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CNN Saturday Morning News
U.S. Student Convicted of Murder in Italy; Operation "Cobra's Anger"; Tiger's "Transgressions"; Tough Job Market
Aired December 05, 2009 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TJ HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR, SATURDAY MORNING: Hello there, everybody, from the CNN Center, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING for December the 5th. I'm TJ Holmes.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR, SATURDAY MORNING: December the 5th. We're getting close to the end of the year folks. Hello, everybody, I'm Betty Nguyen. Thanks so much for starting your day with us. The unemployment rate has gone down just a little bit, that's the good news. But for the nation's youngest workers, the unemployment rate is nearly double that and some are calling for help from the White House. We're going to explain.
HOLMES: Also you couldn't help, you couldn't get away from the story this week, the Tiger Woods saga.
NGUYEN: Everywhere.
HOLMES: Admitting to some transgressions as he put it in his marriage. That started a lot of conversations. Everywhere you go, people want to talk about this story in some way, form or fashion, People talk about infidelity. So this morning we're going to show you some ways that people can keep up with their spouse.
NGUYEN: To check up on your significant other.
HOLMES: To check up on them.
NGUYEN: To track them, to hunt them down.
HOLMES: OK, let's go with track.
NGUYEN: I'm just being honest here, folks.
HOLMES: Our tech guy has some tech tools that people can use to try to keep up with that loved one.
NGUYEN: And it's all legal.
HOLMES: Yes, it's legal.
NGUYEN: Quite a story, though.
HOLMES: Mario Armstrong, you do not want to miss him this morning.
NGUYEN: All right. Let's get to our top stories right now. American student Amanda Knox guilty in Italy. She's been sentenced to 26 years in prison. Her Italian ex-boyfriend also sentenced to 25 years. Both though convicted of killing Knox's British roommate Meredith Kercher. Prosecutors say they tried to force Kercher into a sex game. The pair must pay nearly $7.5 million to Kercher's family and a third person has also been convicted but in a separate trial. Appeals though are expected.
HOLMES: The FBI and Chicago police want to know who broke into the offices of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's attorneys and made off with eight computers and a safe. Blagojevich is expected to go on trial in June. Sources say the computers contain undercover recordings in the corruption case against him. The police are not confirming that just yet. Blagojevich's lawyer says he's not speculating on a motive just yet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM ADAM JR., ROD BLAGOJEVICH'S ATTORNEY: ... would never speculate that this was a political dirty trick thing. I would not say that, no. It seems to me, it's a burglary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: Well, if you have cans of Slim-Fast at home, listen up, because the manufacturer, Unilever, is recalling the weight loss drinks because of possible bacterial contamination. The recall applies only to cans of the drinks, not other Slim-Fast items like powdered shakes or snack bars. So if you have those cans, throw them away. The FDA is looking into Unilever's production plant in Tennessee to try to find the source of the problem.
HOLMES: We're going to head now back to one of the top stories today, the verdict for that American exchange student in Italy. A jury gave Amanda Knox 26 years in prison for killing her roommate. Our Paula Newton has been following this story for us. She's live for us this morning in Italy where that verdict came down last night. Tell us what Amanda Knox is waking up to this morning.
PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, she has already woken up although I have to tell you, her defense lawyers say she barely got any sleep at all. She was inconsolable. She was comforted by her fellow inmates who just made her some hot drinks and tried to talk her through the situation. TJ, we understand her parents are on the way to the prison. They perhaps will be allowed a visit, within the next half an hour for about an hour. Of course, they're telling me they're trying to keep her spirits up and they will tell her that they love her. (INAUDIBLE) her mother expects to stay here for several weeks at least through the Christmas to give her some comfort.
Now going back to the case, the appeals version of this will now begin. It will be a very long process. We spoke this morning with Meredith Kercher's family. She is the victim in all of this and her family have always kept a very dignified distance from all of this but today they did say TJ that they have a measure of justice for their sister and their daughter, but they were very clear to say they're not celebrating this, that it's still quite sad and they realize that the lives of the two young people convicted, Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend (INAUDIBLE), that those lives have now been irreparably shattered. TJ.
HOLMES: What is next for Amanda Knox? What are her options as far as an appeals process? Here in the United States we're used to our justice system and when you can appeal and how that works. Well, how does it work there for her in Italy?
NEWTON: It's almost an automatic appeals process. They first have to wait for the written ruling from her actual conviction. That's expected to come out now within the next 60 days. After that, then on that basis they start the appeal. We might have our first hearing about the end of the summer, but it's a very, very long process. The only thing Amanda Knox's family is holding on to is the fact that the appeals process here usually have more success in bringing up lack of evidence, lack of forensic evidence, lack of motive and any kind of irregularities in the police work.
HOLMES: Paula Newton for us morning, Paula, thank you so much as always.
NGUYEN: Obviously nothing can ever bring Meredith Kercher back but her family has no argument with the verdict in this case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYLE KERCHER, BROTHER OF MEREDITH KERCHER: We're very satisfied that the prosecution who put her case together they worked very hard for. It has reached a climax, as it were, if it's not the ultimate climax for now because of course I'm sure there will be some ongoing appeals and so on which I'm sure will be discussed later. But ultimately you know, we are pleased with the decision, pleased that we've got a decision, but it's not a time for celebration at the end of the day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now that the president has announced his plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and his hopes of getting them out by July 2011, he's facing a battle on the home front. Did his speech Tuesday convince more Americans to support the war? CNN's deputy political director Paul Steinhauser here with the details from a new poll. Paul, good morning to you kind sir. So what's the word? Did his speech word as far as building up support from the American public?
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Our poll indicates yes it did TJ. He went prime time on Tuesday night as we all remember to lay out his Afghanistan policy. We went out in the field Wednesday and Thursday with our poll. Take a look at these numbers. We asked the question, do you support the president's decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan? You can see right there a very solid majority, more than six in 10 Americans say yes they favor that movement. TJ, that comes even though the poll also indicates that a slight majority does not support the war in Afghanistan. HOLMES: But they favor the move, necessarily, but do they necessarily favor how the president announced he's going to go about it and when he's going to be pulling troops out, that date, that 2011 date kind of threw a lot of people off, didn't sit right with a lot of his critics. But how did it sit with the public?
STEINHAUSER: You're absolutely right. That was one of the other big parts of the speech. Now our poll indicates that a majority of Americans, about two out of three support that move. But this is what they didn't support, the fact that the president actually announced that he would start bringing troops home in July of 2011. Six out of 10 say that was a bad idea even though they liked the idea of bringing them home in '11, they didn't like the fact that he actually announced it TJ.
HOLMES: And he still jut now in his first year, seems like a lot has happened in his first year but still just his first year. This is a war that's been going on for some eight-plus years now. So has it become this president's war just yet in the eyes of the public or do they still think this is a lot of President Bush's doing?
