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American Morning
Obama Meets CEOs; "TIME" Person of the Year; Man Vs. Computer; Beauty Sleep is Real
Aired December 15, 2010 - 07:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good day to you. Thanks so much for joining us on this AMERICAN MORNING. Beware the ides of December, the 15th brings along with it some terrible weather across the country we'll be telling you about.
Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry.
Also just in the past couple of minutes, "Time" magazine each year announces their Person of the Year. They picked Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and we're going to be talking about that with one of the writers in just a couple of minutes.
But meanwhile we want to get you started with video that is just simply terrifying to see. It was a shooting at a school board meeting in Florida. A gunman first ranting, then spray painting on the walls before engaging in a discussion with the school board members and then opening fire. Every horrifying moment caught on tape. And we're going to show you how it all ended just ahead.
ROBERTS: It's a scene right out of the movie "Oceans 11," but more like "Oceans 1." An armed runner walks in the Bellagio in Las Vegas and runs out with casino chips in the pockets. How did he pull it off and was this the first time he struck?
CHETRY: Well, it's certainly been a good year for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, with Facebook approaching 670 million users, the youngest billionaire ever. Mark Zuckerberg named "TIME" magazine's Person of the Year for 2010. We're going to be breaking down why he had such an impact on society this year.
ROBERTS: Up first, a gunman opening fire at a Florida school board meeting. The dramatic standoff ending in a hail of bullets caught on a live Internet video feed of the meeting.
CHETRY: Clay Duke, armed with a handgun and a can of spray paint, rose from the back of the room where he sat during the meeting and then started ranting, sent most of the people out of the room and then pointed his gun directly at the superintendent and opened fire -- board members hitting the ground, hiding under their desks. Amazingly, no one was hurt. The bullets missed every one of them, even at close range.
In the end, Duke took his own life. We have to warn you that the video you're about to see is disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He made up his mind. And you could tell. He was going to die. My -- my concern was how many people was he going to take with him?
CHETRY (voice-over): Cameras were rolling, recording every chilling moment. Fifty-six-year-old Clay Duke, first spray-painting a "V" on the wall. Then, pulling out a handgun on Bay County school board members.
CLAY DUKE, GUNMAN: You may leave. You may leave. You can leave. Six men stay. Everyone else leaves.
CHETRY: Then in a bizarre moment, school board member Ginger Littleton tries to stop duke, hitting him with her purse.
DUKE: No!
CHETRY: At that point, school superintendent William Husfelt knew things were about to get worse.
WILLIAM HUSFELT, SUPERINTENDENT, BAY COUNTY SCHOOLS: He came over towards the backside of us and starting saying, somebody's going to die in here, you know, that I'm upset. I'm mad. You fired my wife. My wife lost her job.
My family -- he was just rambling. We didn't know what he was talking about.
CHETRY: Husfelt tried to reason with Duke, not knowing the gunman was about to snap.
HUSFELT: Listen. Just listen to me for a minute. I don't want anybody to get hurt. And I've got a feeling that what you want is the cops coming in to kill you because you're mad, because you said you're going to die here today.
But why? If this is -- this is not worth it. This is a problem. Please don't. Please don't. Please.
(GUNFIRE)
CLAY: I'm going to kill you. Don't you understand?
(GUNFIRE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: And that's how it ended. The person who shot at the suspect, to Duke was Mike Jones. He was the security guard. And the school board's chief of security in there calling him a hero this morning for preventing potentially more deaths.
ROBERTS: Yes, the school board chairman, he was sitting there, he said, please don't, please don't. We talked to him in our last hour, and he said at that moment when he leveled the gun at him, he said, well, if I'm going to die, at least I know where I'm going because -- he's a very religious man, churchgoer. And he said when the gun -- when the shot was fired, he sort of defensively went like this and he fell on the ground and he said, wow, if I eve been shot, it doesn't hurt like I thought it was going to.
CHETRY: Yes, they all said that it was the grace of God that they were alive, because he really literally shot them point-blank range and missed.
ROBERTS: Missed, yes.
CHETRY: And the security guard came in, hit him, him in the knee. He eventually took his own life. Transported to the hospital and pronounced dead.
But you also just talked to Ginger. She was the seen trying to smack the gun out of his hand with her purse. She said, you know, she had time to think about it, which obviously you don't in those intense moments. She said maybe -- I didn't have a backup plan and maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to do.
ROBERTS: Yes. You could hear it. After she tries to knock the gun out of the hand and realizes - he stands up and he's still got the gun -- she realizes, she screams the scream that you can only imagine someone who knows they're about to die would scream. It's just -- the whole thing was just unbelievable.
CHETRY: And then he spared her explicably as well. Anyway, the video is harrowing and there's obviously still an investigation. They say they don't know his motive yet.
ROBERTS: Yes.
On to extreme weather now. The search continues for cars that are buried in snow this morning after a brutal, blinding snowstorm left some drivers stuck for 24 hours near the U.S./Canada border. Take a look at the size of the snow drifts. Cars just about totally covered. More than 300 people spent a frigid night like this. Some of them were rescued on snowmobiles. Others were airlifted to a warm place by the Canadian military on choppers and a transport plane.
