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Custody Issue Becomes Kidnapping; Obama Pushes for Climate Pact; Blue Laws Still Enforced in Parts of Country

Aired December 18, 2009 - 13:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And it is go time. We are pushing forward now with the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM with Kyra Phillips.

KYRA PHILLIPS, HOST: Have a great holiday. I won't see you next week.

HARRIS: I won't see you next week. Have fun.

PHILLIPS: All right, Tony, enjoy. Have fun with the kids.

HARRIS: I will.

PHILLIPS: Cut (ph) 15, climate zero. President Obama says the 15th U.N. Climate change conference has to yield more than a lot of hot air, but will it?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two weeks in hell and maybe they'll take you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, if you can't take the heat, you don't have a prayer of wearing the green beret. This hour, how the Special Forces get special. It starts with two weeks in hell.

Want an abortion? Bare your soul. The state of Oklahoma could have questions for women who want to end pregnancies. I'll pose some to both sides of a very delicate debate.

And we begin at the top of the hour with something I've got to admit: this story hard to watch, and very hard to hear. But it needs to get out there, so there are no repeats.

It actually started in October. A 10-year-old boy and constables taking him off a Texas school bus. They thought they were enforcing the law, returning Jean Paul Lacombe to his dad. But what they didn't know was that they were unwitting players in an alleged kidnapping. The child seemed to know.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEAN PAUL LACOMBE DIAZ, AT CENTER OF CUSTODY DISPUTE: I want to stay with my mother.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not going to let him do anything to you.

J. DIAZ: No, please! No, no, no, no, no, no. Someone help me, please! Someone help me, please! Someone help me, please!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: And here's a look at what happened when he came off that bus in October. Jean Paul sitting on the pavement, clearly not wanting to go, hugging his mom and little brother good-bye. His father watching the whole thing before taking him away.

Here's the heart-wrenching part: no one has seen or heard from them since. There are arrest warrants awaiting now, the father accused of tricking the court into giving him temporary custody with shoddy foreign documents. And yesterday we asked the mother why two months went by before people even started paying attention to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERENICE DIAZ, MOTHER: I've been filing complaint to everybody, but no one has listened, until Susan Reed point to my story in the D.A. department.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: All right. Well, let's push this forward now with reporter Yami Virgin of KABB-TV in San Antonio. She's actually been working this story for more than two months. Also, in a minute, I'm going to bring in Sunny Hostin. She's a legal contributor for TruTV's "In Session."

Yami, let's go ahead and start with you. Lots of questions about the constable's actions here.

YAMI VIRGIN, KABB-TV: I understand, Kyra. And they're getting a lot of e-mails at the constables and they understand there's a lot of questions.

What they wanted to make sure that people understood was that these cases happen every day. They told me 2,000 children every day are kidnapped by a custodial parent. Now, non-custodial parent.

What they want to make sure people understand is that normally they would pick up the child and take the child to the judge or take the child to Child Protective Services. This order didn't say that. It stated that the child was to be given to dad. This is part of the problem, in their eyes.

The other thing that they're going to be looking at, I understand, is where they served these writ of attachments, on a school bus with the children. I spoke to two of the little girls that were on that bus, and they're still having nightmares of seeing their little friend, Jean Paul, screaming and begging for help.

You can actually, in that video, if you listen all the way until the end, you can hear the little girl saying, "Sir, he doesn't want to go with his daddy." And then they're saying, "I can't believe it. He doesn't want to go with his daddy. Why are they doing this?" These are small children. This has stayed two them, and it will stay with them.

So at this point, I think the parents are going to have a lot of questions to ask as to whether it is permissible or allowable to do this in front of small children. They're elementary school-age children.

PHILLIPS: So, Yami, do you actually think that what we're seeing here could change the legal system in any way when it comes down to protecting our kids?

VIRGIN: Let me be very truthful with you. I had to get a judge down in the valley by Brownsville to talk to me about this case. No one in San Antonio wanted to talk to me, on camera, about this case.

