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Holiday Travelers Need To Pack Their Patience And Flexibility As Airlines Try To Catch Up On Canceled Flights; What Health Care Reform Means for Taxes; Frustrated Travelers at Various Northeastern Airports; Maginnis Says How and Why Our Military Is Stretched Too Thin; The Up and Downsides of Major Snowstorm on the Holiday Economy; A "Walk in Their Shoes"
Aired December 21, 2009 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: News that's happening now, the postal service says today is the last day you can mail first-class letters and cards and expect them to arrive by Christmas. If you wait until tomorrow, you'll need express mail to meet the deadline.
A New Jersey father is holding out hope a Brazilian court will order his 9-year-old son, Sean, back to the United States. A Brazilian Supreme Court justice blocked Sean's return last week. Today the country's chief justice is scheduled to rule on Goldman's appeal seeking to lift that order. Goldman began his custody fight five years ago after the boy's mother brought him to her native Brazil. She has since died.
And now, news holiday drivers will appreciate. Gas prices have fallen almost four cents over the past two weeks. The latest Lundberg Survey shows the national average for a gallon of unleaded gas now $2.67.
An East Coast snowstorm of historic proportions making for travel problems; people will not likely forget. Monday morning commuters taking it slow as they make their way over snow covered roads and icy sidewalks. Stranded airline passengers hoping to finally get on their way after hundreds of flights were canceled. The weather's being blamed for six deaths now and more than 130,000 people are without power.
Let's get straight over to meteorologist Rob Marciano to get the very latest on this. So, things are looking better today for most parts. Again, the worst part is usually the clean-up anyway.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, and it is not like temperatures are turning 40, 50 degrees higher or even 5 or 10 degrees higher. Right now we are looking at temps hovering around the freezing mark. New York City is 33; 26 degrees in Boston and 30 in D.C.
The first day or two after a snowfall, you've got a couple of things working against you even when the sun is out. One, that all that snow has a pretty high elveto (ph), which means a lot of reflection. It's not going to heat up very often, very much. With that cold air, it kind of keeps things cold tonight.
We're not going to see a tremendous amount of melting today unless, you know, the sun is beaming down on some asphalt that would help melt things. But for the most part, the next day or two we'll see temperatures right around there. That creates a bit of a problem when you're talking about snow totals like this. This is just some of the bigger cities, 23 inches, officially in Philadelphia, Baltimore seeing 21, Newport 20.5, and D.C. seeing 16. A lot of these were records that were absolutely blown out of the water. Manhattan seeing just under a foot.
We have winds today, that's one of the things that's working against us as far as delays at some of the airports. Obviously deicing is still a problem. Just the sheer volume of trying to get people where they need to go after all those flights canceled.
The storm, itself, is heading out to sea. Behind it we still have a little bit in the way of lake effect snows coming in off Erie and Ontario. Not a tremendous amount. They should not get to the I- 95 corridor. Should remain mostly sunny in those spots. In the non- shaded areas we should see a little warming and snow at least trying to melt. In some cases the snow actually evaporates and skips the liquid stage. We'll see a little bit of that.
Temperatures will begin to moderate somewhat I think over the next day or two as this mild air begins to migrate farther to the north. But as that happens, another storm that's heading into the Pacific Northwest and the West Coast, that is going to create some problems, I think, as we go through Wednesday and Thursday. There are already winter storm and blizzard watches up for parts of the Midwest as this storm cranks out, Heidi. That will be the next travel problem, I think, for folks who are traveling the day before Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve itself. And it will include some snow. But likely not cold enough for snow across the places that got 1 or 2 feet. That's the good news there.
COLLINS: Oh, good. Yeah. Definitely good news. Rob, we'll check back later. Thank you.
MARCIANO: All right.
COLLINS: Thousands of people trying to get home for the holidays, as you know, but stuck because of this storm. It's one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. Washington was one of the hardest-hit cities, buried under nearly two feet of snow. In both of the areas two airports have reopened and are struggling now to catch up. CNN's Nicole Collins has this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICOLE COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): While the snowfall is over and the dig out has begun, the mess left by the first big snowstorm of the season is far from cleaned up. While many roads have been cleared, some remain slick and icy with cars abandoned on the shoulder. And some travelers are still stranded at airports along the East Coast as airlines work to resume regular schedules. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're just telling us, oh, stand in line for three hours. They tell you after you get to the front. It's just insane.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is kind of a disaster. It's a little tiring. Sleep-wise, you can't get a lot of sleep.
N. COLLINS: Washington's Reagan National and Dulles Airport saw record snowfall in the blizzard of '09 with totals between 16 and 18 inches. The highest one-day totals in December history. The storm left a backlog of holiday travelers.
CARRIE PALMER, STRANDED TRAVELER: People were really worried about missing their flights, not getting any flights, not getting out till Wednesday at the earliest.
