Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Hurricane Warning for Haiti; Qantas Grounds Airbus A380 Fleet; "Slurpee Summit" on the Horizon for Obama and Boehner; Mangoes for Motorcycles; Off the Ballot, in the Running; Coast Guard Shooting Linked to DC Shootings; Peanut Allergies on Rise in Kids; You Are What You Watch
Aired November 04, 2010 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Thanks so much for being with you on this AMERICAN MORNING at a much more reasonable time than yesterday.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know, 3:00 in the morning is pretty good. When you're up and all the excitement of an election, you might as well be here working, right?
CHETRY: That's true. That's true.
Well, thanks for being with us this morning. I'm Kiran Chetry.
ROBERTS: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. Let's get you caught up on what happened overnight.
A battered nation about to be struck again. Hurricane warnings now in effect for Haiti as tropical storm Tomas picks up steam. 1.5 million homeless earthquake victims are in its path. They're on the northeastern side of what's projected to be the track. The latest from the extreme weather center just ahead.
CHETRY: So engine failure in midair, a Qantas Airbus A380, forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore just minutes after takeoff. Passengers reported hearing a loud bang. Now the entire fleet of double decker super jumbos has been grounded.
ROBERTS: Let's talk 2012. After the Democrats took a shellacking on Tuesday, a new poll shows how President Obama would do against some possible GOP presidential nominees. He won two and lost two. And how did Sarah Palin do? We'll show you the results coming right up.
CHETRY: Up first, though, earthquake victims now bracing for a hurricane. Haiti is now under a hurricane warning with tropical storm Tomas regaining strength. It's expected to intensify into a Category One storm again before it strikes Haiti sometime tonight or tomorrow morning.
ROBERTS: Tomas hit the West Indies as a Category One. That was on Sunday morning. It tore the roofs off of homes. Killed at least a dozen people in St. Lucia. And if it did that to a building, what might it do to Haiti's fragile tent cities? CHETRY: You know, right now, there are 1 1/2 (ph) people who are left homeless by the earthquake months ago. Now they're being urged to find shelter somewhere somehow, because as much as 10 inches of rain and potentially deadly mudslides also forecast because of the storm. There's also a fear that the storm could make a deadly outbreak of cholera much worse. The U.S. Military says it's deployed the USS Iwo Jima to provide humanitarian support.
ROBERTS: Our Rob Marciano is tracking Tomas. He's in the extreme weather center.
A little bit of good news, Rob, that the forecast track has now moved a little west into the inward passage, as opposed to right over the country?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That gives us a little bit of hope. But for all the things that you mentioned, John and Kiran, you know, you don't really even need a hurricane to get over this here.
We're going to see a tremendous amount of rain. And you get winds of tropical storm force. And you know, you're talking about a tent holding that, it's not going to be a good deal.
Here's what happening right now. Tropical storm, it is winds of 50 miles an hour. So Tomas right now has made that turn to the north. So we now have a north-northwesterly move about seven miles an hour. It's about 150 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 300 miles south of Port-au-Prince and heading in that direction.
We look at this cloud mass, it doesn't look that organized, thankfully, although it is increasing in its strength as it has been doing in the past 12 hours. A lot of warm water out here. Low vertical sheers as far as the winds are concerned at the mid and upper levels of the atmosphere. So the philosophy, the forecast is for it to continue to strengthen and potentially getting to hurricane strength status of a Category One nature.
But you're right, the forecast track brings it just a little west of Haiti but it's still in that cone of uncertainty. And remember, everything east and northeast typically of hurricanes or tropical storms, that's where the brunt of the storm is. That's where the highest amount of winds are. And in this case, when you have that combination with the mountains that exist south of Port-au-Prince, especially some of which are over 6,000 feet in elevation, you're talking about tremendous amount of rain that's going to be squeezed out of these clouds and mudslide is going to be an issue. So we kind of have the triple whammy, regardless of the strength of this thing and regardless of the track.
The storm that's rolling up the East Coast right now will affect Tomas, and as far as bringing it farther to the north and into the Bahamas and away from the U.S. But as far as Haiti is concerned, guys, right now, we're hoping for the best and obviously they're preparing for the worst. We get more shift to the west that would be good. But anything to the right of this is still going to probably feel at least tropical storm force winds and a tremendous amount of rain.
Back to you guys up in New York.
CHETRY: All right, Rob. We'll continue to track it with you throughout the morning. Thank you.
MARCIANO: You bet.
CHETRY: Meantime, a midair plane emergency to tell you about this morning. The incident happened overnight. It was a Qantas Airbus A380, forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore, after one of its engines ripped apart midair six minutes after takeoff.
