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American Morning

Embarrassing Controversy for the U.S. Navy; Wildlife Mystery: 5,000 Birds Fall from Arkansas Sky; Virginia Tech versus Stanford in Orange Bowl; Mega Millions Soars to $290 Billion; Tips for Nabbing a Job in 2011

Aired January 03, 2011 - 07:00   ET

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

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thanks so much for being with us on this Monday. It's January 3rd. 7:00 a.m. here in New York. I'm Kiran Chetry.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: And it's 2011, not 2011.

CHETRY: You're changing it.

ACOSTA: We're changing it.

CHETRY: Yes.

ACOSTA: From this point forward.

CHETRY: So, you were saying 2010?

ACOSTA: I was. I was saying that. I'm Jim Acosta, by the way. Welcome.

An embarrassing controversy for the U.S. navy this morning. There's a full investigation into a series of explicit videos produced aboard the USS Enterprise in the name of training and shown to thousands of sailors aboard the aircraft carrier in the war zone. And get this, the man behind them got promoted. He is now the officer in charge. More on that.

An unsolved mystery in Arkansas. Pretty disturbing, actually. Up to 5,000 birds simply fell from the sky just before midnight on New Year's Eve. Most of them were found dead over the same one-mile area a bit northeast of Little Rock. Some are blaming, perhaps, New Year's fireworks that stressed the birds to death.

And this could be a really good year for someone. No big winner in the big New Year's eve mega millions drawing. It has now soared to $290 million. You have until tomorrow night to get your ticket.

CHETRY: All right. Good luck there. But first of all, a developing story this morning. The U.S. Navy now investigating a series of explicit videos produced aboard an aircraft carrier and shown to its crew in the name of training. One scene features two women thought to be sailors together in a shower. And that's not all. Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, is live in Washington right now.

So apparently these videos were made some years back. How are they just surfacing now? And what's been the fallout, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, they first surfaced on the website of a local newspaper, the "Virginian Pilot." Under the heading, Kiran, of "What were they thinking?" The Navy is now looking at all of this. And this is the man at the focus of the investigation, Captain Owen Honors. He is now the commanding officer of the enterprise. He was the CO, or XO, if you will, the number two in command back in 2006 and 2007 when the videos were made supposedly in the name of training. But now the Enterprise is scheduled to deploy to the war zone in less than two weeks under this man's command.

The videos -- they show cursing, simulated sex scenes. We're not going to show you any of that, of course. But we are going to show you a bit of it so you can see what we're talking about. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. OWEN HONORS: This evening, all of you bleeding hearts and you -- boy, why don't you go ahead and hug yourselves for the next 20 minutes or so, because there's a really good chance you're going to be offended tonight.

I just (bleep) can't get that.

Finally, let's get to my favorite topic and something foreign to the gay kid over there, chicks in the shower. This is certainly the most popular video of any of the XO movie videos. It's also the one that's landed me with the most complaints.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: There you are, Captain Owen Honors and his idea of what appeared to have been training videos. It's hard to really see.

The investigation, though, is now going to determine not his actions but more senior officers onboard the carrier at the time, his commanding officer, two admirals who were on the ship at various points. When this was shown to the ship's crew, how could these senior officers have not known what was going on? What was the command climate, if you will, the command environment onboard the enterprise that made anybody think this was a good idea?

And of course, most importantly, were any junior sailors coerced into participating in this? Kiran?

CHETRY: Yes, bad stuff to see, obviously. You know, the fallout's going to be known in the next few days. Is the Navy talking about this, anyone responding?

STARR: Well, yes. The Navy first responded to that "Virginian Pilot" newspaper with this comment saying, quote, "The videos were not created with the intent to offend anyone. The videos were intended to be humorous skits."

But a Navy spokesman told us when they issued the statement they hadn't seen the video themselves at that point. So they came back with another statement announcing the investigation saying, quote, "Production of videos like the ones produced four to five years ago on USS Enterprise were not acceptable then and are not acceptable in today's Navy. The Navy does not endorse or condone these kinds of actions."

Kiran, I think it's really important to point out to people when a Navy aircraft carrier goes to sea with a crew of 5,000 or more, the commanding officer's word is law. And so the question on the table now is do they have the right commander to go to the war zone on the USS Enterprise? Kiran?

CHETRY: All right, we'll have to see where this goes. Barbara Starr for us this morning, thanks so much.

STARR: Sure.

ACOSTA: Switching gears to social media. First Facebook had a movie, now the company may be worth $50 billion. Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor, get this, just bought a $500 million stake in the company. According to the "New York Times," the deal values Facebook at $50 billion, making it worth a lot of money to click on who your friends are.

