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American Morning
Weiner Tries to End Twitter Talk; State of the Job Market; The Underemployment Problem; Yemen: All-Out Fight for Power
Aired June 03, 2011 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: In just a matter of hours, John Edwards could be indicted in North Carolina. Prosecutors claim the former senator illegally gave campaign money to his mistress. The Edwards legal team reportedly trying to work out a plea deal right now to avoid criminal charges.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christine Romans. Congressman Anthony Weiner trying to put the controversy over a naughty Twitter photo in the past. Top lawmakers on both sides now urging him to just tell the truth on this AMERICAN MORNING.
VELSHI: Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. It is Friday, June 3rd.
ROMANS: That's right. Up first this morning, former Senator John Edwards could be indicted today. CNN has learned Edwards' attorney is scheduled to be in North Carolina where the Justice Department is prepared to indict Edwards if his legal team can't cut a plea deal first. Now the case against the former presidential candidate involves money that was given to his mistress, Rielle Hunter. Prosecutors say it came from Edwards' campaign funds.
VELSHI: Congressman Anthony Weiner says he's done talking about Twitter. He tried once again to put the controversy to rest yesterday even though he still clearly hasn't said whether that is him in the suggestive photo that somehow ended up on his account.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: Made it very clear I did not send the picture, that my Twitter account had been hacked and this prank apparently has been successful. But after hours, almost 11 hours of answering questions, any that anyone wanted to put today I'm going to have to get back to work doing the job that I'm paid to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Now some Republicans and top Democrats are urging him to tell the whole story. Kate Bolduan has been following this closely. She's live in Washington for us now -- Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Ali. Well Congressman Weiner, as you mentioned, is pretty -- made it pretty clear he's ready and wanting to change the subject on this matter, but some big questions remain, namely, of course, how that photo ended up on his Twitter account and if the photo is of him or not. And his inability to answer these big questions, has caught the attention of some of his fellow lawmakers, perhaps not surprisingly, drawing these strong words from the number two Republican in the House, Eric Cantor, on FOX News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ERIC CANTOR (R), MAJORITY LEADER: The advice would be to come clean and clear it up. I mean, again, perhaps, he's trying but I know there's a lot of explaining going on without a lot of clarity. And again, the American people are right in saying that they don't have tolerance for this repeated kind of activity going on surrounding their elected leaders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: And then there's this from the number two Democrat in the House. We caught up with Steny Hoyer outside of the capitol. He says he's spoken to Anthony Weiner and we asked him about the potential political fallout.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STENY HOYER (D), MINORITY LEADER: He and I had a brief discussion, at which point in time I told him that he needed to handle this and he needed to give the facts accurately to the public.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: And if you need a reminder, Congressman Weiner says that his account was hacked, but he still has not said whether or not the photo that was posted on his account is his. Regardless of how this all ends up, regardless of the political fallout, Democratic aides concede that all of the attention that is being paid to this ongoing controversy, Ali, it is drawing attention away from what Democrats really want to be talking about, issues like the deficit. At the very same time, Republican aides have made pretty clear to us that they're happy to stand by and watch Democrats be thrown off their message.
VELSHI: All right. We'll stay on top of this with you. Kate Bolduan, good to see you. We'll see you a little later in the show.
BOLDUAN: Thanks.
ROMANS: Ali, as you know, there's been some concern this week that the all-important May jobs report due out at 8:30 Eastern Time could be disappointing. Whatever it reveals, it will likely have a huge impact on the market today and our outlook on the nation's economy. The job situation has been showing signs of improvement lately.
Here's a look at the Labor Department's numbers. You can see from this graph here, you know, we're losing jobs back in June. Last year, last summer was kind of a rough patch, and then, since then, a general upward trend right until April of this year, creating a lot of jobs, specifically private sector jobs. Now the hope is that those kind of numbers will continue when May is announced. But on the flip side here, take a look at the unemployment rate, just below 9.5 percent in January, but on a downward trend. The unemployment rate has been coming down. And for the most recent report for April of this year, the national unemployment rate was about nine percent. We'll have these numbers, the new numbers for May, Ali, at 8:30 Eastern Time.
