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American Morning
Is there Life on Mars?; Flood Relief: Failed Levees May Help; China Eases Gas Subsidies; New Rule: IDs Now Required to Fly; Pregnancy Rates on the Rise in Gloucester High
Aired June 20, 2008 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush said he will support the legislation if approved.
And elsewhere on Capitol Hill this morning, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan will discuss his bombshell book about the Bush White House under oath. He's going to be appearing before a House Judiciary Committee. The committee is likely to focus on the vice president's role in the CIA leak case -- John.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Just crossing the top of the hour. New this morning, possible answers to the age-old question, is there life on Mars?
NASA's Phoenix Lander may have just discovered little pieces of ice on Mars. Our space correspondent Miles O'Brien joins us now with more and a little prop there that would be the envy of any kid that builds models. Wow.
MILES O'BRIEN, SPACE CORRESPONDENT: There are kids who would love this. We ought to put it on eBay later when we're done with it.
This is the Mars Phoenix. And this is the shovel that has been doing all the work in the Martian arctic. You know, you recall it landed on Memorial Day weekend.
Take a look at some of the pictures it's been bringing back. Pretty bleak landscape there. And inside there, you'll see a little bit of the dirt which it has collected.
Let's go to the next line and we'll tell you a little bit about what's going on there. In that dirt might be exactly what they're looking for. You have to ask yourself that question. What is that white material there?
Scientists first saw it and they said, maybe it's the ice that we were almost certain was there. And then they started looking at some images over a period of time. Take a look at the next slide. Over a four-day period.
First of all, that shows you the depth of the trench. You can see that's the deeper part of the trench there.
ROBERTS: Right.
O'BRIEN: And then they started looking at some images, comparing these two troughs that they dug over a four-day period of time. And look what they noticed as we play this next image.
You'll see that the -- this -- what appears to be sort of dice-sized white crystals there disappear over a period of a few days. You have to ask yourself why. Would rocks disappear that way? No. Apparently what is happening is that is ice and it is sublimating or evaporating. It doesn't really melt there on Mars. It's way too cold for that.
ROBERTS: So here's the question. There's lots of dry ice on Mars, right? Could that be dry ice as opposed to H20?
O'BRIEN: No, it's water ice.
ROBERTS: It is?
O'BRIEN: It's water. They can tell by the whole signature of it. And that leads to the next question. How do you get that stuff in that scooper and get it in the oven on top of the spacecraft?
Here's what they found. This is the problem. See how clumpy that is? It's been very difficult getting it into the oven down here because it comes in such clumps.
And so, I've got a model here. This is actually made on 34th Street here in Manhattan. Honeybee Robotics built this shovel and at the back end you'll see there's a kind of a rasp or a drill. And what they'll do is they're going to take that shovel and they'll turn on that rasp and it'll shake it. And it will just sprinkle the dirt hopefully with those ice crystals into the oven.
They cook it in the oven. And if they cook it in the oven and they're lucky, they'll find some organic material or carbon material. That is a telltale sign of life.
ROBERTS: Wow. Wouldn't that be something fascinating?
O'BRIEN: Yes.
ROBERTS: Fascinating stuff. Miles, thanks so much.
O'BRIEN: You're welcome.
CHETRY: We also have some breaking news out of the Midwest this morning. The Mississippi River expected to crest sooner than first predicted. Experts say a 50-mile stretch of the river could start dropping today between Quincy, Illinois, there you see it on the top, and Winfield, Missouri.
And these are live pictures coming to us from KMOV in Lincoln County, Missouri. And you can just see, as we were able to see a moment ago, just the expanse of water. In fact, so many levees have given way in this area that they are under a flood watch this morning.
CNN's Ed Lavandera is live in nearby Clarksville, Missouri. And the odd thing for people that aren't necessarily that familiar with flooding is that when a levee breaks in one place, it actually may ease things for people in certain areas while making it harder for others.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's what we've seen repeatedly over the last couple of days. We're just north of that live picture you were showing in the town of Clarksville. That's a historic town along the banks of the Mississippi River. A lot of antique shops. It's very popular for people to come down here and visit.
You can see what has been going on here the last few days. This is an interesting town because there are no levees here in place. So really, the city emergency workers and the National Guard left to their own here to fight back the swelling Mississippi River. If you look out that way, that is the river. It's really hard to make out where it once was.
So there has been a round the clock operation here to shore up, use pumps to get water back into the river and away from here, and sandbags. In fact, take a look right over here. You can see just the crates of sandbags. These are unused, still waiting to be used that have been brought in here to get people bagging, and the residents who have been here volunteering, getting all that work going. So it has been a round the clock effort to make sure that the buildings and the homes that are just here on the banks of the Mississippi River don't get flooded out -- Kiran.
CHETRY: Ed Lavandera for us. Thank you.