Making it worth more than companies like eBay, Yahoo, and Time Warner, which is CNN's parent company. As for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg, analysts estimate his personal worth may have just doubled to nearly $40 billion. Not bad for an idea he came up with at Harvard.

CHETRY: And in the right hands since his planning to give some of it away.

ACOSTA: That would be good.

CHETRY: Well, health care reform is moving forward this morning even as a new Republican-controlled House will try to repeal it when they reconvene Wednesday. In the meantime, here's what goes into effect today. Medicare patients will receive free wellness visits and the possibility of half priced name-brand drugs. There's also now a requirement for insurance companies to spend more on their premiums on actual health care as opposed to overhead and profit.

Republican say they will do whatever they can to try to defund health care reform.

ACOSTA: Coming back to a collision course, President Obama set to return home from his vacation in Hawaii. A new Republican House will be aiming to unravel key victories of his first two years. First among them, health care reform. Suzanne Malveaux live at the White House this morning. Good morning, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, happy new year. The president has his own New Year's resolutions. It was over the weekend that he actually announced those in his video address, and obviously he'll be back here tomorrow afternoon. You mentioned a collision course. Make no mistake, there will be a collision course here at the White House, but the administration really pushing for its policies, trying to defend its policies. One as you mentioned very important is health care reform.

But first and foremost, the president is going to address the state of the economy. His State of the Union address is at the end of the month he'll outline that. But some of the things he's talking about is jobs, jobs, jobs, creating those jobs.

Also, reforming the tax code, investing in innovation and projects and education in the kinds of jobs that actually do exist, cutting back on wasteful spending, a big thing that Republicans are talking about, possibly freezing some spending costs, as well. These are all of the things that the president will be talking about in the days and the weeks to come.

The second big thing, you mentioned it, and that is really this collision course when it comes to health care reform. Republicans, we heard Congressman Issa just yesterday saying he believed they could defund or repeal health care reform before the State of the Union address.

This is going to be very important for the president to hold fast, to make sure Congress is able to fund these very important changes that you were mentioning and talking about, some of the things that will impact directly folks' lives. Jim?

ACOSTA: And Suzanne, there's also a lot of talk this morning about Darrell Issa and what he plans to do as chairman of that House Oversight Committee, because it can essentially be a blank check for endless administrations for the Republicans, at least that's what Democrats fear.

And in "Politico" this morning, it has come out some of the topics he wants to pursue in that oversight committee, he's talking about looking at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their role in the financial crisis, investigations over at the FDA.

But we also know Democrats are also saying that they think there's going to be a lot of partisan witch hunts coming from Darrell Issa. And they're pointing to this comment they made yesterday on "STATE OF THE UNION." Let's take a listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DARRELL ISSA, (R) CALIFORNIA: In saying that this is one of the most corrupt administrations, which is what I meant to say there, when you hand out $1 trillion in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in health care and government, it has a corrupting effect. When I look at waste, fraud, and abuse in the bureaucracy and in the government, this is like steroids to pump up the muscles of waste.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: So Darrell Issa, he was on Rush Limbaugh's show as you know, Suzanne, and he was asked whether or not he thought President Obama was one of the most corrupt presidents ever, and he agreed with that. And he sort of walked it back a little bit and said, "Well, I meant the Obama administration." He said that yesterday on "STATE OF THE UNION." But clearly, this has got the attention of the White House. They're concerned this could derail their message and their agenda this year.

MALVEAUX: Absolutely, Jim. And when you think about it, when you're speaking to senior administration officials, they say, look, we're gearing up for a big fight here, we're ready for it. We're going to be hiring more White House lawyers to address all of those investigations that are going to happen.

And they know what they're going after. The regulations by the EPA, the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder, how he has handled terrorism suspects and trying them as criminals, all of these things will come to light. Even the congressman, Congressman Issa said that this committee he's in charge of is really going to shed light on things.

We don't know how much they're going to be able to get accomplished, but they are going to bring the administration forward and ask a lot of questions. That's going to take a lot of time. In some ways it's going to be a distraction to this White House that feels they need to move forward when it comes to very important policy when it comes to the economy. But the White House is gearing up for this big battle. Make no mistake about it.

ACOSTA: Suzanne Malveaux live at the White House. Thanks, Suzanne.

CHETRY: It's nine minutes past the hour right now.