Election time is coming. This is down to the politicians in our state, in Bexar County, to push forward so this doesn't happen again. I don't want to do another story like this ever again. This video is awful to watch. It should never happen again.

PHILLIPS: It was heart-wrenching. Great reporting. Yami, thank you so much.

Let's go ahead and turn this over to Sunny Hostin now. A couple of legal questions, Sunny. I guess, first of all, as you listen to the story and you saw what happened and how this unfolded. Where do you think the gaps were? Where did the system fail this child?

SUNNY HOSTIN, ATTORNEY: I think the system failed this child all around. Everyone dropped the ball here, Kyra. I think the system failed this child when the court granted custody to his father, based on documents that were not authenticated, were not validated and, in fact, it's been reported that they were in Spanish and this judge couldn't even read them.

I think the lawyers for the father, as officers of the court that presented this evidence to that judge, failed this child. And I think that the police officers failed this child, because the standard in the United States, and really, all over the world, is what is in the best interests of the child.

And you had that child explaining to the police officers, very clearly, what he wanted and what he did not want. He made his will known, and it was disregarded.

And I think, when you look at the totality of what happened here, every single judicial officer that was -- that has been mandated by the law to protect this child, failed, and failed miserably. Miserably.

PHILLIPS: And, all right, and just hearing the child scream and say, "He hits me" and he doesn't want to go. And, you know, that's a cop's job, is to protect all of us, and especially children. Because, well, we can see what's happened now: he's missing, and who knows what his condition is.

But let me ask you, the fact that this dad went to Mexico, paid $150,000, got these fake documents, threw them in front of an American judge and was able to get this kid, I mean, where are the safeguards?

HOSTIN: Well, you know, there are safeguards in place, Kyra, and in 1980 the Haag contention was passed, and the Child Abduction Act was passed to make sure that this sort of thing did not happen.

You know, the United Nations also has a convention, an act, to protect children, but unfortunately, it just doesn't always work appropriately.

And I have to say, I'm not suggesting that we disregard, you know, the judicial systems of other countries, because certainly we shouldn't do that. But in this country, I think that we must place safeguards in place for the protection of our children, and what the judge failed to do was properly follow the procedures. And that's the bottom line. It's about education.

PHILLIPS: And we're hoping so much that people worldwide are watching this story and looking out for this little boy, Jean Paul.

Sunny, thanks so much.

HOSTIN: Thanks.

PHILLIPS: And the boy's mother, as we mentioned, Berenice, has set up a website. It's called FindJeanPaul.com. It's got pictures of him there, pictures of the father, and also updates on the case. If you know this boy's whereabouts, by all means, please reach out to authorities.

All right, we got some breaking news in the weather center. Tornado warning, actually. What you got, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Not that far from Cardstown Road, right by Jack's Baton Beer (ph), Florida City, you know, just south of Homestead, we have a tornado warning here just issued. Big circulation just south of Florida City, southwest of there.

So it will drive itself right over the intersection between Cardstown Road and what you know as the big stretch, 18-mile stretch. And then eventually over the Air Reserve National Air Guard base, near the Homestead Air Force Base, not that far from Homestead Speedway, as well, and then into Biscayne Bay. But there's Miami, right there. So it is very close to these big cities here, even though right now it's kind of out there in the wide-open space.

Eventually, you get to Florida City, and you start to get more population density, so we'll watch it for you here. It's circulating on radar. So far no reports that it's actually on the ground yet, but certainly, circulating enough to make that on the ground at any time, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. We'll track it with you. Thanks, Chad. MYERS: Sure.

PHILLIPS: All kinds of hot air coming out of the climate summit, but no agreement. Now, can President Obama seal a deal?

And on this date in 2003, Lee Boyd Malvo, the younger D.C. sniper, found guilty. The older killer, John Muhammad, was executed last month. Malvo, still a young man, serving life in prison, no parole.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Dwindling donations plus empty pews equal big trouble for the Catholic Church. We're going to look at the group's mission to bring old faces and new recruits into the fold.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, time's up in Copenhagen, but world leaders are still scrambling for a deal to cut greenhouse gases. President Obama says no country will get everything it wants, and when it comes to fighting climate change, some action is better than known.

