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American Morning
Ocean Radiation Spiking; First Images Of Mercury; Baby Bald Eagle Cam!; Rebels Pushed Back From Key Libyan Oil Port; Real Estate Markets Will Soon Recover, Says Analyst; Contaminated IV Bags; Bringing the Thunder
Aired March 30, 2011 - 07:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Rebels on the run in Libya.
I'm Christine Romans.
Gadhafi forces delivering another blow to the opposition this time in Ras Lanuf, in eastern Libya, a critical oil port.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Ali Velshi.
Radiation in the seawater near the crippling Japan's nuclear plant -- well, that radiation is more than 3,000 times higher than normal. And now, the head of Tokyo's power company has checked in to the hospital.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry.
A deadly bacteria spreads through hospitals in Alabama. It came from tainted I.V. bags. Now, the CDC is taking action -- on this AMERICAN MORNING.
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ROMANS: Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 30th.
Right now, we are watching the Syrian president address his people. More than two and a half hours late. He is calling for unity in his country as the wave of unrest continues in the Middle East.
VELSHI: No big surprise coming out of that speech.
CHETRY: And we are also watching closely. They are trying to get to the bottom how this could happen. Nine people -- nine critically ill patients died because of tainted I.V. bags. And we'll bring you the latest on that as well.
VELSHI: And, of course, what's going on in Libya that Christine just told us about. Let's begin there.
The last 24 hours have not been kind to the rebel fighters. They've been driven from key positions in eastern Libya, an area that they control.
We're highlighting the town of Ras Lanuf there, right in the middle. On the left, you have Tripoli. On the right, you have Benghazi. They are under assault again this morning from pro-Gadhafi forces in that strategic port of Ras Lanuf, that's where the oil pipelines go.
New pictures you're looking at right now -- just in to CNN -- showing rebels retreating about 40 miles outside the city of Ras Lanuf. Our reporters on the ground in Libya quoting the opposition saying the front line is fluid. According to Human Rights Watch, Gadhafi's forces are using landmines in the battle with rebel fighters. The group says two dozen anti-vehicle mines and three dozen anti-personnel mines were found just off a main road between Ajdabiya and Benghazi. Rebels have pledged not to use land mines. This is always a difficult thing because after a conflict is over, those land mines do damage for decades sometimes after.
And President Obama says he is debating whether to provide weapons to the Libyan rebels. This morning, British Prime Minister David Cameron echoing President Obama, refusing to rule out, arming the opposition but saying no decision has been made yet. We'll keep you posted on that.
CHETRY: Also happening right now, in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad addressing his country as protests rocked the Arab nation. And he attempts to cling to power. Al-Assad is blaming the uprising of enemies of Syria trying to undermine the government, including organized, as he calls them, quote, "killing groups" and says that Syria is the target of a worldwide conspiracy.
Now, he accepted the resignation of the cabinet yesterday, a move that other totalitarian nations recently made in an attempt to cool things down. But, again, the protests continue and human rights watchers now saying they can confirm at least 73 dead in connection with that. They say that it may be higher.
ROMANS: The president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company has been hospitalized. It seems all of the stress from the nuclear disaster in Fukushima is too much for Masataka Shimizu to take. We're told he's suffering from fatigue after days and days of this crisis. A spokesman for TEPCO said the executive's health is declining from overworking.
Investors are bailing on Tokyo Electric Power. The firm's shares dropped nearly 18 percent overnight. Since the earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11th, TEPCO's market value has been reduced by 80 percent.
VELSHI: Wow.
ROMANS: Take a look at these new aerial photos of the Daiichi nuclear power station in Fukushima. They show just how badly damaged these reactors are. These images were taken over a four-day span last week.
CHETRY: And, right now, radiation levels in the ocean near the Daiichi power plant are spiking to all-time highs. They are now registering than 3,000 times higher than the legal limit.
Martin Savidge is monitoring the latest developments from Tokyo this morning.
And, you know, you describe it pretty well as sort of seesaw of good news and bad news. These coupled with some worries about plutonium being released seem to be causing major concern today in Japan?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. I mean, just when you think you have some good news and the good news being the fact that they've been able now to start draining some of that highly radioactive water away from the basements of the turbine rooms and away from those electric tunnels, away from the spaces that the employees need to get to to start making some progress of getting things stabilized -- well, that's good news, of course. We've been waiting for that to happen.
And the company says it's finally begun. They found places to store the water and they're draining. It's probably going to take about four or five days. That's the good stuff.
The bad news is we get the readings out there in the ocean just off the Fukushima plant and we find out that, suddenly, they have skyrocketed. The trend had been going down. Saturday, the readings were about 1,500 times the legal limit. Of course, not good, but certainly headed in the right direction going down.
Now, we find that radio iodine is reading in a level of 3,300 times. That's a dramatic spike and the question is: Where is it coming from? The thoughts were it was coming from certain electric tunnels.