VELSHI: Two and a half hours from now, the unemployment rate is something that garners a lot of criticism because while millions of Americans remain out of work, millions also fall into this category of underemployed. They're either working part time because they can't find full-time jobs or working in jobs that are not up to their skill level.
CNNmoney's Poppy Harlow joins us live now. It's something that Poppy covers very closely.
Tell us about the underemployed.
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: This is something I always think in the report we get every time this month that it's not covered enough. These are folks that have degrees, these are graduates of college, and you're going to hear from some in a minute, people that simply cannot find enough work. They're either temp workers companies can hire people for less money. They can hire temp workers, part-time labor. You see companies doing pretty well because they have cut the fat. They don't need as many employees. When you look at these numbers, I think it's astonishing this is on top of the unemployed.
Let's take a look at the numbers. Underemployed Americans, 8.4 million, people that are working 34 hours or less a week. If you add that to the unemployed, that's 22 million Americans, folks. That's 14.5 percent almost of the entire labor force. It's astonishing.
Take a listen to two people that we spoke with, Deborah and Henry. Deborah is a 30-year veteran retail executive. She was president of a company. Henry is a filmmaker with his own company. And take a listen to how they're struggling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBORAH: I just always try to find other work even if it's work that's not at the rate that I would normally work at.
HENRY: One thing that comforts me when I'm worried or upset about where my next meal is coming is there's a lot of us in the same boat, a lot of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: He's exactly right. So many people in this boat. I just want you to think these aren't the people without degrees. These aren't the people without experience, Ali and Christine, that you would expect. These are people that have experience, have degrees and don't have enough work. ROMANS: The most dynamic labor market in the world.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: We always say this is the most dynamic labor market in the world. Those numbers show it's not working up to its potential yet.
HARLOW: No.
ROMANS: And that's an interesting challenge for Democrats and Republicans and for CEOs --
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: -- and for teachers and for the media as we all try to figure out the way forward.
VELSHI: So the issue is you had somebody saying, you know, it's hard when I don't know where my next meal is coming from. We have a whole lot of people who are long-term unemployed --
HARLOW: Yes.
VELSHI: -- who, by the day, don't know where they're staying, they can't pay for cable and things like that. So we talk about the ease of you, or you or I we're looking for a job. They're certain things we can do. We're dressed for it. We've got computers. There are a whole lot of people who are just long-term unemployed.
HARLOW: So the longer you're unemployed, and this is the horrible catch 22, the situation. The longer you're unemployed in this country the harder. The data shows that it's not a guess, it's a fact. The longer you're unemployed the harder it's going to be for you to find a job. And if you're a little bit older, if you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s, you don't have the new skills, say, that's what companies are looking for. It's even harder for you to get a job.
VELSHI: Yes.
HARLOW: 40s, 50s, 60s -- that's not old but employers say I can pay a 20-year-old to do that, and they have the skills.
VELSHI: Yes.
HARLOW: That's the hard part.
ROMANS: As the jobs market, if we continue creating private sector jobs, the people who are newly unemployed are going to have an easier time getting back in?
But you're right. The people who are long-term unemployed or underemployed are still --
HARLOW: It's a number we can't forget.
VELSHI: That's right. Good.
HARLOW: Poppy, thanks very much for that. We'll, of course, give you full coverage on this all day.
ROMANS: Also new this morning, President Obama travels to a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, today where he'll no doubt discuss the auto bailout program. He's expected to argue the bailout saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and rebooted that industry. His visit coming one day after the government announced its deal to sell its remaining stake in Chrysler to Fiat for $500 million.
VELSHI: Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic appearing before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in Hague this morning. It's happening as we're talking. He told the court he was gravely ill.
This is a picture of him. Mladic faces charges of genocide among other war crimes. He's been indicted over the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica during the 1992 to 1995 Bosnian war.
ROMANS: In South Dakota, floodwaters are rising and they're about to get much higher. National Guard members are stacking sandbags and the Army Corps of Engineers is building emergency levees to protect dozens of homes and businesses downstream. Record rains filled Missouri river reservoirs to capacity forcing officials to begin releasing water from a series of dams.
