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American Morning
Baby Dies in NYC: CDC to Check for Swine Flu; President Obama Unveils Plan on a National Standard for Car Emissions; Myanmar Puts Aung San Suu Kyi on Trial for Violating House Arrest; GAO to Investigate Misuse of Time-Out for Special Kids; GQ: Pentagon Documents Had Biblical Titles
Aired May 19, 2009 - 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: And welcome once again, it's 7:00 right here in New York City on this Tuesday, May 19th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you. I'm John Roberts.
Here's what's on the agenda this morning. The big stories that we're breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes.
First, breaking news. A New York city hospital saying a 16- month-old boy died there late last night with flu-like symptoms. The hospital now saying the Centers for Disease Control must be brought in to determine if that baby had swine flu. We're live at the hospital this morning.
ROBERTS: President Obama today announcing a national standard for car emissions. It's a tough new assault on greenhouse gases. The administration is expected to announce that new cars or trucks must be 30 percent cleaner and more fuel efficient by the year 2016. The CNN Money Team is breaking down what that means for you and your next buy and for the struggling auto industry's bottom line this morning.
And CIA Director Leon Panetta saying he is confident that Pakistan has a pretty secure nuclear arsenal even though the CIA doesn't know the exact location of all of Pakistan's warheads. It's something that the U.S. is watching closely with Pakistan now at war with the Taliban.
First to breaking news though, a New York hospital saying this morning a 16-month-old boy died suddenly late last night with flu-like symptoms. The CDC must now determine whether the boy had the deadly H1N1 swine flu virus.
We're covering this story from all the angles this morning. CNN's Mary Snow is live at the hospital in Queens, New York, with the latest.
Mary, what do we know at this point?
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, John. A spokesman says the baby was brought to the hospital here in Elm Hurst (ph) last night around 9:30 and died less than an hour later. The New York City Health Department says this morning it is investigating the death of the 16-month-old with flu-like symptoms.
Now, a hospital spokesman also says that he is unaware of any other preexisting medical conditions connected with this 16-month-old baby boy. There were also two other children that were observed, a 3- year-old sibling and 1-year-old cousin. The hospital says both of these boys have been treated and released and did not have high fever.
Now, this comes also as there were reports of more people coming to the emergency room, whether or not they have the flu or not. This, because of rising concern about the swine flu. And it also comes on the heels of the first related swine flu death in New York City and some questions are being raised about that death.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SNOW (voice-over): Flowers and candles line the sidewalk outside Intermediate School 238 in memory of 55-year-old Mitchell Wiener, an assistant principal who became the first death linked to swine flu in New York City.
KATRINA TOLENTINO, TEACHER: Nobody could have foreseen Mr. Wiener passing away or getting this bad as it is right now. And just everyone is devastated and just is numb. And really, really don't want it to set in because I want to be able to come back and see him and he's not going to be there.
SNOW: But along with grief, questions remain. Wiener was admitted to the hospital last Wednesday in critical condition. A spokesman for Flushing Hospital tells CNN he knows of no preexisting medical condition.
Wiener's family seen here over the weekend told reporters gout was the only past health problem he had. But city health officials maintain there was another health issue.
DR. TOM FRIEDEN, NYC HEALTH COMMISSIONER: We don't comment on individual cases. We do state that he did have an underlying medical condition.
SNOW: Timing of the school shutdown is being examined. This teacher says Wiener wanted the school to shut down earlier than last week because kids were getting sick, but the mayor has said they're closing schools on a case by case basis. But he and other officials are being questioned about whether they handled the situation effectively.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think anybody was behind the curve.
MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK: Science has no ways of stopping something like this from spreading. And you can catch it virtually anyplace with anybody. And so unless you were to go wall yourself off and never have any human contact with anybody else, which is not terribly practical.
(END VIDEOTAPE) SNOW: And, John, health officials here in New York City say the flu is spreading but they reiterate the cases have been mild. They have also been reiterating that about 2,000 people in New York City die each year because of the flu.
They are closing more schools. And today, 17 New York City schools both public and private will be shut down for at least five days -- John.
ROBERTS: And at the same time here, Mary, there seems to be another flu that's going around as well. It's sidelined a couple of people here at CNN, so, you know, it seems to be two things happening at the same time. So might be a little bit of a challenge for folks to straighten all that out.
Mary Snow for us this morning. Mary, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Also this morning, CDC officials are now saying up to 100,000 Americans are likely to become infected with this new flu strain and the 5,000-plus suspected or confirmed cases could be just the tip of the iceberg. So let's bring in now our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta who joins us this morning on the phone.
