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Terrorist Attacks in Uganda After World Cup Kills Dozens; Many Haitians Still Suffering From Homelessness Six Months After Earthquake; BP Replacing Cap On Oil Leak; BP Working to Replace Cap; Barefoot Bandit Nabbed; Promise of Family DNA Testing: Inside the Lab that Cracked Suspected Killer Case; Promise of Family DNA Testing

Aired July 12, 2010 - 07:00   ET

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

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: We're still talking soccer. It's over though, the World Cup officially ends.

Meanwhile, we're coming up on the top of the hour on this Monday. It's July 12th. Thanks for being with us on this AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. John Roberts is off. I'm Drew Griffin. Lots to talk about this morning, so let's get right to it, shall we?

Terrorists target World Cup soccer fans. U.S. officials say one American was killed here, at least six others injured. Three explosions had happened in Uganda. In a moment, we're going to take you live to Johannesburg, south Africa for the latest developments on this story.

CHETRY: Also, meantime, it is day three for BP's operation to replace the containment cap on the oil gusher in the Gulf. The oil giant says this new cap could stop the leak completely -- could stop the oil from leaking completely as they work now to drill the two relief wells that would permanently kill the well. But until it's in place, there's nothing stopping the crude from pouring unabated into the Gulf. We're live in New Orleans coming up.

CNN has learned that in one hour, Swiss authorities are going to announce whether Oscar winning filmmaker, Roman Polanski, will be extradited to the U.S. He faces sentencing on child sex charges after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl. This was back in 1977. He infamously fled to Europe before sentencing. We're going to bring you the decision live right here on the Most News in the Morning.

GRIFFIN: But first, World Cup cheers turn tragic. An American among 64 killed after three attacks in the capital of Uganda. The bombings struck a restaurant and rugby center where soccer fans were watching the World Cup final.

The Obama administration has called the blasts "deplorable and cowardly." This morning, we're tapping into the global resources of CNN. Our Robyn Curnow is live in Johannesburg, South Africa. Robyn, what are you learning there? ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is classic Al Qaeda-inspired attacks, coordinated bombings on soft targets. The first was a popular night spot in the Ugandan capital of Kampana. This is where many expatriates were watching the football, the soccer World Cup.

And then of course 50 minutes later in an open field where people had gathered to watch soccer on a big screen, a bomb explode in their midst. What's even more tragic is that people came in to help the people affected in that first bomb, and then a second bomb apparently went off, according to journalists on the ground. That is where most of the damage and deaths were caused.

So as the total stands now, 64 dead, one American, as you say. The information minister has told CNN she expects the death toll to rise and there are also more than 60 wounded, many of them also Americans.

GRIFFIN: Robyn Curnow, thank you.

CHETRY: Meantime, it is now day 84 of BP's oil disaster in the Gulf and a third day of an operation designed to replace the cap on the broken well.

Here's a live look right now. This is 5,000 feet under water. This is where those robotic arms have been working on this very, very difficult operation. BP says the new cap will have a tighter seal and that could mean that oil would stop flowing altogether as the company continues to drill the two relief wells.

But until the new cap is in place, crude oil is flowing freely. Our Ed Lavandera is tracking it all for us live from New Orleans this morning. This all started -- at least the beginning phases of this on Saturday. Do we have any idea just how much oil when they say unabated is actually flowing into the Gulf?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, really all we have to go by right now, Kiran, is that figure that federal team had put together which estimates the flow topping out right now at about 60,000 barrels a day.

Of course, if indeed this process of containing all of this oil does indeed work in the coming weeks, that would essentially give us perhaps what federal officials believe would be the most accurate sense of just how much oil is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

But right now, as you mentioned, it is freely flowing essentially. A great deal of work still needs to be happening, a lot of testing still needs to be completed to make sure that this new tighter fitting containment cap does work properly.

In the meantime, there are a number of vessels, large massive vessels that will contain the oil that will then be collected from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico there. A lot of those ships are still moving into place, but essentially it would give them enough capacity to collect -- if that 60,000 barrel a day figure is correct, there would be enough capacity to collect all of that.

That is the hope so far, but as you well know, Kiran, over the last few months we've been down this road several times. There have been a lot of engineering setbacks along the way. So right now even BP officials extremely cautious about how this is moving along. They will only say that they are pleased with the way things are moving so far.

In the meantime, since so much more oil is essentially freely flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, dozens of more skimming vessels have been moved into the area as well. And they are also stepped-up efforts to burn off the oil on the surface of the water once it reaches there as well.

So intense efforts, a very important and dramatic week lies ahead here along the Gulf coast as this containment cap starts to move in to place. Kiran?