CHETRY: Well, here's what it looks like right now, a blanket of bitter cold over two-thirds of the country. You see ice. You see the chilly, chilly temperatures and advisories in effect in some areas because of all of the cold and the chill. Forecasters say that Kentucky and Tennessee are right in the bull's eye today for another early winter weather, as well as frigid temperatures.
ROBERTS: This cold snap is stretching most of it entire hemisphere, from the North Pole all the way down to Key West, Florida. Winter hats and coats out across the Sunshine State. Cities all over Florida broke or flirted with record-tying lows yesterday and will again today.
CHETRY: Even dachshunds in Miami needed sweaters.
Well, Rob Marciano is right in the bull's eye this morning for us. She's live in Louisville, Kentucky, where they're barely cracking double-digits this morning.
A rarity for this time of year.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And to get it two weeks in a row, even more rare, Kiran.
This area is no stranger to ice storms, but they typically come a little bit later in the year, maybe in the heart of January. But already on the ground, we've got -- we've got snow that remains here because, obviously, temperatures are well-below freezing, into the teens with the wind chills into the single numbers and some cases below zero and we don't expect much of a warm-up.
What we do expect is some moisture to be coming this way and it's already heading into places like Alabama and Mississippi; 46 in New Orleans. Meanwhile, it's 26 in Nashville and 26 in Atlanta. But just a little bit further to the north, across Kentucky and Ohio, we're talking about teens and single digits, and so, that's where the delineation is going to be between frozen precip and rain.
Right now, we're seeing a fair amount of frozen precip across northern Mississippi and parts of Alabama, Shelby, Alabama. Tuscaloosa reporting some glazing of the roadways because of freezing rain. Birmingham and Montgomery into the teens this morning, record- setting low temperatures.
So, even to there's not a lot of precip, it's enough to do damage when we have temperatures this low. But we expect more precip and we expect it to head further to the north and even colder air today. And we'll start as snow in places like Nashville, Lexington and Louisville and turn to sleet tonight and eventually a freezing rain tomorrow.
How much freezing rain? Or coating of ice do we expect to see tomorrow morning? Maybe as much as a half an inch of that in some spots. And that will certainly glaze the roadways, at least the secondary roadways, will make for a horrifying commute and will also potentially coat some tree limbs with -- taking down some power lines and Louisiana or Louisville Gas and Electric has overstaffed their positions in anticipation of this storm.
And once it moves through, temps will not warm up. So, whatever happens tomorrow here at Louisville and Lexington will stick around. Temperatures in New York today are not even getting above freezing. So, everybody remains in this arctic air mass and we don't see much of a pattern shift, guys, for a couple of weeks. I hate to say that.
Back to you in New York.
ROBERTS: Well, at least there will be a white Christmas. There's the upside.
Rob, thanks so much. President Obama is rolling out the welcome mat for big business. He's going to host 20 CEOs at White House this morning.
CHETRY: Stephanie Elam is here to talk about that. She's "Minding Your Business" this morning.
So, obviously, a lot of businesses are going to be talking about jobs and he's going to be asking them, where are they? So, what are they set to talk about?
ELAM: There's a lot of things that are on the plate and as we know, President Obama and big business, they haven't exactly been best of friends, but they're showing that this is a move to sort of thaw that relationship out. Things are getting better.
So, they're going to talk about a few things. They'll talk about kick-starting the economy, seeing about getting hiring moving again, also trade, and also discuss clean energy, and you'll also see deficit and the tax code among the things that they will talk about today.
But if you take a look at who's going to be there, it's a wide- ranging group. Not a lot of banks, one bank. But take a look at the companies that will be there. You got UBS, which is the one bank there. You got Google. Of course, Google is going to be there because they deal with everybody's everything. General Electric, UPS and PepsiCo are all companies that will be there.
You'll see American Express, Motorola, and a couple of interesting ones that are on there besides the Intels and the Comcasts. And companies like Next Era Energy, which is a clean energy company, something that President Obama has been talking about. And Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers -- it's a company may not know but they're a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, very beautiful part of the country by the way -- and they will be there, as well.
ROBERTS: You ought to know.
ELAM: I -- why I would feel so strongly about that? But, yes, it's an interesting group of people that they're bringing together to talk about what is going on in the economy and for President Obama to get a bit of feedback about things that they've been doing as far as the tax code in particular, which business obviously is feeling good about.
ROBERTS: Well, we all know the CEO of Oracle isn't particular enamored of the president's economic plan. So, we'll see how these other companies --
ELAM: Right. How everyone else, they really speak their minds.
ROBERTS: All right. Thanks very much.
CHETRY: Thanks, Steph.
ROBERTS: Well, Jon Bon Jovi is also planning to meet with the president. He's the newest member of the president's team, in fact. He's been appointed to the new White House Council for Community Solutions. Hey, if you hold a Bon Jovi concert once or twice a month, who could be fighting, right?
The CEO of eBay and other high power executives are also there. And their mission is to advise the president on ways to mobilize citizens to try to solve specific community needs. Bon Jovi says he's honored and he is looking forward to helping out -- busy guy.