ROBERTS: The double-decker superjumbo with 459 people on board, passengers and crew was heading from Singapore to Sydney when passengers say they heard what sounded like an explosion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ULF WASHBUSCH, PASSENGER ON THE PLACE (via telephone): As you can see on the pictures, there was engine damage that happened about five minutes or so after takeoff from Singapore on Qantas QF32 for Sydney. We heard a loud bang. I was sitting right on the side where the engine is. A loud bang. I saw a little bit of flare for a short time, and the engine would shut up pretty much immediately from the flight deck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: As a result, Qantas is grounding its entire fleet. Let's bring in our Zain Verjee now. She just happens to be on assignment in Singapore. She's at the airport right now. She joins us on the phone.
Do we have any idea what happened on the flight that caused that engine to suffer that failure, Zain?
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): No, we don't, John. It's really not clear. An investigation though is under way.
If you take a close look at the picture, you can see though that the main engine is still there, but part of it, the back, is missing. That is called a cowling. It's what essentially closes the engine. I talked to one aviation expert here who said that the cause may have been possibly an engine malfunction or a foreign object could have entered the engine. This expert said that whatever the cause was it's been very damaging and it's something very serious. Alan Joyce, who's Qantas' CEO had this to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALAN JOYCE, QANTAS CEO: I'm not sure of what's actually happened with the debris and the part of this is looking exactly what did occur in this, and why parts of the engine looks like and left the aircraft and fell into the ground. We're still looking at what exactly was the cause there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VERJEE: John, these passengers and crew were so lucky. This expert I spoke to told me that if the engine that fell away had hit the wing, it would have been a total catastrophe -- John.
CHETRY: It is amazing, Zain, (INAUDIBLE) as well that they were able to land like that safely. Nobody hurt.
There are some people questioning whether this could have been caused by the volcanic ash from Indonesia's erupting Mt. Merapi. What do you know about that? Have officials talked about the possibility?
VERJEE: We asked about that, and it actually seems unlikely, Kiran, because firstly the ash was not in that plane's flight path. There were no reports of any ash before it even took off. And one expert I spoke to told me that if there was ash out there, it would have affected all four engines and not just one -- Kiran, John.
CHETRY: Got you. Well, meantime, as they try to get to the bottom of this, they've grounded their entire fleet of these airbuses. Thanks so much, Zain.
ROBERTS: You know, we should point out too, Qantas never had a fatal accident. So they've got an amazing track record. But as we saw with all the air traffic grounded when that Eyjafjallajokull -- I can't believe I remember that -- volcano in Iceland had erupted. When volcanic ash does get inside an aircraft engine, it can cause serious, serious damage.
CHETRY: There are a lot of concerns about that and a lot of concerns about air travel in Europe because of the one in Iceland, which I'm not going to attempt to say this morning.
Also new this morning, an all clear has been issued in John F. Kennedy International Airport after a suspicious package caused a DHL cargo facility to be evacuated in New York. Police say that the package contained a cell phone and paperwork that was from Yemen. The same place where you may remember those two explosive devices were shipped from last week.
ROBERTS: More bloody violence in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez. Police say two students from the University of El Paso, Texas were gunned down on their car. University of Texas in El Paso, rather, where gunned down on their car this week. One was a U.S. citizen. The other one was a native of Juarez.
The border city has been riddled with drug violence. That's no surprise. Last month alone, gunmen killed more than 350 people in Juarez.
CHETRY: Also, U.S. authorities seized 30 tons of marijuana after discovering an underground tunnel that connected drug warehouses in Tijuana and San Diego. The 600-yard border tunnel, you're seeing it there, equipped with lighting, ventilation and what authorities describe as a crude railway system to move those drugs. As one U.S. immigration and customs official put it, not a good day for the cartels.
ROBERTS: The president admitting that he took a shellacking. You know that one's going to leave a mark. Ready to meet with the likely new Speaker of the House John Boehner over a few Slurpees. No, we're not making that one up. A live report from the Capitol just ahead.
It's eight minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Ten minutes now after the hour. Still, two big Senate races up in the air this morning. And we may not know this one for a while.
In Alaska, it looks like incumbent Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign- may have worked. Write-ins including Murkowski lead the race with 41 percent. They still have to count all the ballots, though. Joe Miller behind by about 13,000 votes and he's challenging the date that they are going to start counting these things. They're supposed to start counting the absentee ballots on November 9th and then the write-ins on November 10th. He says that's too early for him. He's got to get a team in place to oversee everything.
In Washington State, mail-in ballots are holding things up. Right now, incumbent Democratic Patty Murray hanging on to a slim two-point lead over Republican Dino Rossi.
CHETRY: Midterm elections must be over because now Democrats and Republicans and talking about getting the other over Slurpees. Politics can be a little strange sometimes, and it was a reflective President Obama who admitted yesterday that he and the Democrats took a, quote, "shellacking" this week. The president says he's ready to sit down with Republicans to find a better way forward.
