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American Morning

Interview with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky; Bears: Cutler Has Knee Sprain; The Taxman Cometh; Smoking And Breast Cancer; Giffords' Husband May Forego Mission to International Space Station; Nominations for the 2011 Academy Awards Announced; Hollywood's Gold Derby; The Human Factor

Aired January 25, 2011 - 07:58   ET

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

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Thanks so much for joining us on this AMERICAN MORNING. It's Tuesday, January 25th. I'm Kiran Chetry.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you all. We will previewing the State Of The Union that's coming your way in just about, what, 13 hours from now. The president has a big day in Washington, D.C. A lot of theatrics, as well. Where everybody is going to sit. We'll be talking about that plenty.

But want to show you first this morning. Some new video we are getting of the attack we heard about yesterday. Take a look. This is surveillance video inside the Moscow airport where a suicide bomber blew this explosive up, killing at least 35 people. And the Russian president is upset with whoever did it, but also upset at security at the airport.

CHETRY: GM is making history for the first time selling more cars in China than in the United States. And this morning, the automaker once again has a shot at being the number one automaker in the world.

HOLMES: And you're just a half hour away from hearing it live, right here on CNN, the Oscar nominations will be announced. We will carry that for you live. You're seeing video there of one of the early favorites, "The King's Speech." We'll see if they can pick up a couple of nods.

CHETRY: From "The King's Speech" to the president's speech. He is fine-tuning the State Of The Union address tonight. His staff said it's not going to be your typical speech.

HOLMES: We will see about that. We'll judge that tomorrow morning. The theme, they are saying, will be winning the future. We talked to White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett just a few minutes ago, saying the president is taking this speech quite personally.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIE JARRETT, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISOR: Tonight will be a framework and then in three weeks, he will release his budget. When the budget comes out, T.J., you will see a great degree of specificity about how we're going to get the job done.

HOLMES: But not tonight?

JARRETT: Tonight is really -- tonight is this opportunity to lay out for the country his priorities. The last two that I didn't get to that are very important that we have to figure out how to make government more efficient, we have to streamline government, and we have to make sure they were creating an environment where companies want to invest in growth and very importantly, we have to tackle our fiscal deficit in a responsible way and bring that down. And at end of this evening's speech, I think that message will be loud and clear to the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Yes. Everybody will be paying attention to the president's word. But that woman, Gabrielle Giffords, the congresswoman who was shot in Tucson, she will be on the minds of everyone in that chamber. In fact, the Arizona delegation is going to be sitting together tonight and they will leave one empty chair there for Gabrielle Giffords. Also, both parties will be wearing black ribbons in honor of her tonight as she continues with her recovery.

CHETRY: And it was the first formal response from Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner. He appeared in federal court yesterday for his arraignment. The judge entered not guilty pleas on his behalf to the attempted murder charges of Congresswoman Giffords as well as her two aides. Prosecutors are also preparing to charge Loughner with murdering six people during the rampage.

Now, he didn't speak during the hearing, smiled a couple times. People inside his courtroom said his expression was similar to this one from the police mug shot.

HOLMES: And we preview this video for you just a moment ago. But look at it again, it's the new video we're getting at the moment of the explosion. Take a look -- surveillance video inside the Moscow airport. This was yesterday.

You see the blast there and people start to scramble. You see just normal activity inside the airport, people with their luggage and then that blast. We know that 35 people were killed in this. Reports say up to 100 to 150 even by some reports were injured in this thing as well.

The Russian president has come out and saying they will track down whoever is responsible but also, he is upset with the security at the airport, saying there's no way something like this should have happened.

CHETRY: The accused Christmas Day underwear bomber will be back in court today. It's a pretrial hearing for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Now, the judge may set a trial date and Mutullab (ph) is acting in his own defense after getting rid of his court-appointed lawyers back in September. He's accused of trying to blow up a plane that was bound for Detroit with a bomb stitched into his underwear.

HOLMES: Meanwhile, the former bodyguard and cook of Osama bin Laden is expected to be sentenced in court today. He'll be in federal court. He is the first Guantanamo detainee tried in U.S. civilian court. His name is Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. He was acquitted on all but one charge in his role for the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania back in 1988. But he was convicted on one charge. This was the deadliest pre-9/11 attack by al Qaeda. Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence.

CHETRY: Well, the Dow opening this morning at more than two- year high. Closing up 180 -- wait, 108 points yesterday. This is the first triple-digit gain of the year. Right now, the Dow Jones is just 20 points from the 12,000 mark.

HOLMES: We've been telling you so much about these brutal temperatures in many parts of the country, single digits, some of them below zero. But some folks had to stand out in it in their pajamas last night in Boston.