ROBERTS: He sure is. And huge grossing tour last year. So, they're in the money, no question about that.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg just named "TIME" magazine's Person of the Year for 2010. We're going to talk with the "TIME" writer who has the special cover story coming up for you.
CHETRY: Also, move over Gen-X. We're all so yesterday. We have to make room for the millennial generation, the young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 years old. They were born in the '80s. They can't find jobs and getting married later in life. They don't vote, but they're not worried.
We're going to talk about why the millennials matter and why you should care -- coming up.
Ten minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Thirteen minutes after the hour.
One in 10 people on the planet is now on Facebook. The man behind the Facebook empire: 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg has just been named "TIME" magazine's Person of the Year for 2010.
CHETRY: "TIME" senior writer Lev Grossman has the person of the year cover story on Zuckerberg and he joins us now. Thanks for being here.
LEV GROSSMAN, SENIOR WRITER, TIME MAGAZINE: It's a pleasure.
CHETRY: I like what you wrote at the very beginning. You said that he's a Person of the Year for connecting more than half a billion people, mapping the social relations among them and for creating a new system of exchanging information that's both indispensable and sometimes a little scary.
Why pick Mark Zuckerberg and what impact has Facebook had?
GROSSMAN: Well, I mean, it's astounding -- just the scale of this, first of all. More than half a billion people, about one in 12 people on the planet, almost half of Americans have Facebook accounts.
And not just the scale but the depth to which Facebook has affected people's lives. I mean, they -- people run their lives through Facebook. That's how they see their friends and their relations. They put their pictures. It's both personal and global.
ROBERTS: It really is an unbelievable revolution and technology and social network. What about, you know, the philanthropic side of him? The donation he made to Newark City schools. And I know he's just really kind of starting to get into that.
But, you know, promises to give away fortunes, things like that. Did that put him in the running as well?
GROSSMAN: Well, you know, it didn't hurt that he's, you know, sort of good and wonderful person when you get to know him. And he's only 26. Most people in their careers, they do not start, you know, disposing of their wealth in charitable way until much later in their lives. But he figured, why wait?
ROBERTS: When you have as much money as he does, it's easy to do.
CHETRY: There's a lot of unconventional aspects of Mark Zuckerberg. The interesting thing is -- I mean, and even in the book written about them that then spawned the movie "The Social Network," it's called the accidental billionaires. I mean, he made this as a way to connect with his college buddies.
Was their a method to this madness, or is much of Facebook's success accidental?
GROSSMAN: You know, I wouldn't agree with that tag "accidental." Zuckerberg, he's a smart guy and he has vision, as well. And very early on, I think he had a sense of the kind of change he wanted to make in the world. And I think, he hoped that Facebook would get as big as it did. He didn't know that it would, but he hoped it would and that was his vision.
ROBERTS: Did you get a chance to sit down and talk with him for this article at length?
GROSSMAN: Uh-huh.
ROBERTS: What was your sense of him?
GROSSMAN: He's a very, very charming man. He is not the person in the movie. He's a very warm individual. I felt the person in the movie was very angry. And very cold. Mark isn't like that. He's a very calm person. He's unusual. And his social manner is unusual, but he's a friendly --
ROBERTS: In what way? In what way?
GROSSMAN: Well, when he speaks, it's like he's exchanging information. That is what he's doing. He's giving you data, and you're giving him back data. So, there's not a lot of small talk with Mark, but he's a friendly, warm person. He's not somebody who is alienated the way that character in the movie was.
CHETRY: And, you know, a lot of people did take issue with the way that the portrayal was. I'd also thought it was interesting that he -- did he seem surprise at how hammered Facebook has been and Mark Zuckerberg himself for the privacy issues that Facebook has dealt with, and how did he say that changed him?
GROSSMAN: Well, as brilliant as he is and as visionary as he is, that I would say it's a bit of a blind spot for him. I think it did take him by surprise. I don't think he fully understood, and this may have to do with youth. I don't think he fully understood that people like to compartmentalize their lives.
They like to keep some parts secret, some within the family, some in the workplace and some for everybody. That's not something he may just be old enough to really have experience. And he's not married. He doesn't have children.
ROBERTS: Just like put it all out there.
CHETRY: But do you have a question of giving to, I mean, giving that information and sharing it with businesses as an advertisers is what had a lot of people upset. They felt that it was a breach of trust.
GROSSMAN: Well, you know, the rule on Facebook is that you're supposed to be able to determine, to control where your information goes. And I think, technically, you have always been able to do that, but sometimes, Facebook has made it a little harder than it should have been.
ROBERTS: You've said a few times that you see him as a visionary. Where do you see his vision going? What's his big view of the world?
GROSSMAN: Well, right now, the Facebook is closing in on 600 million members. They'll probably hit a billion in 2012. You know, this could become not just, you know, a global network for connecting a significant portion of humanity but also a way of organizing our lives.
You imagine, for example, your TV. Turn on your TV. You can see what your friends are watching, what shows they're interested in. You know, this could go in other media besides the web.
ROBERTS: Wow. That's a little too much information for me.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: But good on him for doing it.
