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American Morning
Obama's Debt-Cutting Plan; Banks Hiding Fees; Searching for the Long Island Serial Killer; Early Puberty in Girls
Aired April 13, 2011 - 06:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Medicare changes on the table as President Obama gets ready to lay out his plan to reign in our country's spending. How much will it cost you? On this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS (on-camera): All right. Good morning. It's Wednesday April 13th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Christine Romans.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR (on-camera): I'm Kiran Chetry. Ali Velshi is off this morning. Glad you're with us, though. Ahead this hour, outrage after a six-year-old girl, after going through the -- she had to go through the what do you call it --
ROMANS: Body imaging scan.
CHETRY: Yes, the body imaging, and then, they found something suspicious, so she has to be subjected to a pat-down. Well, she was crying. This whole thing was caught on camera, and this morning, there are questions about common sense some of the stuff the TSA is doing.
ROMANS: Please don't touch me.
Also ahead, a story that got a lot of you fired up yesterday. A Chicago public school banning kids from bringing their own lunch to school. So, we asked. Who should be making decisions about a child's lunch, the parents or the school? You certainly weigh in. We're going to have your comments in the next half hour.
CHETRY: First, making the case for cuts. President Obama is going to be laying out his plan to tackle our massive mounting deficits and national debt we've heard so much about of late in a critical speech today.
ROMANS: It's expected to include tax hikes for the wealthy and changes to programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Dan Lothian is live for us at the White House this morning. Dan, changes to Medicare and Medicaid, the White House is saying strengthen and reduce costs in these programs. What else is in the president's plan?
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And what that will most likely include are cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. In addition to that, the White House is talking about reducing or keeping domestic spending low, savings to the Pentagon or the military budget, in addition to that, overhauling the tax code in order to boost revenue.
Now this is definitely not popular, not only among Republicans, but also those liberal Democrats. The president, no doubt trying to avoid some of the criticism, has reached out to these congressional leaders and invited them here to the White House later this morning to sit down in a closed-door meeting for him to lay out what this vision, as the White House calls it, is ahead of that speech.
But it will be very delicate balance for the president because as you know, Republicans are looking for deep cuts and ahead of this, you know, we're looking at the next big battle now, which is raising the debt ceiling. So Republicans are looking for deep cuts. Democrats are saying you have to take this in a vote in a clean way. They don't want any cuts attached to this.
So it will be interesting how the president is able to balance this all out as he delivers that speech this afternoon.
CHETRY: We also have new polling out this morning that says more Americans do support President Obama's approach to the budget over the GOP's handling of it. Not that big of a margin, but 48 percent for the president's plan, 43 percent for the GOP in Congress, nobody coming with a clear mandate.
LOTHIAN: Small advantage there for the president. Obviously this reflects the concern by many Americans out there that this push for deep cuts will hurt those middle-class Americans, fearful that it will cut programs and, perhaps, even stall the economy, the fragile economy. So that is -- that is the sort of the concern out there for the American people, no doubt, reflected in this poll.
CHETRY: Dan Lothian for us this morning, thanks so much.
ROMANS: We will hear from all sides from the president's plan. House minority whip Steny Hoyer at 7:10 Eastern, House majority leader Eric Cantor at 7:45 and Senator Jeff Sessions in our next hour. We're going to have complete coverage of the president's speech from George Washington University live at 1:35 Eastern.
CHETRY: He is, but maybe he isn't. Last night it sounded like former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty made his White House campaign official. It came up during a conversation with Piers Morgan about surprise front runner Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST, "PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT": If someone like Donald trump was to emerge as the Republican nominee, and asked you to be vice president, would you accept that honor?
TIM PAWLENTY, (R) FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: I'm running for president. I'm not putting my hat in the ring rhetorically or ultimately for vice president, so I'm focused on running for president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Later Tim Pawlenty released a statement saying he didn't say what he said, that the comments were not an official announcement for running for president.
ROMANS: The TSA playing defense after someone videotaped an agent patting down a six-year-old girl in a New Orleans airport last week. This is the YouTube video that is sparking the outrage, from April 5th and the girl can be heard protesting at first. But she calmed down, allowed the pat-down to go ahead. The TSA insisted the search followed proper procedures and was necessary when the child went through a body scanner.
CHETRY: A collision between two planes at New York's JFK airport is triggering concerns about a new generation of giant commercial planes and whether or not we're equipped to land them safely. The left wing of this massive air bus A-380 clipped the tail of a smaller commuter plane Monday night, spinning it nearly 90 degrees. No one was hurt.
The airbus is 70 feet high with an enormous 262-foot wing span. Many aviation experts say there will be more accidents like the one at JFK because most U.S. airports are not equipped to safely handle these massive planes.
