would he just give up his real identity right there at that checkpoint?
WHITBECK: Well, that's the real question, Kiran, and we spoke to relatives of Laurean about three months ago. We found them in the city of Sacopan (ph) right outside of Guadalajara. They told us that they had seen him and that he had stopped by the liquor store of a cousin of his, with a couple of buddies, who told him he was traveling around Mexico and then just kind of disappeared.
Now, he told the police last night that he had spent the last three months basically sleeping in fields eating fruit he found on trees and really just kind of staying away from any form of civilization. So it does sound like he was attempting to hide. I did find it a bit odd that when he was asked, he just went ahead and gave his real identity there.
CHETRY: All right. And again, U.S. authorities are waiting extradition. We're going to hear a little bit more about what he could be facing from our legal analyst a bit later. Harris Whitbeck, thanks for giving us an update on this story this morning.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: We got a lot more on that, too. We are going to be talking with sheriffs, and Sunny Hostin is going to ring in on it as well. How long will it take to extradite this fellow? Because of the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico, he cannot face the death penalty. So how are people back home in North Carolina going to feel about that?
"Most Politics in the Morning" now, and the candidates are hitting the campaign trail today. Just 11 days before the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary Clinton is in Philadelphia. Barack Obama is in the middle of a three-day tour by bus of Indiana, and presumptive GOP nominee John McCain is in Lubbock, Texas, for a rally and a fund raiser.
And a dramatic shift in the presidential race. The new "Associated Press/Ipsos poll out today shows McCain is gaining ground on the Democrats. McCain and Obama are dead even now with 45 percent apiece. Back in February, he was behind by 10 points. In a match up with Hillary Clinton, he trails 45 to 48 percent, but that is a statistical tie because of a three-point margin of error.
John McCain changing his position on the mortgage crisis. He now says the government should help struggling homeowners. His plan calls for the government to back new mortgages for people facing foreclosure. The estimated cost would be between $3 billion and $10 billion. Barack Obama criticized the McCain plan calling it similar to the George Bush solution. Obama wants to create a $10 billion fund to bail out homeowners in mortgage trouble.
Senator Hillary Clinton reemphasized her opposition to a free trade agreement with Colombia, a deal that her husband happens to support. While campaigning in Pennsylvania, Senator Clinton was asked by CNN about a possible conflict of interest. Her husband earned nearly $1 million giving speeches for a group that supports the free trade deal, and Senator Clinton has dipped into the family pocketbook to pay for campaign bills.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In fact, in the trade deal, your husband received $800,000 for four speaking engagements essentially for the trade deal or by a group that supports the trade deal. You've given your money to your campaign. Is that a conflict of interest?
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I mean, and how many angels dance on the head of a pin? I have really nothing to -- how do you answer that? I am against the Colombia free trade deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Earlier in the news conference Clinton said of her husband's support of the deal that she is against, "Everyone is free to express their opinion." Kiran? CHETRY: We have some breaking news from the airline industry overnight. We have been talking about a lot of headaches and a lot of financial troubles. Well, now, Frontier Airlines filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection blaming the company it uses for processing credit card transactions. Frontier says that the company raised its fees and filing Chapter 11 was the only way to stop it. Also, we know about Aloha Airgroup, ATA Airlines, as well as Skybus. All of those airlines filing for bankruptcy in the last week and a half.
Add on to that, the woes that are going on with American Airlines. They canceled yet another 600 more flights today. The airline scrambling to comply with FAA safety regulations trying to inspect their planes, inspect wiring in the wheel wells. They've had to ground nearly 3,000 flights over the past few days. American estimates a quarter million people have been affected.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nobody seems to want to help us as far as their mistake is concerned.
We can't afford to be stuck in Chicago any longer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: A lot of passengers just really fed up. American says it expects all MD-80s to be back in the air by tomorrow night. Well, for some it's not good enough.
New York Senator Charles Schumer calls American's cancellations "appalling and unacceptable." He also has some strong words for the FAA and they should have seen this coming and helped with a contingency plan. We're going it talk with him more about what should be done and how it all relates to any type of Passenger Bill of Rights that so far has not been able to make its way out of Congress. He's going to be joining us in about 15 minutes, so you might want to stick around for that.
Meanwhile, the sheriff is defending the timing of the raid on a polygamist compound in Texas. He says he was working with an informant for four years who was feeding him information about life inside of the sect. But authorities decided to leave this sect alone until last week because they had no concrete evidence of wrongdoing.
Investigators found dozens of wedding beds in the group's temple where they believe men had sex with underage girls. Four hundred sixteen children have been removed now from the ranch after a 16-year- old girl tipped off police.
ROBERTS: We're also expecting a bumpy day for the airlines and passengers today. Another airline has filed for bankruptcy as Kiran said.
Ali Velshi is coming up on that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROBERTS: Eight minutes after the hour now. Ali Velshi here "Minding Your Business" for us this morning, and more trouble for yet another airline.
