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American Morning
Storms Rocks Northeast; Health Care Final Battle; State Department Issues Warning to Americans as Drug Violence Erupts; Runaway Prius Claim in Doubt; "Good Luck, Jim"; A Game Changer; Murdered in Mexico; Americans Murdered in Mexico; Census Waste; Runners' Heart Trouble; Fewer Nips and Tucks
Aired March 15, 2010 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good Monday morning. Thanks very much for joining us for the Most News in the Morning on this 15th of March. I'm John Roberts.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The Ides of March. I'm Christine Romans. Kiran Chetry is off. Here are the big stories we'll be telling you about in the next 15 minutes.
The White House predicting that this is the week for health care reform, but even the man who counts the votes in the House says Democrats aren't there yet. Republicans are threatening to go through the bill literally line by line to buy more time.
ROBERTS: The State Department warning Americans to stay away from border towns at the height of spring break season after two Americans were shot and killed in a drive-by shooting. It was a weekend of carnage across the border, including 17 people killed in Acapulco. We'll take a closer look at how dangerous it is right now right at our doorstep.
ROMANS: And a wild ride or a wild goose chase. Serious questions this morning about a California man's claim that his Toyota Prius accelerated out of control last week. The auto giant and government regulators can't recreate the problem in James Sikes' car, leaving investigators to wonder if his wild ride is nothing more than a wild story.
ROBERTS: We'll have those stories for you in just a moment. But we begin with the developing story. It's the weather.
Hundreds of thousands of homes without power this morning across the northeast and the mid-Atlantic. Heavy rain still soaking the region from Connecticut all the way south to west Virginia. High winds on Saturday night reached hurricane force at JFK airport in New York. One gust measured at 75 miles an hour. Trees and power lines are down all over Long Island of Westchester County, and power may not be restored in some areas for days.
ROMANS: Rob Marciano is in the extreme weather center. Rob, it's quite a storm that caught people off guard. They got to stay looking at some of these big old trees that just toppled like matchsticks. It's incredible.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think what a lot of people didn't take into account is the amount of snow or basically moisture that you've seen over the entire winter and that snowmelt loosening up. The ground starting to thaw and you've got this tremendous amount of rain and these wind gusts. And boy, streets (ph) started coming down and that's why so many people are without power.
John mentioned the hurricane-force wind gusts at JFK. Here's a list of some of the other notable ones across the region.
Atlantic City saw 72 miles an hour for wind. Other Trenton, New Jersey is seeing 70. Trenton is seeing 63. Philadelphia is seeing 56-mile-an-hour winds and similar numbers stretching across parts of eastern New England as this thing continues to slowly push offshore into the Atlantic. Elizabeth, New Jersey, 6.6 inches of rain. Central Park, 3.6. Actually, the new numbers now over four inches of rainfall in Central Park, and Brooklyn seeing 3.6 inches as well.
So a lot of rain and it continues to spin in as this low stubborningly (ph) keeping itself right off the coastline. But rainfall will slowly diminish today, and the winds won't be nearly as strong as they have been as this storm begins to weaken and move offshore. But there will be for the most part still another nasty day and then temperatures tomorrow will begin to rebound as to the winds begin to die down and the rains begin to taper off.
We talked about it on Friday. This is going to be a slow mover and how it's going to pound the eastern seaboard. But until you get hit hard like this for two, three days at a time, it really doesn't sink in. And unfortunately for the folks in the tri-state area and across the northeast, a lot of folks are still in the dark with this and it's going to be a slow go to get people and their lights turned back on.
We'll talk more about this storm. Pretty amazing, guys, as we head into the middle of March, the Ides of March later in the program.
ROBERTS: All right. Looking forward to it, Rob. Thanks.
MARCIANO: All right.
ROBERTS: And a number of flights canceled yesterday as well, so be sure to check with your airline before you go out the door today. Thanks, Rob. See you soon.
It's fourth and goal for health care reform now. President Obama hitting the road again in Ohio today. Back in Washington, the White House and Democratic leaders are making bold predictions, especially because they do not have the votes to pass it yet. Republicans are lining up for one final goal line stand, promising to do everything they can to make it impossible for the bill to pass.
Kate Bolduan shows us where we stand right now. She's live at the White House for us this morning.
Good morning, Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, John. Well, you know it, the debate has been long, the protests many. The Democrats seem to be finally ready to call a vote this week making this a very pivotal week for health care reform.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN (voice-over): White House heavy hitters made the Sunday talk show rounds with one simple message. This is the week for health care reform.
DAVID AXELROD, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER: I think people have come to the realization that this is the moment. And if we don't act now, there'll be dire consequences for people all over this country.
