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American Morning
Three Air Scares in One Day; Memphis Braces for Record Flood; Making Your House Stand Out; Mississippi River Continues to Rise; A Degree and Debt; Finishing Off Al Qaeda; The Bin Laden Tapes; The Evidence Against Bin Laden
Aired May 09, 2011 - 06:58 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Three air scares in one day. Passengers forced to tackle unruly people on two flights and a threatening note found on another. You'll hear from the people who are on those planes on this AMERICAN MORNING.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: You just want to calmly get from point A to point B. The last thing you want to do is have to tackle a fellow passenger who's trying to unlock the exit.
VELSHI: On a plane.
CHETRY: On a plane.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: That's in the air.
(LAUGHTER)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: That's in the air. There you go. Good morning to you. It's Monday, May 9th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING.
ROMANS: That's right. First this morning, scary moments on board. Three different flights with the nation still on a heightened alert after the death of Bin Laden.
VELSHI: The TSA says an unruly passenger headed for the cockpit door, this is a different one, on an American airlines flight last night from Chicago to San Francisco. Flight attendants and passengers helped take him down. On the radio, you can hear the pilot tell the tower, they've got a problem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're from American 1561. We're going to need a priority handling on our arrival. We've had a passenger conflict here. American 1561, Do I have as soon as possible at San Francisco?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: American 1561, Norcal approach, going to maintain 6,000. Say again the last thing you said.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Down to 6,000, and we need priority handling tonight. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are receiving it American 1561.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cool, thanks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: That flight landed in San Francisco. The passenger was arrested.
CHETRY: That was the one that tried to go into the cockpit. A Continental flight from Houston to Chicago forced to land in St. Louis because witnesses say that a guy went for the exit door. Passengers also jumped in here and put up a fight to stop him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear a scream from the stewardess and see her fly across the thing. And so I go running and I see this guy his hands on the door, these two guys trying to hold them. The guy was a bull. I just jumped on his back, put him in the choke.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I also have to say that Americans are not going down like that anymore. The men were all up and out in a minute getting him subdued.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: That passenger was taken off of the plane for questioning. We don't have a lot of detail about what the motivation or what authorities think the motivation was for either one of those incidents, but the plane landed safely, made it to Chicago only about an hour late.
ROMANS: But we're not done yet. A Delta flight from Detroit to San Diego was diverted after a flight attendant found a suspicious note in the bathroom. The TSA says it landed safely in Albuquerque. A security sweep of the plane turned up nothing.
VELSHI: What a weekend. All right, now to the video tapes Osama bin Laden never meant the world to see. This is it, evidence seized last week from the Al Qaeda chief's compound. It has been released by the Obama administration showing us a side of the 9/11 mastermind we had never seen before.
CHETRY: Bin laden seen huddled in front of a television watching news broadcasts of himself, and in other pictures like this one, he is preparing statements to make in those, of course, audio and video messages released by him. U.S. intelligence officials painting a portrait of bin Laden as a vain man who was obsessed with his image.
ROMANS: Barbara Starr is live in Washington. Barbara, it certainly paints a picture of bin Laden as someone much more engaged in the public relations campaign of Al Qaeda and maybe in the day-to-day operational aspects as well.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: That is what the administration is saying we should remind everyone, these tapes issued by the Obama administration are heavily edited, just a snippet of what they found. There is no audio on them. The administration took that off so they said they wouldn't be in the position of spreading bin Laden's words.
All part of the intelligence haul at that compound when the raid took place, administration officials saying it was enough to fill a small college library. What does it tell us about bin Laden? What does it tell us about Al Qaeda? We talked to CNN contributor Fran Townsend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANCES FRAGOS TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Clearly he had views on operational views, plans, and he was about trying to use these couriers and thumb drives captured to send his directions, his ideas, back to operatives who would actually execute those plans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: That's what they're looking at right now. The belief right now by the administration says that bin Laden had not just the big picture ideological control of the message, but that he had operational, tactical control. He was deep into the details, the plotting, the planning.
So they're looking at all of this information that they gathered and trying to assess what was he really doing. Were these the ranting of a mad man or did he have plots in plan that he was distributing to his operatives outside? Did he have an ability to communicate? And are there plots and plans that the administration needs to roll up on now?
ROMANS: We saw these images of him with the dark beard, seeing those recently when you were talking. Are those unreleased messages he had? What is the government saying those are?
STARR: Well, according to the administration official that briefed reporters on this, the one tape, of course, is him watching himself on satellite television, the gray beard not dyed. The others they believe are unreleased tapes.