ALI VELSHI, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, unbelievable. I want to follow up on what you were just talking about. Frontier Airlines declaring bankruptcy. Now, this is a -- we've just been hearing about this a lot over the last few days. I want to just tell you, Frontier says it's going to keep on flying. This is different from the other ones we've heard. Take a look at what we've just seen in the last few weeks.
Aloha Airlines has stopped operating, declared bankruptcy and stopped operating. ATA has stopped operating. Skybus has stopped operating, and Champion Airlines has stopped operating. Now, Frontier has an issue and that it said that it has some cash flow problems earlier in the week, and its credit card operator, as a result of that, started holding back money which got Frontier into further problems. So they think they can still continue to operate, but it's one of a list of airlines that people are concerned about in terms of not operating.
Then we've got the other problem on our hands with Midwest and American Airlines, which have those MD-80s out of service you were talking about, John, that are being repaired for a wiring issue. American Airlines CEO did make a statement in which he was very sorry about this. They said they'll try and get those planes back up by Saturday, but here is what he had to say about customers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GERARD ARPEY, CEO, AMERICAN AIRLINES: I want to once again, as I did in a press conference yesterday in Los Angeles, apologize to our customers impacted by the continued inspections on our MD-80 fleet. We are doing everything we possibly can to re-accommodate our customers impacted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: And we, of course, have a number of flights again grounded today for close to 1,000. They said they won't be back up and running until Sunday. The Frontier is flying for now. Those other airlines out of business.
ROBERTS: But these problems with grounding, they could still go on for another couple of months, couldn't they?
VELSHI: Absolutely. They surely could. And on one level, we want them to, right? You want the airplanes that are -- the airplanes that need to be fixed to be fixed. It's very inconvenient but we're heading into -- last year was a terribly inconvenient summer for travelers for a million reasons. To be starting off in April with this kind of problem already is going to be tough.
ROBERTS: All right. Ali, thanks.
VELSHI: All right.
CHETRY: And we're following extreme weather this morning as well. Oklahoma slammed with heavy rains as rescuers raced to reach stranded drivers trapped in floodwaters.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And I'm Rob Marciano in the extreme weather center. This storm continues to roll eastward. We'll have a full weather update coming up after the break. Stay tuned. AMERICAN MORNING will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARCIANO: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Rob Marciano tracking this monster storm system. Dropped 16 tornadoes during the day yesterday and overnight last night. Now, it's tracking north and eastward. Also, had some snow with it. Check it out in the radar scope.
A big one now stretching into the northeast as well. So this thing is affecting a lot of people, no doubt about it. Even New York City after a beautiful day yesterday, you will see a little bit of rainfall today, especially across parts of Upstate New York, Syracuse back to Buffalo. More organized convection from Louisville and through Lexington, Bowling Green, down to Nashville. None of this severe at the moment, but certainly some heavy downpours heading through the Tennessee Valley.
Look at this little thin line of thunderstorms right there. That is a trailing edge of the cold front, and certainly you can see the difference in temperature between Jackson, Mississippi, and Dallas, Texas. Over 20-degree drop there so that's where we're seeing the difference in air mass.
Then look at this thing. At the tail end of the front, LaSalle County under a severe thunderstorm warning. Look at all that purple. That's some probably big-time hail with this supercell thunderstorm rolling across southern parts of Texas.
The other aspect of this storm has been the big-time snow amounts. In some cases over a foot of snow, and we still have winter storm warnings and blizzard warnings for part of the northern tier here, Duluth back through just north of Minneapolis. Winter just does not want to give up, and then storm totals here, just a lot of this rainfall, guys, Guthrie, Oklahoma, Washburn, Missouri, four, five inches of rainfall. All of these cities have tributaries that feed into the Mississippi.
So once gain, we're not only getting the severe weather and the snow, but the rain in areas that don't need the rain either. So the flooding will be exacerbated. Back to you guys in New York.
CHETRY: You know, and I thought about you as we picked our "Hot Shot" this morning, Rob. Check this out. We were talking about the severe weather in San Angelo, Texas. This is a shot near there.
A split second frozen in time of two lightning bolts hitting at the same time. And as we know and as you have been telling us, these violent thunderstorms have hit the area over the past two days, including, and we talked about this yesterday, possible tornadoes. They did confirm one of them. But check out the lightning strike, huh?
MARCIANO: How about that? Mother nature's light show. I love that stuff.
ROBERTS: That's pretty impressive stuff. Nicolo Teslo (ph) would be impressed by that one.
CHETRY: How about it? And two right next to each other caught at the same time. By the way, if you have a "Hot Shot," send it to us. Head to our Web site, CNN.com/am and follow the "Hot Shot" link.
ROBERTS: Well, speaking of "Hot Shots," did something fishy happened during the vice president's recent fishing trip? We'll show you the photo that people are buzzing about all over the Web.