BOLDUAN: The House of Representatives is expected to vote later this week on the Senate version of the Democratic bill that passed last December. After a contentious nine-month struggle, the White House is predicting victory.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We will have the votes and this time next week somebody will walk out this door and you'll be talking about not a proposal in the House but something that the president is ready to sign into law.
BOLDUAN: But House Democrats need 216 votes to succeed and they have yet to reach that magic number.
REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), MAJORITY WHIP: No, we don't have them as of this morning, but we've been working this thing all weekend. We'll be working it going into the week. I am also very confident that we'll get this done.
BOLDUAN: This partisan battle is far from over. With mid-term elections coming up in November, the GOP is vowing to fight until the end.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), MINORITY LEADER: We're going to do everything we can to make it difficult for them, if not impossible to pass a bill.
BOLDUAN: If House Democrats can squeak out a victory, the Senate will then have to approve any changes through a process known as reconciliation, allowing the Senate to send a final bill to the president's desk with a simple majority, not the 60-vote supermajority that would otherwise be required to overcome Republican opposition. Democrats call it an up or down vote. Republicans call the procedural maneuvering something else.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: There will be a price to be paid to jam a bill through the American people don't like, using a sleazy process.
BOLDUAN: While Republicans say reconciliation will poison the well for future bipartisan efforts, Democrats seem willing to take that risk.
AXELROD: We're going to have 10 million more people without insurance coverage in the next 10 years. This is not the future the American people want. It's not the future they deserve, and that's worth the fight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN: And while that fight may be on Capitol Hill, the president isn't sitting back to watch. I'm sure you didn't assume that anyway, John. He is heading to Ohio a little later this afternoon for another campaign style event to pitch health care reform. And remember the president has pushed back his overseas trip by three days to ensure that he's here for the negotiations and he hopes a victory lap -- John.
ROBERTS: Somehow it feels like we've been do or die on health care reform since last July, Kate.
BOLDUAN: I know, pivotal week. Pivotal week to vote. I feel like I just said the same thing five times.
ROBERTS: All right. Kate Bolduan this morning at the White House. Kate, thanks.
BOLDUAN: Thanks, guys.
ROMANS: This morning the State Department is warning some Americans working in Mexico to send their families home after the drove of killings of drive-by killings of a consulate employee and her husband. Police say they were found murdered with their baby in the back seat unharmed. Rafael Romo is taking a closer look at what was a bloody weekend of drug violence across the border.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice- over): The shooting happened right across the street from city hall in Ciudad Juarez. According to Mexican authorities, two Americans, Lesley Enriquez, who was an employee at the American consulate in Juarez and her 34-year-old husband, Arthur Redelf (ph), a detention officer with the El Paso Sheriff's Department, were shot and killed after a short car chase through the streets of the Mexican border city across from El Paso, Texas. Police found the couple's 3-month-old daughter in the back seat. She was not injured.
JOSE REYES FERRIZ, JUAREZ MAYOR, JUAREZ, MEXICO (via telephone): A foot patrol police officer who was stationed a couple of miles east of where the incident took place, he saw the two cars, one chasing the other and shooting at that car.
ROMO: On a separate incident, 37-year-old Jorge Salcedo, the husband of a U.S. consulate's Mexican employee was also killed Saturday afternoon. Two children ages 4 and 7 were injured in that shooting and transported to the hospital according to local authorities. FERRIZ: The second killing was a state police officer, investigative police officer married to a Mexican working at the U.S. consulate and they were both at a children's party earlier that morning.
ROMO: The U.S. State Department has authorized the departure of Americans working in U.S. consulates in six cities along the U.S.- Mexico border April 12th while they investigate the incidents and assess the threat of violence.
The White House issued a statement saying President Obama is deeply saddened and outraged by the news of the attacks and murders. The statement also says, "We will continue to work with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his government to break up the power of the drug trafficking organizations that operate in Mexico and far too often target and kill the innocent."
Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Eight minutes after the hour now. And still to come on the Most News in the Morning, new questions about that runaway Prius that we told you about last week in California. Investigators got the car but they say they have not been able to recreate the problem that the driver said he was experiencing.
Stay with us. We'll have the full report coming right up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Good morning. It's 11 minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
There are real doubts this morning about a California man's claim that his Toyota Prius accelerated out of control last week. The congressional memo confirms Toyota and federal safety regulators have examined the car and, John they can't recreate the problem.
ROBERTS: Still, though, 61-year-old James Sikes insists that his 2008 Prius hit speeds of more than 90 miles an hour on a San Diego interstate while he was standing on the brakes. Susan Candiotti has got the latest for us this morning on these new developments.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, good morning. This draft congressional memo obtained by CNN makes it sound like an incident involving a runaway 2008 Toyota Prius might not have happened the way the driver said it did. So who's right?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): A draft congressional memo seems to take some steam out of Jim Sikes' self-described wild ride in his 2008 Prius. It even had 911 and the California Highway Patrol running to his rescue.