One of them is very interesting. It has a title on it, "Message to the American people." they believe this was made sometime in late October, November of last year. Of course right before the midterm elections. Bin Laden was known to have put his messages timed to U.S. political events.
Other ones, again more formal appearance. He's rehearsing in a couple cases some of his more formal messages he was putting out to the world. That's where you see him dressed, beard dyed, not the man huddling in front of the television.
VELSHI: Barbara, thanks very much for that.
Speaking about the airlines, airlines have a no-fly list, and now one New York senator thinks Amtrak should have a no ride list. Senator Chuck Schumer says evidence taken from Osama bin Laden's compound points to potential attacks on the nation's rail system. We reported that last week. So he wants added funding for rail security and train monitoring and inspections. He's calling on the Department of Homeland Security to expand its secure flight monitoring program to include the nation's trains.
ROMANS: You can walk on any train with shoes, bags, no questions asked.
Two congressmen from New York think some of the $25 million bounty on bin Laden's head should be used to help victims of the 9/11 attacks. That idea announced yesterday at a news conference at ground zero. Congressman Anthony Weiner and Gerald Nadler say they will introduce legislation to make it happen because based on early evidence it appears intelligence gathering was largely responsible for finding and killing bin Laden. It doesn't appear any one specific person qualifies for the bounty money.
CHETRY: Right now hundreds are running from the surging Mississippi River. It's expected to crest near a record tomorrow in Memphis and the danger running all the way downstream to New Orleans. Some Memphis streets right now are underwater. Those near the river. The national weather service says that river may not fall below flood stage until next month.
David Mattingly is live in Memphis for us this morning. How is this community coping? What are people doing as they expect these levels to be at their highest come tomorrow?
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This is the largest population center to be hit by this flood so far. What we're seeing here in Memphis, is flooding in some of the lowest lying areas. This intersection behind me is where the famous Beale Street comes down and meets the river.
So you see where the river has come up to. It's just been inching its way in. It's been coming up and got to this level in a matter of days. Now we're looking at a matter of weeks before it gets back. There's thinking it could be sometime in June before this river gets back into the banks where it belongs.
So this water is disrupting things, but it's not encroaching any further on downtown Memphis, that area staying high and dry. The worst problems we've been seeing have been in the outlying areas around the city where they have tributaries, other rivers that typically empty into the Mississippi. But because this water is so high that water and those rivers have nowhere to go.
So we've been seeing pockets of flooding that's been hitting neighborhoods, putting homes and trailer parks into the water over the past few days. We've got 300 to 400 people in shelters today, but right now here in Memphis everyone now is going to be watching those levees very closely every day to make sure that they hold up as this water sits here, possibly for weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COL. VERNIE L. REICHLING, MEMPHIS DISTRICT COMMANDER: In 1937 these levees were nowhere near the height they are today. Our levees are typically two to three feet above the project designed flood, and that flood design was based on a 37 foot. So our levees are considerably higher, they're very strong, our flood walls are very good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: And we're about to turn a major corner here in Memphis. This flood is only expected to come up just a couple more inches and crest sometime tomorrow. So the scenes that you're seeing around Memphis aren't going to be getting much worse. Now this city is going to be looking at that very long process for this river to come down, these waters to move out, and for the cleanup and the repairs to begin.
VELSHI: David, thanks very much. We'll keep an eye on that again tomorrow morning now, you're saying, that's the new schedule for the expected crest.
MATTINGLY: That's right. It was originally expected to be some time on Wednesday but now we're looking at -- it was moved up a day, good news for people here in Memphis, because they can't wait to see this water get out of here. It's going to require a lot of patience everyone just going to be watching those levees, make sure everything is OK, as this water slowly creeps its way out of Memphis.
ROMANS: David, thanks.
The next story is just haunting. This woman survived 49 days alone in Nevada eating trail mix, melting snow, and then going back to her van at night to sleep and get out of the elements. Her doctors are amazed at her good health.
Rita Chretien from Canada was found in her van by hunters on Friday. She and her husband Albert took a trip to Las Vegas in March. They were last seen in this convenience store in Oregon. Their van stuck on a muddy, desolate road near the Nevada border. Her husband went looking for help after three days in that van, and he's now still missing. The couple's family is thrilled that weeks and weeks later they have rescued their mother.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LORRAINE HOVING, ALBERT CHRETIEN'S SISTER: We cry just seeing Rita, knowing that she survived seven and a half weeks in a van, and how long to hope for all that time. Probably words will not come, and probably tears will come and lots of hugs and kisses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Her doctors say she may be well enough to leave the hospital in a few days. Her doctors say she's been doing well as she reintroduced electrolytes and water and food.