Here's a hint. That's not it. But we'll have it for you when we come back. You're watching the most news in the morning here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It's coming up now on 18 minutes after the hour. A picture of Vice president Dick Cheney becomes an Internet sensation. Our Veronica De La Cruz has been checking the blogs this morning. What do you got?
VERONICA DE LA CRUZ, CNN INTERNET CORRESPONDENT: Oh, goodness. OK. If you Google Cheney and sunglasses, you're going to get about 130,000 hits this morning, and it's all because of this photo. Take a look.
The blogs are on fire with speculation over the image reflected in the VP's sunglasses. Is it -- hmmm.
ROBERTS: Why is this man smiling?
DE LA CRUZ: Why is he smiling? Is it a naked woman? Is that's what's behind the vice president's grin? Well, takes an even closer look. The picture was snapped while Cheney was fly fishing on the Snake River in Idaho.
It was taken by White House photographer David Bohrer and was originally posted on the White House's official Web site with a series of photo essays. Spokeswoman Megan Mitchell from the vice president's office has said clearly the picture shows a hand casting a rod. Web users not taking her word for it. There is a sight out there dedicated to sports photography called sportsshooter.com, and on it Jason from North Carolina writes, oh, naked woman. Well, that explains his heart problems.
And then a post on the "Chicago Tribune" blog, one writer -- one reader writes in, "The photo is clearly a picture of Hillary working her final chapter of the kitchen sink strategy." And then a thread on McClatchyDC.com, another funny post about the image which says, "It's obviously the Virgin Mary or maybe the state of Illinois."
CHETRY: Now, that you look a little bit closer, it does look like a hand casting a rod, but I laugh at the fact that, you know, anything is fodder for the blogs. A small picture innocently posted on the Web.
DE LA CRUZ: Well, what's really funny is on AOL's political blog, the political machine, you can actually cast your vote right now, and these are the choices. Is it a hot babe sunbathing, alien overlord, it's not Dick Cheney, or the image was not photo shopped?
CHETRY: Hmmm. We're asking the same question.
ROBERTS: Yes. I mean, that's on the Web site, right? So why would the White House photo shop its own image?
(CROSSTALK)
DE LA CRUZ: Well, no.
ROBERTS: Looks like those guys at Disney who sometimes in the animations would put little subliminal message or something.
DE LA CRUZ: Or maybe as it's made its way around the Internet, somebody has photo shopped it even more. So the image that you're looking at when you cast your vote is that of a naked lady. I don't know.
CHETRY: Well, it's on our Web site.
ROBERTS: Maybe it's an image of the Virgin Mary, who knows.
CHETRY: It's on our Web site, CNN.com/am. So our "Quick Vote" question of the day, because it's Friday so we're having a little bit of fun is, what do you think it is?
Cast your vote. Is it a naked woman, yes or no? CNN.com/am. We'll tally up the votes, and go ahead us an e-mail about what you think it is.
DE LA CRUZ: He does look awfully happy though.
CHETRY: He's fly fishing. Of course, he's happy.
DE LA CRUZ: Or so, you think.
CHETRY: All right. Well, like I said, go ahead and send us an e-mail with your most creative responses to what you think is in the reflection of Dick Cheney's sunglasses.
ROBERTS: All right. Have a little fun, it's Friday.
Another day of chaos at the nation's airports. It's no fun there, unfortunately as American cancels hundreds more flights. New York Senator Chuck Schumer says the airlines' actions are appalling, and he is not very happy with the FAA either. His plan to help your next flight. That's coming up.
Plus, breaking news this morning. A fugitive marine captured three months after a pregnant marine was murdered. How the international manhunt came to an end, next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Well, American Airlines canceling close to 600 more flights today. It's scrambling to comply with FAA safety regulations and it's meant the stranding of hundreds of thousands of passengers. Nearly 3,000 flights grounded this week as the inspectors work overtime to check wiring in MD-80 jets.
New York Senator Charles Schumer says that American and the FAA should have seen this coming, and he is renewing calls for a Passenger Bill of Rights as well. He joins us this morning from New York's LaGuardia Airport. You certainly have plenty of time to talk to us this morning since chances are if you're there you might get delayed.
First of all, when you say that the FAA and American should have seen this coming, what do you think they should have done in this situation to ease the headaches and the travel nightmares for these thousands of passengers?
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Well, obviously both the airlines and the FAA, in particular, were asleep at the switch, and all of a sudden they realized that there are these problems, and then there are massive cancellations at the last minute. Had the FAA been doing its job, it would have told the airlines you're falling behind in your inspections, get with it or we're going to start inspecting individual planes.
Instead, it all happens at once, and hundreds of thousands of passengers are just stuck, you know, business trips, vacations, going to see the grand kids. It's a huge, huge mess and a huge nightmare. And the unfortunate thing is this is going to keep happening because the FAA is stepping up its inspections.