STEINHAUSER: They still blame President Bush for the conditions on the ground right now and most Americans in our poll suggests don't think the war is going very well for U.S. troops, but they are starting to blame this new president. Take a look at these numbers. We asked, if by July 2011, things are not going well, whose fault is it, George Bush, Barack Obama. You can see right there, this has become Barack Obama's war, TJ.
HOLMES: Barack Obama's war, new poll, new numbers, always give us a new perspective about what the American public is thinking. We do appreciate you sharing them as always, Paul Steinhauser, we'll see you again soon buddy.
STEINHAUSER: Thanks.
NGUYEN: You're going to see exactly where U.S. troops are in Afghanistan in just a bit and also want you to take a look at new pictures from Alabama this morning, where snow is falling. Yep, our Reynolds Wolf has more on this winter storm.
HOLMES: A good song. It doesn't really go with the next story.
NGUYEN: At all.
HOLMES: But you couldn't help but talk about it. You couldn't get away from it.
NGUYEN: Who is not talking about it.
HOLMES: The Tiger Woods story, the scandal, had a lot of people talking about infidelity this week. So our tech guy had an idea, what about --
NGUYEN: We're going to put it on him right.
HOLMES: We're going to put it all on him.
NGUYEN: He really had nothing to do with this.
HOLMES: This will show you some tools you can use to find out if that spouse, that lover of yours is cheating or you know, not just confirm that they are cheating, maybe it will confirm that they're not cheating and your suspicions --
NGUYEN: Well basically it's going to confirm where they are and then you can fill in the blank on what they're doing.
HOMES: We have several different tools he's going to show us. You don't want to miss Mario Armstrong this morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Reynolds joins us now with a look at the weather. You got your coffee cup out. What's in there?
HOLMES: It's just water, but the State of the Union with John King tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. You're welcome John.
(WEATHER REPORT)
NGUYEN: All right Reynolds. We do appreciate it.
And if you're applying for a job out there, there is at least six other people trying to get that same position.
HOLMES: Up next our Josh Levs takes a look at young people facing unemployment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: The Labor Department says the unemployment rate for November fell from 10.2 percent the month before to 10 percent in November, a lot of people calling that any downward movement is great, just 11,000 jobs were lost last month. That's the smallest monthly loss in some two years. As we know, we were seeing a lot of numbers in the hundreds of thousands, even 700 plus thousand when Obama first took office.
NGUYEN: For the nation's youngest workers, unemployment is nearly double the national average.
HOLMES: Some are now calling for action from the White House. Josh Levs has that for us this morning. Good morning Josh.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you guys. I heard from the head of an organization that actually took part in the summit with the president and others at the White House over the week. And what I want to do is start off with some of these stunning numbers. Take a look at how bad unemployment is among the youngest workers in America. Let's go straight to this. If you're looking at works age 16 to 24, this is all people in that age group who are available for full time work, you have 19 percent unemployment, so that is nearly double the national average and look at these, for young African- Americans, 29 percent unemployment, young Latino unemployment is at 21 percent and then think about the specific economic burdens that younger Americans have. A lot of them carrying student debt, undergraduate student debt. The average here $27,000 on average and then a lot of them also have these credit cards.
As we know, a lot of credit card companies have gone after younger people. Average credit card debt another $2,000 and on top of that, we've talked about this before. We'll talk about it again now, a lot of them uninsured, 30 percent of young people are uninsured according to the Kaiser Foundation. Everything I just showed you for the statistics put together by the student association for voter empowerment. I have their website up right here and this is an organization we've talked to before. We've done interviews with them and they are pushing for change and so is this one right here, 80millionstrong.org, which represents the millennial generation, kids born after 1980. They want some specific change. In fact, I spoke with the head of that group. Here is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEW SEGAL, 80MILLIONSTRONG.ORG: A, freeing the flow of credit for young entrepreneurs, providing tax breaks and lower interest rates on the loans they take out to start young companies. Ultimately if we're going to pull ourselves out of this recession, we need to invest in young companies and young ideas and we need to have a legislative environment that's receptive to freeing credit and giving young people some incentive to innovate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: Matthew Segal was actually at the summit with the president during this week. We would love to hear your stories if you are a young person out there looking for work or if you're one who's managed to have it. Get in touch with us. Here's how you can reach us. You got a conversation going at the blog, cnn.com/josh, also facebook or twitter. I'm at joshlevscnn. A lot of young people sending their stories and their struggle. We want to hear from you. We want to get a broad picture of how younger workers in America are trying to help combat some of this massive unemployment. So Betty and TJ, a very interesting fraction of our economy right now. Let's keep in mind young workers are the ones out there coming up with things like Google and Facebook, $100 bazillion organizations but then can make lots of money for our whole economy. So we all can benefit from younger Americans being able to do entrepreneurship.
NGUYEN: Absolutely, all right, thank you, Josh.
So you think your spouse may be cheating on you? So if that's the case, what do you do?
HOLMES: I guess you hire a lawyer. That's one option.
NGUYEN: Draw up some paperwork.
HOLMES: Also, there are some things you can do that we're showing you right there. There's some new gadget that will give you the evidence you might need.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: American exchange student, you see her there, now found guilty of killing her roommate in Italy. A jury sentenced Amanda Knox to 26 years in prison for the 2007 stabbing death of her British roommate Meredith Kercher. Jurors also sentenced Knox's Italian ex- boyfriend to 25 years in prison. Prosecutors say they tried to force Kercher into a twisted sex game along with another man who has already been convicted and the victim's family satisfied they say with the verdict but say they'll always miss her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KERCHER, JR., BROTHER OF MEREDITH KERCHER: Meredith still leaves quite a big hole in our lives.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
KERCHER: And -- she was good. Her presence is missed every time we meet up as a family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But we are very lucky that we have a lot of memories and we stay in touch with all of her friends and learned more about her that way as well. So she's still very much a part of our lives, and she always will be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: A new report is raising questions about how Virginia Tech handled the 2007 shooting massacre. That report by the Virginia governor's office says some school officials knew about the initial dormitory shootings and told their families 90 minutes before warning the rest of the campus that a gunman was on the loose. That gunman later stormed another campus building. He killed 32 people that day before taking his own life.
HOLMES: Some of you may recognize that song and if you do, that means you might be a fan of, you certainly have seen the show "Cheaters."
This week on "Cheaters," well this week on CNN SATURDAY MORNING, these guys are slick. They go around, they bust two-timers in the act. They got the TV cameras rolling. It's some horrible stuff sometimes actually to see these people get busted. But guess what, you don't need a TV show to catch a cheater. Given the news this week about Tiger Woods, everybody was talking about, people just talking about infidelity this week. So we're taking a look at the latest spyware geared to help people catch somebody they may think is stepping out, if you will. Let's bring in our technology commentator, our tech guru, Mario Armstrong. Mario, it's unfortunate that we even have to talk about this kind of stuff.
