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Gingrich Criticizes Obama on Egypt; Cutting Taxes to Create Jobs; States Drowning in Red Ink; Standoff in Cairo; Murray Trial Will Be Televised; Ohio Frat Shooting Suspects In Court Today; Inmates Clearing Snow

Aired February 08, 2011 - 06:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

Arrested for organizing protests in Egypt, a Google executive is now speaking out. He talks about his arrest and who he says the real heroes are.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: A controversial ideas that would keep kids from texting sexually explicit pictures -- punish their parents. But does that really make sense?

HOLMES: Also, he was the little star of one of the Super Bowl's most popular commercials. Little Darth Vader gets to meet the original Darth Vader -- and the force will be with us on this AMERICAN MORNING.

(MUSIC)

HOLMES: Top of the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING, this Tuesday, February 8th. Glad you could right be here with us. I'm T.J. Holmes.

CHETRY: I'm Kiran Chetry. It's my daughter Maya's 5th birthday. So, mwah, happy birthday, baby.

HOLMES: Happy birthday.

CHETRY: Five -- goes so fast.

Well, another bone-chilling winter blast in places that simply can't take it or really afford it anymore. A hundred and fifty million people across 40 states need to brace for Arctic temperatures this morning and continuing on throughout the early part of the week. Even more snow is on the way in the Plains and in the South. Parts of western Kentucky already got another 10 inches. Crews can't keep up with another storm rolling in every four or five days, literally. And people are stocking up again in Oklahoma, where they are still clearing snow from one of the worst storms -- the third worst storm in their history.

HOLMES: Let's turn to meteorologist Rob Marciano, keeping an eye on things for us in the extreme weather center.

Rob, some of these temperatures we're hearing about, this sound dangerous. ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is, and in some areas, we'll see temperatures that will be 30 to 40 degrees below normal. So, another blast of Arctic air coming down from Canada. And preceding that, a couple of areas of disturbed and wintry weather.

First off, the Northeast, let's start with that. We are seeing some snow especially Upstate New York, and through northern Pennsylvania, and northern New England. New York City right now just some sprinkles and some rain. You've got to go up the thruway to probably about the Poughkeepsie before it turns over to snow. North of that and through Albany, Syracuse, and northern New England, we'll see anywhere from four to, in some places, eight inches of snow.

Temperatures on the I-95 corridor are fine, above freezing. So, that should be -- make travel this morning OK. We'll go below freezing I think tonight. Some of that rain will turn to snow.

And next order of business is this storm that's developing across the plains. Winter storm warnings posted for New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma, where we could see several inches of snow in those areas. And Dallas, after seeing the ice and snow, just prior to the Super Bowl, probably seeing more ice and snow tonight. We'll detail the amounts that we think are going to occur in those areas. Plus the dangerous cold air; temperatures in many spots tomorrow morning will be below zero.

Guys, back to you.

HOLMES: All right, Rob. We'll talk to you again shortly.

MARCIANO: Sounds good.

CHETRY: Meantime, thousands of protesters are forming a human chain in Cairo's Tahrir Square this morning, promising they will not until their president does. It's being described as a tense and dangerous standoff. These are live pictures right now.

Egypt's military police are reportedly cracking down on activists, stepping up arrests. Dozens of demonstrators say they've been beaten and detained.

Meanwhile, a Google executive who disappeared nearly two weeks ago has been released by the Egyptian government. It turns out that Wael Ghonim was the administrator of the Facebook page that helped organize the protesters in Cairo. That's something that he did not want to make public when he was seized by Egypt's military police in the dead of night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAEL GHONIM, GOOGLE EXECUTIVE (through translator): I was going to get a taxi, so I went one way, and I was walking down a straight road. And I found, all of a sudden, four people surrounding me. They were kidnapping me, and I yelled, "Help me." But, of course, I knew they were security forces. The thing that tortured me the most in detention was that people would find out I was admin of the page that was calling for protests. I didn't want people to find out that I was the admin, because I am not the hero. I was writing with a keyboard on the Internet, and my life was never exposed to any danger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: And Ghonim says that he spent his entire time in detention blindfolded, worrying about his parents because they didn't know where he was. He says he was not tortured and that he was treated with respect by his interrogators.