ROBERTS: Meanwhile, President Bush is promising relief money and FEMA supplies to victims in the flood zone. He got a firsthand look at the devastation there, where he promised that small towns will get as much attention as bigger cities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We also got to worry about the little towns. Our folks are wondering whether or not the government cares about them too. I can assure you that the governor cares deeply about it, and so do we.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Presidential hopeful John McCain also toured the flood zone in Iowa. The presumptive Republican nominee thanked volunteers and promised immediate flood assistance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's very obvious that there will be a need for federal assistance. There's levees broken along the river. There's tremendous damage in many places. So obviously, there would be an immediate need for flood assistance and long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Last weekend Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama helped fill sandbags. That was in Quincy, Illinois. CHETRY: The Obama and McCain campaigns are sparring over campaign fund raising. It began after the Obama camp says it was denied access to McCain's conference call with reporters. Obama's team says it wanted to get on the call to explain why Obama changed his position.
Communications director Bill Burton sent an e-mail to the McCain campaign saying, "Any particular reason you weren't willing to have an actual discussion about the disagreements here on your conference call?"
McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker shot back calling the last minute request a "stunt." And she went on to say, "That type of boys club bullying embodies an arrogance better suited for a frat house than a serious campaign about serious issues."
ROBERTS: Gloves are off.
CHETRY: They sure are.
ROBERTS: Getting down to it.
Twist in the case of a rip-off artist who allegedly faked his own death and then took off. His girlfriend admits helping hatch the plot. We'll have the latest on the search for the missing swindler.
CHETRY: Also, a big security secret. You don't really have to show your ID to fly within the United States. At least you didn't. Until tomorrow. We'll explain.
ROBERTS: And Kid Rock is telling you to steal his music and stay away from iTunes. We'll tell you the reason why. You're watching the "Most News in the Morning."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Well, welcome back to the "Most News in the Morning."
Some travel troubles for Martha Stewart this morning. Britain's newspaper "The Telegraph" is reporting that Stewart was denied a visa to Britain because of her criminal conviction. She was planning to head there for meetings with people in the fashion and leisure industry.
ROBERTS: How about that?
ALI VELSHI, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: At guess you can't really even -- you can't really say, well, it isn't really a criminal conviction. It was just because of this thing I was involved in for business. I mean, it's a conviction.
ROBERTS: It certainly is.
VELSHI: All right.
ROBERTS: It's 10 minutes after the hour.
Hairless prophet of doom here this morning. What have you got for us today?
VELSHI: Well, I've got lower oil prices. I'm the hairless prophet of glee this morning because oil prices dropped almost $5 a barrel yesterday down to $131 and change. They're a little bit higher this morning. Why? Because China has increased the price of gasoline.
In China, there are government controls on the price of gasoline. They increased the price of gas 17 percent diesel, 18 percent. And the concern here is that is going to cause inflation, just like high gas prices are causing inflation here in the United States.
Taking China's inflation forecast to seven percent, now, what does that mean? Same thing it means here. People are going to buy less oil. As a result, the price of oil comes down.
There's also an important meeting this weekend in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, concerned that the world is all going to pull back from their purchases of oil, have called a meeting of the world's oil consuming nations. A lot of the European energy ministers will be there. The energy secretary from the United States will be there. They're going to be talking about the things they want to do to keep the price of oil low or lower than it is, including the following.
They want to boost output or at least that's what's expected that the Saudis will boost oil output. They're going to make some special deals with refineries to make sure that they know they will continue to get oil supply. They're going to press for trading controls on oil, and they're going to call to strengthen the U.S. dollar, because as the dollar has been sinking, oil prices have been going up.
There's some sense that if the dollar strengthens that oil prices may go down. But again, even though oil dropped 5 bucks we're still above $130 a barrel. If this Saudi meeting doesn't turn out to be sort of gang busters, I'm not certain we're going to see further drops in the price of oil. You asked me about the price of oil in China.
ROBERTS: Yes.
VELSHI: The price of oil in China --
ROBERTS: In the last hour we gave you a challenge.
VELSHI: We found the price of oil in China. Turns out to be about $3.41 a gallon now. That's 6.7 yuan. Let's call 6.25 yuan for the 93 gas. That turns out to be $3.41 cents. That's the new price of gas in China. So it's not cheap when you think that's a developing economy.
ROBERTS: And we can see, I think, if you look at the -- according to a 2007 census in China...
VELSHI: Yes.
ROBERTS: ... the average per capita income in Beijing, big city, was about $3,000 a year.
VELSHI: And that's in a big city.
ROBERTS: Yes.
VELSHI: So clearly that kind of price of gas means people will actually make decisions to pull back on car usage.
CHETRY: And the reason to care about this is because they increased it, we're looking at -- that's why we're looking at oil prices dropping a little bit.
VELSHI: You get more influence on oil prices than pretty much anything else has had in recent weeks, so that was a good deal. The other thing to remember, by the way, is the Chinese are not like the Indians. They don't drive tiny little cars. They actually like big American style cars there. So there you go.
ROBERTS: Thank you, Ali.