CHETRY: She lost 30 pounds. They said she had a bible with her and she kept a journal because she could have ended either way. She didn't know if she was going to live or not. She wanted to chronicle what she was going through.
ROMANS: And keeping track of 49 days.
CHETRY: It is miraculous.
VELSHI: We're going to go back to take a look at the Mississippi River again. While we're expecting it to crest in Memphis tomorrow, a lot of damage being done, we're going to talk to mayor of Memphis right after this break.
CHETRY: We talk about whether it's the time to buy, time to sell. If you want to sell how you can spruce it up just some little changes that may not cost you a lot but would attract buyers. We're going to talk about that coming up. It's 11 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Our continuing coverage of the historic flooding of the Mississippi River continues now. The Mississippi River is surging to record levels. Hundreds of people in Memphis are being warned this morning, don't wait to evacuate, get out now.
We're joined by A.C. Wharton Jr. He's the mayor of Memphis. Mayor, thank you for joining us. What is the situation right now? David just told us we're about two inches from the crest which we're expecting to happen tomorrow morning. How would you describe the situation in Memphis?
A.C. WHARTON, JR., MEMPHIS MAYOR: Well, it's sort of tortures, we've been waiting so long, hard keeping people alert. It's warning fatigue, if you will. We're ready for it. There's a lot of anxiety.
VELSHI: So of the people, how many people have been evacuated? And of those who haven't if we're just going up another two inches does that mean we kind of know what the danger will be, how bad this is going to get now?
WHARTON: We think we have a pretty good handle on it. The corps of engineers tell us the levees are going to hold. We evacuated around 400. There are another 1,300 or so who are in the low-lying areas. The only danger there if a road were to give in, we had that happen in the southwest where we could not get in at the last minute. But even if that happened, we will have ways of getting everybody out.
VELSHI: Just to get a sense of it, Memphis, the downtown on a bit of a bluff, so it will probably be OK. But the Mississippi River is normally a half mile wide where you are, and we're seeing some reports in the Memphis news at some places three miles wide.
WHARTON: That is absolutely correct. Maybe a little more. We flew over yesterday. The only way you can determine where the channel is is to try to spot a barge or boat out there or something. You cannot locate the river. VELSHI: Let's talk about this Memphis in May. It's usually a big month. Weather is very nice in Memphis. Folks come down. You've got a music festival, barbecue contest. The Grizzlies doing well in the playoffs. What of that is affected by the flooding?
WHARTON: The only thing that has been affected so far has been we had to relocate the barbecue contest, the world's largest pork barbecue contest. It's on a place called Tiger Lane, brand new place. The Sunset Symphony will go on and the Grizzlies, of course, will go on all the way to victory.
VELSHI: All right.
WHARTON: All the way.
VELSHI: We know there are a lot of challenges. I'll keep you up to date on that. We'll check in with you again after that. But we wish you and the folks in Memphis the best of luck. What's the economic impact to Memphis as a result of this flood?
WHARTON: Well, again, Memphis in May will go on. We don't think it'll have a discernable impact, but it does affect some businesses, had to close down that are located in those areas. But we don't think the economic impact is going to be that great. We're going to make it.
VELSHI: All right. You talked about warning fatigue. This always happens to folks. Are you satisfied that the people who have needed to evacuate have done so or will do so today?
WHARTON: We think they will. Most of them are listening. We're appealing to the faith-based community. There are some who felt prayer will take them through this, and, of course, we'll never disparage that, but we're working with the faith-based community. We'll get them out. Some are holding out to the last minute but we think in the end they're going to come out.
VELSHI: All right. Mayor, we are, of course, keeping a close eye on Memphis and so many of those communities along the river that are being affected by this and many of them will get new high water marks. So we're with you on this one.
Mayor, thanks for being with us and our best wishes to the folks of Memphis and Shelby County.
WHARTON: Thank you. You all have a good day.
VELSHI: All right. Mayor A.C. Wharton, Jr. is the mayor of Memphis -- Christine.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Ali, all the talk of Memphis barbecue is making me hungry this early in the morning. Oh, sounds good.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: But they say they had to reschedule or relocate their basketball?
ROMANS: Relocate it. Relocate it.
CHETRY: Still going on.
ROMANS: Memphis in May will go on despite rising water.