(WEATHER REPORT)

CHETRY: So the iPhone glitch, we heard about it during daylight saving time. Now there's a new one thanks to the New Year. Alarms set to go off in the first days of 2011 failed. Single use alarms were affected, not recurring alarms. Plenty of people complained they overslept, missed appointments. Apple saying yes, indeed, this did happen and promise all iPhone alarms should be working properly today.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Finally the Y2K glitch we all worried about ten years ago.

CHETRY: Nothing else went wrong.

ACOSTA: We're talking about iPhone glitches.

ROMANS: Ten years later the alarm didn't work.

(LAUGHTER)

CHETRY: You were telling us the last hour about the cost-comparison airlines are missing one popular airline.

ROMANS: If you go on Expedia today, for example, you're not going to find American Airlines, and you're not going to find Orbitz either. And these are two very big fare compare websites.

A big dispute is brewing here, and it has to do with American Airlines wanting to keep more control over its fares. It doesn't sell a point a to point b airfare anymore. And these two companies Expedia and American Airlines coming to blows here. Expedia booting American Airlines off of its site saying --

ACOSTA: You would think it would be the other way.

ROMANS: Right -- saying American is anti-consumer and anti-choice because American had taken itself off Orbitz a few weeks ago and American trying to control more of its own image and how --

CHETRY: You think Expedia would be happy, though, because they'd have less competition?

ROMANS: No, they think that a consumer -- their whole idea here is you can, for example, go on Expedia, and you can split up a ticket. You can fly out on United and fly back on American and you can save money on that. And Expedia says that's what their whole game is about. If American wants to keep you together and send you to their own website or use their own direct connect consumer model, they can keep you together, they can sell you other things around it, and this is just, I guess, some would say a modernization of the way you sell air tickets, because you don't just -- I haven't taken a flight where I've just paid for the airfare for a long time. There's other stuff, as well.

This is going to affect everyone who is a small business owner using some of these websites to try to get someplace for cheaper for your employees and alike. American says it still is on a lot of other sites. They say go to kayak, priceline.com, others. This is a big fight all about money and -- and at the end of the day, you're going to notice some changes here.

ACOSTA: It's just amazing to see the airlines being put under the thumb of these websites, you know. It sort of reminds me of your cable subscriber dumping a TV channel. It's like who's in charge here?

ROMANS: They're all making money again. They're starting to make money again they want to control more of their -- and Delta to a lesser degree has been involved with this in Orbitz, as well. But watch, I think we're going to see changes how the relationship between these airlines and websites.

CHETRY: And most consumers will side with the websites because they want the cheapest fare.

ROMANS: They want to see instantly what the cheapest fare is out there, yes.

ACOSTA: Thanks, Christine.

ROMANS: Sure. CHETRY: Still to come, many people are starting the year the way they started last year, unfortunately, looking for work. We're going to show you how to stand out in 2011 amongst 15 million job seekers.

ACOSTA: And a wildlife mystery -- what caused thousands of birds to fall dead from the sky all at once? The phenomenon that has wildlife experts stumped.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Welcome back. And we have a wildlife mystery this morning. Thousands of dead birds that just fell from the sky before midnight on New Year's eve.

CHETRY: Yes, this happened across a one-mile stretch of Arkansas, northeast of Little Rock. Keith Stephens is the spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. He is in Little Rock this morning and joins us via Skype.

Keith, thanks for being with us this morning.

KEITH STEPHENS, ARKANSAS GAME AND FISH COMMISSION: Sure. No problem.

CHETRY: So we're hearing some 4,000 to 5,000 birds, all of them dropping from the sky. Any idea what happened here?

STEPHENS: Well, at this point, we're leaning towards maybe a stress event. Obviously there were some revelers out for New Year's eve and possibly shooting some fireworks while the birds were roosting. It could have been a weather event. So we're not really sure at this point.

ACOSTA: And we're looking at the video now, and they're all over this one neighborhood. How wide an area are we talking about? Are they all concentrated in one area?

STEPHENS: It was in a subdivision in the small town of Beebe, northeast Arkansas. Pretty concentrated. We did take a helicopter up and look up around the area to see if there was any more birds, but they were mostly contained to this area.

CHETRY: You know, it's hard to understand this especially when one of the theories is a lightning strike. I mean, rather, 4th of July fireworks strike or New Year's fireworks. On the 4th of July you think in every neighborhood you'd have birds falling out of the sky. So, I mean, do we know what if it was indeed fireworks, what may have been different about this situation?