And unless they put together a plan that does this with some degree of planning and foreknowledge, we're going to have this even be worse in the summer. Imagine, this is very bad as it is. Imagine if it happened Memorial Day weekend.
CHETRY: Yes, exactly. During some of the busiest travel times, it would be even worse for sure. But you're calling for this joint FAA/Airlines Task Force where they would find draw up contingency plans where they would find ways to protect passengers in the event of these types of grounding. What exactly would this task force do?
SCHUMER: Well, this is kind of simple. It's what businesses do every day. They figure out a schedule for inspecting the planes. They'd say this plane is going to be inspected at Fort Worth on this day. Make sure you have a backup plane. If they could do that, this would be -- go much more easily without the kinds of cancellations, without the kind of last-minute notification, and the FAA has to set up a task force with the airlines and plan to do these inspections in advance so the airlines know. They're going to know that this MD-80 is not going to be running today, and they can make contingency plans and not pull the rug out from under their flying customers at the last minute.
CHETRY: You know, the FAA is weighing in this morning. The assistant administrator for communications is saying, if the repairs had been made anytime in the 18-month timeframe outlined in the Airworthiness Directive, we would not have seen these cancellation. These cancellation, they seem to be laying the blame at the airlines.
SCHUMER: Yes. Well, then, it leaps out. Why didn't the FAA when they were two or three months behind get on them? If it's 18 months, the FAA was asleep at the switch. And I have to tell you, the FAA is coming close to FEMA after Katrina. You know, you're doing a good job Brownie.
It's an agency that the president put in a political hack. She was there for four or five years. She messed this thing up to a fare thee well. They cut back on costs so they didn't have the people in the control towers, the updated equipment. This is an agency -- this is not politics, liberal, conservative, Democratic, Republican -- it's competence. And this has been one of the most incompetent agencies in the last few years that we have seen. If they're on the job, this never would have happened.
CHETRY: They're also claiming this is the safest period in aviation history and that while this is inconvenient, we're not in a post accident situation here. Do they have any credence to that?
SCHUMER: They are -- yes, they are certainly right. We are safer, and no one is saying they shouldn't do these inspections. They should.
But you can have safety and convenience both if you do it in a timely way, and they didn't. They sort of scrambling to catch up because they fell asleep at the switch, and we just want to make sure this doesn't happen again.
CHETRY: Right.
SCHUMER: A simple planning that every business does can be done here in advance so there aren't the cancellations that we've seen now.
CHETRY: Would this Passenger Bill of Rights then make a difference in preventing what we've been seeing over the past few weeks?
SCHUMER: Well, the Passenger Bill of Rights is somewhat different. It deals with delays, you know, sitting on the runway for three or four hours. One of the most galling things is that the airlines don't tell you that the flight is delayed until you're on it, you know... CHETRY: Right.
SCHUMER: ... so they can collect your ticket and then you miss a connection and you miss a meeting, et cetera. So the Passenger Bill of Rights doesn't directly deal with this issue of cancellations. But let me say if it passes, the FAA and the airlines will know it's a different day. They'll know that Congress is watching them carefully, and the FAA, which has always put the airlines first, may start putting the passenger first.
CHETRY: Senator Chuck Schumer out of New York. Thanks for joining us this morning.
SCHUMER: Thank you. Have a nice day.
CHETRY: You too.
ROBERTS: Breaking news this morning. U.S. authorities are awaiting word on the extradition from Mexico of a marine wanted for murder. Police in Mexico say they arrested Corporal Cesar Laurean as he wandered up to a road block. His capture ended a three-month long manhunt.
Laurean ran after police found the burned body of 20-year-old marine Maria Lauterbach in his backyard buried. She was eight months pregnant at the time of her death and had accused Laurean of rape.
On the campaign trail today, there is a new focus on the Iraq war. Democrats are taking aim at President Bush's plan to put a hold on troop withdrawals after July. Party leaders accuse the president of trying to hand-off the war to the next commander in chief.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: The president has taken us into a failed war. He's taken us deeply into debt, and he's taken -- that debt is taking us into recession. We want the president to manage this war better. And again, I agree with leader Reid, he is just dragging this out so he can put it at the doorstep of the new president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are calling the war a failure and say the American people have had enough, while Republican John McCain argues that pulling out of Iraq too soon would be a disaster.
So coming up to 30 minutes after the hour. The Democrats locked in a tight race in the Pennsylvania primary which is now just 11 days away. John Dickerson is CNN' political analyst and chief political correspondent for slate.com. He's in Washington this morning.
John, we look at the latest polls from Pennsylvania, Barack Obama has now pulled to within the margin of error where as a week ago Hillary Clinton was ahead by double digits. What's going on there? JOHN DICKERSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's getting really close. Obama has picked up a little more support. Of course, he has dumped a lot of money into television ads. He had a six-day bus tour there. So you would expect his poll numbers to go up a little. But he's getting closer and he's building his margin in the national polls.
