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American Morning
Passengers Safe after Hole In Airplane Fuselage; "Empathy" at Issue in Sotomayor Confirmation; Doctor Goes Overseas to Conduct Controversial Stem-Cell Therapies
Aired July 14, 2009 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And we're about a minute and a half to the top of the hour. Thanks for being with us on the Most News in the Morning. It's Tuesday, it's the 14th of July. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
Here's what's on the agenda this morning. These are the stories that we'll be breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes.
One hundred thirty-one passengers and crew all safe this morning, but not before a huge scare mid-flight. A football-sized hole ripped through the fuselage of a Southwest Airline jet. They were up at above 30,000 feet when this happened. The plane made an emergency landing in West Virginia. Investigators are still saying they don't know what exactly happened, how it happened. Ahead we're going to be speaking to a former NTSB investigator to try to get some answers.
ROBERTS: In about 90 minutes' time, Judge Sonia Sotomayor heads back to the hot seat for day two of her confirmation hearings. And in just a moment, we're going to take you live to the hearing room where senators will finally get their chance to question the judge and her qualifications.
CHETRY: Also a CNN exclusive, our special investigations unit examining a Florida doctor who treats desperately ill Americans at a clinic in the Dominican Republic using stem-cell therapies. He charges tens of thousands of dollars, but some say he's preying on people who lost all other hope. Drew Griffin's going to confront him and profile one of his patients who swears he saved her life.
First, though, a hole the size of a football forced the Southwest Airlines jet to make an emergency landing last night. It happened out of nowhere at 34,000 feet. But no one was hurt. The most terrifying thing, though, may be that this morning no one even knows why it happened.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY (voice-over): Once Southwest Flight 2294 landed safely in Charleston, West Virginia, this is what officials at the airport found. On the top of the plane near its tail fin, a hole, through the fuselage. From the inside, you can see light coming in from outside. Right now, officials have no idea what caused the damage. The plane had been airborne about 30 minutes and was climbing through 34,000 feet. And then...
STEVE HILL, PASSENGER: There was a loud pop, no one really knew what it was. Looking up at the ceiling, if you will, that's where we noticed one of the ceiling tiles was being sucked into, if you will, or against the fuselage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We heard this very loud noise, turned around and saw a skylight.
CHETRY: The plane lost cabin pressure. The oxygen masks dropped. No one was hurt. Flight 2294 took off from Nashville on its way to BWI Airport in Baltimore. Instead, the plane, carrying 126 passengers and five crew members, diverted to Charleston, West Virginia.
Once on the ground, a local pizzeria gave the passengers food while Southwest sent another plane to take them to Baltimore.
Southwest issued a statement saying, "There is no responsible way to speculate as to a cause at this point. We have safety procedures in place and they were followed in this instance to get all passengers and crew safely on the ground. Our pilots and flight attendants did a great job getting the aircraft on the ground safely."
Federal investigators will try to figure out what happened to the plane and to keep it from happening again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Stay with us at 30 minutes past the hour. We're going to be talking more about this with Ben Berman, a former investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board and a pilot. That's ahead here on the Most News in the Morning.
ROBERTS: And in less than 90 minutes, Judge Sonia Sotomayor returns to Capitol Hill, and with opening statements out of the way, now comes the tough questions from 19 senators on the Judiciary Committee.
Earlier, Kiran and I spoke to two senators on that committee about their expectations if Judge Sotomayor becomes a Supreme Court justice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: We don't expect President Obama to appoint a conservative judge or even a moderate judge. We expect him to appoint somebody who's pretty liberal, and she is. But the fact of the matter is, we expect that judge to be fair. We expect her to be a person who will apply the law, not make the law, and we expect her to not allow her own personal sympathy or empathy or approaches towards life to color decisions in ways that really are not just are right.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Of course, everyone's background affects them. How could we not? We don't want nine justices with icewater running through their veins. But if you look at the record, she has a record for 17 years. So, we can see if she chooses her own sympathies over the law when the law dictates going in a different direction. She never has.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So, what's it like to face the fire of a confirmation? Brianna Keilar is live inside the hearing room for us this morning, as she was yesterday, ready to show us around from Judge Sotomayor's perspective.
Good morning, Brianna. That really is an incredible vantage point we've got there.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no, it's an incredible access here. And I want to give you a sense of what it's like to sit here in this seat. What Sonia Sotomayor will see as she goes before these 19 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
This clock right here will tell her how much time she has with each senator, 30 minutes, and it will count down, and here to Sonia Sotomayor's left, Republicans, seven Republicans of this committee.
What are we going to hear from them? Well, Senator Lindsey Graham, hinting yesterday he'll push her about her views on affirmative action and abortion. And he's also going to ask her questions about the top Republican on the committee, Jeff Sessions, will ask. And that has to do with her off-the-bench comments.