ROMANS: Nearly a year after the start of the oil spill in the Gulf, an investigation by the Associated Press reveals officials along the Gulf coast apparently misspent a lot of BP's money. The oil company gave hundreds of millions of dollars to local communities but in ocean springs, Mississippi, TP money was used to buy tasers for reserved police officers.
The sewer department and nearby Gulf port bought a $300,000 vacuum truck that never sucked up oil. Biloxi purchased a dozen SUVs, and in Louisiana a parish official bought herself an iPad with cleanup funds.
Some species along the coast are rebounding from the spill. According to the latest study the status of the coastal wetlands right now is poor. The report concludes it if there isn't a massive coastal restoration Louisiana will lose an area of wetlands larger than the state of Rhode Island by 2050.
CHETRY: It's considered a super volcano, one that could wipe out most of the U.S. if it blew. Now scientists say the volcanic plume beneath Yellowstone National Park is bigger than they even thought.
A new study measured the electrical conductivity of the hot and partly molten rock and found the pool of fiery material actually extends 400 miles from east to west, 250 miles wider than earlier estimates. It has not erupted in 600,000 years and scientists say they have no idea when it will again.
An incredible iReport coming to us from Merrill, Wisconsin, a path of destruction 22 miles long and half a mile wide. This happened after a tornado hit the area Sunday. The National Weather Service says the tornado was an EF-2 or perhaps an EF-3. A total of ten twisters touched down in Wisconsin over the weekend.
ROMANS: It's five minutes past the hour.
(WEATHER BREAK)
ROMANS: A filmmaker says he's found the actual nails that nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. Here they are, or they are, he says. He plans to prove they are real in a documentary called "Nails of the Cross." He claims the two ancient nails were discovered in a Jerusalem archaeological exploration 20 years ago. The tomb belongs to the high priest who presided over Jesus' trial in the Gospel.
A 300 million year old shark bone discovered in about the last plane place you may expect it, deep inside of a Kentucky mine, hundreds of miles from the ocean. The mouth is almost three feet wide. One miner says he spotted the fossil when rocks fell and he saw a bunch of teeth above him. Experts say the closest current relative is the great white and the guy who found it says he will now put it on display, where else, in the family drug store.
ROMANS: Still ahead on "American Morning," if you want to find the best price to shop around, when it comes to finding the bank with the fewest fees shopping around may not do you much good. We're going to explain.
CHETRY: Also, what you had to say about a Chicago school banning students from bringing in lunches from home. Your e-mails ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: $14 trillion $294 billion, that's America's debt ceiling, the legal borrowing for the U.S. And we could hit that number by next month. Each American's share of that debt will be about $46,000.
Today President Obama spells out his long-term plan for chipping away at America's mounting debt. He'll brief congressional leaders this morning before the speech, including Maryland congressman minority whip Steny Hoyer who joins us from Capitol Hill. Welcome to the program.
First off, I want to ask you about the budget deal that's already been reached.
STENY HOYER, (D-MD) HOUSE MINORITY WHIP: Good morning.
ROMANS: You said the president AND Mr. Reid, made a bad situation less bad. Not a ringing endorsement but you're going to vote for it.
HOYER: On the CR I'm still looking at it and our members are still looking at it, but clearly we want to keep the government running. Clearly we need to reach compromise, and I think the president and Mr. Reid tried to reach the best compromise that was possible.
ROMANS: You know, that's sort of looking backward, 2011. You keep the government going right now. The president today at 1:00 will look forward and lay out a strategy for long-term getting things under control, getting this country to live within its means and begin to chip away at that national debt. What do you want to hear from him? What's going to be politically palatable for you and your allies?
HOYER: My expectation is the president is going to talk about essentially what the bipartisan commission recommended, and that is moving forward in a balanced way so that we continue to invest in education, in innovation, and in our infrastructure to grow our economy.
But at the same time I think he's going to look at making substantial cuts in spending over the long term. The commission recommended don't make substantial cuts now while the economy is struggling to right itself and create jobs, but long term, get our budget deficit under control. I think he's going to do a balanced approach.
The problem with the Republican proposal is it's not balanced. It's all on the backs of either seniors or middle class, working-class Americans and we don't think it will work anymore than that same proposal worked in the '80s or in the 2000s where we created significant deficit under Reagan, 200 percent increase in the deficit, in the debt, and under George Bush, 115 percent increase in the national debt as opposed to Bill Clinton, that had a balanced budget and didn't borrow money during the last four years.
So I expect the president to present a balanced program which cuts spending, looks at all elements of the budget, including defense and entitlements and including tax expenditures.