And let me explain why. There was a water main bust -- take a look at some of these folks hanging out -- water main bust inside a high-rise building there. Hundreds of folks ended up having to go to an emergency shelter. They're still trying to figure out how much electrical damage might have been done, but, right now, the folks are out of their homes and no word on when they might be let back in.

CHETRY: What a mess.

Well, Amtrak is hoping to resume its service between New York and Albany today, New York City and Albany -- had to suspend the service yesterday again because of those frigid temperatures. They caused the rail signals, some of the switches and other equipment to freeze.

HOLMES: And we appreciate one of our iReporters sending this into us, showing what happens, a little trick here. If you could throw hot water up into the air and it's that cold. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened when it's minus 30 and you throw a cup of hot water into the air? That.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: What happened again?

CHETRY: The ice crystals -- they came flying down. You were focusing on the steam. So, you missed the ice crystals.

HOLMES: OK.

CHETRY: It goes up and then it freezes in mid air.

HOLMES: So, you hear it kind of fall. I think I kind of heard it fall.

CHETRY: There you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throw a cup of hot water into the air.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Let me hear it again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: See all of those crystals off to the side?

HOLMES: Yes.

CHETRY: Yes.

HOLMES: I grew up in Arkansas. It didn't get that cold!

CHETRY: You guys could crack -- fry and egg on the street? That's more fun.

HOLMES: I could do that for you.

CHETRY: Well, check this one out. A car completely encased in ice -- this happened some time Sunday night. Of course, adding insult to injury for people dealing with the Jets losing.

And then, of course, New York City freezing -- well, a water pipe there ruptured and the car owner says he tried to use a hammer and screwdriver to break up the ice. Not that didn't work. City crews eventually were called in. They had to use steam to thaw the car. Back window broken also in the process.

What a day! Not that poor man's day.

HOLMES: Jacqui Jeras, anybody have a day like that to look forward to any time soon? We still got those extreme temperatures.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, we do. You know, it's a lot warmer today than yesterday, but you still have problems. Like if you washed your car, right? And you didn't dry it very well?

CHETRY: Yes. Not a good week to wash your car. Saranac Lake, New York, right, they were negative 35 or 36?

JERAS: Yes. Thirty-six there, it was 35 below on Mt. Washington. Yes, it was nasty yesterday, although not a lot of records. So, you know, we've seen this bitter cold before. It's nice it's warming up a little bit, but you got snow so that's certainly impacting your commute across the Northeast this morning.

The good news is, this is mostly a morning event. And the good news, everybody should see two inches or less of snow.

The bad news is, here we go -- doing that again, right, the bad news is another storm is on the way. And today, it's impacting much of the Deep South. Heavy rain showers all across the region.

We are going to see some mixing as cold air moves in behind this system and we may even see some thunderstorms become severe this afternoon into parts of Florida. So, be aware of that. That tornado threat is a real possibility here. That storm is going to ride up the coast and it's going to be impacting the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, Wednesday into Thursday.

And some of you are going to be getting some very heavy snow accumulations to go along with it. A couple of you are going to get a little mix like Philadelphia, for example. But look at those temperatures, not too shabby, guys -- 40 degrees in New York today, 52 in Dallas. It could be worse.

CHETRY: You're right, it could be worse. We're not going to -- we're not going to complain. Jacqui, thanks.

HOLMES: Thanks, Jacqui.

JERAS: Sure.

HOLMES: Well, coming up: Alec Baldwin and Derek Jeter. We know Jeter is a famous Yankee. They're in New York. We know that Alec Baldwin is a pretty famous actor. He does a show out of New York.

Then why are they not New Yorkers? Well, the government wants to prove that they are.

CHETRY: Hmm. Also, it's freshman GOP Senator Rand Paul's first State of the Union. What conservatives want to hear from the president tonight? We're going to be speaking live to him coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, welcome back to this AMERICAN MORNING.

We have another White House adviser that's going to be leaving the president. This was the White House energy and environment, says she'll be leaving in the next few weeks. It's Carol Browner. You may recognize her because she played such a key role, such a visible role, a public role in the BP oil spill response. The White House says they might let that particular position go unfilled.

Also, well, he might be in a new position back in the White House. Rahm Emanuel, trying be mayor of Chicago, but right now, an appeals court says he can't be, not allowing him to be on the ballot because they say he does not meet the residency requirement. Of course, Rahm left the White House as the chief of staff at the end of last year, so he could go back to Chicago and run for mayor.

Right now, one lower court said he should be on the ballot. This latest court said he shouldn't. Now, he has the Supreme Court he can appeal to. And all the latest polls, he is running ahead of the other candidates.