N. COLLINS: With several deaths reported in Virginia, some hunkered down in airports are making the best of it, and say they're keeping their perspective.
DENNIS KATOLIN, STRANDED TRAVELER: We'll be fine. We'll be fine. Everybody's healthy. Everybody's safe. Not the end of the world, but frustrating.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
H. COLLINS: Yeah, frustrating to say the at least. Nicole Collins is joining us now from Reagan National Airport.
Nicole, what's the very latest now? I keep watching those cones behind you, that you mentioned last time around.
N. COLLINS: Yeah. Actually, they've started to move those back. They've got some more traditional line forming devices there. But that line has eased up a little bit. We understand it's still two hours of a wait back there.
But all the runways are open at this point. The planes have been coming in and out since 6:00 o'clock this morning Eastern Time. So about four hours. Things do appear to be running pretty smoothly. People are getting through security quickly and trying to get to their destinations, whether they've been delayed or not, Heidi.
H. COLLINS: All right. Well, good luck to everybody there. Nicole Collins, thank you.
If the snowy airport mess is affecting your travel plans, you probably have quite a few questions. Like what does the airline owe you? When will things get back to normal? Ben Mutzabaugh is the man with all the answers, he is the air and travel correspondent for "USA Today" joining us now from Washington.
Yeah, you didn't have to fly anywhere, did you?
BEN MUTZABAUGH, AIR & TRAVEL CORRESPONDENT, "USA TODAY": I just had to go down the street, fortunately, today. H. COLLINS: That's right. It's an interesting question. When there is a weather cancellation, the airline really doesn't owe its passengers anything.
MUTZABAUGH: That's correct. A lot of people think they might -- the only time the airline ever owes you anything is if you're involuntarily bumped from an oversold flight. But if it's a weather cancellation, if your flight's canceled you're entitled to refund of your ticket price. Of course, then, the airline's no longer obligated to get you where you were attempting to go.
COLLINS: Yes, so either you get to stay --
MUTZABAUGH: You get your money back and stay put, or tough it out.
COLLINS: All right. So if you are at the airport already, which is usually the case, your flight has been canceled, what exactly should you do? You really don't have much recourse.
MUTZABAUGH: No, unfortunately, I might have some of the answers this time. Many of them aren't good answers. They're just the best of a bad situation. Look, this storm hit just a few days before the peak travel period was supposed to begin before the Christmas holiday. That means most airlines had sold a lot of seats. For all of these customers who are stranded, there aren't many empty seats to dole out to help get these people home. That's bad news.
I have a lot of people even asking me, what's the secret? What's the trick? I'm like, if every seat's sold, unfortunately there isn't a trick this time around. That said, the airline's doing some things that can help you. Most all airlines that fly to the region have waived their change fees, and made booking a little more flexible, allowing customers, depending on the airline, to move their flights back by two or three days so they might be able to book maybe on Wednesday. I know that's a terrible solution if you hoped to be out Saturday or Sunday, but it's a solution.
COLLINS: Yeah, and it is still the 23rd, as opposed to missing the Christmas holiday altogether.
MUTZABAUGH: Exactly. If you're flexible, maybe you'd consider Wednesday, even Thursday, maybe even Friday morning, depending on when you want to go. I talked to George Hubble (ph) of Airfare Watchdog, and he told me he ran a search on some routes. Some had a fair number of seats open. Some were completely sold out. So, a lot of that, too, just depends on where exactly you're trying to go. It's going to be on a route by route basis. Patience is really going to do you a lot of favors this holiday season if you're trying to travel.
COLLINS: Yes, good luck on that.
Hey, listen. It brought us to thinking about the economy in all of this. Never mind the retail dollars that may have been affected with this storm, but also kind of just thinking about the airlines for a second. On average, how much did they lose in the middle of something like this when they're not flying for a day, day and a half?
MUTZABAUGH: It'll really be interesting to see what numbers come in from this blizzard. The airlines eventually come in and give an estimate how much this hit their bottom line. This is clearly not good news for an airline industry that's been struggling for years now even. This hits at one of the few times of the winter they actually can make money. Now instead of trying to offset the losses for the rest of the winter, they're having to deal with thousands and tens of thousands of stranded passengers, trying to fly extra flights just to get stuck passengers home. It's really going to make a dent on the airlines' bottom line.
So far, with a few exceptions, from what I've heard the airlines seem to be doing an OK job in making the best of a pretty bad situation. That's not -- usually you hear the story the other way around. So far from what I've heard, it's a good bad situation.
COLLINS: Yeah, yeah, understood. Just as you were talking, looking at LAX, which I think is actually in pretty good shape, if you're out in California right now.