CHETRY: And that's why you also characterize him as a little bit scary, at the same time. Well, it's a great read, and we encourage people to check out the profile, Mark Zuckerberg named Person of the Year by "Time." Thanks for joining us, Lev.
GROSSMAN: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Good to talk to you this morning. Thanks. While tired and empty buzzwords will get you nowhere, it's time to update your resume. We've got the five most overused resume cliches that you should avoid coming up next.
CHETRY: Also, a flirt alert. Do you want to become a master pick-up artist? Well, stick around. We have the best pick-up lines on the web. The ladies say they work.
ROBERTS: Oh my God.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Oh no.
CHETRY: Eighteen minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Alice Cooper. Yes. "Morning Talker" time now. Two guys you might not expect to be on the same bill are headed to the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame together. The Hall announced the inductees for 2010, they include the guy you just heard, Alice Cooper, along with Sweet Caroline, Neil Diamond. Yes, but like most years, there are a couple of glaring snubs like Bon Jovi, Beastie Boys and, of course, my boys, my boys, Rush. Snubbed again.
CHETRY: Ah.
ROBERTS: Rush snubbed again. Boo, big boo, boo for you guys out there.
CHETRY: Not fair. So arbitrary.
ROBERTS: Although, you know, they could --
CHETRY: They were in the Canadian Hall of Fame.
ROBERTS: Yes, they are, but they kind of wear it like a badge of honor. They constantly snubbed. It's like, you know --
CHETRY: Susanne Lucci.
ROBERTS: Susanne Lucci in rock n' roll.
CHETRY: (INAUDIBLE) poor thing. All right. Well, coming up in February, man versus computer on "Jeopardy." Former "Jeopardy" champ, Ken Jennings, among those who will face off on the game show against a computer. The computer is named Watson. It's artificial intelligence that was all put together.
Can he beat the human contestants? Well, so far, he's passed the first test. He had to actually take the first, you know, introductory round test that they give to the actual human contestants to make it and Watson passed, shocking.
ROBERTS: That is kind of shocking. No, it's not. What's the best pick-up line when you're online? Dating website badu.com did a survey to find out which ones work best. They analyzed 200,000 flirtations in 11 languages, and it turns out the phrase "you have beautiful lips" really scores. If your object of desire --
CHETRY: Come on.
ROBERTS: Portuguese try you have nice ears. They really went for that one. Dutch and Portuguese, they like the ear thing.
CHETRY: All right. To each his own.
Well, if you're wondering how to make your resume stand out from the crowd, you might not want to write that you're a problem solving, team player with a proven track record. Those are just the few of the terms and phrases that are according to the networking site, linkedin have become overused, cliche. Here are the rest of the top buzzwords to avoid extensive experience, innovative, motivated, results-oriented and dynamic.
CHETRY: There you go. Stay away from those. What do you replace them with?
CHETRY: I guess --
ROBERTS: Get it done.
CHETRY: I was just about to say. I know how to get the job done.
ROBERTS: His desk makes the North Pole look like a Christmas shanty town. Check this out. A company up in Canada, where else, home of Rush, snubbed again by the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame, held a contest encouraging staff to decorate their cubicles. Here's a winner. He built a shed in the middle of the office with mounted (INAUDIBLE) screening you, full-sized tree inside and stockings, all hang by the chimney with care, and yes, there even is a chimney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We brought in our wood stove. A bit of pots and pans and our stockings. A few candles, you know, Santa Claus over there. Behind Greg, you can't see him now. Of course, he's hiding away. He doesn't like the camera. And I guess, that's about it. Merry Christmas to you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Sounds like he's from Newfoundland, and I thought I heard him say faintly Rush should have been in the Hall of Fame, but maybe not. But isn't that fascinating?
CHETRY: I mean, he spent a lot of time. I mean, you talk about -- he could have put that on his resume. You know, I really get involved in the office contests.
ROBERTS: Anybody who construct a cabin out of an office cubicle, brilliant. Brilliant.
CHETRY: Well, he calls it the "Facebook of Philanthropy." Actor, Ed Norton, creating a website for you and your friends to give a little back, and Alina Cho sits down with the Hollywood star in our latest installment of "Big Stars, Big Giving" up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Well, for many, Ed Norton is remembered as the "Incredible Hulk's" alter ego or for his role in the hard-hitting cult classic, "Fight Club."
ROBERTS: Yes, but this two-time Oscar nominee is also a believer in using the power of social networking to make giving go viral. Our Alina Cho is here to explain. That is part of our series, "Big Stars, Big Giving." Good morning.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again. Good morning, everyone. You know, for Edward Norton, giving back has long been a passion. So much so, he recently created what he's calling the "Facebook of Philanthropy." It's a new web platform that could very well revolutionize the way people give by making giving fun.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHO (voice-over): In his more than 15 years as an actor's actor, what is less known about Edward Norton is the kind of charitable work he's done off-camera. Along the way, it was something he noticed about how charities often use the internet that's inspired his latest project.
EDWARD NORTON, ACTOR: We were very frustrated by what we saw out there. Everything was just -- we called it like use and drop. You know, it was just a button where you could donate but really like nothing more. And we wanted to communicate more than that.