CNN's Ed Henry is there. So, Ed, where do things stand as of right now?

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, still very much up in the air. I'm starting to think that the president learned something from his last trip to Copenhagen, where he made that last-minute pitch for the Olympics to go to Chicago. That failed after the president was just here for a very brief time and got back out of town.

This time he's not going anywhere. In fact, this past hour he's now had his third multilateral meeting, which basically means a large meeting, with about 20 world leaders.

Meanwhile, he's now having his second face-to-face meeting with the Chinese premier, because China has become the real sticking point here, not willing to provide more transparency, in the eyes of the U.S., in terms of whether or not China will actually live up to any commitments made here about cutting carbon emissions in the days ahead.

The U.S. feels they've given as much as they can in terms of agreeing to pay into a global fund of at least $100 billion that would help developing countries pay the deal with global warming. And the president, in his public remarks today, was very tough in saying, look, the U.S. is stepping up. It's time for others to do the same.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: America is going to continue on this course of action to mitigate our emissions and to move towards a clean-energy economy, no matter what happens here in Copenhagen. We think it is good for us, as well as good for the world. But we also believe that we will all be stronger, all be safer, all be more secure, if we act together. That's why it is in our mutual interests to achieve a global accord in which we agree to certain steps and to hold each other accountable to certain commitments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Interesting that we've just confirmed that the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, after meeting one-on-one with President Obama, is now headed to the airport and planning to leave town. Expecting other leaders will start leaving as well. This is the last day here.

Meanwhile, while President Obama was supposed to be leaving in the next couple of hours, the White House has said that his departure is now TBD, as in to be determined. So the president could be here late into the night. We're just not quite sure when he's going to head back to the United States.

And so I think it's very clear that he's trying to show he's got skin in the game here and that he is going to keep fighting until the end, very end, in fact, maybe the final moment, of this summit, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, we'll keep watching. Thanks, Ed.

Well, in south Florida, buckets of rain, and it's still pouring right now. A storm that moved out of the gulf has sent floodwaters into downtown Miami, knee deep in places. The flooding was a commuter's nightmare this morning with drivers stranded all over the place.

The storm system is going to cause a lot more problems as it moves up the Atlantic seaboard, too. Winter storm warnings from the Carolinas into parts of the Noreast -- Northeast. Chad Myers, what do you think? How bad is it going to be?

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Wow. OK, Chad, thanks.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Sure.

PHILLIPS: On the seventh day he rested. The old-school concept of Sabbath still going strong in some states. We're going to talk to folks in favor and folks with the blue-law blues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Top stories now.

A champagne moment for British Airways passengers heading out for Christmas. There will be no strike by cabin crews over the holiday. A London judge blocked the planned 12-day walkout. It would have put 1 million passengers and their holiday trips in jeopardy. Get a good look at those Saabs on the road, because they won't be around much longer. General Motors is stopping production of the brand after a deal to keep it open fell through. G.M. has owned the Swedish carmaker for 20 years.

For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi's staying home from the Super Bowl. The soft drink giant says it won't advertise in the upcoming game. It's changing its marketing strategy to focus on giving to charity groups.

Maybe the Catholic Church will buy those spots instead. For a long time now, well, the Vatican, well, it's been worried about its numbers, and an independent group is trying to do something about it.

Here in the U.S., Catholics Come Home is an outreach to lapsed Catholics and folks of other faiths. And they're in the middle of a big December push. At least eight dioceses, including Sacramento, have actually launched local campaigns. And according to the group, only 33 percent of American Catholics go to mass every week.

Well, these days, you can get pretty much anything with the click of a mouse, so it's extra jarring when you can't buy it now. Blue laws are still on the books in lots of places, though, restricting retail and revenues on Sundays.

CNN's Christine Romans takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 'Tis the season to eat, drink, and be merry, except you can't do this on Sundays in some parts of the country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the law is an arcane law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a free country, and people should be able to do what they choose to on which days.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They'll still go to church, because I know my church people would go.