MUTZABAUGH: That's one of the interesting things. People have to remember, too, even if you're flying in the West Coast like from Los Angeles to Seattle and it's sunny weather, if the airline tells you it's a weather delay for your flight, they may be right. If that plane that's supposed to fly your flight from San Diego got stuck in Philadelphia, or in New York or in Washington, it obviously can't be there in San Diego to fly your flight. I see reports from Palm Beach, San Diego, Toronto. This storm has affected flights across the continent.
COLLINS: Yes, very good point. All right, Ben Mutzabaugh, we sure do appreciate your help in all this. Thank you.
MUTZABAUGH: My pleasure.
COLLINS: So we also want to know if you happen to be in the middle of a travel nightmare and you want to vent about it. Go ahead. We'll listen. Go to my blog. Cnn.com/heidi and post your story there. We'll share some a little bit later on.
Lawmakers stay up late to pass a big health care hurdle. We'll take a look at what's next on the road to reform.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Less than two hours from now the Senate reconvenes to resume health care reform debate after clearing a big hurdle early, early this morning. CNN's Brianna Keilar has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On this vote, the yeas are 60, the nays are 40. Three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): And with that, health care reform cleared a major hurdle in an early morning vote in the Senate. But for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the key breakthrough came on Saturday when Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska announced that he would back the bill, giving Democrats 60 votes. The absolute minimum they needed to pass a bill.
SEN. BEN NELSON, (D) NEBRASKA: Change is never easy. But change is what's necessary in America today. And that's why I intend to vote for health care reform.
KEILAR: Nelson signed on only after striking a deal with Democratic leaders to limit insurance coverage of abortions. And he offered a warning if that provision is weakened as the Senate bill is merged with the House-passed bill.
NELSON: I reserve the right to vote against the next cloture vote, if there are material changes to this agreement in the conference report.
KEILAR: Nelson also scored a sweetener for his state. The federal government will pick up the tab for expanding Medicaid in Nebraska, the only state to receive the windfall. While liberal Democrats criticize the bill which does not include a government-run insurance plan, President Obama praised the compromise.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: With today's developments, it now appears that the American people will have the vote they deserve on genuine reform that offers security to those that have health insurance and affordable options for those who do not.
KEILAR: Republicans unanimous in their opposition to the Democrats health care reform bill lambasted it on the Senate floor.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: We're not going to put the whole nation at risk, and take a broken system and make it worse just to get a vote. No way in hell.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Brianna Keilar joining us now live from Capitol Hill.
Brianna, let's talk for a minute about the new requirements in this thing.
KEILAR: Yes, let's talk about the basics. There is a requirement that you have health insurance. It's an individual mandate. If you don't have health insurance, you would pay a fine. But there's also things to help people get insurance if they can't afford it. For instance, there are federal subsidies so that middle class, low-income Americans who are making less than about $88,000 a year for a family of four, so they can purchase insurance.
There's also an expansion of Medicaid so that Americans who are making under about $29,000 per year can have that as their coverage. There's also, Heidi, a number of insurance industry reforms. For instance, and this is just one of many, this bill would say to insurance companies, you cannot deny coverage on the basis of a pre- existing condition. I know that's a big one for a lot of people out there, Heidi.
COLLINS: Yeah. Next steps for passing health care reform as a whole, I mean, we're still a long way off?
KEILAR: Yeah. And, actually, it seems like health care reform has passed the Senate, but it really hasn't. This was a very key test vote. The reason we were watching it is because it required 60 votes, which is a pretty high mark there. The actual vote so that health care reform passes the Senate is going to take place later in the week. Possibly as late as Thursday night on Christmas Eve. That only requires 50 votes.
Then there's a whole other process. The House passed a bill back in November, remember. It needs to be reconciled with this Senate bill. They are very different. The House bill has that public option, that government-run insurance plan. This one in the Senate does not. Once they work out their differences, decide on a final bill, then both the House and the Senate have to pass those. That is what would be on President Obama's desk and signed into law. Sometime in the new year, presumably, that's the goal of Democrats, Heidi.
COLLINS: I thought you were going to say sometime in the future, to stay safe.
KEILAR: True.
COLLINS: All right. Brianna Keilar, thanks. Your phone's ringing, better get that. Appreciate it.
KEILAR: I will.
COLLINS: Questions about cancer, children often have them when a family member gets sick. Families sometimes struggle to give them answers. Now a new book can help with that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Checking top stories now.
Hollywood in shock over the sudden death of actress Brittany Murphy. She collapsed yesterday morning at her home in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County coroner's office says she apparently died of natural causes. Authorities are awaiting an autopsy, but say there is no indication of foul play. Murphy appeared in the movies "Clueless," "8 Mile" and "The Groomsman," among others. Brittany Murphy was 32 years old.