ROMANS: Tax reform, the president and others have said tax reform is critical here. You know even a few years ago you couldn't talk about comprehensive tax reform, like health care reform, except we got health care reform. Maybe tax reform is something you could follow the bipartisan commission approach and get tax reform.
Meantime, the right say don't raise taxes for the rich. Budget experts say just raising taxes on the rich won't be enough.
HOYER: I think the experts are right just raising taxes on the rich won't be enough. It has to be a balanced program. I expect the president to present such a program as the commission did.
But the Republicans simply let the rich and wealthy of us off the hook as if they didn't have to participate in helping right this economy. The fact of the matter is, the commission said, it's got to be a balanced approach, cut spending, look at all areas of spending, but also, ask people to pay a fair share. The Republican budget reaches its $4 trillion in cuts by essentially eliminating Medicare as we know it. Very substantially undermined Medicaid which seniors will find very difficult because that's the major funder of long-term care for seniors. ROMANS: Let me ask you about -- I'm sorry to interrupt you.
HOYER: And in addition to that, given large tax cuts to people who are making a lot of money, particularly the oil companies. So it's not balanced. I don't think it will work and it's not going to receive bipartisan support in the House.
ROMANS: Let me ask you about Medicare and Medicaid because the president is going to lay out what the White House is billing as strengthening but reducing costs in Medicare and Medicaid. Progressives see this as -- basically progressives are very concerned about any changes to entitlements. How does the president reform these systems without alienating his base and liberals?
HOYER: I think the president is going to look at entitlements somewhat like the commission looked at entitlements. The issue is restraining the growth and spending. In terms of Medicare and Medicaid, of course, we took a substantial step when we adopted the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform, which will, in fact, bring down health care costs which will, therefore, bring down the costs of Medicare and Medicaid. In addition to that, I think the president is going to be addressing additional ways that we can constrain costs without, however, undermining the benefits that are available to seniors and to people on Medicaid. We think that's critically important. Those programs need to be available for people. We need to have a healthy nation and that's one way we're going to get there.
ROMANS: All right.
HOYER: But as opposed to simply changing it and passing the costs along to seniors and those on Medicaid.
ROMANS: Congressman Steny Hoyer, thank you so much for joining us. You'll be meeting with the president and some other important members of Congress as well to talk about this before the president's speech. I look forward to speaking to you again very soon. Thank you so much.
HOYER: Thank you, Christine.
ROMANS: All right -- Kiran.
CHETRY: Up next on AMERICAN MORNING, find out just how hard it is to get a straight answer when you want to know about a bank's fees. We're "Minding Your Business" after the break. And the four states that just landed a retiring space shuttle orbiter.
Seventeen minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. It's a staple at almost every office, the candy jar. We have a bin of Jelly Ranchers right over there.
CHETRY: Well, because the Swedish fish always go the first day you're out.
ROMANS: I know.
CHETRY: All you're left with is --
ROMANS: And the Chiclets, I bring those home for the kids.
But are these sweets sabotaging your diet?
CHETRY: Yes. Of course, they are. Does that stop anybody?
ROMANS: But it improves morale.
CHETRY: Right. And at this point, we're operating on a sugar high at 3:00 a.m. What's that old saying?
ROMANS: The beatings will improve until --
CHETRY: The beatings will continue until morale improves.
ROMANS: Oh, yes.
CHETRY: Well, a four-week study found on average workers ate about three pieces of chocolate a day. Now if the treats were in a clear dish, they ate an additional 2 1/2 pieces of candy. I love this. If the dish is moved closer so they could reach the candy while sitting at their own desks, they have consumed another two pieces of candy. The power of suggestion.
ROMANS: Nobody puts out a dish of unsalted almonds.
CHETRY: Carrot sticks.
ROMANS: If you're looking for a new bank, you might have a tough time trying to find one that has the fewest fees. We always say, you know, let your feet do the shopping, get the cheapest fees you can. That's where you want to keep your money. But Alison Kosik is "Minding Your Business."
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And I'm saying good luck with that.
ROMANS: Yes, it's hard to find it.
KOSIK: And this is why so many people think the banks are such rascals. You know, they really play hide and seek with their fees. And so the Public Interest Research Group, this is an advocacy group for consumers, went to about 400 banks and credit unions in 21 states. And I'll tell you what, these banks did not make it easy telling people about their fee structure. Only 38 percent of these banks offered these fee schedules after PIRG staffers, you know, asked for these fees upon their first request. But they had asked three times, 55 percent of those banks finally ponied up that information and 23 percent refused to give this information.
I'll tell you what these PIRG staffers got the run around. They were told to go on-line. They were told you have to open an account first. There was one bank in New York that says, we don't usually give those.