CHETRY: Quickly, any word on when they'll know for sure this operation is successful?

LAVANDERA: That's a good question. Right now we are looking at middle of the week to get a better understanding. But it could be several more days after that as well.

CHETRY: Ed Lavandera this morning in New Orleans, thanks so much.

Just ahead in a couple minutes we'll talk with the national incident commander, retired Admiral Thad Allen. He's also going to give us the latest updates on the operation and the work to drill those two relief wells that would eventually kill the well for go in all goes as planned. That's coming up in ten minutes on the Most News in the Morning.

GRIFFIN: Now to a grim milestone in Haiti this month. It has been six months since the earthquake killed a quarter of a million people. Billions of dollars have been raised to help Haiti rebuild, but how much has really changed since the quake?

Ivan Watson is live in Port-au-Prince with a look at just how little really it has changed.

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning, Drew. Really when you walk around this city, it often looks like the earthquake just happened yesterday. There are still streets blocked by rubble, rubble everywhere in fact. You have 1.5 million Haitians -- that's one in nine Haitians -- living in temporary camps like the one behind me.

And some of them are starting to ask, when is this help that we heard about, when is it going to come? When are we going to see a dramatic change in our desperate lives? Take a listen to what one camp resident had to say to me, Drew.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EMMANUEL AUGUSTE, CAMP RESIDENT: Where this money go? Where this money go? Because if the people still live like that, and they don't distribute food, they don't give nothing. Where did this kind of money go out?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: There is growing frustration, Drew, is putting the Haitian government and the United Nations and aid organizations here a bit on the defensive. They're insisting that there have been some bright spots, some silver lining here, namely, you haven't had any huge outbreak of disease or serious starvation or violence in the six months after the earthquake struck this area.

We spoke to the Haitian prime minister. He says that some of this frustration stems from the fact that Haiti has really had bad government over the last 40 years. Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEAN-MAX BELLERIVE, HAITIAN PRIME MINISTER: Now all those people are in your face in front of your cameras and there is a lot of frustration. That kind of frustration is coming from 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years of non-development. You are not going to solve that in six months or one year. It is the long run and I think most of the population understands that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: The prime minister shares chairmanship of a reconstruction commission here with former President Clinton, and they've basically criticized the national community for not handing over the more than $5 billion pledged last month to help Haiti, that only less than 10 percent of that money has actually come to the Haitian government, and they say that that is stalling reconstruction efforts.

I have to add, Drew, that this reconstruction commission only had its first meeting just last month, five months after the earthquake. That's part of why things are going so slowly here.

GRIFFIN: Ivan, it seems odd that the commission is then criticizing whether or not aid is coming in to that country, because they don't really have a plan it seems to me, from the outside looking in, to use the money once it gets there, if it gets there.

WATSON: Well, and one of the arguments that the commission uses, that the prime minister uses, how can we plan on how to resettle the armies of homeless people here if we don't know a schedule of when that money is going to come in?

But the government here has come under pressure and under criticism, for example, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a report issued last month saying that the Haitian government lacked leadership on solving these problems.

So there's a bit of a blame game going on. What it comes down to is, again, the people behind me, 1.5 million people, one in nine Haitians living in these temporary shelters right now. The hurricane season rapidly approaching -- these people are vulnerable if a killer storm hits this country. It could add a second catastrophe to the existing one, Drew, that this country has barely started to recover from.

GRIFFIN: Ivan Watson, part of a team of CNN folk down there, all this week to look at what's happening and apparently what's not happening in Haiti.

Coming up at 7:40 eastern, Wyclef Jean will tell us about his efforts to rebuild his homeland and a new song released to mark six months of the Haiti earthquake.

CHETRY: Meanwhile, it's time for a check of in morning's weather headlines.

(WEATHER BREAK)

CHETRY: Still ahead, police say the young teenager stole planes, stole boats, went on a crime spree across America leaving no clues but footprints in a lot of the surveillance video. He was barefoot. They called him the barefoot bandit.

Now police in the Bahamas finally track him down. How did they do it? We'll find out next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: Right now there is nothing stopping the crude from gushing out of BP's broken oil well into the Gulf. We'll show you a live look at things 5,000 feet below. The oil company is putting a new containment company into place, one they say could capture all of the leaking oil.

CHETRY: But the main goal is to get those two relief wells drilled and working. The hope is that will finally put an end to this 84-day-old crisis.

For the latest on all this, we're joined by national incident commander Admiral Thad Allen. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

ADM. THAD ALLEN, U.S COAST GUARD (RET.), NATIONAL INCIDENT COMMANDER: Good morning, Kiran.