HOLMES: Meanwhile, President Obama has been getting plenty of criticism from those about how he's handling the crisis in Egypt. Now, he's getting some new criticism, some fresh criticism, from a former House speaker, Newt Gingrich, who says the president isn't ready for the pros on this. He's taking aim at the White House, his relationship with their own envoy, says they can't even get on the same page.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: Look, I think the fact that they appointed a very able diplomat, Frank Wisner, and within two days, were publicly contradicting him is -- you know, is so amateurish. Also, John Bolten last night, he said it's inconceivable that they would be this clumsy and this out of sync with -- just with themselves. Forget the Arab world. They can't get the White House and the special envoy to be on the same page.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, the envoy, you heard him, we heard to there, Frank Wisner, he was sent by the U.S. to Egypt to negotiate directly with Mubarak. Wisner publicly stated that Mubarak should remain in office for now in order to maintain order. But then the White House came back through the press secretary and said that Wisner does not speak for the administration.

Also, news to tell you about this morning -- the first lady, Michelle Obama, she is marking the one-year anniversary of her Let's Move campaign to reduce childhood obesity. We're expecting to hear from her over the next few days as she highlights the accomplishments over the past year. She'll also be in New York tomorrow for a speech to unveil a new national public service announcement.

CHETRY: And in just a few hours, we should know more about what caused sudden acceleration problems in Toyota cars and trucks that led to fatal accidents in some cases. The results of a 10-month investigation conducted by the Transportation Department and NASA will be unveiled today. Safety experts have blamed electronics on the Toyota and Lexus vehicles for the unintended acceleration. But Toyota has insisted that the electronic controls in its cars are safe.

HOLMES: Well, we all know you're born in this country, you are a U.S. citizen. But some lawmakers in Arizona want to change that, and the battle over birth right citizenship is getting underway. Lawmakers started yesterday hearings on a bill to end citizenship for U.S.-born kids of illegal immigrants.

However, it didn't get far because the sponsor of that bill pulls it for now, didn't want to have a vote because it appeared he did not have the votes he needed in committee.

Meanwhile, as some of the protesters seeing here, kids of illegals were out protesting. They wanted to be able to testify at the hearing.

CHETRY: Well, a brazen smash-and-grab robbery attempt in North Hampton, England, foiled by an elderly woman and her handbag. Now, check the video. There you see her arriving on the scene. She's wearing a red coat, running.

The robbers are armed with sledgehammers. She hits one guy so hard that he actually fell off of his scooter. Hold on. We're going to see in a second here.

Folks nearby jumped in to help including a guy who actually filmed the attack. There you see her hit him. Wait. OK, there he fell.

There's some talk suggesting the video could be a fake, OK. But police say they're taking it seriously. Four of the six men are now in custody.

So, if the guys are in custody, how can it be fake?

HOLMES: Well, the problem is, there was a guy standing by, watching an old woman do what he needs to help do. If you're going to pull a robber, you don't get this old little woman, you know, put herself in danger like that, you want to just shoot the video.

CHETRY: Well, there's a difference between common sense and fake. But it will be interesting to see what happens with this one.

HOLMES: Yes.

CHETRY: Super Bowl XLV, they said it was going to be the highest ratings ever, and it was. A hundred and eleven million people watched the Sunday Super Bowl on Fox. That would be -- 111 would be the lowest rating. Making it the most-watched program in TV history. That's right. It broke the record set by last year's Super Bowl.

And in case you're wondering, that game beat the 1983 series finale of "MASH." In Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, nearly 60 percent of TVs were tuned to Super Bowl XLV.

HOLMES: The teams as well have made it home. Green Bay showed up with a trophy. Pittsburgh went back empty-handed. But this is Green Bay Packers -- they had thousands of fans, as always. We see year after year, fans will come out to support their team. But they brought the Lombardi trophy back to Lombardi Avenue. That's the street there where people were lined up. They will have a big rally at Lambeau Field a little later today.

And as I mentioned, the Pittsburgh Steelers, as we know, they are empty-handed right now. But they did make it home. They had a lot of folks supporting them, as well.

They are the winningest Super Bowl franchise out there. They've won six Super Bowls in their history. A headline in one of the local papers said, quote, "Seven Can Wait."

CHETRY: Oh, they look sad, though, wandering down the plane, holding their own luggage. No one's cheering.

HOLMES: Yes, because 111 million people saw them lose the other night.