Hey, Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Good morning.
CHETRY: So as we've been talking about for a while, it seemed there was a lull. Perhaps people thought that this was waning and now, we're hearing about these new cases in Queens and in Texas. How much can we read into that?
GUPTA: Well, I think that almost since the beginning, since we started talking about this a few weeks ago, this was sort of what was expected, that there would be this new passage, in this case a virus that was going to start circulating around the world, specifically starting somewhere here in the Americas.
That was the prediction. And it seems to be following the expected pattern here. First, that was more widely circulating down in Mexico, now here in the United States. And, you know, it's found its way around the world as we've been talking about.
It was also expected as you know, Kiran, almost since the beginning that there would be deaths in the United States. We had -- I had been down in Mexico reporting some of those deaths as they first occurred in Mexico, but this is exactly the pattern. But I think as Mary made the point, Mary Snow, that it's still far less severe I think than we normally see with the typical seasonal flu.
CHETRY: Right. So a couple of questions on that front. Is there a possibility that we would see this virus yet resurge, if you will, by wintertime and actually become more deadly and more widespread? GUPTA: I mean, that is a possibility. And if you look at pandemics past, if you look at the history of pandemics, they often started with some sort of milder flu-like illness sort of in the late spring/early summer. Then it went away for a while as the transmissibility goes down over the summer months, and it came back more powerful in the fall and winter.
CHETRY: Right.
GUPTA: Now, you know, with pandemics past, you know, we didn't have a lot of the benefits of hospitalized U-Care (ph) and the advantage (ph) we have now. So it's hard to sort of model possible pandemics after that.
CHETRY: Right.
GUPTA: But yes, you're absolutely right.
CHETRY: And just quickly, just common sense advice, anything you can give people to see -- the New York City health commissioner seemed to question whether or not it made sense to close schools, how much you can really prevent the spread of this just by simply closing schools. What do you recommend for people worried about whether or not they're vulnerable, their community is vulnerable?
GUPTA: Well, you know, as far as closing schools, first, you know, the CDC has said look, it may stop transmissibility within schools but unlikely to stop transmissibility within the community. It is here now so it is going to spread most likely. It is a transmissible virus.
Hand washing. I know it almost sounds silly to talk about that amidst of all this, but it remains probably the best defense in terms of preventing this.
CHETRY: Right.
GUPTA: You know, washing your hands, not touching your eyes, your nose and your mouth.
CHETRY: And during allergy season that's a lot harder to do or to not do, actually.
Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for being with us.
GUPTA: Thank you.
CHETRY: You know, the other interesting thing, John, is perhaps an unintended positive consequence of this is that more people will get the regular seasonal flu vaccine this year. We keep talking about how many more people die from seasonal flu than swine flu. There's a lot of people I know who just still don't get vaccinated.
ROBERTS: Yes. There's talk, too, that there might have a swine flu vaccine by late summer or early fall too. So if that virus does resurge as some people expect it to, maybe people would have a line of defense against that.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Meantime, wash your hands, wash your hands, you know.
ROBERTS: Exactly.
This morning, President Obama will launch a historic new plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions and make your commute a cleaner, more fuel-efficient one. Starting in 2012, a four-year plan will force cars to get 39 miles per gallon. Light trucks will be required to get 30 miles per gallon for an average corporate fuel efficiency of 35.5 miles per gallon. Carmakers will have to reach those two goals by 2016.
Christine Romans "Minding Your Business" this morning. She's taking a look at all of this for us, where the rubber meets the road, I guess, and how much it's going to cost the auto industry and consumers.
ROMANS: And it's going to cost the auto industry and it's going to cost consumers. As the president, President Obama getting tough on fuel economy and moving up some standards, the industry was going in this direction but moving it up by about four years.
Here's what it looks like. When you look at an average 35.5 mile per gallon fuel efficiency by 2016, you're going to be talking about saving 1.8 billion barrels of oil. That's about 86 days worth of supply in this country.
It's going to add about $600 to the cost of a car, so there will be an upfront higher cost for you, the consumer. That's on top of $700 in other fuel efficiency standards that have already been passed. Keep in mind that.
So we're talking about a more fuel-efficient fleet of cars on the road. We're talking about better fuel efficiency. We're talking about cars that go farther on a gallon of gas and put less junk into the carbon emissions in particular.
We talked about that catalytic converter which can clean a lot of stuff out of the exhaust, but it can't take care of carbon emissions. And that's -- you just have to burn less fuel to do that.
And so that's what the Obama administration is pushing for here, all of this according to a senior administration official. We're going to learn more 12:15 Eastern Time.
