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American Morning
Muddy Waters, More Rain; Slow Response Leads to Tragedy; Rewriting History; New Career For Uchitel; O'Donnell Under Investigation for Misusing Campaign Funds; Jobless Claims Drop Below 400,000; Hard Hits, Dangerous Game?
Aired December 30, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOE JOHNS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. It's Thursday, December 30th. I'm Joe Johns.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. We're winding down 2010, this morning, aren't we?
JOHNS: Yes. It's almost gone. And, you know, it hasn't been that great a year, but I was always told never to wish the old year out because you never know what's going to happen next year. That's really very optimistic, isn't it?
CHETRY: Yes, it sure is. Well, all you're thinking is brighter days are to come.
JOHNS: For sure. However, we're not getting off to a real good new year's with the weather out on the West Coast.
CHETRY: No. Especially if you're one of the people trapped this morning, still trying to get out of some of the New York area airports because of the weather. We're going to get to that in a minute.
But, first I want to talk about Christine O'Donnell. She is facing a criminal investigation for allegedly misusing campaign funds from her Delaware senate run. Earlier on AMERICAN MORNING she denied any wrongdoing and claimed that the Justice Department probe is politically motivated O'Donnell also called out fellow Delaware resident Joe Biden, suggesting that the vice president or at least someone who worked on his campaign may be behind some of the allegations against her and the criminal investigation.
JOHNS: Another storm dumping rain on the already water-logged West, threatening areas where some homes are filled with mud and this could make it all the way to the East Coast in time for New Year's. We're live with the extreme weather center.
CHETRY: Also a bomb exploded this morning outside of a courthouse. It happened in Athens, Greece. Police say that the blast came from a motor bike that was rigged with explosives and parked in the median across from the building. Warning calls were made to the media about -- local media, about 40 minutes before the blast, which allowed police to evacuate the area. There are no injuries reported.
JOHNS: Up first, though, more extreme weather, another absolute soaking out West this morning. It could spell trouble as the next massive storm moves eastward.
CHETRY: Higher up, anywhere from one to three feet of snow in the Rockies and in parts of the Southwest and higher elevations in California.
We begin this coverage this morning with Casey Wian. He's reporting from Highland, California.
(BEEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mud and water everywhere. Up to five feet thick in Leslie Best's Highland, California, backyard and inside her house. She was starting the cleanup from last week's storms when more rain hit Wednesday.
(on camera): Do you think the house is salvageable?
LESLIE BEST, FLOODED HIGHLAND RESIDENT: I have no -- I have no idea. I'm not an expert in this. I'm just -- I know that I need to do as much as I can when I can and that's why we're here today.
WIAN (voice-over): Along with her 74-year-old father and a cleanup crew consisting largely of state prison inmate volunteers. They've helped lay 150,000 sandbags in Highland the past week and cleaned out choked storm drains to try to contain the damage. The rain may be tapering off, but the danger remains.
BILL PETERS, CAL FIRE: I have lived in California all of my life, for 57 years and the one thing that I've learned is that even -- once you start moving earth like this, any little bit of rain over the next few weeks can trigger it all again.
WIAN: Further north, in stormy Santa Rosa, a woman camping was killed by a falling tree. Rain, ice and several feet of snow covered much of the West and heavy winds posed an additional danger as heavy snow fell in Washington state --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go!
WIAN: -- a state trooper says many residents were not prepared.
KEITH LEARY, WASHINGTON STATE PATROL: We need a full tank of gas. We need to have proper traction tires, or at least sure you've got tread on your tires, enough to -- if you're in a snow situation, or carry chains.
WIAN: In Arizona, the main artery between Phoenix and Flagstaff was closed, because so many big rigs slid off the road. The Department of Public Safety recommended no travel to northern Arizona.
(on camera): Back here in Highland, officials say it's a miracle to have had no fatalities and no serious injuries during these series of storms. Rescuers have had to pull more than two dozen people out of the raging floodwaters -- Joe, Kiran.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CHETRY: Casey Wian for us this morning. Good luck to them -- they're going to need it certainly with that mess out there.
Well, the deadline has passed about an hour ago. Has New York gotten rid of all the snow?
All morning, we've keeping an eye on the streets of New York City. The city sanitation commissioner promised that all the streets will be plowed by 7:00 this morning. That wasn't the case. He acknowledged that there were places where they did not get a chance to get to yet, but again, this is four days after the storm.
JOHNS: People like Joseph Carmana (ph), who lives in the Prince's Bay Area of Staten Island -- he took this picture of his block at 6:30 this morning and still doesn't look like anyone is getting a car down the road. But last hour, the commissioner told us the city is getting the job done even though there are pockets where there are some problems.
More now on how the city's response to the storm may have actually taken a tragic turn. Susan Candiotti is here with us right now to talk a little bit about that.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, there was an unfortunate death. Obviously, a very tragic one that happened as the blizzard was winding down on Monday morning and it actually took from the first call to 911 10 hours to get an ambulance to this woman who is in labor.
So, it began when she made a call to 911. But because they had 49,000 calls to 911 throughout the day on Monday, they had to prioritize people.
