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American Morning

New Jobs Reports Coming; Some Conservatives Accuse Obama of Political Speech to Students; New Accusations against Garrido; California Fire Determined Arson; College Cheating via Internet Rampant

Aired September 04, 2009 - 06:58   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: We're a couple minutes before the top of the hour at 6:58 Eastern. Thanks for joining us on the Most News in the Morning on this Friday, the last Friday of the summer season. It's September the 4th. I'm John Roberts.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Where did the time go? Well, we are following some big stories for you. We're breaking them down in the next 15 minutes.

First, hoping for signs of recovery. There is the new August jobs report. It's coming out in just 90 minutes, and one of the most closely watched indicators of the economy is this report. Meantime, Vice President Joe Biden is saying that the stimulus has been a success beyond expectation. Our Christine Romans is here with a look at the hard facts.

ROBERTS: Uproar over the president's back to school speech. Some parents and conservatives are angry over President Obama's plan to talk to students next week on Tuesday. One saying they send their kid to school to be educated, not indoctrinated. One state senator even compared the president to Saddam Hussein. Why some people are so angry, and where they're planning to boycott on Tuesday.

CHETRY: And new information this morning on the sex offender charged with abducting little Jaycee Dugard when she was just 11 and holding her captive in his backyard prison for 18 years. Now, police are saying a second woman has come forward saying Phillip Garrido raped her as well. This woman says she was only 14 at the time of the attack. A former FBI agent will be with us to explain how a man with a sexually violent past can fall through the cracks so easily.

But now to the big job report due out this morning. And although trends indicate that we are pulling out of the worst recession since World War II, the jobless rate's still looking grim. Unemployment is expected to increase again from 9.4 in July to 9.5 percent in August. Look at how it's been trending. There's a look. From January 2008 to July of 2009, we've seen the unemployment rate go from 5.4, tick up, tick up, tick up now to 9.4, where it stands this month. But then listen to how President - Vice President Joe Biden says the stimulus has affected the job picture.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One hundred days ago on June the 8th, I stated that we had - I believed that we had saved or created 150,000 jobs in the first 100 days. And I went on to say, again, over the objection of some of my more cautious advisers, I went on to say that we will create another 600,000 jobs in the second hundred days. On September the 10th, the Council of Economic Advisers plans to report to the nation their projections of jobs created or saved as a result of the Recovery Act.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: All right, well, Christine Romans joins us now with a look at what's really going on, Kiran. As we always say, unemployment a lagging indicator, right? When things turn around, it's usually the last thing that turns around. But what about what the vice president is saying in terms of being pretty optimistic?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: We will never be able to count - person, attach a person to the job, exactly how many jobs have been saved or created, saved or created. We just won't be able to. They use a formula where they look at how much money is out the door in stimulus money. I think every $92,000 out the door they count as one job.

And we know that some of these jobs, these paving jobs on the highway, for example, they are meant to last a week or a couple of weeks. A few them are just three days according to an AP study. A Washington State job is just three days.

So there are critics who say yes, are you creating those jobs maybe, but how long do they last and how much is that helping in the economy?

What we do know that is we should see from this jobs report today a 9.4, 9.5, 9.6 percent unemployment rate. The consensus is for 9.5 percent unemployment. That still feels pretty ugly to most people.

It's why when we look at the CNN opinion research poll you know that people still they still feel the recession, like we're in a recession, even though a lot of people are saying we've been pulling out of it.

So I want to tell you a little bit about this study from Rutgers, a fascinating study called "The Anguish of Unemployment." This explains why these polls are showing this.

The people at Rutgers really studied the people who have lost their jobs in the past year and asked them how it affected them? How do they feel about the jobless situation, the job situation? 68 percent say they are depressed, a strain in family relations 58 percent, they borrowed money from family or friends, 56 percent, they missed the mortgage payment or rent payments, 25 percent.

Most of them say their credit card bills going up. The researchers say the great recession from 2007 to 2009 is a mental health epidemic. And this is why there is so much more than just these statistics and throwing out the numbers. How many have been saved and created, what's the jobless rate. This is why it's so important, because people really are feeling this, and it will affect the psyche of the country for a while according to this report.

Also they said, who should help the unemployed? Government -- 51 percent said it's the government's job to try to help the unemployed, workers themselves, 33 percent, employers, 17 percent.

I want to go back to the government part of the equation. There is $25 extra in your unemployment check. Many states have extended unemployment benefits. You get COBRA subsidies if you're on unemployment, and that has been subsidized through the stimulus plan.

A lot of people don't know that. You are eligible for cheaper COBRA right now, some health insurance. So there are things that the government has been doing.

This is the first real look we've had of the pain behind those numbers. This is why all of these random statistics are not random.

ROBERTS: We look forward to the report coming out in about an hour and a half from now, right?

ROMANS: Yes.

ROBERTS: Christine Romans on the job this morning.

Just days before the president is set to take his make or break health care push to lawmakers, another distraction, another headache for the White House.

On Tuesday President Obama will talk to student across the country. It's billed as a speech to help them make the most out of their education, but it has some parents and conservatives absolutely livid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My rights as a parent are being circumvented.