JIM SIKES, PRIUS OWNER: The gas pedal felt kind of weird and it just went all the way too fast.
CANDIOTTI: Sikes relived it for our Ted Rowlands.
SIKES: In the 80s somewhere. And I kept hitting the brakes, kept hitting the brakes. And it wasn't slowing down at all. It was just accelerating.
CANDIOTTI: Yet after two hours of trying to duplicate what happened on Sikes' own car and another exact model, federal investigators and Toyota came up short. A draft memo says, "Every time the technician placed the gas pedal to the floor and the brake pedal to the floor the engine shut off and the car immediately started to slow down." Experts say that's a key safety feature of the car. So if Sikes says the accelerator was stuck and he was pressing hard on the brake, why didn't his car slow down?
PETER VALDES-DAPENA, SENIOR WRITER, CNNMONEY.COM: Maybe what was happening was not that his engine was overpowering the brakes, but his brakes were incapable at that point of overpowering anything.
CANDIOTTI: The same memo says his brakes were worn out. It doesn't say whether they were that way before or after the incident. A Toyota investigator told congressional staff it does not appear to be feasibly possible both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the brake at the same time. What does that mean for Jim Sikes?
VALDES-DAPENA: It is possible that he's a liar. It is also possible that he simply misunderstood what was happening with his car.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI: Sikes says he's sticking to his story and adds that his lawyer will have more to say about this later today -- John and Christine.
ROBERTS: All right. We'll be looking forward to that. Thanks very much, Susan Candiotti this morning.
Sikes' Prius, by the way, is on a recall list. Here's more for you in an "AM Extra."
Toyota's list for floor mat pedal entrapment includes 2004 to 2009 models of the Prius. Sikes' Prius is a 2008. He said that there was nothing wrong with his floor mat and his Prius is not on the sticking accelerator pedal recall list. In all, Toyota has recalled more than six million vehicles to fix both of those potential problems and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has identified 52 deaths possibly linked to runaway Toyotas. The "Wall Street Journal" reports that the recalls could cost the company more than $5 billion over the next year.
ROMANS: Other stories new this morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's wife is home from the hospital. 69-year-old Landra Reid had surgery Friday, one day after a tractor-trailer rear-ended her minivan on a highway near Washington, D.C. She suffered a broken back, neck and nose. Doctors say her injures were serious but she's not at risk for paralysis.
ROBERTS: Oh, that's a good thing.
A surprising connection between two high profile shootings this year. Law enforcement officials tell the Associated Press that both guns used in the Pentagon shooting and a Las Vegas courthouse shooting were once seized by police in Memphis.
Those guns went to licensed dealers and eventually both were bought by men who could not legally own them.
ROMANS: Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd will unveil a new version of his financial reform bill today. It's expected to end the perception that some Wall Street firms are too big to fail and it will scale back the Fed's regulatory role.
Months of negotiations ended last week without Republican support.
ROBERTS: All right. And, Christine, I know you're going to love this story.
Many of you say you're sick and tired of being nickeled and dimed to death by the airlines, but which fees bug you the most?
Fifty-two percent say paying to pick your seat. Right now, only a few carriers are charging for that. The second most hated fee? Thirty-three percent say being charged to change flights, and 14 percent say they don't like paying extra for snacks.
The poll was conducted by the airfarewatchdog.com.
ROMANS: And I was traveling for business recently. I couldn't believe I had to pay extra to sit in an aisle.
ROBERTS: That's amazing, isn't it?
ROMANS: You know, you only could sit in a window seat with the ticket I got. I couldn't believe it. Or the -- in the middle seat. I couldn't believe it.
ROBERTS: I -- I had so much fun yesterday, coming back from -- from Toronto. My flight got canceled, so I had to go back through immigration, pick up my bag -- which they lost -- check back in through U.S. Custom and Immigration. The whole thing took me, like, four hours.
ROMANS: Just stay home.
Next in the Most News in the Morning, known for his role in -- in "Mission Impossible," we'll have more on the passing of the actor Peter Graves.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up in 20 minutes after the hour. We're back with the Most News in the Morning.
An icon in the world of television has passed away. Actor Peter Graves suffered an apparent heart attack outside his California home on Sunday. He was 83 years old.