And given her current situation, she was not a high priority -- until late in the afternoon when she called again and said, the baby's coming out. But it's still took two hours to get an ambulance there. And so, by the time they did, got her to the hospital -- the baby was unconscious and indeed had died. Very sad.
But separate and apart from this, of course, we have the terrible situation with the cleanup. And everyone's pointing fingers, what happened. Well, the Sanitation Department said, you cut 400 jobs, we didn't have the people to go around, that you had response to that this morning.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: The sanitation commissioner said, look, we have 6,000 on the job. I think that's adequate. Perhaps the union thinks that's not adequate. But they're also -- some criticizing the city and the mayor's department for not jumping on this fast enough.
CANDIOTTI: Exactly, exactly. But the mayor is defending it. He said there were no cuts. We did the best we could, but he acknowledges that they could have done better, especially and including the 911 response. Here's what the mayor said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK CITY: We take our emergency life saving responsibilities very seriously and I'm extremely dissatisfied with the way our emergency response systems performed. And as I announced yesterday, we're going to take a look at everything we did to see if it could be done better, starting with the communications and dispatching system.
Could we do a better job? We're going to try to find out. Could our ambulances have taken different routes? We're looking at that. Perhaps they could have stayed further away and walked to their places rather than trying to get down a lot of the secondary roads.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CANDIOTTI: But the fact is, we've talking about this all morning -- historically, the city has done a terrific job of really getting those plows out quickly. But this time, they just didn't pull the trigger quickly enough.
JOHNS: It's really fascinating because they can't seem to put their finger on one thing or two things that clearly led the city to have this kind of a problem, which we haven't seen since the time of Mayor Lindsay.
CANDIOTTI: Not yet anyway. But just you wait, in the coming weeks.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Well, I mean, it's interesting. It seems like, a few of the things that we do know, one, it was a day after Christmas. So, probably, you know, people aren't moving as fast, a lot of people on vacations.
And then also there are questions about whether they started putting things into action quick enough once the flakes started to fall. Did they salt ahead of time? Because by the time they had some of these plows and buses out there, they were already getting stuck.
(CROSSTALK)
CANDIOTTI: And then the official you had on earlier today said, for some reason, the front loaders, the big front loaders, they usually get in, they were having trouble getting that equipment in. So, all of these things combined added up to a ton of trouble.
CHETRY: That we're still trying to dig out from.
JOHNS: Yes, I know. And we look so much to New York City to tell the rest of the country what to do in situations just like this one.
CANDIOTTI: Sure, sure. But it is getting better out there. But traffic is a mess still. JOHNS: All right. Thanks so much.
CHETRY: Susan, thank you.
JOHNS: All right. With thousands of passengers still stranded at the airports in New York, the Department of Transportation is reviewing all the delays caused by Sunday's blizzard, and considering whether certain airlines should be fined.
Well, international flights are not subject to fines for keeping passengers on tarmacs for hours. They can be fined for violating their own operating rules.
CHETRY: And a little scare for passengers on American Airlines flight from Chicago to Wyoming. The plane went off the end of a snowy runway at Jackson Hole Airport yesterday, sliding some 600 feet. A couple of iReporters sent in pictures of the jet right after this happened. It was not damaged, thank goodness, and 175 passengers on board were OK.
Someone on the flight told the "A.P." that there were snow everywhere and that they couldn't see. And after they came to a stop, the pilot then said that the brakes had failed. And so - I mean, this is the flip side. Flights canceled for this reason, you know, fears of how you do actually get off and get down safely in this type of weather.
JOHNS: Yes, and just amazing.
And check out this iReport from Sarasota, Florida -- 30 degrees had homeowner Carmen Ciricillo fighting the frost by covering the plants with towels, table cloths, plastic bags, anything. Hopefully, that did the trick. Lucky for Carmen, local temperatures are now back up in the mid-40s.
CHETRY: That's a lot of landscaping.
JOHNS: Yes, that's pretty incredible. And, look, no snow, though. No snow. We'll take that.
CHETRY: Well, Reynolds Wolf is in the extreme weather center for us this morning with more on everything that's going on weather-wise.
They're really suffering in the western part of the country today.
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. They really are. I mean, winter is really on like a vengeance. We're going to see a little bit of a breakout towards the east and now towards the west. But it's going to be the center of the U.S. that's really going to be seeing some big changes over the next 24 to 48 hours.
Let's go right to the maps and show you what's happening. First, we're going to begin in with in the east and then work our way to the west. In parts of the Great Lakes, clear down to the Gulf coast, we've got a line of showers. We've got storms. We happen to see pink on the map -- that indicates frozen precipitation. Some sleet, little bit of snowfall in the Appalachians.
But back out to the West, we've got a combination of not only snow and rain but also some very strong winds. In fact, gusts possibly approaching 60 miles per hour later in the day. We've got those blizzard warnings in effect for parts of New Mexico and into Arizona.
Now, what we have there is part of a very complex storm system that's going to sweep its way to parts of the Northeast, eventually moving into the Upper Plains. And as we fast forward to Saturday morning, look at that, possibly a huge snow maker. Some parts of the Dakotas and to Minnesota could see well over a foot of snowfall.