A New Jersey father is holding out hope a Brazilian court will order his nine-year-old son, Shawn, back to the United States. A Brazilian supreme court justice blocked Shawn's return last week. Today the country's chief justice is scheduled to rule on Goldman's appeal, seeking to lift that order. Goldman began his custody fight five years ago after the boy's mother brought him to her native Brazil. She has since died.
People in the Philippines bracing for the country's most active volcano to erupt. Tens of thousands of residents were evacuated yesterday and authorities say more than 44,000 people are being housed in evacuation camps now. Scientists say the main volcano could erupt within days. They raised the alert level after they detected a surge in earthquakes and rumbling noises in and around the volcano.
Cancer is, of course, a diagnosis that can trigger a lot of fear and confusion for the patient and family members, especially children. Now there's a book that tells kids the facts about the disease. It's written by a grandmother/granddaughter team who conquered their own cancer fears. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta with the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When Tess Hamermesh first found out her Nana had cancer, her questions were simple.
TESS HAMERMESH, GRANDAUGHTER: I was only four years old, so she explained it to me as a boo-boo on her tummy.
GUPTA: Then a grandfather died of cancer. And there were more questions.
T. HAMERMESH: And stopped for some breakfast at our favorite place.
GUPTA: Tess and her grandmother, Beverlye Hyman Fead, put their conversations into a book called, "Nana, What's Cancer?" it's published by the American Cancer Society.
DR. OTIS BRAWLEY, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY: I really believe the way to talk to kids about cancer is to be open and honest with them.
GUPTA: Some of the questions that children ask are surprising, others universal.
BEVERLYE HYMAN FEAD, GRANDMOTHER: The first thing that surprised me was that she was worried about, can I catch cancer?
GUPTA: Or if she could make it worse. And why some people got the good cancer and others the bad. Fead hopes her book will not only educate families about the disease, but encourage adults and children to share their worries and joys as they live with cancer. She says spending time with Tess is good medicine.
FEAD: There's nothing like a smile for the immune system of the sick one, that's for sure.
GUPTA: According to Doctor Brawly, nearly half of all people with cancer now survive. Leaving more time for conversations and answering those children's questions. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Stuck and trying to get home. That huge snowstorm blowing away a lot of people's travel plans. All they can do now is wait and wonder when they will get out of the airport.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn, having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Not a vote wasted. Early this morning, a big health care hurdle is cleared in the Senate. The vote just after 1:00 a.m., in fact, was to end debate on a package of controversial revisions to the $871 billion bill. The unusual timing of the vote was due to a combination of issues. The Senate rules, the Democrats' determination to pass the bill before adjourning for the holidays, and the Republicans using legislative tactics to slow the bill's progress.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. MITCH MCONNELL, (R) MINORITY LEADER: Make no mistake. If the people who wrote this bill were proud of it, they wouldn't be forcing this vote in the dead of night.
SEN. HARRY REID, (D) MAJORITY LEADER: This is not about partisanship or about procedure. And everyone knows we're here at 1:00 in the morning because of my friends on the other side of the aisle, for them to say with a straight face, I notice some of them didn't have that straight face, that we're here because of us, is without any foundation whatsoever. Everyone knows that.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: I tell the American people, we're going to go around this country. We're going to the town halls. We're going to the senior centers. We're going to the Rotary Clubs. We're going to carry this message, we will not do this. We will not commit generational theft on future generations of Americans. We won't give them another $2.5 trillion of debt. We won't give them an unfair policy where deals are done in back rooms. And we -- we, all of us on this side of the aisle, will stand up for the American people, and we have just begun to fight.
SEN. CHRIS DODD, (D) CONNECTICUT: While I can guarantee if you're to read this bill there'd be disappointments he'd have in it, I knew him well enough to know that, to say that this evening. If he could have written it on his own, he'd have written it differently. But I guarantee you, as I stand here this evening, that were he among us this evening, he would urge all of us to move forward on this bill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: President Obama said he wanted a health care reform bill on his desk by the end of the year. Here's why that seems doubtful now. Two more procedural votes are set for the Senate this week, each requires 60 votes for the bill to move on. Then the final Senate passage of the measure, 51 votes needed there, is expected Thursday. That would be Christmas Eve. Then congressional negotiators will need to work out some pretty thorny differences in the House and the Senate versions. That is not expected to get done until the new year.
As health care reform winds toward passage in the Senate, let's take a look now at some of the bill's winners and losers. Alison Kosik is in the CNN Money newsroom, in New York this morning.
Good morning to you, Alison. Who's coming out ahead here and who's really taking a hit?
ALISON KOSIK, CNNMONEY.COM CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, the first obvious loser is the indoor tanning industry.
COLLINS: Oh, no!