For instance, her "wise Latina" remark and other remarks that she's made about the Court of Appeals being a place where policy is made.
And then to Sotomayor's right, the 12 Democrats on the committee. These will be her defenders today and according to one aide, their role today is going to be concentrating on Sotomayor's -- her record, her record, and her record in trying to pull attention away from how much bearing her off-the-bench remarks should have, John.
ROBERTS: Brianna Keilar for us this morning with an inside look at what's ahead. As we said, just a little less than 90 minutes from now.
Brianna, thanks so much.
CHETRY: And Judge Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic nominee for the high court, but she's not the first outspoken nominee.
CNN's Jim Acosta joins us now.
And Jim, hasn't much of the Republican criticism focused on what she said, as Brianna said, as well, outside of the courtroom?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna said it best, off the bench. And we know the words well. "Wise Latina woman." Republicans have seized on those words from Sonia Sotomayor to question whether she would use race to play favorites on the high court.
Now she'll have a chance to answer that charge. And as history shows, Sotomayor is hardly the first Supreme Court hopeful who was once outspoken on the subject of race.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA (voice-over): A Puerto Rican who also grew up in a Bronx housing project, Congressman Jose Serrano is scheduled to testify on behalf of Sonia Sotomayor this week. He, like many Latinos, sees Sotomayor as a Thurgood Marshall for Hispanics.
REP. JOSE SERRANO (D), NEW YORK: Throughout the neighborhood, people actually are using her more than anyone else as an example of what can happen if you apply yourself and work hard.
ACOSTA: Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the committee holding Sotomayor's confirmation hearing, reminded his colleagues that Marshall, a civil rights attorney who fought segregation, also had to answer pointed questions on race.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: He was asked questions designed to embarrass him. Questions such as, are you prejudiced against the white people of the South? I hope that's a time of our past.
ACOSTA: It was a pre-emptive strike aimed at Republican Jeff Sessions, who went on to challenge Sotomayor on her remark about being a wise Latina woman. Sessions argues Sotomayor could bring prejudice to the high court.
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALABAMA: I will not vote for and no senator should vote for an individual nominated by any president who is not fully committed to fairness and impartiality toward every person who appears before them.
ACOSTA: In truth, Sotomayor was nowhere near as outspoken as Marshall.
THURGOOD MARSHALL, FORMER ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT: I do not think that President Eisenhower has done anywhere near what he could've done.
ACOSTA: More than half century ago, Marshall sat down with a cigarette-smoking Mike Wallace on the TV program "Night Beat" for a no-holds-barred interview on civil rights.
MARSHALL: As far as you're concerned, it's been a plague on both of your houses, both of your parties as far as an attitude toward race relations. I think that in Congress today, the only bipartisan action is against civil rights and Negroes' rights.
ACOSTA: In those days, that was radical.
JEFF TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Thurgood Marshall challenged the American justice system for decades before he went on the Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor worked very much within that system and did not challenge it nearly as much.
ACOSTA: After weeks of silence, Sotomayor tried to turn down the heat.
JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: In the past month, many senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. Simple: fidelity to the law.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: Now, while she did mention her Puerto Rican heritage in her opening remarks, Sotomayor did not directly address her "wise Latina woman" comment. Those fireworks, as we know, Kiran, are still to come probably very early into this hearing process today.
CHETRY: All right. And we'll be watching. It gets under way in about an hour and a half.
ACOSTA: Yes, we will.
CHETRY: All right, Jim Acosta for us. Thanks so much. And stay with us here on AMERICAN MORNING. In 10 minutes, CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin will be joining us.
We're going to ask him what he expects from today's confirmation hearing and also how Judge Sotomayor should handle the questioning today.
ROBERTS: Jeff got quoted yesterday at the hearings.
CHETRY: Yes, well, I mean, he wrote the wonderful book, "The Nine," all about the Supreme Court.
ROBERTS: Yes. It's interesting. So, he has firsthand perspective on all of this.
New this morning. A group of black and Hispanic kids were asked to leave a private swim club outside of Philadelphia. They said that they will not go back to the facility. Attorneys for the largely minority day care center says they will sue the swim club in a few days. The Valley Swim Club insists the kids were turned away because of overcrowded conditions and not their race.
CHETRY: Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff is a far cry from his Manhattan cell. According to a government Web site, he's been transferred to a medium-security prison in Atlanta. It's still not known if that's where he'll serve out his 150-year term in this Atlanta prison, ironically, once housed Charles Ponzi. That's the namesake of the scheme that Madoff perfected.
ROBERTS: And it's a classic case of good news/bad news when it comes to your safety on the road. A government study has found the number of Americans driving drunk is down, down significantly from 7.5 percent in 1973 to just 2.2 percent in 2007. But the survey found 16 percent of people randomly pulled over while driving on weekend nights tested positive, not for alcohol, but for drugs.