CHETRY: The idea is to get an all-encompassing seal, a tighter seal on this leak and then draw up as we were hearing from BP officials, perhaps all of the oil. Explain this operation and how it is going so far.

ALLEN: Well, we're going to be in a position later on today to put a containment cap over the well. This containment cap will have the ability to actually close down valves and slowly contain all the oil. Once we do that we'll know how much pressure is actually in the well.

That could lead to one of two positive outcomes. It could tell us the well is withholding the pressure and we can actually shut the well in or just cap it, if you will. If there is a need that we could produce oil and have enough platforms up on the surface where we can contain all the oil and produce it.

Either way, those are two pretty good outcomes either way, but they depend on a well integrity test that has to be conducted later on today, and I've asked BP for plans on how to do that and we're reviewing them right now, and hopefully we'll make a decision to move forward on that later today.

GRIFFIN: Commander, you actually urged BP to do what they are doing right now quicker than they were planning to do because you had a weather window that was opportune for this moment?

ALLEN: Looking at the weather patterns, we saw that there was a real long distance between troughs that were forming out in the Atlantic and down in the Caribbean. And I consulted personally with Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, and we felt that there was a seven to 10-day window. And if we were going to have the opportunity to do it, we knew that BP had the technology ready to deploy so I asked them for a plan and a timeline on how they might move that forward. They provided me one and I approved it.

CHETRY: And speaking about timeline, you said that later today, you should be moving forward with that tighter cap, that full operation that's taking place. Will you know later today whether or not that's actually been a success?

ALLEN: Well, the cap is staged right now. We have to do a seismic baseline run before we actually start it because we want to understand what the sea floor is like in case there's any change to that after we start cranking down the pressure. Once the cap's on, we will slowly close the valves and see if it can tolerate the entire pressure of the well bore and that will tell us a lot. We need to know what the pressure is inside that cap to be able to know what our next steps are, whether we can shut it in or will have to produce oil to keep the pressure off.

CHETRY: Right.

ALLEN: We should know something after the cap is on and we do the well integrity test.

CHETRY: But theoretically, this could be shut down later today? The leaking well?

ALLEN: I would say maybe not today but it could give us the information that would lead us to believe we can shut the well in, which means we can put a cap on it and maintain the pressure. We won't know that until we do this well integrity test. That's the reason it's so important.

GRIFFIN: I wasn't aware that that was happening. I just want to reiterate that. You're putting on this containment cap and this containment cap is not necessarily just another hose to bring the oil up. You're saying you can actually seal this well potentially right now with what's being done today.

ALLEN: That's correct if we get the right pressure readings. I don't want to overpromise on this because we don't know what the condition of the well bore is, and the pressure readings inside that cap once we close all the valves will tell us that. And that's what we're going to do is part of this well integrity test.

CHETRY: I got it.

GRIFFIN: And, Commander, will that then stop the two relief wells that are being drilled or you're going to continue to push that that gets concluded?

ALLEN: I'm very clear on how I describe this. What we're talking about now is containing the oil. That's far different than actually killing the well and plugging it with cement. We will need to do that ultimately, but this will significantly improve our situation regarding the amount of oil coming to the surface while we finish the relief wells which are the final solution.

CHETRY: In the meantime, there is this period of time where the oil, as it's been described, is just gushing out unabated. Do we have any idea, any accurate assessment of just how much we're talking about in terms of barrels or gallons going into the ocean as you're waiting for this containment cap operation to be completed?

ALLEN: Well, Kiran, the government estimate is always been between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels a day. We have been producing with the various devices that have been on the well before the last cap was removed somewhere around 25,000 barrels a day. We have continued to flare off about 8,000 barrels a day with the Q4000 and the Helix Producer will be coming online, so we will have the capability to continue to produce. But during the period when we're trying to actually do the well integrity test, we will slowly take those production platforms offline because we have to close all the valves.

GRIFFIN: All right. Commander Thad Allen joining us from Washington, I imagine, thank you so much. Good luck today with all the efforts to, boy, cap that well. Eighty-four days. Thank you, sir.

CHETRY: Thanks for talking to us.

ALLEN: Thank you.

GRIFFIN: Well, he's called the Barefoot Bandit. Police say he led them on a chase across America, but they finally got him this weekend in the Bahamas. He tried to get away on a boat. Very interesting story here. We'll tell you all about it straight ahead.

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GRIFFIN: He was an Internet hero on the lam, accused felon on the run across the country and is placed behind bars now. The FBI says police in the Bahamas finally caught Colton Harris-Moore. He's called the barefoot bandit. For nearly two years, he has outsmarted the Feds.