KOSIK: It got burned as the Senate bill adds a new --yep -- a new 10 percent tax on those services, which could raise an estimated $2.7 billion over the next 10 years. Now, on the flip side, cosmetic surgeons, they came out looking pretty good in all this. Senate leaders dropped a proposed 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures. People were calling this the "Botax" as we all know. Not surprisingly, of course, the tanning industry not at all happy about this. It says tanning tax just transferring a tax from rich doctors to struggling small businesses, Heidi.
COLLINS: Yeah. An example of a small business there, definitely. What about the individual states, though? There are some pretty big winners with this bill.
KOSIK: Exactly. And what the Senate bill does is it expands Medicaid. And some states are going to wind up getting extra help, picking up the tab. Nebraska, home to Senator Ben nelson, the last Democratic hold-out, will get federal aid for the Medicare expansion forever. All other states have to start picking up the tab in 2017. Vermont, Massachusetts, and Louisiana will also get extra Medicaid funding, Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes, the only state to get that, very interesting. What about wealthy Americans in all of this? However they are defined, they seem to be on the losing side.
KOSIK: Yes. They're getting dinged in this a bit. People making more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than 250 K will pay more taxes under this bill. It raises the Medicare payroll tax almost one percentage point to 2.35 percent above those income thresholds. And what that means is an individual making $250,000 a year will pay almost $1,200 a year.
Of course, if you want to learn more about this on health care reform, of course, check out CNNmoney.com. Follow us on Twitter as well. Heidi, back to you. COLLINS: All right, Alison. Thank you.
You don't have to look at the calendar to know it is the first day of winter. Just check out these four snowy scenes. Three of them from the mammoth snowstorm that hit the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic states over the weekend. The storm is gone, but certainly left a whole.
One of those problems is travel, of course. Total nightmare out there. Some airlines are scrambling and playing catch up to get people on flights after hundred of flights were canceled during the weekend. Stranded passengers at the airport are waiting and wondering when they're going to be able to get home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRIVATE MITCHELL, U.S. ARMY: We're trying to get out of here and see my family. I don't know right now. My family's really looking forward to seeing me, but right now, I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here in time to see them anytime soon.
DOUGLAS, TRAVELER: So far, they've told me I'm sort of out of luck, because my connecting flight, I will miss. And I might have up to three days before I can get to China -- Shanghai directly. I'm going to see if I can get either to Hong Kong, Beijing, wherever they can get me, and then I can work my own way up to where I need to go.
TONYA HENDERSON, PASSENGER: There were long lines, actually. Customer service, it was out of control for flights. People were delayed at the airport. You could tell there were a lot of tired people there that just couldn't make it out.
ANDY MCGRATH, PASSENGER: I'll get home for Christmas. Just a little later than I wanted to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Oh, he made me sad. At first, I was going to make a joke about, you know, how frustrated and angry and hungry everybody gets. But then he made me sad with his puppy-dog eyes. People want to get home, obviously . It's the holiday week, and a very busy one usually at the airports.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Very much so. They've done a great job of clearing up the runways and taxiways and pretty much all the tarmac, which is probably hundreds of square miles in the affected areas.
The good news is we're not seeing any official delays at the airports that have been affected by the storm.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MARCIANO: The lighter side of this. Unless you're a mail carrier. This from Erica Anderson, took this shot in D.C. where, well, the mailman was having a bit of an issue. But I'm told the mail did go through.
Check out this very Hallmark seasonal-like shot. From Ian Bradshaw in Dover, Pennsylvania.
COLLINS: Wow, beautiful.
MARCIANO: Yes. He brought these ponies over from England. Apparently, they were used back in the day to haul lead from the mines and bring them down to the docks. Very Anheuser-Busch like picture there.
MARCIANO: They look like draft horses, don't they?
COLLINS: Yes. Certainly kind of makes you want to crack a cold one open. No.
COLLINS: No. Never do that.
MARCIANO: Want to get in the spirit of the season, at least.
COLLINS: All right. Rob Marciano, we'll check back later on. Thank you.
That brings us to our blog question of the day. We've been asking for your travel horror stories. I'm not sure why we're doing that, because we have gotten many, many, many travel horror stories. But we wanted to give you an opportunity to be able to vent. So, want to share some of them with you now.
This one from Techani (ph) says, "I spent 19 hours at the San Francisco airport waiting for a flight. I arrived at Washington Dulles yesterday, and I can only fly out on Tuesday evening. It isn't any fun to practically live at the airport." In fact, I think they made a movie about that, didn't they?
"My son and his wife are -- and their baby are trying to come visit us in Mississippi for Christmas. They were supposed to fly out of Roanoke, Virginia, the airport there on Friday. They are not here yet! Unfortunately, they didn't bring enough diapers to last the weekend. They are having to beg diapers from other travelers." That from Melissa. Again, not a fun situation.
