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Multi-State Rape Suspect Nabbed; NFL Extends Deadline For Deal; Fighting Rages in Libya; High School Basketball Player Dies After Making Winning Shot; Transitional Council Headed by Libya's Former Justice Minister Meets in Benghazi; China Congress in Session; Is Your Country Happiest?

Aired March 05, 2011 - 15:00   ET

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

TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Authorities call him the East Coast Rapist and they blame him for at least 17 sexual assaults in four states. And today, a suspect in those crimes is in police custody arrested yesterday in New Haven, Connecticut. Investigators give credit to their Crime Solvers program and one anonymous tip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIRST SGT. KIM CHINN, PRINCE WILLIAM COUNT, MD. POLICE: In the last few days, the task force received an anonymous tip from a Crime Solvers caller as well as they were able to put some information together themselves and both of these things coincided at the same time and they came up with the name of a suspect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Police did not take questions at a news conference Saturday saying the investigation remains too sensitive for that at this point.

A grim story from northern Nevada. Rescuers have halted their attempts to rescue a 28-year-old man who fell down an abandoned mine on Wednesday. A camera sent down into the mine showed images of the man breathing and moving the hands, but a spokesman for the rescue effort says conditions are just too dangerous to continue.

A federal grand jury in Arizona has expanded the list of charges against Jared lee Loughner to 49. They include murder and attempted murder. He's accused of killing six people and wounding 13 others in an attempt to assassinate Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Speaking of Congresswoman Giffords, her office released a picture yesterday. This is one of the last images taken of the Congresswoman before she was shot in the head on January 8th. We're told the man you can just see over there on the left side of the picture was shot twice. He was not killed in the rampage.

Marisol Valles Garcia is unaccounted for. She made the news last year. You may remember her. Just 20 years old. She became police chief in one of the most violent towns on the U.S.-Mexican border. Now she has not been seen for several days. A Mexican newspaper reported yesterday that she had fled to the U.S. for safety. The mayor of her town says that's not so. He says she is on personal leave. In any event, we don't have any proof of where she is. Police officers and mayors in her region are frequently targeted by drug cartels.

There is still hope for a deal between the NFL and its players. The two sides agreed yesterday to extend the deadline for a new labor agreement until this time -- this time until March 11th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEMAURICE SMITH, NFL PLAYERS ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE DIR.: There's a commitment from both sides to engage in another round of negotiations at the request of the mediation service. We look forward to a deal coming out of that.

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: This is going to get resolved through negotiations, not through litigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: There's a lot on the table. They're trying to figure out how to hack up $9 billion in revenue. If no deal is reached, the league is expected to lock out the players. We'll have no season. It will be a mess.

In Michigan, what should be a day of celebration turned into a day of mourning. Sixteen-year-old Wes Leonard suddenly collapsed -- that's him, number 35 -- as his high school basketball team is celebrating a big win. Just moments before, the star athlete had made the game-winning shot ending a perfect 20-game season. Doctors tried to revive Leonard for nearly an hour and a half before he was pronounced dead of a heart attack.

Wes Leonard, as I'm sure you know, isn't the first teen athlete to die from heart issues while playing. Can we be doing more to care for these kids. Dr. Ken Milton is a sports physician at Emery University and he joins us to talk a little bit about this kind of issue.

Let me ask you a question about this. We all let our kids go out and play sports. They go through some kind of basic physical very often, that sort of thing. Is that enough? It is reasonable? It is not?

DR. KEN MAUTNER, EMORY UNIVERSITY SPORTS PHYSICIAN: Well, every state does mandate you go through a pre-participation evaluation before you play a sport. And in that evaluation, there are specific questions that are supposed to pick up for these screening tools for sudden cardiac death and the conditions such as these.

That, coupled with the physical examination where you may listen for murmurs or abnormal heart sounds, is the way we've been doing this. But to answer your question, some advocate electrocardiograms, or EKGs, should be part of the routine screening as well.

FOREMAN: Would that have detected this kind of condition? MAUTNER: Most likely it would have detected this condition. Yes. There are a lot of variables in terms of things to look for in EKGs and there are some things that need to be worked out before this could be a widespread implementation. But they can pick up stuff like this on an EKG.