Meanwhile, gas prices which have been rising, rising all spring, could they fall quite a bit by summer? We'll tell you how much in about two minutes.
CHETRY: And the next time you walk into your McDonald's, you might not recognize it. They're undergoing a multimillion-dollar makeover, trying to compete a little more with some of the higher upscale chains. We'll show you what they're doing coming up. Eighteen minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-one minutes past the hour. We're "Minding Your Business" now.
And another busy week in store for Wall Street as investors focus on a bunch of new reports out about the economy. They include the April retail sales and also the consumer confidence numbers in May. Dow futures this morning up 50 right now.
Shifting to gas prices, where analysts predict they'll fall by as much as 75 cents by the summer. AA also reporting this morning that the price for a gallon of regular is down for the fourth straight day. It's now at $3.96 a gallon.
Michigan and the Midwest reportedly set to get $800 million to build a high-speed rail between Detroit and Chicago. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is also expected to announce today that the New York area will get $800 million to improve its rail system.
Apple overtakes Google as the world's most valuable brand. According to the brand Z top 100, Apple's brand is now valued at more than $153 billion.
And McDonald's spending more than $1 billion trying to make-over its stores to get you to stay a little longer and maybe choose them over a higher-end fast food joint. Gone are the steel chairs and the bright interiors. In its place wood tables, fake leather chairs and muted paint colors.
Well, we're back after the break. How to spruce up your house to sell it faster. AMERICAN MORNING is back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: A lot of people trying to sell their house have their hands over their eyes or their fingers crossed or they're praying, right, because home prices in a number of markets are still falling and there's a big backlog of homes out there that still need to be sold. So what can you do if you're trying to sell? Number one, you got to lower the price. It's got to be priced right. But there are also some easy and inexpensive things you can do to make your house stand out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS (voice-over): Ann Camaro (ph) and her husband are looking to sell their home in western New York.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been now a month, but last year we had it on for a whole year, almost a year, and we didn't sell it.
STEPHEN SAINT ONGE, HOME AND STYLE DESIGNER: Right.
Is there anything you did in between to get the house into shape so that it would be ready for the new real estate market?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, yes. When we redid the kitchen and we fenced in the whole backyard.
ROMANS: But they priced it too high and have now lowered their asking price to $329,000. It's a buyer's market and that means number one, it has to be priced right. Number two, it has to look good.
Enter Stephen Saint Onge, home and style designer and author of "No Place Like Home."
ONGE: My first thought was I wish this was a mirror. I wish this was here to bounce light into the room a little bit more.
ROMANS: We asked him how to help this house sell in a sea of homes for sale.
ONGE: You don't have a dining room. So that's one thing in this house that you have to sort of make people feel like they have a space to gather in. When I see the table, I almost think as you've got this great light fixture that you guys obviously put in, is the center of the table.
ROMANS: And spring is traditionally real estate's big selling season. But according to mortgage giant Fannie Mae, home sales are expected to remain soft in the near term and the spring season could deliver disappointing results.
(on camera): So in this climate, when it comes to sprucing up your house to sell, it can be something as small and simple as paint color that can make a really big difference. For a couple hundred dollars, you can redo the whole first floor or just paint the foyer depending on what you can afford.
Here's a hint for you though. Gray is the new beige. A cool modern gray right away tells perspective buyers that your house is different than all the other ones on the block.
ADELE GEORGE, PRINCIPAL BROKER, NORTHERN DUCHESS REALTY: I think for very little money you can tweak a house all over the place. ROMANS (voice-over): And perhaps at the end of the day, the most important thing to keep in mind it's all about coming home.
ONGE: There are simple things that create that mental illusion for people coming in as a perspective buyer to say I could see myself living in this home and that's really key.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: See that they did that kitchen, and so they spent some money on the kitchen. Be careful about where you spend the money. A lot of the experts and the statistics point out that it's the entry door, it's curb appeal that really helps. Also the experts say how coffee brewing, if you have a fireplace and it's chilly start a fire, maybe put cookies in the oven. All these things --
CHETRY: It has to appear livable, yes.
ROMANS: It has to appear livable and good. But, you know, I hear that advise and I get nervous because a lot of people who are trying to sell their house, they'll put cookies in --
VELSHI: If you're overpriced, the cookies have got to do it.
ROMANS: You've got to be priced right. You've got to be priced right.
VELSHI: But I have to say I never believe this nonsense. Never did until I couldn't sell -- about making it look nice and cookies and coffee and stuff until my place didn't sell, and then I made it attractive for people to buy and some buyers are not about the square foot price.