But then we follow the area of low pressure and that frontal boundary all the way down, parts of the Southeast, strong thunderstorms as we ring in the New Year on Saturday morning.
OK, guys, that is a quick snapshot of your forecast. One last thing, we have a delay at Chicago O'Hare of an hour and 55 minutes, a ground stoppage. Hopefully, that will improve later today.
Back to you, guys.
JOHNS: All right.
CHETRY: We could see that jet stream and see how people are dealing with it on both sides.
WOLF: It makes a lot of difference.
JOHNS: Yes, we got a long way to go until spring.
WOLF: Oh, yes.
JOHNS: Thanks, man.
Ask any fourth grader, American history can be tough, learning on those dates, people and events is very hard. It's even harder when your textbook has rewritten history with dozens of factual mistakes.
CHETRY: Oops.
JOHNS: Ouch. Next: the history book that should be history.
It's 10 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Thirteen minutes past the hour.
Other stories new this morning.
The Vikings quarterback Brett Favre getting fined 50 grand by the NFL for failing to cooperate with the league's investigation into allegations that he sent sexually explicit texts to the woman pictured there. The NFL says it was unable to prove that the future Hall of Famer sent those inappropriate messages and reportedly a lewd photo to former New York Jets hostess Jenn Sterger back in 2008. That's when Favre was a quarterback for the Jets.
JOHNS: They dug themselves out of an avalanche. Police say two men who were skiing outside the designated area caught in an avalanche in Missoula, Montana, yesterday. But they were luckily able to get themselves out and to a nearby radio tower to call for help. The sheriff is saying one of the men suffered a minor head injury.
CHETRY: Well, they were sentenced to life in prison for an $11 robbery. Now, after 16 years in jail, sisters Gladys and Jamie Scott are going home. The governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, has suspended their sentences with the unusual condition. Gladys Scott must donate a kidney to her sister Jamie, and Jamie receives dialysis three times a week at a cost of nearly $200,000 to the state.
So, this story has a lot of different twists and turns.
JOHNS: Yes, twists and turns. Interesting.
CHETRY: But, yes. Big -- there's, you know, been big rallying cries that this was an inappropriate sentencing to begin with for the nature of the crime. But --
JOHNS: Exactly. Well, what are you going to do?
Sam Cook sang "Don't Know Much About History" -- well, that could apply to thousands of fourth graders in Virginia.
CHETRY: Yes, it's not because they didn't study, they did. But the textbook that they studied from was wrong -- really wrong.
Here's Martin Savidge.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The United States entered World War I in 1916. No. It was 1917.
There were 12 Confederate states. Actually, there were 11.
In 1800, New Orleans was a U.S. port. No. It was still under Spanish control.
These and dozens of other errors can be found in the textbook handed out to thousands of Virginia fourth graders. Problems with the book "Our Virginia Past & Present" published by Five Ponds Press first surfaced last October as reported by the "Washington Post" when the mother of a fourth grader, a college history professor, spotted several lines on page 122.
PROF. CAROL SHERIFF, PARENT OF A VIRGINIA FOURTH GRADER: It was particularly jarring when I got to this one passage that was so at odds with what historians have been saying about who participated in the civil war. SAVIDGE: The book says thousands of blacks fought in the confederate ranks, something not supported by mainstream Civil War scholarship, but it's the next line that's just plain wrong. Quote, "Including two black battalions under the command of stonewall Jackson," unquote.
SHERIFF: The textbook actually does note that it wasn't until 1865 that African-Americans could legally serve in the confederate army. It also tells children that Stonewall Jackson died in 1863.
SAVIDGE: The error about black serving in the confederate army was outrageous to many in academia.
JEREMY MAYER, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: It is the equivalent of holocaust denial being thought in the public schools, but worse, it's also the equivalent of saying that the Jews helped the holocaust.
SAVIDGE: The textbook author who is not a historian said she found the information while researching online. The publisher defended the author saying she used real books, as well.
VOICE OF LOU SCOLNIK, FIVE PONDS PRESS: I don't think the author could necessarily, you know, be accused of being stupid and doing internet-only research.
SAVIDGE: Because of the outcry in November, the Virginia Board of Education hired five historians to review the textbook. They were the ones who found the dozens more mistakes or misrepresentations. Leading one to ask, quote, "How in the world did these books get approved?" He recommended they be pulled from the classroom immediately.
(ON-CAMERA) As to who selected those books in the first place, that is actually done by the individual school districts in Virginia that are now using the books. To fix that problem of the wrong information regarding blacks serving in the confederacy, the publisher came up with this idea. Stickers. That would be with the right information placed over the wrong information.
The problem is now, there are so many errors in the textbook everyone agrees that they don't have enough stickers. The publisher says the second edition of the book will correct everything, but those school districts with the first edition, well, they're going to be meeting after the first of the year to determine what to do.
Martin Savidge, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, wow.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Like when the teacher's wrong, you know?
JOHNS: Yes.
CHETRY: You know, you're right as a kid. That never happened to me, but I'm just saying for other kids.
JOHNS: Exactly.
CHETRY: Solving Math problems.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNS: Stop it. All right.