(LAUGHTER)

CHETRY: Well, 400 didn't, though. These were fans who paid for their tickets, flew out to Dallas, so excited. Only to be told, sorry, you don't have seats. So, they will now be guests of the NFL at next year's Super Bowl. That makes everything right, right?

HOLMES: Not a bad consolation prize. That's not bad.

CHETRY: You're going to see your team play and you can't get a seat. But you can go next year and watch some other teams win.

Commissioner Roger Goodell says that problems with the construction of hundreds of temporary seats was a failure on the league's parts. He's not blaming the owner of the Dallas Cowboys who wanted to set a record of attendance. The NFL says it will apologize to the fans who were impacted.

HOLMES: All right. Well, let's turn to a happier note on Super Bowl Sunday. The little guy, new Darth Vader. Six-year-old Max Page, you know this guy by now -- there he is doing his force. But he's doing it there, as you saw, with James Earl Jones, who was the voice of the original Darth Vader in the movies.

He got to visit James Earl Jones on Broadway. He, of course, James Earl Jones, starring now in a Broadway play. But the little guy says everybody's been asking him to do "the force." It's getting a little annoying, but he just roll with it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAX PAGE, NEW DARTH VADER: Yes, it hurts your hands. But I can't -- I don't get tired of it. It's fun.

JAMES EARL JONES, OLD DARTH VADER: Pretend. That's the fun of being an actor; fun part of being a child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Oh, that voice, still just fantastic, is it not? And, of course, James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader in all the "Star Wars" movies. Max's commercial, though, the Volkswagen commercial, has about 20 million now YouTube views. He will be here in studio with us, coming up in our 8:00 Eastern Hour.

CHETRY: Got a little present for him. And, yes, we will make him do the force. He loves it. He doesn't care.

HOLMES: He loves it, really.

CHETRY: He said it's fun.

HOLMES: Yes, this will be the one that says, ladies, stop.

CHETRY: No, leave me alone.

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: Well, coming up, take a look at the screen now. If you're running around your house, look at this caught on tape, folks.

CHETRY: My gosh.

HOLMES: Someone -- you can't tell there, but let me tell you, they are going the wrong way on a highway. Can you imagine what happens next? Of course you can. We will show this to you. It was all caught on camera.

CHETRY: Also, a proposal to combat teen sexting. This one is taking aim at the parents.

HOLMES: Also, how's this sound for a deal? A thousand dollars for a home. We'll tell you where this is happening, why it's happening, and the hope that it could revitalize one great American city.

It's 11 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, a quarter past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.

The final results are in. And it's official - the world is going to be welcoming in the newest country. Take you to Sudan. This is where the vote is in, and some 98 percent of people in the south have voted to secede from the north which will in effect create a new country. I don't know exactly what the new name will be called. Some are saying South Sudan. Some other options out there as well.

But the Sudanese President Omer Al-Bashir, he has accepted the result. This comes now after more than two decades of civil war that saw millions of people killed and displaced. Still, they have to work out the revenues, the south has most of the oil revenue. So still some - some deal making needs to be done. But as a result of this vote now, the U.S. will remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

CHETRY: Big step, certainly. Well, it is back to business for astronaut Mark Kelly. You can see Kelly right now getting settled back into his post. He's commanding the shuttle Endeavour's final mission during Monday's training exercises. There he is. He's been on personal leave, of course, after his wife, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot during that rampage in Tucson last month.

Kelly's decision to rejoin his crew came after Giffords showed amazing improvement. Endeavour is expected to launch in April.

HOLMES: OK. Now, on the heels of what happened to Gabrielle Giffords, so many people were talking about civility, we need to tone it down in politics.

Well, listen to this. You're seeing video here of a man who is now - who've been fired. Let me make sure I got the right guy I'm showing you here. But this is Rudy Martinez. He's actually an opponent out there in Los Angeles for a city - for a city council spot. OK. This is Martinez. I want to make sure I'm showing you the right person here, folks.

But what has happened in this campaign - a campaign manager has been fired from his opponent now because he sent out an e-mail that said they were going to, and I quote, "Put a political bullet in the forehead of Rudy Martinez." Now, that campaign manager has been fired.

But Martinez said that he actually felt threatened and did contact the police. His opponent, Michael Trujillo - the campaign manager, Michael Trujillo, he said he admits he made a mistake, is taking responsibility, but he has been fired at this point.