CHO: Norton and his friends saw an opportunity to shake up how people give online. And he came up with what he calls the "Facebook of Philanthropy." It's called Crowdrise, a fund-raising web platform that's also a community.
NORTON: This is the platform where you plant the flag and say, this is who I am as defined by what do I care about? What am I passionate about? What causes do I support?
CHO: Within minutes, anyone can create a page, start a fundraiser, and ask for donations from friends, family, and perfect strangers.
NORTON: Look, you've got a generation of people coming along who are going to form their own new relationship with the idea of supporting the causes that they care about or changing the world, you know? And these people are not going to do it the way that our parents did it. CHO: Which is why Norton was mindful to also make Crowdrise fun, putting the fun in fundraising by adding a gaming aspect. Members can earn points, even win prizes.
If you don't give back, no one will like you.
NORTON: If you don't give back, no one will like you. That is our core philosophy. We're a bunch of dorks.
CHO: He's also a celebrity who's enlisted the help of his famous friends who are creating profiles on Crowdrise just like everyone else. Like Will Ferrell who's raising money for cancer survivors.
NORTON: Like you can win a bottle of Will's suntan lotion for a donation to his site, you know --
CHO: And it's quite a picture.
NORTON: Yes, it's a good one. Very sexy.
(LAUGHTER)
NORTON: Very sexy.
CHO: His hope is to revolutionize giving, one web page at a time.
NORTON: I think we really feel like Crowdrise could be something that 20 years from now people take for granted because that's just how you do it. Like, if you're going to raise money for something, that's how you do it, you know?
CHO: That wouldn't be a bad thing.
NORTON: No. You know, I actually, in the beginning, we've said this like it's a pipe dream, but now I actually think it's going to happen.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHO (on-camera): Oh, we certainly hope it happens. You know, if you want to find out more about Crowdrise or start a fundraiser yourself, tis the season after all, just go to www.crowdrise.com. For behind the scenes photos from the shoot, you can see those at CNN.com/AMFix and for more on how you can make a difference in the world CNN.com/impact, our partners in this project this year.
CHETRY: If it's not, you know, just spirit of giving, Will Ferrell sun tan lotion puts you over the edge.
CHO: I can hook that up for you.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: I watched "The Other Guys" with Will Ferrell on the plane the other day with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Kind of funny.
CHO: Yes.
ROBERTS: Who are you profiling tomorrow?
CHO: Tomorrow is Julianne Moore, who was just nominated for a Golden Globe. We sat down in New York a couple of weeks ago and she told me about her childhood and how it was the fact that she lived as an army brat moving around place to place going to different schools, and she saw things as a child she thought were unfair, bad schools, children living in poverty.
And she said, through the eyes of a child, all you know is black and white and good and bad, and she wanted to do something about it later on in life. She's an artist ambassador for Save the Children and we'll talk about that tomorrow.
ROBERTS: You have run into nice folks this week.
CHO: I have. You know, these stars are walking the walk, talking the talk, doing great things and they care about it. That was really the benchmark for us, finding people that were committed and cared and been very lucky. They're nice, too.
ROBERTS: It's been interesting to watch.
CHO: Thank you.
ROBERTS: By the way, don't miss Alina's one-hour special, "Big Stars, Big Giving," airing Christmas Eve at 7:00 eastern and Christmas Day at 8:00 p.m. eastern.
CHETRY: Some breaking news right now. You're looking at live pictures in Washington, D.C. where a suspicious package has shut down the Pentagon metro station. A Department of Defense official tells our Barbara Starr that the package is on the platform and that there is some sort of flashing light on it.
Again, it's too early to tell exactly what it is. The official that spoke with Barbara emphasized first reports coming from the scene. It can very likely turn out to be nothing, but out of an abundance of caution they have shut down the metro station there while they investigate further.
ROBERTS: Also developing this morning, Greece rocked by a massive strike. The crowds in Athens are angry over changes to labor laws and pay cuts, austerity measures that are required in the massive bailout that Greece received earlier this year, $110 billion euros. Today's strike affecting banks, airlines, and hospitals.
CHETRY: Police in Las Vegas searching for an armed casino bandit who made off with $1.5 million worth of gambling chips after a brazen robbery at the Bellagio hotel and casino. Surveillance captured the gunman wearing a full face motorcycle helmet as he bolted and then escaped on the bike. Police say the robbery took all of three minutes and say the suspect may have been the same one that pulled off a similar heist at another Vegas casino last week.
ROBERTS: Not quite as elegant as "Oceans Eleven," but effective nonetheless.
Digging out cars buried in snow, amazing video from Ontario north of the border where a brutal snowstorm left more than 300 people stuck in the cars for than 24 hours. And in Canada's where they know how to deal with snow, that's pretty unusual.
Here's what it looks like right now, lake-effects still blasting places like upstate New York and Ohio and bone-chilling cold settling in over more than half of the country this morning.
CHETRY: Well, it was a terrifying afternoon at a school board meeting in Panama City, Florida when a gunman identified as 56-year- old Clay Duke opened fire from point-blank range on school officials yesterday. Incredibly none of the actual school board members were hit.