CHETRY: He's just 19 years old, accused of a cross-country string of burglaries, including stealing two planes that he apparently used to teach himself to fly. Amazing stuff. At least you want to know how to fly first but hey, it worked for him at least for a while.

Susan Candiotti is breaking it down for us. A story that reads much like a Hollywood screenplay.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): True to form, he was caught, you guessed it, barefoot. Bahamian police escorting him with guns in plain view. 19-year-old Colton Harris- Moore, the alleged barefoot bandit, is at the end of his run.

COMMISSIONER ELLISON E. GREENSLADE, ROYAL BAHAMAS POLICE FORCE: The suspect, in an effort to evade capture, engaged local police in a high-speed chase by boat.

CANDIOTTI: American businessman William Sport owns the get-away boat allegedly stolen by the teen. He points out where police riddled the engines with bullets to stop the escape.

WILLIAM SPORT, BOAT OWNER: The Bahamian police did a great job of apprehending him before he could have gotten further away. He actually had enough fuel on the boat to make it all the way to Florida. I've been cruising with Bahamian Islands for 40 years and have never had any problem at all like this. Unfortunately, it was an American that caused the problem.

CANDIOTTI: Moore escaped from a group home in Washington State in 2008 after pleading guilty to a series of burglaries. A victim who lives next door to his mom talked about his arrest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like him to get some help.

CANDIOTTI: For nearly two years, authorities blamed the teenager for a series of burglaries across several states, including Idaho, North Dakota and Indiana. His calling card -- leaving behind barefoot prints. Authorities linked him to at least two stolen airplanes, including the one he allegedly flew to the Bahamas. He's believed to have taught himself to fly from watching video games. His mom tells CNN affiliate KIRO --

VOICE OF PAM KOHLER, COLTON HARRIS-MOORE'S MOTHER: If he did, I'm quite proud because I was going to get him flying lessons. And if he taught himself how to fly a plane, I'm very proud.

CANDIOTTI: The barefoot bandit became an Internet cult hero, scooping up more than 60,000 Facebook followers. Web sites sell t- shirts that read "Run, Colton, Run." On YouTube, fans idolized him in songs. Back home in Washington, locals scratched their heads. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like incredible that he spent all that time sneaking around and nobody could catch him.

CANDIOTTI: It's pretty hard not to compare him to the true life character in the movie "Catch Me If You Can." No comment from his mother Sunday. Outside her home, this message: "If you go past this sign, you will be shot."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: So far, CNN has been unable to reach Moore's attorney. This week, the teenager is expected to make a court appearance in the Bahamas before going toe-to-toe with the FBI back home -- Drew and Kiran.

GRIFFIN: Thanks. And still ahead, an accused serial killer known as the "grim sleeper" arrested last week after more than two decades on the loose in California.

CHETRY: We're going to take you inside the high-tech crime lab for a look at how authorities finally caught this accused serial killer.

Twenty-four minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Twenty- seven minutes past the hour now. Your top stories just three minutes away. But first, a CNN exclusive. It is cutting-edge technology and it helps police in Los Angeles hunt down the "grim sleeper," an accused serial killer.

GRIFFIN: You have fascinating technology that looks for a family resemblance, a potential relative's DNA to provide a link to the suspect. It worked. And now it could help crack dozens of other cold cases. Thelma Gutierrez has an exclusive look inside the lab that cracked this case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Behind these doors at the Department of Justice crime lab in Richmond, California, forensic investigators solved a landmark cold case that could change the way police investigations are conducted. We went inside for an exclusive look at the new DNA technology that led detectives to an elusive killer dubbed the Grim Sleeper.

It was the 1980s. A serial killer was terrorizing south Los Angeles. Most of his victims were young African-American women. Some had been shot with the same .25 caliber firearm. Some had been strangled. Some sexually assaulted. Their bodies dumped in alleys.

Over the years, Los Angeles police would follow numerous leads that went nowhere. In 1988, after eight murders and an attack on the potential ninth victim who got away, the killing stopped. Then nearly 15 years later, the Grim Sleeper would strike again. Who was he? Where was he hiding? Police would have to wait another two decades to find the answers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have about one-and-a-half million samples stored in the laboratory.

GUTIERREZ: A critical piece of the puzzle would be found here in the third largest DNA repository in the world. California has been collecting DNA from convicted felons since 2004. Police had the serial killer's DNA from the crime scenes. Was it possible it was here as well?

JILL SPRIGGS, BUREAU OF FORENSIC SERVICES: We are on the cutting edge of this technology.