VELSHI: Nine minutes after the hour. Let's check in with Reynolds Wolf. He's at the Extreme Weather Center for us this morning.
Good morning, Reynolds.
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, guys. They could really catch a break in parts of the Dakotas in terms of the rainfall. And right now, they're getting a little bit of one.
As we go to the maps, you notice we had -- just for a few seconds we had a severe thunderstorm watch that has just expired. The heaviest rainfall now moving out of South Dakota, in North Dakota and also into parts of Minnesota.
Now, we're also seeing in the southeast a few scattered showers in places like South Carolina, but other than that, just high and dry with high pressure building into the southeastern region and the temperatures, wow. They're just skyrocketing. In fact, take a look at it.
For the eastern third of the country, with the exception of the northeast and back towards the Pacific northwest, everything is just, just cool in those spots. But check out Dallas. Ninety-nine degrees your expected high. In the Big Easy of New Orleans, 95, 93 in Kansas City. Two degrees shy of 90 in Minneapolis, say, for a few showers may pop up later today. Wrapping up in Atlanta, the high 94, 76 in New York, and 69 degrees in Seattle.
All right, guys. That is the latest on your forecast. Let's pitch it back to you. We've got more coming up.
ROMANS: Happy Friday, Reynolds.
WOLF: You better believe it. Every Friday is happy, guys. Every Friday.
ROMANS: You're right. Talk to you soon.
VELSHI: Friday makes me feel dumb, however, this particular one.
ROMANS: I know.
VELSHI: There's a new spelling bee, National Spelling Bee champion. She's 14-year-old Sukanya Roy of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The third time was the charm. Listen.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SUKANYA ROY, NATIONAL SPELLING BEE CHAMPION: C-y-m-o-t-r-i-c-h- o-u-s.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The winning word.
ROMANS: I thought you could see where she realized she had it, and she's being so careful. The smile on her face.
VELSHI: The thing with spelling bee is I hear them spell the word and I'm like, what is that word? Cymotrichous, cymotrichous. Yes. It means to have wavy hair, which explains why I don't know what it is.
ROMANS: It's derived from Greek.
VELSHI: It's Greek. Yes, it's derived from Greek. It means wavy hair. Sukanya Roy's third appearance in the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals, she finished 12th in 2009, 20th in 2010. Her victory is worth over $40,000 cash and prizes.
ROMANS: Wow.
VELSHI: She said she knew how to spell the winning word as soon as she heard it.
ROMANS: Oh, she did. That's why the smile is slowly creeping on her face. It looks like she knew when she had that. That's awesome, and please, Sukanya, congratulations and don't watch any of my manners, my manners today.
VELSHI: Which of course leads to our question of the day.
ROMANS: What word can't you spell? We want to hear from you. Send up an e-mail, a tweet, tell us on Facebook. We're going to read some of your responses throughout the morning.
VELSHI: You can send it -- you don't have to spell check before you send. Just send the word that you can't spell.
In the course of five minutes on deciding this question, we heard all the questions that none of us around here could spell. Send it to us on at CNNAM, on Twitter at Christine Romans, at Ali Velshi. Send it to our Facebook page, or blog, e-mail us, any way you want to get it to us.
All right. Moving on, more protesters shot in the ongoing struggle between Yemen's government and those protesters were taken to a place that's considered by many to be the most dangerous place on earth and a threat to western security.
ROMANS: We've got a unique perspective that's going to lift the veil on one of the world's most ancient living societies.
And, was it just a coincidence or did Sarah Palin try to upstage Mitt Romney yesterday in New Hampshire? We'll let Sarah explain herself.
VELSHI: Twelve minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Well, as expected Mitt Romney made it official yesterday, he's running for president, but the buzz this morning is about how he got upstaged by Sarah Palin. Now, we'll have more on that in a moment.