Nine minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back...
(LAUGHTER)
Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. This morning, John was saying it was a lovely shot of the White House. I concur. And good morning, D.C.. It's 67 degrees. Later on it's going to be 85 and sunny in the nation's capital.
Well, new this morning, it seems President Obama just can't catch a break when it comes to the teleprompter. We're going to check out what happened to one of the president's favorite gadgets when he was defending his stimulus package. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We took swift and aggressive actions in the first months of my administration to poll our country -- oh, goodness. Sorry about that, guys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: There you see it on the floor, smashed. There's another one, though, on the other side, so all is well that ends well. Despite it, the president did not skip a beat - John.
CHETRY: It's an unforgivable sin that happened in Sin City. Tourists lining up for snapshots in the Vegas Strip found red graffiti across the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada" sign. The city's mayor told a local television station this deserves off with their head. Officials say they think that the vandal used red marker not spray paint. It might be easier to take it off.
CHETRY: All right. Well, call him the $45 million man. According to the "Hollywood Reporter," Ryan Seacrest just signed a deal with the producers of "American Idol" for $45 million for the next three years. That figure reportedly triples his salary for hosting the show.
A post on his Twitter page stated that Seacrest was, quote, "very excited about locking in a deal to host 'Idol' for this season and the following two." I'll tell you he's very excited.
ROBERTS: Well, you know, at that price you could understand that he would probably be quite excited about getting that money for three years.
Nine-thirty this morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee begins questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, and if Monday's session was any indication, the judge will be spending a lot of time explaining this now famous statement.
Quote, "A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Jeffrey Toobin, CNN senior legal analyst, is in Washington this morning tracking all of the developments for us.
Jeff, how long do you think it will be before that issue comes up in the questioning today?
TOOBIN: Well, I think Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the committee, is going to toss Judge Sotomayor a couple of softballs about it so that she can just get it out of the way, have her explanation so that it doesn't come up in the more combative context that some Republicans will be sure to raise it in.
ROBERTS: Do you think that it's going to be much of an issue?
TOOBIN: Well, I think it will be something that she's going to have to explain. It is a comment that I'm sure she regrets saying the way she did. I think there are ways of explaining it away.
But certainly, on its very terms, the idea that a wise Latina is always going to do better than a white judge is, I think, a pretty indefensible position. President Obama asked about it said she could've chosen her words differently and I expect she'll say much the same thing.
ROBERTS: A couple of big issues expected to come up today, the issue of impartiality, also the issue of empathy. Jeff Sessions, Republican, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, said her empathy for one group of firefighters, talking about the New Haven case, turned out to be prejudice against another.
I guess the question is, can you have empathy and impartially apply the law?
TOOBIN: Well, those are -- those words are so vague that it's really hard to know how you could really have a fight about them. I mean a certain degree of empathy is necessary for all of human life, including being a judge. But the issue that Senator Sessions is talking about is a very serious one and a big one before the Supreme Court because it really relates to the issue of racial preferences.
You know, does the Constitution permit a university, a public employer to say we care about diversity in our ranks, so we're going to give an advantage to a member of the minority group? That idea is very much under siege at the Supreme Court.
John Roberts doesn't believe in it. David Souter does. Those -- that's the fight that's going on in the Supreme Court, and I think it'll be interesting to see how Judge Sotomayor deals with it. ROBERTS: And you know, we just want to remind folks at home, of course, Jeff, that you are an expert on the Supreme Court. You wrote that fabulous book called "The Nine." All about the court. And you were quoted yesterday. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse quoted you during the confirmation hearings.
You know, there was all this talk from Republicans. The Judge Sotomayor would be an activist judge. He quoted you talking about John Roberts, an article in the "New Yorker" in which you say, quote, "In every major case since he became the nation's 17th chief justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive brand over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff."
I guess the point he was making was that there is activism, potentially, on the court, but it's not limited to liberals.
TOOBIN: Right. And the other point he was making is that John Roberts in his opening statement famously said that he just sees himself as an umpire calling balls and strikes. And my point was, there is a lot more discretion in being a Supreme Court justice than there is in being a baseball umpire.
And that umpire metaphor was brought up several times. And I think this is one of the things that nominees always do. And Judge Sotomayor did it yesterday, and said, well, you know, I just apply the law. I don't have any political views. But you know what? When you're dealing with the Constitution, there is no such thing as just applying the law.
The law is too elastic, the law is too political when it comes to the Constitution to just apply the law. Your values, your philosophy, your politics, inform how you interpret the Constitution.
ROBERTS: Jeff, it's great to have you with us this morning. We look forward to your coverage during the question and answer session today. Really appreciate your coming.
TOOBIN: Today really should be the most interesting day.
ROBERTS: All right. Looking forward to it. Thanks, Jeff.