CHETRY: Thanks, Ali.
ROBERTS: You rose to the challenge.
CHETRY: A surprising turn of events in the hunt for a multimillion dollar scam artist. Authorities say that they arrested his girlfriend. Fugitive Sam Israel was convicted of bilking nearly a half billion dollars from investors. He got a 20-year prison sentence. Authorities say they think he staged his own suicide on the same day he was supposed to show up for jail.
CNN's Randi Kaye has been following the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Federal prosecutors here in New York have charged Debra Ryan with aiding and abetting Samuel Israel. Ryan is believed to be the live-in companion of Israel and a complaint says she helped him avoid prison and elude authorities.
According to the complaint, Ryan initially told investigators she had no idea where he was after he failed to surrender for his prison sentence. But then, she changed her story and in a big way. The complaint says Ryan admitted to helping Israel escape justice.
On June 9th, she allegedly followed him in her car while he drove an RV to a highway rest stop near their home in Armonk, New York, about an hour outside Manhattan, before both then drove back to their house. He never surrendered on June 9th. Instead, his SUV was found on a bridge with the words "suicide is painless" scrawled on the front hood. That was the theme song to the hit TV show "Mash."
Now, authorities doubted Israel killed himself and now they are convinced he is a fugitive. They believe Israel is driving, take a look at this here, this white RV. It's a 2007 Coach Freelander recreational vehicle that has New York license plates. The number is EEN-5973. The RV may also have a hydraulic lift in the back, and that may be carrying a blue 2005 Yamaha scooter. (END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Israel was also accused of telling investigators that the funds he managed were profitable when in fact they never posted a profit.
ROBERTS: Towns are flooding all across the Midwest, but some people say it's not because the levees are weak. The problem is they're too strong. You're watching the "Most News in the Morning."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, no ID required.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, sir. I'm all finished here. You're clear to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The airport security rule you probably never knew about, and why the government is now about to change it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIP HAWLEY, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMIN: There are people trying to do harm, take down planes, and we can't let them have vulnerability.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: You're watching the "Most News in the Morning."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Here's the national headlines for you on this Friday, June 20th.
It was a bizarre accident on the ground at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. There's another picture. A van crashed into a parked airplane and then became wedged underneath it. The plane was loaded with passengers. No one was hurt. Police say the driver had a medical problem, lost consciousness behind the wheel.
And then, there's this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give me your money. Give me your money. $50. $50.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $50.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do it. $50.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: This robbery attempt has to be seen to be believed. The man using a palm frawn to try to hold up a convenience store in Florida. It was all caught on surveillance video. The suspect waving the palm frawn around like a spear and repeatedly demanding money and then getting chased out by a bar stool. Proved to be more worthy a weapon than the palm frawn then the robber made his way out.
He was caught a short time later, by the way, and charged with -- the guy's not even holding up the stool. He's just pointing at the door and the guy's running out. Very strange. No one was hurt.
Another unusual site but with a happier ending. Wedding bells for one National Guardsman called to duty took place on a bridge lined with sandbags in Columbus Juncntion, Iowa. Curtis White married Danielle Ritter. The couple stood on a bridge that just the day before was covered with water.
ROBERTS: Well, no ID required. You probably didn't know that a photo ID was optional for getting through airport security. But the Transportation Security Administration is about to close that loophole.
Our Jeanne Meserve tells us about one man who has been exercising his little known right of refusal.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, Kiran, the sign at the security checkpoint says you have to show an ID. But did you know you do not really have to? And every day a few people choose not to show identification and manage to fly anyway. Saturday, that will change.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE (voice-over): Nick Kloiber is not your average traveler. He flies about once a month and when he does, he does something unthinkable to most of us. He refuses a routine security request.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ID, sir?
NICK KLOIBER, PRIVACY ADVOCATE: No, thank you.
MESERVE: He will not show transportation security officers his identification.
KLOIBER: I shouldn't really have to show my ID to travel in my own country, and I will gladly go through the secondary screening to ensure that I am not a threat to anybody. But as for who I am, that's really none of their business.
MESERVE: Under current TSA policy, a traveler does not have to show an ID if they are willing to undergo a more intense security search.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, sir. I'm all finished here. You're clear to go.
MESERVE: But that changes on Saturday. Passengers who willfully refuse to provide identification at checkpoints will no longer be allowed to fly.
KIP HAWLEY, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMIN: We need to be able to stop somebody who we know is a terrorist from getting on the plane. And it's not too much to ask to say, just tell us who you are.
MESERVE: But civil liberties advocates say U.S. citizens should not have to show documents to travel within their own country.
JIM HARRISON, THE IDENTITY PROJECT: The TSA is incrementally chipping away at the freedoms that Americans have. And the freedoms that we're talking about here are the fundamental right to travel?
MESERVE: Although airlines check travelers' names against terror watch lists, the TSA says its document examinations provide another layer of security and turn up people traveling with fake IDs very week.