GUTIERREZ: Jill Spriggs, who heads the lab, says forensic scientists recently developed a powerful investigative weapon called the Familial DNA Search Program, computer software that can find similarities between crime scene DNA and the DNA of a convicted felon. If the killer's DNA is not in the database, maybe a relative's is.

STEVE MYERS, CRIMINALIST: It is only convicted offenders that we're comparing to, not arrestees in California.

GUTIERREZ: Two years ago, detectives ran the killer's DNA searching for a link, but no match. Then a major break. Last year, criminalists entered the DNA of a man recently convicted of a felony weapons charge. His name was Christopher Franklin. Months later, detectives ran the "grim sleeper" killer's DNA again for the second time hoping for a match to a family member. They got it.

Detectives zeroed in on Christopher Franklin's father, 57-year- old Lonnie David Franklin, who lived in south Los Angeles within walking distance to one of the victims, 18-year-old Alicia Monique Alexander. At one time, the man described as a polite neighbor even worked as a garage attendant for Los Angeles police.

Detectives were confident they'd found their man. But before they could close in, they would need a sample of his DNA. With Franklin under surveillance, they picked up a piece of uneaten pizza crust, along with some eating utensils. Police sent it all to the lab. Soon after, they say they had a match. Between Franklin and the DNA found on victims.

JERRY BROWN, CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think going forward this is going to be a very important investigative tool for police everywhere where we have a serious crime and where we have no further leads.

GUTIERREZ: As city leaders and Los Angeles Police announced what they believe will be the end of the Grim Sleeper's reign of terror, the victims' families cheered. But it was a bittersweet moment for the brothers of 18-year-old Alicia Monique Alexander, who's carried her frayed picture for 22 years.

Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles. (END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: We're crossing the half-hour right now.

Time for a look at our top stories.

The Obama administration calling the attacks that killed an American and injured several others in Uganda deplorable and cowardly. There were three explosions that happened within 50 minutes of each other. They hit two venues packed with people watching Sunday's World Cup final.

Officials say at least 64 people in total were killed, another 71 being treated for injuries. So far, no specific terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack but the Ugandan government is pointing the finger at the Al Shabab group.

GRIFFIN: In just about 30 minutes, Swiss authorities will announce whether Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski is going to be extradited to the U.S.. He faces child sex charges here in Los Angeles. In 1977, he pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Polanski infamously fled to Europe before he could be sentenced. We're going to bring that news conference to you live as it happens coming up at the top of the hour.

CHETRY: And right now there is nothing keeping the crude from gushing out of BP's broken oil well in the Gulf. The oil giant removed a containment cap and then they are replacing that with a tighter fitting cap and it could even contain the gusher completely.

BP is also still working to drill those two relief wells on either side of the exploded well. The hope there is that this will finally end the 84-day-old crisis.

GRIFFIN: And for the 84 days, BP has been dumping dispersants into the Gulf. Over 1.5 million gallons so far. And the oil using the best estimates almost 210 million gallons have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

CHETRY: So what is this doing to the fragile ocean life down below? In a CNN exclusive, our Amber Lyon went into the Gulf to see for herself. She joins us live from New Orleans this morning. Hey, Amber.

AMBER LYON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Kiran.

Well, I'm an avid scuba diver. Let me put things into perspective for you. Normally at this time of the year when you want to enter the Gulf, you wear something like this, it is known as a dive skin. It's made of nylon and spandex. Well, due to the uncertainty of what's in the water, this, unfortunately, is the new reality of scuba diving in the Gulf.

It's a huge very heavy hazmat suit. Now we wanted to see what's going on under these waters with all of these dispersants. So we invited environmentalist, Philippe Cousteau, to come along with us on a dive. He says it is not the big globs of oil you see on top of the water but what's hidden underneath that scares him the most.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LYON (on camera): So we're taking three small boats. We're heading down the Mississippi. From there, we're going to head out into the Gulf.

BRUCE BUCHANAN, EMERGENCY RESPONSE DIVERS INTERNATIONAL: What we're doing is we're actually - if you ever wash dishes, you put a glove on to keep your hands dry while you're washing dishes, well, we're doing the same thing only we're doing this with her whole complete body.

LYON (voice-over): BP has pumped more than 1.5 million gallons of dispersant into the Gulf breaking up the crude into little beads that stay under the water. We went on a dive to search for that hidden oil.

PHILIPPE COUSTEAU, ENVIRONMENTALIST: I don't want to have to be here. If I was here, I would want to be doing like a free dive off one of these rigs with a bathing suit on.

LYON (on camera): It just screws, pops right into the suit and keeps any water from getting on your hands. If this looks uncomfortable, it is.

(voice-over): CNN photo journalist Rich Brooks went in first.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rich entering.