ROBERTS: From talk radio to political circles, there is a lot of anger over the president's upcoming speech. The Department of Education says the goal is to challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.

But along with that came some suggestions for teachers, lesson plans asking students to "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." That's where the trouble started, and the head of Florida's Republican Party didn't hold back.

JIM GREER, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN PARTY OF FLORIDA: The parents across this country and the uproar that occurred, the Department of Education withdrew all of that language last night.

ROBERTS: And Greer didn't stop there. In a letter he charges the president was going to use the speech to sell his policy, saying "President Obama has turned to America's children to spread his liberal lies, indoctrinating America's youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves."

The response from the left? It's not about the lesson plans or the speech, but politics.

ROBERTS (on camera): Was there a little bit of a problem with the additional materials provide provided to go along with the speech?

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No. It's not a problem. What you have is you have some insane parents who want to bring their ideology to the table. Why is it -- I didn't see when president George W. Bush went to go read to students, I want to see what book he is reading. I want to pull my kid out of the class because he's a Democrat, he's a Republican. This is absolute nonsense.

ROBERTS: The Department of Education has changed those lesson plans now, instead suggesting students write letters to themselves about how they can achieve short-term and long-term education goals.

Some school districts in Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, and Wisconsin have decided not to show the speech, and others will let parents keep their kids out of the classroom during the speech if they want.

And many parents are even considering keeping their kids home from school altogether on Tuesday.

TAD MILLER, PARENT: I may have voted for McCain and Bush in the past. I wouldn't want them speaking to my student or your student or anybody else's student, for that matter, their child. Politics is totally up to the family.

ANDREA MILLER, PARENT: So will I send my child? I don't know. Right now, I would say no. I'll keep them home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: The White House says it will release a text of the speech on Monday, a day in advance so parents and educators can see it is not about politics, it's about education.

Our Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry live at the White House this morning. And Ed, how is the administration reacting to these claims that it's trying to push politics into the classroom other than the fact that they're going to release the speech a day early?

ED HENRY, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, they are really baffled by this controversy. They basically say, look, as you heard from that one person at the end of your piece who said he voted for George W. Bush that former President Bush was reading to students on the morning of 9/11 in a classroom.

His father, the first President Bush, spoke to students and gave an address around the country at a school based in D.C. in 1991, basically had a simple message -- stay in school, don't use drugs, et cetera.

And White House officials now say that President Obama has the same plan on Tuesday. He's going to basically say stay in school, study hard, work hard, et cetera, and that this is all about trying to encourage students to do the right thing and that is has nothing to do with politics.

And I think the key is what you said, is that they plan to release the speech on Monday. So then parent will have a chance to read it themselves, not focus on the noise back and forth from both sides, but read the speech itself and decide whether they want their students, their kids to hear that -- John?

CHETRY: It's also interesting. Earlier in the week, we sought president's poll numbers dipping a bit, but when we take a look at how it's affecting Democrats as a whole, it's pretty interesting.

We have some new numbers out. This is a CNN opinion research poll that came out this morning showing that 52 percent of people say that Democrats will move the country in the right direction as opposed to 45 percent who say Republicans will.

And when you ask, Ed, who is doing a better job handling the economy, foreign affairs, health care, Dems are getting the nod over Republicans. So where does this leave the GOP?

HENRY: What top White House aides are saying when they see poll numbers like this is they tell me, look, there has been a big exaggeration they believe in the media in recent weeks about all these town meetings, and they think that people have taken the wrong message that somehow this shows that the president and Democrats are down and Republicans are gaining a lot.

They point at a poll number like that and say if the president really took a big hit in August, where is the bounce for Republicans?

Nevertheless, they realize the president still does have a challenge, a big challenge next Wednesday night, that speech to a joint session of congress.

While some of our poll numbers in the last couple of days have suggested the American people want some sort of health reform, it isn't clear yet they want what the president himself is pushing. That's why maybe they want more specifics from him.

Next Wednesday night may be the last big chance for him to really lay that out -- Kiran?

CHETRY: Ed Henry for us. We'll see how it goes. Thanks so much.

And we're going to come right back. In a minute, we'll be talking, a very interesting interview. There is now a second woman reportedly coming forward to say that Phillip Garrido raped her too. She was only 14 at the time she claims.

And we're going to be speaking to a former FBI agent who is going to talk a little bit more about how it is that a man with such a sexually violent past seems to have been able to fall through the cracks for so many years. Don Clark joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.

Shocking new details now about the criminal past of sex offender Phillip Garrido, the man charged with kidnapping little Jaycee Dugard and holding her captive for 18 years in his backyard prison.

The story becomes more outrageous by the minute. Police now reveal that Garrido was arrested for allegedly raping a 14-year-old in 1972, but the charges were dropped when the teen refused to testify.

Don Clark is a former FBI special agent in charge of the Houston, Texas, office. He joins us this morning to talk more about this. Don, it's good to see you this morning.

This revelation that Phillip Garrido was arrested for the rape of a 14-year-old 40 years ago and yet never was high on a list of persons of interest when Jaycee Dugard disappeared in 1991, how does that strike you?