Graves' career spans some 60 years. Younger audiences, of course, will remember the classic lines he delivered as Captain Oveur in "Airplane," but Graves is best known for star-turn (ph) in a television classic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS (voice-over): Peter Graves was the original Jim Phelps on TV's "Mission Impossible" in the late '60s. While his six-season run never made him a superstar, the spy gig gave him global appeal thanks to international syndication.
PETER GRAVES, ACTOR: Most actors in life are remembered most particularly for one or two role. It doesn't bother me at all to be thought of as -- as Jim Phelps or to be strongly identified with him.
ROBERTS: Graves reprised the role for the series revival in 1988.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Gunsmoke".
ROBERTS: In real life, he was the younger brother of "Gunsmoke" star, James Arness. Graves was born March 18, 1926 in Minneapolis.
As a young man, he worked in radio and later served in the Army during World War II but didn't see any combat. Graves was also a gifted musician, playing the clarinet and the saxophone.
At the University of Minnesota, he met his calling, acting, and his life-long love, wife Joan Endress. Together, they had three daughters.
Eventually, Graves followed his big brother to Hollywood, first landing small roles on television. He adopted his maternal grandfather's name as a way to distinguish himself from Arness.
His big break came in the movie classic "Stalag 17". Graves played a Nazi spy living among American POWs. A string of other parts followed.
GRAVES: Somehow my career has always taken different turns to do, I find, very interesting things. So I'm lucky that way.
ROBERTS: Best known for playing authority figures, he was hesitant to parody himself in the film spoof "Airplane," at first turning down the role thinking it might end his career. He later changed his mind, and audiences loved him as the zany pilot.
GRAVES (voice-over): Launched into weightlessness, these astronauts may look like they're having fun -- ROBERTS: Graves added new dimensions to his resume, hosting "Discover: The World of Science" and A&E's "Biography". Unlike Mr. Phelps, who got his mission instructions from a tape recording, Graves dictated his own script with a successful career that didn't self- destruct and lasted more than a half a century.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Loved him as Captain Oveur, but Mr. Phelps -- that will go down as one of the old-time classics.
ROMANS: And that voice. What a great -- what a great radio voice that translated into a -- a successful -- a successful, long career.
ROBERTS: A sad passing in the world of Hollywood this morning.
ROMANS: Yes.
ROBERTS: Twenty-two and a half minutes after the hour. We'll be right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Your top stories just five minutes away now.
But first, an "A.M. Original," something that you'll see only here on AMERICAN MORNING.
By now you might have heard of Natalie Rudolph (ph), a woman living a dream that many people would have called impossible.
ROMANS: Her father wouldn't let her play football in high school, so she later played in a women's league. And now, she's the coach at a high school in D.C.
Carol Costello has her story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Oh, how times have changed.
NATALIE RANDOLPH, FOOTBALL COACH: Being female has nothing to do with it. I love football.
COSTELLO: But let's face it, D.C.'s mayor would not have announced Coolidge High School's new coach had Natalie Randolph been male.
The idea of a woman coaching boys' football has long been a Hollywood fantasy.
GOLDIE HAWN, ACTRESS: Are you sure I'm the right person for this job? COSTELLO (on camera): So, I have to ask if you've seen the movie "Wildcats".
RANDOLPH: I have seen the movie "Wildcats" a long time ago.
HAWN: You make this point and every girl in the free world will want you.
COSTELLO: Anything in that movie that moved you?
RANDOLPH: Just the fact that she went out and did it.
If you can do well (ph), you play.
COSTELLO (voice-over): If anyone defines "just do it," it's Randolph. She spent five years playing for the Independent Women's Professional Football League and spent two years as an assistant high school boys' football coach.
Still, there are doubts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I -- I don't think a woman has any place being the head coach of a football team. I'm going to come across as a sexist during this --
LAVAR ARRINGTON, 106.7 THE FAN: Yes, you are.
COSTELLO: On D.C. Sports Radio, Lavar Arrington, who played for the Washington Red Skins, says the machismo of the game will be difficult for Randolph to overcome.
ARRINGTON: If you can grab the imagination, if you can -- if you can earn the respect, that's going to be the things that -- that determine if -- if she's able to have success as a coach.
COSTELLO (on camera): Football is such a testosterone-driven sport. How can a woman lead a group of guys who have to be ultra masculine?
RANDOLPH: Estrogen is pretty strong too, you know? Testosterone, yes, and male-driven, yes. But I think women are just as competitive.
COSTELLO (voice-over): It's clear she's convinced most of the Coolidge High School Colts --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miss Randolph is a person that is going to be 100 percent real with you 100 percent of the time. She's not going to tell you, you know, out of hate or try to put you down. She's going to tell you because she cares about you.