VOICE OF RICH BROOKS, CNN PHOTOJOURNALIST: There were a couple of sharks swimming by. They're just curious coming around to check out what's going on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You OK, Amber?

LYON (on camera): Yes, I'm good to go. You OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

LYON: We're about 48 miles away from the Deepwater Horizon spill and if you look in the water, you can see it's cloudy right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The oil is (INAUDIBLE) to the surface. It is distributed throughout the water column.

LYON: I was talking to BP's COO Doug Suttles and one of the main things I said is how is it going to be cleaned up? Because there is no technology to come down here and (INAUDIBLE) and what he said is that bacteria will eat it all up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, yes, there is bacteria that consumes oil in the water. What scientists are finding is that bacteria also consumes oxygen. So that when (INAUDIBLE) they don't have enough oxygen left in the water column for all the other animals.

LYON (voice-over): At the end of the day, we ran into a patch of dispersed oil that stretched as far as we could see.

(on camera): You can see all around us, it is very cloudy. This is a lot of dispersed oil.

You know, if you were to fly over this area, you'd probably look down and you wouldn't really be able to tell that there was oil here because it's kind of become the hidden oil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LYON: And if you saw the water color in that piece, normally it is supposed to be a blue color, not that green murky color we were seeing. In addition to that, we just saw pieces and pieces of little beads of oil all around us. Millions of them.

And as far as a hazmat training goes, we were talking about this earlier. It is very expensive. A suit like this alone costs about $2,000. That's in addition to weeks of training. That's going to affect a lot of people who have to enter these waters for their professions. We had a marine scientist on the boat with us and he says he used to enter the water in a normal dive suit but last time he went diving a couple weeks ago he saw a chemical cloud under the water and wasn't going to take any chances anymore.

So he says because he doesn't have hazmat training, now he can't enter the water to do his research on corals and fish to see what type of effect this oil crude dispersant mixture is having on the Gulf. Kiran, Drew.

CHETRY: And if you guys have to suit up to that extent to get in the water, did Philippe Cousteau give you any indication of what he thinks, what effect this is having on the marine life who are out there obviously without suits on?

LYON: Yes, well that's a really good point, Kiran. Because Philippe and I felt very lucky to be under there. You almost felt a little guilty wearing such a protective suit when you'd see - we saw sharks swimming around us, they didn't have anything to protect them and other fish.

I think that's what bothers Philippe the most, is that there is dispersed oil hanging there in the water column in about the first, you know, 30 feet of water in some areas of the Gulf.

CHETRY: All right. Amber Lyon for us, a very unique perspective. Thanks so much.

GRIFFIN: Well, another continuing disaster is in Haiti where quake recovery has been so slow. But there's some hopeful signs. Wyclef Jean is going to be joining us live, coming up.

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GRIFFIN: A nice shot of Atlanta. You know that - Rob, we should tell them that tower there, that's a hotel. They are still fixing the windows from a tornado like two years ago now.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, you can see the kind of a river around the column, about three-quarters of the way down. That's where they're working their way down the tower replacing those windows from that tornado.

CHETRY: CNN Center got hit as well. We saw the video from that. It was unbelievable.

MARCIANO: Where were you, Kiran. That's the night when we needed you here, Kiran, for that breaking news.

CHETRY: Like I could have prevented it.

MARCIANO: You could have helped out, at least.

Hey, guys, check this out. Temperatures will get into the lower 90s again today. So not triple-digit heat but it will be hot in some cases, oppressively hot. Air quality alerts are out for a lot of cities along the I-95 corridor.

Seventy-two right now in New York City and that temperature is obviously will be moving northward or at least higher as we go through time. As far as the rainfall out towards the Ohio River Valley, that's going to be marching off towards the north and east. Tomorrow looks a little bit more stormy.

Check out this video coming to us from Easter Island, South Pacific. While the World Cup was happening, on the other side of the world, this is what was shaking down on - at around high noon or at least 1:00. People gathering as the sun or the moon blocked the sun and daylight turned to basically nighttime for about five minutes there. Always a cool thing to see.

Love it. Love that ring around it. You can advance the maps so I can show the folks who live in let's say Ohio, in Tennessee and parts of Memphis, where the rain is, and where it's moving too. We could see some severe weather later on today across parts of Oklahoma where they saw a lot of rain the past three to four weeks. So they don't need anymore, that's for sure. They got a little bit of (INAUDIBLE) at least for this time of year.

An abundant amount of Gulf of Mexico moisture that's going to be rolling northward. That's going to create some problems. Also, heat advisory in effect for New Orleans and the surrounding areas across southeast Louisiana. Atlanta, you probably see some delays.