This from Deb and Bob. "A happy snowstorm story. Our daughter got married during the storm in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening. More than 175 guests were able to make it. The string quartet was a duet, but otherwise it was beautiful."
All right. Well, good for them. Remember, we always like to hear from you. Just go ahead and log on to CNN.com/heidi and share your comments there.
Multiple wars, longer deployments, and more stress on America's troops. What the U.S. needs to do to hold on to enough volunteers for its all-volunteer military.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COLLINS: Checking top stories now.
He was born into poverty and became one of the America's most famous televangelists. Oral Roberts' life and legacy will be remembered at a memorial service today in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It will take place at his namesake university and will be carried on the Web. Roberts died last week of complications from pneumonia. He was 91 years old.
The lab technician accused of killing a Yale graduate student is due back in a Connecticut courtroom today. Raymond Clark faces charges he strangled Annie Le. His attorney says he will ask for more time on the case. Le's body was found in September, hidden behind a wall in the Yale Medical School research building where she and Clark worked. She disappeared days before her wedding.
The Senate passed a $626 billion defense spending bill on Saturday by an 88-10 vote. The bill includes money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it does not include funding for the 30,000 U.S. troops that will be sent to Afghanistan next year. The House of Representatives passed the spending bill last Wednesday.
Allocating money for the military: always a tricky process. President Nixon's defense secretary once said, "People, not hardware, must be our highest priority." And our next guest can certainly agree with that. He says funneling money toward people is one of the things necessary to retain troops and avoid a draft. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert MaGinnis is a Pentagon consultant as well as a syndicated columnist now.
Thanks for being with us.
LT. COL. ROBERT MAGINNIS (RET.), PENTAGON CONSULTANT AND COLUMNIST: Thanks for having me.
COLLINS: Yes. When we talk about our military now and when we look at them, the structure, the stresses that they face are enormous. We talk about frequent tours. Many of these men and women are going three, four, five times in theater. The stress for the troops themselves because of that, and then these high suicide rates we've talked about. Not to mention the type of stress that it puts on the family and the children in all of this. What's your biggest concern when we talk about our historically all-volunteer military?
MAGINNIS: Well, they are the lions at the gate. They are a precious treasure that we have to preserve, Heidi.
Because we've overstretched them, this war has lasted over eight years. It's likely to last some years to come. We have young soldiers and Marines and others that have been kicking down doors in foreign countries for a lot of years. And they're tired. They're stressed. All the military leaders will agree to that.
And their families, though, I'm concerned, are going to start telling them, look, enough's enough. It's time to leave. We are a volunteer force. More than half of them are married. That is a reality. We have to somehow come to grips with either growing the force in order -- so we can give them more of break, or we have to diminish the demands put on these people.
COLLINS: Yes, and diminishing of the demands likely not to happen, at least at this point. Talk to me more, though, about growing the force. I mean, would you say overall that the Army is big enough right now?
MAGINNIS: Well, we have 547,000, plus a temporary supplement of 22,000.
It's not big enough, Heidi, because we've had to activate, mobilize, 162,000 people from reserves. Right now. So, we have a little over 710,000 in the Army alone that, you know, demand that we keep, you know, 140,000 on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world.
So if, in fact, the demand is not going to decrease and we want to retain the force, then we need to provide a force that's going to be able to sustain the fight. And right now, we're only giving these young troops about 1.3 years between combat tours. That's not enough, at least according to all the Defense papers that we have that say that you need at least two to retain the force. Keep in mind, these are volunteers, not draftees.
COLLINS: Yes. Absolutely. But then how do you do all of that? We can talk about it. We have talked about it an awful lot on this show, the stress on the troops. How do you change it?
MAGINNIS: Well, you're going to have to grow the force. During Vietnam, our Army had 1.5 million. That sustained about, at the highest, 360,000 in Vietnam. So, you need more forces.
And at the same time, you know -- and this is very important -- we have a lot of wonderful reservists that have volunteered and set their permanent jobs aside and gone to fight for this country. Well, that was never the design of the reservists. They were supposed to be back to help us with hurricanes and forest fires and snow disasters...
COLLINS: Exactly. Yes.
MAGINNIS: ... We don't have a lot of those forces because we're depending upon them because our military is too small. So we need to grow the force probably a couple hundred thousand if, in fact, the demand doesn't go down.
COLLINS: Yes. I know they had to bring in some of the reserves actually for the snowstorm where you are in D.C., in fact.
Quickly, before we let you go, I want to talk about contractors for a moment. Because obviously, they're being used more than we ever are really aware in both theaters.
MAGINNIS: Oh, they are. You know, in Iraq we have, what, over 100,000. It's almost 1 to 1 for each soldier. And in Afghanistan, the president intends to surge, which is needed by General Stanley McChrystal. It looks as if we could have more contractors going into support those 30,000 than themselves. So...