They were sandbagging them, sealing them, trying to get -- prevent any water from getting out. They did that. Yet, it's still getting in. So, that would imply somewhere else. There is another leak, Kiran.
CHETRY: So, we are hearing some of the harrowing stories of how difficult it is for those workers that are around the clock in there trying to head off, you know, this nation's nuclear disaster. Just about how difficult it's been for them.
SAVIDGE: Yes. This is very shocking actually because, of course, here in Japan and elsewhere, many of these workers up there, 400 or more, are really considered to be heroes, working the front line, trying to prevent an all-out nuclear disaster.
So, when you read that they are sleeping on mats in stairwells on the floor, that they're living altogether in one building, a kilometer away, that they work three days on, one day off, that they're eating crackers for breakfast and apparently some sort of can meal for dinner, it just was shocking because it again seems to imply that -- these are people that you think would get the best of everything because they need to do some of the hardest, most dangerous work. And yet, they seem to be getting leftovers.
And again, it just questions the ability of TEPCO to deal with a disaster, something so simple as providing for those who are up there at the plant.
CHETRY: Now, saying something about, you know, we're in hell, all we can do is crawl toward heaven. I mean, it is very, very dire in that.
Some are wondering, why don't they use robots? Can't they use robots in some of the most areas, some of the dangerous areas instead of human workers at the plant?
SAVIDGE: That's really a good question. I mean, we are in the land of robots. Japanese technology has very much led the way when it comes to robots.
But we are hearing that, actually, it's the U.S. Department of Energy that is flying over a specialized robot, one that is hardened against radiation, and this would be very crucial in that plant because if they use it, the way it could be done, it can map out areas of the plant, it can see with video cameras, it can detect radiation levels before you send human beings in.
Remember, they had that case of exposing working unknowingly to high levels of radiation. The robot could see and do all of this and seems a great way to protect many of those workers. It's being flown in. We don't know exactly when it will put to use, Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Martin Savidge for us in Tokyo -- thanks so much.
VELSHI: A terrifying and tragic situation of hospitals in Alabama. I.V. bags were contaminated with a deadly strain of bacteria that caused severe infections among 19 patients in six different hospitals. Nine of those patients died. The rest are still very sick.
The CDC has launched a probe to determine if the bacteria in those I.V. bags caused the deaths. Meanwhile, the I.V. bags have been recalled.
Our Elizabeth Cohen will join us live at the bottom of the hour with a closer look into that investigation.
ROMANS: It was a rough night for southern Louisiana. Powerful spring storms swept the region. It included heavy rain, large pieces of hail, hundred-mile-per-hour-plus winds, some even spotted a funnel cloud. The storm left plenty of damage behind. Power lines went down. Many roads were flooded out. Luckily, no reports of injuries.
CHETRY: Also, Rob Marciano is following all of this for us from the extreme weather center.
A-hundred-and-eleven-mile-an-hour winds you said clocked in some areas? What a mess!
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, not totally unpopulated. I mean, there's just a lot of folks that live down there between New Orleans and Venice and through Belle Chasse where that wind gust was reported. Lots of damage and luckily, as we said, no injuries.
Still, rough weather is moving across the same area. New Orleans is about to get hit with more thunderstorms, including down south across the mouth of the Mississippi. And then a tornado watch remains in effect for parts of the Florida Panhandle for the next couple of hours as those storms roll through. Luckily, the past two hours or three hours actually, no tornado warnings have been posted.
Atlanta is seeing lighter rain now than what we saw two or three hours ago. It was coming down, around two inches an hour and we have flooded roadways all over the place. There are delays being reported at the Atlanta airport right now.
The rain shield itself, or I should say precip shield, is trying to reach into the Beltway and up through the Northeast. And it will have more success doing that tonight and tomorrow, and there is some chilly air in place.
Forty-one degrees for the high temperature in D.C. and 51 degrees in New York City. It will be cold enough outside of the city, especially north of New York, to see some snow with this system as we approach the first day of April.
Back to you guys in New York.
ROMANS: All right. Rob Marciano -- thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: All right, guys.
CHETRY: Well, you remember the story about Arlington National Cemetery -- some of the problems they have there with the unmarked graves, people perhaps buried in wrong graves. Well, it was horrifying then. Now, there are new developments about the nation's premiere military resting place. This problem could be bigger than they originally thought.
ROMANS: Also ahead, women taking on Wal-Mart in a landmark case that could have huge ramifications for businesses large and small. Up next: we'll bring you Betty Dukes story, Wal-Mart greeter who says she got in trouble when she came back for lunch on time.
VELSHI: And check your cabinet and take a big whip. Johnson & Johnson recalling another round of Tylenol bottles because of the way they smell.
It is 10 minutes after the hour.