MARIO ARMSTRONG, TECHTECHBOOM.COM: It is.
HOLMES: But it's out there and people want to check up on their loved ones or their significant others sometimes. So giving them some options here.
ARMSTRONG: Right.
HOLMES: There are several. Let's start with this first one. This is one where you can actually check up on what your significant other has been doing on their computer.
ARMSTRONG: That's right. Absolutely, so the first one I'm going to hold up and it's very small, TJ. This is a USB stick. It's called the ibot and it's actually made by a company called Brick House securities. And what it does is I can insert this into a computer in about a minute to two minutes. I can install the software and walk away and then it will record all the activity on that computer. I then go back to that computer with this device, stick it in and it will retrieve all that recorded information.
HOLMES: And the person whose computer you're checking on, they have no indication, they'll never know that that's on their computer.
ARMSTRONG: It's hidden in the software. It's very, very hard to find. Most anti-virus software cannot detect it. There's other software that's out that's just like this one called eblaster. And listen to this TJ, it will actually e-mail me the detailed stuff that's happening on that computer. I've actually printed out an e- mail right here that I'm holding and this e-mail shows everything, instant messages, chats, Facebook activity, websites visited.
HOLMES: That's scary, Mario. That's scary. Now is that thing inexpensive, the Brick House?
ARMSTRONG: The Brick House piece is about $129. The software is about $99.
HOLMES: I guess that's cheaper than a private detective. Let's move on to another one here. Now this is one that your extended or your significant other could actually use to try to trick you in a kind of a way to call you and not really call you.
ARMSTRONG: Well, that's right. There's all types of things called spoof dialing and you can actually fake your caller ID to make it look like it's someone else. The one we're going to show is called Sly Dial. And Sly Dial, I had a chance to test the service. What I want you to hear how this service works because it bypasses calling the actual phone but goes right to that person's voice mail so you can leave them a message without talking to them. Let's take a listen to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ready to Sly Dial someone? Enter their mobile phone number now. Thank you. Sly Dial is now connecting you to this person's voicemail.
ARMSTRONG: Hi, you've reached the cell phone for Mario Armstrong. Feel free to leave me a message at the sound of the tone. Hope all is well, talk to you soon and take care. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: That is crazy. A lot of people could use this. But that's a trick. If a cheater is out there, the could say hey, I called you, check your voice mail.
ARMSTRONG: That's right.
HOLMES: I could use that, too, because there are some people I don't want to call back on a daily basis.
ARMSTRONG: Maybe you don't want to call your boss. You don't really want to talk to him or maybe you have that jabber jaw in the family that you really don't want to speak to, TJ, that you want to send a holiday greeting to. So there are some usefulness for this. But what about a late night call on the creep on the download (ph). You want to call someone, but you don't want their phone to ring but you want to leave them a message.
HOLMES: We got to wrap this up. The last one we're talking about is the GPS, you can track somebody that way.
ARMSTRONG: That's right. You can track someone this way. This is a GPS tracker. It's very small, about the size of a D battery here. This is also from Brick House security. And I'm telling you, these things are more common these days TJ so we need to make sure people are aware that they could be tracked especially if they're in a controlling type of relationship.
HOLMES: All this stuff is legal. You need to say that as well. It's unfortunate we even have to put this stuff out there. It's unfortunate it has to be made but it's out there. We're sharing it with our viewers. Mario, we appreciate you as always.
ARMSTRONG: Thank you TJ.
HOLMES: Enjoy the rest of your Saturday.
ARMSTRONG: Have a good one.
HOLMES: Betty, there you have it.
NGUYEN: It's out there now. Watch out, folks. It's all legal and cheaper than a private detective. Oh, my goodness. OK, happy holidays.
The holiday season is usually a good time to find a tip job, right, a temporary job. This year there are definite challenges. We're going to tell you about them.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, hello everybody. Thanks for joining us. And welcome back. I'm Betty Nguyen.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes, I'm glad you could be with us this morning.
First we've got some top stories we want to share with you.
One thing we've been watching overnight and we're just getting in some new video of it, we'll show you -- we're showing you Russia there and the city of Perm, which is just outside, as you see that to the east of Moscow, some 900 miles.
There's been a deadly nightclub fire there and this is the video we're just getting in. A 100 people died in this thing but you can see there where the roof has caught fire, 140 people were also injured in this thing, most of them critically.
But this is amateur video we are just getting in that shows them mainly inside. Now, officials say as the performer there that was juggling fireworks when that ceiling caught fire. And it appears by looking at some of these video that a lot of people really didn't even realize what was happening, didn't know whether it was a part of the show or not. But you could clearly see in some of the shots the ceiling catching on fire, a lot of people trying to get out but again 100 people died in that fire.
NGUYEN: Juggling fireworks.
All right. Well, two people were killed this morning by an explosion in Peshawar, Pakistan. The chemical blast happened near a market. Nine people were injured. Militants have launched several attacks in the Peshawar area over the past few weeks but police say this was just a chemical explosion and not a militant attack.
HOLMES: And they are working overtime on health care reform, working on a Saturday. The senate is starting a weekend session later this morning. Democrats need every single vote they can get to pass the bill but the public option still a sticking point with some of those senators.
Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and also Independent Joe Lieberman says there is no compromise, there's no way that they can support it just yet.
NGUYEN: Let's get back to one of the main stories that we're following for you today.
For two years Amanda Knox has professed her innocence from behind the bars of a prison cell in Italy. Well just hours ago she learned her fate. A jury convicted Knox of killing her roommate and sentenced her to 26 years in prison. It is the latest twist in the story but not the final chapter.
Here's CNN's Erica Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She has been described as the all- American girl, a smart, beautiful honor student who left Seattle to fulfill her dream of studying abroad in Italy. She found a home in the medieval city of Perugia and fell in love with Raffaele Sollecito, a dashing Italian engineering student.
She also had a roommate, a British student, Meredith Kercher. Over time, prosecutors say Knox grew to hate Kercher after Kercher condemned Knox's promiscuous behavior. And on November 1st, 2007 prosecutors say that hate turned to deadly violence.
The jury was told Kercher was killed as part of a perverted sex game with Knox taunting her as her boyfriend and another man, Rudy Guede, sexually assaulted her. While the victim was being held down the prosecution says Knox slit her neck with a kitchen knife. Knox, Sollecito and Guede were all charged with murder.
Guede was tried separately convicted of the crime he is now appealing. Throughout her sensational trial, Knox's family never wavered in their support.
CURT KNOX, AMANDA KNOX'S FATHER: She knows she had nothing to do with this and they just can't put an innocent person behind bars for the rest of their life.
EDDA MELLAS, AMANDA KNOX'S MOTHER: There is no way that with no evidence they could convict her of a crime she didn't commit.
KNOX: Right.