And remember the mantra he repeated over and over on the campaign trail how Republicans were sipping Slurpees on the sidelines while Democrats are trying to push the car out of the ditch? Well, that came back to haunt the president at his news conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President, I want to ask if you're going to have John Boehner over for a Slurpee but I actually have a serious question.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I might serve those. They're delicious drinks. The Slurpee summit. That's good. I like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Brianna Keilar is live on Capitol Hill this morning. So the president and the speaker in waiting, John Boehner, have a lot to discuss. And both of them, when you heard from them yesterday seem willing to get started. Whether it's over Slurpees or not remains to be seen.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I know and it's kind of a joke here because now you have a spokesman for the speaker in waiting John Boehner saying, you know, let's hope the president will be willing to work with us to cut spending, stop tax hikes, get the economy working again. And he said then we can all go get Slurpees together. The new wicked apple flavor sounds awesome. I'm particularly partial to the Coca-Cola flavor. I have to say.
So you're seeing some talk here of bipartisanship. But there's this question, is that really going to happen? Because what you have is this Republican conference in the House of Representatives now coming in in January that's going to be more to the right. Democrats have lost some of their more moderate members. They're going to be more to the left. And yesterday, Republican leaders, Kiran, are making it pretty clear that at least health care reform is on the chopping block. Even though they were sort of minimizing some of the expectations of what they could do, one of the areas where we might see some bipartisanship or at least some agreement, but expect to also see some wrangling, has to do with spending cuts. There's this tremendous appetite from the electorate that they just feel like Washington is spending too much and it seems to be an area where maybe Democrats and Republicans might be able to see eye to eye, Kiran.
CHETRY: Nancy Pelosi future, she's now the minority leader. She or likely will be soon. She played it close to the vest in her interview with Diane Sawyer. But what happens now after being the first woman speaker of the House and now losing control, or at least her party losing control.
KEILAR: And she told Diane Sawyer yesterday that, you know, that was great. It was an amazing accomplishment but, you know, basically maybe it had its time. Now the question is what is she going to do? Is she going to remain in control of Democrats and be the House minority leader come the new Congress? Is she going to step aside? Is she going to get out of Congress altogether? And the fact is, even her closest aides don't know. And a lot of top Democrats are waiting to see. Here's what she said in that interview yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DIANE SAWYER, HOST: Are the odds, you'll stay?
NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: As I said to you, in our caucus, we always do things by consensus. And when we have that consensus, we'll also have some announcement to make.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: So she's saying that she's waiting to see where Democrats stand. She has enjoyed the majority of support from her caucus. But at the same time, right now, we've been watching yesterday, Republicans, as they start vying for leadership positions, throwing their hats into the ring to say I want this leadership position. Democrats are at a standstill right now as they wait for Speaker Pelosi to make a decision about what she's going to do. And it's just a waiting game at this point, Kiran.
CHETRY: Back to the Slurpee talk, you said you're partial to Coke.
KEILAR: I love it.
CHETRY: A 24-ounce Slurpee?
KEILAR: Thirty-six, come on.
CHETRY: OK, now -- OK, 36. You're now at more than 120 grams of sugar. So that is going to get you going the rest of the day.
KEILAR: You know, it's the sacrifice that in the summer I make twice a month.
CHETRY: We're going to ask Sanjay Gupta if that's OK.
All right. Thanks so much, Brianna.
ROBERTS: Everything in moderation, I guess.
CHETRY: Including your Coke Slurpees.
ROBERTS: I'm not a Slurpee guy. I'm - I'm partial - I'm a Chick-fil- A vanilla milkshake type of guy. I can hear the people in Atlanta cheering.
Uniquely American brand Harley-Davidsons can now be seen cruising the streets of India, and it's all because of a trade deal that some people are calling Mangoes for Motorcycles. We'll take you live to New Delhi, coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Nineteen minutes now after the hour.
Mangoes for Motorcycles - that's what some people are calling a trade deal between the United States and China. India gets to sell their mangoes to the United States, and Harley-Davidson gets to sell its motorcycles to India.
CHETRY: It's a deal that's been sweetened by the company's plan to expand operations into Southern Asia.
Sara Sidner joins us live from New Delhi, India this morning, where this iconic American brand is now on sale. It's going to be a lot of mangoes, OK, to trade it in for a Harley.
SARA SIDNER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think you got that one right, Kiran. Good morning, Kiran and John.
Yes. You know, Harley came to India four months ago. It opened up several stores. They're now opening up a fifth store. But the big news this week is that they have decided to start pumping out Harleys here in India in 2011.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER (voice-over): Vikram Bhalla is fulfilling a childhood dream, sitting atop his prized possession - his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
VIKRAM BHALLA, HARLEY-DAVIDSON RIDER: I remember seeing (INAUDIBLE), old movie. And this - it made people look so cool, so I got lined up (ph).