If you're traveling through that hub city, be aware, thunderstorms in the afternoon will certainly slow some things down. 95 for a high in Dallas. It will be 75 in L.A. and 91 degrees expected in New York. You're going to want to enjoy the dry weather today, albeit hot until tomorrow and the next several days, looks to be on the stormy side for the Big Apple. Back to you in New York.

CHETRY: All right. Sounds good. Thanks so much, Rob.

MARCIANO: All right, guys.

CHETRY: Well, still ahead, Haiti's earthquake. The recovery is going quite slow but there is still hope. We're going to be speaking with Wyclef Jean, coming up. He, of course, is Haitian. He has tried to bring a lot of attention and money to the victims of the earthquake. He's going to be joining us on this six-month anniversary.

GRIFFIN: Yes. That's who you're hearing right now. We'll be right back.

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CHETRY: Forty-seven minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.

What we're listening to this morning is Wyclef Jean's new song, "The Day After". It's being released today to mark six months since the devastating earthquake in Haiti, and you're hearing it first this morning here on AMERICAN MORNING.

GRIFFIN: Sad song. Wyclef Jean has made it his mission to restore hope to his home country. His aid organization, Yele Haiti, has raised millions of dollars, and Wyclef Jean joins us live this morning from Port-au-Prince.

And Wyclef, we were talking just a little bit, but I just want to get your immediate reaction. You went in last night again. Is anything positive happening there that you can point to to say, yes, the aid is working and things are getting better?

WYCLEF JEAN, MUSICIAN AND FOUNDER OF YELE HAITI: I mean what's positive is the spirit of the Haitian people, you know? But as far as the reconstruction, we're six months in, you know, minus the death which we've seen the day after when we came in, we feel that there's no reconstruction being done.

It's taken -- the people are frustrated. Feel like it's taken more than enough time. It's six months. A lot of tent, like as can see right behind me, there are still people all over the city sleeping in tents.

CHETRY: It is, and you wrote an -- an opinion piece about this. You said that you expected to go down there and see caterpillars as well as heavy equipment, lifting the rubble, getting it out of the way. You say that six months out there's still land disputes, customs problems that are delaying materials, seems to be a lot of bureaucratic red tape. Who do you blame for why this seems to be lagging so -- so much, six months out from this tragedy? JEAN: I mean, that's a good question. Bureaucratic red tape. I think what happens is, you know, a combination of, you know, the Haitian government. We have to work with the international community. Sometimes they're blaming the Haitian government, but what I'm saying is, at the end of the day, the money that still was promised from the donors, we still haven't received that, so there's a lot of red tape.

And then the people are just frustrated in the sense of no matter what happens, we're six months in. At least you could see caterpillars, bulldozers and everything, so I think the -- the negotiation with contracts is taking too long. Land dispute, even if you want to reroute the people, where are they going to go?

But, meanwhile, while we're sitting here and we're debating about it, there is tons of people sleeping in tents. So what we're proposing, what I see, the problem does look enormous, but job creation and education is the way of the future. Even when the contracts come in, if you don't have a population that is starting to read and write more, we're going to have a problem.

The best thing that I see right now is I'm on my way down here, and the kids are with their uniforms on and they're on their way to school. That's a beautiful sight.

GRIFFIN: And that's what is so frustrating, the beauty of these people, your people, Wyclef, they are so energetic, they're so hopeful, and yet they're just waiting and clinging for the hope that somebody will come and just help them along, and it's just not happening.

JEAN: Well, I think it's very important for us to keep the awareness, because we don't want this to go away, because, you know, similar to what happened in New Orleans, you know, there was like $3 billion that's still unaccounted for, you know? And we're going to an area where even when the contracts do start to open up, what is going to happen?

Understand, this is basically a youth population, you know? Sixty-five percent of this population is under 21, so you can understand the frustration of these kids. When I asked them, what do they want, they say, Clef, we want education and we want job creation. That's what we're looking for. We don't need handouts, but, Clef, it's been six months and we don't see nothing yet.

CHETRY: There's also this risk for children of abduction, child trafficking. I believe the prime minister was the one who said that at this point the government is not necessarily prepared to be able to protect all of the children. How is that being tackled as they deal with so many other difficulties in rebuilding?

JEAN: I mean, while we -- while we're moving forward, that -- what I -- what I -- and I'm speaking on behalf of the youth of Haiti. One of the things is we need stronger policy laws for trafficking of children, because before the earthquake, we had this problem. After the earthquake, the problem's tripled, so it's very important that we be watchdogs and watch this because you have so many different kids in the streets being trafficked, you know, and I don't think a slap in the hand is enough.