TOOBIN: OK.
ROBERTS: And remember, you can watch Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings live right here on CNN. It all begins this morning 9:30 Eastern, live on CNN and CNN.com.
And we also want to hear from you. Do you support Judge Sotomayor's confirmation? Tell us what you think at CNN.com/amfix. Seventeen and a half minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. We're frantically looking at our BlackBerrys and computers. The reason why Christine Romans is "Minding Your Business," and we are expected any minute now to know the exact earnings of Goldman Sachs.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right.
CHETRY: You said yesterday that look like things were going really well for them.
ROMANS: Look, Goldman Sachs has managed to make money in a bad economy and a good economy. It's managed to make money in a bad market and a good market. It lost money in the fourth quarter of last year, rare, rare for Goldman to lose any money.
And a lot of folks are expecting the second-quarter earnings to be blockbuster. When you look at the profit rebound for Goldman, you can see that it had some trouble in 2008. You look at this bar chart. Those last two bars are what analysts expect for 2009 and 2010. Those are gold green bars for Goldman Sachs.
You know for people who dislike this company, they say, you know, it's -- that the world is -- there's too much influence of Goldman Sachs in central banks and in governments. They say this company manipulates markets, but for the supporters and the people who watch this company they say it is a shrewd manipulator of risk.
It does what it does very, very well. It makes money on the downside. On the upside, it uses very sophisticated computerized trading to take risks and to manage risks better than anybody else. And that's why Goldman is such a high profile. They've -- also because it's...
CHETRY: I just heard $3.44 billion?
ROMANS: Billion dollars. Yes.
CHETRY: Billion for the second quarter.
ROMANS: Yes. OK. $3.44 billion for the second quarter. We'll look into those numbers and find out what it means, as they made an awful lot of money. And why do you care? Because you as a taxpayer loaned this company $10 billion in the bailout.
They have paid that money back. They have -- many of the traders and the people who are close to Goldman, they say that it has taken a lot of risks. It's managed to do some really high-profile risk trading on currencies and bond market. A lot of other things as well. And it's made a lot of money.
Will Goldman's earnings tell us whether the whole banking sector is better or not? It doesn't look as if some of the other banking giants and investment banks and the alike have taken the kinds of risks that Goldman has so they probably won't have this kind of an earnings boom.
But look, we're going to be hearing a lot about the bank earnings this week. $3.44 billion in net profit in the second quarter. We'll pull all the numbers apart. We don't know if this is going to mean anything for the rest of the banks, quite frankly, because they all are kind of in a defensive position.
CHETRY: Right.
ROMANS: Except for Goldman, which seems to be on the offense. Great story in "Rolling Stone" this week, also in "BusinessWeek." People are trying to figure out what is in the secret sauce at Goldman Sachs that makes them so able to manage risk and make money. But we do know they made an awful lot of money in the quarter.
CHETRY: All right. Christine Romans, thanks.
ROMANS: Sure.
ROBERTS: Well, President Obama takes on a new challenge tonight. He's going to throw out the first pitch in Major League Baseball's All Star Game in St. Louis, then he's going to join announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver for a little bit of a play by play.
And then has "Late Night's" David Letterman a little nervous.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN: President Obama will actually be at the game. He'll be in the broadcast booth. He's going to be working in the broadcast booth during the All-Star Game.
Everybody says that's cute. But let me tell you something. You know the economy is bad...
(LAUGHTER)
... when the president has to take a second gig. That's not a good sign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: I think if he's a good pitcher, it'll pay a lot more than his first gig, too.
CHETRY: See that.
ROBERTS: Yes. Twenty-three minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Twenty-five and a half minutes after the hour. Now a CNN exclusive. A Florida doctor has opened a clinic in the Dominican Republic where he claims to be saving lives using controversial stem cell therapies.
A few weeks ago, CNN's reporting on Americans receiving these treatments overseas drew an awful lot of attention. It's not approved by the U.S. government. It's not covered by private or government health insurance, but our Drew Griffin found a woman who swears that the therapy saved her life. And Drew joins us this morning from the CNN center in Atlanta.
Good morning, Drew. This is a pretty amazing story.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And baffling, John.
ROBERTS: An unproven therapy, yes.
GRIFFIN: Yes, it's baffling because experts in the field of stem cell research, I mean cutting edge say what you're about to see is simply impossible. It shouldn't work. The science is just not there yet. And yet for this Florida woman who paid $54,000, she believes this non-approved stem cell treatment improved her life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Barbara McKean's workout, yoga, in front of a Wii may not seem like much.
BARBARA MCKEAN, COPD PATIENT: I'm going to show you how the Wii Fit works.
GRIFFIN: Until you consider where she was just one year ago.
MCKEAN: I was very limited as to the activities I could do.