DON CLARK, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: It really is sort of appalling now. But you know, John, looking back, I can understand to some extent, because up until 9/11, we didn't look at law enforcement in terms of a prevention mechanism. All we looked at really was we need to arrest people and put them in jail and not try to prevent these crimes.

And today you see a different pattern of law enforcement of trying to put procedures and processes in place so that they can try and stop these crimes before they get started.

ROBERTS: But Don, if you're an investigator and you have a little girl abducted as she was on her way to the bus stop, don't you look at some of the "usual suspects" to say who could we go call up, whose door could we knock on to see if we can get some leads here?

CLARK: John, sounds like great law enforcement to me. You're absolutely right that that's exactly what you do. And that's what law enforcement has to do, even if it was 20 years ago today.

You really had to start to what's in your neighborhood, what type of crime problems that you have and try to put the mechanism in place to keep these things from growing any larger.

ROBERTS: When it comes to Phillip Garrido, the neighbors seemed to have an idea of what was going on. Three years ago, a neighbor called the police, said "Crazy Phil," as they called him, a sex addict, has girls living in tents in his backyard. The Contra Costa sheriff's department sent an investigator over, knocked on his door, talked to him about it, didn't know he was a registered sex offender, didn't know that he was a parolee and therefore didn't have the rights that you and I do, that he could have searched the premises, just kind of dropped the ball it would seem on that.

CLARK: I think you just have to call it what it is. I don't understand, and I know many people feel the same way, is that how did this happen for so long without somebody having wind of what was going on?

And particularly, as you just said, is that, wait a second, this guy is on parole, which means that he doesn't have the rights that a normal citizen has. You don't need a search warrant to search his place.

And then when you move on forward a little bit, I understand that neighbors were coming out saying hey, look, something strange is going on. Then somebody along the line there perhaps dropped the ball, because they should have been able to send somebody out and say let's take a look at this.

ROBERTS: So you had the one person, that Berkeley police officer who said, wait a minute, there is something amiss here. If it hasn't been for her, Jaycee Dugard may still be living in the tent in that shack in his backyard.

So what's the difference between that police officer and the police officer from the sheriff's department and the parole officer that went over to his place and didn't find anything amiss?

CLARK: I think forward thinking. I think looking at the situation, gathering what information that has been given out there, looking at the circumstances and saying, wait a second, this doesn't seem right. You know, and if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is.

So we need to do something here to try look at this situation, find out what we could do, what this person may be doing, and if he's not doing anything, that's fine.

And I tell you, John, we went through the same thing here in Texas. We had a lot of girls down her in Houston, young girls who were kidnapped and taken away, and but for Tim Miller and myself trying to get together and put together different types of organizational structures so that we could prevent these things from taking place.

ROBERTS: The Vallejo "Times Herald," the local newspaper, had an interesting take on all of this, the difference between procedure and inquisitiveness.

In an editorial, they said, quote, "It's easy to teach procedures. It's much harder to instill inquisitiveness, whether it be cops, teachers, parole officers, doctors, or even journalists. Clearly Lisa Campbell, who was the special events manager for the U.C. Berkeley Police Department has it."

So, can you teach that? When you're bringing somebody up through law enforcement, when you have them at the academy, you're teaching them all the procedures. But can you instill in them a sense of inquisitiveness, or is that a natural characteristic that some people have and some don't?

CLARK: I think you can expose the young officer coming up.

Look, it's not all about seeing a crime occur, and knowing a crime has occurred, and putting handcuffs on things. The whole thing right now is about prevention, John, and that's why law enforcement has moved to.

I know the FBI has for years, and the police department, again, too, is that they just don't sit there in their police cars and wait for a crime to occur and say, OK, let's go and arrest the person. You have to work on prevention.

But prevention back in the early '90s, nobody wanted to listen to that. And it wasn't until 9/11 that all of a sudden in all of these areas, from terrorist to major crime, we said, wait a second, we better start trying to do something to prevent these things, teach the law enforcement officers, teach all the people involved to put the mechanisms in place to prevent these crimes, and you would stop some of the major issues that's going on that we're talking about right now.

ROBERTS: Well, it would appear that one sheriff's department did not get that message.

Don, it's great to talk to you this morning. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

CLARK: Good to talk to you, John, thank you.

ROBERTS: Kiran.

CHETRY: All week we had Rob Marciano on the fire line down in Los Angeles as the battled that huge blaze called the station fire. Now they are looking at clues into how this started. Rob goes along with the fire investigators.

It's 17 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's 18 minutes past the hour.

There are some dramatic new developments in the Los Angeles wildfire. The U.S. Forest Service says the cause of the so-called station fire that burned 250 square miles and left two firefighters dead is arson. It's now being treated as a homicide investigation.

Our Rob Marciano on the trail with fire investigators combing through the ashes and looking for answers. And this is so unique, Rob, how they're able to do this, because so much of the evidence, you'd imagine, goes up in flames.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it's really remarkable to watch these scientists work.

We're at the Auburn fire, which is a fire that broke out Sunday afternoon here outside of Sacramento at about 2:00 and was just a firestorm. It took out this entire community.

And you can be sure with word now coming this far north that the station fire was caused by arson, the people who live in this community want to know how this fire got started.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think every fire is different.