We have to start making sure that we apply policy in Haiti. We need more policies, more laws, you know, towards children, towards abduction, towards child slavery.

CHETRY: Right. Well, I know your commitment continues. You're down there and you were down there a couple of weeks ago. And here at CNN, we're glad to be able to shine a light on this six months later. We haven't forgotten, for sure.

Wyclef Jean, thanks for joining us this morning.

JEAN: Thank you. And all the Haitian people, (INAUDIBLE). Unity is strength.

GRIFFIN: All right. Wyclef Jean.

Well, this morning's top stories just minutes away, including a decision day for Roman Polanski. We are standing by now. Swiss officials just a few minutes away expected to decide whether he -- they're going to extradite the Oscar-winning filmmaker to the U.S., to Los Angeles, to face child sex charges. We're going to bring you their decision as soon as we get it.

CHETRY: It's what drives the economy, but just how are Americans spending their hard-earned cash and what does it tell us about America's recovery? We're going to have an exclusive look at a brand new survey.

GRIFFIN: And VH1 calls him the ultimate catch. Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco stepping into the reality dating world, but can he find true love on the TV? We'll talk about it as the saga continues.

Those stories and more at the top of the hour.

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CHETRY: Oh, you're talking about the song?

GRIFFIN: It's starting to get catchy in a noisy -- nauseating way.

CHETRY: Yes, but four more years until we're going to hear it again, so, there you go.

Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Fifty-five minutes past the hour right now.

It is a football fiesta in Spain this morning. People across the country are celebrating their first ever World Cup win.

GRIFFIN: Why? Yes, Spain beat the Netherlands, 1-0 in the championship match. The game-winning goal coming with time running out in the extra period. That's overtime to you and me, and our resident soccer guru, Richard Roth, here with his final take on the World Cup.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: I wonder what my new title will be when the World Cup now has come to an end.

It was a not so satisfying match, if you're root -- rooted for the Spanish, yes, but the Dutch played some brutal football to try to even things out. One of their star player said they'd rather win ugly, and that's what happened. It would have been --

GRIFFIN: (INAUDIBLE).

ROTH: It would have been a great game if the Dutch said, let's play offense, even if they lost 6-4, I think people would be talking today about a fantastic match, but Spain gets its first World Cup win ever.

That goal there by Iniesta, you know -- did you watch?

CHETRY: Yes, we did. We did watch because everybody was crowded in front of the TVs. I mean, a lot of people talk about how soccer, football not that popular in the U.S. Did it change after this year's World Cup? Or did we just talk about it more?

ROTH: A little bit, and I think, you know, probably in four years we're going to be doing the same stories again. I think the American team, if it had just gotten past Ghana, without have put it a little bit over the edge a little bit. It would have been another weekend match-up with Uruguay. Maybe they would have gotten. But they didn't have enough talent up front. The U.S. front line has not scored in two World Cups.

The referee handed out a lot of yellow cards, punishments, one red card, and the big star probably of this World Cup who's going to be remembered beside the vuvuzelas is Paul, the psychic octopus.

CHETRY: Who predicted correctly all eight matches.

ROTH: Yes. He never lost. He was unbeaten, eight for eight -- nine for nine, I think. He was getting death threat. Octopie was not served on the menus, I believe, in Spain and certain places. PETA wants him freed. That's --

GRIFFIN: So --

ROTH: The winning teams and the losing team now return home today to their respective capitals.

GRIFFIN: Yes. Big party in Spain. The Dutch national funk?

ROTH: Yes. This is their third loss in the World Cup final, but they did beat Brazil, Europe, the first type a European team wins outside of Europe for the World Cup.

A lot of good angles, you know, but I think a lot of people watched soccer or football who didn't normally watch, and I think for the organizers of the game, it's a plus. CHETRY: Is this the ball?

ROTH: No, this is not the ball.

CHETRY: It's just a ball.

ROTH: We were practicing earlier, we could say, and one of our anchors was on the floor here, knocked over by an errant shot.

CHETRY: I was imitating some of the players pretending to be badly, badly hurt when they weren't. what's up with that?

ROTH: I know. Can you imagine if everyone did that at work?

CHETRY: I really legitimately sprained my ankle. I wasn't faking.

ROTH: I think nurses stations and doctors' offices inside corporations would be jam packed. HR offices would be handing out yellow cards.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

CHETRY: Or in some cases, a red one. I wish they had a red piece of paper now.

ROTH: And some acting schools may get some new applicants. So --

CHETRY: Thanks, Richard. See you in four years.

ROTH: Maybe sooner, hopefully.

CHETRY: Your top stories coming your way in two minutes.

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