HILL: The jury was told Knox admitted to police she was at the scene. Her defense team maintains it was coerced.
AMANDA KNOX, CONVICTED OF MURDER: They called me a stupid liar. And they said that I was trying to protect someone.
HILL: The jurors were also told Knox's DNA was found on the murder weapon but her attorneys say the evidence was contaminated by shoddy police work.
The most dramatic moment at the trial came just one day before the verdict, when Knox addressed the court.
Speaking in Italian she said, "She is not as the media has dubbed her, the devil with an angel's face." "I fear to lose myself, to have the mask of assassin forced upon me," Knox said. "I fear to be defined by someone I am not." She pleaded for her innocence and her mother was convinced the jury would believe her.
MELLAS: We keep telling her that, that it's taking way longer than we ever expected, but she will get out of there and she's innocent and they are not going to put an innocent 20-year-old in jail for 30 years.
HILL: But they did. And now Amanda Knox may spend the next 26 years behind bars.
Erica Hill, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES: Well, the prosecution portrayed Amanda Knox as a narcissistic she-devil capable of cold hearted murder. Police honed in as a prime suspect almost immediately but Knox has her supporters.
A writer for "Vanity Fair" has been covering this story for quite some time. He was a guest last night on "Larry King Live". Jim Moret was sitting in for Larry King last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM MORET, CNN GUEST HOST: You've been very outspoken about this and you've written about this. You feel the deck was effectively stacked against Amanda from the beginning. Why do you feel that way?
JUDY BACHRACH, WRITER, VANITY FAIR: Well, Italy is a country and it's very hard for a lot of Americans to understand this but it's a country where influence is everything, who you know, how long you've known that person and if, God forbid for some reason you are accused of a crime, if you know people in power, if you can do something about it, if you have a lot of money, chances are you have a good chance of not being convicted.
Most people don't fall into that category. In Italy, if you're accused, it's a pretty fair bet you're going to be convicted.
Amanda is a foreigner. She's an outsider. Her parents are from the State of Washington. They knew no one in Italy, no one of power and Amanda herself spoke very little Italian. She was an easy target.
This was an appalling murder. It shocked the small town of Perugia and who best to lay this on than her roommate, an American, comma, who is beautiful and in some way in Perugia it was felt she wasn't one of them, she was an outsider, she had sexual mores as they claim they couldn't understand. She smoked dope.
It was very easy to lay it on her and that's what they did and they did it have a vengeance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: There are so many twists and turns in that story and I know it's not over because the family definitely wants to appeal.
HOLMES: Appeals process -- our Paula Newton has been reporting live says that some 90 days they have to wait before that gets under way but they said she had a tough night last night in jail.
NGUYEN: Yes, no doubt.
All right, well, we're going to shift gears and talk about your weather outside this morning. If you're planning a fun Saturday outing, well, some of you may want to stay inside. Reynolds Wolf has the latest on some of those winter mix that we're seeing.
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes I know, I mean, pretty crazy, isn't it? Yesterday in parts of Texas they got hammered with -- when I say hammered let's be honest here, I mean, one to three inches of snowfall. That's not really that bad but what's amazing about it is where it fell. In Houston of all places where have --this is the earliest they ever recorded snowfall in Houston at this time of the year. It's just amazing stuff.
That's one of several big stories that we're following this morning and now that snowfall we're talking about is actually moving into parts of the southeast, away from Texas, moving to the eastern seaboard and even into parts of Georgia.
We've got some video for you out of Jasper, Georgia. We're going to take that (INAUDIBLE) and show you the story of what's happening, the snow falling down. It is going to be kind of interesting for drivers if you happen to be say, from Michigan, you've seen this before, it's no big deal, you're used to it.
But in parts of Georgia we don't usually get this much snow at least this early so it is a bit of a surprise to us. This video from WSB just came in moments ago.
Something else we're going to be seeing is the bottom half of the system that's going to be bringing something very different, not snow but the potential tornadoes. We already have a tornado watch that is in effect for parts of South Florida, we're going to be keeping a very sharp eye on that.
And we're going to be seeing the potential of not snow and not tornadoes but rather but some of that snowfall actually going in at the top half of the system up into portions like New York, Boston, maybe Philadelphia before the day is out. But the snow pretty light, about one inch at most, most places just a light dusting.
So that's the latest in the forecast. We'll send more your way coming up very soon.
NGUYEN: All right, Reynolds, we'll be watching. Thank you.
HOLMES: And now to a story that has been all over the news, the tabloids, the Web. No matter where you look the past week and no matter what your...
NGUYEN: Anyone is talking about ...
HOLMES: ... opinion was about it, everybody was talking about it.
Tiger: his accident and all of those allegations of infidelity now.
NGUYEN: Yes, so how can the best golfer in the world remove the tarnish from his image? We're going to hear some ideas from Rick Horrow right after we check our top stories.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Our top story this is hour: American student Amanda Knox found guilty of murder in Italy. She is sentenced to 26 years in prison. Her Italian ex-boyfriend also sent to 25 years in prison. Both convicted of killing Knox's British roommate Meredith Kercher.
The victim's brother reacted to the verdict and this is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYLE KERCHER, BROTHER OF MEREDITH KERCHER: We are pleased with the decision -- pleased that we've got a decision but it's not a time of celebration at the end of the day. It's not a moment of triumph and as we've said before at the end of the day we're all gathered here because our sister was brutally murdered and taken away from us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: The pair must pay nearly $7.5 million to Kercher's family, also a third person convicted in a separate trial, appeals they are expected.
HOLMES: One of this year's hottest Christmas gifts could make your kids sick. You see these little things up here on the screen here; they're called Zhu Zhu hamsters -- supposedly pretty hot items.
An independent consumer safety group says one of the 4 hamsters has higher than allowed levels of a toxic chemical. Only Mr. Squiggles is on the danger list -- they have several names -- the one is Mr. Squiggles. That's the only one on the danger list. That's the second from the left you see there, so stay away from Mr. Squiggles if you see him.
NGUYEN: A new report shows a dip in the nation's unemployment rate. It is now 10 percent, which is down .2 percent from last month. President Obama says the numbers they are encouraging but in his weekly address he acknowledges that there is more that needs to be done.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the coming days, I'll be unveiling additional ideas aimed at accelerating job growth and hiring as we emerge from this economic storm.
And so that we don't face another crisis like this again, I am determined to meet our responsibility to do what we know will strengthen our economy in the long run. That's why I'm not going to let up in my efforts to reform our health care system, to give our children the best education in the world, to promote the jobs of tomorrow, and energy independence by investing in a clean energy economy, and to deal with the mounting federal debt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: On the front lines right now in Afghanistan, U.S., British and Afghan forces are launching a new assault in the Helmand Province. It is the first major offensive since President Obama announced more U.S. troops will be deployed.