HAWLEY: To us it's not a philosophical argument. There are people trying to do harm, take down planes, and we can't let them have vulnerability.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE: People who say their IDs have been lost or stolen can still fly if they give the TSA information that could be used to verify their identity. Critics say a clever terrorist could bluff their way through and get on a plane. They say the only people really impacted by this rule change are those who want to protect their privacy. John, Kiran, back to you.
CHETRY: Also ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, the pregnancy pact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOLLIE WAGNER, STUDENT: These numbers are outrageous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: High school girls band together to get pregnant and raise their kids together. A school and community struggling to respond.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER FARMER, SUPERINTENDENT, GLOUCESTER PUBLIC SCHOOL: We've got 17 that we know of this year, and the typical average is four.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: You're watching the "Most News in the Morning."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: Britney Spears younger sister Jamie Lynn is now the mother of a baby girl. The 17-year-old giving birth to Maddie Briann on Thursday morning at a hospital in Mississippi. The high school student who lived in Louisiana reportedly met the baby's father, Casey Aldridge, there in Tennessee as well at church. The couple are engaged and at this time the personal publicist for Jamie Lynn was not available for any comment about the situation.
But there has been a dramatic increase in teenage pregnancies at one Massachusetts high school. Seventeen girls, all of them younger than 17 years old, are now expecting and a lot of people want to know why.
CNN's Alina Cho has more.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Kiran, good morning. You know, the most stunning part about this story is that at least half of the girls, according to "Time" magazine made a pregnancy pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Now, Gloucester, Massachusetts is reeling from what the local paper is calling a teen pregnancy outbreak.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MOLLIE WAGNER, STUDENT: I remember finding out one person was pregnant. That was, like, incredible and then 17.
CHO (voice-over): It was a rough school year for administrators at Gloucester High in Massachusetts, as one teenage girl after another walked into the school's clinic requesting a pregnancy test. By the time classes let out last week, 17 students were pregnant.
ASHLEIGH BENNETT, GLOUCESTER, MASS: They can't even buy their own cigarettes yet, and they're having babies.
CHO: Even harder to believe, the school's principal says nearly half of the pregnancies were planned. Some teens reacting to the news with high fives. Principal Joseph Sullivan tells "Time" magazine, "Some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were."
CHRISTOPHER FARMER, SUPERINTENDENT, GLOUCESTER PUBLIC SCHOOL: Many of the young women don't see a lot of direction, purpose in their lives. You know, the baby gives them a sense of status and purpose which they wouldn't necessarily have in another way.
WAGNER: I'm friends with a couple of them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you make of this?
WAGNER: I don't know. I mean, it's their decision. Whatever they want to do.
You won't catch me getting pregnant in high school. No way.
CHO: The school's pregnancy outbreak has been front page news, sparking fierce debate in the community about whether students should have easier access to birth control.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's a personal thing with parents and the kids.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The funny thing is who's going to follow these kids? You know, it's one thing to prescribe a pill, it's another thing to take it every day.
CHO: Gloucester school committee will vote this summer on whether to provide contraceptives. Meanwhile, school administrators are seeking outside advice in tackling the teen pregnancy problem and hope to have a plan in place by September.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHO: Now, none of the pregnant girls or their families are talking yet. We should mention. The 17 pregnancies at Gloucester High are about four times higher than the average. And still, nobody knows exactly why the girls would have made a pact to get pregnant if, indeed, that's the case.
One classmate was quoted as saying they're just so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally. Others believe it may have something to do with movies like "Juno" or "Knocked Up," Kiran, which glamorize unwed mothers, young ones. But one thing is for certain, you know. It has renewed debate in this community about whether or not to distribute birth control at high schools. And as I mentioned in the piece, school administrators are going to be meeting and they'll have some sort of decision, we hope, by September.
CHETRY: But if it is intentional, I don't know how distributing birth control -- there's actually trying to --
(CROSSTALK)
CHO: You're right.
CHETRY: As that mother pointed out. You're right.
CHETRY: You know, it's interesting though, because some counselors are also asking, the kids are seeing all these magazine covers...
CHO: That's right.
CHETRY: ... that seem to glorify --
CHO: What? You just mentioned Jamie Lynn Spears being one of them. They're on the covers of all "OK," "Us Weekly," all these magazines.
CHETRY: You're right.
CHO: And yes. I mean, they wonder, is it that? Is it the movies like "Juno" glamorizing that? Everything else.
CHETRY: Well, they're welcome to come to my house for a weekend if they want to. I'm sure you'll never have to worry about anyone. CHO: You got a whole load of kids at your house right now.
CHETRY: Thanks, Alina.
CHO: You bet.
ROBERTS: In fact, she doesn't want to take the weekend off.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Next Friday, please.
ROBERTS: She actually gets some sleep when she has to work.
It's coming up on 29 minutes after the hour. Let's recap our top stories this morning.
Scientists reviewing pictures sent from NASA's Phoenix Lander say signs point to there being water ice on Mars. They say chunks of bright material later disappeared indicating that the stuff was probably frozen water that evaporated.