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VELSHI: There is another Tylenol recall. Thirty-four thousand bottles of Tylenol eight-hour extended release capsules are being pulled from store shelves after customers complained about a musty moldy smell. Johnson & Johnson say trace amounts of a chemical applied to wooden pallets that are used in the company's plant could be causing the problem. The same problem last year forced the drug maker to recall more than 50 million bottles of Tylenol, Motrin and Benadryl.
CHETRY: Falling heroes and their loved ones maybe lost forever. There is new evidence this morning that burial mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery are much more serious than once thought.
"TIME" magazine, in a special investigation, now says that the Army may never be able to identify all of the lost remain and may not even bother to dig and just make educated guesses in some cases. The magazine obtained documents in which one worker said that one out of 10 headstones are sitting on the wrong grave. Three hundred three thousand people who served our country are buried there.
The feds are slapping Virginia Tech with $55,000 fine. The U.S. Department of Education says that school officials violated a federal law by waiting too long to warn its students about the shooter in the 2007 rampage. It took more than two hours after the first gunshot for a notification by e-mail to be sent to the campus. Eventually, 32 people died in that tragedy. Virginia Tech is saying it will appeal the decision.
ROMANS: The world's biggest corporation and the nation's highest court converged yesterday in Washington. Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments in a lawsuit that could have a profound impact on corporate America. The court must decide whether 1.5 million female employees can join a class action lawsuit claiming sexual discrimination against Wal-Mart.
Joining me now from Washington, the lead plaintiff in the case, Betty Dukes, and her attorney, Joseph Sellers.
Welcome to the program.
Betty, first tell me. You worked at Wal-Mart six years before you filed this complaint. What was it about your job there that made you feel like you were being discriminated against, Betty? What's your story?
BETTY DUKES, PLAINTIFF, DUKES V. WAL-MART STORES: Well, over a period of time, Christine, I did observe that men was being promoted more readily in my store than women. I didn't have no inside information about the pay structure because that's all confidential. But I could visually see that the men in my store was advancing much more often than the women in general.
ROMANS: Now, Joe, the reason why the Supreme Court is hearing this because they're trying to decide if this is a class action, if all of the women who worked for Wal-Mart during the same period of time have the same kind of complaint as Betty or can be lumped into the same class group. That's going to be difficult.
I mean, even the front page of "The Wall Street Journal" today, "A Wal-Mart sex-bias class action appeared unlikely to survive." The justices are asking questions about whether all the women can be lumped into one group or if these are all different separate instances. How are you going to treat that?
JOSEPH SELLERS, CO-LEAD COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFFS: Well, these women all were subject to the same policy, and as a consequence, they ought to be in the same case. Wal-Mart seeks to have companies like large companies that have really standardless systems for making these personnel decisions be immune from any lawsuits.
ROMANS: So, it's the Wal-Mart way that you're trying to show, that this is a big company that had very uniform policies around the country, and that under these policies, this kind of discrimination was allowed to happen?
SELLERS: That's correct. And there were -- under the Wal-Mart way, they were consistent stereotypes about women, portraying them badly that resulted in sex discrimination throughout the company.
ROMANS: A lot of these cases are a little different. There's another case of a woman who was held back from promotion she said because she couldn't lift a 50-pound bag of dog food, and to become a team leader, her boss said you had to lift a 50-pound bag of dog food. There are other examples, as well. But Chief Justice Roberts said this.
He said how many examples of abuse, this subjective discrimination delegation, need to be shown before you can say that flows from the policy rather than from bad actors. I assume with however many thousands of stores, you're going to have some bad apple. He's wondering if the Wal-Mart way here is relevant.
SELLERS: It's certainly relevant, and what we found is that women were consistently underpaid compared to men in every single division in the company. This is a consistent practice with consistent effects.
ROMANS: Betty, I want to ask you one last question a minute, but I want to just play some sound we have of an executive at Wal-Mart who says, look, I'm a woman, and I have done very, very well in this company. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GISEL RUIZ, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES WAL-MART: What's wrong with this case is that three plaintiffs are trying to represent more than 1.5 million associates. I've had a very positive experience at Wal-Mart like thousands of other women and not being able to opt out of the case is wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Betty, just tell me why is this important to you and what do you feel? This has turned out to be a case that has gone to the Supreme Court. And what do you want women and Wal-Mart to take away from all of this, regardless of the way it's resolved? DUKES: Well, Christine, first of all, she got it wrong. We're not three women that are trying to represent the women in Wal-Mart. We are six plaintiffs. So, starting up right there, she don't have her facts straight. And then, secondly, she's just a sound point for a Wal-Mart. She is going to say what Wal-Mart wants her to say. She knows that there is discrimination in Wal-Mart in regards to women in promotion and pay.
Since we have filed this lawsuit in 2001, many women, more likely like herself, have gotten excellent promotion based on this lawsuit that's going forth for women. We have been absolutely effective, so far, in getting Wal-Mart to readdress how they treat and promote women.