And the auto industry on board here. Couple of big automakers, of course, are owned basically by the federal government. So, you know, you've got incentive to go along with the administration but also this is one standard, not a pattern (ph) of standards. So that would be...
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: Easy to get the auto industry to listen these days. ROMANS: Right.
ROBERTS: All right. Time now for "Romans' Numeral" now. It's something that we bring you every day here on CNN. It's a number that's driving the news. Christine gave us the number last hour, a preview, $372.
ROMANS: And today it's literally driving the news.
CHETRY: We have two guesses from "amFIX."
ROMANS: Oh, good. Good.
CHETRY: People twittered us. BillWoodcock17 (ph) guessed the average cost to outfit a vehicle that doesn't meet fuel efficiency standards with equipment to make it, meet them.
And Chris45212 (ph), the yearly average saving of gas with new fuel economy savings.
ROMANS: Boom, boom, boom, boom.
CHETRY: Chris was right?
ROBERTS: That's right. Three hundred and seventy-two bucks, that's assuming 15,000 miles of driving on a fuel cost $2.31, assuming today's fuel cost, $372. So if you look at a car that's going to cost another 600 bucks and you're saving 372 a year, in a couple of years, three years, you keep the car, you've paid that price.
ROBERTS: And the higher the cost of gasoline, the greater the savings, too, right?
ROMANS: That's exactly right.
ROBERTS: Interesting. Thanks.
ROMANS: All right.
CHETRY: All right. Well, time now to take a look at some of the other stories new this morning.
For the first time in six years, people are happier when they fly. A new University of Michigan study shows that airline passenger satisfaction shot up more than three percent earlier this year. Southwest has the best score, United Airlines the worst. The biggest improvements came from Continental and US Airways.
Privacy advocates launching a new campaign this week calling on the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of so-called whole body imaging in airports. You're seeing some pictures of it right there. Critics say the process is essentially a virtual strip search providing near nude images. The national campaign hopes to gather signatures and raise awareness about that.
Also, an American is now in jail and on trial in Myanmar after flying around the world and swimming to the remote home of a detained democracy activist. The bizarre case grabbing international headlines.
It's 11 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
In Myanmar, there's a strange case that's unfolding today. The secretive Southeast nation is trying pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for violating her house arrest. But the reason they're charging her is because an American, a Vietnam vet from Missouri named John Yettaw, for reasons unknown, swam to Suu Kyi's isolated home then stayed there for two days.
Now, Suu Kyi is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. She's been detained and under house arrest for 13 of the last 19 years. The trial is attracting global condemnation.
In a letter sent this morning, nine other Nobel Laureates calling the proceedings "a mockery." And while little is known about this closed-door trial, there are a lot of questions surrounding the American man who's now involved in this case.
Our Jason Carroll is tracking that part of the story for us this morning. And it is quite bizarre. People are wondering, did he even -- did he know her? And how did he pull this off?
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, you know, one of her attorneys overseas putting it best to human rights leaders, basically calling this man a "fool." That is a quote.
No one really knows what prompted John Yettaw to fly halfway around the world to Myanmar, construct flippers out of cardboard and swim two miles across a lake using a water bottle as a flotation device. He did all of this to reach the home of Myanmar's pro- democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Human rights leaders say that the military will use this case to extend Suu Kyi's house arrest ahead of next year's planned election, seriously hurting the push for democracy there.
Here's what we know about her uninvited visitor. Yettaw slipped by the police when he came ashore at the house. Suu Kyi's lawyer tells CNN Yettaw was asked to leave. He refused, saying he was afraid to swim during the day and had leg cramps. He finally left two days later and was charged with immigration violations.
He's from Falcon, Missouri, the father of seven and a Vietnam vet now working on his Ph.D. in clinical psychology. There is an unfinished building on his property apparently meant to be a medical clinic even though he's not a doctor. One of his neighbors says Yettaw isn't very involved in the community there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKE ASSEL, JOHN YETTAW'S NEIGHBOR: I would say around here he pretty much sort of keeps to himself. He has his own, I don't know if agenda is the right word, but he has his own priorities and he's working toward those.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: His neighbors says Yettaw has been to Myanmar before and had talked of returning but never said why. Yettaw reportedly told people in Myanmar he was working on a faith-based book on heroism.
Maybe that's one reason why he maybe want to be a hero. Maybe that's one of the reasons why he went over and did what he did. Hopefully, we'll find out in the next few days as we hear more about this man.
CHETRY: All right. Thank you so much, Jason.
ROBERTS: Rather bizarre.
Dramatic testimony into possible misuse of time-out at school. Coming up, our exclusive report what CNN special investigations unit uncovered.