The Mississippi River is expected to crest sooner than first predicted. Experts say a 50-mile stretch of the river could start dropping today. That's because so many levees have given way. Drew Griffin of our CNN special investigations unit reports.
DREW GRIFFIN, SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Kiran. There is a much bigger question going on here over how we should manage this river. Maybe we're managing it too much.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN (voice-over): The problem may not be that the levees are failing, but too many levees are holding. Up and down this massive river basin for hundreds of years, farmers and cities and land developers have been trying to hold back one of Mother Nature's largest drainage pipes. The Mississippi.
PROF. TIM KUSKY, ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY: Since the 1700s as we've built more than 2,200 miles of levees along the whole river system, and all together that has had a major, major effect.
GRIFFIN: St. Louis University natural scientist professor Tim Kusky says the effect can be seen quite clearly from the air. Once huge natural floodplains are developed into towns and shopping centers, entire cities. Levees are made even stronger so that people living behind them feel safer.
KUSKY: What happens is we build levees along the river then we constrict the flow to a very, very narrow channel and the same amount of water has to go through the narrow channel and rise higher and higher. And then people think the levees are strong and they're going to protect them. Then we find out that they're weak and could potentially fail. We have a situation where the river has risen 15, 20 feet higher than it would have without the levees. When it fails it does so catastrophically.
GRIFFIN: Winfield, Missouri, today, says Kusky is a classic example. That levee has breached in so many places it's hard to tell it's even there. Unfortunately, he says, history has shown the reaction will be to rebuild the levee even higher and stronger.
Back in 1993 this whole area was under ten feet of water. A smaller levee had failed, and turned this into an entire floodplain. What did they do? Well, instead of allowing mother nature to take its course, they built an even bigger levee there to protect it from the Missouri River just beyond those trees.
And right in that floodplain is one of the largest strip mall developments in the United States.
ADOLPHUS BUSCH, GREAT RIVERS HABITAT ALLIANCE: After the '93 flood we were told, of course, that there would be no more levees, no more projects, no more development in the floodplains because everyone would learn their lesson. And that went on for a few years. But of course, people soon forgot again and the development started.
GRIFFIN: Aldolphus Busch, yes one of the beer family Busches now heads a group called the Great River Habitat Alliance. There's no mistake he wants to stop levees from being built and stop development in the floodplain. Let the Mississippi flow naturally.
BUSCH: It's exactly what's happening now from Iowa all the way down to St. Louis. All of these levees are breaking as the water comes through. Of course, that relieves the pressure for all of us downstream.
GRIFFIN: Mark Twain who lived along this river once said 10,000 river commissions with the minds of the world at their back cannot tame that lawless stream. Why, say critics of our current efforts, do we think our levees can do better?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: The good news for St. Louis is the danger apparently is over with. The army corps of engineers said that yesterday so many levees breached up north of here that it took the pressure off this river. They're not expecting any higher river stages here in St. Louis than you currently see behind me. Back to you guys.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN, ANCHOR: Drew Griffin, thank you.
Well, the most politics in the morning now. And a new CNN opinion research poll shows Barack Obama running nearly even with John McCain among men. McCain with a slight lead, 49 percent to 47 percent. Obama leads McCain by nine points among women. Support from men was a big factor in President Bush's election in 2000 and 2004.
Well, despite a threatened White House veto, a bipartisan group of senators beat back republican efforts to gut a massive foreclosure rescue bill. The administration opposes the inclusion of $4 billion in the measure to help state buy and rehabilitate foreclosed properties. The bill is aimed at helping hundreds of thousands of borrowers in danger of losing their homes.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN, ANCHOR: Barack Obama issuing a personal apology to two Muslim women who were prevented by volunteers from sitting behind the senator at a televised rally in Detroit earlier this week. Senator Obama says he called the woman personally to express his regret over the incident and they accepted his apology.
And for more up to the minute political news head to cnn.com/ticker.
It's 34 minutes after the hour. CNN has learned that relatives of Elian Gonzalez will be protesting Barack Obama's visit to Florida. The protest comes in the same week that Elian joined Cuba's communist party. This rally is scheduled for 1:00 this afternoon. Joining us now by phone is state representative, David Rivera. He is a republican who helped organize this family protest. Congressman Rivera, thanks very much for being with us this morning.
VOICE OF REP. DAVID RIVERA (R), FLORIDA HOUSE OF REP.: My pleasure. Good to be with you.
ROBERTS: What exactly are you complaining about here and how is this relevant so long after the Elian Gonzalez case?
RIVERA: Well, first of all, I don't think we're so much complaining as it is pointing out who are the people that are surrounding Barack Obama. These are the people that will probably be surrounding him if he becomes president. I think that's a great concern to voters in Florida, particularly Cuban-American voters as far as the timetable there's some things, some wounds that never heal. Certainly in the Cuban-American community, the outrage over Elian's seizure in 2000 still exists. It's very relevant in 2008.