CHETRY: Well, all eyes on the president tonight in his State of the Union address. It's a warm-up for some tough fights ahead on spending, on finding ways to cut debt. Even though he's just a freshman, our next guest is likely to be front and center for those fights. New Republican senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, joins us this morning, founding member of the Senate's brand-new Tea Party Caucus as well, son of Republican Congressman Ron Paul.

Good to see you this morning, Senator.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Good morning. Good to be with you.

CHETRY: We wanted to talk to you because you've proposed some budget cuts. You have a plan of your own totaling $500 billion in a single year. And it's interesting because your own party has struggled actually to come up with even a fifth of that, $100 billion that it promised in a Pledge to America.

So, what are you willing to cut that perhaps other members of the GOP are not?

PAUL: Everything. What we basically did is we went back to 2008 levels for pretty much everything. We left out entitlements and left out the military on those levels, and that would take -- that would save $100 billion. But then from the $100 billion, we did then go look at military and we looked at various departments that we thought could be better handled at the state and local level.

So, for example, the Department of Education, Ronald Reagan ran on a platform that that should be handled by the states and the localities. We went and set most of the Department of Education back, a few of the college scholarships we kept and we put them in another department, and so, we would eliminate the vast majority of the Department of Education.

We did similar things in the Department of Energy. We said, well, some of this is defense spending, so we took it and put the Defense Department, and let most of the Department of Energy go by the wayside.

So, there are ways to cut spending. The alternative, though, if you don't do it is that we really could face a debt crisis like Greece and Portugal and Spain --

CHETRY: Right.

PAUL: -- are facing. And I don't want that to happen.

CHETRY: But, see, this is the thing -- and the president is going to talk tonight about innovation and the importance of us leading the world when it comes to education and that's going to cost money. So, are you opposed to that?

PAUL: No. But I think the thing about innovation and productivity -- while education is very important and education is very important in, you know, getting people jobs and employment, you know, Russia in its heyday had more PhDs per capita than any country in the world, but had horrible productivity because they had a terrible system.

So, it's a combination of having good education and also having capitalism -- which means getting rid of onerous regulation and getting rid of high taxes. Right now, our corporate income taxes are higher than Europe and higher than Canada and higher than most of the world. And so, our companies can't compete with foreign companies because our tax burden is too high.

CHETRY: Well, I want to ask you about this because you said you left entitlements alone. And when you take a look at the serious efforts to cut our debt, and I know that people's heart is certainly in the right place. But by 2020, more than 60 percent of government spending is to be going towards entitlement.

And we have a breakdown right here. You can see Social Security, 28 percent of our budget gone, especially if it's not touched. Interest on our debt, 28 percent, Medicare at 21, Medicaid at 15 percent and then you get to the "everything else," leaving about 8 cents on the dollar to actually run the government. But that's most of what you're targeting for cuts.

How long can we ignore the entitlement spending?

PAUL: You can't. And you have to immediately do something to the entitlements. We left it out of particular bill, but we do have separate plans for reforming, particularly Social Security. You can fix most of the Social Security shortfall by raising the age by one month every year.

So, take 36 years to raise the Social Security age three years -- I think we, as a society, can handle that. It fixes most of the problem. The bill would be one page long. We raise the age by one month every year. That's what we did in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan passed Social Security reform.

If you do that, you'd fix the majority of the problem. We're all living longer lives. And I think the American people now, more than at any other time, are ready to face this problem with the baby boomers retiring --

CHETRY: Right.

PAUL: We can fix the problem by raising the age gradually.

CHETRY: I think this is interesting. There's going to be two State of the Union responses tonight. One, formal response, and then, one from Michelle Bachman, a tea party supporter in the House. Is this sending a mixed message on the Republican Party's platform or is this a good thing?

PAUL: Well, the thing is, you know, for example, I'll be asked to comment, too. A lot of different senators and congressmen make comments. There's only one official one that the Republicans give, and I think that's fine because you can't have ten different official responses, but you know, there are many different news networks, and they'll all ask for responses from various people.

So, I don't have any problem with Congresswoman Bachman making a response. In fact, we'll also make a response, well, you too (ph), but we'll send out a response after the president's speech as well. So, I think you get a variety of opinions, and all Republicans aren't the same, but I don't see it as trying to usurp somebody else's prerogative. I think there will be one main Republican message, but there's other voices as well.

CHETRY: And you're also deciding not to sit with a member from the opposite party like many others are doing in a show of, I guess, renewed civility or perhaps bipartisanship. Why not?