SIDNER: But Vikram's not riding the open road in the U.S. of A., where the iconic American brand has a cult-like following. Instead, he's on the congested roads of Gurgaon, India, and loving every minute of it.
The high-end brand went on sale in India for the first time this year.
BHALLA: Riding a Harley, it's sort of like meditation, almost.
SIDNER (on camera): India's Harley-Davidson story started in 2007, with the U.S. /India trade agreement we liked to call Mangoes for Motorcycles.
SIDNER (voice-over): The U.S. agreed to allow India to export mangoes to the American market. In exchange, India allowed the U.S. to export Harley-Davidson to the Indian market.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's the best part of free trade, win-win for everyone. Indians get Harleys, the U.S. gets some mangoes, and it's a great - great exchange.
SIDNER (on camera): Sweet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very sweet.
SIDNER (voice-over): Harley-Davidson is now building a plant in Northern India, only the second one outside the USA. Right now, buying a Harley in India means paying double the price of those in America, due to India's sky-high import duties on fully assembled vehicles. Bringing in just the bike part to be assembled in India means an 80 percent reduction in import duty tariffs.
SIDNER (on camera): Do you feel there might be any pushback from the American population, who sees this brand as the American dream realized, that you're building a plant now in India?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we're doing is made in the USA, assembled in India, which will have a positive job effect back home, and that's really why we're driving this investment.
SIDNER (voice-over): India is second only to China as the largest two-wheeler market in the world. As President Barack Obama is set to arrive in India, Harley-Davidson says its deal is an example of how to increase U.S. bilateral trade and investments with India, as well as create jobs in both countries, something the Obama administration is keen on doing.
(END VIDEOTAPE) SIDNER: Now, just to give you an idea of how big the motorcycle market here is, the two-wheeler market, they sold about 10 million bikes between 2009 and 2010 - John and Kiran.
ROBERTS: Potentially lucrative market for Harley-Davidson.
I noticed that Vikram hasn't yet customized his motorcycle at all. Is - is that, do you think, going to be a big market there? Because it's a huge part of the market here in the United States.
SIDNER: I think, absolutely. He had the helmet that said Harley, and there are a few things that I think he'd like to get for his bike, but definitely they're selling merchandise.
And that's another big thing. Actually, we were at a press conference, and all of the local Indian media was asking, when are you going to pump more of this merchandise out? Because people are already wearing the merchandise, they just didn't have the bikes - John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Yes. I tell you, the bike is the starting place -
CHETRY: Yes, then -
ROBERTS: -- when it comes to Harley-Davidson.
CHETRY: Right. West Coast Choppers, right?
SIDNER: Absolutely.
CHETRY: West Coast Choppers head east.
Sara Sidner for us this morning in New Delhi. Thanks so much.
ROBERTS: Well, the Alaska campaign still continues this morning. Is it going to be Joe Miller or Lisa Murkowski? And when are they going to count those write-in ballots? We'll check in. We'll go to Anchorage, live, coming up next.
It's 23 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It's 26 minutes after the hour.
We are already hearing names that we haven't heard since Bush v. Gore in 2000, major election draw right now in Alaska where incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski is on the brink of an historic comeback as a write-in candidate. Right now, the write-in votes presumably for Murkowski lead the race at 41 percent, Joe Miller is six points - seven points behind at 34 percent. Miller is not backing down this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE MILLER (R), ALASKA SENATE CANDIDATE: We want to make sure that there is a legal and proper process, not the suggestion that, oh, two days ago, we're going to have the ballots counted on the 18th and then suddenly moving it forward by a week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Our guest now says that we may not know who won until this Thanksgiving. Joining us on the telephone is Matthew Felling. He's the anchor for local affiliate KTVA Anchorage. It was thought, Matthew, that they were going to start counting absentee ballots on the 9th and then the write-ins on the 10th. Where does that stand?
MATTHEW FELLING, ANCHOR, KTVA ANCHORAGE (via telephone): Honestly, that is exactly where we are as of - as of this moment. The time line though that we thought were dealing with at the beginning of the week was that the write-ins were going to start being dealt with on November 18th.
So in terms of the arguments that the Joe Miller camp has made about trying to get their legal ducks in a row, we just put the game on speed. We hit fast forward from the Alaska lieutenant governor who is the guy that makes this sort of decisions.
And there's a - there's not only that, but yesterday he also said - and this is probably just a rounding error worth of a story, but it was notable that he said when asked that if somebody inadvertently - I don't know why they would do it, but if somebody filled in a bubble and wrote in Joe Miller as a write-in candidate that those would get tossed out since he was not a - he was not a credited write-in candidate, which I took a look. It actually looks like it goes against Alaska State statute.