STEPHENS: Well, this is a rural area. These blackbirds tend to congregate in areas where you're going to have grains from agricultural fields and on the ground that they'll be eating. So in this instance, they would have been altogether. You don't typically see these in urban areas. These are more rural areas and they're more concentrated. So if somebody was to shoot a firework in that area that they were roosting while they were asleep, then that could have been what caused their deaths. ACOSTA: I mean, you think that had to be a pretty big firework going off in that area. I just have to ask you, is this unusual in your mind? Have you ever seen anything like this before?

STEPHENS: No. Not in my career with the game and fish. We have had another instance where some ducks were hit by lightning about 10 years ago and they didn't fall out of the sky. But nothing like this -- and we really won't know until we do the testing on it today.

CHETRY: And when you do that testing, will you be able to determine whether it was, indeed, fireworks or a lightning strike or something different? I mean, how based on just the birds will you be able to determine what exactly killed them?

STEPHENS: I think that we're real confident that we'll be able to find out. There will be necropsies on this morning and once we open them up and take a look, I think we'll be able to find out what killed them.

CHETRY: We also had a situation with 100,000 dead fish. I know this was in a different area in the Arkansas River. Did you ever determine what that was?

STEPHENS: No, we're going to take those fish. We're going to send them off to a couple of labs to do cultures on them. We think it's a disease. We're not 100 percent sure at this time what the disease is. But we'll get them tested and we'll find out what's wrong with those.

CHETRY: Well, you've certainly been dealing with some unusual circumstances there, Keith.

STEPHENS: You're right.

CHETRY: Thanks so much for joining us. We'll give people an update tomorrow.

ACOSTA: Yes, get back to us.

CHETRY: Let us know what you guys find out about the birds.

STEPHENS: We'll sure do.

ACOSTA: And thanks to your friend for letting us barge into his house this morning so you can come to us via Skype. Appreciate that. Happy New Year to you, sir.

STEPHENS: You bet.

CHETRY: Thanks.

ACOSTA: Thank you.

Well, switching to some social media news, Internet news, they logged in for Hotmail, they ended up with no mail. Coming up, Microsoft works to fix a major new year's glitch.

CHETRY: I'm afraid to look. I haven't looked yet.

ACOSTA: I'm afraid to look too. You've got no mail. There you go.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Time now for talkers. Some of the stories that got us talking in the newsroom this morning.

It is one of the more compelling match-ups of the college bowl season. Stanford versus Virginia Tech tonight in the Orange Bowl. It's a showdown between two of the country's best quarterbacks. Stanford's Andrew Luck and Virginia Tech's Tyrod Taylor. Taylor was the ACC Player of the Year. Luck finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting and is expected to be a top five draft pick should he decide to leave school early and enter the NFL draft and hopefully come to the Redskins.

CHETRY: Yes.

ACOSTA: Of course, they need all the help they can get.

CHETRY: Hopefully the Redskins. That's why a lot of Seattle Seahawks fans were upset, as well.

ACOSTA: Yes.

CHETRY: They said we got to the playoffs. We should've just ended the season and got some good draft picks.

ACOSTA: Right. Exactly.

CHETRY: But we'll see. Good luck to both of them.

ACOSTA: Yes.

CHETRY: Well, as great as they are, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal can't walk on water, or can they?

ACOSTA: Really.

CHETRY: Check out the world's best two best tennis players. They're competing on this special water court over the weekend.

ACOSTA: Oh, goodness. Wow.

CHETRY: Who could make this happen? Only Qatar.

ACOSTA: Yes.

CHETRY: Qatar. Sorry. The floating court was constructed in Doha Bay for the season opening event of the ATP World Tennis Tour. There you go. They make it look so easy. Nadal and Federer are top seeds in the Qatar Open --

ACOSTA: That's right.

CHETRY: -- which begins today.

ACOSTA: And instead of the overhead slam, it's going to be the belly flop.

CHETRY: That's right.

ACOSTA: They're going to work on.

CHETRY: Don't swoop, guys.

ACOSTA: That's right. He is so adorable, even though he's hating on everything. Who are we talking about here? Cue the first cute kid video of the year. I'm not going to say it's going viral because that word has been scrubbed from our vocabulary, but watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you have a good Christmas?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you love your mommy?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you love your daddy?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you love your Uncle Valen (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you love --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Very good. And you had a cute story about this, right, Kiran? You were saying that --

CHETRY: Oh, you know the age when the kids do this.

ACOSTA: Yes, they do this. Right.

CHETRY: My son did it too. And he used to say no to everything except, do you want -- and he'd say no, no, no, no. Do you want a million dollars? And he paused and he'd say I want a million dollars?