GRIFFIN: She has COPD, an incurable lung disease that should be killing her. Instead of dying, she says she's getting better, using oxygen only at night now, even her family physician is amazed. She believes stem cells from her own body are helping her improve.
Barbara McKean is a patient of an American doctor working through this hospital in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Zannos Grekos is a Florida cardiologist who also runs a company called Regenocyte Therapeutics.
What he is doing cannot be done in the U.S.
DR. ZANNOS GREKOS, REGENOCYTE THERAPEUTICS: These procedures work and it's substantiated by objective data that we're collecting.
GRIFFIN: The procedure, draw a patient's own blood, send it off to a lab in Israel, where it's transformed into what the company calls regenocyte. According to the company, the regenocyte cells are then re-injected into the body to rebuild damaged areas.
GREKOS: We end up with between 40 to 80 million stem cells, and then they also activate them and educate them to want to become the end organ of whatever tissue that we're looking to regenerate.
GREKOS: If that sounds impossible, it's because those at the forefront of stem cell research say it is.
DR. IRVING WEISSMAN, INTL. SOCIETY FOR STEM CELL RESEARCH: There is no such cell. There's no cell called a regenocyte. GRIFFIN: Stanford University's Dr. Irving Weissman is a president-elect of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.
WEISSMAN: I'm disappointed and shocked that somebody would prey on a family that has an untreatable disease with the promise of a therapy that has no scientific or medical basis.
GRIFFIN: Dr. Grekos says he's not conducting any FDA approved clinical trials. Such trials are usually conducted before treating patients. Too expensive, he says, but he will seek FDA approval by the end of the year. He also shrugs off the criticism of non- believers.
(on camera): You think that the head of the International Stem Cell Society, research society, and the head of Stanford Medical Center Biology Stem Cell Department is just behind the times?
GREKOS: I think that they just need to be more educated.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Grekos, who conducts information seminars in Florida retirement communities, says over the past 18 months, he has treated more than 100 people with various illnesses and claims 80 percent responded to treatment. In his seminars, he talks about hopes and possibilities, careful not to promise results.
(on camera): You're treating them, you're not scamming them?
GREKOS: No. No, we're treating them.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): The FDA has not sanctioned the treatment in the United States because it has yet to be proven safe or even effective in humans. But that is all science. What's harder to explain is the experience of Barbara McKean who says the moment she felt her own stem cells injected into her body she felt healing.
MCKEAN: I'm sitting out in the humidity talking to you. I didn't even step out on this porch before I got my stem cells. Couldn't do it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: John and Kiran, this is not a cure. She's not cured of COPD. She still has it. She's just feeling better, and according to her own physician is using less oxygen. But it's just that hope of feeling better that is what's attracting so many American citizens to go overseas for, again, this non-approved treatment.
ROBERTS: You know, Sanjay Gupta talks about this all the time, too, Drew. There's this mind-body connection that if you think you feel better, you just might.
Fascinating report there. Drew Griffin for us this morning. Drew, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Meanwhile, we're half past the hour now. We check our top stories. It was once unimaginable, it had to be a fake number, but now the federal deficit has officially topped $1 trillion. This is the first time ever. The Treasury says it could grow to nearly $2 trillion by this fall. The soaring deficit is intensifying fears about higher interest rates, inflation, and also the strength of the dollar.
President Obama has said that the U.S. is committed to bringing down the deficit once the economy and the financial sector recover.
ROBERTS: A rare urgent recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board after the deadliest subway crash in D.C. Metro history last month. The NTSB is calling for the installation of an alert system that would warn operators if train sensors behaved erratically.
CHETRY: Rail systems across the country are also being urged to take similar precautions. And the ground was shaking late last night at Los Angeles International Airport. The U.S. Geological Survey says that LAX was rocked by a magnitude 3.2 quake, not a big one, but it was centered right under the airport runways. The airports says it couldn't find any damage and that there were not any flight delays because of it.
Well, speaking of flight delays, this was a terrifying trip for 126 passengers and crew on a Southwest Airlines flight between Nashville and Baltimore when a football-sized hole just ripped through the fuselage, the cabin lost pressure, and oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. The plane landed safely in West Virginia, but officials still say right now they have no idea what caused this hole.
Also just in to CNN, some passengers now speaking out about what they experienced on that plane.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first thing was that we heard this very loud noise, turned around, and saw a skylight shining through the plane.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Grounds crew, everybody, they were fabulous about it and they kept us just up to date of everything going on. So it was long to get a flight back, but you know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, for more now, let's bring in Ben Berman, he's pilot and former chief investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. Thanks, Ben, for being with us this morning. Most of us can't imagine what it would be like up there 34,000 feet and then realize there's a hole in the cabin. What did you think when you heard about this?