He's up over Hillary Clinton in about ten points in the Gallup Poll, which is I think the biggest margin for him. So the momentum is on his side.
ROBERTS: If he beats her there or even if it's very close, what does that mean for her and her campaign?
DICKERSON: Hillary Clinton was supposed to trounce him in Pennsylvania. And it was supposed to show that she was still alive and that she had these voting blocs that were hers. And that he couldn't break into blue collar men, women, Latinos, Catholics.
So what it will show if Obama does well -- if he beats her, it's over. If he does very well, it will show essentially that he is not the flawed candidate that she has been pitching him and you would expect to probably see those superdelegates that have been going towards him continue their gallop towards Obama.
ROBERTS: John, of course, issue no.1 for voters in America is the economy. We've been following that every day at noon and here on AMERICAN MORNING. But the economy took a little bit of a backseat earlier this week to the Iraq war.
All three presidential candidates up there on Capitol Hill questioning General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. No grandstanding, but obviously an opportunity for them this week, John, to burnish their credentials on Iraq.
DICKERSON: They all sort of -- they took their opportunity, but as you say, there was no real great grandstanding and none of them came ahead of the other really in terms of being able to seize the moment. It's awfully tough to do in those long hearings where you get just a short period of time to ask your questions. And so everybody tried to look presidential, but nobody really rang the bell in terms of having a standout performance.
ROBERTS: Yes, I remember watching "THE SITUATION ROOM" the other day and Wolf was saying Senator Obama coming up, coming up, followed him for two hours, then he -- literally, five minutes and the whole thing was over.
Hey, CNN is airing the compassion forum on Friday night. This is going to be coming to us from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Campbell Brown will be monitoring it. We know that Hillary Clinton will be there. Barack Obama, John McCain has been invited.
They are going to be answering questions in front of faith leaders. How important is it for the Democrats to grab a slice of what has pretty much been an issue that's in the purview of the Republican Party?
DICKERSON: It's very important -- this election, because it's really interesting. This group of voters is really up for grabs. You've got two Democratic candidates, whichever of them gets the nomination, they're both very religious. They're both very comfortable talking about religious themes in their lives.
And you've got a Republican candidate who is not sort of right out of the religious right as we all know in John McCain. So these voters are up for grabs. And also they've sort of always been up for grabs. The religious right has been a big story in the news over the last 20 years. But there are lots of Evangelicals who consider themselves moderate. About 30 percent by the Pew poll.
And you've got about 80 percent of the country. 80 percent to 90 percent that considers themselves generally religious. So these are a lot of voters that are out there to be grabbed. The point though also is that these voters care about lots of other things other than values. But there are lots of voters out there who care about religion and who are up for grabs in this election.
ROBERTS: John Dickerson for us this morning from Washington. John, thanks. And John, I should point out I misspoke. It's not Friday night. It's Sunday night that this compassion forum is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. We'll see you a little bit later on this morning, John. Thanks.
DICKERSON: Thanks, John. Radio talk show host Randi Rhodes is leaving her show on "Air America." And explaining herself, she spoke exclusively to "LARRY KING" last night.
Rhodes quit "Air America" after she was suspended for controversial comments that she made at a radio station publicity event in San Francisco. The event was captured on tape and posted on YouTube. Rhodes used profane language, the "F" word and "W" word to describe Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro.
Rhodes told Larry that she is not apologizing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RANDI RHODES, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: It's absolutely 100 percent pure standup, Larry. It was a Saturday night in San Francisco in a club. It was me on a stage with a microphone doing standup.
My view of it is that the contract terminated because their unwavering position was that if I didn't amend my contract, to take away a right that I had, that they would never give me back my microphone. This thing was really about them wanting to change my contract.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Rhodes says that "Air America" wanted to get out of her contract and used this incident as an excuse to do it.
Kiran?
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Alina Cho joins us now with some other stories making headlines this morning.
Hey, Alina, good to see you.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, happy Friday, guys. Good morning to all of you. Good morning, everybody. And new this morning, there is word that vice president, Dick Cheney, and other senior administration officials approved harsh interrogation tactics for suspected terrorists.
The Associated Press is reporting they did so after getting the green light from the Justice Department. Now, the AP quote a former senior intelligence official is saying the White House approved water boarding and other interrogation methods at meetings in 2002 and 2003.
Senator Ted Kennedy calls the AP report an astonishing disclosure. There's no comment yet from the White House.
Eight Florida teenagers could face life in prison for a violent attack on a classmate, and it was all caught on tape. The victim was knocked unconscious and suffered a concussion. The sheriff says the attackers posted the video on YouTube. YouTube says it's now pulling that video. The suspects are between 14 and 18 years old. All of them will be tried as adults, and they face kidnapping and battery charges.
In health news this morning, scientists say they've created a drug that could prevent a serious side effect of cancer treatment. We're talking about radiation damage.