Who's going door to door shoveling snow? No, it's not Newark's mayor. A celebrity lending neighbor the helping hand in the blizzard. It's not all for free. It's all about the Benjamins.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNS: Can you make out who this is?
CHETRY: I think it's -- OK. I'm not going to say. I know who it is.
JOHNS: OK. I don't know who that is. Tell you coming up in "Talkers."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: I'm not going to ask who the deejay gods why we coming out with a Will Smith song, and we're talking about 50 Cent.
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: I'm out of here. That's it. Jiggy wit it? No, no, no. We need another song.
JOHNS: Exactly.
CHETRY: Get rich or die trying. The shovel -- it's 25 minutes past the hour.
JOHNS: And the gloves.
CHETRY: Yes. Rapper, 50 Cent, he is charging his Connecticut neighbors $100 to shovel their driveways after the blizzard. He tweeted --
JOHNS: And it's not for charity, right?
CHETRY: No.
JOHNS: It's just for 50 (ph).
CHETRY: He knows how to make money. He said, you know what? I'm going to go out and shovel.
JOHNS: What's he need a $100 for? CHETRY: I don't know. You know, he said, to see if I can make a few extra dollars today, and then he tweeted, I'm charging more if you want to take pictures.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNS: That's unbelievable.
CHETRY: All right. But look who came to the rescue in New York City. This is James Gandolfini, Tony Soprano, himself. "The New York Post" says he helped to rescue stranded motorist on an unplug street on Monday night. Though, he may come back to your house and ask for a favor one day.
JOHNS: Forget about it.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNS: I just love doing that. All right.
One cabbie literally went to distance to help a family make a home, actually, make it home. He drove a desperate mother and her five children 393 miles from Buffalo to New York City on Sunday. Check this out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She started crying. I say, why are you crying? She said, how much to New York City? I said flat rate from the airport gets $1,100. She said, I don't have that money with me. I said, I'll give you a break.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: He ended up knocking a few hundred bucks off the top. The normal seven-hour drive took 14 hours in the horrible conditions.
CHETRY: I would say, you know, why wouldn't he do it for free? The poor things (ph) if he was so nice, but then, again, he had to suffer with five kids in the car for 14 hours.
JOHNS: Yes. Or trying to figure out.
CHETRY: He needed to be paid double.
JOHNS: Right. How much would he have made if he was just doing fares in a snowstorm, though? I don't know.
CHETRY: Exactly.
Well, the New York nightclub hostess who found herself in the middle of the Tiger Woods scandal could soon be a private I. Rachel Uchitel is expected to graduate next month from a detective course, and she reportedly wants to start helping in the search for missing persons.
JOHNS: Whoa. That's real nice. All right.
And pull! A group of golf pros travelled to the desert in Dubai to try and knock a flying clay pigeon out of midair. Now, you talk about a one in a million shot. We're not talking about a hole in one here. Anyway, after many tries, they actually did it, believe it or not.
CHETRY: That's unbelievable.
JOHNS: That's just incredible.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNS: Wow. There you go.
CHETRY: That is a one in a million shot.
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: That's amazing. It's hard enough to do if you're, you know, a shotgun.
JOHNS: And if you're me, right?
CHETRY: Skeet.
JOHNS: You'd never do it.
CHETRY: Wow. Amazing.
Well, 2010 is a year to forget when it comes to the economy. Coming up next, Christine Romans "Minding Your Business," looking back and ahead. Hopefully, 2011 brings better things for us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: 2010 is about history, and it's also about to be history.
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: That's right. When you think back in terms of the economy, it was not a pretty year. You sort of put together a best of the worst of, and you could have gone on for hours.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I know. 2010 is history. Who ever thought up that slug was brilliant? Oh, wait. That was me. Look, quantitative easing, we all learned about that. Imagine, quantitative easing, we learned about that. The Federal Reserve and what it does.
Deficits, budget deficits, national debt that is staggering. I mean, you look at all of these things that matter to your money that were top of the fold, you know, number one stories of the year. All of them matter to your money. If you felt like you were living through history, you were. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS (voice-over): Stimulus, jobs, health care reform, and soul searching. The year started trying to find the root of the economic crisis and assess some real blame when no one, apparently, wants to take any. Even the maestro, only under pressure looking back.
ALAN GREENSPAN, FMR. CHAIRMAN OF FEDERAL RESERVE: I was wrong 30 percent of the time, and there an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years.
ROMANS: The golden boys at Goldman Sachs defending their role in the crisis even as the government was suing them.
LLOYD BLANKFEIN, GOLDMAN SACHS, CEO: I think we, in our behavior, got caught up in and participated, and therefore, contributed to elements of froth in the market.
ROMANS: In an epic effort to stimulate an ailing economy never had more money been spent in so little time. And don't forget BP and environmental and public relations disaster.
TONY HAYWARD, FMR. CEO, BP: (INAUDIBLE) the massive disruption it's caused their lives. And, you know, there's no one who wants this thing over more than I do. You know, I want my life back.
ROMANS: He wanted it to be over. She wanted the change she was promised.
VELMA HART, CONCERNED CITIZEN: I'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantel of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now.