And Donald Rumsfeld in some unusual secret memos? We'll tell you what was on the cover of those memos and what it suggests about the man who made the case for war in Iraq.
Sixteen minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Time-out. Sounds like a simple, harmless way to get a child who's acting out under control. But with special needs children, it's not so cut and dried.
This morning the House Education Committee holds a hearing on the issue. The rough handling of kids who need anything but. CNN's special investigations unit has been digging into this exclusively. And Abbie Boudreau joins us now live from Atlanta with the latest on all of this.
Good morning, Abbie.
ABBIE BOUDREAU, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
Congressional investigators from the Government Accountability Office will be kicking off today's hearing. According to sources familiar with the investigation, the GAO will document cases where children have been injured and even died at school during restraints, including so-called prone restraints where children are pushed to the ground facedown and then held there.
Investigators say that's just one of the dangerous techniques commonly used in some special needs classrooms. And as we found, the problems are widespread.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARRETT PECK, AUTISTIC CHILD: No, no, no, no.
BOUDREAU (voice-over): This is Garrett Peck. He's one of 6.5 million special needs children in U.S. public schools. He's 8 years old, loves animals and has autism.
Children like Garrett have become the subject of an intense debate over how public schools manage special needs children. House Education Committee Chairman George Miller says tougher laws are needed.
REP. GEORGE MILLER (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: Very often special needs children are subjected to policies of seclusion and policies of restraint that have in fact turned out to be lethal in a number of instances. Children have died at the hands of the people who are supposed to be taking care of them in the public school system.
BOUDREAU: GAO also investigated the misuse of time-out, which is supposed to be used to refocus a child but is often used as a punishment.
G. PECK: Your turn.
BOUDREAU: That would happen to Garrett. According to the Utah Department of Human Services, Garrett's mother picked him up early one day from school, but she didn't see him in class. So she asked the teacher where he was. Garrett was put in this three-sided cubicle in the corner of the room.
BECCA PECK, MOTHER OF CHILD WITH AUTISM: And I just heard Garrett say, I want my mom. And he walked out around that corner, and he was covered in marker on his eyelids, on his hair, face, clothes, legs, arms, everything.
BOUDREAU: A report by Utah's Department of Child and Family Services found that Garrett, who was then just 7 years old, had been in time-out for a minimum of two and a half hours.
B. PECK: What was he thinking? Why is my mom letting this person do this to me? Why am I here? I mean, I -- I mean, I trust no one now. And now I question everybody.
JOSHUA PECK, FATHER OF CHILD WITH AUTISM: Yes. We felt that it was so -- it's so sad. We thought it was a form of torture to him. But he being autistic, he had no way to express it, no way to tell.
BOUDREAU: DFS found the teacher that caused Garrett emotional maltreatment. His school district would not comment because the finding is now been appealed to juvenile court. But the district did confirm the teacher is still working.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BOUDREAU: Another big problem, teachers don't always know what the rules are and that's because there's no law that lays out exactly what they can and cannot do in special needs classrooms. Of course, today's hearing aims to change that -- John.
ROBERTS: He looks like a great kid. Looks like you had terrific interaction with him.
So is it just there's not enough education out there among the educators? Is that what this committee hearing is aiming at doing is just to increase the level of awareness and education?
BOUDREAU: That's exactly what they're trying to do because they said the problem is that there are so many teachers out there who really want to do a great job. They just aren't given the skills to know how to deal with these challenging students.
I mean, of course, Garrett was a great kid. He is a great kid. And he was a lot of fun to be around. But, you know, six months ago when he went through these problems, he had a really, really difficult time where he became violent after that two and a half hour time-out. I mean, these kinds of prone restraints and the seclusion...
ROBERTS: Yes.
BOUDREAU: ... that affects kids.
ROBERTS: Oh, I'm sure.
BOUDREAU: Seriously affects them. So that's what this hearing is about.
ROBERTS: He must have been scared to death.
BOUDREAU: Yes.
ROBERTS: Abbie Boudreau for us this morning. Abbie, great report. Thanks so much for that.
BOUDREAU: Thank you.
CHETRY: Well, American drones are consistently striking Taliban targets inside of Pakistan. It's a rare and stunning admission coming from the head of the CIA. We're live from the Pentagon with the latest just ahead.
Also, the White House launching a new four-year plan to get gas guzzlers off the road. But can Detroit meet those standards in time? We're talking to Carol Browner, the president's point person on energy and climate change. She'll join us coming up in a few minutes.