The former Massachusetts governor chose a New Hampshire farm as the backdrop for his big announcement, insisting he is the man to get America back on the right course.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have not lost our way. The principles that made this nation a great and powerful leader of the world have not lost their meaning. They never will. We know we can bring this country back. I'm Mitt Romney. I believe in America, and I'm running for president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Also in New Hampshire, Sarah Palin. And she claims it's just a coincidence that she happened to be there attending a seaside clam bake at the exact time Romney was making his announcement. She's denying any attempt to upstage her potential rival.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: If he personally would be offended by me stepping foot in a state that he is in, I wouldn't do it. But I don't believe Governor Romney is offended at all. But we happened to have on our schedule, a stop to meet some good people and -- and have some good New Hampshire food.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not trying to drown him out? PALIN: Not at all. No, not at all. And, truly, if he were to be personally offended by us being in the same state, I wouldn't do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Not offended the people of New Hampshire who like all this attention.
VELSHI: No.
ROMANS: A very small state with a lot of attention right now.
VELSHI: All right. The field is set for the first Republican Presidential Debate. It's going to feature Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain. Those are the declared candidates. They're going to be in New Hampshire.
You can see it live on Monday night, June 13th at 8:00 P.M. Eastern right here on CNN. You're going to be there, aren't you?
ROMANS: I'm going to be there. So that morning, Monday morning we'll be able to give you a really great run-up of the -- of the lineup and what it might shaping up like in -- in New Hampshire.
Meanwhile in Yemen, we're seeing some of the most intense violence since a political crisis started months ago. Pictures are so frightening. And many soldiers firing shots in the City of Taiz. The injured and dead carried away.
VELSHI: Well, the president there who's been in charge for over 30 years using deadly force to fight growing demands that he step down. It's looking more and more like civil war and the chaos might actually be a good news for al Qaeda.
ROMANS: Joining us now is Patrick Symmes of "Outside Magazine" who actually accidentally ended up in the middle of the uprising and -- and may have a perspective like no one else on this.
Tell us a little bit about your story. You were doing a travel story for "Outside Magazine" and you found yourself in the middle of this uprising.
PATRICK SYMMES, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "OUTSIDE" MAGAZINE: Even Yemen has beautiful and wonderful aspects. It's a great island off shore that's kind of a Galapagos of the Arab world. I wanted to go out and see it, but, of course, bad timing. I had one of the last press visas ever granted to Yemen.
ROMANS: Wow.
SYMMES: I -- in the end, I was arrested and thrown out simply because I happened to be a journalist.
ROMANS: Congratulations. SYMMES: Thank you. It's a (INAUDIBLE).
ROMANS: A lot of -- a lot of fine people were thrown out of Yemen.
VELSHI: Before you got out -- and this is key, because you got thrown out, places where people -- where the press gets thrown out, bad things happen. But you got -- before you got thrown out, you surreptitiously spoke to a lot of people.
SYMMES: I was able to get into demonstrations, 10,000 -- 20,000 people, a peaceful movement, talking about a civilized society. We want institutions. We want rule of law, not this tribal violence, of these dictators and vendettas that we've been having. A very impressive movement. As you see, the violence is starting to take over, so there's a real potential that that peaceful current could be overwhelmed.
ROMANS: When most Americans hear Yemen, they don't think travel, as you did., first of all. Second is the sort of the -- the birth place of the family -- the Bin Laden family. It's also the birth place of violence against Americans --
VELSHI: And the USS Cole.
ROMANS: -- and the USS Cole and a hotbed for al Qaeda. And -- peel it back for us. Who are the people in the streets?
SYMMES: This is one of the most antique societies in the world today. You, really, it's time travel is the appeal of a place like this. It's routine you see men walking around this old city of this 400-year-old buildings made out of mud and stone, very traditional Arab dress. The women are all veiled that feels antique. It feels almost ancient.
ROMANS: They're carrying daggers --
SYMMES: That's right. Huge daggers. That's how you get dressed properly, the way we wear a neck tie, you know, they have a huge dagger.
So it's a society that has not fully modernized and they are going through that process now. That's what this fight is about. Are we going to have a dictator or can we build our own society? And that's what people were talking to me about in the streets.
VELSHI: Do they want -- do they want democracy as we know it, one person, one vote, or do they want economic freedom and more jobs? What's the issue?
SYMMES: Everyone mentions economic needs. They have that. It's poor. The $2 a day is the average income over there. People have no water. It's running out of water. So they need economic help.