ROMANS: Even though you pay the fees.
KOSIK: Well, yes, and hello. There's that truth in savings act so banks are required to offer up this information. It makes you wonder, are these banks breaking the law.
Also, PIRG went out there to see if free checking was still around. And you what? Surprise. It is. It's available at half the banks that they visited and 29 percent offer free checking with direct deposit. But the thing is, these banks are really hiding the fact that they have --
ROMANS: Yes.
CHETRY: You have to actually be your own best. You have to ask for it. You know how we talk about being an advocate for yourself as a patient? You have to ask for it.
KOSIK: And you have to keep on asking as PIRG found.
CHETRY: Right. Like they do offer free checks for certain people at the bank I go to and I was asking, they charged me for them. I said wait a minute, I thought you told me I had -- oh, you're right. Let me credit you.
ROMANS: If you didn't ask, small banks and credit unions tend to be better.
KOSIK: That's true.
ROMANS: And bankrate.com is another place people can go if they want to rate different banks to see what the fees are and where there really is free checking.
KOSIK: That's good information. Talking about money, a rough day on the markets yesterday. The Dow down 117 points. Looks like we're in the green in the premarket. JPMorgan Chase came out with some decent earnings. Let's see if it will carry through to the session.
ROMANS: Yesterday was trouble because that seven rating for Japan really rattled world markets.
KOSIK: It did. It made everybody nervous.
ROMANS: All right. Thanks so much.
KOSIK: Sure.
CHETRY: Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, he's testing the waters right now but Donald Trump may be ready to jump in the presidential race after a CNN Opinion Research Corporation poll. We'll tell you what Republicans are saying about him. ROMANS: Plus, why the lights went out last night at the Lincoln Memorial.
That's 23 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-six minutes past the hour now. Police on Long Island are dealing with as many as 10 possible victims of the suspected serial killer. They found two more sets of remains along a highway -- a beach highway yesterday and they're confirmed now to be human remains. Eight other sets of human remains have already been discovered in the area. So far, though, only four of the victims have been identified. All of them prostitutes who advertised services on Craigslist.
Casey Jordan is a criminologist and a criminal profiler. She has been following this closely and talking to a lot of police sources. Welcome.
So they're trying to put together theories here to try to figure out, you know, who may be behind this. Then there was talk that it could possibly be the suspect, a former law enforcement officer. What makes them think that?
CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST: They think that, I believe, because they keep mentioning tactical issues that the killer engaged in. Not the least of which are the phone calls made to the younger sister of one of the identified victims with what they believe to be a throwaway cell phone, the kind you get cheaply and there's no contract, from very crowded places in the heart of New York City, where cameras might not pick you up in the crowd. This is interesting, but most people don't think that that is a very specialized tactical law enforcement knowledge.
CHETRY: Right.
JORDAN: That's anyone who's watched the "Law and Order," "CSI" crime shows.
CHETRY: Your run-of-the-mill drug dealer does that.
JORDAN: Exactly. So most people don't think unless there's something the police know that they're not releasing that's so specific that only law enforcement would know it, most people think that's just somebody who's a true crime groupie or wannabe.
CHETRY: So they say another thing is that on these phone calls, these disturbing phone calls that you're talking about, where the 16- year-old daughter -- I mean --
JORDAN: Sister.
CHETRY: -- sister of one of the people killed gets these phone calls that don't last longer than three minutes.
JORDAN: Right.
CHETRY: They say that's another indication that, perhaps, they know at least something because that's how much time it would take potentially to tap the call.
JORDAN: But again, anyone who's watched "Law and Order" and "CSI" knows this. And frankly, the three-minute rule has been out of date for several years. Now they can actually zone in on cell signals within the first five to 10 seconds depending on the carrier and the type of phone. So, you know, keeping it under three minutes shows that the person is savvy but again, anyone who reads true crime books.
You know, John Douglas wrote a book called "Mind Hunter" in which the killer called the younger sister of one of his victims. He could have gotten the idea of doing it simply from reading a book.
ROMANS: It might show a very sick person trying to play games as this -- and the criminal trying to play games here as well with the victim and the victim's family. What do know about, from what you've seen about where this is, where these bodies have been dumped, what does it tell you about what kind of a killer we're looking at?
JORDAN: I think everyone who does these sorts of cases believes that the killer has strong familiarity with the area.
ROMANS: Local familiarity.
JORDAN: If he doesn't live there now, then he surely did in the past and also understands that forensically the evidence is going to denigrate so much faster in a beach setting.
ROMANS: Right.