Let's take a look at U.S. troops levels in Afghanistan. The majority of U.S. and NATO forces are deployed in southern Afghanistan in areas like the Helmand Province.
There are some 37,000 international troops there right now. The U.S. has a total of 68,000 troops in country and some of them are serving with the NATO-led international security force. NATO nations have 45,000 troops there.
And this year, 300 American troops and 185 coalition soldiers have died in Afghanistan.
Well now that President Obama has laid out his plan to get an in-depth look into what is happening in Afghanistan, we invite to you watch iReports from around the world and read blog posts. All you have to do is go to CNN.com/Afghanistan and also get some first person accounts from the region as well as charts on U.S. troop levels through the years. That and so much more on CNN.com/Afghanistan.
Back here in the U.S., there is snow taking place in areas where they have not seen it ever this early in the year.
HOLMES: Ever.
NGUYEN: We say early in the year, it is December but when you're talking Houston it doesn't happen.
HOLMES: Early in the season, early in the winter season; your neck of the woods around there.
Also this morning, you remember all that confusion about the mammograms and those recommendations?
NGUYEN: Some people are still confused.
HOLMES: Still confused. Well, if you were, we've got some more confusion to throw in there for you. That same panel now backing off some of their own recommendations that confused us in the first place.
NGUYEN: I'm so confused.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: After admitting transgressions, Tiger Woods' reputation is maybe in the rough right now. Is his tarnished image a temporary setback? Is it even a setback at all? Some key questions because Tiger's almost $1 billion brand is at stake.
So when sports and business team up we turn to Rick Horrow, sports & business analyst and visiting expert at Harvard Law School because Betty when you think Harvard Law...
NGUYEN: I think of Rick Horrow.
HOLMES: All right. Good morning to you Rick. RICK HORROW, CNN SPORTS & BUSINESS ANALYST: That's a darned good tag team. I was talking to Betty off camera, we shouldn't be doing this, but go Longhorns right for tonight. We'll talk about that later.
We're talking about Tiger right now. Is this even a setback? Are we crazy to think that all the money that he brings into the companies that they're going to drop him or even think about dropping him this early on in some scandal?
HORROW: Tiger used to be the most accepted and known person this side of the Pope and Osama bin Laden and some of the other world class characters. Now, by the way, you look at the most recent polls and his acceptability has declined a little bit. Well, no fooling.
But the bottom line is he has $95 million a year from the Nikes, from the Gatorades, from EA Sports, the Accentures. His image will rebound as long as he stays on these carefully crafted statements and admits transgressions and doesn't hide.
He has no place to hide. This is the biggest story in the world because of Internet age. Now we just have to see what happens.
HOLMES: Ok. Some of those companies have come out early in support of him. They had some statements in support of him at least. What if this thing gets worse?
We keep seeing more details and more women even quite frankly. So what if this keeps just kind of getting worse and goes on for a while?
HORROW: All Tiger all the time, it's tabloid city. And the bottom line is you got to get much worse before the corporations do something about it. Remember, Nike had zero dollars in the golf business before Tiger, $800 million on an annual basis afterward, 800 million reasons why they're not going to drop him.
HOLMES: All right, this might sound a little crazy here, man, but is there any way that this whole scandal can be good for golf? By that I mean you're going to have more interest maybe, I mean ratings always go through the roof anyway if he's playing but more interest and paying more attention, maybe even for the wrong reason but more and more people are going to be honing in on Tiger and on golf because when he plays, everybody's going to be paying attention even more so now.
HORROW: Like scandals are good for me because it gives us something to report. The polls say that 16 percent or so of the people are going to root for Tiger even more now because he's human. Yes, I'm not sure what that means but your point is well-taken.
And by the way, Tiger's done a lot for pro golfers anyway. You realize there's a 7,000 percent increase in millionaires on the tour since Tiger turned pro. Thanks, Tiger, for a lot of reasons.
HOLMES: What about his status as a role model? This is a guy who has -- I mean, he's done a lot of work with his foundation, kids are involved in a lot of his work, what happens to that effort on his part, because this is a guy who has not been touched by scandal other than people getting on to him for cursing too much when he hits a bad shot.
HORROW: Yes, and I'm looking at some of the text from his foundation's Web site and he talks about character education. That's going to take a little bit of a beating.
But let's remember, one of the real problems is that he's got 100 charities, he's got 10 million kids who have been the beneficiary of Tiger Woods Foundation, including this Chevron World Challenge Golf Tournament this weekend that he's not at, that may be one of the top short term things that the kids may get short changed with some of the dollar decrease assuming there is one.
HOLMES: All right. The story, the saga goes on.
Rick -- again our sports business analyst and visiting expert at Harvard Law School, because Betty when you think Harvard Law...
NGUYEN: You think Rick Horrow.
HOLMES: All right Rick. Always good to see you, kind sir.
HORROW: We have some surprises for next week -- we'll tease it. But I can't wait to talk to you guys next week.
NGUYEN: All right.
HOLMES: It has to do with some bull riding.
HORROW: Yes. That's absolutely right, yes.
NGUYEN: Be careful out there, my friend. See you soon.
HORROW: All right.
NGUYEN: College students are looking for jobs, a lot are learning that their college degrees are not helping.
HOLMES: Yes and they're having to rely on tip jobs to save Christmas.
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And we got some snow guys out in the east. Some snow out towards the west. We're going to handle both coming up in a few moments and we'll let you know about a big time cool down -- easy for me to say -- in parts of the Midwest. Just moments away right here on CNN SATURDAY MORNING. Oh yes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Well, it is a tough time for college seniors. You know, they're facing tougher than normal job markets and with double-digit unemployment as well.
HOLMES: And if that wasn't enough, on top of all that, the average graduate starts out with a pretty hefty debt, as many of you will remember with all those school loans. CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis explains some of their options.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Hey guys. Good morning. It's a new report from the project on student debt. They found college seniors who graduated in 2008 carry an average of over $23,000 in debt from student loans into the real world and unemployment among college graduates age 20 to 24 shot up from 7.6 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2008 to 10.6 percent a year later. That's the highest this decade and above the national average of 10 percent.
Unemployment and student loan debt means bad news. So what can these young people do? Well if you're unemployed, you can defer student loan payments for up to six months. Of course you have to be actively looking for work to qualify for deferments.
While you're on the job hunt consider jobs in public service, government or the non-profit world. If you hold a job in public service and make payments on your student loans each month for ten years the government will forgive the remainder of your debt once the ten years are up. The government's definition of a public service job is pretty broad.
The best way to avoid debt dilemmas, of course, is to stay out of major debt in the first place. Check this out. The average amount of debt carried by students graduating from private for-profit four-year schools last year was over $33,000, and 96 percent of students at those schools left in debt.
Compare that now to just over $20,000 of debt for public school students and only 62 percent of public school students graduating in debt.