ROBERTS: Yes. Duke had been sitting in the back of the room. He rose up from the audience, ranting, spray painting the wall. Before warding off a female school board member's attempt to disarm, and then talking with the school board, and they trying to kind of talk him off the ceiling, he opened fire. Here's how it all went down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You may leave. You may leave. The women can leave. Six men stay. Everyone else leaves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hear what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: School board is --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Ginger, no.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This isn't worth it. This is a problem.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please don't. Please don't. Please.
(GUNFIRE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to kill you. Don't you understand? I'm --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: It's amazing. Again, as we said, shot near point-blank range and missed, and the superintendent said by the grace of god he missed because he had thought he was shot.
Earlier on "AMERICAN MORNING," the superintendent William Husfelt spoke to us as well as the board member who tried to disarm duke with her handbag, Ginger Littleton. She described what it was like when the gunman pulled out the weapon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM HUSFELT, SUPERINTENDENT, BAY DISTRICT SCHOOLS: It was surreal. We've used that word together. I started using it last night and Ginger was using it this morning. It was just like we're at a board meeting and talking about technology and headlights, and the next thing we know he has a gun in our face.
GINGER LITTLETON, BOARD MEMBER, BAY DISTRICT SCHOOLS: I was concerned about my guys. They were lined up like ducks in a row. He was already basically standing on the same level with them. I knew something bad was going to happen. That was my only option was to see if I could at least divert him or somehow or other detain until somebody got there to help us because my guys had three-ring binders and pencils for protection, and that was all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Hero Mike Jones was the chief security officer there acted very quickly, shot Duke in the knee. He went down. You can see it here. Watch. Watch what happens here. He gets shot in the knee right there and down he goes. He later turned the gun on himself, one fatal shot to the head.
CHETRY: And again, the police were trying to determine the motive about why he did this and went there.
ROBERTS: They said he was ranting about his wife fired and the superintendent said no idea what he was talking about. But thankfully, thankfully, thankfully no one else in the room hurt. It could have been so much different.
CHETRY: It will take a long time for them to get over there. It will be tough.
In the meantime, the millennial generation is taking over. They live with parents in some cases, they don't vote, not really religious. They're not dying to have kids. What matters to millennials and why we should care. It's 36 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Twenty-somethings or the "millennials" as they're sometimes called, they've been cast as everything from techs to bombs to the entitled generation, but in fact a millennial was the person of the year, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook.
But who exactly are the millennials, especially the young women? Joining me is the director of the documentary "Shape what's to Come" Chiara Clemente as well as Lindsey Pollak, a millennial expert who helped lead a study on 20-something women. Thanks to both of you for being with us this morning. So it's hard to broad brushstroke an entire generation. We used to laugh saying why do they call us generation-x? What does that mean? But what are the traits you found that string together the women that many of them born after 1980 or in and around 1980? What sets them apart, Lindsay?
LINDSEY POLLAK, MILLENNIAL EXPERT: We can't characterize them all the same way, but demographically they are really large and diverse. They have had technology since they were really young, so it comes really naturally to them. And one in three is a person of color, so it's our most diverse generation.
And when it comes to the women, which is what we really study, the women of this generation have had more access to opportunity than any generation of women ever before and that's what we found really fascinating.
CHETRY: It is. When you did this documentary Chiara, "Shape what's to Come," you focused on them and started to worry are we headed down a dangerous path? They have been vilified, entitled, helicopter parented. They're a lost generation. But at the same time, they're the future leaders. What did you find that surprised you setting out to study the millennial women?
CHIARA CLEMENTE, FILM DIRECTOR, "SHAPE WHAT'S TO COME": With young women or younger generations not as motivated or inspired, and these young women really blew me away, their determination, focus, their passion, and really this idea that they had a calling to make a difference to change the world. And there was never a question. There was never a big ego about it. What they had to do.
CHETRY: This is always interesting, Lindsay, you asked them in the study of what their goals and priorities are and see a clear shift. 96 percent, nearly all of those that you asked being independent is the most important life goal. And that comes second to being a mother which is very interesting, getting married, 50 percent. That used to be more tied, obviously. You felt you were a mother after you got married. And then wealth, I mean, less than half had that as a top concern. What does this tell you?
POLLAK: So it didn't mean they didn't want to be married or have kids or amass wealth, it was just that they wanted to do it in their own time. Independence means I want to shape my future, not necessarily hit milestones by a certain age. I want to do things in the way I want to do them and if I want to change the world, I'll do that, too. And that confidence was really inspiring as well as the independence.
CHETRY: That's also something that they have been knocked for, that, you know, when we look at young people in the workforce and in the workplace they're more likely to feel entitled and speaking in generalities but older generations you didn't ask for a raise and sort of listened to your supervisor and authority was always right. This is not a generation that ascribes to any of those rules.
CLEMENTE: Yes. And I think what's interesting, also, kind of what Lindsay was saying of getting married thing which is not now as much of a priority. But Katie Spots with a great story where she gets letters asking her to get married. By strangers just because of the amazing things she does.
So I thought that showed something so wonderful that, you know, this really strong, powerful, very young woman is seen in that way.