CHETRY: Well, this is the video we were showing you before, just a terrifying scene on a California highway. The guy in that pickup truck is an 83-year-old man speeding down the highway. The interstate, I-5 actually, a huge interstate, before losing control, going the wrong direction, and eventually he slams into an oncoming - oh, wow. You see that? He slams into an oncoming car right there. Coming up in a second. Caused a chain reaction, ended up totaling four cars.

But amazingly, there were no serious injuries. He hit the guardrail. OK. So it looked like he was swerving out of the way of a car, hit the guardrail, caused a chain reaction and ended up smashing a - you're right, it's a guardrail - smashing into four other cars. He has gotten his license suspended. Police say that he was confused about how he even ended up driving the wrong way on Interstate 5.

HOLMES: That's a scary scene.

CHETRY: It's amazing no one was killed.

HOLMES: Yes. Four - I think four people involved, but one person has to go to the hospital. Someone were treated on the scene, got to leave. But that's amazing to see that. There's an app for just about everything out there as we know. There's an app now if you need to confess your sins. Just costs you $1.99 to confess those sins. This app was divined - or designed -

CHETRY: Divined.

HOLMES: -- to help -

CHETRY: It's a good Freudian slip.

HOLMES: -- from some - from some Catholics with it's - it's designed to help Catholics through the confession process. This is not meant to replace going to see a priest in confessional, but they call it a personalized examination of conscience. This can help you keep up with the last time you actually went to confessional. It's actually designed to be used when you go into confessional, as well. This was sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Again, it does not replace going to see that priest and sitting down in that booth. Still, you need to see your priest for absolution.

CHETRY: All right.

Well, police in one New Jersey community are teaching parents how to hack into their kids' Facebook accounts. That's right, the Mahwah Police Department conducts seminars showing moms and dads how to install keystroke logging software. According to one report, the chief says he's concerned about kids being exposed to child predators online, among other things. They say, look, you wouldn't let your kids lock you out of their bedrooms. So why do you let them lock you out of what they're doing online.

HOLMES: Also, a new proposal in Texas to do with teen sexting. If you're not familiar with that is, that essentially means sending sexual images or messages to someone's phone. Now, this particular law is meant to lessen some of the penalties so a teenager wouldn't end up having to register as a sex offender. If a teenage person sends a sexually explicit image of themselves, they shouldn't be held accountable for that, some lawmakers are saying.

But the bill also would hold parents more accountable, and a judge can make a parent attend education classes with the teenager if the child is caught sexting.

CHETRY: All right.

Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, President Obama working to lower the corporate tax rate. Hoping that will spur job growth. But will it, and do companies really pay the corporate tax rate that you see in the paperwork?

Christine Romans "Minding Your Business".

HOLMES: Also, the former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is now slamming the Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Hear what he said.

It's 20 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: It's now 23 minutes past the hour here on this AMERICAN MORNING.

There's a new effort to try to revive the City of Detroit. The mayor is now offering homes for $1,000. He's offering these homes - renovated homes to police officers and firefighters. More than half of the city's police force lives outside the actual city limits.

The idea here is that you could get some of those police officers to move back into the city and in doing so they would have a presence in many of these blighted neighborhoods and could improve safety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR DAVE BING, DETROIT: Police officers living in their neighborhoods have the potential to deter crime, increase public safety, and improve relations between the community and our sworn officers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, the city is actually going to use federal stimulus money to fix up about 200 homes.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Some of those homes are beautiful.

HOLMES: Yes.

ROMANS: Big, beautiful, old homes from Detroit's heyday.

HOLMES: Yes.

ROMANS: Some of those neighborhoods, really the architecture's stunning -

HOLMES: And people move out of Detroit.

ROMANS: -- yes, but they're run down. So an interesting idea.

CHETRY: Well, this is a creative - a creative incentive and hopefully it will work.

Meantime, the stage has been set, as we've talked about before, for a bruising fight over corporate income tax rates. The United States has one of the highest corporate taxes in the world.

ROMANS: Right.

CHETRY: But it doesn't necessarily mean these businesses and corporations are paying that rate.

ROMANS: That's right. Good morning, you guys. You're going to hear a lot more about this.

The president - even yesterday when he went to mend the fences with big business, talking about how you can lower the corporate tax rate in this country, get rid of all the loopholes to pay for it, and then it will be a more fair situation for American-based companies so they can compete globally. You're going to hear a lot about this.