VELSHI: They're not oil rich? SYMMES: No. They have no oil. So they see their resource as consent of the government, some kind of election. There's 71 political parties now in Yemen. This is all new to them. They want a parliament that can really speak up. They want their rights. They're discovering it all for the first time.
ROMANS: So the people that you were talking to in the streets, did they know that the eyes of the world were on them and on the so- called Arab Spring? Did they realize this sort of the vast interest from the, quote-unquote, "West" of what was happening there?
SYMMES: They felt the same electrical current. It was young people taking to the streets. They were modeling what happened on Egypt. When I was there, Hosni Mubarak had been kicked out of office 18 days before. So there was this real momentum. We can do this.
Now, we're seeing it breaking down into violence, tribes getting involved. Al Qaeda taking advantage of the chaos. So they want to hold back that chaos and hold back these groups. They don't want these crazy al Qaeda guys coming in.
ROMANS: They don't.
SYMMES: They don't. It's a society with 23 million people and 11 million guns. So it's an armed society.
VELSHI: Wow.
SYMMES: And they're afraid of violence. They've had too much. They've had it really for centuries of tribal warfare. So what I felt everywhere, was don't let this get out of control. We want to keep our society.
ROMANS: Eleven million guns and untold number of daggers (INAUDIBLE).
VELSHI: Wow. Patrick, good to see you. Thank you for coming --
SYMMES: Sure.
VELSHI: -- and sharing your story with us. Patrick Symmes is a contributing editor at "Outside Magazine."
All right. It's the day eight of the Casey Anthony murder trial. It is riveting. The courtroom was riveted. Jurors got to hear audio tapes of investigators interrogating her in 2008. We'll be right back with more of that.
Twenty-two minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Twenty-four minutes after the hour. "Minding Your Business" now.
The Dow declining for a second straight day, as investors brace for this morning's all-important jobs report, which is out at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time. The NASDAQ is up four points, the S&P 500 down by about two.
The daily discount Web site Groupon poised to go public and looking to raise about $750 million in its first stock sale. And it's filing for an initial public offering. The daily discount Web site revealed a $114 million loss in the first quarter of this year.
U.S. Airlines and -- U.S. Airways and Continental have been fined for not being completely honest about their ticket prices. The Department of Transportation says Continental excluded fuel surcharges in its fare. U.S. Airways did not provide information on additional taxes and fees.
Folks in the market for a new car are paying more. According to Edmunds.com, on average people who bought a new car paid about $180 more than they did in April and nearly $400 more than they did in May of last year.
A judge ruling that Ben and Jerry's and Breyers can be sued for claiming their ice cream is all natural when it really isn't. The ice cream makers are accused of claiming their Dutch Chocolate is all natural when in fact it's processed with potassium carbonate, which is a man-made ingredient.
And the Japanese government urging its workers who traditionally wear suits to dress down this summer. The government hopes the move will allow companies to save energy by limiting the use of air conditioning. Power could be in short supply after the loss of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
AMERICAN MORNING will be right back after the break with the latest on the Casey Anthony murder trial. You'll hear what she told investigators and her family in her own words.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Thirty minutes after the hour. Time now for this morning's top stories.
Former presidential candidate John Edwards could be indicted in North Carolina today if he can't cut a deal with prosecutors first. CNN has learned Edwards' attorney is scheduled to be in the state today. The case against the former senator involves payments that were made to his mistress Rielle Hunter, payments that prosecutor say came from campaign funds.
ROMANS: The May jobs report out at 8:30 Eastern this morning. And economists predict 170,000 jobs were added last month to the economy. That's down from April. The unemployment rate is also expected to fall to 8.9 percent.
VELSHI: Suspected war criminal Ratko Mladic made his first appearance this morning at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He told the court he was gravely ill.
Mladic faces charges of genocide among other war crimes. He's been indicted over the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica during the 1992 to 1995 Bosnian war.
ROMANS: During day eight of the Casey Anthony murder trial, everyone in the courtroom was riveted as jurors got to hear from Casey Anthony in her own words, not from the witness stand but from audio tapes recorded in 2008 when detectives aggressively integrated her about her missing 2-year-old daughter Caylee.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS (voice-over): Shocking evidence on day eight of the Casey Anthony murder trial. Jurors heard from Casey Anthony in her own words, not from the stand, but from audio tapes of detectives aggressively interrogating Casey after her daughter was reported missing.