Coming up on "YOUR BOTTOM LINE", an update on the credit cardholder's bill of rights; we'll tell you what you need to know about the reform and what it will mean for your wallet.
Plus staying safe online, how to best manage your identity when you do all of your shopping on the web, and 'tis the season for job hunting? How to land holiday employment at 9:30 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN -- T.J., Betty.
NGUYEN: From the CNN center, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. Boy, it's a great morning around here.
HOLMES: It's been a good morning.
NGUYEN: Yes, December 5th. Hello, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen.
HOLMES: And hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes. It's 9:00 a.m. in Atlanta, where we sit; it is -- what is it -- 8:00 a.m. in Chicago, Illinois this morning.
NGUYEN: Yes. Cold Chicago.
HOLMES: Yes, but this half hour as we do every weekend we focus on health care. And coming up we're going to take to you a restaurant, they have wings, catfish, they have fries.
NGUYEN: Sounds great.
HOLMES: All that good stuff on the menu. Health care however not on the menu. We'll tell you why this small restaurant owner says health care just too expensive.
NGUYEN: And it is the latest video phenomenon online.
HOLMES: This is good.
NGUYEN: You have to take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: They are having a blast. Why? Well, we'll tell you about it in a second. But just to let you know, this thing has gotten more than 3 million clicks on YouTube.
We'll talk to the woman who got her entire nursing staff to pull this off, all in the name of breast cancer awareness, but first let's take a look at our top stories today.
HOLMES: It has to go from that to Blago. But here we go, the FBI and Chicago Police want to know who broke into the offices of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's attorneys and actually got away with eight computers as well as a safe. Blagojevich is said to go on trial in June and sources say the computers contained undercover recordings in the corruption case against him. Police not confirming that just yet. Blagojevich's lawyer says he is not speculating on a motive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM ADAM, JR., ROD BLAGOJEVICH'S ATTORNEY: I certainly would never speculate that this was a political, dirty trick thing. I would not say that, no. It seems to me it's a burglary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: Well, if you have a can of Slim-Fast in the house you better throw it away, because the makers of Slim-Fast say the premade shakes may be contaminated with a harmful bacteria. They are recalling 10 million cans and the FDA is investigating. Now the recall extends to all Slim-Fast premade shakes regardless of flavor or sell by date.
HOLMES: Now, they are working overtime on health care reform, the Senate starting a weekend session. That's coming up in about an hour. Democrats need every vote they can get to pass this bill, but public options still a huge sticking point for some senators. Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and also independent Joe Lieberman says there's no compromise they can support yet. NGUYEN: Arkansas voters are divided over health care reform, and the idea of government-run insurance option. Now a senator facing a tough re-election fight is caught in the middle of this divide. The story now from chief national correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Aisha's Fish and Chicken is a family business, known for its friendly service.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to hook them today.
KING: Wings and catfish.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five piece of wing, extra sauce on it.
KING: And a spicy signature sauce.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 1.31.
KING: Tough times in a bad economy. So owner Stanley Walker says health care is out of the question.
STANLEY WALKER, OWNER, AISHA'S FISH & CHICKEN; It's too expensive right now. We're kind of having a little trouble keeping our head above water. We had it at one time but it was so expensive that we finally dropped it. I got a lot of complaint from my wife about it that we don't have health care.
KING: It's both a business decision and a personal risk. Stanley has diabetes, takes just half of his four pills a day prescription because he can't afford the $500 a month bill of the full dose.
WALKER: I don't want to go (INAUDIBLE) moving all the time. I don't want to go into a coma, you know, because my sugar dropped too low. It's a situation where you actually take a gamble but you can't afford not to.
KING: Stanley hopes Congress makes health care more affordable and thinks creating a new government-run public option is the best way to do that.
WALKER: If they don't do that, then I don't think I'll vote for them.
KING: It's an important statement because African-American votes in places like Pine Bluff will be critical in next year's midterm elections. Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln faces a tough re- election race.
PROF. ART ENGLISH, UNIV. OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: No question, they see an opportunity here, and an opportunity to win a Senate seat doesn't come often for Republicans in Arkansas.
KING: Senator Lincoln opposes the public option and while that angers liberals, political scientist Art English Lincoln needs to worry about conservative democrats and independents in a state President Obama lost by 20 points.
ENGLISH: It's tough. It's like that show "Malcolm in the Middle" but this time it's kind of Senator Blanche Lincoln in the Middle" and it's been tough on her.
KING: Larry Levy owns this Little Rock brake shop and has gone from paying 100 percent of employees health are to 60 percent.
LARRY LEVY, OWNER, STUART'S BRAKE SHOP: It kept going up and as my employees got older the premiums were so high we just couldn't realistically afford it.
KING: But Levy sees disaster in Democratic plans to create a public option or a mandate that everyone buy health insurance.
LEVY: We don't know what it's going to cost us. We have health issues I agree, there needs to be reform, but let's identify the problems that we have and let's fix those problems. Let's just don't throw out everything and start all over.
KING (on camera): They say that if taxes go up it will only be on people above $250,000 a year. You don't buy it?
LEVU: No, no, I don't. I don't buy it. We middle class people we'll shoulder the burden. I have no question about that.
KING: Levy describes himself as a conservative who did not vote for Mr. Obama but does sometimes vote for conservative Democrats. He is not a fan of Senator Lincoln.
LEVY: She's playing games right now, I think, you know. She's kind of just swaying back and forth. I know she's in a tough position but if she will listen to her constituents we don't want her to vote for this, I think.
KING: Do you think that she'd better listen?
LEVY: I think she needs to listen if she wants to keep her job, yes.
KING (voice-over): But Levy says Lincoln has already lost his vote. He sees Washington as veering too far left and sees the midterm elections as a chance to vote Republican, put the brakes on the Obama agenda.
John King, CNN, Little Rock.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: Are you OK there?
HOLMES: Excuse me. Why don't you go ahead and take that.
NGUYEN: You know what, I'll do that.
HOLMES: Take that line for me. Thank you. NGUYEN: Well for weeks women have been fuming after a federal panel which recommended daily or delaying, I should say, breast cancer screenings.
HOLMES: Some of those panel members went before Congress this week and just wait until you hear what they heard now. So the confusion is not going away. We're actually more confused probably now.
NGUYEN: Josh, what we're hearing is they're scaling back on the recommendations?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, I don't know, sorry. We got some cross lines here. I got some totally different thrown off.
NGUYEN: Oh, OK.
LEVS: That's OK. But that sounds as interesting, I want to learn about that.
NGUYEN: So do we apparently.
LEVS: We will all stay tuned for that.
But I guess a little fun you guys will like, and let's get to the picture. Because I'm kind of in the dark?
Are you a genius? Cnn.com health section there's a quiz to help you find out and this is one of those questions. Take a look at it here. What is the 11-letter word that all smart people spell incorrectly? We got the answer for you.