ROMANS: They're called blue laws, and they limit shopping on items from booze to Buicks. More than a dozen states have laws restricting alcohol sales on Sundays with three, including Georgia, banning liquor store sales altogether. In several states and counties, you can't buy a car on Sundays. Dealerships must be closed.

In most counties in South Carolina, retail outlets can't open before 1:30 on a Sunday, unless they're selling necessary items like food or fuel. It's based on a centuries-old Christian concept brought over to this country in colonial times.

PROF. DAVID LABAND, AUBURN UNIVERSITY: Early, particularly statewide blue laws, actually referenced the fact that, you know, you were not to profane the Lord on the Lord's day. And that you went to church on Sundays. You know, there would be no other work permitted on Sunday.

ROMANS: But Sunday closings have little to do with religion today. Mac Thurston, owner of Mac's Beer and Wine in downtown Atlanta, is happy to close his doors on Sundays for other reasons.

MAC THURSTON, OWNER, MAC'S BEER AND WINE: It's a day of rest that I like taking personally, and professionally, all we'll do is spread out six days' worth of sales over seven, incurring overhead costs that we don't have now.

ROMANS: While big businesses with large payrolls have pushed to repeal blue laws, many small, mom-and-pops need to keep them around as a forced time-out from competition.

LABAND: This is not necessarily a religious thing any longer, at least, that they're -- whether it's Monday, whether it's Sunday, whether it's Saturday, or some other day of the week, small business owners in particular, just need to have time off, and they take that time off.

ROMANS: Blue laws or not, Truett Cathy, the founder of food chain Chick-Fil-A, has never let his restaurants open on a Sunday. For him, it is about religion. God comes before the bottom line.

TRUETT CATHY, FOUNDER, CHICK-FIL-A: It speaks very plainly that the Lord rests for a day. When you work hard all week; you need that day off.

ROMANS: Christine Romans, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Balancing faith and finances. When money's tight, Christine Romans explores how we worship and how we spend. "In God we Trust: Faith and Money in America," tomorrow night, 8 Eastern, only on CNN.

Two weeks in hell and then the hard work starts. That's if you survive. You'll never look at the Green Berets the same way again.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, when the going gets tough, the Pentagon calls in the Special Forces, and they don't get any more special or tough than the Green Berets. These soldiers specialize in unconventional warfare, and for most of two decades now, they, and their comrades, have been in great demand.

Last year some 5,000 Green Berets, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and other Special Forces were in Iraq; 3,000 in Afghanistan. And this year 1,000 more have gone to Afghanistan.

And if you think their mission is tough, wait until you see their training. Sixty percent of the G.I.s and civilians who enter what's called Special Forces assessment and selection don't get through it. I'll say it again. Six in 10 fail, including, maybe, this guy. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody else is sucking as bad as you right now. Stop! Why are you here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to finish the course, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because you want to succeed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, you're watching a bit of a fascinating program that's going to air this weekend on the Discovery Channel. "Two Weeks in Hell" looks at the process of finding those men who deserve to enter the Green Beret training in earnest. That's right. This isn't even the actual training.

I'm joined here in the NEWSROOM by a pair of Special Forces assessors who put those wannabes through hell: Sergeant First Class Carlos Herrera and Sergeant First Class Vaughn (ph) Beckham.

OK, gentlemen, I have to behave myself, because looking at you two and shaking your hands, I don't want to get into any trouble. But I do have some controversial questions, we'll see how we do here.

Looking at that training, we watched the documentary, it's not just physical, but it's very much mental. Why do these trainees need to go through such rigorous mental hell, if you will? Vaughn?

SGT. VAUGHN BECKHAM, SPECIAL FORCES ASSESSOR: Well, we're training them for a worst-case scenario when they go downrange, and we don't want a guy that will be stressed out under adverse conditions in our unit. They have to be mentally tough. Part of the training is they don't (ph) get four hours of sleep a night. And that's just as much a part of the program as any of the other events, as the lack of sleep. So, they're not thinking straight, they're wore out both physically and mentally, and takes a toll.