BEN BERMAN, FORMER NTSB INVESTIGATOR: Well, my first thought was here we go again. And I was thinking back to an incident that occurred back in 1988 when an Aloha Airlines jet lost the whole top of the fuselage. That was a very massive failure. CHETRY: There's the picture of it right there.
BERMAN: Sure.
Everybody was left sitting out in the open. That was worse than a skylight. So, in any case I thought of that and I also thought of the recent events where a couple of years ago, Southwest Airlines was fined for not doing inspections like the aging aircraft inspections of the fuselage for cracks that are mandated right now as a result of the Aloha Airlines event.
CHETRY: So, what did they figure out about the Aloha Airlines plane that may help out in this situation?
BERMAN: Well, they figured out that you need a whole focus on airplanes as they get older, because airplanes are being flown in airline service much longer than originally anticipated. And that focus on aging aircraft has developed throughout the worldwide airline industry, and there have been lots of good inspections and good maintenance procedures to keep these airplanes flying safely.
And I thought, well, this is going to have to be another look at it and we'll see what caused this football-sized hole in the fuselage develop and may require some different inspections or new inspections also to see whether the airline was doing the inspections that they should have been doing.
CHETRY: Right. So it's called metal fatigue, right? That's when those aging aircrafts - when that happens, I mean, the passengers were saying literally it was ripped through the metal. It was ripped through everything they could see, sunlight coming through the plane and in that instance, obviously, it was a lucky situation that they were able to land with no one hurt. I mean that could've just - when you're talking about a depressurized cabin, I mean, it seems amazing that no one was hurt.
BERMAN: Well, it's somewhat lucky but also it's really how the system is designed to work. The pilots and flight attendant and crews are trained in how to react when there is a depressurization. They basically get the airplane down to a breathable altitude around 10,000 feet high as soon as possible and the airplane's also designed to kind of contain cracks that develop through tear strips of heavy metal titanium that are built into the fuselage. So if it was a one foot-sized hole, that may be exactly - the fuselage doing what it was designed to do in the event of a crack. So luck and skill, and probably good design, but some other stuff too that needs to be dealt with very carefully.
CHETRY: Right, and you know, they're saying today -- Southwest, that they're examining now all of their 737-300s. That was the model that they did these increased expectations overnight. But what would they be looking for as they try to determine whether or not other planes could possibly also end up in this situation with a hole in the fuselage?
BERMAN: Well, Southwest and maybe other airlines will be looking at that area of the fuselage to see if there are any cracks or other problems that are developing. The investigators, the NTSB investigators will be looking very carefully at the metal, you know, they'll cut out the piece of metal that was involved. They'll be looking at it under a scanning electron microscope. They'll be looking for signature signs of metal fatigue or over stress.
If it was metal fatigue, like we've been discussing, they'll see some characteristic marks that look like kind of rings of sand on the beach as the tide goes in and out that show how the metal might have fatigued as the airplane pressurized and depressurized with each flight. And so they probably will be able to develop an idea of exactly what happened here.
CHETRY: All right. Hopefully they'll be able to figure it out and soon. And the question about those inspections, as well. So Ben Berman, former chief of major investigations for NTSB, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
BERMAN: You're welcome.
CHETRY: It is 36 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Top videos right now on cnn.com. Check out these incredible pictures. This is out of India, three huge construction cranes collapsed at a work site. There you see it. Construction workers running for cover and according to our sister network CNN IBN, four people were injured. It looks like it could have been a lot worse though.
Also, this picture out of Detroit this weekend. An F-18 fighter jet buzzes past an apartment complex. You can even see the guy standing out on his balcony. Imagine that shot out of your window. It was all part of a planned flyover demonstration. Yes, a really, really close encounter.
And there was a hillbilly ho-down in East Dublin, Georgia this weekend at the annual red neck games. The games feature a toilet seat toss, bobbing for pigs feet, and mud hole belly flops. Sounds like fun.
ROBERTS: Bobbing for pigs' feet. As long as they're not boiling them in oil, I guess it's not bad.
The Yankees and the Red Sox, Duke and North Carolina, games that are all about the rivalry. But in Iraq, a country at war for the past several years, soccer in particular is helping people put their differences aside. Here's CNN's Michael Ware with that story.
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MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Welcome to international football Baghdad style. This is Iraq's first time international since (INAUDIBLE) was banned in 2002 in the lead-up to the U.S.-led invasion. Just - excuse me, guys. Iraq is playing its first time game here against Palestine, in a friendly. This is an incredible scene. This stadium is chug a block, filled to capacity, with intense security, as the war continues.
But it's this game, this that has been the Iraqi people's disconnect from the horror around them. This is what's the only thing that's united the Iraqi people. When they won the Asian Cup, the sectarian violence, the entire war paused for just a moment as the entire country celebrated.
Today, we see it again. This truly is one of Baghdad's all too few grand days and it's football that's connected everybody together. Michael Ware, CNN, Baghdad.