It's 24 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Well, in the days after September 11th and the attacks, President Bush raised eyebrows when he referred to the war on terror this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, today we're getting our first look at some top- secret briefings on the Iraq war. According to "GQ" magazine, these classified documents included biblical passages on the cover pages. It claims that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld delivered them by hand to the White House.
Robert Draper is a correspondent for "GQ." He broke this story about the intelligence reports for the June 26th issue of "GQ" which is on newsstands next week.
Thanks for being with us this morning.
ROBERT DRAPER, "GQ" CORRESPONDENT: My pleasure, Kiran.
CHETRY: So, first of all, how were you able to get your hands on these classified documents?
DRAPER: I can't tell you, but they were provided to me by a government official who did not have a specific bone to pick with Secretary Rumsfeld, wasn't a disgruntled employee, wasn't marginalized by him or anything like that.
CHETRY: But they were -- these were given to just a select group of people and some of them in your reporting were quite surprised and troubled by some of these cover sheets. What these were were top- secret documents known as the worldwide intelligence update. We're going to look at a few of them. You have them in the magazine.
Here's one from April 1st, 2003. "Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed. That's a line from "Proverbs." From April 8th, it says, "Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter. The nation keeps the faith." And there you see pictures of tanks rolling into Baghdad.
From April 10th, "Behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him." That's a passage from "Psalm." You say that they were often delivered by Rumsfeld himself. How are they received by the president and also those around him?
DRAPER: We don't know. The president would receive them every morning as I said. Secretary Rumsfeld would see them at a 7:30 a.m. briefing. He would then bring them over to the Oval Office.
Difficult to say how the president reacted, but given the context as you've described it, Kiran, what had happened after 9/11 with the president referring to the war against terror as a crusade, it was a sensitive manner. A number of people within the Pentagon were quite concerned if something like this leaked out in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq or thereafter that it would be received quite poorly in the Muslim and Arab world.
CHETRY: The other thing was that those who knew Secretary Rumsfeld said he was not quite so open. In fact, he talked publicly about how he doesn't really talk publicly about his religion. Yet he used these biblical passages some would say cynically to, what, prey on the fact that our president at the time was very spiritual and very open about his religion?
DRAPER: Well, it's inarguable that the president was a religious man that he quoted from the bible frequently. As you say, Secretary Rumsfeld himself was not the kind of fellow who wore his religion on his sleeve. But for him it's difficult to define the motives of the secretary and why, given the sensitivity of this issue, he would allow these cover pages to be made.
CHETRY: Right. Let's get to some of the other things.
You say that he gets blamed for the delayed response. In your article, it points to some of the reasons why and that he threw up roadblocks to getting boots on the ground in Hurricane Katrina, responding in the aftermath of that. And you recount a situation that the president was furious about.
DRAPER: Yes.
CHETRY: And here's what the president's, quote, was, according to your article, "Rumsfeld, what the hell is going on here? Are you watching what's on television? Is that the United States of America or some third world nation I'm watching? What the hell are you doing?"
What about FEMA? How much blame does Rumsfeld, as the defense chief, get for the botched response?
DRAPER: He doesn't get any blame for that response. The problem, though, was that in the days following landfall, they needed a lot of boots on the ground to supplement the National Guard troops who are already there. They needed them because there was a perception that New Orleans had gotten out of hand, that it was in a state of lawlessness.
That perception was to some degree unfounded, but the problem with it was that relief workers and bus drivers wouldn't come into New Orleans to bring people out because they were afraid that they would drive right into a state of anarchy. They needed, therefore, active duty troops to help quell any kind of lawlessness.
CHETRY: Right.
DRAPER: Rumsfeld was quite unwilling to do so.
CHETRY: The obvious question at this point is, why did the president then keep him around so long when there were a lot of the signs and a lot of people in the president's inner circle and out who were questioning Rumsfeld? DRAPER: That question was asked over and over within the West Wing, and there were a variety of answers at a variety of times. The president didn't want to switch civilian commanders during wartime, he did not want near the midterm elections to make it appear that he was politicizing the matter. The retired generals had come out at a certain point objecting to Rumsfeld. He didn't want to appear that he was being dictated by them.
All of that being said, the president was aware that there were plenty of people in the West Wing and beyond who thought that Rumsfeld should go. And for these and other reasons, the president kept him on.
CHETRY: Until the day after the midterm elections when with Republicans lost control.
DRAPER: Yes. All right. Well, this is very interesting read, no doubt, in the June 26th issue of "GQ," on newsstands next week. Robert Draper, thanks for joining us this morning.
DRAPER: It's my pleasure.
ROBERTS: Well, it's 31 minutes after the hour.