COSTELLO (on camera): But what if someone talks bad against the coach?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will personally have a problem because she's my coach. She's not yours or the school's. This is our Coolidge Colts football coach. This is what we have to do (ph). We have to do it for her.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Of course, the real test for Randolph, just as it was for Goldie Hawn in that old movie, will be if Randolph's team wins.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: That's for sure. What a great group of guys.
Randolph is a great teacher too, by the way. She teaches science and she clearly expects the best from her students in the classroom and on the field. That's something I heard from every young man I talked with on the team.
John and Christine, you know, the number one concern from Lavar Arrington and company at that radio station?
ROBERTS: No. What? Go ahead.
COSTELLO: If she would go into the locker room and see a bunch of guys naked and you couldn't pat her on the behind because that would be (INAUDIBLE).
ROMANS: Oh, please.
COSTELLO: I know! It's like there's so many male coaches --
ROBERTS: How long did it take him to take that up (ph)?
COSTELLO: -- male coaches who coach women's teams. They don't go in the locker room. So I think that will be OK.
ROMANS: Look, there's only one thing that matters -- winning. That's all that matters.
COSTELLO: (INAUDIBLE).
ROMANS: That's it. If she can help them win, who cares?
ROBERTS: Yes.
COSTELLO: I'm with you, sister.
ROMANS: All right.
Carol, thanks. Carol Costello.
COSTELLO: Sure.
ROBERTS: Coming up on 29 minutes after the hour now. It's 6:29 Eastern, and that means Eastern Daylight --
ROMANS: That's right.
ROBERTS: -- (INAUDIBLE) away. That means it is time for this morning's top stories. The White House saying the health care bill will be the law of the land. It's hoping for a final vote this week and it's confident that undecided Democrats will play ball.
Republicans are still promising to try everything within their power to kill the bill.
ROMANS: Hurricane force winds clocked at 75 miles an hour caused a lot of chaos in New York and the rest of the northeast this weekend. Hundreds of thousands of people are without power this morning, and it could be days before everything is restored.
The storm took out power lines and knocked down trees from Connecticut to West Virginia, causing long delays at airports all over the region. Check your flights this morning.
ROBERTS: And an American consulate worker and her husband murdered in Mexico, victims of a drive-by shooting with their 6-month- old baby in the back seat. The baby is fine, by the way.
The State Department is warning other workers in border towns to get their families out of there after a weekend of extreme drug-fueled violence across the country.
ROMANS: Joining us now on the phone to talk more about all of this is John Ackerman.
ROBERTS: Yes. John is a professor at the Institute of Legal Research with the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He's also the editor in chief of the Mexican Law Review.
And, John, what do you -- what do you make of this latest attack here -- a brazen attack on an embassy worker and her husband, as well, the same day, another attack that killed the husband of a Mexican woman who worked at the consulate? Is this a new level in the drug wars that they are targeting American officials?
JOHN ACKERMAN, PROF., NATL. AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF MEXICO (via telephone): Good morning, John. How are you doing?
I think there was a new stage in the conflict in Mexico. Ciudad Juarez, in particular, things are really getting out of control. We should be aware of the fact that the violence, at least to this point is not random violence. It's still calculated strategic attacks on particular people who might be involved with law enforcement or government officials. Otherwise, it's not random violence.
I don't think people have to worry about going to Mexico on tourist trips, et cetera. But there is an indication here that President Calderon of Mexico is really failing to beat the drug cartels.
ROMANS: Now, some would say, though, John, that this is a sign he is making life very difficult for drug cartels, and that this increase in violence is a sign of a tough strategy from this government. You don't agree?
ACKERMAN: I don't think so. This is -- this is what they've been saying for the past three years. Things have to get worse better they get better. Things keep on getting worse every year. So, I think we need a real change in strategy here.
Juarez has been a particular show case of pulling the military in to you take over from the police. This happened two years ago, about to celebrate of the military coming in and taking over the police activities in Juarez and they basically failed. The number of murders and homicides in Juarez has more than tripled in the last two years.
The problem here is that it's not a question of getting military police on the streets but actually performing the justice system in terms of getting the criminals into jail, right? It's not enough to sort of pick of them or intimidate them on the street. You have to get them into jail and convict them. And that's what Mexico is not doing very well.
ROBERTS: Now, John, parents and college students across the country right now are looking at what happened over the weekend and looking at the potential that either they or their children will be about head to Mexico on spring break. The State Department has issued another travel advisory for the northern part of the country. But over the weekend, 17 people were killed in Acapulco.
So, how -- just how safe is it to be traveling to Mexico on vacation?
ACKERMAN: Like I said, I don't think that there's a real risk for tourists. There hasn't been any case of foreign tourists or local Mexican tourists being caught up in a shootout.