On paper, the corporate tax rate of this country, 35 percent is the federal rate. When you talk about the effective tax rate, you add in state taxes and stuff, it's 39 - 40 percent, a third of countries tax businesses more. But the U.S. in terms of - in terms of big countries has a big - a big tax rate.

But here's a question - are all these companies paying this big tax rate? Well, the answer is no, they're not, because of all those loopholes, loopholes that I could sit here for four hours and tell you about.

Carnival Cruise Line takes the advantage of a loophole that allows shipping companies to - to benefit from other ports of call, 1.1 percent there. Boeing pays a tax rate of 4.5 percent; Yahoo, seven percent; G.E., 14.3 percent. Of course, the CEO of G.E. is on the president's competitive council. G.E. is revered around the world as the company with the tax department that is the best of finding every kind of possible way to make sure that its tax bill is as low as possible.

So among the things that they can do is they can take losses from prior years and move them forward, just like you and I can do. And then there are just tons and tons of loopholes overall.

So you're going to hear a lot about companies crying foul, saying, look, they don't have, you know, their taxes are too high for them to make money. The question is, do lower taxes mean lower jobs? There's actually a bipartisan agreement to lower the corporate tax rate in this country, do they create jobs?

The Congressional Budget Office says no. Increasing the after-tax income of businesses typically does not create an incentive for them to spend more on labor. The Congressional Research Service recently found most evidence does not suggest that business tax cuts would provide significant short-term stimulus. But for competitiveness purposes, it looks like the president is willing to give this to business to try to get business to create jobs in this country.

HOLMES: OK.

CHETRY: So what's amazing, though, that, I mean, there are all these loopholes. So, you know, you can - you can -

ROMANS: There are so many loopholes. And when you talk - when you talk to companies, companies say we want a lower tax rate. And you see, yes, and we're going to get rid of the loopholes. Well, we want a lower tax rate and then we can talk about the loopholes later. I mean, they - they don't want their tax bill to go up.

For some of these companies, a lower tax rate getting rid of loopholes will mean higher taxes.

CHETRY: Right.

ROMANS: So, you know, it's an interesting fight that the White House is - is weighing into. But there is bipartisan support to make the U.S. tax rate - China's rate is much, much lower than the U.S.

HOLMES: All right. Christine, thank you this morning.

CHETRY: Next on AMERICAN MORNING, states drowning in debt. There's a theme here, right? Forcing to make tough decisions that could impact your bottom line. We're going to take a look at what's being cut to reduce the red ink.

HOLMES: Also, we know chips, pizza, junk food, not good for your kid. But it could actually make your child, well, not very smart.

It's 27 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC)

HOLMES: Bottom of the hour here on this AMERICAN MORNING. Good morning to you all, and good morning you to, Chicago.

Folks there are waking up to eight degrees this morning. And they're getting off pretty good compared to a lot of other places in this country who will see temperatures at zero and many others will see temperatures and wind chills that go as low as 30 below.

CHETRY: Yes, that's not feeling very good on the skin.

Well, it's going to be dangerously cold and we're not talking about just some portions but almost half the country. Lows in the single digits as far south as Texas. And more snow is on the way in the Plains and the South. As much as a foot expected across parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas.

The two Koreas sitting down this morning for the first time since the North threatened all-out war. The military talks took place inside the heavily-guarded demilitarized zone. It is the first meeting between the two sides since the North's deadly artillery barrage of South Korea's islands in November.

Well, they're accused of ripping off their city and its taxpayers to the tune of $5 million. Hearings are now underway to see whether former and current city council members in Bell, California, will have to stand trial. Eight people, including the mayor of the small L.A. suburb, are accused of looting the city treasury to pay themselves huge salaries and benefit. The city manager made almost $800,000, twice the salary of the president of the United States.

HOLMES: Well, we have been talking plenty here on AMERICAN MORNING about states just drowning in red ink. It's a concern that's affecting this nation and it could be affecting many states across this country for years to come. But how far can states go, should these states go to try to reduce their deficits?

Jim Acosta live for us in Washington this morning.

Jim, they have to get pretty creative.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They absolutely do, T.J., and fast. We've heard a lot about the exploding federal deficit, but with the economy plodding along and the stimulus program ending soon, many states are also facing steep deficits of their own, and that means budget cuts. Take a look at what some of the biggest states are up against. Just look at the map on your screen there.