Checking our top stories now, a New York City hospital saying a 16-month-old boy died there last night with flu-like symptoms. The hospital that treated him is being overwhelmed by people wearing masks. The CDC now being brought in to determine whether, in fact, the baby did have the H1N1 swine flu virus.
Saying good-bye to the Hubble telescope for good. Astronauts on the Space Shuttle Atlantis will gently toss it back into Earth's orbit next hour after five successful spacewalks to repair it. Human hands will never touch Hubble ever again. NASA hopes the repairs will allow the telescope to keep exploring the universe until it is replaced in 2014.
And hoping for another sign that the economy has bottomed out. A monthly report on new home construction comes out before the start of trading today. The CNN Money Team will be here to break down the numbers at 8:30 Eastern.
CIA Director Leon Panetta going on the record about the extent of U.S. drone strikes on militants inside Pakistan. It's a rare admission and the Pakistani government has repeatedly condemned any strikes inside its borders.
Our Barbara Starr is working her sources at the Pentagon this morning and she joins us now live with the very latest.
Good morning, Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
Growing signs of both U.S. military and CIA involvement in Pakistan, nothing is more sensitive these days than that relationship between the two countries. U.S. defense officials are now confirming to CNN first that a number of U.S. military drones did fly over Pakistan earlier this year, collecting intelligence, video and still photographs of targets on the ground. And that classified intelligence was passed on to the Pakistanis so they could conduct missions on the ground.
What is most interesting perhaps, those military drones were carrying armed missiles so when they crossed back into Afghanistan they'd be ready to strike targets. It's the whole issue of an armed military presence over Pakistan that is so controversial. The U.S. military had no intention of firing, the CIA quite a different story. CIA director Leon Panetta making that extraordinary, rare public admission that U.S. drones are striking targets inside Pakistan.
Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEON PANETTA, DIRECTOR, CIA: On the first issue, obviously because these are covert and secret operations, I can't go into particulars. I think it does suffice to say that these operations have been very effective, because they have been very precise in terms of the targeting and it involved a minimum of collateral damage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: Covert and secret operations the CIA doesn't talk about, except for the fact the CIA director right there, as you saw, just did.
These operations continue to be controversial because of that phrase are "collateral damage." The issue, of course, is that these operations, according to the Pakistanis, have killed dozens of civilians on the ground. That's the whole reason the Pakistani government doesn't want to talk about it. That's the reason the U.S. government doesn't want to talk about it. But the CIA director apparently did, John.
ROBERTS: That was rather intriguing. Well I'm not going to talk about it so let me just say something about it.
STARR: Exactly.
ROBERTS: Barbara Starr for us this morning. Barbara, thanks so much.
CHETRY: It's time now to check on some of the other stories new this morning.
Former President Bill Clinton is the U.N.'s special envoy to Haiti. An official announcement is expected sometime later today. President Clinton has made several trips to the island nation applauding political stability there decades after chaos.
Authorities are searching waters in Southern California this morning. The Coast Guard says two small planes collided in midair late last night south of Los Angeles. Witnesses say that one of the planes crashed into the water off Long Beach Harbor. The Coast Guard immediately dispatched boats and a helicopter.
And just hours from now, President Obama launches into new regulations to make your commute cleaner and greener. We're breaking down the plan with the president's assistant on energy and climate. Carol Brown will be joining us next.
It's 35 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Ah, that brings back memories. What? What are you going to say?
ROBERTS: Nothing. Just picturing J.R. and his big white hat.
CHETRY: Me, too. And the boots and, of course, Sue Ellen. Well, we could go on. It's a beautiful sunrise there in Dallas this morning. It's clear, 62, a little bit later it's going to be sunny and 80. Nice. Rock on, Dallas.
ROBERTS: Well, just hours from now, President Obama is launching a rigorous new set of regulations to get gas guzzlers off the road by the year 2016. The plan will force cars and trucks to get better gas mileage. But can Detroit meet the targets in time?
Joining me now is Carol Browner. She is President Obama's assistant on energy and climate change, otherwise known as the energy and climate czar.
Miss Browner, it's good to talk to you this morning. Thanks for being with us.
CAROL BROWNER, ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT ON ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Good morning.
CHETRY: So, corporate average fuel efficiency, 35.5 miles per gallon as of 2016. That's four years earlier than had originally been planned. It means that the cars have to get 39 miles per gallon, light trucks 30. Can the industry do it in six years?
BROWNER: Absolutely. We worked very closely with the industry, with the state of California, with the environmental groups. And what the industry told us is they needed one national standard. And that's what the president will propose today instead of what could have happened, with a California standard, the national standard, other states could have standards. So we're giving them the predictability and certainty they need to make cleaner, more fuel efficient cars.