JORDAN: Who's going to crawl into brambles with deer ticks and stumble across bodies? Nobody. So being near the beach, hurricane style winds crashing saltwater in the middle of the thick --
ROMANS: In the middle of January, so you're less likely to have --
JORDAN: A bird sanctuary.
ROMANS: Right.
JORDAN: So the bodies typically in that kind of setting, depending on time of year and temperature, can go from a full corpse to skeleton within two weeks. And we're talking about some remains that are clearly years old. So almost no forensic evidence is going to be found. I think this is going to be solved through the triangulation of the cell phone, the computer records of Craigslist and so on.
ROMANS: Really.
CHETRY: And some of it is just dumb luck. I mean, there was another serial killer, Rifkin, right? JORDAN: Right.
CHETRY: Back in the early 1990s --
JORDAN: Yes.
CHETRY: -- and he was found because he was pulled over for a routine traffic stop and they found a body in his trunk.
JORDAN: Yes.
CHETRY: He ended up being linked to killing 17 prostitutes and convicted in nine deaths. I mean, how much of this may boil down to just getting a lucky break?
JORDAN: It happens all the time. And you have to remember, we were not looking for a serial killer. We had not strung together all these missing women --
CHETRY: Right.
JORDAN: -- into a suspected serial --
CHETRY: Right.
JORDAN: -- killer. It's only until Shannan Gilbert went missing that we started looking. And with Rifkin, he didn't have a license plate on his car. If he had it, it could have continued indefinitely.
ROMANS: I certainly hope there's at least a lucky break or a lot of good police work that leads --
JORDAN: I think they're working on it diligently.
ROMANS: All right. Casey Jordan, thanks so much for joining us.
JORDAN: Great to be here.
ROMANS: Half past the hour. Top stories now.
In just a few hours, President Obama will outline his plan for reducing the nation's red ink in 2012 and beyond. Changes in Medicare and Medicaid are likely to be on the table. It's an alternative to a Republican proposal for next year's budget.
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty wants to make one thing perfectly clear -- he's running for president. Really? His people are backing off that statement. The statement he made to CNN's Piers Morgan last night saying it was in response to a hypothetical question about being Donald Trump's running mate. A Pawlenty spokesman says a formal announcement will be forthcoming.
Meantime, Donald Trump leads the GOP field in a new CNN/Opinion Research poll. Trump tied with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in this poll of Republican favorites for the 2012 presidential nomination. Both had 19 percent.
CHETRY: Well, it is 31 minutes past the hour -- time for an A.M. house call.
Going through puberty can be awkward enough. But imagine going through it in the seventh grade. Girls are now hitting puberty earlier than ever, and it's actually more of a concern than just awkwardness. I mean, implications -- life-long implications for women as they enter their reproductive years as well.
And average puberty age for girls now gone from 18, this was back in the 1800s. In 1960, it was 14. And now, 11 and getting younger.
ROMANS: Let's bring in senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen to find out why this is happening. She's in Atlanta.
Elizabeth, are we going to start seeing this continue and is this -- is this because of the environment and the way we're living our lives and actually driving puberty to younger and younger ages?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know what, Christine, there are a whole lot of theories about why girls are experiencing puberty earlier. And there's no question that they are experiencing it earlier. And it could get even earlier than it is now.
So, one of the leading theories is that girls are fatter than ever. And your body fat, hormones live so to speak in body fat. So, that's a leading theory.
But also, there's chemicals in our environment and some people blame those. There are also hormones in the foods we eat and in some of the milk we drink. And some people blame those.
And some people say that girls are sexualized -- for want of a better word -- at an earlier age than they used to be. They're exposed to sort of sexier images and maybe that has something to do with it. No one truly knows.
CHETRY: So, what do doctors say about what you can do about this? And why it's such a concern?
COHEN: Right. Well, let's start first with why it's such a concern. There are a couple reasons.
One is emotional. You know, it's one thing to handle the emotions of puberty when you're 12. It's another thing to handle them when you're seven. I mean, those are two very different things. And it can really send a kid into a tailspin.
Now, as far as physical problems, when a girl gets her period, she starts growing at a much slower rate and soon, she'll stop growing altogether. You don't want a 7-year-old to be growing at a slow rate. That's when they ought to be having growth spurts. So, there's two reasons to be concerned.
Now, as far as what you can do, if a girl is really, really young, you can give some hormone treatments to slow the whole process down. You wouldn't want to do that necessarily for an 8 or 9-year- old, but if a child is, let's say, seven, and hitting puberty -- I think a pediatrician would consider that treatment.
ROMANS: You know, I mean, you guys are the mothers of daughters. I'm the mother of sons. And it's like they're getting older and older, younger and younger as it is. I mean, it's just kind of a troubling trend overall. I mean, keeping our girls, little girls, while we can.