ROMANS: Change did come for her and many others in the form of unemployment. An emergency condition that turned chronic in 2010. So far, 19 months, that's how long unemployment has been above 9 percent. All of this against a backdrop of monumental reform, credit card reform, banking reform, student loan reform and health care and epic legislation that fueled a new political force.
In a year in which everything seemed to change, one thing didn't, your income taxes. Bush era tax cuts extended for all.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010.
ROMANS: More than a million jobs were created this year, but ask anyone, even the president, and it wasn't enough.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS (on-camera): Jobs who remain the number one focus in 2011 as well, and here's what a lot of people are thinking. They think that there will be a shift in the job situation. They will start to be opportunities for people who've been newly unemployed or people who still have their job. They're itching to move up. They're itching to move around, but that is going to start to be better before the six million plus who have been unemployed for six months or longer, that's going to be the story that's going to be a little bit harder to find some progress in 2011. So, we'll look for that.
Also, we're looking for some other good things on the rise and banks, big banks, look as though as they're going to start lending money again. They're saying they will. The fed thinks they're going to start lending money again. There are things, I think, they're going to saw for 2011.
CHETRY: Right. And will we innovate? Will we think of new ways to grow our economy because some of those jobs, they're simply not coming back either because of outsourcing or technology.
ROMANS: We're already seeing some of that. There's something about the American economy that, you know, nobody can really put their finger on what it is that makes it this innovative center. That those of the things that are starting to move again. When you get the bank lending starting again, maybe 2011 can be a turning point. And, at least, the ground will be shifting under everyone like it was in 2010.
JOHNS: And hopefully, no more big blows to the economy.
CHETRY: Right. It has to be real growth, not froth as Lloyd --
ROMANS: I didn't even mention the Toyota recall. I was telling Joe, I didn't even talk about the Toyota recall. The huge recall. That was a one-off business failure. All these other things happening in the economy are literally things that will be in the history books. We are living through history right now.
JOHNS: Thanks, Christine Romans.
ROMANS: You're welcome.
JOHNS: It's 30 minutes after the hour. Time for a check of this morning's top stories.
Brutal weather out west could spell big trouble in the east with another blizzard possibly storming across the country in time for the new year. Powerful winds and mud causing a lot of damage, and higher up one to three feet of snow in the Rockies and parts of the southwest.
CHETRY: Four days after the blizzard of 2010 and the mayor of New York is taking responsibility for the city's slow response. These are pictures from this morning trying to dig out in Brooklyn, promising an investigation to find out the cause of the failure.
The city sanitation commissioner promised every street would be plowed by 7:00 a.m. this morning. Despite pictures that tell a different story, the commissioner told us that the job was getting done.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: Has the city met its goal of having all the streets clean or how close have you come to it?
JOHN DOHERTY, NYC SANITATION COMMISSION (via telephone): Yes, we have, Joe. We do have a couple of blocks in an area in Brooklyn that we're getting a count on now that haven't been completely cleaned because we have vehicles that have to be towed out of the blocks. This was one of the major problems in the cleanup but for all practical perhaps, the streets have been plowed at least once. We made our goal, I think this morning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: We said, we made our goal this morning but we were still getting e-mails from people who said that the blocks not touched. He did acknowledge some areas in Brooklyn and in Staten Island were still not reached.
JOHNS: So not quite there, but very close at least. That's what we call substantial progress, I guess.
And the NFL has fined Vikings' quarterback Brett Favre $50,000 for not cooperating with their investigation, but the NFL says it could not prove the future hall of famer sent a former New York Jets employee inappropriate texts. By the way, $50,000 is less than a third of one percent of his current season salary of $16 million, a drop in the bucket.
CHETRY: Yes.
Christine O'Donnell is facing a criminal investigation. The Justice Department and the FBI trying to determine if she misused campaign funds from the Senate run. Earlier on "AMERICAN MORNING" we talked to her and she fired back, calling the probe "thug tactics" and insisted it's all politically vote motivated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE O'DONNELL, FORMER DELAWARE SENATE CANDIDATE: Keep in mind that we upset the dell care political establishment and we beat their so-called untouchable incumbent. There's a vendetta to stop the movement in its tracks because if the citizen politicians continue to rise up and put the career politicians on notice, we are going to continue to put the political establishment on notice.
JOHNS: Just say there really is an investigation of federal criminal investigation, isn't it a little bit risky to make the public statements? I mean, are your lawyers sure it's a good idea for you to be talking about this if you could get into trouble with the feds right now?
O'DONNELL: Well, I am very confident that there have been no impermissible use of campaign funds and I'd like the opportunity to set the record straight at least in the court of public opinion, because, as you see, if I remain silent and did not set the record straight, you know, months from now we would be cleared. Again, this is the same CREW complaint sent through the process, and CREW is a left wing, George Soros-funded group who investigates only conservative candidates.
CHETRY: Let me ask you a quick question of that. You said that they are trying to stop a movement in the tracks. What are you doing politically going forward that you think that perhaps people in the establishment are threatened by? Are you planning to run for office again?