Violence is not random. I'd like to insist on that point. Violence is out of control but it's still very much between the people who might be involved in law enforcement or between the gangs themselves.
There are innocent people being caught up at some point, but it's not a serious concern at this point, I would say, in terms of spring breakers or tourists coming in to Mexico.
ROMANS: But there is too -- there is too much violence. The people who live in Mexico do -- are very fearful of this. And there are many people who've said that it's taking on the next level of almost narco-terrorism.
You look at young people who are gathered for a soccer party who are slaughtered and they couldn't figure out -- this is a couple of months ago, I think -- couldn't even figure out what the connection could have possibly been and targeting journalists as well. "The New York Times" reporting this weekend how in some towns, that they are not even reporting in many cases some of the violence because the journalists have been targeted and threatened so badly.
That's terrorism. That's terror for the population, isn't it?
ACKERMAN: Yes. Well, yes, I think there's (INAUDIBLE) between terrorism and a terrorized population. I mean, terrorism has a political meaning to it. People are trying to overthrow the government or otherwise, pressuring (INAUDIBLE).
This is not a political issue. It's a public security issue, law enforcement issue. And yes, there are narco-terrorists (ph), specifically in cities like Ciudad Juarez and along the northern border, I think that's a serious concern, in other parts of the country as well.
Here in Mexico City, I'm not terrorized. It's not something that's happening all over the country. I insist it's not random violence.
There are innocent people being caught up and this is a serious concern, and I think this is a real opportunity I would like to see it for the Calderon administration here in Mexico and the Obama administration of the United States to really think about new strategies for taking on this crime problem, because up until now, the strategy has been: let's throw military and tanks at these -- military attacks at the drug cartels and it's not working.
We need institutional change. We need some more citizen participation. We need transparency to combat corruption in the police forces in Mexico. These are the kind of strategies we need and not sort of just direct frontal attacks in the idea that is war, when really it's just a law enforcement problem -- a serious one, but a law enforcement problem that needs to be attacked through the institutions and through militarization.
ROBERTS: All right. John Ackerman on the phone for us this morning from Mexico -- John, thanks very much. Appreciate your perspective.
ACKERMAN: Thank you.
ROMANS: And the cycle is: the money -- that the drugs come up, the money goes down, the guns go down. This is a big circle. They are trying to -- trying to stop that cycle --
ROBERTS: Yes.
ROMANS: -- because the money -- the money from this country funnels and funds all of this violence.
ROBERTS: Sure. The demand is a huge part of it as well.
ROMANS: Absolutely.
ROBERTS: If there wasn't any demand, none of this will be happening.
ROMANS: Absolutely.
All right. Next on the Most News in the Morning: From Super Bowl ads to employees who barely worked a day nearly $15 billion for the 2010 census. Was this money well-spent?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: The census is coming. It will be in your mailbox any day now. Starting today really, people are always a bit nervous about what Uncle Sam wants to know about them.
But the 2010 census is being scrutinized for its cost to taxpayers, nearly $15 billion when it's all said and done. Some say it's a giant example of Washington waste.
Kate Bolduan is following the story live at the White House.
Good morning, Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, Christine.
Well, the Census Bureau is really trying to get the word out of just how important this information really is. President Obama even taped a public service announcement about it. And while the form they say is shorter and easier than ever to complete, it's also coming with a hefty price tag.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN (voice-over): Accounting for the nation's 300-plus million residents is no doubt a big job, but it's also an expensive one. Total projected cost for the 2010 census: $14.7 billion. But it's the millions of dollars some argue the Census Bureau has already wasted that is coming under fire.
REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: You hear these horror stories of people being paid to do nothing. And that -- that's infuriating when we're $10 trillion in debt.
BOLDUAN: According to a Commerce Department inspector general report, more than 15,000 employees were paid for attending census training, but either worked less than a single day or not at all. The cost: more than five and a half million dollars.
Census Bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner says those issues have been addressed.
STEPHEN BUCKNER, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU: We didn't do a good job at the beginning estimating the number of people that would stay on the job. However, since that operation and every operation since then, we've not only been on time but we've also been on budget. So, it's a myth that the census is over-budget.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Snapshot of America.
BOLDUAN: And then there's the Super Bowl ad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Isn't that kind of what the census is doing?
BOLDUAN: Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a leading critic of the census, calls that an expensive embarrassment.
CHAFFETZ: I just think we need to go back and look at this and say, was this well-executed? Was this well-planned? And right now, I just see by the tens of millions of dollars going out the door, it's not really going to go count that person that was hard to find, you know, in some part of, you know, whatever state.
BOLDUAN: Overall, the Census Bureau defends its outreach efforts, which include $85 million in mailers to encourage people to return their census forms.