ROBERTS: Now, the two people that you're taking aim at are Greg Craig who represented Elian Gonzalez's father during this whole custody battle as well as Eric Holder who was the deputy attorney general at the time. Greg Craig is now a foreign policy adviser for Senator Obama. Eric Holder is on his vice presidential search team.
RIVERA: Correct.
ROBERTS: Why? Eric Holder was doing his job back in 2000. Obviously Craig is an attorney who was representing a client. What relevance could what they were doing eight years ago have on Obama's foreign policy going forward?
RIVERA: First of all, there's a lot of debate whether Eric Holder and Janet Reno were doing their job or doing Fidel Castro's job. I think that's a relevant debate in 2008. There's also a lot of discussion about Greg Craig not only representing the Cuban government, because that's who was paying him in 2000, because it wasn't the father of Elian. He was doing it on behalf of Fidel Castro. And he's tied to a lot of other dictators as well in the hemisphere as well. I mean Greg Craig hasn't just represented Fidel Castro but he represented thugs across the world. I think that's important to point out and let the voters decide if they want a president who surrounded himself with those types of individuals. ROBERTS: Right. Let me just read a response that a spokesperson for the Obama campaign, Josh Earnest, gave to the "Miami Herald" which was the first news organization to carry the story. It says "Senator Obama like the vast majority of voters is looking to the future, not the past which is why he believes we should both keep the embargo to pressure the Cuban government to respect human rights and lift travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban-Americans so that families can visit and support one another." Of course, Senator Obama has also said that he would meet with Raul Castro to try to resolve the situation there. And he has the support of at least one Cuban dissident group for that. This organization, Women in White, made up of female relatives of Cuban political prisoners who believe that direct engagement with Cuba's leaders could, in fact, be the linchpin to having their husbands freed. You know, the American policy of isolating Cuba hasn't helped these people out. Who's to say that engagement might not?
RIVERA: Well, the fact is, that on this particular issue, Barack Obama needs to look to the future and not the past. Because the past with respect to the individuals he's surrounding himself with is very shameful. And that's why he wants to try and forget about the experience of Greg Craig and Eric Holder with Elian Gonzalez. With respect to the policy is general, the person that's making the Cuban people suffer and making the mothers in white suffer and their husbands suffer is Fidel Castro, not the United States government, not U.S.. policy. And we need to focus on the communist dictatorship in Cuba rather than blaming U.S. policy which is what Barack Obama is trying to do.
ROBERTS: All right. State representative David Rivera. Thanks for being with us this morning. That rally again this afternoon in Miami. And coming up in our next hour here on AMERICAN MORNING, we'll get some response from the Obama campaign when we have communications director Robert Gibbs coming on to join us.
CHETRY: All right. Well, Kid Rock sings about being a cowboy. And now he's telling fans to steal his music. We'll tell you why.
ROBERTS: And Ali is here this morning, what are we talking about this morning?
ALI VELSHI, CNN, SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, I am dead on. I just happen to be a little bit slow this morning. We're talking about airlines. There's a deal between United and Continental. It's not a merger of airlines. It is a deal that's going to affect the way you travel. If you want to know about that you're going to stick around and I'm going to tell you about it on the other side of this break. We'll be right back with AMERICAN MORNING in a second.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The water was up to reporters' ankles. The water was up to reporters' knees. The water was up to reporters' thighs. No, The mind boggling waist shot!
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART": I remember in 2008 the water got so high it went right up to Gary Tuchman's nipples.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: There you go.
CHETRY: How about that?
VELSHI: It's way too early in the morning for that.
ROBERTS: We are such a source of amusement.
VELSHI: Yes. A lot of people can laugh about it.
ROBERTS: Is there anything to laugh about in the world of business this morning because few people think we laugh a little too much as what's going on.
VELSHI: Yes. And as we like to point out you either laugh or cry. You know our executive producer, Janelle Rodriguez, fantastic person, about an hour ago, I first brought you the story and Janelle sent me a message saying that really wasn't really clear. Can we try that again and be a little clear? So, I'm going to make it clearer for you right now.
We are talking about United and Continental coming to some deal. It is not a merger. They've already announced they're not planning on merging. But they are making a deal. And here is how it's going to affect you.
ROBERTS: You have a plane going through your head.
VELSHI: That's a little weird, isn't? Fridays tend to sometimes get a little thrown off for me. All right. So, there's another nice full screen here. Another plane. One was the United plane, now this is the Continental plane. You're going to have planes going in either direction. Choice of any direction you want to fly in. You'll have full access to both carriers' networks. They're going to have this code sharing agreement. There'll be reciprocal frequent flier miles. You can earn and redeem on either airline. And Continental is going leave the Sky Team Alliance it's part of now and join the Star Alliance. In the interest of not further confusing you, that is the end of my report.
CHETRY: All so much clearer now.