PHILLIPS: Which we know happens on the battlefield. Even as a journalist and covering it, you don't get any sleep. But sleep deprivation, Carlos, you know, can mean mistakes, and that's not what you want when you're on the battlefield.

SGT. CARLOS HERERRA, SPECIAL FORCES SENIOR ASSESSOR: That's -- that's correct. With the lack of sleep, that's when the true personality starts coming out, and that is a better tool to better assess the candidates. When their true personality shines, that will show us if he's willing to work with the team or if he's just trying to be a one-man show.

PHILLIPS: Let's take another look at another clip here, and I have some questions about the training.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody else is sucking as bad as you right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop! Why are you here

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to succeed through the course, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because you want to succeed through the course.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a little pissed off right now. Mostly at myself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing on this obstacle is optional. One or two obstacles unable to complete, OK, but he continued to have issues with basically all the obstacles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go on three-seven. Go on, zero-three.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Interesting. I said to you, Vaughn, do you know that guy, do you know Andrew? And you said, nope, they're only numbers to us. Tell me why that is. Is it because you guys in no way, shape, or form can you feel for these guys?

BECKHAM: Well, we try not to be emotionally attached to them. We don't want to really know a lot about them. We want to grade them fairly whether it's a captain or a private that comes through, they'll get treated the same.

PHILLIPS: Carlos, watching these clips and watching the obstacle course, I mean, a lot of these guys were struggling. And we pointed out the fact that a lot of them failed. Why is it so essential? Especially right now, we've got two ongoing wars, that these guys, when they step in country don't fail, in any way?

HERERRA: Well, the reason why is that as it has shown in the past, when ODAs go into country, that's pretty much that's it, all you've got is what you're carrying on your back and the 11 other guys to your left and your right. And it's very important that these guys can handle a lot of stress and be at the top of his game for whatever comes before him.

PHILLIPS: Let's take a look at one more clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be here!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Normally people come here prepared, and I look for the weak ones! Now I have to look for strong ones, because you are all weak!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the way up. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: You are all weak. OK. I can see, you know, you got to break them down to build them up. If you guys were to say there's one trait you always look for when it comes to these guys, what would you say it is, Vaughn. If you could pick one thing, what does your guy have to have?

BECKHAM: He cannot quit.

PHILLIPS: No matter what. Carlos?

HERRERA: Has to be able to work with the chain, and no matter how mad they are at each other, still mission comes first.

PHILLIPS: All right, now fess up to me, when you guys went through the training. Toughest part for? Be honest.

BECKHAM: The toughest part of selection I think is team week, where you have that (INAUDIBLE) they build. Sometimes they're carrying 150 pounds on their back for up to ten kilometers, and that will just be the first half of one day, and it's all events like that. It's all a lot of weight, just compressing spines and hurting feet. We get a lot of injuries. We get a lot of med drops in the class, and I think for me, anyway, team week was the hardest part.

PHILLIPS: Carlos?

HERRERA: One particular event I can remember it was called the Sandman and that's what Vaughn was hitting on. It was about 150 to 180 pounds on your back for a tremendous -- it was for a long distance. I can't remember how long it was. Just when you think you can't go anymore, that's when your heart starts to prevail, and that's when you either succeed or you fail.

PHILLIPS: All right. I'm going to make both of your hearts pump now. Where's the women? Guys, where are the female Green Berets?

BECKHAM: You have to ask someone besides us.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: I knew it! You're taking the Fifth. I had to throw it out there. I know, Hollywood, you know, portrays them. I remember "GI Jane," and I remember a lot of the guys saying, "OK, let's be real here."

But I think that there is definitely -- well, let me ask you this, if this is a fair question. Looking forward, and looking at these wars, and really you can't define a combat area anymore. I mean, no matter where you are, we found ourselves right in the middle of combat, it gets really hairy.

Looking into the future, is there the possibility that we could see women fighting like that, within the Special Forces?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: You guys still aren't going to answer me.

HERERRA: That is not for us...

PHILLIPS: Controversial, okay. All right, it's interesting, though. It's an interesting point, because I think the wars are changing...