O'DONNELL: Well, we're starting a PAC that is encouraging more citizen activists to step up and run for office. Whether they win or not, the mere fact that non-typical candidates, non-establishment anointed candidates would step up and run for office puts the system on notice and lets them know, if you are not accountable to your constituents, you might not remain in office.
And that's something that threatens corruption politics as usual. Take this for what it is and look at the facts in a real light as opposed the liberal spin that they're trying to put on it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well there you go. We heard from Christine O'Donnell and CNN did confirm from sources they're going forward with the probe.
JOHNS: There is an investigation out there. It's not a grand jury investigation. They're looking into it. It sounds preliminary and does appear, I mean, when you have this kind of information out there that the feds are looking, you wonder just how smart it is to go out and do the interviews on the networks.
CHETRY: She said if it's in the court of public opinion, wanted to clear her name. So we'll see where it goes and continue to follow it.
JOHNS: Absolutely. And we're still talking about New Year's which is coming up now. It's all about beginnings. What better way to begin a life together than getting hitched in front of a few million people on New Year's Eve? I won't get nervous about that. Meet the couple tying the knot in Times Square coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Well, here's one way to have a memorable new year. Tie the knot in Times Square in front of a million people gathered. Marine reservist Bethany Phillips and Jeffrey Doobey met in Iraq, and then they beat out 2,000 other contestant to win the New Year's nuptials produced by the media company Get Married.
JOHNS: It is a pretty good story, too. Visitors to the Web site vote on everything from the dress to the wedding band. With us here now Bethany and Jeffrey and Stacie Francombe, founder and editor in chief of Get Married. So I guess talking about this great story, you guys met in Iraq?
BETHANY PHILLIPS, TYING KNOT IN TIMES SQUARE ON NEW YEAR'S EVE: Yes.
JOHNS: But didn't really start dating or anything until you got back here.
PHILLIPS: Correct.
JOHNS: Tell us the story.
PHILLIPS: Well, we met in Iraq. Just kind of like hanging without the guys type of deal. We were playing Uno just to pass the time and he cheated. I thought that was just awful. Why would you cheat at Uno? That's ridiculous. But we had a --
JOHNS: But you knew each other.
PHILLIPS: We had a great friendship in Iraq. And then when we got back here, we let it blossom here into something more.
JOHNS: That's right.
PHILLIPS: So here we are.
CHETRY: What made you guys decide to throw your hats in the ring to see if you could get -- you know, get the lucky honor of being married in Times Square on new year's eve?
PHILLIPS: I saw it on Facebook and I thought, why not?
JEFFREY DOBEY, TYING KNOT IN TIMES SQUARE ON NEW YEAR'S EVE: Give it a shot.
PHILLIPS: We did and they just asked a little bit about us and our story and how we met, not thinking we would ever win, but we did.
CHETRY: And how did you pick them and decide?
STACIE FRANCOMBE, FOUNDER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GET MARRIED MEDIA: Out of 2,000 applicants, Bethany and Jeffrey are a spectacular couple. They're so real and genuine. Obviously their story of meeting in Iraq was fantastic. They're love and commitment for each other was, you know, overwhelming. And we just fell in love with them. They were a great, great story and a great couple.
JOHNS: So what's interesting is you actually picked the couple but everybody else, all the people who are voting, I guess --
FRANCOMBE: Correct.
JOHNS: Got to pick the wedding rings and all of that. So what do you think of the things people picked out for you? Were they nice? Were they tacky?
PHILLIPS: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: This is the first thing he asked this morning talking about it. Were they purposely trying to pick out cheesy things?
PHILLIPS: No, no. Everybody voted for the stuff we liked.
JOHNS: Yes.
PHILLIPS: It worked out really well.
JOHNS: What did they pick? Gowns?
PHILLIPS: Everything.
JOHNS: Like what?
PHILLIPS: Gowns, bridesmaids dresses, our wedding gowns done by David's bridal. We had our rings done. Gosh. What else? Invitations done by get married.
CHETRY: You're having the reception there also?
FRANCOMBE: Yes, at the Hard Rock.
PHILLIPS: Timeless designs did the wedding bands which are amazing, the gowns and the bridesmaids' dresses. The Hard Rock Cafe putting on the reception for us.
JOHNS: That's a pretty nice ring you have on there. Total bling.
CHETRY: It's blinding us in the studio.
(LAUGHTER)
I love how it's all streamed live, right? It starts at 6:00 and then the wedding at 9:10, and then you're home free to ring in the New Year and have a blast together. How are you pulling this off?
FRANCOMBE: It is unbelievable to be honest. We're working with great vendors in New York City, great wedding planner working. A lot of people are stuck out of town because of the weather so our florist is a makeup artist. But truthfully, at getmarried.com we have so many resources. Don't worry, don't worry. They'll be here.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNS: Outside in the elements. We have a wrap for her.
PHILLIPS: Makeup, I hope.
JOHNS: I hope. No rain. No snow.
PHILLIPS: We actually drove here from Georgia, yes -- 19 hours.
JOHNS: But they didn't pick out, like, the person who's going to do the ceremony?
PHILLIPS: That's my brother, actually. My brother's doing the ceremony.