That's coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: All right. Severe weather, yes, I guess you could call it that especially when we're talking about some weather that has never occurred this early, are we in winter yet, yes.
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We are. Yes. Well, certainly - it's not like - we kind of look at these spring begins.
(CROSSTALK)
WOLF: It's a gray area. Yesterday winter was really in full effect for parts of Houston, one to three inches of snowfall. That is now driving off to the east. It has been a big topic of conversation this morning. And it's now moving through parts of the Appalachians. It's making a beeline towards the east, mostly rain though in the eastern seaboard.
But one thing that we have to mention is at the bottom half of this system. This frontal boundary that is moving through is not going to bring snow but rather rain, some strong thunderstorms and right now, we have a tornado watch that's in effect for parts of south Florida, including West Palm Beach, Coral Springs, even Miami. Now, the best thing we're going to be seeing or the thing that obviously we're going to be dealing with will be some heavy rainfall, maybe even a little bit of flash flooding in low-lying areas, areas like Alligator Alley, will certainly be getting heavy rain within the next 20, 30 minutes or so. But there is going to be that outlying chance of having a tornado or two. So we're going to keep a very, very sharp eye on this system. So that is just one of the trouble spots we're going to be seeing today.
Now, for the next minute we're going to show you some other things that are happening. Now, in the Northern Rockies and parts of Wyoming, especially towards Jackson Hole, everyone loves snow, it's great for skiers. But we're talking about snow that may fall in terms of not inches but several feet, a couple wind gusts topping 40 miles an hour and wind chills of 35 degrees below zero, goodness gracious, it's going to be some rough stuff you're going to be dealing with in this part of the world. Really rough to say the least.
Also, look for scattered snow showers extended into the northern plains back to the arrowhead of Minnesota and even the western shores of the state of Michigan will be dealing with some snow. Grand Rapids, you might have snow to deal with before the day is out. The snow is going to be leaving Texas today. You know the reason why?
We're talking about the stuff that's on the ground because the temperature will also be warming up well above freezing. 51 degrees in let's see, back in Houston, Dallas same story. 43 in Kansas City. 48 degrees in Memphis, Tennessee. The other side of Tennessee, Knoxville home of the vols (ph), we'll show you the shot we have there, WTAE, rather WBIR shows snow is coming down, probably not going to stick all that much around i-40 but it will be causing some problems a bit further to the north. Be careful up there. That is a wrap on your forecast.
Guys, it's Saturday morning. It's CNN, got a lot happening. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: She is running for U.S. Senate in California and she's also a breast cancer survivor. Carly Fiorina is giving this week's GOP address and she's using her own experience to attack the idea of more government involvement in health care and Fiorina is very critical of new guidelines suggesting women delay mammograms until the age of 50.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLY FIORINA (R), CALIFORNIA SENATE CANDIDATE: If I had followed this new recommendation and waited another two years, I'm not sure I'd be alive today. What's more, this task force was explicitly asked to focus on costs, not just prevention. As it turned out, costs were a significant factor in this recommendation.
Will a bureaucrat determine that my life isn't worth saving? All this takes on even greater urgency in the midst of the ongoing health care debate in Washington. We wonder if we are heading down a path where the federal government will at first suggest and then mandate new standards for prevention and treatment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Guidelines for routine mammograms now back pedaling a bit. During a congressional hearing this week, experts admitted the advice was poorly worded, but lawmakers didn't back off. CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has more on the hearing which at times got a bit heated.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lawmakers began with their personal stories about breast cancer. A congressman who lost his aunt, another whose wife had breast cancer. Congresswoman Sue Myrick she can't understand how a federal task force could suggest that women in their 40s don't need regular mammograms.
REP. SUE MYRICK (R), NORTH CAROLINA: -- because to me it's sending the wrong message to women, saying you don't have to be vigilant. You don't have to take care of yourself. You don't have to do preventative care, and the reason that concerns me is I'm a 10-year breast cancer survivor. I'm one of those that who had had persevered literally to find, you know, my own cancer because I knew something was wrong with my body.
COHEN: According to the recent reports from the U.S. Preventative Services task force, mammograms are highly inaccurate. For every 1,000 women in their 40s who get mammograms, two cancers are found and 98 false positives are found. The report says women then need to have invasive procedures to check out a positive mammogram and they worry unnecessarily when the mammogram turns out to be wrong. The vice chair of the task force defended the group's guidelines.
DR. DIANA B. PETITTI, U.S. PREVENTATIVE SERVICES TASK FORCE: Cancer's terrifying prospect, it carries special emotional weight because of the consequences of the diagnosis have in the past involved not only death but the prospect of mutilating surgery.
COHEN: And one congressman did defend the task force.
REP. JOHN SARBANES (D), MARYLAND: But to put our head in the sand and not looking at the science, it seems to me would be a serious mistake.
COHEN: But most who testified on Capitol Hill today were critical saying the recommendations could put women in danger.
JENNIFER LURAY, PRESIDENT SUSAN G. KOMEN: We know that mammography is an imperfect tool. But instead of stepping away from it, we must close the technology gap and come up with better methods.
COHEN: Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: Well, cnn.com has a whole section designed to give you the latest medical news and tips. HOLMES: And our Josh Levs joins us now with that and there's also something there, genius quiz to tell us about.
LEVS: Yes, you know also, I think because it helps exercise the brain, too, and there's a whole bunch of fun kind of brain activities you can do here. I'll start off showing you guys the web site. Because it's really interesting. And a lot of great stories here, cnn.com/health and you can look at the features stories are right now.
This has been interesting one about a woman named Becky Griggs who lost 200 pounds. And you know, you hear stories like this but what she does to CNN, she talks to us about how she had to make changes in her mind-set and how profound that influence was on her body, and her beginning a new regime.
And check this out, loneliness spreads in social networks. This is real interesting too. This is about how a lot of people think of loneliness as being about isolation. New scientific study finds that actually loneliness spreads, if you have a lot of friends, it spreads more and more. They're finding this is actually contagious, more on that right there at cnn.com/health.
And now the fun stuff. We have this, it's also up on this page and it is the genius quiz. Now, we have to get at it, OK, I'm told we have some breaking news, is that what's happening? So we're going to go to breaking news now and we'll get back to the genius quiz story later.
NGUYEN: Yes, we're going to take you live now to Italy. These are Amanda Knox's parents. She's just been sentenced within the past few hours, overnight actually, of murder, involving her roommate. So let's take a listen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, she had a lot of support when she got back to the jail, everybody there, the inmates and the guards were all taking great care of her. They care a lot. Thank you.
(SPEAKING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
HOLMES: We wanted to jump in there while again her parents, the family members visiting Amanda Knox who last night spent her first night in jail after being convicted of murder there for murdering her roommate. This trial has been going on for some years. She got 26 years in prison. A lot of people think she was treated unfairly by the Italian justice system. Also her ex-boyfriend convicted as well. He got 25 years.