ROBERTS: The auto industry had really opposed these changes during the Bush administration. Why do they suddenly come to the table? Is it because they're in too weak of a position to really argue about it? Some people have suggested that because the government now owns a substantial stake in the auto industry that you can push them around. You can basically bully them into whatever you want them to do.
BROWNER: Well, nobody was bullying anybody. What we did is work with them. We listened to them. We said we need to have some significant environmental benefits, we need some consumer benefits. But we're willing to give you what you need and we can weave the three together. And that's what the president will announce today. It's historic. I mean, it's the coming together of disparate parties to set fuel efficiency in the first ever greenhouse gas emission standards.
ROBERTS: So you say, Carol, that it's historic. We had Virg Bernero, who is the very outspoken mayor of Lansing, Michigan, on earlier today. He suggested that it's no big deal.
Let's listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR VIRG BERNERO, LANSING, MICHIGAN: I know that's the big story today, but the fact is really it's a sleeper to me. It's a yawner because this is where the industry was headed anyway. We're talking about by 2016. You think they wouldn't have had 35 mpg by 2016? They were already headed in that direction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So he's saying they were already going to do it anyway. So is this a big deal?
BROWNER: Well, it's a big deal because it's not just about fuel efficiency, it's also about the first ever greenhouse pollution standards. We were able to weave together two programs, one at EPA, one at DOT. That's unprecedented. In the federal government, we were able to give California what they were seeking, and yet maintain consumer choice. So I think it's good news all around.
ROBERTS: On that idea of consumer choice, the changes, these changes, will add about $600 to the cost of a car, factored in with other changes already in the works, the cost of a car will rise about $1,300.
Myron Ebell from the Free Enterprise Advocacy Group Competitive Enterprise Group says, talked about the White House. They will price people out of larger vehicles and force them into smaller vehicles. Smaller cars may use less fuel but they don't meet the needs of many people and studies show they're less safe. He suggests that you're restricting choice here and you may be putting people into cars that they don't want to drive.
BROWNER: Absolutely not the case. The way the cap program used to work, that was the case. But we're doing something very different here, which is we are requiring each category of car to become cleaner.
So, if I want to drive a midsize, if I'm a soccer mom and I want my van, I can get that. It will be cleaner. And that means savings in my pocket. That means that a gallon of gas is going to go further than it goes today.
ROBERTS: Carol Browner, it's good to talk to you this morning. We're looking forward to that announcement 12:15 today. Thanks for being with us.
CHETRY: Well, everyone walks around with iPods these days but is an entire generation at risk for permanent hearing loss from blasting music directly into their ear drums? We're "Paging Dr. Gupta" for answers.
It's 42 minutes past the hour.
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ROBERTS: A little heated (INAUDIBLE) this morning. My goodness.
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The most visited tourist destination in the world, the Eiffel Tower, turns 120 today. It was built for the Paris Expo back in 1889. And after it ended, the French launched the campaign to remove what they called an eyesore on the face of Paris, but they failed. There the Eiffel Tower stands today, celebrating the big 120 this morning.
Rob Marciano checking the weather a little closer to home today.
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CHETRY: iPods are everywhere, of course. You see kids walking around with the ear buds in, the white ear buds all over the place. Well, could these ear buds actually be contributing to permanent hearing loss? We're going to talk to Sanjay Gupta about it. Because when I was younger, they said the same thing about Sony Walkman and I can still hear, sort of.
A virtual strip search at the airport. We're going to tell you about the new push to stop the scans that leave little to the imagination.
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CHETRY: Good morning to you.
Well, people everyone walk around with their iPods. That's on probably a lot of people and for teens who wear the ear buds are pretty much part of the uniform, right? Well, what are they doing to your kids' hearing? We're "Paging Dr. Gupta" this morning, CNN's chief medical correspondent. He is in Atlanta for us this morning.
So, you know, the kids listen to music. They listen to it loud and now the ear buds actually go into your ears. So how risky is that?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well it can be very problematic. And you know, a lot of people are listening to the ear buds early on in life and we're going to get more of an idea how much of a problem this is later on as they grow older. But it's safe to say that how long you listen to those music, how loud it is can both have a severe and often irreversible problems with your hearing.
Let me show you something here. I think it's kind of neat. First of all, take a look at what happens when you're listening to loud noises. You're getting sounds coming in and that's going on across the eardrum, using these sort of bones to create a sound in your cochlea. If you bring that out and you show specifically what is happening here - it's these little hair cells that are so critically important when it comes to transmitting sound.