CHETRY: So all of your family and friends and bridesmaids are coming up here. What do you feel, how do you feel about knowing there's like a million other people that are going to be at your wedding?
PHILLIPS: Oh.
(LAUGHTER).
Um, it's crazy. It has been such an adventure from day one. We're stoked. I cannot wait. I mean, it's -- I mean, small town people coming into the big city to get married.
CHETRY: That's quite a tale for your kids.
PHILLIPS: Indeed. Some good pictures, good video, good pictures. All covered.
BALDWIN: And big honeymoon plans?
FRANCOMBE: Yes. We're sending them to the Dominion Republic.
JOHNS: Really? What part?
FRANCOMBE: You have --
JOHNS: We won't follow you. I promise.
FRANCOMBE: Not sure.
JOHNS: Not Iraq?
FRANCOMBE: No. Not Iraq.
PHILLIPS: No, no.
CHETRY: You can hang out in the turquoise waves and enjoy yourselves. That's awesome. And the Hard Rock Cafe, that's a really fun location. Will you watch the ball drop or are you too busy with your wedding party?
PHILLIPS: No, no, no. We'll find time to watch the ball.
FRANCOMBE: We're going to take them out. There's a VIP area on the Hard Rock Cafe.
JOHNS: Jeff in the middle nodding, like most grooms to be.
PHILLIPS: This is what he does.
CHETRY: Are your friends and families excited? What are you feeling?
DOBEY: We're all excited. My parents are flying in today. The groomsmen are flying up, as well. They're stoked. Yes, just speechless.
JOHNS: I guess the people that voted didn't pick out a bachelor party for you, though?
DOBEY: No, not at all.
PHILLIPS: He's having to take care of that on his own.
JOHNS: No pictures!
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: All right, guys, well, we wish you the best of luck. Congratulations on the wedding and the marriage and everything in the future.
PHILLIPS: Thank you.
CHETRY: Stacie, editor in chief of Get Married Media. I have to stream this thing.
PHILLIPS: Do it.
CHETRY: You guys will get married at 9:10. Good luck to everyone and happy New Year.
PHILLIPS: Thank you very much. You, too.
CHETRY: Still ahead, Reynolds Wolf will have this morning's travel forecast coming up right after the break. It's 44 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: I was just going to ask. It's Boston and can you see it? I mean, but it's beautiful. They've got some sunlight there, 20 degrees; later 39 degrees. Not a bad day, actually, for a city that usually has some pretty lousy --
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Yes usually --
JOHNS: -- weather this time of year.
CHETRY: -- used to a cold weather but the sun's shining bright it looks not bad out there. Reynolds Wolf is keeping track of everything for us including what we're talking about an earthquake this morning, as well -- Reynolds.
WOLF: That's right, an earthquake just south of the Great Lakes. Guys, it's hard to believe. This is a place that occasionally gets earthquakes. You can get earthquakes all over the planet but this is a little bit unusual, again, on a morning like this.
I mean check it out, a 4.2 earthquake in Indiana. Just about to the northeast of Indianapolis. Not too far from Kokomo. Now, 4.2 is not very strong but certainly strong enough to rattle the windows and rattle the china a little bit so it will definitely wake you up. You don't need coffee on a morning like that.
The USGS says that they basically get about two million earthquakes a year that they detect but many of them, are very, very small, this is certainly one of those.
Something else that's going to be rattling some of the windows will be some thunderstorms moving across parts of the Ohio Valley, especially north of Lexington. To the southeast of Indianapolis but back along parts of the Appalachians, we're seeing some light snow and some sleet forming.
Heavier snowfall possible in parts of the Four Corners, especially in the mountains of Arizona and back into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico; that coupled with some strong winds, some gusts possibly getting into excess of say 60 miles an hour might cause whiteout conditions along parts of I-10.
Keep it in mind if you're driving along that striped stretch of roadway today and also keep in mind that that area of low pressure is going to pull its way to the northeast, eventually moving into the northern plains where we are going to see some snow today.
Possibly in the next 48 hours. We could see several feet of snow in northern Minnesota and back into parts of the Dakotas.
Now in terms of your high temperatures for the day, it's certainly going to be cold for you: 7 degrees is the high in Billings; 30 in Denver; 40 in Minneapolis; 44 in Washington D.C.; 49 in Raleigh; 39 in New York; and 75 in Miami.
Miami -- you lucky devils.
Guys, that's your forecast. Let's send it back to you in New York.
CHETRY: I know.
JOHNS: Yes.
CHETRY: How did Elizabeth Cohen get down there? You know.
JOHNS: I know.
CHETRY: But she is.
JOHNS: It's a beautiful thing. New Year's Eve, could you imagine?
WOLF: I got to love it.
CHETRY: She didn't take you.
JOHNS: What's up with that? WOLF: I wouldn't take me, either.
CHETRY: Thanks, Reynolds.
JOHNS: All right.
Still ahead, football's concussion crisis: Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look at what could happen when players return to the field to soon.
Forty-nine minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: All right.
Some breaking news this morning: good news, in fact, for people in the United States. The number of people filing for unemployment benefits fell below 400,000 for the first time in more than two years.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: That's pretty amazing.