CHETRY: So what did you do? Did you lower the price?
VELSHI: You got rid of all my stuff. Gave some to Christine.
CHETRY: But you didn't lower the price?
ROMANS: He got rid of his furniture. This woman said you've got to get rid of this terrible armoire to sell the house.
VELSHI: I love the armoire.
ROMANS: And I took the armoire. The experts said you had to get rid of it.
VELSHI: I think she set the woman up to tell me to get rid of all the stuff, so Christine got it. But it sold.
ROMANS: It sold as soon as he got rid of that God awful armoire that's in my house.
Anyway, so remember, price it right and you don't have to spend a lot of money to really make it look good because spring selling season is here. So good luck, everybody. VELSHI: All right, good luck.
All right. I want to bring you up to speed with some of the stories that we're covering right now on CNN.
It's been a very disturbing weekend in the skies. There were security scares on three different flights causing some to make emergency landings yesterday, but the TSA is blaming it on unruly passengers. That's their words. One man making a run toward the cockpit door. On another flight, a man headed for the exit door on a plane. On a third flight, a threatening note turned up in the bathroom. In all three cases, the planes landed safely.
Thousands of people are fleeing the Mississippi River. Raging and rising floodwaters are already causing severe damage.
Take a look at these pictures of the flooding. Memphis, Tennessee, the city that is hit the hardest, more problems are on the way. Tomorrow the river is expected to crest and reach 48 feet. Just a couple of inches below that right now and it's going to push even further south into the Mississippi Delta Region. There are some concerns around New Orleans.
And college grads of 2011 leaving with a college degree and a lot of debt, "The Wall Street Journal" reporting that the class will owe the most money of any in history. Tuition is going up, cash strapped parents can't help as much as they have in the past.
The average senior will be almost $23,000 in debt. That is 8 percent higher than a year ago. As we were discussing, it is one of those situations where it is still in this environment a good investment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: That's right.
CHETRY: Well, President Obama is ramping up the pressure on Pakistan this morning. Insisting that Osama Bin Laden likely had the support, at least some kind of support network, inside of Pakistan that allowed him to live there undetected.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS (voice-over): In a "60 Minutes" interview that aired last night, the president said both the U.S. and Pakistan should investigate that possibility as for al Qaeda, the president says it's time to go for the kill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Ed Henry live at the White House right now. Ed, the president talking about delivering the fatal blow against al Qaeda. What's he talking about?
ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a big deal because as you were noting, there's been frustration within the Obama administration that maybe there has not been enough cooperation from Pakistan.
So you saw the president in that interview, putting some pressure on the Pakistani government, the intelligence service there, to come clean on what they know and what they knew before about Bin Laden.
But more importantly now moving forward what they know about the number two, number three and others within al Qaeda, so that maybe the U.S. can move in and really put even more heat on the terror group right now. Take a listen to how the president put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We're not done yet, but we got the opportunity, I think, to really finally defeat at least al Qaeda in that border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But it does mean we've got a chance to, I think, really deliver a fatal blow to this organization.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Big deal to hear the president say that, especially when you add it to what the Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday, a little notice, but we should point it out. He said it could be a game changer now that Bin Laden has been killed in terms of the impact in Afghanistan and the war there.
That's important because the president has a big decision coming up this summer, July, he has billed as a pivot point to starting bringing some U.S. troops home from Afghanistan. He has not put a number on it.
When you have the defense secretary who is usually very cautious saying this could be a game changer that suggests the administration at least is considering, I stress considering, bringing home more U.S. troops this summer. Ali --
VELSHI: All right, Ed, thanks very much. Ed Henry for us at the White House this morning.
CHETRY: Well, the video seized from the al Qaeda chief's compound and just released by the Obama administration shows a side of the terrorists that we've never seen before.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY (voice-over): The 9/11 mastermind seen there huddled in front of a television set, studying news broadcasts of himself. CNN National Security contributor Fran Townsend says based on early evidence taken from the compound, Bin Laden was set up to do a lot of damage.
FRANCES TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: Clearly, he had views on operational ideas, operational plans, and he was about trying to send -- use these couriers and these thumb drives that were captured in order to send his directions, his ideas, back to operatives who would actually execute those plans. CHETRY: Bin Laden can be seen on the videos practicing a speech. U.S. intelligent officials are painting a portrait of the al Qaeda creator as a vain man, obsessed with his own image.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Hundreds of people on the run this morning in Memphis from the surging Mississippi. It's expected to crest near a record level tomorrow. Many homes are swamped already.