Now radiation, as many people know, is used to kill cancer cells, but it's also damaging healthy tissues at the same time. This new drug tested in animals so far apparently switches on a biological mechanism that helps those healthy cells survive. The findings are published in the Journal of Science.
And the Prince of Wales will be giving his son a very special honor today. A set of wings so to speak. Prince William and 24 other graduates of the Central Flying School will get their Royal Air Force Wings in a ceremony later today. William's father, of course is Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, and he will present the awards today.
25 years old and he's following in his dad's footsteps. He got his wings I think 35 years ago or something like that.
ROBERTS: Looking more and more like his dad every day, too.
CHO: Yes, he certainly is.
ALI VELSHI, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I have to get those -- the only wings I ever got were when I -- they used to let you go up as a kid into the cockpit of the plane.
CHO: The plastic ones you mean?
VELSHI: Yes. The plastic ones and now you can't go to the cockpit anymore. And you know, earlier we were talking (INAUDIBLE) cockpits. We're talking about another airline that has declared bankruptcy. Well, this is just generally been a tough time for the economy and retailers.
I'm going to come back with the one retailer that's actually contemplating going into bankruptcy. Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. We're coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Ali Velshi. You know, we've got the numbers in for March. America's retailers compare every month to the same month, 12 months ago, to see how their sales have done year-over-year.
And boy, the numbers from March are bad. They're reflecting exactly what you think. Prices are higher. You're paying more for gasoline and energy, and other things. And as a result, you're cutting back.
Let's take a look at some of the losers. Remember, these are March sales compared to March in '07. The Gap down 18 percent. Kohl's down 15.5 percent. JCPenney down 12.3 percent. Nordstrom, even -- you see, this is getting even people at the higher end, down 9 percent. Even Target down 4.4 percent and SAKS taking a hit 2.1 percent.
Most of these retailers are saying that the issue is that people are shifting their spending onto essentials. And that would make sense because look at the winners in this group. The winners are those people who actually sell you the essentials. Costco up 3 percent, BJ's wholesale up to 2.6 percent, and Wal-Mart, which does tend to benefit from other people losing business because they're moving into lower margin, less expensive goods, up 0.7 percent.
We also have heard from Linens and Things, a company that has really struggled for a very long time in a second place to Bed, Bath and Beyond. That it is examining the possibility of bankruptcy. Some reports are that this could happen as early as Tuesday.
So what we are seeing in this economy as consumers continue to pull back, -- you know, the ever-strong American consumer does get squeezed and they do make their buying choices. So this is not always a good sign.
ROBERTS: How are you coming, by the way, with your nefarious plot to have online retailers drop shipping charges?
VELSHI: Yes, well, this -- I get a lot of feedback when I'm saying that I think -- over shipping charges will drop over the course of the next year. Retailers don't want that to happen, because where they're going to make their money. But the fact is that -- this is what's happening. People are not buying. So you're going to have to do that.
CHETRY: I never should have asked you.
VELSHI: I'm glad you did though, because it reminds us that we're not suckers to the retail industry.
ROBERTS: Their bombing his e-mail.
VELSHI: I'm getting a lot of e-mail about this. So why don't somebody who like the idea of lower shipping charges -- email me. That would be nice.
ROBERTS: Start an email war here.
Extreme weather moving through the Midwest. A look at some of the damage done by powerful storms in Oklahoma. Our Rob Marciano is tracking extreme weather for us this morning.
Hey, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, John. 16 tornadoes in all just yesterday. Flooding rains and some snow piling up. Complete weather forecast is coming up after the break. Stay with us.
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(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: You know, when you get a little taste of people spring.
ROBERTS: It was a nice day here yesterday. I spent three hours out the park yesterday on my bicycle. It was great. It was really nice.
CHETRY: Good call. Beautiful.
MARCIANO: You're welcome.
ROBERTS: Everybody in New York was out, too. Everybody who had cabin fever for the last six months was out.
CHETRY: That's right. And hey Rob, stick around because I want you to look at this photo, too. It's time for a little fun this Friday. A photo from the White House is causing quite a stir on the Internet.
It's a picture of Dick Cheney. It was posted on the White House Web site. It shows our vice president with a caption that said he was fly fishing on the Snake River in Idaho.
But then, if you look closely at the reflection in his sunglasses, and now the bloggers are abuzz. They're claiming it looks eerily like a naked woman. The rumbling on the blogs got to be so much that the White House actually had had to come out and dismissing the idea saying quote "Clearly the picture shows a hand casting a rod." What do you think, Rob?
MARCIANO: You know, it's definitely a hand casting a rod. But even if it was a woman, I'm happy that he's smiling, you know.
CHETRY: That's right. He's out and enjoying the weather, too.
MARCIANO: It could be something a lot more sinister than just that, right?
CHETRY: Exactly. Well, we wanted to ask you this -- our Friday "Quick Vote."