BUCKNER: It's very important we get an accurate count. And as such, it's costly. But we could actually save about $1.5 billion in the taking of the census if every single person mailed back their form, because it's a lot less expensive to mail back your form than for us to have to send a census-taker to your door.
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BOLDUAN: Now, census data helps determine everything from congressional representation to where more than $400 billion is directed each year in federal funding. But, really, the lingering question here and you hear it in the piece, is just how much does that -- while it may be important -- how much does it need to cost the American taxpayer, Christine.
ROMANS: Yes. And we know there's stimulus money in there, too, for some of outreach.
BOLDUAN: Exactly.
ROMANS: They're going to be reaching out in more languages that they ever have before for people to take this census and be counted.
All right. Kate Bolduan -- thanks, Kate.
ROBERTS: It was a weekend of terrible weather in the Northeast. There are a lot of people, thousands, without power -- may be without power for days to come. And the weather is still hanging around. It's going to affect travel across the region today. Rob Marciano has got your travel forecast coming right up.
ROMANS: And in 10 minutes, it's one of the president's most high-profile responsibilities: signing bills into laws. Jeanne Moos takes a look at the president's unique signature style.
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ROBERTS: Good morning, New York City, where the weather is just not nice at all. It's right now cloudy with some rain, 41 degrees later on today. High of 46 and the rain will continue.
Well, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions this evening in New York City. The hall is in Cleveland, but the induction ceremony is there. Genesis, we just heard there --
ROMANS: Yes.
ROBERTS: -- along with Abba, Jimmy Cliff, among those being inducted.
ROMANS: All right. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Forty-five minutes after the hour and that means time for your AM House Call, stories about your health.
ROBERTS: Yes.
ROMANS: The marathon was invented in Greece.
ROBERTS: Right, but now, doctors from there have found that marathon runners have increased stiffness of the large arteries and the warning that too much high intensity exercise may, in fact, be bad for your heart. They say that too little is bad for your heart, but also too much is bad for your heart. They say that athletes should be cautious not to wear themselves out and at a moderate amount of high intensity exercise is better than a lot of high intensity exercise.
ROMANS: Everything in moderation.
ROBERTS: Exactly.
ROMANS: If there is out here, and blame the recession. Fewer Americans are getting nose jobs and tummy tucks. New figure shows that the number of cosmetic surgeries in the U.S. fell by 17% in 2009. Now in surgical procedures like Botox injections and chemical pill saw a much smaller drop-off, less than 1%. I guess, if they are a little bit cheaper, people can't give that up easily. The numbers come from a newly released study for the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
ROBERTS: Now, a man who has no need for plastic surgery. Our Rob Marciano checking in the extreme weather across the country particularly the northeast this morning. Hey, Rob.
MARCIANO: Hey, guys. Hi, John and Christine. We are looking at this storm that continues to spin off the New England coast line. It has really brought some headaches as you're well aware if you live anywhere in the eastern third of the country. Look at some of these numbers for wind gusts, 78-mile-an-hour wind gusts at Robin's Reef, JFK International right at the airport, 75, so those are hurricane- force wind gusts on Long Island, Fire Island, 67, and a breezy point, you bet, 67 mile-an-hour wind gust there.
Flooding the other issue. We've had four, five, six, as much as seven inches of rain in some spots. The rain will be less today, but those rivers are already swollen, so these are counties under flood warnings mostly because of the swollen rivers. There's be localized flooding because of that, and we're going to have to wait to those rivers to crest and eventually recede.
Winds today, yes, you're going to see them, but we're not going to see hurricane for us, certainly not in New York. The windiest spots will be Eastern New England and to Boston, but you can see on the radar overlay that we have quite a bit of rain in this as well. We're getting into the cold side. Some of the backside of this will actually mix in some wet snow at times, so that insult the injury. It will continue to be damp and will be a little cooler today with those breezy and wet conditions, so that won't feel all that great.
Check out the delays that we expect to see today; Boston may be some delays, New York and Philadelphia because of wind, low clouds and of course rain, D.C. metro and Atlanta as well. Some of the totals coming out of Connecticut as far as what it looks like, a number of towns just in the state of emergency. Look at this. Decades old trees have completely toppled over, crushing cars, taking down power lines. Tens of thousands of residents still in the dark this morning because of all the damage done by these winds across Connecticut, and that on top of all, the flooding.
Fifty-mile-an-hour winds possible today, mostly along the coastline and in through Eastern New England and additional 1 to 2 inches of rainfall possible. We already mentioned the airport delays. The fact this is satin spun has certainly caused its problems. You know, it's not a hurricane technically, but it had some of the similar results, coastal flooding, inland flooding because of rainfall, and certainly the wind damage that we saw with the winds over 70 miles an hour taking down all those trees.