It could be the worst flood since 1937. In downtown Memphis, the river now stretches three miles wide. It's normally about a half a mile wide in that spot.
Bonnie Schneider is in the CNN Weather Center with a look at where the danger zones from the flood are this morning. Bonnie, good morning.
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Ali. As we take a look at the map, you'll see that starting tomorrow we'll be watching for Memphis for the river to crest. But obviously, there's a lot of flooding happening right now, 14 feet anticipated above flood stage.
As we go into the next week or so we'll be monitoring the Mississippi River further southward particularly as we head towards Baton Rouge and into New Orleans. So that's something to monitor very closely.
Across the U.S., right now, very strong thunderstorms are working their way directly into Minneapolis. This is really hard hitting. We're seeing frequent lightning strikes and heavy downpours, strong winds through Saint Cloud, Burnsville to the south so some really heavy downpours for this morning commute.
Naturally that will impact your U.S. travel. Chicago and Minneapolis looking at delays due to winds and thunderstorms and then in the northeast, windy weather, that could slow you down over an hour for the airports there. And also, in Denver and Las Vegas, facing some windy conditions.
All the wind out west, and unfortunately the heat, will be causing some problems in terms of fire danger. This is going to affect a good portion of Texas0 and New Mexico today. Hot temperatures, dry conditions, and gusty winds all coming together to bring a big fire threat to the west.
Also we're watching for some severe weather through the northern plains and parts of the Midwest. A lot will slide into northern Illinois later on today and temperatures are going to be very, very warm.
You can see a surge of warm air well into the 90s, Kansas City 91 degrees, 92 in Dallas, and 92 in Houston so some really hot weather that will be working its way further to the east.
It's also going to be very oppressive and humid along the Mississippi River. For those that are putting the sandbags out there and working outside, it's going to be especially uncomfortable due to the heat and humidity along the Delta. Back to you.
VELSHI: Bonnie, thank you for that. We'll stay on top of it with you and your team at the Weather Center.
CHETRY: I don't know if you know this from your own experience, but it seems like it's been a tough allergy season so far. My poor husband is constantly sneezing. My daughter is constantly sneezing.
VELSHI: Our poor producer, Brian, can't understand a word he says. We're about to go to break. Can you stop talking?
ROMANS: I'm hearing people sneeze 30, 40 times in a row.
VELSHI: I said break.
CHETRY: Poor Brian. But yes, it is particularly tough year apparently.
ROMANS: If it feels bad we're going to tell you why and I don't know if we can solve it, but we can tell you what's behind it.
CHETRY: Is anybody knows what allergy medication works please write to me because my poor family is suffering.
ROMANS: Also education in America, this is an incredible story of a young boy arrested in school after writing on his desk. Some are asking, arrested for writing on your desk? Is the zero tolerance policy in schools going too far?
VELSHI: Worry about writing on Facebook for now.
We want to know what you think about this morning's question. Should this pilot we've been telling you about be able to profile and remove passengers based on their appearance?
These two imams on their way to an Islamophobia conference of all things, they were not given a reason. They were picked off a plane. They were rescreened through security. Still weren't allowed to get on the screen.
Atlantic says it's sorry, but it takes security seriously. They didn't tell us why the men were ordered to leave. You can read the story on cnn.com then e-mail us, tweet us, go to our blog, or find us on Facebook, we're reading your comments later in the show.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 40 minutes past the hour right now. They're calling it a small college library of intelligence. That's how U.S. officials are describing the evidence that was hauled out of Osama Bin Laden's compound last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY (voice-over): Now in addition to the computer drives, the thumb drives, the documents, there were also video tapes of the mass murder seen here watching himself on TV and in a series of other tapes practicing speeches that he was going to be set to deliver.
Well, President Obama says that all of that intelligence that's been gathered could disrupt or even finish off al Qaeda.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: We are now, obviously, putting everything we've got into analyzing and evaluating all that information, but we anticipate that it can give us leads to other terrorists it that we've been looking for a long time, other high value targets.
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CHETRY: Joining us live from Washington is Reuel Gerecht, he's a former CIA officer, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which was created after 9/11 to promote democracy. Thanks for being with us this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My pleasure.
CHETRY: It must be certainly be exciting for those in the intelligence community to hear that they have a small library of information.
When we take a look at what this is, obviously some of it could be critical, obviously some of it could be actionable, just tell us what you think is happening right now? What is our intelligence community doing with that information as we speak?