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ROBERTS: It's great to see that going on, and you can tell that Michael's found his passion.
CHETRY: He has too. Yes, the great equalizer.
ROBERTS: He used to play Australian rules football. So he's very fond of sports like that. Forty-one and a half minutes after the hour.
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CHETRY: It's interesting. This was the shot this morning of Detroit, Michigan. You can see the beautiful water, you can see the buildings, but close up, looks like there's a spider web on our tower camera and something's caught in it. 65 degrees, a little bit later it will be mostly sunny there and 79. That's where the president's going to be a little later. He's making an announcement about investing in community colleges in the future, $12 billion over 10 years.
Meanwhile, it's not going to be pretty in all parts of the country today at 44 minutes past the hour. Our Jacqui Jeras is checking in. Some severe weather today could be making it a mess if you're flying or if you're living in some of the areas that are going to be getting hit with it.
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely. Across the nation's midsection is really the area that we'll be concentrating on here, Kiran. And you know, we have some thunderstorms at this hour, especially heavy across parts of Missouri. Nothing severe right now, but some gusty winds along with some heavy downpours and a lot of lightning. We just had a real nasty line move through from about Kansas City up towards St. Joe area now moving towards (INAUDIBLE). It's going to make its way over towards Columbia.
We are expecting some redevelopment as we head into the afternoon hours and we'll be watching that as it moves across the state and heads toward St. Louis. We got the all-star game there tonight. Other cities like Des Moines, Minneapolis, over towards Wisconsin, we'll have that threat especially into the afternoon hours.
In the meantime, you saw that lovely picture from Detroit, didn't you? It was gorgeous, great weather across the Great Lakes and into the northeast, not so great across parts of the south, unfortunately, due to many of those high temperatures still into the triple digits. And one pretty picture I want to show you here, some wildflowers. They are just abundant in Colorado. Pretty pictures here due to all of the heavy rain. I know it wasn't a lot of fun in June but now that things are warming up, the flowers are out. And certainly looking beautiful. Makes me want to go for a hike. Kiran?
CHETRY: How about it? Pretty this morning. Thanks so much, Jacqui.
ROBERTS: Yea, things are unusually green in Colorado this year because of all that rain.
Get ready, because this is going to be a bit of a surprise. You're used to seeing CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan but just because she's a reporting legend the world over doesn't mean that she can't be glamorous too. And here's the proof in the August issue of "Harper's Bazaar." Christiane is out of the war zone and in a whole new look. There she is. Yes, that's our Christiane Amanpour.
Also, an in-depth interview and she was quoted as saying "no one has ever accused me of being stylish, but maybe that will change with this issue." The photos really are quite remarkable.
CHETRY: And there's another cute shot. Do we have that - that's her new dog. Christiane's dog. He's very cute.
ROBERTS: Christiane and her little dog too.
Well, yesterday, President Obama unveiled his nominee for surgeon general. Who is Regina Benjamin and what can she do for you? We'll find out, coming up next.
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ROBERTS: Appropriate music this morning for Atlanta where it's partly cloudy and 75. It will be a beautiful day today. Mostly sunny and a high of 90 degrees.
Well, first CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta was approached about being the Obama administration's new surgeon general. But fortunately for us, he turned it down. Now President Obama just announced his new choice Dr. Regina Benjamin, a family practice doctor from the gulf coast.
Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now with more on Dr. Benjamin. So what do we know other than the fact that she really is dedicated to her community? ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, she certainly is. She has been serving the underserved and the uninsured in the Gulf Coast for many years. Let's take a look at what we know about the doctor here.
First of all, she received her M.D. from the University of Alabama. She founded a rural health clinic in Alabama, which she had to rebuild several times because of Katrina. She's also the first African-American to be a board member of the American Medical Association, also the first person under 40 to have that position, and she also was named a McArthur Foundation fellow.
It's also interesting, she was the first female and the first African-American to be head of the Alabama Medical Association - John.
ROBERTS: Traditionally the surgeon general hasn't had a big hand in the formation of health care policy. Do we think in this administration it might be a little bit different that relationship? Might she, in fact, have a hand in health care reform?
COHEN: Right. We're told this time that it will be different and that she will actually have a heavy hand in health care reform. It only makes sense, she may - when they were talking about policy, she maybe the only person in the room who is actually taking care of a large number of uninsured people. Plus she has had some personal experiences that really speak to the need to build prevention into our health care system.
ROBERTS: Elizabeth Cohen for us this morning. Elizabeth, thanks so much for that. Now nine minuets to the top of the hour.
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CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH CONAN O'BRIEN": People in New York are especially excited about Judge Sotomayor because she comes from the Bronx. Isn't that cool? Yes. In fact, Judge Sotomayor famously presided over the landmark New York City case, shut up versus no, you shut up.