Her family saying there, at least, we picked up on the end there saying she's been treated well by her fellow inmates, by the guards there as well, our Paula Newton, also reported that she had to actually be consoled and comforted by some of those inmates because she was just a wreck yesterday after getting the news that she had been convicted.
NGUYEN: They say she left the jury room just in tears, and she sobbed throughout the night, and we did just get the tail end of her mother speaking there. Right after this break, we're going to rerun parts of that for you so you can hear the entire impromptu news conference there. You're watching CNN SATURDAY MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: We want to bring you more or the sound bite we were showing you just before the commercial break. Amanda Knox, the American exchange student who was over in Italy just found guilty of murder, sentenced to 26 years. Well, her parents just walked off of the jail from visiting her where she spent her first night in prison as a convicted killer now. They visited her and said she had a pretty rough night. Let's go ahead and listen to the sound from her parents, just from a few moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- how Amanda is?
EDDA MELLAS, MOTHER OF AMANDA KNOX: Amanda, like the rest of us is extremely disappointed, upset about the decision. We're all in shock. We're all heartened by the support, not only from the people of Perusia, many Italians, all over, people from all over the world have been sending us messages of support all through the night. You know, the media has been supportive. Amanda had great support when she came back to the prison.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what did you say to her?
MELLAS: We told her she's going to get out of here. It's going to take a little longer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What kind of a night did she have? Were you able to have contact with her?
MELLAS: You know, she had a lot of support when she got back to the jail. Everybody there. The inmates and the guards were all taking great care of her. They care a lot. Thank you.
(SPEAKING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: So family, her mother there, saying she's going to still get out of there. She's going to take a little longer as she said, of course continuing developing story. Again waiting on the next details, our Paula Newton tells us that the appeals process is going to start in about 90 days. So they certainly will be appealing and still trying to get her out. Amanda Knox sentenced to 26 years for murder over in Italy.
NGUYEN: Well, in other news this morning, once you tell a hospital worker something's gone viral. Right away that's not a good thing but in this case it actually is. A Portland, Oregon, hospital decided to promote breast cancer awareness by dancing to Jay Shaun's "Hip Down" and so far, listen to this, the video has gotten three million hits on youtube and actually touching some responses from cancer survivors, all across the country. Nursing manager Martie Moore took a phone call that started the whole thing, and this morning she joins us live from Portland, Oregon. Good morning to you, Martie.
MARTIE MOORE, "PINK GLOVE DANCE": Good morning, Betty. How are you?
NGUYEN: I am doing great. You must be so thrilled, three million hits on youtube and it's all because of a phone call. Tell me what happened.
MOORE: Well, our corporate office up there in Providence, the Providence office in Renton took a phone call from Medline saying we have a great idea to promote breast cancer awareness and they said do you have a hospital that would be interested in doing that, and Providence St. Vincent was called, and we said, absolutely, we'd love to do it though we're not professional dancers, you need to know that.
NGUYEN: Well, it took you two days, 200 employees and a choreographer and everyone has the pink gloves on. Tell us the purpose of that and what message are you trying to send?
MOORE: I think the pink gloves represent a couple of things. The first is the hands that care for those with breast cancer, but the second is get the dialogue going about breast cancer. It's still the number two killer of women, it's a disease of men as well, and while we understand treatment, we still don't understand why do people get breast cancer, and I think it's just so important that we keep this dialogue going.
NGUYEN: And people are loving this. The dancing is great, especially we're loving watching the sweet janitor there with the broom or the mop, or whatever that is just dancing away. You know, this is breast cancer is something that is in fact affected his family, correct?
MOORE: Correct. And the dance that you see there was actually not done by choreography.
NGUYEN: This is freestyle?
MOORE: It was freestyle. It came from his heart.
NGUYEN: We're talking about the janitor.
MOORE: Yes.
NGUYEN: We're looking at different video right now. OK.
MOORE: Yes, the janitor, yes, and when I asked him about it, he shared with me that he has worked at the hospital all his life but breast cancer had touched his mother and had touched the rest of his family, and as he spoke, he had tears in his eyes, and he said, you know, this is just a disease that just keeps touching lives.
NGUYEN: Goodness, and you know, you've got a lot of emotional responses from cancer survivors, from family members, just share some of those with us. MOORE: We have been so touched, and I would tell thaw we've been very blessed as well. We have received calls from all over the nation and the world, sharing stories with us about how breast cancer has touched their lives. I received an e-mail from a woman who had surgery actually yesterday, and she was feeling very depressed and sad about the fact that she was having surgery and she had had breast cancer and a friend sent her our video and she said she made me laugh and she said I hadn't laughed yet.
We received notes and cards as well from breast cancer survivors who just said thank you, thank you, thank you. You've touched our lives, you're sharing and keeping the dialogue going about breast cancer. And we also received notes and cards and e-mails from families -
NGUYEN: Oh, that's great.
MOORE: Who said you need to know that this has helped us, it's touched our lives, and if you have a chance to go out there, there's actually thank you videos that are out on youtube.
NGUYEN: Oh, really? You got response from Jay Shaun, the guy who sings the song that you're dancing to in the video?
MOORE: We did. And he posted it on his web site as well, saying that he loves it. It's a great video and I guess at one point in his life he actually thought of being in the medical field and he was pretty excited the fact that he could be a doctor and he could actually sing as well.
NGUYEN: That is fantastic. Maybe there will be a sequel. Who knows.
MOORE: Who knows?
NGUYEN: (INAUDIBLE) watching though but as we go to break we're going to show the video one more time. Thank you for your time and your effort in this. It's a great video. The pink glove video on youtube, you got to watch it.
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HOLMES: Hi. We're just -
NGUYEN: Something was falling.
HOLMES: We'll get that handled. But let's toss it over to Josh before we get hit in the head.
LEVS: Wow, what a morning. Oh my goodness.
NGUYEN: The sky is falling.
LEVS: We got a matter of seconds. So let's do this. Earlier in this hour I showed you part of the genius quiz from cnn.com/health. This was the question. This is just one example. What is the 11-letter word that all smart people spell incorrectly?
I bet you got this one. Take a look at the answer here, the answer is incorrectly; 11 letters, see? That's how they kind of trick you. It's from one of the people inside Mensa who apparently think this is a great brain exercise.
There's a whole bunch that you can find; we'll post it at the blog for you CNN.com/Josh. You can also see it at Facebook and Twitter, joshLevsCnn. Find out if you're a genius or not.
Gerri Willis certainly is.
NGUYEN: And you know, you'll be a genius and you can figure out why parts of the ceiling just fell.
LEVS: Can we have umbrellas here?
NGUYEN: We might need some. Thank you Josh.
LEVS: Thanks, guys.
NGUYEN: YOUR BOTTOM LINE with CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis...
HOLMES: Starts right now.