COLLINS: Is that good or bad?
MAGINNIS: What's that?
COLLINS: Is that good or bad?
MAGINNIS: Well, it's very expensive, Heidi. We pay a lot more for contractors than we do for our individual soldiers.
But that was a decision made long ago. Because you want to really downsize the force to fit the requirements. Well, apparently we have a lopsided situation. That's why we have hundreds of thousands of contractors that are in the battle zone. We need, I think, to have a right-sided force to meet the requirements that we have globally.
COLLINS: Absolutely. All right. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Maginnis, we sure do appreciate your time here. U.S. Army syndicated columnist. Thank you.
MAGINNIS: Thank you, Heidi.
COLLINS: As you know, the East Coast digging out from that monster storm. Our Reynolds Wolf is out and about in the snow, braving it all. Reynolds, Annapolis, Maryland. I'm seeing slick sidewalks...There you are.
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right, Heidi. We still have a lot of snow on the ground, a lot of travel issues, also. Not just on the roads. Roads are getting a little better. But all kinds of issues, of course, at the airport. We're going to give you delays from Maryland's capital city coming up in just a few moments.
Look at those cars go by. Oh, yeah.
(COMMERICIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Shovels and ice scrapers a must for the East Coast as people dig out from all of that snow. Meteorologist Reynolds Wolf is in Annapolis, Maryland, now this morning with a look at the situation there. Hey, Reynolds.
WOLF: Hey, Heidi. 20.8 inches. That's what the storm dumped down on this part of town.
I'll tell you just around the clock, they've had all kinds of people around here, people off the street scraping stuff off. They had I believe, 30 trucks that came out and about, keeping these roadways relatively clear so we could get a lot of the traffic moving through.
As I make my way across the crosswalk, let these trucks get by, you'll notice the sidewalks are in pretty good shape. They got a lot of salt down. We have, of course, had plenty of problems along the back streets. Rick, if actually you pan over, you'll notice some of the back streets, the side ways -- side roads, rather, have quite a bit of still snow packed in there, especially in those shadows. That's going to cause some problems and issues for some time to come.
Snow removal, Heidi, is a pretty interesting thing. You know, you think you just get it, you move it out of the way, you move it out of the road. I want to show you some video we had taken earlier from a worker. We're not going to name their name. We don't want to embarrass them too badly. But take a look at this.
Are you seeing this, Heidi? Are you seeing what's happening? They're supposed to be getting the snow and moving it away from the road. Away from the road. It doesn't seem like it's working in that way. Yes. I mean -- what is that guy doing?
COLLINS: That was troubling to watch that happen.
WOLF: Are you guys seeing this?
COLLINS: Yes. Right into the street.
WOLF: We call that nat sound. Exactly. We call that natural sound. One thing we've been seeing here, not only some issues in terms of a lot of the city services, which just resumed this morning, but also the papers. You've got papers here, several here lined up.
But the local paper, which normally puts out a Sunday edition and one for Monday, they're actually doing a double edition because yesterday, the roads were in such bad shape with ice they weren't able to get anything out.
I will tell you, though, although things are improving here on the roads and on the streets, they are still going to have some major issues we've been talking about at the airports. I was telling you earlier, we were having all kinds of trouble getting our own crew here, trying to get them back to places like -- hey, good morning!
PASSERYBY: Whoo!
WOLF: How you doing? It happens here. They're a happy town. They're in the Christmas spirit.
It's very difficult for people to get out of here because when people make their way to the airport if they're lucky enough to get there, just the sheer volume of people trying to get on the airplanes to go to the different places, all over the country, Northeast or out West, you've got tjust he sheer volume backing things up.
I had a flight booked earlier this morning that was going to take me to Toronto, a connection from Toronto to Montreal, then from Montreal back to Atlanta that would have gotten me into town at 8:30 in the morning. I don't know how that works in terms of flier miles, but that's got to be pretty high up there. Let's kick it back to you, Heidi. COLLINS: Yes, definitely. We've all decided here the way you're working the harbor there in Annapolis that you should, like, run for mayor or something. Look it! You're doing a great job.
WOLF: I don't know, we got some good things...(AUDIO GAP)
COLLINS: Uh-oh! Now we lost him. Just since I said that. All right. Reynolds Wolf for us in Annapolis this morning. We'll check in with him again a little bit later on.
As you might imagine, that snow kept millions of people at home this weekend and away from the malls. But if you still have some last-minute shopping to do you may get a few extra hours. Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange with more on the -- hey, look at the Dow there, Susan. Up 105.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, investors are buying. You know what? Consumers will be buying, too. No question about it. We have today, tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday. We can get it done, and the clock did get reset.