So that's one more battle that Joe Miller people think that they already have a very, very steep if not impossible hill to climb. They don't need to get any more difficult by -
ROBERTS: Yes.
FELLING: -- you know, rearranging where we thought we were 24 hours ago.
ROBERTS: There's one - one thing is - is certain, though, and that is the high-powered lawyers have been assembling on both sides. How nasty could this fight get? How involved can it get?
FELLING: You know what, John, I was - I've been thinking about it, it's going to get nasty. I mean, one lawyer in a town goes broke. Two lawyers in a town keep each other busy and keep each other, you know, flush. But we're going to have a lot of people up here.
It's not going to be Bush/Gore. It's not going to be Frank and Coleman. Sorry, media people. It's not going become that acrimonious because these are two Republicans. I mean, we're not going to have the national Republican people coming up from D.C. tearing down one or the other, because those - they're eventually going to have a Republican that they're sending to Washington, D.C. It's not going to get that nasty. But in terms of the individual campaigns, the money they're putting out, it's - it's probably going to get down and dirty and we know that the lieutenant governor, the guy running this, that he's going to be, quote/unquote, "lenient" when it comes to people spelling the word "Murkowski." We don't know exactly what lenient is.
ROBERTS: Yes.
FELLING: And the lawyers are going to have a field day with, are you allowed one misspelling, two misspellings. What is the threshold and you know that they're going to have two different sets of standards when it comes to - what I can tell with this person was going for and the other side says absolutely not.
ROBERTS: Yes. You know, it's all about measuring voter intent. And we remember that all too well from the 2000 election campaign when we had the hanging chad controversy in Florida. But when it comes to spelling - and I know Fox News spelled her name wrong, Lisa Murkowski's own campaign spelled her name wrong on one of their ads. I mean, this could make the hanging chads scandal look like child's play.
FELLING: You're looking at the highest political stakes spelling bee in potentially the history of the United States, so at least we have that going for. And the Murkowski people, it must be said, yes, they - they had a couple of slipups with regards to the spelling. They have the name recognition, though, in the state.
ROBERTS: Yes.
FELLING: We've had Frank Murkowski, Senator Lisa Murkowski's father in office for a long time before her. This is not your run of the mill long odd named write-in campaign that nobody's ever heard of before. And plus, we had over a million of dollars - $1.2 million for a TV commercial ad campaign spent exactly teaching people how to fill, how to spell, getting that -- getting that lesson across.
ROBERTS: And there's one historical point of reference here, too. The last time that a Senate candidate was successful as a write- in was in 1954. And that happened to be the year that the Giants won the World Series. So, maybe lightning strikes twice. We'll see.
FELLING: You know, the Murkowski people sent that out as soon as the final pitch was thrown in the World Series. And I thought, that was (INAUDIBLE) statistical tidbit there. Strom Thurmond was a name that people knew back in -- because he had a presidential run in 1948. And Murkowski has the same thing. So, write-in candidates who are just sort off the wall out of the fringe, they may not be able heartened by what we're having up here because these are -- these are brand names in our state.
But, of course, we always have to put the little like -- do the air quotes when we're talking about write-ins because --
ROBERTS: Right. FELLING: -- write-ins could be anybody. And write-ins could be a very botched attempt at spelling "Murkowski." In which case, we're looking for a lot of votes to get tossed out. But a 13,000-vote difference, which we are now at 100 percent in is going to be tough for the Miller campaign.
ROBERTS: All right. Certainly probably will be.
Matthew Felling, good to talk to you this morning -- thanks for staying up late for us.
FELLING: All right. Now worries. Thank you.
CHETRY: All right. Still ahead: our top stories.
More than 1 million people in Haiti left homeless after the earthquake are now bracing for a hurricane right now. They're hurricane warnings in Haiti right now with Tomas intensifying again. And even it doesn't turn into a category one storm. We're talking major threat of mudslides because of heavy rains. We're going to have much more on that coming up.
ROBERTS: A Qantas Airbus 380 forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore after one of its engines failed in mid air. The cowling was ripped off. The wing was damaged. Debris fell on in Indonesia. All 459 people on board are fine, though. Qantas has grounded its airbus super jumbos just as a precaution.
CHETRY: And General Motors is hoping to raise an estimated $13 billion when it returns to the stock market later this month. The automaker is looking to sell its shares of common stock for about $26 to $29 a share. GM still owes the government $40 billion from the taxpayer bailout.
ROBERTS: Well, here's a troubling story -- investigators in Washington have a serious problem on their hands, it would seem. As we told you yesterday, shots were fired at a Coast Guard recruiting station in Virginia on Monday. Well, now, that shooting has been linked to four other shootings at Military buildings, including the Pentagon.