CASEY ANTHONY, DEFENDANT: I have not seen my daughter. The last it time that I saw her was on the 9th of June.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what happened to Caylee?
ANTHONY: I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure you do. You need to listen. Something happened to Caylee. The longer this goes, the worse it's going to be for everyone -- everyone. The worse it's going to be for everyone. Right now, everything you've told us we've locked you into a lie.
ROMANS: And Casey's web of lies were fully shown to the jury in jailhouse visits the defense sought to suppress. Remember, the defense is claiming that Caylee was never missing but that Casey knew her daughter accidentally drowned.
CASEY ANTHONY: I heard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Someone just said that Caylee was dead this morning, that she drowned in the pool. That's the newest story out there.
CASEY ANTHONY: Surprise, surprise.
ROMANS: The defense says Casey Anthony and her father panicked and kept Caylee's accidental death a secret. George Anthony has denied that claim.
Throughout the week, the prosecution showed Casey's family trying to figure out just what happened to 2-year-old Caylee. And the emotional toll it has taken. Casey's mom Cindy took the stand on Tuesday and broke down when she heard her own 911 call to police.
CINDY ANTHONY, DEFENDANT'S MOTHER: There's something wrong. I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in the dam car.
ROMANS: Family against family as Casey's brother Lee testified on Wednesday about his frustration with Casey's behavior.
LEE ANTHONY, DEFENDANT'S BROTHER: Nothing was making sense to me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's not making sense to you?
L. ANTHONY: Why couldn't we or anybody just go get Caylee and bring her home? There's no reason to fight with, you know, mom at this point.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: When the case continues later this morning, the prosecution is expected to introduce at least two more jailhouse tapes that were recorded with Casey Anthony in the weeks following her arrest.
VELSHI: OK. This is new this morning, the woman who grabbed the world's attention back in March when she burst into a hotel in Tripoli and told gathered reporters that she had been raped by Moammar Gadhafi's security forces, is back in Libya this morning against her will, reportedly deported by a you authorities in Qatar. This is the woman. Remember this tape. Eman al-Obeidy is said to have been taken to the rebel held city of Benghazi.
A human rights group says such deportations are illegal under international law. And the only good news here might be that Benghazi is in rebel hands.
ROMANS: All right. New this morning, the rare deadly E. coli outbreak no longer confined to Europe now. The CDC says three people in the U.S. are suffering from this same strain. They recently traveled to Germany. Officials believe the patients ate contaminated salad there. But officials say don't panic. The strain of E. coli has not been found in U.S. food.
As a precaution, though, American Airlines will not serve salads on all flights departing from Europe.
Sixteen people have died across Europe. Sixteen hundred -- 1,600 more, Ali, sickened by this strain of E. coli.
VELSHI: Still trying to get to the bottom of where it's coming from.
The First Lady Michelle Obama and the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched the "My Plate" icon yesterday. It's the new symbol of healthy eating. This replaces the food pyramid, parents out there. The plate is a dietary guide of what you should be eating every day. Fruits and veggies make up half the plate, the other half are made of lean protein and whole grains and, of course, a side of dairy represented by the cup icon. Officials say it's a much simpler version of the pyramid.
ROMANS: You will not see a big piece of bread or sugar or oil on this like you could see before on the food pyramid. So, interesting.
All right. They're going to Dallas. Tied at one, the Mavericks pulled off one of the greatest comeback of NBA Finals history last night. They were down 15 points in the fourth quarter, and stunned the Heat, 95-93. The winning basket scored by Dirk Nowitzki's injured left hand. Remember we told you --
VELSHI: Wow. I thought that was not his scoring hand.
ROMANS: I guess not. Dwyane Wade also had 36 points but missed a desperation last second shot to win it.
VELSHI: Wow.
All right. Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, in Syria, the image of a young boy who was tortured and killed has now become a rallying cry.
ROMANS: And now that we've crowned a new spelling bee champion in this country. Our question of the day: what word can't you spell? We'd love to hear from you. You don't have to spell it right either. Send us an e-mail, tweet, tell us on Facebook. We're going to read your responses.