FOREMAN: If a child has any kind of a heart issue of any sort that's detected, are there some sports that are still kind of OK or does it pretty much take anything off -- off the table?

MAUTNER: Well, any sport that really engages the heart where you're going to put some strain on the heart puts you at risk for sudden cardiac death if you have --

FOREMAN: So rowing, cycling, football.

MAUTNER: That's correct.

FOREMAN: Running.

MAUTNER: Pretty much anything where you're going to be engaging the heart and putting strain on the heart. But unfortunately most of these kids don't present with symptoms until the time of death.

FOREMAN: Well, that's one of the real problems about this kind of death, isn't it? This is the -- this is the kind of thing that -- what is it, the old saying -- often the first symptom is sudden death.

MAUTNER: That's correct. So, we need better tools then try to screen for this to maybe help prevent this from occurring in the future.

FOREMAN: Do you think that we are anywhere closer to that kind of thing? Because I understand on one side there's -- this is obviously a huge tragedy. People don't want to see it again and same time people say there's only so much you can do. Sometimes these things happen.

MAUTNER: Well, this is a very rare condition, but there are screening protocol that they use in Italy, which they've been using for years, where they will do EKGs on all their athletes and they have shown that it has worked and saved lives.

FOREMAN: When you look at the situation with this young man and what happened there, your general take on it is that with further steps it might have been prevented, but even then you're only talking about a might have been, right?

MAUTNER: That's correct. Sometimes you really just can't do anything about it and, unfortunately, these tragedies do happen sometimes.

FOREMAN: If you could change one thing about high school kids' sports out there to make them somewhat safer for kids, what would you change? MAUTNER: Well, I think it's reasonable to start to move into the direction of doing further screening beforehand. But, at the same time, when you start doing further screening, you're going to be taking a lot of kids out of sports who might be perfectly safe because you can have false positive results on some of these tests. So there's a give and take with every scenario that we try to implement.

FOREMAN: All right. Well, thanks so much. Ken Mautner is a sports physician at Emory University, a great university, and obviously a very exciting field in many ways to be in because so many of us are so active in our various sports.

MAUTNER: Thank you.

FOREMAN: Yes. We appreciate you coming in. Thanks so much.

We have some breaking news. More news out of Libya where things continue to evolve or devolve, depending on how you look at it. The transitional council formed by the opposition has held its first meeting. This is important in many ways than just in terms of putting a political structure in place to deal with what's happening and what may happen next.

CNN's Arwa Damon just arrived in Benghazi where the council is meeting. Arwa, what do you know?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, Tom, we do have a copy of this interim -- of this decree issued by the interim transitional and national council. They held their first meeting earlier today. It's Saturday in Benghazi --

(AUDIO LOST)

FOREMAN: I'm afraid we just lost Arwa Damon there. But we're going to try to get her back because, as I mentioned, this is an important part of all of this.

We've seen it in Egypt and in Tunisia and we're seeing it now in Libya as well. It's not just a matter of people protesting, it's a matter of what they're going to do if they succeed with their protests. And this type of meeting, although it may not be as exciting in some ways as other things, is really one of the more important parts of whether or not they can put together a government that works once all the protesting is done.

A family is commonly defined by people of common ancestry or those living under the same roof. In a moment, learn how one New York woman is gaining hundreds of family members and why that makes a difference.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Take a look at this. This is a roadblock in the western city of Zawiya, about 35 miles from Tripoli in Libya. This is important. The anti-government protesters are celebrating claiming to have prevented pro-government forces from taking over there. This town has been particularly contesting the past few days.

Witnesses say the troops loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi withdrew from central Zawiya after intense clashes with rebels. We're going to check in with Arwa Damon. We had her a moment ago. Now she's back. She's been covering a meeting of sort of a provisional council there.

Arwa, tell me what you were trying to say before we lost you about the importance of this group meeting now.

DAMON: This is a very significant development in terms of the opposition trying to set up something of a shadow government. They have established the interim transitional national council which held its first meeting in Benghazi. They put out a statement saying that the council is authorized and that it declares itself the sole representative of all of Libya. And basically they're trying to put themselves forward as being an entity which can then negotiate with the international community.