Jeanne Meserve is live in Washington with the latest on the story. This could be harkened back to the D.C. sniper story. But thankfully, no one has been hurt in any of these shootings, but it's still pretty darn frightening.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, five shootings over the span of 17 days. As of now, the FBI won't say if it has any suspects.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE (voice-over): FBI ballistics tests have now linked the shooting at a Coast Guard recruiting station in Woodridge, Virginia, earlier this week. Two bullets fired at other Military facilities in northern Virginia. Since October 17th, bullets have been fired at the Marine Corps Museum near Quantico, Virginia, the Pentagon, a Marine recruiting facility in Chantilly, Virginia, the Marine Museum again, and then the Coast Guard recruiting station in Woodridge.
A former FBI profiler says investigators should not concentrate on one type of suspect because a narrow focus might exclude other possibilities.
GREGG MCCRARY, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Could be a former Military guy, could be active, could be somebody who didn't get into the Military who wanted to. Someone that was phased out. They feel unfairly. Could be a family member of a Military person. Could be a would-be terrorist who has no association with the Military.
MESERVE: The FBI believes the shooter has likely suffered a personal crisis in the recent past.
JOHN PERREN, FBI WASHINGTON FIELD OFFICE: This event may have been the loss of a job or status, divorce, financial hardship, death of a loved one.
MESERVE: All the shootings have taken place overnight. Nobody has been injured. But security around last Sunday's Marine Corps marathon was increased as a precaution.
MCCRARY: Certainly, it would be easy enough to shoot people if he cared to do so. But he seems to be making a concerted effort not to do that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE: The FBI isn't releasing any information about the type of weapon involved. But Greg McCrary, a former FBI profiler, says by using the same weapon each time, the shooter appears to want authorities to link the crimes to one another. But who he is and why he's doing it are for now a mystery -- John.
ROBERTS: But when you listen to them, they say it could be anybody for any reason. It really sounds like they're basically starting from scratch.
MESERVE: Well, I mean, one important clue, McCrary thinks is the fact that all of these have been taken place in northern Virginia. And although a couple of the targets, the Marine Museum and the Pentagon, are very well-known and iconic buildings. The other two, the recruiting stations, are relatively unknown. So, they think somebody with probably familiarity with the geography of the area is involved.
ROBERTS: All right. Jeanne Meserve for us this morning -- Jeanne, thanks.
CHETRY: Coming up: we're going to be talking about a topic that a lot of people care about it because we see it more and more -- food allergies in children, especially among -- especially peanut allergies. ROBERTS: I was on a plane the other day and they said, aren't you serving peanuts? They said, we've got somebody on board with a peanut allergy. So, no peanuts on this flight.
CHETRY: Yes, it's unbelievable because years ago, we didn't hear about this as much. And the numbers also say there have been there has been a spike, the number of people dying with these allergies. Now, they're wondering could it have anything to do with what the mother eats during pregnancy. A little bit of a correlation.
And we're going to be talking about it with one the experts in the field, Dr. Scott Sicherer. He's a professor of pediatrics at Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mt. Sinai. We're going to talk to him about this new study -- still ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: -- with peanut allergies more than tripled over the last decade or so. There you see it, 1997, one in 250; 2008, one in 70 kids with peanut allergies. Could expectant mothers possibly prevent this by changing their diet?
Well, we're joined this morning by Dr. Scott Sicherer. He's a pediatrician here in New York. And his new study is raising some questions about how are kids are getting these food allergies.
Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
DR. SCOTT SICHERER, CLINICIAN, JAFFE FOOD ALLERGY INSTITUTE: (INAUDIBLE).
CHETRY: Full disclosure, my daughter who has a severe peanut allergy visited your food allergy institute recently to try to find out more. I know you guys are on the cutting edge of research.
What was this new study about the possible link between eating peanuts or and peanut products during pregnancy and the potential in sensitivity among newborns?
SICHERER: Exactly. So, this was a government-sponsored study in five states across the U.S. We're following over 500 children who we started following, who already showed some signs of food allergies. And in this particular part of the study, it turned out at that the mothers who ate peanuts more frequently during pregnancy, they were the ones whose children were at higher risk to have a strong positive test to peanuts in the study. And so, we have to watch those children over few more years to see if they develop a peanut allergy but we do feel they're at risk based on the strong positive tests.
CHETRY: It's interesting because everybody at home who is pregnant or thinking about being pregnant says, does that mean I should avoid peanut and peanut products when I'm pregnant?
SICHERER: Well, that's a great question. And I think the quick answer right now is that we don't have enough data to make a public health comment to change the diet. But let me just give you an example.
Ten years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that mothers should -- mothers who are at family risk of allergy should avoid peanuts during pregnancy, during breast-feeding. Not even feed it until the child is age 3. All of those recommendations were actually withdrawn two years ago. And the recent for that is an increasing studies that were saying, gee, if you wait a long enough time in an otherwise healthy but allergy-prone family to give a child egg or milk or peanuts for, you know, years, that actually might be counterproductive for allergy.