ROMANS: All right. Betty Dukes, thank you so much for dropping by. Joseph Sellers, the co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in Dukes v. Wal-Mart stores. Thank you, both of you.
DUKES: Thank you.
SELLERS: Thank you.
ROMANS: Kiran, Ali.
CHETRY: Christine, thanks. All right. Well, this is really cool. We have some new pictures from outer space. This is the first time we're getting a close-up look at the planet Mercury. Pretty cool. We'll show you that. You're excited.
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ROMANS: Time now for your "Morning Talker." Say hello to the planet Mercury. You're going to be looking at --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS (voice-over): There it is. The first picture of the Solar System's first planet. It was taken by NASA's Messenger spacecraft. This shot shows Mercury's southern pole.
VELSHI (voice-over): Which I suspect is going to look a whole lot like Mercury's northern pole.
CHETRY (voice-over): You never know.
ROMANS: NASA plans to release more images today. Messenger will be orbiting Mercury for a year. It will be mapping the planet's surface, observing its magnetic fields and examining the surface makeup.
VELSHI: Which is really to remind us not to judge a book by its cover.
CHETRY: That's true.
VELSHI: Because it kind of looks like a boring cover. CHETRY: We'll see. Well, with the color pictures, and you'll be more excited.
Technology meets nature in its purest form. Three baby bald eagles are about to hatch, and this will happen live on the web. She's up now. She's awake. This is the mother bald eagle. It could happen at any minute. This is live streaming video of the eagle's nest. Then, there is mamma eagle, of course, protecting her eggs.
It's a nonprofit group in Iowa set up two cameras perched 80 feet high in a cottonwood tree. Says that they're such high resolution that you should be able to see tiny cracks forming in the eggs before they make their way into the world. And again, you can check it out 24/7 on YouStream.
ROMANS: An eagle's nest can be as big as a VW bug. It's really huge.
CHETRY: They like a (INAUDIBLE) with a lot of room to move around.
VELSHI: Look. She's having a little bite to eat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI (on-camera): All right. If you want a new job, you're not alone. A shocking number of people are ready to quit their jobs. Coming up next, which companies are hot again and want to hire you away. You're going to want to hear that.
ROMANS (on-camera): Plus, rebel fighters losing ground in Libya this morning as Gadhafi forces go on the offensive. We are live with the latest breaking details of raging fighting in Libya. We'll be live to Tripoli next. It's 23 minutes after the hour.
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ROMANS: Good morning, New York City. Twenty-six minutes past the hour. This time of day is when, you know, across town starts to get a little hairy. It's sunny. Thirty-eight degrees today, partly cloudy, 50 later on.
CHETRY (on-camera): That's about the best we've seen all week, so far.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: So, we'll take it. I think it's supposed to rain tomorrow.
Well, it could be a sign that Americans are more confident about the job market because they say they're planning to quit their jobs. Our Stephanie Elam is "Minding Your Business." I mean, through this downturn, everyone was saying, the one thing you have is your job. Keep it and do a good job.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That's the thing. You're hunkering down and you're happy you had a job, right? Well, now appear saying, you know what, I think I can actually go out and find myself a new gig and get out of this place! Well, that's actually a good sign for the economy, and this is good news here. Take a look at this survey from Glass Door. They did employment of every quarter.
So, this is the first quarter number. Seventy-three percent of people say they plan to leave their job, and 27 percent actually say they never plan to leave their job. They plan to stay in their job forever and ever, amen. Forty percent believe they could find a new job within six months, and that's a shorter period than what we've been seeing before through the recession, and it shows that people feeling a little bit better.
Now, more than half of all age groups plan to leave their job in the future, and of course, as folks get older, they plan to do that less and less. That's one thing they're seeing here. And now, 38 percent of employees said that they plan to find a new job within three years and more than half of those people who say that are between the ages of 18 and 34.
So, that's one think that they're pointing out to employers, like, pay attention, this is the demographic that will be leaving here. The other interesting thing here is the difference between single people and married people because 56 percent of single workers plan to leave their job in less than three years, while just 31 percent of married workers. And if you take a look at people who plan to never leave their jobs, 29 percent of married workers plan to stay where they are forever.
Now, all of this to say, we do know that there are going to be jobs out there. Take a look what's going on in the tech industry. We know that more companies are starting to hire. We've had all sorts of signs. We know Google said last year that they're going to hire 6,200 workers. Facebook saying that they're moving their headquarters to Milpark from Palo Alto because they need more space. Twitter is saying they want 3,000 employees by 2013.
So, all of these showing that if you're looking in this industry, there might be more opportunity.
ROMANS: I was on a plane recently to Raleigh, Durham.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: And I'm telling you, every person on the plane was software somebody. And I was like, are you hiring? Yes. Are you hiring? Yes. Are you hiring? Yes.