HERERRA: Right.

PHILLIPS: You know, the battle lines are changing. And you never know when something's going to happen, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, it's unconventional to the max. So, you know, I tell you what.

all right, we'll leave it there, guys. But I appreciate you joining us, talking about the training and also that the fact that it's going to air, and we all look forward to seeing the response that it gets.

HERERRA: Well, thank you for having me.

PHILLIPS: Especially this final question. Thanks, guys. Good to see you.

Well, "Two Weeks in Hell" airs Sunday, 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on the Discovery Channel. You won't want to miss it.

Well, talk about your unconventional warfare, how do you capture hearts and minds when local politicians, government officials, authority figures are corrupt? Well, take a look at what our Frederik Pleitgen found for us in Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDRICK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is something like the waiting area, Kabul's department of motor vehicles. But if you want to register a car here, better be prepared to pay extra. Otherwise, you might end up like this man.

"They keep postponing me," he says. "I've been waiting here for three days and three nights."

That's because he didn't pay off the right people. The waiting area is full of men who call themselves agents. They make sure the bribes get to the right government offices and paperwork gets done.

For a small fee, of course. Only one agent was willing to speak to us.

"For a Toyota Corolla, we usually take about $300 to process the documents," he says. $300 to register a car. The median income in Afghanistan is only about $800 a year.

The U.S. is sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, but Washington knows it can only win over Afghans if government officials stop ripping the people off.

(on camera): The Karzai government said it realizes it needs to make fighting corruption its top priority. however, so far, it appears, its efforts are falling short.

(voice-over): A U.S. government watchdog says Afghanistan's newly created office to fight corruption is weak, incompetent and influenced by powerful politicians. At a recent anti-corruption conference, Afghan president Hamid Karzai said the situation is embarrassing.

"Until we can provide the people the peace of mind that we will defend them against corruption," he says, "we will not succeed." But can corruption so endemic really be eradcated? At the motor vehicle department, an angry police officer shows up.

"None of the agents has a permit," he says. "What they are doing is illegal." But the cop also made clear, though he doesn't like the bribe taking, he wasn't going to do anything about it.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Hey, Santa, got anything in that bag for a hangover? maybe you don't need anything. It turns out, not every liquor hurts the same. Check out the story, and your head will thank you later.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, when a prisoner who pretends to be wheelchair- bound escapes on foot, you can bet there will be a fallout. A fifth Texas prison worker out of a job after a sex offender escaped last month with a smuggled pistol. The guard was fired after she admitted to making phone calls to Arcade Comeaux's ex-wife at his request. Comeaux's been recaptured.

They call him the Grim Sleeper, and L.A. police are releasing new composite sketches of him. They believe the man killed at least 11 people since 1985, mostly young black women. He's known as the Grim Sleeper because he apparently took a 14-year break during his crimes.

It's big, it's bad, and it's on the way. A major winter storm bearing down in the Northeast. It could cause some chaos to travelers and Christmas shoppers. A winter storm warning is in effect for a number of big cities now.

Okay. I want to tell you right off the bat, that I don't want you binge drinking over the holidays. But if you do toss back a little Christmas cheer, please at least pick the right booze. Elizabeth Cohen -- everybody's drinking buddy today, there's actually a study out on hangovers.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There is. Can you believe it? Researchers actually decided to study the science of hangover. PHILLIPS: Hey, so many people deal with it, so many people go through it.

COHEN: I guess you could say it's a common condition, so I guess it's worthy of study for that reason.

But they wanted to ask the age-old question among college students, which gives you a worse hangover, bourbon or vodka?

Apparently this is a burning question, and so what they did was they recruited about 95 university students in the Boston area. And they got them drunk. They put them in a room for two nights and they got them quite drunk, beyond legally drunk, and then they tested them afterwards when they had their hangovers.

And they found out that bourbon gives you a worse hangover than vodka. I'm not really sure what one is supposed to do with this information, since really one shouldn't be getting that drunk anyhow...