Do you agree with the blogosphere? Is it a naked woman in the reflection? Right now, 48 percent of you say yes, 52 percent say no. Cast your vote, cnn.com/am. And go ahead and send us an e-mail if you think it is or it isn't. What do you think it is? Is it just a hand casting a rod? I'm going to go with that.
ROBERTS: I mean, it could be a picture. Could be a lot of things, you know. It depends on where he was.
CHETRY: You do not believe he's on the Snake River now? Great. There it is, cnn.com/am.
ROBERTS: All right. Send us your e-mails in there.
Thousands of American Airlines planes grounded for safety issues. What exactly is the problem? Our technology correspondent, Miles O'Brien will do some show and tell for us.
And a fugitive marine finally captured. Wanted for the murder of a pregnant marine. More with our legal analyst, Sunny Hostin, coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
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ROBERTS: 11 minutes now to the top of the hour. More on our breaking news this morning. A marine suspected of murder is in custody after months on the run.
Corporal Cesar Laurean was captured in Mexico after fleeing Camp Lejeune. Laurean ran after police found the burned body of 20-year- old marine, Maria Lauterbach, buried in his backyard along with her unborn fetus. She was eight months pregnant at the time and had accused Laurean of rape.
AMERICAN MORNING's legal analyst, Sunny Hostin, joins us now. You know, listening to some people who are closely associated with this case saying it's a shame that we caught him in Mexico rather than the United States, because they wanted him to face the death penalty.
SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's right.
ROBERTS: So what's the legality there? Can you explain it for people? HOSTIN: Well, he certainly can't face the death penalty now because of the extradition agreement between the United States and Mexico. Mexico does not have the death penalty. And in fact, as a nation they oppose the death penalty.
And in order for them to even issue fugitive warrant, the prosecutor in this case, three months ago, had to agree not to seek the death penalty. If not, not only was Mexico not going to issue the fugitive warrant, they would not have cooperated and he would not have been arrested.
ROBERTS: Now, Susan Candiotti was saying last night on "LARRY KING LIVE" when the news broke that there was some hope the extradition could happen quickly. Other people are saying, hey, it might not happen for two years or so.
HOSTIN: That's right.
ROBERTS: And an added little wrinkle here as well because Laurean is a dual citizen, Mexican and American. He was born in Guadalajara.
HOSTIN: He is. And what's interesting, John, is it really doesn't matter whether or not he was born in Mexico; whether or not he was born in the United States. It depends on whether or not he's going to fight this extradition.
And if he fights this extradition, it could take one year. It could take two years. But typically, people don't want to be in a Mexican prison as opposed to being in a United States prison. So, it's too soon to tell, but he could very well fight, which would be a long, long fight. That's a slow process.
ROBERTS: Do you need to have resources to fight extradition because I understand that he was caught with -- I think he had like a dollar in his pocket. He had been surviving by eating avocados and other fruits from nearby farmers' fields.
HOSTIN: That's right.
ROBERTS: If you're fighting extradition, do you need to be able to hire an attorney? Do you need to be able to bankroll it?
HOSTIN: No, you don't. And in fact, he'll get appointed an attorney. I'm sure he already has an attorney that's working on this. He doesn't need the resources. He really just needs to make the decision.
But with extradition, John, it really just matters whether or not this is the person. Not whether or not he was convicted of the crime. Now that we know this is the person, he's been identified, he admitted his identity, it really is about whether or not he's going to fight.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, we'll see where that case goes. Sunny Hostin for us this morning.
Sunny, thanks. Good to see you.
HOSTIN: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Kiran?
CHETRY: Well, instead of 5 bucks a gallon, how about 5 bucks a fill up. Why the seemingly impossible happen and why some drivers are calling it a gift from above, coming up.
ROBERTS: Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, hundreds of thousands delayed or stranded as plane wires are inspected.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't buy it. They should have been doing this maintenance all along, a few at a time, instead of creating this havoc at the airport. I mean, it's nuts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Just how serious is the wiring problem? And how long will it keep planes and passengers grounded? Ahead, on AMERICAN MORNING.
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CHETRY: Well, a live look this morning. There is LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Hopefully, everybody called ahead about their flights, especially if they're flying American.
American Airlines had to cancel close to 600 more flights today. They are still scrambling to comply with FAA safety regulations. Nearly 3,000 flights grounded this week alone. It left about 250,000 people stranded or affected in some way.
The FAA launched its inspection campaign last month after CNN obtained documents submitted to congressional investigators showing more than 100 Southwest Airlines' planes were not properly inspected.
So, what exactly is the problem and are passengers at risk? CNN chief technology correspondent Miles O'Brien joins us.
So, technically this is all our fault?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CHIEF TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Always blame the passenger. There you go, yes. No, let's -- I think it's worth at this point talking about precisely what all the fuss is all about. Let's go into the wheel well, if you will, on an MD-80 and take a look at this.