CHETRY: You bring up an interesting point, Lindsay. Growing up with men that don't necessarily have the same rigid gender roles we saw in past generations. And so I think it is interesting that when I asked, you know, some of our 20-something production assistants and producers here, they didn't necessarily feel the pressure of us 30- somethings about needing to decide or trying to be a super mom, to juggle it all.
They say I will have a partner, he'll help me 50-50. What I don't know what you 30-somethings are stressing about.
POLLAK: Everybody's different whether you're male or female and I love that the members of this generation are wanting to work together and not feeling like the genders have to be separate and two different paths.
CHETRY: They're certainly inheriting a lot of problems, a huge debt, deficit, more power to them and linking up more on the study to our website. Thank you both for joining us this morning.
POLLAK: Thank you.
CLEMENTE: Thank you
CHETRY: John?
ROBERTS: Thanks, Kiran.
Just in to CNN, the Pentagon giving the all clear after a suspicious package shut down the Pentagon metro station. A Department of Defense official told our Barbara Starr that the package was on the platform. There was some sort of flashing light on it, but everything appears to be just fine.
Freezing rain, sleet, and snow -- it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Rob Marciano braving the elements outside, and he has the icy details for us coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Snow bound Detroit this morning where it's sunny and 15 chilly degrees later on today. The sunshine will continue but it's only going to be 25, real cold there today in Michigan.
CHETRY: Yes and pretty much across the rest of the country unless you're lucky enough to be either in Miami, Dallas or where else --
(CROSSTALK) ROBERTS: Oh Miami's cold.
CHETRY: Yes but Miami's going to be 65 today, that's downright blazing.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: Oh it's going to --
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: Well, because right now it's only in the low 40s.
CHETRY: Yes, but they're getting some sunshine today.
ROBERTS: A bit of reprieve.
CHETRY: Rob Marciano is live for us in Louisville, Kentucky, where it isn't any warmer than it is in many other parts of the country. Hi, Rob.
MARCIANO: Good morning, guys, yes, no. As a matter of fact it feels like this is the core of the cold air that refuses to go away. For the second week in a row, we've got the surge of Arctic air mass coming down from Canada. We talked about the snow and the blizzards across the Midwest, the Great Lakes continue to get lake-effect snow.
Well, with this cold air in place across this part of the country, the Tennessee-Ohio Valleys, the mid-south, you know, you just wait for a little moisture to come in from the Gulf of Mexico and you've got yourself an ice problem and that's what's going to happen. Well, it's already happening in places to my south and that will happen here later on today.
Speaking of to my south, if we go down the river, the Ohio River just to my left, a little bit towards the south and west, we've got some clouds. So you can see the blue sky and the -- the gray stratus -- stratus clouds are beginning to work their way in at mid-levels. That is the leading edge of our moisture from the Gulf of Mexico which will come here in the form of snow, sleet and freezing rain tonight.
All right, let's talk temperatures. First, you've got to deal with temperatures that are below freezing and already getting a sort of frozen precip. Eleven in Louisville, yes, it sure feels like it, you bet; 26 in Nashville; 4 in Cincinnati.
A little bit farther to the south where the moisture is coming in, in Mississippi and Alabama, we've already have reports of icing in Vernon, Alabama. Shelby, Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Birmingham, 32, a freezing rain advisory just issued there so everywhere pretty much north of I-20 is under the gun here including places in Mississippi like Tupelo.
Here's the radar showing some of that moisture beginning to fill in on the radar scope and we expect it to get a little bit more intense throughout the day today. The pink is the wintry, messy mix; dangerous travel north of I-20 in Alabama and Mississippi. It'll be very dangerous travel today or this afternoon and tonight in Nashville and then exceptionally dangerous tomorrow morning here in Louisville and down the road in Lexington.
The problem is once the icing happens and we could get up to half an inch, it's going to remain below freezing tomorrow afternoon. So not only a morning commute that's going to be awful but an afternoon and evening problem, too.
Well, it looks like the problems from this Arctic air blast that don't seem to want to go away from the lake-effect snow and the blizzards to just downright frigid temperatures and now we've got an ice storm on our hands.
John and Kiran, back over to you.
ROBERTS: All right. Rob, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Still ahead, you want to look better? Well, you can hit your snooze button. It hasn't worked for us over these years, has it?
ROBERTS: What's -- what's this snooze button?
CHETRY: I guess maybe you're supposed to continue to stay asleep even in the middle of the night. Maybe that's the trick.
Fifty minutes past the hour. We'll be right back.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY FALLON, NBC HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON": Listen to this, you guys. McDonald's said that a hacker broke into a database and stole customer e-mails and phone information.
I'm no health freak here but if McDonald's has your e-mail and your phone number, you're eating way too much McDonald's. That's ridiculous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: That's a problem for me when I drive through the drive- thru. They go, hi, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Oh they know you there. Do you --
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: How are you?
ROBERTS: -- it's because they know what you want?
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: Yes, ok, that's the real cue. CHETRY: Well, I take the kids once a week and they really like it. So --
ROBERTS: And how often do you take you?