Yes, the biggest states, Florida's budget deficit, $3.6 billion; Texas, $27 billion over two years; Illinois, $13 billion; California, $25 billion.

How are these states expected to deal with it? In Florida, they're talking about budget cuts and pension plan changes. In Texas, they're looking at cuts in education. Over in Illinois, there was a 67 percent income tax increase. California is looking at possible cuts in Medicaid and higher education. You get the idea.

And in a sign of the times, Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott -- get this -- he announced his budget cuts just yesterday at a Tea Party event, including a plan of his to require state employees to chip in a part of their income to pay for their own pensions. And he's talking about cutting taxes at the same time to help balance the budget.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA: Critics have said you can't cut taxes now. They repeat the same misguided claims we hear from, what's that city, Washington, D.C. They are wrong.

(APPLAUSE)

SCOTT: We will cut taxes now. And they should cut taxes now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: The Tea Party crowd liked what Rick Scott had to say.

Now, up in Connecticut, just as an aside, there's a proposal to cut the entire state legislature. That's right, the lawmakers who write the bills and sends them to the governor, they want to cut the legislature -- at least a few people up there want to cut the legislature in half. And the governor up in Connecticut, T.J., quipped "did I get to decide which half?"

HOLMES: You can imagine some folks in Connecticut might like that idea, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes.

HOLMES: But you mentioned Tea Party several times in your reporting there. Town hall coming up for them tonight? ACOSTA: That's right. You know, the Tea Party is a fast-moving force in American politics right now. And so, Tea Party-backed members of Congress are holding their first Tea Party town hall at the National Press Club here in Washington tonight. And one of the featured speakers will be Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, who has come up with a pretty bold plan of his own to cut the deficit. The federal deficit, that is, by $500 billion.

And here are some of his proposals. Take a look this. This will make your eyes pop out. He wants to talk about eliminating the Department of Education, cuts at the Department of Agriculture at $42 billion; treasury, $4 billion; energy, $50 billion; housing and urban development, $50 billion.

He's also talking about cutting foreign aid to countries like Israel as an olive branch to Democrats. He's also suggesting that there be deep reductions over at the Pentagon.

So, no sacred cows there in that budget plan. And he'll be talking about it tonight. It's all setting the stage for when the budget is unveiled by the president next week. So, the battle lines are certainly being drawn, T.J.

HOLMES: All right. Jim Acosta for us this morning in Washington -- Jim, thank you as always.

And coming up a little later, next hour, 7:00 Eastern Time, 7:15 Eastern specifically, we're going to be talking to the governor of Florida, Rick Scott, about his plan for leaner government -- Kiran.

CHETRY: All right. And former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with some sharp criticism for an old colleague in the Bush administration. He had an interview that aired on ABC this week. Rumsfeld took aim at former Defense Secretary Colin Powell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: He did not, in my view, do a good job of managing the people under him. And there was a lot of leaking out of the state department. And the president knew it. And it was unhelpful. And most of it ended up making the State Department look good. We didn't do that in the Pentagon. I insisted we not do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Rumsfeld is promoting his new memoir titled "Known and Unknown."

HOLMES: Well, the standoff in Cairo continues. The protesters still refuse to leave the square. And some are suggesting the military might be moving in to crack down.

CHETRY: Well, we know they're annoying, they drive you crazy, especially in the fall and the spring. But apparently, there's something good or perhaps good about having allergies. We'll explain, coming up.

Thirty-six minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Thirty-nine minutes past the hour right now.

And protesters continue to form a human chain. This is in Cairo's Tahrir Square this morning. They're refusing to leave unless Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, goes first.

HOLMES: We're getting reports now that the military is now ramping up a crackdown, reports of arrests and beatings.

Our Arwa Damon live for us in Cairo. We just lost our Arwa Damon actually.

We -- again, we're dealing with and there have been some points where we have trouble getting our signal out, in and out because of a crackdown on the media, we're told. That's getting a little better, the situation with reporting out of there now.

But our Arwa Damon, I'm told now, is back with us.

Arwa, if you can hear me all right, please, it's not the best picture. We'll try to bear with it for a second. If you can hear me, just tell me the headline.

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The crowds in Tahrir Square are steadily growing. And we heard them standing firm in their demand that President Mubarak step down, chanting "illegitimate, illegitimate," after the country's newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, came out on state television saying that President Mubarak had recently signed an order to form a court to -- a committee to look into these constitutional amendments people have been calling for, also vowing to bring an end to these detentions that have been seeing and allowing freedom of speech to take place.