PAUL: Well, I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. I got asked by four different Democrats to sit with them, and I didn't want to hurt their feelings. So, I decided, what will I do? I guess, I'll just sit on the Republican side. I don't know. I want to have cooperation. I want to have conversation. But I think, you know, the symbolism of it is good, but I think really substantive talks is what we need, and I will be talking with the other side, and I've already started having conversation with Democrats in the Senate to try to push different things that we can agree on.

CHETRY: All right. Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky. Thanks for talking to us this morning. I know you'll be watching tonight as were we. Thanks so much.

PAUL: Thank you.

CHETRY: Well, CNN special coverage, by the way, of the State of the Union starts at 7 o'clock. It's followed by the president's actual speech at 9:00, and then, the Republican Party response, the tea party response and more live post-speech analysis all right here on the most trusted name in news -- T.J.

HOLMES: Well, 17 minutes past the hour. There's a new way for you to keep up with your kids. You can do something to their cell phone that they'll never know about. This thing is unbelievable. We'll tell you about it.

Also, maybe one of your favorite fast food places, and it is about to raise prices. We'll tell you how much, and we'll tell you who. Stick with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY LENO, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO": You know, President Obama said he would go to the Super Bowl if the Bears won. He would have been the first president ever to attend a Super Bowl. Did you see his reaction watching the game yesterday? Take a look.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Haney over the middle. Picked off by shields! The Green Bay Packers --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: OK, that's good. The president had reason to be upset as did a lot of Bears fans. A lot of them upset about the loss, yes, but a lot are upset with their quarterback, not because he didn't perform well, but he wasn't on the field to perform call. Jay Cutler. This really became the scandal afterwards. Some have even called he had knee-gates. Quarterback, Jay Cutler, didn't play pretty much the entire second half because of a knee injury. Nobody knew what it was.

We do know now that he does have a sprained left knee, a sprained MRI -- excuse me a sprained MCL, but the MRI showed that. But a lot of people just had a problem with his body language on the side. He didn't seem to be very engaged. He didn't seem to be much of a cheerleader for the team. If you're injured, fine, but show a little heart, a little leadership and that was a lot of problem people had with that.

CHETRY: And then, there are others blasting -- the people blasting and saying that's not right to question his heart. Drew Brees, I think, he played with a sprained knee, right, in one of the games back in 2009.

HOLMES: Injured -- talking about (ph) Drew Brees. Another of the chargers quarterback as well had played the ACL and was injured and he kept going.

CHETRY: Although, this is the whole controversy about the hard head hits that people want to go back in the game when they shouldn't. So, better luck, next year, Chicago Bears.

How about Alec Baldwin and Derek Jeter? What do they have in common? The "New York Daily News" reporting both stars have been investigated for tax evasion while both spend a significant amount of time living in New York City. They claim their primary residence elsewhere, perhaps, to avoid New York City's income tax.

At least, that's what the state is investigating. So, they ramped up the pursuit of suspected tax dodgers, hiring new auditors and making tax filers swear under oath as to how many days they spend in New York City.

HOLMES: Well, if you want to keep with those, too, you need to find a way to get this software on their cell phones. A new little software out there called big daddy spy. Now, a lot of people are saying parents are going to be the primary users of this so they can keep up with their children, but what this thing does, it allows the parents to see who the kids are calling, texting, e-mailing, even has a GPS to keep up with them. The kids can never even tell what's going on, but that's not just that, and to show you this one's a little more exceptional than some of the others out there. You can actually call the kid's cell phone. The cell phone doesn't even have to be in use, and you can hear the kids surroundings, and the kid would never even know about this. Now, some are even raising some questions about the legality of this. OK, yes, you're the parent, but the child has some privacy, but big daddy spy.

CHETRY: Does it just have to be the kids' cell phones? Maybe, they're going for a bigger market, eventually.

Well, who will get nominated and who will get snubbed by the academy? We have the Oscar nominations just few minutes away, and we're going to bring them to you live.

HOLMES: And how difficult is it to be there for your family in their time of need, not just when you're out of town on a business trip but that trip takes you all the way to the international space station. It's 23 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: We're "Minding Your Business" this morning. Where will you drop off your mail next year? You may have a problem because the postal service is announcing another round of huge cuts and mean to (ph) close 2,000 stations and branches in 2011, 500 closings are already under way. The postal service is blaming the internet, and companies sending out less junk mail because of the recession.

HOLMES: And could this be another sign that this country's automakers are getting a whole lot healthier? Well, GM, the sales are up, and now, they are adding another shift at their plant in Flint, Michigan. That will mean for the company will be able to hire back some 750 workers.

CHETRY: Moving on the right direction.