Very critical to them at this stage that they be recognized as legitimate by the international community. They have, in fact, set up a team that has been given the right to negotiate and communicate with all members of the international community itself.

Now the council is being headed by Mr. Mustafa Ajleil (ph). He is the former minister of justice. We were told that he is considered acceptable to the people of the opposition because he was always considered to be a voice of moderation and, in fact, tried to resign a number of times on Gadhafi himself. And he was among the first senior- ranking individuals of Gadhafi's government to defect and join the opposition.

This decree that was issued names eight other council members. It also states that they have additional members from eight other cities who are not being named for their own security pending the statements as the liberation of all of Libya.

This is a council that is open to all the cities. It says that they are waiting for names and delegations from Tripoli, the southern areas and the central areas. Its aim is to try to consolidate all of the efforts on the local level and try to form a legitimate entity moving forward.

FOREMAN: All right. Thanks so much. Arwa Damon. Important news there from Arwa who's doing some great work over there. We'll keep you apprised on what else we know about this group as the weekend goes on.

What's happening in Libya is of course being watched everywhere including in China. The people's congress is in session in Beijing. Let's talk to Ralitsa Vassileva about it. She's here from CNN International. And talk to me about this in China. What are the priorities they're talking about now?

RALITSA VASSILEVA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the priorities are to raise income standards to keep people happy, to keep social stability. And also to put the economy on a different footing. Up to now, we've seen breathtaking growth of this economy. Now what they're talking about is shifting the emphasis to more consumer-driven economy, which I think would be good news for the United States which has always said, you know, we want to sell stuff to you, you know, but you -- you know, we keep buying your stuff. So they're trying to move away from the cheap (ph) factory-produced stuff that they're exporting to make money.

FOREMAN: Is there a sense, as they have this meeting this weekend, though, that they are watching like these events in the Mideast? When they talk about things like happiness and satisfaction, boy, that sounds a lot like, we see what happens if people get upset enough.

VASSILEVA: Yes, it is so interesting, Tom, for the first time I'm reading that the leadership -- the Chinese leadership is telling officials, you are going to be judged according to how happy your constituents are. And it's coming from a recent survey on happiness which found that only six percent of Chinese say that they're happy. Only six percent.

Forty percent of them they say they tie their happiness to wealth which is not unusual globally when you look at surveys like that. There is a strong correlation, connection between how well off a country is and how happy its people are.

So they're trying to address this. And another priority they have set themselves is to address rising inflation. Prices of food and other basic food stuffs (ph) have risen 10 percent. So since a lot -- millions of Chinese spends almost half of their income on food, you can well imagine what a big problem that is for the Chinese leadership.

So these are the main priorities they're setting themselves as they watch what's happening in the Middle East. And there have been anonymous calls on the Internet for people to gather every Sunday and just, you know, not protest but just as a demonstration.

FOREMAN: Really?

VASSILEVA: It hasn't picked up speed, but the leadership is trying to preempt any protests by addressing -- preventively addressing people's concerns about the income gap, about corruption.

FOREMAN: Sure. It's funny you said the officials are going to be judged on how happy the people are here. Judging from our polls here, we have a version of that too, it's called elections and people haven't been very happy here. They've been throwing people out left and right. Are we a happy country?

VASSILEVA: Well, it's interesting. There was a Gallup poll which shows the United States is kind of happy, but it's, you know, being the richest country in the world, it should be doing better than 14th place.

The happiest countries, Tom, are the Scandinavian countries: Denmark, number one. Eighty-two percent of the people there say, we're happy. We're content with our lives. However, there's a very interesting observation. Number six is Costa Rica, a tiny little country ahead of the United States. Which the United States comes 14th. Tiny little Costa Rica comes in sixth. And that has something to do with family, with relationships, with -- that's kind of what makes Costa Ricans happy. And I was talking to a friend of mine. She said, well -- she's from Costa Rica -- and she said, well, we have such a beautiful country and we're just kind of laid back people and we have family and --

FOREMAN: Well, they are.

VASSILEVA: -- friends.

FOREMAN: I'm not sure why we were showing Miss Universe standing there next to all of that like she won. But, nonetheless -- yes, really. That's good.