MARCIANO: Days after a fire swept across Auburn, California, wiping out 63 homes, investigators still don't know how it started.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You starts from the area where the fire is furthest away and work your way back, following the various burn patterns to the area where we determine to be the area of origin.

MARCIANO: Fire analyst Ron Hall and his team of investigators are trying to figure it out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a fire, and it has its own earmarks and its had its own character, and you work with it.

MARCIANO: They comb the torched landscape for clues, measuring.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How far you got?

MARCIANO: Mapping. They are looking for the source.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We identify each and every potential ignition source.

MARCIANO: Nothing goes unnoticed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll see the burn on this side. And we also look at ground litter. What I mean by that, debris that's laying on the ground.

Now, this looks like what remains of a plastic gas cap. We just created the ultimate crime.

MARCIANO: Whoops.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire can burn fingerprints off, yes.

As you look at the needles, or leaves in this case, on this vegetation you can see how they are all curled in this direction.

MARCIANO (on camera): So now what goes through your mind as you zero in on what you think is ground zero?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As you start to move into the area of origin, you have been all along looking at something inconsistent, fire moving in different directions, or maybe multiple points of origin. In this area, we only have one area of origin, and that's in this corner.

MARCIANO (voice-over): It may have started in this corner, but they still don't know why.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's all a challenge. It's trying to figure out the truth, what really did happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARCIANO: Ron is actually hired by insurance companies to get a third-party assessment as to why this happen. The Cal fire out here also doing their investigation.

There is still no word as to how. They know where, they just don't know how. About a mile down that way, and it just ran up this hill and took out this entire community in a matter of minutes.

The people that live in this home we talked to yesterday, John and Laura Cook. Laura runs a daycare center here. They have been living here for about 20 years.

She said she desperately wanted to save her husband's truck, but the flames were running up her house, and the smoke was so thick she couldn't see two feet in front of her, so she just had to get out.

Scary moments here in Auburn, and frustrating, Kiran, because they don't know why this -- how and why this fire got started Sunday afternoon.

CHETRY: Hopefully using the expertise that you showed us, they will be able to figure out and be able to sift through and find some clues. But still it won't bring their house back, just such a tragedy there.

Rob, thank you so much for being with us.

MARCIANO: You bet.

ROBERTS: And coming up next, we've got the final part in our series on "Educating America." Our Carol Costello is looking at problems in education in America all across the land.

And the question that we're asking today, are our children learning, or is they not learning because they're cheating by stealing stuff off the Internet? She has got a look at all of that.

It's coming up now on 23 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Certainly times have changed. If you're going to school now, have you your computer, your laptop, your iPhone, your access to thousands upon thousands of articles on anything you could possibly need to know right at your fingertips.

ROBERTS: Yes. The steam engine was a major innovation when I was in college.

(LAUGHTER)

CHETRY: Why we're talking about this morning because copying your homework from the kid next to you, trying to grab answers from a text book during a pop quiz, this is what happened during our generations. But it's a whole new world.

ROBERTS: And then came -- well, first the personal computer in my life, and then the Internet. And students learned fast with the web and just a little bit of cash, they could take cheating to a whole new level.

Our Carol Costello is live for us in Washington this morning with the latest and last installment in our "Educating America" series. Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

The problem is insane. As you know, cheating is a widespread problem at universities across the country. I wondered how many of the nation's college students were cheating and who was helping them do it.

Here's a hint. Millions of students are outsourcing their brains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Look at the word "cheater." It's awful. But educators say many students would rather cheat than fail. This young woman, who asked us not to use her name or university, was a cheater.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And a lot of students, they feel very stressed and pressured, and they kind of get cornered and they trap themselves or they mentally trap themselves and feel like they have no other way out. So then they cheat.

COSTELLO: The University of California San Diego actually has a mandatory seminar for students who cheat -- 600 took part this year.

It used to be Americans would pay American student to cheat for them. Today, often unbeknownst to the American cheater, he or she is going online to outsource their brains to places as far away as Pakistan and India.

PROF. TRICIA BETRAM-GALLENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO: Of course that's contributing to making America and other societies "dumber," quote-unquote, because they aren't learning how to do the work themselves and how to communicate. COSTELLO: One man from the Philippines who's didn't want to be identified says he's written dozens of term papers for American students.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's unethical work. I come from a simple country. It's good pay.

COSTELLO: How much did they pay you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got as much as $15 a page. It was a topic on the state of the U.S. economy in 1950.

COSTELLO (on camera): So I'm on this site called "Best Essays," and they right on the site "We work hard to achieve academic excellence."

COSTELLO (voice-over): And it says it's provided students with original papers since 1997. So I requested a three-page paper on Jason Blair, the former reporter who was fired after making up stories for "The New York Times." Total cost for a three-page paper?

COSTELLO (on camera): It' going to cost me $80.97.

COSTELLO (voice-over): "Best Essay" is not the only so-called Internet paper mill. There are literally hundreds of them online. It's become such a problem more than a dozen states have made such services illegal. Yet, they thrive.

COSTELLO (on camera): What these companies are doing isn't legal here, yet they survive. Why do you think that is?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because they are not based in the United States. They are based in Ukraine. They try to make it appear that the company is based in the U.S., but no, it's now. They're only making it appear so that the students will sign up and place their order.