COHEN: Right. It really is. I mean, it's like girlhood is now, you know, lasts for a year, you know, by the time they are 8 years old, they're kind of considered tweens. I mean, it really is crazy. You wonder where childhood went.
CHETRY: The other question, too, there are people who really strongly feel about certain things -- hormones in food, trying to limit the amount of hormones kids are ingesting either in milk and dairy products or poultry products, et cetera.
ROMANS: We had a guest earlier this week who said it was plastics.
CHETRY: Yes, the endocrine disrupters in plastics making a difference as well. I mean, are they at least launching some studies to see if we do eliminate some of these from our environment -- can that make a difference?
COHEN: Yes. There are people who are studying it. And my advice as a parent is, look, if you don't want to, don't wait for those studies to come out. It's easy enough to buy hormone-free meat. It's more expensive. But, you know, many people can afford it.
It's -- you can buy hormone-free milk. You can get rid of the BPA and chemicals like that and look for products that are labeled BPA-free. You can do that. So, you can do that even though there's no evidence that will absolutely make a difference. So, if you want to do that, you should go ahead and do that.
CHETRY: Good advice. Elizabeth Cohen, as always, great to see you. Thanks.
COHEN: Thanks.
ROMANS: A House Armed Services Subcommittee will be holding hearings to investigate the ongoing burial fiasco at Arlington National Cemetery. A recent report in "TIME" magazine says cemetery workers regularly came across unidentified remains in graves and Army officials have been guessing about the identities rather than seeking positive IDs.
CHETRY: Well, with the space program ending this summer, NASA has chosen -- I guess you could call them retirement homes -- you're huge tourist draws for the remaining shuttles.
Atlantis is going to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Endeavour is going to be to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Discovery will be on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Virginia. And each winning location has to fork over close to $29 million to NASA for the delivery of those vehicles.
ROMANS: But it's an investment.
CHETRY: It's not free shipping. That's for sure.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: And on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the lights went out at the Lincoln Memorial. There's no conspiracy. A power cable on the western end of the national call -- National Mall was cut. Crews have finished repairing it and Honest Abe is all lit up again.
CHETRY: So, critics say that it's a gender bending propaganda. Others say it's kind of cute. The heated debate over this J. Crew ad where the mom is painting her son's toenails hot pink.
Thirty-six minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Thirty-eight minutes past the hour. Let's get a check of the morning's weather forecast.
Jacqui Jeras in the extreme weather center this morning.
CHETRY: Yes. Where we don't want to be, Jacqui, because we definitely don't want to be here in New York?
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. I'm thinking like Dallas.
CHETRY: Really? All right.
ROMANS: Dallas is good.
JERAS: Like 85, sunshine, it's going to be a nice day there. You probably don't want to be in Dallas tomorrow. We're going to have some pretty nasty thunderstorms roll on through there. Even Vegas today is lousy -- 50-mile-an-hour wind gusts? Not fun.
All right. Let's talk about what's going on in the east because, yes, you probably don't want to be there today, at least not weather-wise because it's kind on the lousy side. Yes, it's raw, it's cold, it's wet, it's damp, and this is going to be kind of an on and off event throughout the day today.
So, you're going to get some periods where the rain isn't coming down, but then it's going to rain again as you head into the afternoon hours. So, enjoy a few of those breaks and dodge your errands while you can.
Temperatures in the 40s for the most part, and feeling a little chillier than that with the dampness. In fact, we're looking at a good five to 10 degrees below average where we should be for this time of the year.
But if you're Christine Romans, April showers bring May flowers, right? So, you got to look at it glass half-full. Try and enjoy the day out there if you can.
It is causing some delays at the airport. Philadelphia, you're dry but the clouds extremely low. So, everybody has got to shoot the approach to arrive there. So, anybody across the country who's leaving one of the airports, trying to get to Philly, it's probably going to take you an extra hour or so. That's what the FAA is reporting.
Now, in addition to that, we do think the New York metros could reach what Philly is doing around an hour or so this afternoon. Boston expects some delays; as well as Denver, due to the low clouds and fog this morning. Rain showers possible this afternoon there.
Rain is moving into San Francisco as well today and Las Vegas, as I mentioned, those winds really going to be brutal. We've got a big storm system still in the developing stages out west.
And ahead of that system, that's what's going to be driving in those winds. They're going to be very strong. They're going to be very dry, and critical fire conditions. Guys, there's more than 300,000 acres burning across the country right now, the majority of which in Texas. So, this wind coming in and that dry weather really not great news for them.
But 85 in Dallas.
CHETRY: Today?