ACOSTA: Yes. With my daughter, it was Disney World then she'd stop. Yes, I want to go to Disney World.

CHETRY: I feel bad for the daddy. He got a triple no. He said just no to the mommy --

ACOSTA: Wow. I know.

CHETRY: -- when he said triple no to daddy.

ACOSTA: I know. Well, try not to take it personally. We are talking about a baby.

CHETRY: Adorable.

ACOSTA: Still to come, many people starting the new year the way they started last year, looking for work. We've got to work on this. Christine Romans will show you how to stand out in 2011 from 15 million other job seekers.

CHETRY: Yes, she offered some good advice. Also, still ahead, we're tracking "Spider-Man's" recovery.

ACOSTA: Yes.

CHETRY: An update on the actor badly hurt after falling during a Broadway stunt.

ACOSTA: We better get him on the show because we've been talking about him a lot.

CHETRY: Oh, yes.

ACOSTA: All right.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: We are crossing the half hour right now. Time to get you updated on the top stories this morning.

A bit of a problem for the Navy today.

ACOSTA: Oh, yes.

CHETRY: A commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier at the center of a Navy investigation into a series of raunchy videos rife with sexual content, even some gay slurs. Captain Owen Honors reportedly produced and showed these videos to the crew of the USS Enterprise while he was executive officer three years ago.

ACOSTA: And another story they're watching closely in Washington this morning. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele faces off today against five people who want his job. Today's debate at the National Press Club in Washington precedes the committee's annual winter meeting in a week and a half. That's when the chairmanship will be voted on by party officials from each state. And given Michael Steele's propensity for the occasional gaffe, I think folks will be DVR-ing that debate just a little bit.

CHETRY: I think he does say what he means --

ACOSTA: He does and people like that about him.

CHETRY: Some things he doesn't mean but you know what -

ACOSTA: That's right. And people don't like that.

CHETRY: Well, developing out of Hollywood this morning. Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor rushed to a hospital. She'll unfortunately have to have part of her leg amputated to save her life. A spokesman said the cancerous lesions appearing on one of her legs. They were fearing that gangrene would set in. She is 93 years old.

ACOSTA: So sad.

And there are more sites - a few sites, more majestic. And we were talking about this earlier this morning, than the wild mustangs who roam the American west. The pictures are just stunning. And it's just wonderful to see that our country still have places like this. But these days the federal government says the mustang population is growing out of control in some parts of the west and draining the region's resources.

CHETRY: So what does the Bureau of Land management doing? Well, they're using helicopters to round up these horses by the thousands. It's making animal rights groups very upset. They call the practice cruel and they're out to stop it.

John Zarrella in Miami this morning with a story you'll see only on CNN. You know, as we said, you just juxtapose those pictures of the mustangs running free versus them in those pens, as they're waiting to get taken away. It is sad.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kiran, if you think about it, one of America's great muscle cars, the Mustang, named after these horses. And you know, what you end up having here are some people who say they're simply a nuisance, they're hooved grazers. Others who see them as symbolic of the greatness of America. At the very least they're at the center of a controversy between the federal government and activists.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (voice-over): There is no secretariat, no Sea Biscuit, no Black Beauty. Here they have no names. None needed. In their eyes, you see who they are. Rugged, powerful, independent. They are the wild mustangs of the American west.

LACEY DALTON, LET 'EM RUN FOUNDATION: Out here, you hear it all the time. A cowboy will say, you know, the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.

ZARRELLA: Woven generations ago into the fabric of this land, they've become the focus of lawsuits, even protests as far away as New York.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Help save America's wild horses.

ZARRELLA: The horses are at the center of a tug of war between the U.S. government chasing them down with helicopters and animal rights groups who want it stopped.

RICHARD COUTO, ANIMAL RECOVERY MISSION: The round-ups of the wild horses and borrows in the United States is a true holocaust of the animal world.

ALAN SHEPARD, NEVADA BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT: We can't let one - say the horse - impact everybody else by taking all the feed, all the water, all the - do damage to that habitat.

ZARRELLA: The disagreement is clear cut. The Bureau of Land Management, BLM, is charged with caring for and managing nearly 40,000 horses and borrows roaming on 26 million acres of the west. But while this federal land, your land, was set aside for the horses, they don't have free reign. The land is considered multi-use.

SHEPARD: Wildlife, livestock, recreationist, mining interest, whatever.

ZARRELLA: The BLM insists it must reduce herd sizes because the land can't support the numbers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This isn't Kentucky bluegrass.