So, I can't question -- our study was to look at risk factors. And we found one that we have to pay more attention to in going forward. But there are stories on both sides of the coin on this. Unfortunately, the jury's still out. I'm not running to tell my patients that they have to avoid peanuts during pregnancy but we have a conversation about it.
CHETRY: That's interesting because my best friend reminding me that I used to spoon, you know, big spoonfuls of peanut butter to my mouth when I was pregnant with my daughter who has it and I didn't have a taste for peanut with my son who doesn't.
SICHERER: So, you're aiming towards a guilt trip. But I guess my biggest message here is that, you know, parents who come in and say, I ate tons of peanut, my child had a peanut allergy. I avoided peanut, my child has a peanut allergy. I think the safest thing to say right now is that you should talk to your doctor about it, but definitely don't feel guilty that you did something that cause the food allergy for your child.
CHETRY: It's also interesting, my friend has fraternal twins, and one of her children has a severe peanut allergy, and one does not.
SICHERER: We did a study on that, and found that there's a 7 percent rate of sharing the allergy in fraternal twins. In identical twins, it's about 67 percent. It shows you there's genetics and environment that's involved in this.
CHETRY: Right. Speaking of environment, why are we seeing so many more food allergies in general?
SICHERER: We have --
CHETRY: Now, we have separate classrooms for, you know, peanut allergic children and it's something that is a conversation that every nursery school, church, daycare center has to discuss now.
SICHERER: We have theories on that. One is the (INAUDIBLE) hypothesis, the hygiene hypothesis that we're just expecting ourselves from so many infection, hand washing, vaccines, antibiotics that our immune system is attacking things it doesn't need to attack.
For peanut, we wonder, are people eating it too early, too late. Are they -- is it peanut butter that's roasted and changes the protein, and oily peanut butter making it more allergenic? Unfortunately, right now, we're stuck with avoiding it and having emergency medicines available. But the good news is that we have a lot of studies now underway. And your viewers could look at clinicaltrials.gov for example. We're trying to cure the allergy instead of just having to have people avoid it.
CHETRY: That's amazing. So, it's called clinical --
SICHERER: Clinicaltrials.gov.
CHETRY: Clinicaltrials.gov. That's a good thing to know as well. I know you guys are doing research about giving tiny amounts, minute amounts of peanut.
SICHERER: Don't try that home but --
CHETRY: No. I mean, you're talking about tiniest fraction.
SICHERER: We're doing studies like that. We're looking at Chinese herbal remedies. We're looking at combinations of the immune changing therapies with giving foods.
CHETRY: Right.
SICHERER: So, there are a lot of exciting things that we're working on right now that hopefully will provide a more definite therapy down the road.
CHETRY: That's great. Well, good luck with that, Dr. Scott Sicherer. Thanks for joining us this morning.
SICHERER: Thank you.
CHETRY: John?
ROBERTS: Forty-four minutes after the hour. Now, Kiran, Rob's got this morning's travel forecast to be on right after the break.
And then, coming up in 10 minutes' time, what does your favorite television show say about your personality? We've got details on a new study that suggests you are what you watch.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It is now 47 minutes after the hour. Let's get a quick check of the morning's weather headlines. Rob Marciano in the Extreme Weather Center, and it's going to be a pretty horrible day here in New York after we had a nice one yesterday.
MARCIANO: Yes, not only New York, but up and down the eastern seaboard, guys. This is a pretty decent storm system with lot of rain waited New York, Philly, D.C., slicing all the way down the I-85 and I-95 throughways down to even Miami. So, everybody getting a little piece of this, and some of this rainfall is going to be at least moderate if not heavy at times.
Right now, actually, some heavier bands of rain moving into the Big Apple. And we do have delays at Philadelphia and LaGuardia. Some of those delays up over an hour already, and we're not even at 7:00 in the morning. Down across parts of Florida, fair amount of rain today. They're going to try to launch the shuttle. No, it's not happening, not today, not with this day (ph). They got, I think, about an 80 percent chance of a no-go is the official forecast.
There you go. Officially an hour and 40 minute delays in New York -- or in Philly, and 55-minute delays in LaGuardia. Now, this rainfall that you see today is part of a larger system that's pretty for this time of year, pretty strong trough, lot of cold air is going to be driving all the way down the south. So, the back side of this system, tonight and tomorrow, may have some wet snowflakes mixed in from time to time, some of the populated areas, and then maybe even some lake-effect snow with this.
So, unusual -- and this, by the way, is what's going to likely pick up Tomas and usherette it over to Bahamas and away from the U.S. Here is Tomas, 50-mile-an-hour winds right now. It's about 150 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica, 300 hundred miles south of Port-au-Prince, and it's moving northwesterly. Now, it's 7 miles an hour. So, it hasn't made that turn. Obviously, it doesn't look all that great here on the satellite picture, but we do anticipate further strengthening as it did in the last 12 hours.