Well, Christine Romans is here "Minding Your Business" now. And you've been talking about this. An amazing turnaround for meeting and government bailout to being profitable.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Two years ago, we said that deal phrase as goes GM so goes the nation, and GM was bankrupt, and the government had to bail it out and because government motors. And now, GM has really turned itself around. And in fact, it is the top selling automaker in China. Last year for the first time ever, it was a first for this automaker in 2010. It sold 2.3 million vehicles in china.

Made in China with Chinese labor, I should point out, and Chinese parts mostly, and that compares with 2.2 million vehicles sold in the United States. Also, believe it or not, for 76 years, GM was the number one carmaker in the world, and then, it lost that mantle and became government motors. It looked like it couldn't even survive, and now, it was 30,000 cars away from overtaking Toyota to be the world's number one automaker last year.

So, you can see that GM has staged quite a turnaround here. So, China sales zooming past the U.S. One thing about the China part of that story that I want to point out is that the Chinese are very good at making sure that something sold within their country is made in their country with labor in their country. So, GM has had to partner up with other automakers in China, but it just shows you that there is an American brand that is doing well in china and that is GM.

Now, McDonald's also doing well around the world. McDonald's had to raise its prices last year in China because of higher commodity cost. And this year, we've likely see McDonald's raised prices in the U.S. Somebody was joking downstairs, (INAUDIBLE) dollar two now.

CHETRY: It's not a dollar in New York City. It's $1.49.

ROMANS: That's right. So, the average price increases could be something from two to two-and-a-half percent. The reason why is because just about every kind of commodity is skyrocketing. And when you look at the Commodity Research Bureau, a basket of commodities, it's some 19 or 20 commodities, everything from soy bean oil, the heating oil, the corn, the wheat, the pork bellies and all this, it's up dramatically more than 20 percent even just over the past few months. There you go. Take a look at that chart.

CHETRY: Yes. You said that sugar is up 90 percent?

ROMANS: Sugar is up 90 percent. I mean, it's just amazing. And now, the latest is that there's political issue in Ivory Coast in a country in Africa that mean that cocoa prices are going up. And so, that means your chocolate is going to cost a little bit more as well. So, you're noticing this. We're hearing that you're noticing it, but there you go. There is the down low on the food price issues. So, we'll keep following up for you.

HOLMES: Yes. Africa is number one producer of cocoa in the world. And now, they've got two presidents, essentially. One won't give up his spot after being voted out.

ROMANS: And one has halted all exports of this important commodity to starve the other of funding. Isn't that amazing?

CHETRY: So, this Valentine's Day, men, go with diamonds. Chocolate is too expensive.

ROMANS: We could talk about some of the issues with diamonds as well, but that's for another day.

CHETRY: Good with cubic zirconium. You're safe there.

(LAUGHTER)

CHETRY: She may never know.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: Christine, we appreciate you as always.

We'll give you a look at some of the stories we're keeping a close eye on, including some new information we're getting about the airport suicide bombing over in Moscow. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin -- excuse me, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is now vowing what he calls revenge, and he's using these words, and I quote, "retribution is inevitable" end quote.

This is the video, the new video we're seeing at the moment that it's happening. You see people just walking through the airport as normal and then that blast outside. This killed at least 35 people. We know that up to another hundred to 150 by some reports were injured.

Also, another great reason to quit smoking if you don't have enough already. There's a new study suggesting that cigarette can slightly increase the risk for breast cancer. They study more than 111,000 women. They were tracked between 1976 and 2006. The ones with any history of smoking were found to be 6 percent more likely to get breast cancer and also the age with which you start. They say that if women started smoking earlier, their chances went up even higher.

HOLMES: And astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of Gabrielle Giffords, has a tough decision to make. He needs to decide in the next would weeks, whether he is leaving his wife's bedside and rehab so he can become the commander of space shuttle Endeavour, which he was scheduled to do. This is Endeavour's final mission. It's not taking off until April, but the training for this mission is set to begin February the 7th. They do have another commander on standby, but he will have to make a decision if she is doing well enough he wants to leave her side.

CHETRY: His brother Scott made a good point he can complete his training in Houston because she is there and that makes it a little bit easier, but a couple weeks to decide.

Of course we have been following the Tucson tragedy. For Scott Kelly, the commander of the International Space Station, it's a family tragedy and one he has had to follow from space. He is the twin brother of astronaut Mark Kelly and the brother-in-law of Gabrielle Giffords.