First of all, it's a critical spot because you know where the fuel is on an airplane. It's in the wing. This is a high voltage wire, inside. There we are. There's the mechanic doing his work probably for the third time now. Hopefully, the right time. This is the wiring bundle. It feeds an auxiliary power unit. And there are three key areas to worry about. First of all, they wanted them to make sure that these ties were precisely one inch apart, not an inch and a quarter, not three- quarters of an inch. Precisely one inch apart. That was the first issue.
The second one was they wanted to make sure that these clamps were properly attached. That's number two.
And then number three was this whole issue of the sheathing, the covering on all this. The big concern was these high voltage wires would begin chafing. Chafing means sparking. Sparking near fuel tanks is a bad thing. Seems like a straightforward fix when they do it up that way. Didn't go that way.
CHETRY: Yes. A couple of things. So, this was about a month or so ago. They started this. They grounded a bunch of flights back then. And they did some repairs or some inspections but it didn't comply? What do they mean by that?
O'BRIEN: Well, for one thing, they focused very much because the FAA said, hey, you didn't do your ties right. They went back and did the ties. They forgot to check the clamps and they forgot to check the sheathing. And all of that in many cases was not done properly.
So, they had to go through a second time. Make sure the clamps, which in some cases were on backwards, were on properly. Make sure the sheathing was done properly.
CHETRY: Now, all of these are to prevent disaster obviously. One of the things that a lot of people are wondering is, why can't they just bring in more mechanics? Why can't they just bring in a ton of people, anybody they can get, contract them out and rush this job through so people can get back in the air?
O'BRIEN: Well, the choke point is the FAA on all this. And American is turning these planes around between two and six hours to do the fix on each plane. But they have to wait for an FAA inspector to look it over and give it the seal and the imprimatur to move on. So, that's been the choke point so far.
CHETRY: The FAA is turning it back on the airlines saying, hey, you had 18 months to get this taken care of.
O'BRIEN: Well, that's a good point.
CHETRY: This is a directive we put out more than a year and a half ago.
O'BRIEN: And the CEO of American says it's his fault. He takes full responsibility for not implementing this thing to the letter of the law in the first place.
CHETRY: All right. And we have our New York Senator Chuck Schumer just blasting everyone, saying this is ridiculous and there should be some contingency planes for travelers when their flights are canceled. Is that realistic? O'BRIEN: Well, you know, there's a lot of blame to go around here. Which we have is an FAA with only 2,000 inspectors total. And there are 500 maintenance shops offshore. Outside the country now. How can you possibly inspect a system like that?
You can't kick the tires and touch the metal on all these cases. In the meantime, the airlines, frontier airlines, went bankrupt this morning. These airlines are in deep trouble. You have to, in other words, focus on the system, which the FAA does, not the plane specifically, and the system is ailing.
CHETRY: Miles O'Brien, CNN's chief technology correspondent. Thank you.
O'BRIEN: You're welcome, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Breaking news to tell you about this morning. The three-month-long manhunt is over. A marine wanted for killing a pregnant fellow marine is now in custody. Police in Mexico say they arrested Corporal Cesar Laurean about 120 miles west of Mexico City as he wandered up to a roadblock.
This is brand new video. The suspect in cuffs and shackles. U.S. authorities are now awaiting extradition.
Laurean headed south after police found the burned body of 20- year-old marine Maria Lauterbach buried in his backyard. She was eight months pregnant at the time and had accused Laurean of rape.
CNN's Ed Lavandera is on assignment in San Angelo, Texas, but he has followed this story since day one and joins us now with more.
What more do we know about this whole case, Ed?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we know that within the next couple of days, Laurean will be taken from the town just west of Mexico City, where he was captured, to Mexico City, where they will begin the extradition process.
But in the overnight hours, we're able to learn a little more about what it's been like for Cesar Laurean on the run in Mexico. He apparently told authorities down there in Mexico, where he was captured, that he has been spending a lot of time sleeping in avocado groves, eating fruit. He looked disheveled.
We had been told that perhaps he would be growing out his hair and looked thinner from the pictures that we've been able to see at this point. So, clearly after Cesar Laurean was on the run, we knew he might be headed to Mexico early on. We were told that he had family in Guadalajara. And indeed, that was the case.
We heard stories about him riding buses through the southern part of the U.S. and managing his way across the southern border. But now authorities focus their attention on the extradition process which, as you have been reporting it, if he doesn't waive his extradition, it could be a lengthy process. And so, authorities are hopeful that that doesn't happen and he'll be back in North Carolina soon.
ROBERTS: Ed Lavandera for us this morning from San Angelo, Texas.
Ed, thanks very much.
The "Most Politics in the Morning" now. The candidates are hitting the campaign trail today. Hillary Clinton is in Philadelphia, just 11 days before that all-important Pennsylvania primary.
Barack Obama is in the middle of a three-day bus tour of Indiana.
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