COSTELLO: Victor Guevara lives in this house in Virginia. For years his address was listed as the home of essaywriters.net, a site that recruits writers to write term papers.

Virginia authorities tell us Guevara and his house have nothing to do with the site.

VICTOR GUEVARA, HOMEOWNER, HERNDON, VIRGINIA: I still receive mail for them, credit card statements or invoices for people who have written for them and have gotten ripped off. I have one here.

COSTELLO: Virginia authorities tell us there is little they can do since these paper mill sites can be headquartered in places like the Ukraine or anywhere in the world.

So as long as the word "cheater" continues to be OK with so many students, Internet paper mills will continue to thrive, and American brains will continue to get dumber.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: I called "Best Essay" to ask them about their service. The woman on the phone said, yes, she could tell me a paper, but she could not answer questions about the company because I was a reporter.

However, I did receive my three-page essay on journalistic ethics and Jason Blair. And I sent the paper to American University professor John Watson, a journalism professor. And guess what grade he gave it?

KURTZ: C plus.

COSTELLO: No. An F.

ROBERTS: No, because he recognized it.

COSTELLO: Not just because of that. He said, and I quote, "The first sentence does not express a coherent thought. Indeed, the entire essay does not show college-level organization or coherency."

And as I said before, he knew immediate it was not written by a student because it was written by someone, obviously English was not their first language.

KURTZ: Did you get your $80.97?

ROBERTS: You got ripped off there.

COSTELLO: No, they charted the credit card.

ROBERTS: Read the first sentence.

COSTELLO: This is the first sentence on "Journalistic Ethics, the Case of Jason Blair." "The media acting as the eyes of the society ought to practice its role with the highest journalistic ethics possible, feeding the society with information of unquestionable source to perpetuate the credibility and the moral obligations bestowed to it." What?

ROBERTS: Yes, you lost me. Get your money back.

COSTELLO: Don't do it. That should be the message.

CHETRY: No, of course, I mean, it goes without saying. And, you know, you heard the case for some of these students that say they can't take the pressure, and they want to do well. But the other interesting thing is, aren't colleges and even high schools getting more savvy as well? They can actually detect if something has been culled from the internet?

COSTELLO: They have software that can detect essays written for lots of people. So one essay for a lot of students. They can check that but an essay like this was written - this is a single essay written for a single individual, much harder to trace. If this were more well written, it would have been tougher for the professor to determine that the kid didn't write it. ROBERTS: To tell, they have a much easier time in life if you actually learn this stuff than you just rip it off from somebody. Carol, thanks so much. Fascinating series. Great work this week.

COSTELLO: Thank you.

ROBERTS: All right. Thirty-one and a half minutes after the hour. Here are this morning's top stories.

CHETRY: That's right. North Korea says it's now in the final stage of enriching uranium. That would give the nation a second wave to make a nuclear bomb. North Koreans say they are moving ahead with their nuclear programs in spite of international calls to stop because of the U.N.'s efforts to tighten sanctions against them.

ROBERTS: Michael Jackson has finally been laid to rest 70 days after his death. The 26 cars carrying the Jackson clan were late arriving to a private burial service last night at Forest Lawn Cemetery in California, leaving mourners like 77-year-old Elizabeth Taylor waiting in the 90-degree heat for nearly two hours. The Jackson family was divided over the king of pop's final resting place.

CHETRY: Brazen I-burglars caught on tape. Police are now searching for five bandit who's smashed the plate glass window at a New Jersey Apple store and cleaned house. Local news report saying they got away with 23 Macbook Pros, nine Ipod Touches, 14 iPhones, in the smash and grab, and all in about 31 seconds. So far, police have not identified the suspect.

ROBERTS: From high school football star to hero, and not for anything he did on the field. After a 14-year-old girl pulled out a gun on his bus ride to school and here is the videotape of that. 6'4", 255-pound Kaleb Eulls tackled the armed girl and got the gun away from her. You can see it here on the security camera although some of the images have been blurred to protect some of the people because they are minors. There were 22 other children on the bus, including Caleb's four sisters and two cousins.

Police say there is no telling how many lives he may have saved. And Kaleb Eulls joins us now from Jackson, Mississippi. Kaleb, great to talk to you this morning. Amazing work that you did there. Set the scene for us. You're on your way to school. It's a 90-minute bus ride from your home in the rural part of Mississippi to school. What happened?

KALEB EULLS, TACKLED GIRL WITH GUN ON SCHOOL BUS: Basically I was sleeping with an mp3 player in my ear, and one of my younger sisters woke me up and said Kaleb, the girl has a gun and immediately I woke up and put my glasses on.

ROBERTS: And so you took an immediate assessment of the scene. Tell, us, what did you see? What was the girl doing with the gun? Was she menacing the students? Was she making demands?

EULLS: She was pointing it back toward our way, everybody at the back of the bus. ROBERTS: And so was she saying anything?

EULLS: She was just yelling and just using language and just yelling and saying she was tired of everybody messing with her and stuff.

ROBERTS: And did she threaten people, did she threaten the students? Did she say I'm going to shoot you all? Or what did she say?

EULLS: Yes, she says that she'll just shoot and she'll pull the trigger.