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CHETRY: All right. Well, we are just about half an hour away from Sonia Sotomayor answering some questions about her qualifications to be the next Supreme Court justice.
ROBERTS: Now, let's be clear here because we're not encouraging drinking games. But if you are looking for a theme if you had a little one planned later on today, there is one word to consider. Our Carol Costello live in Washington with that word. Dare we guess what it is, Carol?
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think you can. If you watched yesterday's confirmation hearings, you could definitely guess what that word is. And it's going to be mentioned a lot, a lot times again today. The word is empathy. You could sum up the whole hearing that way. Everybody said empathy. I'm going to give you the definition, the dictionary definition. The ability to put one's self in another's shoes. Simple right? Republican say though that is a judicial no-no. Democrats say it's a judicial imperative. Who's right? Or does it just boil down to which side you're on?
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COSTELLO (voice-over): Oh, that word.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call it empathy...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This empathy. Empathy standard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Empathy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Empathy.
COSTELLO: It's become the new litmus test for judicial nominees even though it's been used to describe nominees before.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's a delightful and warm, intelligent person who has great empathy and a wonderful sense of humor.
COSTELLO: That was republican President George H.W. Bush using the "e" word to describe his nominee, now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. But today, Republicans say the e-word is not a quality that the justice ought to possess.
SEN. CHARLES GRASLLEY (R), IOWA: This empathy standard is troubling to me.
COSTELLO: But why? What does that mean? Does Senator Grassley think our justices should be dispassionate, like say Lynn in "Dancing with the Stars."
LEN GOODMAN, JUDGE, "DANCING WITH THE STARS": I have to look at the footwork. Step forward on the heel, not on the ball.
COSTELLO: Or should they sometimes let feelings count.
BRUNO TONIOLI, JUDGE, "DANCING WITH THE STARS": Don't worry my darling, your sweetness in light and pretty as a picture.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go.
PAUL CALLAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: A good judge brings some empathy to the bench, but in the end most decision-making is based on strict application of the law.
COSTELLO: That's exactly how the nominee described her judicial style on Monday. But republicans suspect Judge Sotomayor is more Bruno than Len because she said in the past that Latina women sometimes reach better conclusions than white men. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If judges routinely started ruling on the basis of their personal feelings, however well, intentioned the entire legitimacy of the judicial system would be jeopardized.
COSTELLO: In other words, there's concern that Judge Sotomayor who 10 years ago described herself as an affirmative action baby may be more inclined to rule in favor of minorities because of her past.
Legal scholars say there is no pattern in Sotomayor's past rulings to prove that, but some say the idea that empathy may play a part in some of her decisions is actually a good thing.
BRIAN NEARY, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: We want people who - to become judges who not only are learned, not only are scholarly, who not only are smart, but also experienced in the profession and most of all in life.
COSTELLO: The most famous example in 1954 when an empathetic Supreme Court overturned state laws in Brown versus Board of Education. Now the ground school segregation violated the U.S. constitution.
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COSTELLO: You see sometimes the law is not crystal clear. I mean, you have all of the facts in front of you, but you have to use something else to make the final decision and some say that something else is empathy. You know, on the political front because, you know, everything's politicized in Washington. Right, John and Kiran?
ROBERTS: No, I've never heard of that.
COSTELLO: No, that's ridiculous.
ROBERTS: Perish the thought. Say it's not true.
COSTELLO: Empathy, it's become code now for activist judge. You know, the kind of judge who will rule against many of the things that republicans are against like affirmative action or gun control or abortion rights.
ROBERTS: All right. Carol Costello for us this morning. Carol, thanks so much. It's good to see you. We'll see you again tomorrow.
CHETRY: You know, we've been asking people to weigh in about their comments or about just Judge Sotomayor, and so here's a few this morning from our blog at cnn.com/amfix. We have Charles, it "bothers me that the democrats say they will not ask Sotomayor tough questions. Republicans in so many words have said that they will. I think both parties should stop the games and ask tough questions about whether we can have two parties playing politics with a lifetime appointment.
ROBERTS: Right. Jim (ph) writes, "I've heard her called a lot of things with Latina being the most prevalent, however I've never heard her called an American." And JW in Virginia says, "I believe that she would make a fine Supreme Court justice." We're getting a lot of comments in our blog this morning.
CHETRY: That's right. We continue to hope that you'll weigh in for us. CNN.com/amfix. We'd like to read all of those e-mails.
ROBERTS: Yea, and in all this week on CNN, the confirmation hearings of the Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor. We'll be on our air. She could make history as the first Hispanic justice. The third woman to sit on the nation's highest court. Follow it all live on CNN and cnn.com all this week.
CHETRY: All right. And continue the conversation as we said cnn.com/amfix and we'll see you back here tomorrow.
ROBERTS: All right. Now here's "CNN NEWSROOM" with Heidi Collins.