Some retailers bumped back shipping deadlines, Heidi, for online purchases following the big storm over the weekend. They say you can order today and still get your gifts delivered in time. Santa can definitely use a sled here in the Northeast.
Amazon extended cutoff for standard shipping to today. Macy's is also offering free shipping through today. And some of its real stores, bricks and mortar, will be open around the clock until Christmas Eve. Target is extending store hours, too, at some East Coast stores.
COLLINS: Very good. The timing of the storm, obviously, couldn't have been worse. This past weekend was supposed to be the busiest shopping time of the entire year.
LISOVICZ: That's right. Oftentimes, the final Saturday before Christmas is. But guess what? There are five days after that. And so it's probably, for people who have to shop, they will. But, yes, no question. Stores probably missed that number.
And why is that? Because the Northeast is so important. It accounts for about a quarter of sales for most national retailers. We'll get some hard numbers tomorrow.
In the meantime, you're talking about stocks. There's some deals in both the health care and mining sectors. That's helping to boost sentiment. Also, some of those corporate earnings we talked about an hour ago with Conagra as well as some other earnings. Walgreen's.
And so, we are seeing green. The Dow, NASDAQ, S&P 500 all up one percent. Santa Claus rally, maybe, Heidi.
COLLINS: Love that Santa magic. And if I don't see you, have a very, very merry holiday.
LISOVICZ: And you too, Heidi.
COLLINS: Thank you, Susan.
Taking a walk in their shoes. We talk with one of the kids who took part in the Chicago brawl that left an honor student dead. He say what is you saw and what he saw are two different things.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Sixteen young people murdered every day in the United States. It may be a shocking statistic to you, but it's not surprising to those who face teen-on-teen violence. CNN's T.J. Holmes takes a "Walk in Their Shoes."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
T.J. HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Teen violence. It's a problem just about everywhere. In California, a crowd watches a 15- year-old girl gang raped after her high school prom. Five of the six suspects are teenagers.
In Florida, a 15-year-old suffers second-degree burns over 80 percent of his body when five teens set him on fire in a dispute involving his failure to pay them $40 for a video game.
And in Chicago, this violent image captured on a cell phone camera. 16-year-old Derrion Albert beaten to death by a mob of teens. A killing so senseless and brutal, it strikes a nerve across the country.
ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: This nation was shocked.
HOLMES: All the way to the White House.
HOLDER: It was a stark wake-up call to a reality that can be easy for too many to ignore.
HOLMES: A wake-up call to a startling reality. Where, according to the most recently released CDC figures, on average, 16 young people are murdered each day in the United States. In Chicago, 12 public school students have been killed in the last four months, including Derrion Albert.
VASHON BULLOCK, WITNESSED ALBERT'S DEATH: I got some regrets. Like, I wished I would have just stayed home that day.
HOLMES: Vashon Bullock was one of those kids that took part in the Chicago brawl.
BULLOCK: One of those kids had thrown a rock at my brother car (ph). So, I approached the boys. Why y'all throwing rocks and stuff at the car?
HOLMES (on camera): Who is this on the ground?
BULLOCK: That's Derrion. HOLMES (voice-over): Vashon says what the public sees in the images and what he saw that day are two different stories. In his world, he says, fighting is about survival.
(on camera): Tell me, though, in the few years you were at fanger, how often were you getting at fights?
BULLOCK: Like, every two weeks. Something like that.
HOLMES: Every couple of weeks, man?
BULLOCK: No, what you mean by fights? You talking about, like, fistfights that'll go on for the whole day, or are you just talking about just a little altercation?
HOLMES: Either way. Some will say even just a little altercation, that's still a fight. If you're getting into it every couple weeks, that's a lot.
BULLOCK: Right. You can only walk away for so long.
HOLMES (voice-over): No one seemed to walk away that day. That September afternoon when Derrion Albert was murdered.
(on camera): Let me get to this point about Derrion. Did you know him beforehand?
BULLOCK: Yes.
HOLMES: From school?
BULLOCK: Tes.
HOLMES: How well did you know him?
BULLOCK: I didn't know him like that. All I know is he used to come sit in the back in the lunchroom and come sit with us.
HOLMES (voice-over): But Derrion would also hang out with kids Vashon didn't get along with. A simmering tension that would come to a head.
BULLOCK: How long can you be friendly if somebody messing with you?
HOLMES: We'll ask Vaishon what was going through his mind that day. How he could have participated in a fight that shocked the nation. And why he does not think his brother should be in jail as one of the four teens charged in the killing of Derrion Albert.
T.J. Holmes, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Vaishon Bullock said this fight outside his school started differently from other ones. You can hear why when we show you the second part of T.J. Holmes' series tomorrow in the NEWSROOM.
Well, that's all for now. I'm Heidi Collins. CNN NEWSROOM continues now with Tony Harris.