PHILLIPS: OK, so -- that's a good point, Mom. But we've all been there, unfortunately. Any stunning conclusions?

COHEN: Well, that was one of them, was that bourbon was -- gets you...

PHILLIPS: Oh. Was that stunning? I was thinking, all right, there's got to be something more.

COHEN: That was the main conclusion. Another major conclusion was that they found out that when these students had hangovers, it decreased their cognitive abilities. In other words, they weren't as smart or didn't think as quickly when they were hungover compared to when they were not hungover.

PHILLIPS: All right. So, why did they do the research?

COHEN: All right, we asked them that. We said, do you know what, the national institutes for health helped pay for this, all right? So, some of this was funded by taxpayers. We said, why is this in the interests of taxpayers to do this research?

They said, look, people with hangovers, like these students, they thought they weren't cognitively impaired -- I can't talk, either -- but, in fact, they were. So...

PHILLIPS: Elizabeth has been sipping on the bottle backstage. She's been dipping into the holiday cheer.

(LAUGHTER)

COHEN: But they said it's important for the public to know when you're hungover you may be a little bit impaired.

PHILLIPS: Alright. News you can use, I guess.

COHEN: I guess so.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Elizabeth.

Making a much harder turn here. This story is just heart- wrenching. A fatal accident hits home, and it hits home hard. The most horrible news someone could get delivered in a pretty horrible way. You can't even imagine.

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PHILLIPS: A law in Oklahoma is really firing the abortion debate. Next hour, we're going to put a question out there -- how much information is too much information?

Plus, two words for you: Michael Ware. He's got some video you won't soon forget, hostage home video from Iraq, an ordeal Michael knows all too well.

Well, this one is unimaginable. After her husband's fatal car wreck, the widow gets a call. Not about his death, but asking her if she wants to donate his organs. That's how she found out that he had been killed. Talk about a failure to communicate.

The organ donor group says cops called them an hour after the crash. They waited another hour and a half, then called the victim's family, assuming, as you would, police notified the family first. Well, the donor group said this is the first time anything like this has ever happened. They apologized to the family. No comment yet from the authorities.

Revolutionaries without a home. Iraq is shutting down a camp where an Iranian opposition group has been operating for two decades. We'll get an inside look in our Backstory.

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PHILLIPS: Well, if it is Friday, it is Backstory and CNN's Isha Sesay looks inside a camp of revolutionaries without a revolution, and it is a desperate situation right now. Let's get some background from Jim Clancy. He has been talking about this actually going on for what -- 20 years?

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this group started out even further back in history inside of Iran. Marxist, Leninists wanted to overthrow the shah of Iran, carried out attacks against him and his friends, including terror attacks that killed Americans. They are on the official U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

But ironically, Kyra, these guys say that all of the information that the CIA missed, that the Mozad missed on Iran's nuclear enrichment program, it came from them. See, they have a lot of support in Congress. But the fact is, time and the tides of political change has completely swept these people away. There were 4,000 of them in a camp that were allowed to live in by Saddam Hussein, and he used them to fight the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war. He even used them against the Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds, in their own country. They are not well liked. Now, this new military government, as they were sheltering in Iraq, today, Nuri al Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, he was sheltering in Iran. The Iranians -- they want to get rid of the guys, so the Iraqi government is showing its independence from the U.S. and it wants to move them out of the camp down to a place that is like a crematoria that you saw on the "Chronicles of Riddick." That's where they want to send them to, and these people don't want to go

Let's take a look at what Isha Sesay has in this Backstory.

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ISHA SESAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here we are at the back of on of our cars, waiting to get into the Camp Ashraf, which is a camp that an Iranian opposition group have had in Iraq for more than 20 years. And essentially, this is the day that the Iraqi government has decided they must leave this camp and be relocated elsewhere.

It has taken a lot to get to this position and get here. We are not quite in the camp yet. A lot of security checks, a lot of security forces standing around us. We are waiting to see what happens next. We hope to get into the camp shortly.