ROBERTS: Oh, my goodness. So what went through your mind in those split seconds when she was waving the gun around saying she might shoot people?

EULLS: Just safety at first. I just opened the emergency door and try to get everybody out while I grabbed her attention...

ROBERTS: Right.

EULLS: And when I tried to...

ROBERTS: And then you, defensive end, 6'4", 255 pounds, as we said, decided to take matters into your own hands and you went for the young woman and you went for the gun. Tell us kind of like what that process was. It's not many people will go after somebody who is waving a gun around?

EULLS: As I tried to catch her attention, you know, to get everybody safe off the bus, and I just tried to just focused directly on me, just point the gun at me so I know it wasn't pointed at anyone else besides me. And in a split second, I guess she looked off the bus or flinched or blinked, and I just knew that was my chance, and I just went at her.

ROBERTS: So you hit her in a full running tackle?

EULLS: Yes, sir.

ROBERTS: Wow. Brave man. Scouts say you have on the field got a real knack for knocking the ball loose. Did you have in your mind, when I hit her, I got to make sure that I have to get the gun knocked loose?

EULLS: Yes, sir.

ROBERTS: All right. So the gun did come loose. I mean, your weight on top of her, obviously, it's going to have an impact - you knocked the gun loose, what did you do then?

EULLS: As I got the gun, I just told my bus driver that I had it and ran out of the back of the bus with it and disarmed it.

ROBERTS: Wow. And she chased you out of the back of the bus as I understand it. As you said, your four sisters, two cousins on the bus, why did you decide to do something instead of just sitting back there like everybody else did?

EULLS: At that point, I just knew that something had to be done or that the situation, it could have been worse. At that point, I knew something had to be done.

ROBERTS: Wow. What was the reaction from the community been, Kaleb?

EULLS: The reaction is everybody just called me a hero, a great role model and a great person.

ROBERTS: Wow. And so what about you in your life? As we said, scouts have been looking at you. They think you got some talent there. You want to play college ball?

EULLS: Yes, sir.

ROBERTS: Well, you certainly have been brought to the attention of a lot more people as a result of your heroism on that bus. Kaleb Eulls, it's a terrific thing you did. I tell you, though, dangerous thing too. I think - hats off to you as well for getting people out of that fix that they were in. Thanks so much for joining us this morning. I really appreciate it.

EULLS: Yes, sir. Thank you.

ROBERTS: All right. Can imagine...

CHETRY: He's so modest.

ROBERTS: ... in that situation? All it takes is one shot. It doesn't matter if you're 6 feet 4", 254 lbs. Bullets are going to do a lot of damage.

CHETRY: Yes and he's so humble about it too. Is he?

ROBERTS: He is. I love the fact that he says I woke up and put on my glasses.

CHETRY: You know, just getting prepared. You never know.

Well, still ahead. It's interesting. Christine Romans says that some of the economists have dubbed this a he-session, meaning that people losing their job more likely to be a guy than a girl in this current economic environment. So what does the role of women in the workplace mean in this day and age? And does it mean equal pay even though there are less women being actually affected by the recession and the job losses? Very interesting discussion. We're going to be having with the president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, coming up in just a moment. Thirty-seven minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: (INAUDIBLE) Of course, it's dark in the control room as well. Poor guys. Get some more coffee, I guess. Welcome back to the most news in the morning.

When it comes to job losses in this recession, men have been let go at a higher rate than women. Some are calling it a he-session. Women are on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce for the first time actually. So how did we get here. Is this a temporary or could this be a more permanent trend? Heidi Hartmann, a labor economist and president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research joins us to talk a little bit about this. Heidi, thanks for being with us this morning.

HEIDI HARTMANN, PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN'S POLICY RESEARCH: Good morning.

CHETRY: So it's a very interesting article, on the front page of "USA Today" that talked about the fact that women are, you know, on pace to outnumber men in the workforce right now and that we're seeing this recession hit men harder. First of all why is that generally speaking?

HARTMANN: Well, in general, women have been increasing their participation in the labor force. They have been getting more college education. They have outnumbered college graduates, men, since the 1980s. So, of course, they are working more. In some sense, I would like to say they are voting with their feet away from their family, toward the labor market. Having fewer children, spacing them closer together, and it allows them more time to use their education and to work. This is a very long time. It is being aggravated by this recession because as you said, men are losing more jobs, primarily because they are concentrated in construction and manufacturing, which are exactly the sectors that are the hardest hit.

CHETRY: Very interesting. And so we look at the unemployment rate, if you break it down among genders, we have men, unemployment rate for men right now around 10 percent and women closer to 70 percent. Where we have seen job growth, the health care field, education, government, those are also jobs right where on balance women are more likely in those fields.

HARTMANN: Exactly, especially education and health. Now in government, I tends to be more equal but government now, they're going to be having some budget problems and usually education will be the very last field that they cut. So women's jobs are a bit more protected there.

CHETRY: It's interesting though they say at the current pace, women will be the majority of workers actually, the majority, by October or November, according to the data that's been released. Yet, at the same time, we're not seeing as many changes in terms of equal pay. Women still make about, what, 77 percent of what men make on average. Why haven't we seen pay disparities come a little bit closer together?