HOLMES: We talked to him a bit ago and talking about the decision his brother has to make soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT KELLY, COMMANDER, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: You know, it's certainly, you know, a very serious decision, there's a lot of considerations, you know. He won't do it alone. He'll certainly, you know, discuss this with, you know, our leadership at NASA, with Gabby's family. I mean, he'll certainly consider what gabby would want in the situation.

And whichever way -- whatever he chooses, you know, I'll certainly support him. You know, with Gabby being in Houston, he could still be with her, you know, while he trains during, you know, in the mornings and in the evenings. So if he does choose to fly -- it would be different if she was treated somewhere else but she is in Houston and he could still be there to support her. Certainly not 24 hours a day, seven days a week like he has been doing, but as she continues to progress, a different level of support on his part might be acceptable.

It's certainly a horrible tragedy. Not just with Gabby but the other victims, the nine-year-old girl, Christina. You know, it's been tough, but, you know, I'm able to follow the news and talk to my brother and other friends and family members via the telephone we have on board and communicate with e-mail.

And actually watch -- watch the news. Actually CNN is the way I've been following the news as it unfolds. And so I'm able to keep in touch and I'm doing well with it. And I understand that in this type of, you know, situation, we all -- all of the people involved need to be strong and, you know, continue to do their best and kind of the situation they're in, and mine is here on the space station.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Scott Kelly has been at the international space station since October. He has been able to communicate, though, with his family on a pretty regular basis because of the beauty of technology.

CHETRY: Yes, amazing.

Well, there is certainly some exciting -- excitement building up. We are only about now four minutes away from the Oscar nominations. We have a live picture right now. They will announce them live coming up. We will have it for you right here on CNN. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: It's 36 past the hour. We are a couple of minutes away from Hollywood's big day. We are about to hear the nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards. We will see this happen, you will see this happen live right here. The awards ceremony is not until February 27th, but we are standing by for a couple of folks to step to the podium and give us the nominees.

CHETRY: And Belinda Luscombe, "TIME" magazine's editor-at-large is with us. This is the only time Hollywood wakes up at 5:30 instead of going to bed at 5:30, right?

BELINDA LUSCOMBE, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "TIME": I don't think they go to bed. Yes, that's right.

CHETRY: This will be very interesting because this is the second year that ten films are nominated for best picture. So an expanding pack of movies in there.

LUSCOMBE: That's right, which takes away some of the expense because there is all of the main choices get to win. All the same, the ninth and tenth spot, who is going to make it? There are a couple of independent movies would love to get an Oscar nomination to make a little bit of money. Not that "The Town" needs it. It did very well.

HOLMES: I was fascinated to talk to you behind the scenes. We didn't know how much effort goes into campaigning certain of the audiences and you win certain awards. This is a pretty much parlor game behind the scenes, isn't it?

LUSCOMBE: If TV doesn't work out for you, you can become an Oscar lobbyist. That means that around Oscar time you can make a living going to academy members and hosting parties and beginning to promote films. It's a lot like a political campaign. They know who the Academy members are and know where they live and how to persuade them.

And it means real money. A little movie like "Blue Valentine" does not have a lot of press can get more press and a lot more money if they get a nomination. They don't have to win an Oscar. They just need to get nominated.

HOLMES: Thank you for the career tip.

CHETRY: Also "The Social Network," this is a film that cleaned up at the Golden Globes and gotten a lot of accolades and been in the running for the best picket. They said they spent more money on the campaign for the film than they did actually producing it.

HOLMES: That's right, it will definitely be nominated. I will bet -- if I owned a farm, I would bet the farm.

CHETRY: There is the music. Let's listen to who is nominated.

SHERAK: Hello, everybody, good morning. I'm Tom Sherak, president of the Academy. Welcome to our home. We have some big news to announce this morning, and to help me, I'm very happy to welcome Academy Award winner Monique.

(APPLAUSE)

MONIQUE, ACTOR: Thank you, Tom! And good morning, everyone.

TOM SHERAK, PRESIDENT, ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES: The 2010 nominees for best performance by an actress in a supporting role are Amy Adams, 'The Fighter,' Helena Bonham Carter, 'The King's Speech,' Melissa Leo, 'The Fighter' Hailee Steinfeld, 'True Grit' Jacki Weaver, 'Animal Kingdom.'

Monique?

MONIQUE: Thank you. For best performance by an actor in a supporting role, the nominees are Christian Bale, "The Fighter," John Hawkes, "Winter's Bone," Jeremy Renner, "The Town," Mark Ruffalo, "The Kids Are All Right," Geoffrey Rush, "The King's Speech."

SHERAK: That's good. For best performance by an actress in a leading role, the nominees are Annette Bening, "The Kids Are All Right," Nicole Kidman, "Rabbit Hole," Jennifer Lawrence, "Winter's Bone," Natalie Portman, "Black Swan," Michelle Williams, "Blue Valentine."