CHETRY: Are there other fields that are also opening up a little bit if you're not in tech?
ELAM: Well, there's one thing that always been in demand like if you're a nurse, if you're a registered nurse, nurse practitioners, they're always in demand. Health care people are always going to need health care. So, that's always a good one, but those are two places that we've seen the resiliency. Other places are having a harder time coming back, but when you take a look at this and just showing there's overall -- if you see people are moving around and finding jobs, that's the good time for the economy at a broad picture.
VELSHI: If you're one of the people wants to keep a job for long-time, I always talked about this. My favorite profession if you --
ROMANS: Accounting.
VELSHI: Accounting. It is the most secured long-term profession.
ELAM: Again, like health care, because people are always going to have to get their taxes done.
VELSHI: It's a career in demand.
CHETRY: Actuaries, too, right?
VELSHI: I have no skill in any of this stuff. I think it's good, too, but I can't do any of it.
CHETRY: Exactly.
ROMANS: All right. Stephanie Elam, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Ali plans to stay in his job for a long time.
ELAM: Because he can talk so well.
VELSHI: I give you a sample of it right now. Thanks, Stephanie.
ELAM: Sure.
VELSHI: We're going to give your top stories right now. Syria's president is blaming deadly protests in his country on, get this, a worldwide conspiracy. Showing no signs that he's going anywhere, he wrapped up a speech. We showed you the beginning of the speech. He wrapped it you just moments ago. Bashar al-Assad said enemies of Syria are trying to undermine the government.
He also said you can't blame all the people on the street who are demanding change. Al-Assad did not lift the nation's emergency rule. By the way, Syria has been under emergency rule for decades. It is formally at war with Israel still over the Golan Heights. He was thought that he was going to do that.
The nuclear disaster in Japan has landed the president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company in hospital. Masataka Shimizu is suffering from fatigue. A spokesman for the power company says the executive's health has been declining from overwork. Meanwhile, radiation in the ocean near the Daiichi power plant is spiking to levels 3,000 times higher than normal.
And according to Human Rights Watch, forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi are using land mines in the fight against rebels in Libya. The group says two dozen anti-vehicle mines and three dot anti- personnel mines were found this month of a main road behind Benghazi and Ajdabiya. Rebels have pledged not to use landmines.
ROMANS: Rebel fighters driving from key positions in eastern Libya are under assault again this morning from pro-Gadhafi forces in the strategic port of Ras Lanuf. These new pictures just in to CNN showing rebels retreating about 40 miles outside that city. Our reporters on the ground in Libya quoting the opposition saying "the front line is fluid."
And President Obama says he's debating whether to provide weapons for the rebels. This morning British Prime Minister David Cameron echoing the president and refusing to rule out arming the opposition, but saying no decision has been made.
VELSHI: This is a conversation that we have very, very often between us all on and off the set about whether or not it is the time to be buying real estate again. Home prices have been plunging for four years. We have got interest rates the lowest they have been, edging higher but they are still low in a generation. So could this be the time for a dramatic recovery in the real estate market? One guy who has been saying no for a long time has changed his mind. Shawn Telly, senior editor of "Fortune" magazine is up next telling us how he thinks it is time to buy.
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CHETRY: Libyan troops launching a brutal offensive this morning against opposition fighters, their fire power apparently no match for Gadhafi's bombs, forcing a rebel retreat from Ras Lanuf in eastern Libya. CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Tripoli. Nic, update on what is going on right now. We have been told the front line is fluid. What do we know?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We know that Gadhafi's forces have counterattacked the rebels. Rebels were moving back as of yesterday and they fell back to Ras Lanuf which is about 20 or 30-minute drive down that coastal road. And now it seems they have been pushed out of Ras Lanuf.
Ras Lanuf is an area spread out over perhaps four or five miles. You have sort of two housing areas and then you have this huge oil refinery and that is the key sort of piece of strategic terrain. But there isn't a lot there for the rebels to sort of dig in and hide and take cover from Gadhafi's heavy fire power from tanks and Katyusha rockets which is what he appears to have been using to force them out.
There is sort of a flat highway there. No big sand dunes and there is no really big buildings for people to get behind and hide behind and hold out and that seems ton the problems the rebels are facing. They have been forced back from that town. Exactly where the front line is on the ground, exactly, you know, how many people are fighting, how many at the moment, those sort of details aren't clear, but this general move forward by Gadhafi's forces again still seems to be underway.
ROMANS: Nic, what are the rebels fighting with? What is the word there about David Cameron from the U.K. and also the American president not ruling out arming these rebels?
ROBERTSON: Well, the rebels say they want the weapons. They desperately want the weapons and you can see how they need them because what they have are perhaps one or two or a couple of dozen multi-barreled rocket launches. We have seen them with a smaller shorter range ones.