HARTMANN: Well, that's the $64,000 question. Everyone would love to know the answer to that, because then we could fix it. But again, a long, slow progress. When I first started studying this, women earned only about 60 percent of what men did. Now, it's almost up to 80 percent. We'll get some new numbers next week actually and we'll see how we're doing.

Again, women are increasing their experience in the labor market, and you do get paid for what the economists call your human capital. So the more education you have, the more experience you have in the labor market, the higher your wages. Of course, I believe there is still discrimination and I would love to see that come to equality. We've estimated that it could take another 50 years. I guess I hope it would be a little sooner.

CHETRY: And also, when we take a look at the disparities once again, it is interesting. You take a lock at the "Fortune" 500 companies, out of the "Fortune" 500 companies, there are only 15 to have a woman CEO and none of the top 25, none of the big banks, none of the big financial firms that we're talking about.

So we have made strides, yet, at the same time, we do still see that there are differences in gender when it comes to the workforce.

HARTMANN: Absolutely. I mean, one of the things we're not doing as well with in this country is just making it easier for women and men who have family obligations to combine work and family and I think that does, you know, tend to keep women back more than men. Because it is women's traditional role to take care of the family. We have a lot less subsidized child care. We don't have paid family leave. Many workers don't even have a single paid sick day.

So these are all things that especially parents need to help them do both. And other countries are really doing better at that than we are. I think, you know, women are clearly stepping up to the plate and trying to take on their share of financial support of the family. I think also, I'd like to see men take on more of their share of the work of family care and I think once we equalize that, we'll see a lot more equality in the labor market as well.

CHETRY: It's coming along on that front. It certainly has changed since the last generation if you ask my parents and some others. You know, you see how much our husbands help out as well. But, yes, we could always improve, right? Heidi Hartmann, a labor economist and president for the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Great to talk to you this morning. Thanks.

HARTMANN: Thank you.

CHETRY: Forty-five minutes past the hour.

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ROBERTS: Good morning, Dallas, where the sun is just beginning to come up. A little sliver of sunlight there. Partly cloudy and 71 there right now. Later on today, it is going to be stormy. Stormy weather and a high of 89 degrees.

Jacqui Jeras at the weather center in Atlanta this morning, tracking all the extreme weather across the country. What are we looking at, Jacqui?

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, well, you know, we're looking at storm right now outside of Dallas. Dallas itself is doing OK, but just west of Ft. Worth, we're looking at showers and thundershowers. You get a whole line here which extends north of there and moves all the way down to Houston. So we are expecting to have some trouble. You know, it's the big holiday weekend.

Hey, all you travelers, you will have delays, we think, in DFW later on today. At least 15 to 30 minutes or so. Miami, Ft. Lauderdale as well as Orlando, we'll see some delays and then Sea-Tac due to a new storm system that's moving in there. Low clouds and some rains in your neighborhood as well.

Let's take a look at the big picture for today, and you know, overall, the vast majority of the country is seeing great weather. So that's good news for you holiday travelers but if you're trying to head to the beach, we're going to be watching for problems along the Gulf Coast throughout much of Florida. Temperature wise though it's going to be great. Cooler than normal across the northern tier. Well, it's going to stay hot across much of the Rockies.

This is your holiday weekend forecast. This is kind of what you see today is what you get with the big exception of the northwest where a new system is going to move through. You can see the first snowfall of the year in the Cascades before the weekend is out. And staying active and wet across the southeast. So watch out for those showers and thundershowers.

The northeast beaches looks really great. We're going to see sunshine in (INAUDIBLE) town. Temperatures in the 70s as well as all the way down to Cape May, and just if you are really wondering whatever happened to Erika. We didn't mention that yet today, it has become a remnant low. So we're just looking at heavy rains today for Puerto Rico - John.

ROBERTS: All right. So speaking of that, you know, we've soon a couple of storms come up near the East Coast and then bend off and kind of fizzled. Next hour, you're going to be taking a look at why we haven't been seeing, you know, the typical pattern of hurricanes going through the Gulf of Mexico right and headed toward the United States?

JERAS: That's right. Could be El Nino, it looks like. We'll talk about that coming up next hour.

ROBERTS: Looking forward to that. Thanks, Jacqui.

CHETRY: So a good thing either way, right? A little bit of a reprieve.

ROBERTS: Yes. It's - El Nino is bad for California in the wintertime but it's good for hurricane - lack of development at least in the summertime. So...

CHETRY: All right. Well, we look forward to seeing Jacqui's report.

Meanwhile, we'll be joined by Jason Carroll with another report about why the popularity of the iPhone could be the reason your calls are dropping on your cell. 50 minutes past the hour.

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ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. There is new controversy this morning surrounding Afghanistan's recent presidential election. Officials were trying to have results ready today, but reports say they could now be delayed by - not days, but weeks. And as the vote counting continues, the calls from opposition candidates are growing louder, saying that the vote was rigged.