MONIQUE: The nominees for best performance by an actor in a leading role are Javier Bardem, "Biutiful," Jeff Bridges, "True Grit," Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network," Colin Firth, "The King's Speech" James Franco, "127 Hours"

SHERAK: For best achievement in directing Darren Aronofsky, "Black Swan," David O'Russell, "The Fighter," Tom Hooper, "The King's Speech," David Fincher, "The Social Network," Joel and Ethan Coen, "True Grit."

MONIQUE: For best original screen play, the nominees are "Another Year," "The Fighter," "Inception," "The Kids Are All Right," "The King's Speech"

SHERAK: For adapted screen play, we have "127 Hours, "The Social Network," "Toy Story 3," "True Grit," "Winter's Bone."

MONIQUE: For best foreign film language -- for best foreign language film, we have Mexico - "Biutiful," Greece - "Dogtooth" Denmark - "In a Better World" Canada - "Incendies," Algeria - "Outside the Law."

SHERAK: For best animated feature film, the nominees are "How to Train Your Dragon," "Illusionist," "Toy Story 3"

MONIQUE: And, finally, I'm pleased to announce that the ten films selected as the best picture nominees for 2010 are "Black Swan" "The Fighter," "Inception," "The Kids Are All Right," "The King's Speech," "127 Hours," "The Social Network," "Toy Story 3," "True Grit," "Winter's Bone."

SHERAK: You're invited to join us on February 27th when we celebrate the very best that movies have to offer. We will see you then. Thank you.

MONIQUE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

HOLMES: All right. We were listening there, rejoined by Melinda. You reacted to several things there. What were some of the biggest things that maybe jumped out? Who just got snubbed?

LUSCOMBE: I don't like to talk about snubs. The surprise to me and always is a surprise is the best supporting actress. There's always one person never ever heard of and what is she doing here? And in this movie, it's the Australian actress who did a movie called 'Animal Kingdom,' Jackie Weaver. Nobody has ever heard of her. She plays a mother. And you notice a lot of actresses and supporting actresses the big roles this year have been mothers, in "The Kids are All Right," and "The Fighter." We seem to be thinking about motherhood in our movies and a lot of the nominees are that. On the male side a lot of people are playing real characters. Those are actual people that are being portrayed. The Academy seems to be acknowledging those.

CHETRY: That was interesting, the theme of the upper class versus lower class in terms of how some of these movies are set and cast, like "The King's Speech."

LUSCOMBE: Right, "The King's Speech" and -- and "The Social Network" are movies that are about the total elite of the elite.

CHETRY: Right.

LUSCOMBE: Ivy League, royal family. And then, a lot of other movies, "Winter's Bone."

CHETRY: "The Fighter" --

LUSCOMBE: "The Fighter" that set really among the much more gritty neighborhoods of America and very, very rural or very, very down-trodden urban areas. And those seem to be the two places. It looks like "The King's Speech" like the elite is going to win. But those -- those -- it seems to be that that's where -- the -- the interest is in the in the academy at the moment.

A big -- and I would never discount Harvey Weinstein who is a great academy campaigner. And you'll notice he did pretty well getting, I think, a nomination for Michelle Williams, "The Blue Valentine". So that's big. The big winner here though, is "Winter's Bone". Which nobody has probably seen, a very small movie, not made by a big company which I think got at least three or four nominations and did really well for the actress, the young actress, the actor and these are not stars by any means.

CHETRY: So you also pointed out interestingly enough that not a lot of movies this year were big money makers anyway besides "Toy Story", "Inception" and "The Social Network".

LUSCOMBE: That often happens with -- with the academy but you know, they beg for an "Avatar", a movie that everybody loved and will tune in for. But you notice that they chose Natalie Portman, you know, a lot of young actress who will bring people to the -- to the net -- to the telecast which is what they want.

Interestingly, they didn't choose Mila Kunis for "Black Swan" which she got a lot of attention for that and she seems to have dropped out.

So --

HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: All right, well, that's coming up next month. But we appreciate you being here -- being here and walking us through it. Belinda Luscombe, we appreciate you so much.

CHETRY: Thank you.

LUSCOMBE: Thanks so much.

HOLMES: All right, we're going to be talking weather with our Jacqui Jeras. A couple of storms you need to keep an eye on for us. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Hey there folks. We do have that picture we could show you outside. Word we're just getting; a lot of folks is going to have some travel issues today. Take a look outside New York and you'll understand why.

(CROSS TALK)

CHETRY: It's snowing.