ZARRELLA: So it holds round-ups. This year, the goal, remove 12,000 horses. That's right. 12,000. And take them to holding pens.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is our land. We want the horses on here, most of us.

ZARRELLA: Armed with cameras and recorders, the activists document what they see as brutal round-ups. Here, a helicopters chases one single borrow, eventually knocking it over. It staggers off. Here, you're looking at steam rising from the backs of chased down, exhausted horses.

The BLM says less than one percent of the animals die in these round- ups. Activists say that's one percent too many.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA: Now, the federal government, the Bureau of Land Management insists it has absolutely nothing to hide at these round-ups. And we'll take you to one of those round-ups tomorrow. And you may be amazed at how far away they kept us from what was actually going on.

And you know, Jim, Kiran, one of the interesting things when you saw that shot of the burrow being chased down, obviously, we could only show a little portion of that. But that went on for quite a while. That chase down.

ACOSTA: Wow.

CHETRY: That's awful. Now, you know, we all want to know and I know you're doing two more compelling stories on this. But I mean, does this have a happy ending in some case? I mean, do they get to go someplace where they're able to be left alone?

ZARRELLA: Yes, they do. I mean, at the end of the day, some of them that are not adopted out will go to long-term facilities out in Oklahoma and Texas to live out their lives. But the fact of the matter is and we'll get into this later on, it costs you and me and the taxpayers $60 million to $70 million a year for the round-ups and the long-term holding of these animals.

ACOSTA: John Zarrella in Miami. Thanks so much, John. We appreciate it and we will have more on John's series of the wild mustangs tomorrow morning. We'll show you exactly how those horses are rounded up by the BLM as well as more on efforts to protect them at whatever the cost.

CHETRY: Absolutely. Well, here's what's happening on Monday morning. What else is happening this Monday morning? A water plume ride at the Universal Studios Resort in Orlando, you may know this one, is closed indefinitely after a weekend fire. Ripsaw Falls Ride forced evacuations at the Island of Adventure theme park. Investigators are still trying to determine what caused that fire.

ACOSTA: People in the south and Midwest are still recovering from deadly tornadoes that touched down in several states on New Year's eve. Four people were killed in Missouri and three died in Arkansas. State officials in Missouri say at least 50 homes were destroyed, nearly 300 others damaged. Three separate tornadoes also ripped through central Mississippi causing heavy damage.

CHETRY: And New York sanitation crews are resuming garbage pick-up today. This is the first time -

ACOSTA: Oh my goodness.

CHETRY: I know, since the blizzard last week dumped all of that snow nearly two feet of snow in the Big Apple. And city officials focused on snow removal, uncollected garbages lining the street.

Islands of Adventure is a Universal Studio's theme park, not - I thought I remembered that back in the back of my head. But yes, we can't blame Disney for the ride. The (INAUDIBLE) is still working.

ACOSTA: Excellent. Glad we cleared that up.

And still to come. Back to Broadway. The actor hurt during a Spiderman stunt is recovering and he'd like to get back to Broadway. We'll tell you what he said about a possible return to the star- crossed show. And a lot that goes into these kind of stunts. It's interesting to watch.

CHETRY: Yes. Scary to watch sometimes, right?

ACOSTA: Scary to watch too.

CHETRY: Well, what happened to your Hotmail? E-mail vanishing in a New Year's glitch. Some customers desperate to get these e-mails back. Some of them say these were my pictures, my only pictures -

ACOSTA: Wow.

CHETRY: What Hotmail and Microsoft are saying about it this morning.

37 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Welcome back to "American Morning." The Spiderman stunt double who fell into the stage during a performance last month, will be out of rehab finally later this week, in case you've been keeping tabs on this.

31-year-old actor Christopher Tierney suffered broken ribs, a skull fracture, and three cracked vertebrae from the fall. Several performances of "Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark" were canceled after the accident. Tierney's dad said his son "cannot wait to return to the show."

CHETRY: Wow, well, he was not the only actor hurt during the $65 million Broadway production. Three other cast members also are recovering from injuries.

ACOSTA: The accidents are raising concerns about the overall safety of the performers and whether more should be done to make sure no one else gets hurt.

CNN's Susan Candiotti talks with a group of acrobatic dancers about the risk they take on the job every day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're flowing moves and dazzling artistry are both stunningly beautiful and a bit frightening to watch.

GUINEVER DIPIAZZA, OWNER, AERIAL ACROBAT ENTERTAINMENT: You know, when you're performing a trick and it's something a little bit sudden or quick or swift and you get that - huh - from the crowd, it's really exciting.