CHETRY: Oh you know, just every now and then. Very rare, very rare and I only drink saccharin when I'm there, right? The popular artificial sweetener saccharin is no longer considered a potential health risk, the government removing it from the EPA's list of hazardous substances. The sweetener has gotten in popular diet drinks and chewing gums and mouthwash. And it was once labeled potentially cancer causing in the 1980's. But then a re-evaluation found that's not the case.
ROBERTS: What's -- what changed we've been told for 25 year this stuff is potentially dangerous and then they came out today --
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: -- and said, never mind.
CHETRY: Do you remember back in the day they said it could cause cancer in mice and then -- and then others said they had to take such large amounts that it was impossible to replicate in humans.
ROBERTS: I can't figure this stuff out. It's dangerous for you one day.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: It's artificial (ph) sugar --
ROBERTS: It's not dangerous for the next week. Forget it.
More high school seniors now choosing pot over cigarettes, that's one very disturbing find in a new report released by the federal government on kids today and drugs and after years of declines, the feds say the use of Ecstasy is on the rise again even as young as in eighth grade.
CHETRY: Unbelievable.
Well, it's more than just an expression, Swedish scientists say there really is such a thing as getting your beauty sleep.
ROBERTS: That's something we just don't know about here.
CHETRY: They found this out by taking few sets of photos of 23 men and women. I love this. They should have (INAUDIBLE) this for a science project. One after eight hours of sleep and the other after they were awake for 31 hours, they could have just, taken pictures of us after election night.
Well, observers rated the sleep-deprived ones as less healthy and more tired and uglier. Well, that's not nice.
ROBERTS: That's harsh.
CHETRY: Researchers also noted that the only people excluded from this are the AM staff writers. They are beautiful regardless of how much sleep they get.
I wish we could take a photo this morning -- picture of Jim McGinnis, our new executive producer who was looking -- it's his first day getting up at 2:00 in the morning. He looked a little punchy this morning.
CHETRY: Yes. It's fun, fun, fun.
ROBERTS: He's still there in the background. He's doing all right. He's still awake. He says I'm going to pay for that. He says that right in here.
Up next, a hit and run crash caught on tape but the victim is a snowman. Jeanne Moos is all over this like a bus on a snowman. Coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Well, it's one thing if a bus driver loses his job for hitting a pedestrian. That would be very bad. But what if the man he hits is made out of snow?
CHETRY: He's still in trouble. CNN's Jeanne Moos tells us what happens when Frosty gets thrown under the bus.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was a hit and run on a snowman and it cost the bus driver his job.
But this story has no fairytale ending. It happened in Champagne, Illinois on a video posted to YouTube. You see a car go into the bus's lane to avoid the snowman and then the bus crosses over and takes him out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my gosh.
MOOS: The dude went out of his way into the opposing lane to kill the snowman, said critics while defenders called it clearing the road of an obstacle. Hail to the bus driver.
But when the mass transit district saw the video, the unidentified bus driver lost his job, resigned apparently facing suspension. Most would agree that there are more responsible ways of dealing with an obstruction in the road such as calling our control center, calling 911, et cetera, than driving westbound in an eastbound lane of traffic.
Funny they should mention 911. The other day, a woman in England was chastised for calling the English version of 911 to report her snowman stolen.
OPERATOR: Your snowman's been stolen?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
OPERATOR: What do you mean, a snowman actually made out of snow or an ornament?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. He's made out of snow. I made him himself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, sure. The police are happy to get involved when a white person goes missing.
MOOS: The guys who shot the bus video tell CNN they didn't build the snowman. They just shot it thinking it would be a funny thing to post online. Now they're feeling guilt stricken, not about Frosty's demise but the bus driver losing his job.
So guilty they started a save the bus driver Facebook page saying it's a good deed he did using his big bus to break up the snowman. Look what can happen when windshield meets frosty.
Now, that's defrosting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Destroyed my windshield.
MOOS: For some reason, some guys love decapitating Frosty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello little fellow.
MOOS: He's been put on railroad tracks. He's been axed. He's been torched. Sort of makes getting hit by a bus seem like a mercy- killing.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: I worry about people that don't have anything better to do than torch a snowman.
ROBERTS: Yes, or take an axe to it, as well.
I mean have we heard from the bus driver yet.
CHETRY: No.
ROBERTS: Because the bus driver could have said, you know, maybe he knows what happens when you hit a snowman, you break your windshield; thought that this is an obstacle that just can't stay there any longer. I don't have time to call dispatch, I could quickly take it out with the bus, clear the road and then --
CHETRY: Well, maybe you can represent him.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: As he tries to get his job back at the labor board.
ROBERTS: I was once told I'd make a great prosecuting attorney.
CHETRY: I don't know if crossing the center line with a bus full of passengers was the best time to do it.
ROBERTS: Were there passengers in the bus?
CHETRY: I don't know.
ROBERTS: We don't know that one either.
CHETRY: I'm working for the prosecution.
ROBERTS: There you go.
We have to get out of here; we're going to get prosecuted.
Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you back here again bright and early tomorrow.
CHETRY: "CNN NEWSROOM" with Don Lemon starts now - hi, Don.