But this -- even though these still appear to be some sort of concession, the crowds is very firm in what they're demanding. They're sensing the crisis -- the worst of the crisis is perhaps yet to come. We do see a sense of normal life returning. Traffic congested.

But normal here has greatly been redefined, T.J. We were speaking with a young group of volunteers packaging food to send it out to the more impoverished parts of the country. And they were saying that their number one concerned with the economic blow that Egypt was taking, according to one bank, losing up to $300 million a day. They said that (VIDEO GAP) the democratic revolution turning into a crude revolution, T.J.

HOLMES: Thank you there, Arwa. We heard the end of that report. Some issues with our signal. We apologize for that this morning. We'll continue to give update as we get them out of Egypt. CHETRY: Also for some Texas students, their class schedule not only math and science, but Arabic required as well. The Mansfield District wants two of their schools in the district to require an Arabic language course. For others, it would be optional. In fact, they were awarded $1.3 million federal grant to launch this program. School officials say it's because Arabic is the language of the future.

HOLMES: Well, still to come this morning, we're telling but another winter storm that's developing in the Midwest. Our Rob Marciano keeping an eye on things for us.

Also, one man gets revenge after he caught somebody stealing his shovel. You're going to love this one. It's 42 minutes past the hour.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, everybody. We are Third Day (ph) and we are "Road Warriors." Two, three, four --

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CHETRY: Good Morning, Washington, D.C. Beautiful shot this morning of the nation's capital. Right now, it's 38 degrees, feels like temperature there 29 because of the winds. A little bit later, it's staying the same. Thirty-eight degrees for a high today, as well.

HOLMES: New to us this morning, the trial of Michael Jackson's former doctor, you'll be able to see it. It will be on TV. Dr. Conrad Murray is his name. He's accused of giving Michael Jackson a lethal dose of Propofol which led to the singer's death. The judge has moved up the date, as well. It's supposed to begin now on March 24. Expected to last at least six weeks. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter and has entered a plea of not guilty.

CHETRY: Two suspects behind a deadly shooting rampage at an Ohio University fraternity party head to court today. It happened at Youngstown State back on Sunday this week. Police say the two men were kicked out of the party. Later returned, opened fire, killing one person. Eleven others were hurt. Officials say areas near the college were prone to violence and that party-goers are often patted down to make sure they're not carrying weapons.

HOLMES: Also, ahead, power outages throughout Northern New Jersey caused a bit of a fit at Newark Airport yesterday. A lot of flights had to be delayed. Some travelers got stuck on elevators, as well as on the monorail. The outage affected 20,000 homes. Power was restored, though, within 90 minutes.

CHETRY: Here's a problem. Ice forms, and then, it has to melt, sometimes, with dangerous consequences. The snow may have stopped, but the impact in Boston is still being felt. Ice and freezing snow slid off of a building yesterday and smashed into two cars, at least. The weight at the snow just caving in the windshields, causing the car's roofs to cave in, as well. No one was in the cars at that time. No one was hurt.

Also, just outside Boston, authorities are putting their inmates to work, making them shovel sidewalks and rooftops. They say it's a cheap way to clear the snow because of tough financial times. The prisoners are low-level offenders. They've been screened, and they've also been gone through several rehabilitation programs. Massachusetts is already 22.5 million over in their snow budget.

HOLMES: You know the saying, revenge is a dish best served cold. That's exactly how David Wells served it up. This was in Chicago. He's a camera salesman. A surveillance camera sales guy. He caught a neighbor. There she is. She scoops up his shovel. The problem is she never brought it back. Now, who knows if she forgot it or what, but she needed -- everybody needs a shovel right about now.

She found one. She took it. She didn't bring it back. David, though, served up really cold revenge. Look at what he did. After she shoveled out all of that snow from her car, he used his snow blower, and he just buried her car in a mound of snow.

CHETRY: That took some effort to shift the direction of the snow was going. He had to make sure he taped himself.

HOLMES: I'm liking this guy. The woman, we don't know whatever happened with her, however. She, apparently, returned, used a broom to brush the snow off her car. It took her about four hours. We still don't know what happened to his shovel.

CHETRY: This could be a good war of the roses-type thing. We'll see what happens next, but I mean, it's a $10 shovel. Do you have to go that crazy? Bury her car?