But what they lack is the sort of coordinated fire power that Gadhafi's forces have, where they can array a number of these weapon systems along the front line as we have seen them doing that before. Gadhafi's forces also have the sort of heavy artillery pieces. They have howitzers and artillery that is sort of mounted on track vehicles and can mount this easily in a dangerous part of a front line and continue to shell the rebels and push them back.
The rebels typically have AK-47s and heavy machine guns and machine guns mounted on the back of trucks, but they lack the numbers and probably, most significantly, the coordination to use them and defend and decide where they are going to dig in and how they can dig in and how they can strategically hold off a force circling around them. They don't have enough forces to defend against.
ROMANS: Nic Robertson in Tripoli, thanks.
VELSHI: We are following here on "American Morning" the daily drum beat about the bad news of housing market. Home prices down for the sixth consecutive month now. Sales of new and existing and new homes all of them down. But there might be a silver lining to all of this. Shawn Telly writes about it in a new article for "Fortune" magazine. It's called "Real Estate, it's time to buy again." He is with us now.
You called the top here at CNN and in "Fortune."
ROMANS: At a time when everyone thought the real estate was going up. You said this is not good so you nailed it.
VELSHI: You are a lifelong real estate bull?
SHAWN TULLY, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Not at all. The problem, we go back to the 2004 period where I did a cover story with a picture of a house falling off a cliff. And prices kept going up another two and a half years after the story came out.
Prices compared to rents, which is rents really drive prices the way that earnings drive stock prices in an outrageous bubble. It was a similar situation in the housing market even in 2004. Subsequently it became much worse, and I wrote several stories saying it was getting much worse.
Now, we're in a position where the fundamentals are pointing in the opposite direction, where the prices have dropped so much since mid-2006, on the order of 40 percent adjusted for inflation that we're now back to a ratio price to rent that is about right.
Now, remember, people have not been buying houses now for many years. Virtually all household formation has gone into rentals. Now there were enormous surpluses of rentals because there had been huge overbuilding of apartment buildings and all that, too. But those are being filled up now.
And just in the middle of 2010, we saw vacancy rates going up. When rent goes up, housing prices have to follow.
CHETRY: So you talk about how housing, new construction at a historic low. You're able to get a loan. You said it's ticking up but you can still get a pretty good deal on a loan. Is now the time to buy?
TULLY: Yes, because, first of all, as you say, interest rates are very, very low. But you also have, again, if you're moving out of a rental, let's say you're in a rental, right? You're 32 years old and you were going to buy something at 28 but you stayed four years longer in a rental than you expected to, and now your rent is going up. You might get six percent to eight percent increases in New York or Washington, D.C. or Raleigh/Durham. But home prices have been going down. You can now move into a house and your after-tax payment is less than your rent.
ROMANS: Let's talk about the afford ability. Some markets were completely unaffordable. First-time home buyers couldn't get in during the bubble now might have a chance assuming they can get a loan, which is a different story altogether. When you look at all of these afford ability gauges, they are telling you now is the time?
TULLY: Right. It's much more expensive in most markets now to rent than to own. And that is including not just your mortgage payment, the after-tax mortgage payment but your insurance payments and property tax payments.
It's especially true -- remember, what people are worried about Phoenix and Las Vegas and lots of California. That's where the real huge problems are with foreclosures. Those are the most affordable markets, Miami, because the prices have fallen off a cliff.
The good thing is that the -- everybody is saying, my god, so few new home sales. That is a good thing if you want to see the market recover. We can't afford to have a big surplus going on and we have now at levels we haven't seen since World War II.
CHETRY: What does it fen for you if you're stuck in your home. It's your biggest asset. What do you do if you bought around the bubble?
TULLY: If you bought around the bubble, you just have to bite the bullet. You're not going to get the price that you paid and it's not going to happen. Hopefully, you didn't overleverage and your mortgage isn't too big. But that is just unfortunately the situation that people are in. And if you can afford it, stay with your house.
ROMANS: You're getting ready to retire, thought you were able to cash out the money of your house that is good. Things are getting better for you then. That means you probably have profit in this house. You want this thing to thaw.
TULLY: The other thing is now that there is so few new homes for sale, a lot of that demand, people coming into the work force, they got to buy an existing home, and that is going to help existing home prices. As you said, people who are in an existing home have lost a lot of their equity, the outlook for those people are looking a little bit better now.
VELSHI: Shawn, thank you very much. A great article in "Fortune" magazine, and a great article to read.
CHETRY: Rain, severe storms and snow now moving east. Rob Marciano tells us it's time to get ready. It's 43 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Wow. We were just talking about Miami.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: About what a great deal it is.
CHETRY: A great time if you -- if you have some cash sitting around and you want to get yourself a condo, it might be now is time; 79 degrees right there -- right now. Partly cloudy a little bit later --
VELSHI: My wife is there right now.
ROMANS: She is? Really.
CHETRY: I see her right there walking by, she's waving at you from that boat.