HOLMES: We don't have that live. Forgive me. I just saw this picture a second ago. Forgive me for calling for it but outside, right outside where we are it's snowing and it's snowing pretty good. There's a ground stoppage they put in place at LaGuardia Airport that we know of now.

That means that folks who are trying to get to LaGuardia right now, they may have some issues on the tarmac. You might have some delays right now because people are not going to be taking off and heading this direction.

We do not know how long it's going to be in place. But for now at least at LaGuardia, we don't know if the other area airports will follow suit, but at least at LaGuardia a ground stoppage right now which means we're going to have some backups and some delays in many parts of the country because nobody is going to be allowed to take off heading this direction, at least LaGuardia any time soon.

CHETRY: Yes. And this is supposedly just the little preview system, the little weak system Jacqui was talking about before potentially a bigger storm heads our way.

Jacqui Jeras is keeping track of all of this for us this morning. Hey Jacqui.

JERAS: Hey, guys.

Yes, more travel issues expected tomorrow and Thursday with that next storm. And we think this is really is just going to be a morning problem though, by the way, at LaGuardia, as well as places like Boston because of those snow showers.

We also expect delays today, Atlanta and Memphis because of low clouds and some rain. Thunderstorms this afternoon for you, Miami and Orlando, and Chicago looking at delays maybe well, maybe 15 to 30 minutes due to some low clouds. Here is that system coming through, we've just got a nice big burst of snow coming down so it's going to come down heavy, accumulate a little bit but everybody should stay around two inches or less.

Here is the big storm that we're going to be tracking in the week ahead. We've got an area of low pressure developing and that's going to be bringing in some heavy rain across parts of the Deep South. We're expecting to have issues as a result of that and storms could become severe into parts of Florida as we head into the afternoon hours today.

Even the chance of tornadoes, yes, that's a good possibility. Storm is going to ride up the coast and it's going to bring windy conditions and that accumulating snow is going to be kind of a fine line for a couple of these cities in north -- in the northeast.

But we should definitely squeeze out somewhere between six and 12 inches for a few of you.

That's the latest on the forecast. We'll be back with more AMERICAN MORNING right after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, we're getting close to the top of the hour.

He is an international superstar. But this week's "Human Factor", Dr. Sanjay Gupta now reports on one of the Jonas Brothers who is not letting a medical setback stop him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Jonas Brothers have been one of the most successful young acts for the past several years, having sold millions of records and entertaining audiences all over the globe.

They just completed a world tour about a month ago, which took them from the United States to Argentina, Brazil, Europe, and the United Arab Emirates.

Now, shortly after the group signed their first recording contract, Nick, the youngest Jonas Brother, was diagnosed with type one or juvenile diabetes.

NICK JONAS, JONAS BROTHERS: I was diagnosed in November of 2005. So I was about 13, I lost 15 pounds in a total of about three weeks which was a bit startling considering I only weighed about 105 pounds to start with.

GUPTA: Nick was told his blood sugar was over 700. A normal level is below 125.

JONAS: My commitment to myself when I was on my way to the hospital was that I would not let this slow me down.

GUPTA: Nick has learned to live with his disease. And hasn't let it get in the way of the Jonas' Brothers success.

Two and a half years after his diagnosis on a day when Nick says his blood sugar was a little out of control, he wrote a song about having diabetes. He says writing "A Little Bit Longer" was therapy for him and fans have told him it's helped them cope as well.

JONAS: I think just the fact that I can say, look, you're -- you're just like everybody else, you can do what you want to do, and -- and -- and you can do it with diabetes, that's -- that's the best thing in the world.

GUPTA: Jonas says he is thankful to be able to do what he loves and uses his fame to educate people about the disease. With the Jonas Brothers Change for the Children Foundation, Nick has been raising awareness and funds for diabetes research for several years now.

JONAS: What we can do financially is great and I'm always happy to do that, but if there is something that I can do personally to inspire somebody, that means the world.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And Nick Jonas also a paid spokesman for Bayer which makes devices to monitor blood sugar levels. The company also helps him raise money for his foundation.

We're three minutes to the top of the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: We're exactly 12 hours away until the State of the Union tonight. So we'll all be watching and hopefully, you will be here on CNN watching as well. We have a big pregame and postgame.

HOLMES: Ok. 7:00 we get started Eastern time with the pregame part of it. The speech is at 9:00 and you have two responses to hear from the GOP; one from the Republicans officially and then another from the Tea Party, Michele Bachmann, their own little response they're having tonight. It should be an interesting night.

We need to hand this thing on down to Atlanta in the "CNN NEWSROOM" with Martin Savidge. It starts right now. Hey there, Martin.