REUEL MARC GERECHT, FORMER CIA OFFICER: Well, I think the first thing they're doing is probably translating it. I mean, I suspect most of that information was in Arabic, relatively few Arabic speakers in the agency, in the intelligence community, so they have to translate all of it as fast as they possibly can.
They'll go quickly to see whether it reveals cells they don't know about, whether they have actionable information, whether they can militarily target those cells. They'll look to see if the information shows signs of internal stress inside of al Qaeda and its affiliates.
They'll look for Bin Laden's own assessment of his organization and affiliates. And I think they'll also be looking closely to see whether that correspondence reveals Bin Laden's contacts inside of the Pakistani and the Saudi establishments.
CHETRY: Right, well, I imagine it's challenging because on one aspect what you're trying to do is get this information processed as quickly as possible in case you want to act on anything.
But you also want to be as thorough as possible because this could be, you know, as you said the most information and the most complete information we've had to date yet about this terror network.
The CIA, are they dealing others into the fold to try to help process it faster or is this only happening through military intelligence and the CIA?
GERECHT: That's a good question. I mean, I suspect they're bringing in the entire intelligence community to look at this information. I mean, they'll take safeguards, but they'll need, if it really is the size of a small college library, they'll need a lot of help to process that information quickly.
CHETRY: We're also getting reports the CIA is producing new intelligence report, a new intelligence report nearly every hour based on this information. Of course, over the weekend, we saw the drone step in Yemen.
The attempt to get Anwar al-Awlaki there. That was not successful, but do you think they're already moving agents around hunting leads and hunting for other terrorists?
GERECHT: I mean, if the information is really actionable, sure. I mean, I think the possibility here will only come once if Bin Laden actually was in that type of contact with allied cells, his own cells.
It's not clear that's true. I mean, it really depends whether Bin Laden had lots of couriers coming in and out where those cells are located, but they will certainly be looking as closely and quickly as they can to see whether they can strike other cells located in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
CHETRY: There's one bit of intelligence that the U.S. is not able to get at least at this point from that compound and that is Bin Laden's three wives that were there.
Three of them are now being held by Pakistani authorities and the U.S. has asked for and been denied by the Pakistanis the right to interrogate them. How important is talking to those women?
GERECHT: It could be very important. Obviously, we don't know the relationship between Bin Laden and his wives, but they could certainly tell us a great deal about his movement, if he had guests, so particularly it could be incriminating for the Pakistani government itself. I'm not surprised that the Pakistanis are reluctant to allow the Americans access to these women.
CHETRY: So basically we don't have -- there's really -- if they say no, they say no?
GERECHT: Unless we can find means of coercion. I mean this could be one of those moments where you're really going to have to force the Pakistanis, threaten them with something they want. Of course, they can threaten back, you know, so they're -- it's, obviously, a very tough relationship.
CHETRY: Yes. And we've seen all the more clearer over the past couple weeks after this.
GERECHT: Yes.
CHETRY: Reuel Marc Gerecht, always great to talk to you, former CIA officer.
Thanks so much for joining us. GERECHT: My pleasure.
CHETRY: Ali.
VELSHI: All right. Time to Mind your Business. I want to show you a story, a great story on CNNMoney.com. Millionaires no tax club. Did you know one percent of people who earned more than a $1 in 2010 didn't pay any taxes whatsoever? You can see this story on money.com. It's written by my friend Jean Sahadi.
Let me give you a little chart of what -- how many people in which income group paid taxes. And you can see here 4,000 people who made more than $1 million in 2010, paid zero income tax in the United States. They, by the way, may have paid taxes elsewhere, depending on how they invested their money. And if they paid somewhere else they don't pay here in the United States.
Tax experts say that probably the main reason why these big earners didn't pay taxes is that they were big investors back in 2008 when the market took a nose dive and they are -- they're going to have many years of losses to write off. That's one of the reasons. They could be self-employed, they could be retired, they could donate money to charity.
But basically want Jean has gleaned from this from some of the tax experts is that the tax code is really written to benefit investments by wealthy people, and as a result, some people get away without paying taxes. And I should tell you, about 69 million American households didn't pay tax in 2010. That's half of all people, half of all households in the United States. Part of that, in fact, in most cases overwhelmingly, it's because people are low income.
Now, that may mean that you feel that the rich should pay a bigger portion of taxes. Jean points out in this article, however, that even if we got all of these people to pay more in taxes, it's not enough to solve our deficit and debt problems.