So what does that mean for the Pentagon's mission there. Our foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty is live at the State Department this morning. Jill, they were hoping to get some stability there in Afghanistan, particularly on the part of the government, and it looks like that's going to be delayed for a while.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, John. And you know, let's stand back a little bit here. President Obama says that the goal in Afghanistan is clear. Disrupt, dismantle, defeat al Qaeda. But right now, the strategy to reach that goal seems anything but clear, militarily and politically.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY (voice-over): It was supposed to be a milestone in winning Afghanistan back from the Taliban. Presidential elections, free and fair.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: This was an important step forward in the Afghan's peoples' efforts to take control of their future, even as violent extremists are trying to stand in their way.

DOUGHERTY: But could President Barack Obama's words come back to haunt him? Allegations of massive vote fraud on the behalf of the current president, Hamid Karzai, are tarnishing that image of democracy and the candidate himself.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, U.S. ENVOY TO PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN: We have no candidates and no preference as to whether there is a first- round victory or a runoff.

DOUGHERTY: Sources tell CNN that Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Obama's top envoy on Afghanistan, had a very difficult discussion with Karzai over the elections. The Obama administration is encouraging Karzai to legitimize the elections by allowing a runoff. Without it, they fear he could be politically damaged in the eyes of his fellow Afghans. Weakened public trust in the Afghan government could increase violence and undermine the military mission to defeat the Taliban. Meanwhile, casualties are mounting and Americans, especially Democrats and independents, are losing faith in the Afghan war. A new CNN opinion research corporation poll shows 57 percent of all Americans now oppose it, significantly higher than in April, when 46 percent did. Can the president convince them it's worth it?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: The point is, you can't win it just inside Afghanistan. You've got to deal with Pakistan and you've got to deal with the enemy base there and with Al Qaeda. And I think it's up to the administration to define the task in such a way that the American people can understand it.

DOUGHERTY: One expert who helped monitor the Afghan election says time is running out.

KARIN VON HIPPEL, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: I think the U.S. is interested in the next 18 months and turning this thing around. If it doesn't happen, I think Congress may pull the plug. And I think that Karzai is very aware of that. So that sense of urgency is being translated on the ground.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY: A key issue in Afghanistan and in the United States is confidence. And right now, those elections are undermining that confidence in both countries. John -

ROBERTS: Jill Dougherty for us at the State Department this morning. Jill, thanks so much. Now five minutes to the top of the hour. We'll be right back.

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CHETRY: Three minutes before the top of the hour. Welcome back to the most news in the morning. The heated debate over health care reform has been raging from the halls of Congress to town halls across the country. One Virginia lawmaker though who is still undecided is going the extra mile to listen to constituents as he tries to wrestle with his conscience as well.

CNN's senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash is live in Washington with that story. I'm sure there is a lot of people whose colleagues especially that want to convince him one way or the other.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And the House fresh and Democrat - he left for summer recess five weeks ago thinking, Kiran, that his party's health care bill taxes too much, doesn't do enough to cut health care costs. Well, we spent time with him, trying to find out what his constituents think away from the town halls. He had a tough message, also, for the president.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BASH (voice-over): Here's something you haven't seen during the summer of angry town halls.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Welcome so much for coming to my home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my pleasure.

BASH: A health care house call. Democrat congressman Gerry Connolly at Susan Burton's table, invited to hear her explain why she have to cut health coverage for workers at her small business.

SUSAN BURTON, RESIDENT OF FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA: A thousand for family coverage. So that's the one we went with. That's outrageous for group.

BASH: Connolly, a freshman, wants to back health reform, but is wary because his Virginia district is fairly conservative. Afterwards, the congressman lamented that deep concern he heard here about the current health care system has been drowned out.

(on camera): Why is public opinion turning against health care reform if you have stories like that?

REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D), VIRGINIA: Well, partly we've had a steady drum beat of the negative, playing on people's fears and anxieties and to some extent, that's clearly taken hold. This is the bill.

BASH (voice-over): In a car ride through his district, Connolly blamed his own party, especially the president, for losing control of the debate.

CONNOLLY: The White House candidly underestimated the passion on the other side. I think we underestimated the ability of the opposition to, you know, really, initially, frame the issue in outlandish ways.

BASH: Connolly goes back to his district office to see Democratic groups scrambling to reframe the debate and get his vote.

DELORES GARBER, COMMUNICATION WORKERS OF AMERICA: That was the whole point of us getting people elected.

BASH: Members of a local union there to lobby him in one room. And in another, volunteers from the president's political group, Organizing for America, deliver a box of petitions and bring emotional stories of pre-existing conditions that make insurance unaffordable.

KARIMA HIJAN, RESIDENT OF VIENNA, VIRGINIA: And I had to resign from my job because of my health issues.

BASH: Connolly says those meetings are effective, but back in the car this Democrat with conservative constituents says what he really needs is better leadership from the president. CONNOLLY: We need Obama to maybe put aside the cool, cerebral part of himself. We need a more passionate Obama who can directly articulate to Americans why we need health care.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Now Congressman Connolly was just elected last November. Before that, a Republican represented his district for 14 years. He told me it's time for the president to take advantage of his big Democratic majority in Congress by really engaging. He said, Kiran, roll up his sleeves and cut a deal.

CHETRY: We're going to see what happens. As we know he's going to be addressing the nation on that next week. Dana Bash, great to see you. Thanks.

BASH: You too.