ROBERTS: On the topic of clarifications, I want to take a moment to make one of my own here. Yesterday in this hour, energy commentator Jim LeCamp mentioned that Cuba and China were drilling for oil in the Florida straits. Now, while the two countries are making plans to drill off the coast of Cuba apparently the best we have been able to determine is that there is no actual drilling taking place at this time. So, I just want to make sure we're clear about that.
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ROBERTS (voice-over): Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, on the clock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I use it from the second I wake up to the second I go to bed.
ROBERTS: Workers wired to their blackberries, looking to get paid.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I definitely think we should be compensated.
ROBERTS: And some are winning the fight. You're watching the most news in the morning.
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CHETRY: This year perhaps more than any other the internet is helping to sway voters. And it's also helping candidates get out their message. Here's CNN's Carol Costello.
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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a viral video sensation. 25 million views online since February. Music producer Will I Am's "Yes, we can," enhanced Barack Obama's image among young people in a way words could not. Made without the campaign's knowledge it mesmerized young online users by putting an Obama speech to music. Michelle Obama quickly pounced, e-mailing her husband's supporters, "I've seen a lot of things that have touched me deeply but I had to share this with you." And then she hit the send button. It wasn't long before the Obama campaign was using 'yes, we can," video at events.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes we can!
COSTELLO: The video was so wildly popular it made its way out of the virtual world to television. Today it will be awarded an Emmy. Its creator better known from the Black Eyed Peas knew it would be powerful. But when Al Gore called to say thanks for uniting people in 2008, he was floored.
VOICE OF WIL. I. AM, MUSIC PRODUCER/PERFORMER: I m like, wow. I can't even - I can't explain it. I can't explain how it feels. It makes me realize just how you can use music and how music can be used to unite people, to educate people. And how it could bring emotions out of a situation that words can't describe.
COSTELLO: According to Pew research, 35 percent of all Americans have watched videos on the internet to get political news or inspiration.
ANDREW RASIEJ, FOUNDER TECHPRESIDENT.COM: The political campaign that recognizes how to leverage that facility and use it as a tool to continue to drive the message not through traditional means but through supporters' own use of the internet, we're seeing a 21st century politics be born right before our eyes.
COSTELLO: The thing is, it's hard to predict exactly what online will transfer offline. Ron Paul's online efforts netted him more than $34 million but few actual votes. John McCain's camp is trying to excite young internet viewers with a video of its own. A parody of MTV's crib. Featuring not the 71-year-old McCain but his bus, the "Straight Talk Express."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where the rubber meets the road, Straight Talk Express.
COSTELLO: It's too early to tell if the bus will bust out of the clutter as an internet sensation.
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COSTELLO: Wil I Am says he offered his video to his record company but it declined, saying it didn't endorse political candidates. So he put it on the internet, and the rest is history. John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Carol Costello this morning. Carol, thanks.
A bizarre mystery in Canada. Feet. Yes, feet. Of all descriptions and sizes. They're washing up on the coast of British Columbia. Our Jeanne Moos is on the case coming up in our next hour.
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CHETRY: Her name was Lakshmi. She was a girl born with eight limbs in rural India two years ago. And visitors - villagers, rather, thought that she was a goddess. But life as a goddess was next to impossible. The girl underwent life endangering surgery to make her a mere mortal. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports on her progress. She was aptly named Lakshmi after the deity that's portrayed as having several arms and legs. So, it was a medical marvel but also a really, really tough situation for the family.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, there was a story behind the story. And she was certainly regarded as a goddess as well. She had what's known as a parasitic twin. That's the real medical part of this. So rare that there's no statistics on how often this occurs. But as you said, there was a story behind the story. The transformation, if you will, of this goddess back into a little girl.
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GUPTA (voice-over): Like the goddess she was named for, Lakshmi ()had eight limbs when she was born in India's Bahar region back in 2005. In fact, villagers there believed she was the goddess reincarnated. Word spread to India's renowned surgeon, Dr. Sharan Patil.
DR. SHARAN PATIL, ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON, SPARSH HOSPITAL: In spite of all the beliefs, as a medical man I certainly thought she needs help.
GUPTA: Dr. Patil examined Lakshmi and recommended surgery to remove her extra limbs even though it was a high-risk operation.
PATIL: Amazing. This is the first time to see anything like this.
GUPTA: Tests revealed the heart, liver and lungs, just one working kidney. Another would be transplanted from the parasite.
PATIL: One is located here and the other functioning kidney is located here.
GUPTA: The twins were also fused at the spine. They need to rebuild her pelvis. An agonizing moment as Lakshmi goes into surgery. A team of 30 doctors had prepped for a month. At 16 hours in, a critical milestone.
PATIL: The parasite is off.
GUPTA: After 27 hours, Lakshmi, with two arms and two legs is transformed.
DR. THIMAPPA HEGDE, SENIOR NEUROSURGEON: The hero in this whole story is lakshmi.