Here's the official forecast in the National Hurricane Center just bringing in Jamaica and Eastern Cuba, and Western Haiti in that cone of uncertainty, but the note, the highest probability for the path of this thing might very well be offshore of Haiti. So, that's good news. Bad news is it maybe -- will be strong as a category 1. The other set of bad news, John and Kiran, is that it will be on the east side of this, and we're going to have a decent amount of which you don't need much for tent cities.
And the rain is going to create some mud slides. So, we hope that this thing doesn't get to hurricane status. We hope it shifts off to the west, but right now, this is the best we can do for you. back to you, guys, in New York.
ROBERTS: Rob, thanks so much.
MARCIANO: All right, guys.
CHETRY: Thanks, Rob.
This morning's top stories just a couple minutes away, including the speaker of the House speaks after losing her title, and 60 colleagues in the House. Does Nancy Pelosi have any regrets?
ROBERTS: Plus, one strike, you're out. The new rules to keep young athletes safe after head injuries.
CHETRY: And gone fishing. How one dog caught dinner for herself and for her whole family. Those stories and much more at the top of the hour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIRANDA LAMBERT, COUNTRY MUSIC ARTIST: Hello. My name is Miranda Lambert. I'm a country music artist, and I'm on the road approximately 150 days a year. When I'm on the bus, this is like my home. I wake up and drink coffee, walk my dogs, just everything you would do at your own house. I added cow high (ph) and chains, and we put pictures up, you know, in our little clip boards to make it as homey as possible.
For me, I have to have on the road would be my iPod, lip gloss and my cell phone. I'm a jeans girl. I always have at least two pairs of jeans in my suitcase. My fellow country singer is Blake Shelton. And I try not to go more than two weeks without seeing each other. We really both have the stories that happen) on the road that week and share with each other.
Thank you so much for taking a look into my life and my world on the road. We will see you next time.
(SINGING) The beauty here, maybe it's just me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up on five minutes to the top of the hour. Time now for some of the stories that had us talking in the newsroom this morning. You've heard that you are what you eat, but how about you are what you watch? A research group analyzed the personalities of television viewers and here's what they came up with. If you watch "Madmen" let's say, then you're a liberal, an intellectually-curious type, more dreamer than realist. People who like "Dancing with the Stars," tend to play it safe. And if you watch "Family Guy," you're more likely to take risks and want to break the rules.
CHETRY: What if you watch all three?
ROBERTS: Wow. Then you have very complicated personality. What's your favorite show?
CHETRY: My favorite show is AMERICAN MORNING. Have you seen it? It's fantastic.
ROBERTS: No.
CHETRY: It goes from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m., Eastern Standard Time.
ROBERTS: Haven't (ph) heard of that.
CHETRY: No, I love -- what do I like lately? "Madmen" is good. Dressed up for Halloween in little "Madmen" era costumes --
ROBERTS: Really?
CHETRY: Yes, but I love "Dancing with the Stars," too. I haven't been known to play it safe.
ROBERTS: "Modern Family" is my favorite.
CHETRY: "Modern Family," just from the clips I watched on YouTube, it's funny.
ROBERTS: It's hilarious.
CHETRY: All right. It is the miner across America tour (ph). Edison Pena, do you remember him? He was the rescue Chilean miner, the one who love Elvis and ran for miles underground everybody. He's going to appearing on David Letterman tonight before he starts running in the New York City marathon.
ROBERTS: (INAUDIBLE) can't imagine.
CHETRY: I know. He's planning to visit Graceland as well during Elvis' birthday celebration in January. After that, it's off to Las Vegas for a Cirque du Soleil show based on Elvis' music. So, he's going to be having a blast. Edison earned the nickname "The Runner" for running up to six miles a day through the mine's tunnel as exercise.
ROBERTS: I can't imagine. I just can't imagine doing that.
All right. Here's the ahh story of the day. It's always a big story when you got a baby panda. Here's some video from Zoo Atlanta Panda Camp. A little bit difficult to see. Mom's hugging the camera here, but 13-year-old Lun Lun gave birth to her third cub yesterday morning. So far, the only giant panda to be born in the United States this year. She reached over, she picked the little thing up, she put it in her pouch, and then she was lying on her back. She was just very cute.
CHETRY: She put it in her pouch?
ROBERTS: Yes, panda pouch.
CHETRY: All right. There we go.
ROBERTS: Oh, look.
CHETRY: So cute. So cute.
ROBERTS: She put it in her Louis Vuitton bag like people do with those dogs.
CHETRY: Exactly.
ROBERTS: No. Just kidding (ph).
CHETRY: All right. Three minutes until the top of the hour. Your top stories in just a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