CANDIOTTI: But there are risks. Will the knots hold? Will the rigging bear an acrobat's weight?

VIRGINIA LOGAN, STUDENT AERIALIST: If you forget a line or step, it's one thing, but if you're -

CANDIOTTI (on camera): If you fall.

LOGAN: You know, if you fall, game over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And switch sides. Beautiful.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): An actor in Spider-man who plunged more than 20 feet during the recent stunt is the fourth performer injured in the $65 million play still in previews.

(on camera): How dangerous is this profession?

DIPIAZZA: OK. Well, danger is kind of part of the game.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): More than a game. It is serious work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ten, nine -

CANDIOTTI: Guinever Dipiazza is an aerial acrobat who runs her own small troop performing throughout New York.

DIPIAZZA: Rotate a little bit more so the knot faces you.

CANDIOTTI: Spider-man's accidents are the talk of the aerial community.

ELIE VENESKY, PERFORMER, AERIAL ACROBAT ENTERTAINMENT: One person getting hurt, then it's not necessarily the show's fault. But four people.

LOGAN: If I was in that show, I mean it's that's hard. That's a big machine to be a little tiny cog in. So I don't envy those performers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reach your right arm out to the side.

CANDIOTTI: Barely dangling of the floor, they gave me a small taste of their techniques.

LOGAN: There you go. So even just sitting is a little bit difficult.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): It is, it is to keep your upper body straight without falling.

LOGAN: Uh-huh.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): These aerialists are self-regulated. They watch out for their own safety.

(on camera): And each time you perform, how do you deal with the risk?

VENESKY: I never perform anything I haven't done in practice at least 100 times. I'm always sure that my rigging is secure.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): For Dipiazza, there are no shortcuts. A close friend fell to his death two years ago working for another company. Since then, for her, safety is paramount.

DIPIAZZA: I felt like this was a really good way to, you know, keep his memory alive and, you know, inspire -

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Inspire others?

DIPIAZZA: Inspire others, yes.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): To make her art safe or at least as safe as it can be.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: That's amazing.

ACOSTA: I just wanted to see Susan just fly through the air. That would have just been incredible.

CHETRY: Just sitting on there was hard enough. Not only for her, for any of us. Amazing.

ACOSTA: She did a great job.

CHETRY: Well, still to come this hour, how do you get noticed when you're trying to battle millions of others for a job? We have some tips on how to make 2011 the year when things can turn around for you.

ACOSTA: And a little snow moving across the northeast this morning. Rob will have the rest of this morning's travel forecast. Not as much as last week. I just want to warn you there. But Rob will have more in just a minute. It is 43 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Forty-five minutes past the hour right now. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.

We have a look at our top stories now. President Obama is promising to do everything he can to create jobs and to grow the middle class in 2011. He returns to Washington tomorrow with a new Republican House. A House looking to unravel some of the administration's key victories over the past two years.

ACOSTA: And the president will be coming home to a White House that has reportedly lost a quarter of its property value. Not that it's for sale -- in the U.S. housing crisis. The real estate web site Zillow says it's depreciated from $253 million to $232 million. Still not bad for a place that was built over two hundred years ago.

CHETRY: Well, Hotmail users logged in over the weekend to find many of their e-mails had disappeared. Some logged in to find empty inboxes and folders, sending off panic in some cases. Microsoft has been working to resolve the problem since Sunday. But the company will not say exactly how widespread it is.

ACOSTA: And get out your Lottery tickets, folks, or go get them.

CHETRY: Are you buying one?

ACOSTA: I'm going to buy one. Absolutely.

The Mega Millions jackpot is now $290 million. Nobody had the winning ticket in the big New Year's Eve Mega Millions drawing. I thought for sure somebody would win that on New Year's Eve.

CHETRY: I know. Me, too.

ACOSTA: There hasn't been a winning ticket in 15 straight drawings. You have until tomorrow night to get in on this one.

CHETRY: Good luck.

ACOSTA: Yes.

And it is 47 minutes after the hour. Let's get a quick check of this morning's weather headlines.

(WEATHER REPORT)

ACOSTA: Check this out, a Panda cow named Ben -- yes, Ben -- was born on New Year's Eve on a farm in Colorado. Panda cows are a rare miniature breed of cattle, especially bred to look like a panda, and there are said to be only about 25 of them in the world.

CHETRY: So cute.

ACOSTA: Very cute. And I've often said about this show is what it needs is more panda cow bell.

(LAUGHTER)

CHETRY: He's so cute. So they breed these miniature cows, right, but it's hard to get the coloring just right. I mean, look at the perfect little black over the eyes. Everything is cute about this cow.