HOLMES: It's the principle. The -- if the shovel was free, there's a principle involved and supposed to bring it back.

CHETRY: Let's check in with Rob Marciano in the Extreme Weather Center. I love the fact that he's a camera salesman, right? So, we have those cameras opened. He taped himself doing that whole entire thing.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Clearly, he's got his place rigged with security cameras for just such an offense.

CHETRY: Exactly. The squirrels better watch out in that area. You never know.

MARCIANO: There are little delicacies or intricacies with using a shovel. I mean, a shovel will get your car out, but you know, a snow blower's not going to have that sort of agility. So, I can see why he'd be upset and taking necessary precautions or retributions, I should say, after that.

Forty degrees right now in New York, but 12 in Chicago, so the snow from the blizzard last week sticking around, over 50 inches of snow for the fourth year in a row in Chicago. So, snow shovels and snow blowers in high demand, no doubt about that. And we've got another batch of cold air coming in. Minus seven right now in Minneapolis. So, the longer term trend here over the next couple of weeks is for us to see some warmer temperatures.

But before that happens, we've got some cold air to get through. There it is. We've got one, two storms that are -- we're dealing with. The first one across the northeast. It is mostly a wet event. You saw the temperatures across the I-95 corridor. So, it should be mostly just some rain and some sprinkles here, but north of, say, I- 84, talking about maybe three to six inches in some of these spots, Northern New England, upstate New York, so a bit of a slow go this morning.

Winter weather advisories out until about noontime. Bigger deal out here in Oklahoma, parts of western Arkansas, the next system that's dropping down out of the Colorado Rockies, and this is what is leading the charge with our next batch of cold air. One to four inches of snow and sleets potentially across Dallas beginning tonight, and six to ten inches in Oklahoma City.

We take you, though, to Sapporo, Japan where, you know, the Sapporo snow festival is a big deal there. It's been going on since 1950. 200 sculptures. 2.4 million people came this to see this thing last year. So, you know, if there's a lesson to be learned from our friends of the far east is to embrace what Mother Nature gives you. So, that's my message this morning. The folks who are buried in snow. Don't go stealing that snow shovel. Build yourself a nice little snow sculpture, and, you know, invite your friends over.

CHETRY: Exactly. That's pretty good sculpting, by the way, that face -- MARCIANO: Beautiful stuff.

CHETRY: Amazing. All right. Thanks, Rob.

HOLMES: Thanks, Rob.

Coming up, we are going to check in with the first lady on the one- year anniversary on her fat-fighting initiative.

CHETRY: Also, there's a new twist on the phrase "Band of Brothers." Five sets of brothers, one marine battalion, all now headed to the front lines in Afghanistan.

HOLMES: Also today, singles, would you believe, it's actually men who want babies and commitment. It's women who want their independence and even see value in one-night stands. Dating just got a little more complicated. It's nine minutes until the top of the hour.

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CHETRY: Welcome back. "A.M. House Call" right at 55 minutes past the hour. A link between smoking pot and mental illness. This is a study out of Australia that looked at patients who suffered from psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, and researchers found that symptoms began three years earlier in people who have smoked marijuana at a young age. They say the link was strongest in pot smokers ages 12 to 15 years old.

HOLMES: Also, some good news, possibly, for allergy suffers? Your allergies might protect against brain cancer. That is results from research done at the University of Illinois and Chicago. They studied the most common type of brain tumor, and the study says that people with allergies have overactive immune systems that may help to fight off cancer.

CHETRY: And parents, you'll want to hear this next story before you make breakfast or perhaps grab your breakfast at a drive-thru. Study out of England found that young kids who had a diet that was high in fat, in sugar, and in processed foods said to have a slightly lower IQ by the time they hit eight years old. On the flip side, children who ate a healthier diet had a slightly higher IQ. Researchers say it is a weak link but a reminder that what happens early in a child's development can have an important impact later in life.

HOLMES: All right. Coming up to the top --

CHETRY: I love they show glazed doughnuts at the ending shot.

HOLMES: It sounds all good, but I think probably just kids who are smarter naturally, they know probably better than to eat that food.

CHETRY: Maybe.

HOLMES: That's probably just kids.

Stick with us, folks, on this AMERICAN MORNING. We're going to reset here at the top of the hour. Stay here.

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