This is, by the way, part of a brand new revamped money.com. It's where I go for a lot of my great research, because we've got a team that's just down the hall here that works very hard, great reporters on all sorts of stories. One of the new additions to the site is that you've got this list of most popular stories. As you can see, the millionaires who owe no federal income tax is the most popular story right now on money.com.
One other thing I want to show you, Kiran, because you like using a tablet computer. We all use them. There's a tablet view. You can just click on the side of the page to see it this way on your tablet computer. And even if you don't use a tablet, if you like this way of looking at stories, you can get it here. So this millionaire story on the tablet view is right here in the top. You just click on it and it'll go to the full story.
So, check it out. The new, revamped money.com live right now.
Christine, Kiran. ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Ali .
Education in America. How's this story? A young boy in school, arrested after writing on his desk. Some people are now asking is zero tolerance, these zero tolerance policies in school, going too far? Arrested for writing on the desk.
It's 47 minutes after the hour.
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ROMANS: A lot going on this morning. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
President Obama calling for an investigation into Pakistan. He's concerned bin Laden may have had a support network there. Meanwhile, the president says the time is right to deliver the fatal blow to al Qaeda.
The Mississippi River rising and fierce. And more danger ahead. The river is expected to crest tomorrow breaking record flood levels.
You may be getting some relief at the pump soon and just in time for summer. Analysts predict gas prices will drop by as much as 75 cents. Right now, AAA reports the national average is $3.96 a gallon.
Spring has sprung. That means allergy season is in full force. Pollen levels are reaching record highs. That's because heavy winter snows and early spring rains. Experts predict this allergy season could be the worst on record.
Superhero flick "Thor" crushes the competition and earns the top spot at this weekend's box office, raking in an impressive $66 million. Following behind was "Fast Five" and "Jumping the Broom."
You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING is back in 60 seconds.
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CHETRY: Fifty-two minutes past the hour right now. A New York City high school student says he was handcuffed and hauled out by police to a precinct for just scribbling on his desk.
VELSHI: As Soledad O'Brien reports, cases like this are becoming more and more common and now students and their parents are fighting back.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tenth grader Messiah (ph), who asked that we not use his last name, was in science class at the High School of Art and Design in New York City when he says boredom led him to draw on his desk with a marker last month.
MESSIAH, STUDENT: After I did it, I knew it was wrong. O'BRIEN: His mom says her 15-year-old son is not a troublemaker. He was suspended. Three days later while Messiah was taking a test, he was called to the principal's office.
MESSIAH: They arrested me and searched through my pockets and stuff again. They made me take my book bag off and then handcuffed me and when I got to the precinct, they handcuffed me to a bench for a couple of hours.
O'BRIEN: Noncriminal offenses like this being handed over to the police is the basis for a class action lawsuit filed last year.
DENNIS PARKER, ACLU: We want something saying that the policy of using too much force is unconstitutional.
O'BRIEN: It's not just New York. Across the nation, police presence in school is on the rise and students are more likely to be arrested at school.
RUSSLYN ALI, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS: Today this idea of cradle to prison is part of the American lexicon and we are seeing that play out in our schools.
O'BRIEN: And disproportionately affects minorities, which can have consequences.
PARKER: Particularly for African-American boys, that if they drop out of school, that there is a close to 66 percent likelihood that they will be in jail or prison by the time they're 35.
O'BRIEN: Schools say they're just trying to keep students safe.
(on camera): What's wrong with a zero tolerance policy?
PARKER: It imposes penalties in an unthinking way in which there's no discretion.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): In a joint statement, New York City's police department, board of education and law department said, "It's impossible to ignore the important plans -- protecting children while keeping order. They, school safety officers, have helped reduce the number of weapons brought into schools, reduced crime in schools, and by extension, improve the learning environment."
Messiah's principal dropped the charges but he still had to go to family court and complete community service.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like this is detrimental to my son's future. He hasn't even started a future yet.
O'BRIEN: Reporting for in America, Soledad O'Brien, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Wow. All right. Soledad explores our nation's education crisis in greater depth. Her CNN documentary "Don't Fail Me: Education in America" airs this Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
Well, the question I have is, is that really systemic, because it's ridiculous on any front.
ROMANS: Or is it just stupid?
VELSHI: People just may be making stupid decisions. It's -- Soledad is going to explore that.
ROMANS: I don't know. Handcuffed for writing on your desk -- that's --
VELSHI: Seems ridiculous.
ROMANS: All right. Top stories coming up right after this break.
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