JERAS: Yes, today.
CHETRY: It would have to be a quick day trip.
JERAS: There you go, in and out.
CHETRY: Thanks, Jacqui.
Up next on AMERICA MORNING: pretty in pink or what the heck was she thinking? Tennis champ Serena Williams is tweeting out this picture. We'll tell you why.
ROMANS: And, an avalanche of e-mails from you, reacting to a story about a public school that's banning homemade lunches. What you had to say about this controversy ahead.
It's 41 minutes past the hour.
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ROMANS: Forty-two minutes after the hour. A lot going on this morning. Here's what you need to know to start your day:
Today, President Obama lay out his plan to dig the country out of its crippling debt crisis. It's expected to include tax hikes for the wealthy and changes to programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Police working to track down a suspected serial killer saying remains found yesterday on Long Island have now been identified as human. Still no word on whether they're linked to the eight other sets of remains found in the area.
Gas prices up for the 22nd day in a row. According to AAA, that national average for a gallon of regular is now $3.81 a gallon. That's up 2 cents from yesterday.
Microsoft's Bing now accounts for 30 percent of Internet searches in the U.S. But that's only if you include Yahoo! which is powered by Microsoft. Google still the king, with 67 percent of web searches.
Serena Williams shocking fans by not only returning to the court but tweeting this picture of herself wearing a bright pink body suit. Williams hasn't played an official match since last July because of a series of health problems, including dangerous blood clots in her lung.
And Katie Couric won't say whether she plans to leave CBS "Evening News." Yesterday, Couric told the ladies of "The View" she's, quote, "looking at all sorts of opportunities."
You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING is back in 60 seconds.
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ROMANS: Your e-mails came pouring in after we told you this story of a Chicago public school that's banning homemade lunches. The Little Village Academy making school lunches mandatory for every student. They believe it's the only way to make sure these kids aren't eating unhealthy foods and sugary treats.
Here's what the viewers are saying.
Patty writes, "I don't think anyone has an issue with trying to help kids eat healthier. It's when we're told how we're going to raise our children that we get riled up. Nutrition is different from a uniform, and I'm not allowing a school to raise my kids for me."
CHETRY: Pavel weighs in, asking, "What about those students who have a religion based diet? No pork or mixing meat and dairy?"
And Ashley writes, "If the problem as they say, is parents allowing their children to bring in junk food, then why not ban junk food instead of bagged lunches as a whole? I think ultimately it is the parents' responsibility to make sure their child is eating healthy."
ROMANS: And Randy Kite says, "Rather than banning packed lunches, schools should provide parents with tip sheets on how to pack healthy. Much less confrontational."
And, in fact, it was officials at the school that noticed what the parents were packing was much worse for the kids than the school lunches and they were trying to be helpful but found themselves in a little bit of controversy from people who say it's a nanny's take kind of thing.
CHETRY: Yes. Any time you weigh into that personal responsibility and all of that, it's very touchy.
ROMANS: Absolutely. But the health of our children is incredibly important.
All right. And we want to know what you have to say about this next story. A J. Crew ad with a little boy wearing bright pink toenail polish sparking a heated debate online over gender identity.
CHETRY: Yes. Here's the picture. It shows a mom - it's an ad actually, painting her son's toenails with the caption "Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink."
ROMANS: And the woman who is speaking in this ad is sort of the head stylist for J. Crew.
CHETRY: Right.
ROMANS: Sometimes they're very personal, these ads, where she's talking about her favorite picks and she has her son in this one. This all started with Fox News asking did it cross the line?
CHETRY: Yes, saying some parents were outraged that J. Crew was blurring the line between little girls and little boys. Parenting bloggers responded, some of them saying they don't see the big deal. We want to hear what you think about the ad, as well.
ROMANS: Yes, absolutely. So, weigh in on our blog, CNN.com/AM. We're also on Twitter @CNNam. We're going to read some of your thoughts tomorrow at the same time.
CHETRY: This morning's top stories just a couple minutes away, including perfect timing for "The Social Network" sequel. Another guy claiming he now owns ms half of Facebook and that has the e-mails to prove it. One says that he hopes this thing makes money.
Hmm. It did! Forty-seven minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Ten minutes to the top of the hour. It was the worst of times with the world economy on the verge of collapse in 2008, but it was also a shining moment for then-British prime minister Gordon Brown, whose efforts pushed leaders toward a global solution to the financial crisis. Brown went ahead and wrote a book about it, about that time at 10 Downing Street. It's titled "Beyond the Crash."
I had a chance to sit down with him earlier in the week ,and we started off by talking about the lessons learned from the collapse.