VASSILEVA: Very interesting because the Gallup poll looked at two things. It looked at -- asked people, OK, look at yesterday. How happy were you yesterday in terms of being respected? How did you sleep? Things like that.

FOREMAN: Yes, sure, sure.

VASSILEVA: And so Costa Rica scored very high on that, the yesterday thing. While the people in Denmark and the other wealthy countries scored very well on how they see their lives overall.

FOREMAN: Fascinating stuff. Well, I'm always happy to have you here, Ralitsa. It's good to talk with you.

VASSILEVA: It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure.

FOREMAN: Hey, listen, coming up in just a minute, free lunch, ice cream and massages. Those are just a few of the reasons why one company is soaring with happy workers.

VASSILEVA: Happiness.

FOREMAN: There it is. It's one focus of my special report, "Building Up America." We're getting ready to hit the road again with a mid-country tour. But take a look at what we found in Nevada. It's coming up at the half hour. You don't want to miss it.

VASSILEVA: I'm looking forward to it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Who's in your family? Obviously, your mother, your father, brother, sister, people like that. But we found one woman who's expanding her family to include hundreds of people and that makes Amy Stokes, our CNN "Hero of the Week."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMY STOKES, CHAMPIONING CHILDREN: Calder (ph), are you going to help me do this other one?

In 2003, my husband and I went to Johannesburg and we adopted our son. HIV, AIDS has really decimated some of these communities. Seeing all of the children and so few adults to help them grow up. With none of the adults you care about has ever lived past 35, then why would you think you can? Why would you stay in school? Why would you invest in yourself?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I can see you. Tell me something that happened in school this week.

STOKES (voice-over): I had to find a way to bring the caring, nurturing effect of other adults for that child to invest in themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who's next?

STOKES (on camera): I'm Amy Stokes. I used the Internet to create a global village where the mentors and the kids can interact face to face on a regular basis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Jill, (ph) how are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How was your day at school? Did you work in the garden?

STOKES (voice-over): That mentor shows up every week. A relationship starts between one person here and one person there. And then that relationship expands.

(on camera): My mentor is so good. I like him very much.

(voice-over): Because they want to connect with that special someone, they're going to learn keyboard skills. The skills that they will need to have jobs and to be able to do whatever they need in the future.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's because I was nervous.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. I love you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Love you, too. Bye.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jill (ph) is part of my family and also part of my life.

STOKES (on camera): It's a bite-sized opportunity to change a world. And there's no commute.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: We would very much like for you to tell us about the heroes in your community. Send your nominations to CNN.com/heroes. More in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: All right. These pictures just in now from Rayne, Louisiana, from a tornado that touched down about 10:00 there this morning. We are getting word that as many as 50 people that have been injured with significant damage on the northwestern side of the town.

People are being evacuated now due to a gas leak in the area and the damage is rather extensive. We also hear there's some damage at the high school there. This was possibly the same tornado, or at least same parent storm, that caused some damage in Crowley, Louisiana, just before this. That was estimated as an EF-0 with winds about 65 to 85 m.p.h.

We've been keeping our eye on New Orleans as well where a severe thunderstorm warning has just expired so the immediate threat is over with now, but you still have a flood advisory in New Orleans. So lots of standing water in the area and a tornado watch remains in effect across the area until 4:00 local time.

Here you can see the radar and that line of storms now off to your east. Really nasty conditions all along I-10 here today. And we may be watching these thunderstorms head eastward with a new watch potentially later on for today.

Lots of rain from the Gulf Coast all the way up into the Great Lakes region. Flood watches and warnings continue to be in effect all across the area. This is going to be an ongoing story, not just through the weekend but likely in the months ahead as we continue to get these heavy rainmakers and all of that melting snow.

That's the latest on the weather situation. We'll break in if we need to if we get any more of those tornado warnings -- Tom.

FOREMAN: All right. Thanks so much, Jacqui.

At the top of the hour, the spreading chaos in Libya, now Saudi Arabia, hits U.S. drivers. Gas prices near record highs across the U.S.

But first, we're going to take a little trip out to Nevada. It's one of the hardest hit states in this great recession. Despite record high unemployment and foreclosure, however, we found an oasis of recovery. It's our half-hour special, "BUILDING UP AMERICA."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)