JOHNS: Improvement in the economy. This is a -- this is a very good sign for people going into the next year.
CHETRY: Yes. And, you know, we'll talk about it a little more with Christine. They say that these initial claims fell to 388,000 in the week ending it at Christmas. Down 34,000 from -- from these revised claims that were happening.
Some people, though, say that there are some who have been unemployed for so long and they simply --
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNS: Right.
CHETRY: -- stopped trying --
JOHNS: Yes the -- the 99 percent or whatever -- yes.
CHETRY: -- and fallen off the grid. The 99ers as they're known. But still some brighter news that the number of Americans filing for unemployment for the first time falling below 400,000, you say for the first time in two years?
JOHNS: Yes. First time in two years according to our CNN dispatch at CNN.com you can read more there.
CHETRY: All right, well, on any given Sunday on any football field, from junior league to the NFL, players put themselves at risk of serious brain damage.
JOHNS: This morning, we take a second look at second impact syndrome and how it sidelined one teenager for life. Here's chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta with our ongoing series on the concussion crisis in football.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sends a --
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Friday night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- back in 11 --
GUPTA: Game night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Crosses at 20 -- 25 --
GUPTA: On the kickoff return, 17-year-old Max Conradt takes a hit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's tripped up by Conradt maybe.
RALPH CONRADT, MAX CONRADT'S FATHER: He took a knee to the head and went down for several seconds and was staggering off the field.
GUPTA: A week later --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Conradt on the center --
GUPTA: -- another game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the throw, here comes the blitz and he gets mauled over.
GUPTA: Another hit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The ball is taken away from Conradt.
R. CONRADT: He drills his forehead and helmet right into Max's chin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For some reason Conradt let him catch the ball.
GUPTA: Astonishingly Max continues to play. But then --
JOY CONRADT, MAX CONRADTT'S STEPMOTHER: He was walking toward me and he looked at me and he said my chin hurts. And then he collapsed.
GUPTA: Max Conradt, star athlete, stellar student, was dying. What happened -- second impact syndrome; one concussion closely followed by a second one before the brain has time to heal.
In Max's case, his brain began to swell uncontrollably.
(on camera): Now during a concussion, the brain which is the consistency of Jell-O is stretched and twisted and all sorts of things are happening. As the brain is rocked, chemicals start to flood it damaging all sorts of different cells within the brain and throwing the brain into a sort of state of crisis.
Now, with rest, those damaged cells can heal. But when a second concussion happens too soon after the first, brain cells die and that's when permanent damage sets in.
(voice-over): Max was rushed to the operating room.
R. CONRADT: The head surgeon comes over and puts his hand on my back and he just goes I'm really sorry. Basically telling us he's not going to make it. He's not going to survive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throw the ball. Throw the ball.
GUPTA: Three operations in ten days. Max is alive but barely conscious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Max's first time back.
GUPTA: It took months before he finally woke up.
MAX CONRADT, FOOTBALL PLAYER: What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened?
M. CONRADT: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were hurt in a football game.
M. CONRADT: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
J. CONRADT: Yes.
M. CONRADT: Oh my God.
GUPTA: That was 2002.
M. CONRADT: I don't remember the season. I don't remember the football season.
GUPTA: this is max today. He's 26. Living in a home for brain injured adults. He still has no memory of the hit that changed his life. In fact, these days, he has problems remembering, period.
J. CONRADT: I would love it if my son remembered what he had for breakfast today. I would love it if I could look at him and, without rancor, remember the way he was before he was injured.
M. CONRADT: Once in a while I get upset if I can't remember the stuff I want to remember. I wish it never happened.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CHETRY: Just so sad. And you think, how many times that happens where there's a concussion and then not far after that a second concussion.
JOHNS: Absolutely. And it's only now that people have really started to pay attention to it, you know. You realize people have been playing football a long time and not paying a lot of attention to the significance of more than one concussion.
CHETRY: Yes. The emerging research is certainly changing people's minds and changing the way the game is played in some cases when it comes to pulling injured players off the field.
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, there's word of a huge Hollywood power couple taking a big step.
JOHNS: I love this.
CHETRY: We'll have details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: Go on the cue.
CHETRY: After all that talk, we messed it up.
Just in to CNN right now. There is news that is going to turn Hollywood upside down this morning --
JOHNS: Absolutely.
CHETRY: -- if it's true, which sources are telling "In Touch" it indeed is true that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie secretly got married in Africa sometime over the holiday.
JOHNS: The magazine claims to have inside knowledge on the ceremony including details on the couple's rings and their vows. The power couple already has six kids together.
CHETRY: That's right. So apparently this issue has hit newsstands in New York and L.A. and so --
JOHNS: Yes. It's a big scoop.
CHETRY: Yes. If it's the case congratulations to the couple.
JOHNS: That's pretty amazing.
CHETRY: Well, I hope you have a happy New Year's Eve.
JOHNS: Thank you. I'll be working and you'll be playing so, enjoy it.
CHETRY: I'm taking the kids out on the slopes.
JOHNS: All right. "CNN NEWSROOM" with Alina Cho starts right now.
CHETRY: Hey, Alina.