It will be the first time CNN cameras have been inside of this camp. We understand that there are roughly over 3,500 members of this group here. The people's Mujahadine (ph) of (INAUDIBLE), and so, we will go in and see what kind of situation they have in there, what kind of living standards and what the arrangements have been over the last 20-odd years. And we will bring you more details.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to have a very orchestrated visit. At least you got a visit. It is more than anybody else has got. Do you know how many correspondents haven't (INAUDIBLE) the do this story?

SESAY: Finally, we are in the camp and just come through the gate. Quite elaborate, of statutes right at the gates back there with the gold lion on it. It had something along the lines of solidarity on it, and we are driving through the heart of the camp going by.

Lots of buildings, fence staff, and we will get a look at things when we stop. We are led by Iraqi security forces and not quite sure where we are going, but we will find out.

All right. We jumped back into back of a truck because we're not allowed to get into the camp proper in our own civilian cars if you want to call them that, so, as you can see, the crew and several other crews are all in the truck, and we are about to make our way down those just impromptu press conference, if you want to call it that with some members of the Camp Ashiraf (ph) sharing their views on this camp (INAUDIBLE).

And they say they don't want to leave, but we are going into the camp proper where these cars with loud speakers are going to read out a statement basically saying that the Iraqi government is committed to move them from this place, and we will see what happens. Right now, the residents are very clear, they do not want to leave. They do not know if force will be used in the coming days, and we will wait to see what happens.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Excuse me. Who -- why, because I is more than 22 years that we are here. Here is my home. Who -- I ask you, if they get -- if somebody can tell you, you see in the European countries everywhere more than 20 years, they ask you if you are the resistance (ph) of this country, and how they can ask us to leave here?

SESAY: It is really a difficult position that they -- that a journalist finds themselves in when you are surrounded by people with obviously in a lot of distress, for whatever reason, and they want to get the story out to you. That is what we do with this job. We get people's stories out. We get both sides of the story out.

It has just been, you know, a day where we would like to spend more time here, and we'd like to get more of a sense of the kind of lives that people live here. But our time is not our own, and our time is very closely guarded and structured by the Iraqi authorities. But it was a rare chance and very rare opportunity that you heard from women of Camp Ashiraf and hearing their side and their stories.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Wow. So the signs they are showing -- well, obviously, what we saw, they are making pleas, right? In English.

CLANCY: Yes, they have signs in English, because think are reaching out to the international community. They were up on the Hill this week. They got the Congressmen to support them saying, that you leave them where they are, because they know a couple of things happen.

If they get moved out to that camp as a revolutionary group, they are finished. But they have to be moved in the Iraqi government's view, because they still have the potential and they have done it. They sneak into Iran, carry out a rocket or mortar attack, and in some cases innocent civilians have been killed and the Iraqis want to show the independence from the Americans and they say, you're going to move.

PHILLIPS: Why do you only see women in the camp?

CLANCY: Well, for the most part, there are only women -- they want to put forward a very benign face to the world that we are not the kind of revolutionary group that will threaten anybody. But in fact, there is a lot of people in Iraq who don't like these people, that feel that they sided with Saddam Hussein, and their leader was seen, you know, shaking hands with Saddam, and they did Saddam's bidding. This is not a popular group. The water lines to that camp have been blown up.

PHILLIPS: So why hasn't it been closed down by now? CLANCY: Well, they have a lot of lobby power. The U.S. was in there protecting them after the invasion in 2003. The U.S. bombed that camp. But they reached a cease-fire in April of 2003

PHILLIPS: But they didn't take it out, obviously.

CLANCY: No, but they disarmed them, and the U.S. was in there protecting them, because like I said, they were the guys who revealed Iran's nuclear enrichment program. They are seen as value somewhere, but it's cult personality. And no doubt it is a terrorist group, and a very troubling group of about 4,000 people.

What is the world do with them? They can't go back to Iran, because they will be executed or imprisoned, and nobody else really wants them although the leaders are headquartered in France right now.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Well, Isha did an incredible job. Interesting Backstory seen there. Thanks, Jim.

You can get a lot more on this intriguing story on the Web site. We want to plug that, for sure. Just log on to CNN.com/backstory.