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CHETRY: You recently said in an interview that you made a big mistake in the way you tackled financial regulation before the banking system collapsed. What would you have changed?
GORDON BROWN, FMR. BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I said everybody made a big mistake. I said the whole -- the whole problem was that we looked at individual institutions and said, are they credit worthy, are they safe? And it looked on the surface as if that were the case, but they were entangled with each other and we had a shadow banking system that wasn't being regulated at all.
But the one thing we know now is we're in a global economy and if you simply have national regulators and national supervisors trying to manage what is a global entity of institutions, it's not going to work. So you've got to go global.
CHETRY: Looking back, what are some of the biggest lessons learned about what happened?
BROWN: I think the big thing to learn is that we're in a huge transition, a massive restructuring of the world economy. The world used to be a world where America had the biggest single market and the biggest number of consumers. Actually, it's going to be Asia in the future and Europe and America have got to get used to that. But it's a huge opportunity to sell to the world.
And in this new world where you have three billion people in your middle class, two billion of them in Asia, America has got to sell to these markets and America can be really successful in the next Asia- led (ph) history by being a great exporter to the rest of the world as well as having great prosperity within its own country. And I think you've just been too pessimistic about your prospects for the future.
CHETRY: What do you think is the single biggest threat right now to financial security globally?
BROWN: I think the danger at the moment is that huge amounts of money are going into Asia because the Asian economy is expanding. So you've got hot money in a sense going into Asia and you've got the danger of people speculating the danger of inflation in Asia, the danger then of another bubble bursting.
But the long-term danger is not actually understanding that you're living in this global economy, and so America tries to do something, Europe tries to do something, China tries to do something and you end up getting into a situation where there's no global minimum and, therefore, the banks actually can do exactly what they want. That's a real problem.
CHETRY: What do you make of what we've -- what we've been seeing when it comes to these protests and revolutions in some of these countries that have been led by dictators or autocrats for decades?
BROWN: Well, I think it's amazing, because everything predicted has not happened. People thought that you would move to theocratic, Islamic extremist governments. People thought that the people of these regions were not interested in democracy, but we've found they are. People thought that there would be anti-American protests, but there are not.
And so I think it shows that young people right across the world have similar aspirations about their dignity, but also about the freedom and opportunities they can have. One of the features of Egyptian discontent is the large numbers of young people who can't get a job, even if they've got a graduate degree, 45 percent in Tunisia where there was a revolution as well, even in Saudi Arabia, 30 percent of young people are unemployed.
So you've got this problem around the world where we're not generating enough opportunities for -- for young people. And yet at the same time, you can see there are unmet needs and there are unused resources that could actually put young people to work and give them the training and education that's necessary for jobs.
So I think we've got to separately tackle this problem of young people's unemployment and make sure we don't allow this generation to be the first for many, many generations where young people can't really say that their prospects are going to be better than their parents.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: And that's a question being asked around the world. In the Middle East, in the United States, in the U.K. Is this generation going to have a better chance of a world and a future better than the one their parents left them?
CHETRY: Because it would be is first generation in some time that didn't feel that way. He ended up being more optimistic, though. He said he thinks this growing middle class in places like India and China will be a big consumer of goods for places like America and other countries. He said you know, you guys are the ones that invented optimism. So, don't think it's as bad as it is.
ROMANS: It's interesting because Gordon Brown and people like him who have worked in these governments and as -- in trade and economics for many years, they know they see this bright, shining hope of what China can do in terms of a market, but there have been a lot of barriers, protective barriers, favoritism of Chinese companies and the like.
So, Asia as an important area for growth, he pointed out. Yet, still have to break down some barriers, too, and that's something that he and others have worked very hard to do.
CHETRY: So, we linked it up on the Internet so you can check it out there, and we'll have more with Gordon Brown coming up next week.
ROMANS: This next video is incredible. Don't dip your toe in the water because you just might lose it. Imagine a quick midday dip in the pool to find - oh, yeah. When you come home for lunch in Newport, Florida, there's an eight-foot long gator.
CHETRY: And you can't complain that there's a spider on your wall when that's what comes up in your pool in Florida.
ROMANS: It took a chunk out of the tile before a trapper came and dragged it out of there. I love the images of the trapper dragging it out.
CHETRY: So mad.
ROMANS: Yes, just another day at the office. Yes, I got an eight-pound -
CHETRY: Eight-pound gator in Newport Ritchie.
ROMANS: Yes - eight-foot!
CHETRY: Eight foot. That's right.
ROMANS: Hey, as long as you can tape its mouth shut, hey, you can drag him anywhere.
CHETRY: All right. Fifty-six minutes past the hour. We're going to take a quick break. Your top stories coming right up.
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