ROMANS: I always wanted to be a weather caster from a place like Miami. Good morning, it's sunny and 80 degrees. Good morning. It's sunny and 80 degrees.
CHETRY: Yes but it's hotter in Miami, they get a ton of hurricanes.
ROMANS: I know.
VELSHI: Right, but they still get more nice consistent weather, right?
CHETRY: Well, they yet -- yes but they get like the craziest part about Miami is you walk outside at one moment it's just pouring and it looks it never going to end.
(CROSS TALK)
ROMANS: That's right.
CHETRY: And ten minutes later, they're like wheel the patio, get that chair back out.
VELSHI: And so much for Florida. Unfortunately, Rob has stories about places where it's pouring and it wasn't so tropical and warm -- Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And I think Kiran illustrates the point here in -- in my profession is that you know, wherever you are, it's serious business.
ROMANS: Yes, absolutely.
MARCIANO: We -- we do our job or people may very well get hurt. So --
ROMANS: From Burlington to Bora-Bora.
MARCIANO: That's right guys.
All right, it is a nice day in Miami. Not so much in other parts of the world. We'll highlight some of that action, thunderstorms across parts of the southeast. I'll tell you what, nobody got hurt, according to reports, across southeast Louisiana. They had winds over a hundred miles-an-hour last night in Bell Chase. Damage, yes; injuries, no, still getting some thunderstorms, although most of the action now is heading to the east.
We still have a tornado watch that's in effect for parts of the Florida panhandle. No warnings for the past couple of hours but certainly heavy, heavy rainfall. Florida needs the rain.
Georgia, we've gotten a ton here in the last few days so we can stand to see things wind down. It's starting to do that at least in Atlanta but it's going to be a wet day. Most of the heavier rains have moved east towards Augusta which is greening up nicely for next week.
Hey, the ball fields of Philadelphia and New York are greening up nicely as well for opening day tomorrow which is going to be a little bit on the wet and cold and nasty side for the Phillies and -- and -- and the Yankees. So just be aware of that. Rain shield heading this way and that's going to cause some issues.
Oh by the way, we have ground stop at Charlotte and delays at the Atlanta airport upwards of about 15 minutes.
Here is how the storm is going to roll off towards the north and east. As we mentioned they're getting them some cold air here. Upstate New York, parts of Pennsylvania, parts of Connecticut and north Connecticut and western parts of New England may very well see some snow out of this. So be aware of that. Winter is not over even though we are going to be hitting the first day of April.
Hey, check this out. This private plane flying in to St. Petersburg and -- ba-ba-boom -- into the bay; the pilot was reporting mechanical problems as it was making its approach. So unsure whether or not purposely but probably just didn't make it to the runway. No reports of serious injuries but, regardless.
And Ali, you know, you brought up this point you know when you fly into LaGuardia --
VELSHI: Yes.
MARCIANO: You come over that until you fly, you know, heading west over -- over the sound there.
(CROSS TALK)
VELSHI: Yes.
MARCIANO: And that's kind of a scary approach. Now you've got that -- I'm coming to see you guys tomorrow.
(CROSS TALK)
VELSHI: And I'm -- and now I got you worried about that.
MARCIANO: Now, this afternoon, I'm going to be shaking in my chair there as we make that approach.
(CROSS TALK)
VELSHI: Well, you know, Rob, I -- I fly as you know, many times a week and they've never gotten it wrong at LaGuardia. The ones -- one time it was a little tricky. As he came in for the approach and, all of a sudden, thrust upward again because there was apparently someone -- no there was someone on the runway in front of us that he wasn't informed about, the pilot.
But nobody has ever fallen short on any flight I've ever been in going to LaGuardia.
MARCIANO: Ok, I -- I feel good about it. If you could do that, do me a favor and make a call and make sure that doesn't happen.
(CROSS TALK)
ROMANS: Yes.
(CROSS TALK)
VELSHI: I'll make sure. They offer you the golden treatment as well.
CHETRY: You're coming here for us tomorrow?
MARCIANO: Yes that's right. Do a little weather and going to opening day and got a little story we're going to crank out.
ROMANS: Oh, opening day.
(CROSS TALK)
MARCIANO: What? What?
CHETRY: -- see you on the side, all right.
VELSHI: The set is not big enough for the two of us Rob. So I'll see you Friday. And have a good one, Rob.
MARCIANO: All right, man, see you.
CHETRY: They say it's the girls that cat fight. It's not. It's you guys.
VELSHI: That's right.
CHETRY: Well, up next, a bacteria outbreak in Alabama hospitals where now several patients who received nutrition through IVs have died. A lot of questions this morning, how did those contaminated bags get there and get past the people who were taking care of these patients in the hospital? Elizabeth Cohen is going to be joining us with more.
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CHETRY: Fifty-two minutes past the hour right now.