So, hopefully we don't get a hurricane strike across New England later on this summer. We'll just count this one as being one of those if it doesn't happen. John and Christine back up to you.
ROMANS: You talked about all of that, you know, just water soaking it up. When I was looking at these trees, these huge trees, it was almost like a weed that had been plucked out with the dirt still on the root. I mean, but they were huge, huge massive trees, so it just incredible to think about, you know, just what that looked like --
MARCIANO: And you know, they don't have any leaves on them. In the summertime, they'll have a leaves that almost acts as kind of a sail catching more of that wind. It just goes to show you one, how strong that wind was, and two, how saturated the ground has been because of all the snow and rainfall you, guys, have seen all winter long.
ROBERTS: Winter of the nor'easter, no question about that. Rob, thanks so much. We'll see you again soon.
MARCIANO: All right, guys.
ROBERTS: This morning's top stories now just minutes away, including Juarez Mexico right across the boarder. What may be the most dangerous city in the world right now? Two Americans were murdered with their 6-month-old baby in the back seat of the car. How they became the latest victims of a drug war that is our problem too.
ROMANS: At 25, after growing up behind bars. A 12-year-old boy accused of killing his dad's pregnant fiancee, should someone that young, 12 years old, face the possibility of life in prison without parole? Jason Carroll has AM Original Story.
ROBERTS: And at 50 minutes after the hour, it ran in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, and add with pink trim saying that Camel cigarettes are light and luscious. Was it Tobacco Company trying to specifically hook teenage girls? Those stories and more coming your way at the top of the hour.
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ROMANS: Less than seven minutes to go to the top of the hour and that means it's time for the Moost News in the Morning. It's tough being a lessy and ride this world, spiraled but erasable in credit enemy.
ROBERTS: President Obama knows this very well, and as our Jeanne Moos shows us now. He has developed a rather strange way to get around it.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's not just what he signs but how he signs it.
UNKNOWN MALE: That contorted whatever --
UNKNOWN MALE: He got the curve, the hand over.
MOOS: He goes like this.
UNKNOWN MALE: He really curls.
MOOS: And if it curls your toes, you're obviously not a lefty, lefties for Obama love having one of their own White House, but President Obama's signature style is a bit more hook than that of most lefties.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: He never learned how to hold his pen. He looks like Joe Coker (ph).
MOOS: But lefties have an explanation.
UNKNOWN MALE: I think it's because he doesn't want to smudge the ink because when -- if you go like that and you're not going to run over your signature.
UNKNOWN MALE: It would be kind of embarrassing to sign a nearly $800 billion stimulus bill and then smear the ink.
MOOS: Neuroscience professor and author, Sam Wong (ph), say righties only use one side of their brain to process language, but lefties -- UNKNOWN MALE: One in seven lefties showed activity in both sides of the brain.
MOOS: Six of the past 12 presidents have been lefties, including Presidents Clinton and George Bush Senior, but before you lefties start gloating about having higher sat scores.
UNKNOWN MALE: They are also over represented among criminals and among mentally retarded.
MOOS: His FBI profile says Osama Bin Laden is a lefty. Maybe, you're left wondering, how many pens does it take to sign a bill?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've got to use 10 pens.
MOOS: But President often signs his signature in bits so he can use more which he then hands out as souvenirs.
UNKNOWN MALE: I want the guy to be a success. I don't care if he writes with his foot.
MOOS: But lefties worried about a twist in the President's wrist have some advice for him.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Turn the paper. Turn the paper, not your wrist.
MOOS: These days --
Which hand do you use? Okay, now --
Lefties like Eve don't get much flak from teachers, but 40 or 50 years ago.
UNKNOWN MALE: They had me bring in a tie of my father's and I used to have in school with my left hand tied to my leg.
MOOS: Now that sounds like a kind of torture a lefty president should outlaw by signing a bill.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
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ROBERTS: And you are a righty?
ROMANS: I'm a righty. My dad is a lefty, though. He always alleged that lefties are somehow special.
ROBERTS: I tried to be ambidextrous, but I just like I never get that.
ROMANS: But as you were in school, you had a desk. There was a lefty desk and righty desk.
ROBERTS: Oh sure, they do. ROMANS: So that you know you can write and not get ink all over your arm.
ROBERTS: But there were so many things to pose a problem for left-handed people in this world.
ROMANS: Like?
ROBERTS: Scissors, for example. Jars.
ROMANS: Crowded tables at weddings when you're at the big wedding with crowded table.
ROBERTS: Coming up on 56 and a half minutes after the hour. Top stories coming your way right after the break. Stay with us.
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