ACOSTA: They nailed it on this cow.

CHETRY: Yes.

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

CHETRY: So, if you have $30k, you can take it home.

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

CHETRY: Are you going to buy it?

(CROSSTALK)

CHETRY: Well, it is the start to the new year, of course. No time like now to try to start finding a new job. And it may be easier than it was last year, even though you are competing with millions of other people. But Christine Romans joins us to show us how to stand out in a tight job market.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: It's 53 past the hour. The holidays are over as we know, but you'll keep getting those reminders in the form of your Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

ACOSTA: The bills are coming, is that it?

CHETRY: Yes, the bills are here.

ACOSTA: Oh, man.

Well, if your new year's resolution is find a job or find a better job in 2011, you are not alone. Christine Romans joins us now.

And you were saying that this is the year.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: This is the year.

ACOSTA: We're going to feel it.

CHETRY: She was schooling you with her book.

ROMANS: I know. I'm so sorry. Yes, in chapter 3 I go -- no.

Look, we could see two and a half to three million jobs created this year. Really. Think about that. Two and a half to three million jobs. A growing number of economists think we could return to creating jobs this year. No, it won't make a dent in the huge hole of jobs lost in the recession, and I'm not saying it'll be easy. But this year you could have a better chance than last year of finally getting hired.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: (voice-over): Crowds may be great when you're ringing in the new year. Not when you're looking for a job. With 15 million Americans out of work, job seekers have a lot of company this January.

(on camera): No question, it's harder to get a job today, it's very hard to get a job. You have to be incredibly strategic and maybe even lucky, and use your connections.

BILL RODGERS, ECONOMIST, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: Not only those 15 million who you speak of, who are actively searching; you got another 9 million who are working part-time. But they want to work full time. And then there's another two to three million Americans who are not captured in the unemployment rate number, who are out of the labor force but if offered a job today, they would take it.

ROMANS (voice-over): Sounds like the boss has the upper hand, right? Well, maybe not. Those who have a job are ready to jump ship as soon as the economy improves.

A survey by the job placement firm, Manpower, found 84 percent of employees plan to look for a new job in 2011, despite already having one. That's up from 60 percent last year. Bosses will have to work hard to keep their good people.

JEFF JORRES, CEO, MANPOWER: No doubt that is a little bit of a reaction to the amount of work that's being done by each individual in every single company.

ROMANS: Good if, you want to ask for a raise. Not necessarily good news for the long term unemployed.

JORRES: What you're going to be seeing is trading of jobs, and you're going to be seeing those that have been long-term unemployed, probably still struggling with getting the attention of potential employers to hire them.

ELLEN GORDON REEVES, CAREER COACH: Measurable deliverables.

ROMANS: At this boot camp for job seekers Ellen Gordon Reeves says don't worry about the big numbers of job seekers. It's about the number one, you, being the one employee a company needs.

REEVES: The biggest mistake people make when looking for a job is thinking that it's all about them. It's not about what is a great job for you, what's a great fit, what works for you. It's about what you can do for the employer.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ROMANS: There's no one size fits all advice for how to become the one and not one of the 15 million. But, in general, look for the person, not the job.

And Ellen Gordon Reeves who advises people on this, coaches people on this, she says this all the time; you're looking for a person. You are most likely going to be hired by someone who already knows you, or someone who knows someone who knows you. Those are the kinds of connections that are helping people get jobs. It's not just from random --

CHETRY: Because they can't take the chance, right, anymore?

ROMANS: No one is taking a risk. They're still not taking a risk. If they have no idea who you are, they just have a resume, forget it.

If you have a job, this could be your year, especially if you're a top performer. If you're above average, or at least think you're above average and can convince your boss that, this is your year. Go ahead and ask for more responsibility. Ask for a step up. Bosses don't want to take a chance and hire someone they don't know. They'd rather promote somebody from within.

ACOSTA: And I heard there's a book that has all the answers. .

ROMANS: There is. It's called "Smart is the New Rich ," and you, Jim Acosta, are one smart guy.

ACOSTA: I like to think I am.

ROMANS: Anyway, there's a lot of really great stuff in there. But, this -- two and a half million to three 3 million jobs. We're right. That will be good this year. Won't help everyone, but it's moving in the right direction.

CHETRY: All right. Fingers crossed and for the long-term unemployed hopefully this will change this year.

ROMANS: That's right.

CHETRY: Thanks, Christine. We're going to take a quick break. We have your top stories coming up after just about two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)