A disturbing situation in Alabama: a deadly infection now spreading through six hospitals. The bacteria came from infected IV bags. They were contaminated with bacteria. 19 patients infected in recent weeks and nine of them died. The rest are not doing very well.
State health officials and the CDC have now launched an investigation.
Our Elizabeth Cohen joins us from Atlanta. So, first of all, it is important to point out that the hospitals are saying that this is now contained. They said they closed the circle meaning that they know where the -- what -- what plant they came from and they are not being given to any other patients. Is that right?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And they have been recalled and they were only distributed within the state of Alabama to begin with. But for those people who were affected by this Kiran, it's really quite awful. This is a bacteria called serratia marcescens (ph) and it's is in bathroom grout. You know, you can sometimes get icky stuff in the grout in your bathtub or in your bathroom and that's what this is and they sent it coursing through people's veins unknowingly and it is just a terrible situation.
CHETRY: Especially if these patients were highly ill to begin with, right? COHEN: Exactly.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Before they have to receive that nutrition. Do we have any idea on whether the ten are going to be ok?
COHEN: We've been told that they are not doing terribly well and that that definitely doesn't sound good.
CHETRY: How did this happen in the first place? How does the equipment that is said to be sterile get contaminated?
COHEN: You know, that is the big question right now. And they just don't know. They don't know if perhaps the raw materials for this liquid were contaminated or maybe, as you said, the equipment that they used to process it was contaminated. They don't know. And they need to send a team of experts in there to figure out what went wrong so that it doesn't go wrong again at that plant or at any other plant.
CHETRY: The thing that's so scary about it seems that there really is nothing a hospital can do at this point. I mean they are pre-packaged. They are said to be sterile. They have to, at some point, trust that.
COHEN: Right. Exactly. Hospitals don't test every single bag that they get. I mean, that would be impractical. You trust it to be sterile and patients trust it to be sterile.
And Kiran, you know I'm all about being an empowered patient but in this case there is nothing you could do if someone hooks you up to an IV gag that's full of bacteria. There's -- there's really -- nothing you can do.
CHETRY: Such a tragic story. We'll continue to follow the investigation and see how -- hopefully, they can get to the bottom of it so they prevent it from happening again.
COHEN: Right.
CHETRY: Elizabeth Cohen thanks so much.
COHEN: Thanks.
CHETRY: Fifty-five minutes past the hour. We'll be right back.
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ROMANS: Today in "Building up America," Tom Foreman is bringing the Thunder, the Oklahoma City Thunder. The NBA team has helped get the entire area through the great recession. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Every time the Thunder takes the floor, the home crowd cheers not just for the team but also for the remarkable transformation it represents.
KENDRICK PERKINS, OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER: I love what I've seen. I think it's been great. It's been great.
FOREMAN: For almost two decades through targeted use of a voter approved one-cent sales tax, Oklahoma City has been rebuilding itself, with a new ballpark, new attractions, refurbished entertainment centers, museums, schools and more.
MAYOR MICK CORNETT, OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA: We're creating a city where your kid and grand kid is going to want to live.
FOREMAN: Mayor Mick Cornett --
CORNETT: The past paradigm has been that people went to where the jobs were. And what I believe is that in the future the people are going to go to the cities where they want to live and the jobs are going to follow the people.
FOREMAN: The acquisition of the Thunder three years ago was a milestone in the process of making this a prime place to live and a coup for this town that is one of the smallest to host an NBA team. It was made possible in large part because that same tax money was used to build an arena with no loans to hang over the profit-making potential of the new franchise.
GARY DESJARDINS, REGIONAL GENERAL MANAGER, SMG: There's no debt on the building. It's paid for.
FOREMAN: That's pretty unusual.
DESJARDINS: Extremely unusual.
FOREMAN: Thunder coach Scott Brooks called it team work.
SCOTT BROOKS, COACH, OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER: It's important that we all get behind each other's endeavors.
FOREMAN: So today, Oklahoma City enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates of any city in the country. Sales tax revenues have soared and this town is charging back from the recession.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Oklahoma City.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: There you go.
CHETRY: That is going to do it for us. There's been a lot of talking, three hours.
VELSHI: There's been a lot of news this morning.
ROMANS: There's been a lot of news.
(CROSSTALK) VELSHI: A lot of developments in Libya and Syria. We're going to continue that with "CNN NEWSROOM". A lot of breaking news, in fact, we just heard from the president of Syria. No major developments from him.
ROMANS: Yes. He is not dropping the emergency rule that has been in effect for 50 years. A lot of protesters have been saying drop that.
CHETRY: And there were indications he might be willing to.
ROMANS: Releasing political prisoners. He talked about unity for the country but did not give those concessions to protesters.
VELSHI: And anti-government rebels losing some ground in Libya. That and those developments in Alabama and those nine patients who died in a hospital because of an infected IV.
Carol Costello and "CNN NEWSROOM"; she's going to continue with these stories -- Carol.