They take sound and they convert them to electrical signals. You see here, these yellow sound but after awhile it starts to slow down as those hair cells get damaged and the electrical signal now in red it shows it's not working as well. And that seems to be what happens specifically, Kiran, when it comes to these sorts of problems.
Now let me show you real quick here with regard to how loud is too loud. One hundred fifteen decibels, that's usually the maximum mp3 level or iPod level, 85 decibels at prolonged repeated levels can cause hearing loss. And 100 decibels for even 15 minutes - remember, that's not even the max of most of these mp3 players that can cause hearing loss as well.
Go to your settings on your iPod, do it today if you can, make it about 60 percent of what it was and you can listen to your iPod safely all day without any hearing problems.
CHETRY: All right. So we mentioned the ear buds. Does it matter what type of earphone or headphone you're using? What about those big noise-canceling earphones that people wear? The big ones that, you know, were padded and don't directly go into your ear.
GUPTA: They may be better for a couple of reasons. One is that a lot of people who are listening to these earphones - if they're listening to it in a loud environment you're going to turn it up even louder and that can be a problem. If you have noise cancellation headphones you can start to reduce some of the ambient noise and therefore you don't have to listen to it as loud.
But let me just say again, because I think this is so important, if you go to your settings on your mp3 player and turn it down to about 60 percent of maximum volume, that really won't let you get over 75 decibels or so and again you can listen to it safely all day without really having any hearing problems.
CHETRY: Yes. The problem is getting teens to do that.
GUPTA: Right. Or getting us. I mean think about the same thing.
CHETRY: Exactly. All right. Sanjay, good information this morning. Thanks.
ROBERTS: I was on the subway last night. And this couple was listening to death metal as loud as it could possibly go and the guy one had one ear bud in and his girlfriend was taking the other one, going wow, wow, wow, on her hand. It was so obnoxious. I want to grab the thing.
CHETRY: That's a whole different problem.
ROBERTS: Yes. You bet.
Breaking news this morning. A baby boy dies suddenly in New York City. People in masks filling the waiting room. We're live at the hospital as swine flu concerns hit a new level.
And one hour from now the Hubble Space Telescope will be set free from the Shuttle Atlantis cargo bay and it will return to its orbit. We will have all the latest for you. 54 minutes now after the hour.
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JAY LENO, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO": God bless Joe Biden. He has been our savior here.
"Newsweek" is reporting that Joe Biden started talking and accidentally revealed Dick Cheney's secret hiding place. See there's more proof you don't need waterboarding to get secret information. Just give Joe Biden a couple of drinks. This is part of our new plan to deal with a renegade. It's called "don't ask, we'll tell."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
Your privacy versus your security at the airport. Right now there is a new campaign to stop what critics are calling a virtual strip search. Scans that leave very little to the imagination. It's one of the most popular stories this morning on CNN.com and here is CNN's Jeanne Meserve with it.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: John, Kiran, privacy advocates have had issues with the technology called millimeter wave right from the get-go. But they're launching an on- line petition campaign to stop, at least for the time being, what they refer to as a virtual strip search.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE (voice-over): The technology called millimeter wave doesn't leave much to the imagination as it scans the body looking for concealed items.
DEDE COLTON, TSA IMAGING OPERATOR: And basically it just lets us know if there's anything out of the ordinary that's sticking outside their clothing, their belt, a cell phone.
MESERVE: Or a weapon. The Transportation Security Administration is pilot testing millimeter wave at screening checkpoints at 19 airports with an eye to deploying it more widely. But privacy advocates say there are no formal rules for how the machines and the images they generate will be used.
LILLIE CONEY, ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFO CENTER: I'm worried that the technology can retain images, that those images may be used for more than just travel screening purposes.
MESERVE: For instance, they might turn up on the internet. But the TSA says the machines have been disabled so they cannot store, send or print images. The images are not overly detailed and other privacy steps have been taken.
JON ALLEN, TSA ATLANTA: The officer who attends the passenger at the machine never gets to see the images that are generated. The officer, who views the image, views those in a remote location. They never physically get to see the passenger.
MESERVE: But the privacy community is launching a petition drive to suspend millimeter wave testing. It fears TSA will change the rules on how the technology is used unless it goes through the formal public federal rule-making process.
CONEY: It's tried and true. It's reliable. It forces the issue out into a more transparent process. And when it's all said and done, we all have the rule book.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE: The TSA says all passengers are given the option of choosing a different screening method that the majority pick Millimeter Wave but privacy advocates argue that's because the public isn't adequately informed about the risks.
John, Kiran, back to you.