GUPTA: Today, Lakshmi recuperates at a facility in Rajasthan and still needs work on her spinal cord and clubbed feet. But doctors say her progress is remarkable.
PATIL: I see her growing up as a normal girl.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: We had a lot of opportunity to sit down and talk to the Dr. Sharan Patil about what he had done there with Lakshmi. It's really remarkable. Even that transplanted kidney, Kiran, is working well. So, she has really made a remarkable recovery.
CHETRY: That is unbelievable. And she's such a beautiful child. Wonderful that it went off as well as it did. Sanjay, good to see you. Thanks.
GUPTA: Thanks, Kiran.
CHETRY: We'd also like to thank CNN's team of journalists who covered the story and also "National Geographic." "The Girl with 8 Limbs" premiers Sunday, 9:00 p.m. on the National Geographic channel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS (voice-over): Man versus nature.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got an e-mail. And it said that they needed help sandbagging.
ROBERTS: Water gushing into towns. More than 20 levees down. Others barely holding right now.
Plus, campaign cash. Republicans blast Barack Obama for turning down federal financing.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Going back not on his word to me, but the commitment that he made to the American people.
ROBERTS: A move that could lock up a major financial edge. You're watching the most news in the morning.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Young evangelicals are organizing online and also on the streets this election year. Joining us now, two of them. Alex and Brett Harris. They started a Huck's Army, a grass roots online campaign for Governor Mike Huckabee when he was still in the presidential race and they also wrote the book "Do Hard Things, a teenage rebellion against low expectations." Brett and Alex, thanks for being with us this morning. Great to see you. You are now supporting John McCain. He had some trouble winning over some very prominent evangelical leaders. Why is he your man?
ALEX HARRIS, AUTHOR "DO HARD THINGS": Well, first, just to talk about Obama. Because the question always is for young people, young people are supposed to be behind Obama. That's the way it goes. So why McCain? And we are so excited about what Obama has accomplished. It's historic and we're absolutely thrilled at the possibility that the face of America might be the face of color. And one of the things that especially excites us is how Obama has really energized young people, our generation, and really gotten them engaged in the political process. But it's not enough to be engaged. You also have to be informed. That's the next step. To be smart voters. And that comes from really weighing the issues, being knowledgeable about the issues and then looking at the candidates as complete packages. And it was doing that that really caused us to go for John McCain.
CHETRY: So, was there a time when you were thinking possibly of supporting Barack Obama?
BRETT HARRIS, AUTHOR "DO HARD THINGS": You know what Barack Obama has a lot of similar qualities with Mike Huckabee, the man that we were originally supporting. They're both very charismatic, great communicators and really can get in touch with the common person, you know, the man on the street. But now, I think we really knew what our core issues were and our convictions. And those lined up with John McCain as much as we are excited about and appreciate and honestly like a man like Senator Obama.
CHETRY: All right. So what were some of those points, then, that made you ultimately choose John McCain?
BRETT HARRIS: You know what? We're going through something right now that a lot of young people are going through. We're buying a car before we head off to college. You can go into a showroom and there's some really nice car, you know, really sweet car. And it looks good and it feels good and it smells good. And that's where a lot of young voters are right now. We were engaged. We're looking at cars. And we found the shiny one. But when you sit down you have to look at the price tag. And I think it was really for us sitting down and saying, you know, what is this going to cost? What are the long-term consequences? Because our generation are the ones who are going to have to pay for these programs and these issues. And I think it was at that point that we really knew John McCain was the choice for us.
CHETRY: Alex, let me ask you about this because you know there are many in the evangelical community who are not throwing their support behind John McCain. In fact, in April, James Dobson, the founder of the conservative group Focus on the Family, said that he felt John McCain wasn't doing enough to bring in conservatives. In fact, he said, "that he was actually driving conservatives away." What is it going to take for others to really believe that John McCain cares about the issues that are important to evangelicals?
ALEX HARRIS: Well, I think if you want to put your finger on the pulse where evangelicals are, for us, where young conservatives are with Senator McCain, I think you need to look first at Governor Huckabee and his strong campaign and his strong support from those demographics. Because here's a man who was absolutely solid on the issues like the sanctity and the value of every human life on the protection of the family but who also understood that conservatism does and really should talk to issues that may fall outside the traditional republican box, things like healthcare, education, being wise stewards of the environment. And that's an understanding that I think Senator John McCain shares. And that's an understanding that I think is appealing, not just to evangelicals, not just to conservatives but to Americans on both sides of the political fence.
CHETRY: All right. Alex and Brett Harris, authors of "Do Hard Things, a teenage rebellion against low expectations." Thanks for joining us this morning.
ALEX HARRIS: Thanks so much, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Just crossing the top of the hour. And here's some of the top stories that we're following for you right now. More violence in Afghanistan this morning. A suicide bomb kills seven people and the Taliban is claiming responsibility. Police say a man with explosives strapped to his body jumped on to a military convoy killing one coalition soldier, one Afghan soldier and five civilians including three children.