VELSHI: We got some great ones already.
Thirty-six minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: The so-called "Arab Spring" truly sprung from the ground up. The faces behind the uprisings in these countries were not famous politicians or opposition leaders. They were regular people -- people whose simple action in some cases changed their nations forever.
Let's take a look. In Tunisia, back in December, this simple fruit cart vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire. That was the spark that led to a revolution and the fall of Tunisia's president.
Next door in Libya, a story of a woman, Eman al-Obeidy, a 29- year-old lawyer. The protests were already under way, but back in March, she made worldwide headlines when she literally burst into a Tripoli hotel that was filled with reporters, including our own, and accused Libyan police of abducting and raping her. Al-Obeidy gave a voice to other victims of Gadhafi's brutal crackdown. But her struggle isn't over. After winning her freedom and eventually escaping Libya, she made her way to Qatar where this morning she has learned she was arrested and sent back to Libya.
In Egypt, we watched day after day, hundreds of thousands of average people packing Cairo's Tahrir square, standing tall as tanks rolled in and out and back again, and finally forcing President Hosni Mubarak out of office after 30 years. Here again, one average face in the crowd became a martyr. A 21-year-old Egyptian Khaled Mohamed Said who loved music and computers, he died at the hands of Egyptian police after he was arrested in Alexandria. Photos from his autopsy were shared across the Internet. A Facebook group called We Are All Khaled Said became one of the rallying points for people demanding change.
And now, we have Syria, possibly the most oppressive of all of these regimes where a little boy, this little boy, has become a symbol of a revolution. His name is Hamza Ali al-Khateeb. He wanted to become a police officer. His family says Syrian forces took him, mutilated him and murdered him.
We can't even show you the pictures, it's too early today. Now, the tortured child has become a symbol of the uprising.
ROMANS: We can't show you those pictures because it's simply too painful to look at. Honestly, that act is now sparking violence and calls for change that President Bashir al-Assad may not be able to contain.
Joining us now to talk about it is Mona Eltahawy, a columnist on Arab and Muslim affairs.
Hamza, just one word now. That little boy, Hamza is a name that people are talking about in Syria. There are Facebook pages dedicated to him. They're talking about him on social media, on al Jazeera.
Is this little boy Syria's fruit cart vendor? Will he embolden the uprising?
MONA ELTAHAWY, COLUMNIST ON ARAB AND MUSLIM AFFAIRS: Absolutely. You hear from neighborhoods that have never protested before since the Syrian uprising. You hear his name, Hamza, over and over again. And, today, across Syria, Friday, which is the usual day for protests in the Middle East and North Africa, has been called the Friday of Free Children.
So, there are demonstrations planned across Syria to protest not just his death but the death of at least seven children who died this week in Syria. Activists said 100 people died at the hands of Assad security, seven of them were children.
VELSHI: You know, Tunisia was not a particularly oppressive regime. Even Egypt, it had more to do with the economy than anything else. Syria is a different story. This reminds me of Nadya (ph) in Iran.
Will the death mean anything in a society that, (a), is that oppressive, and (b), doesn't have press coverage from the outside world?
ELTAHAWY: Tunisia was a perfect police state and Mubarak because he was a friend it to so many in the West nobody paid attention. But I think with Assad, because it is the even more perfect police state. And as you said, there aren't any media representatives inside, we are totally dependent on things like this horrific video that showed us the torture of this boy.
I mean, you hear, the video shown in al Jazeera. So, it was shown across the Middle East and North Africa.
ROMANS: Remind us why this little boy was reportedly tortured. Why?
ELTAHAWY: Well, he disappeared at the end of April. He decided to join protests because his cousin was killed at the hand of the security forces during these peaceful demonstrations in Syria. So, this 13-year-old boy went out to protest. He disappeared for a month and his body was basically returned to his family, tortured with the penis cut off. I mean, who does that to a 13-year-old boy?
So, he's become this image of as you said, Ali, this very oppressive regime where torture is rampant. Everybody knows that the Assad regime tortured. But who tortures a 13-year-old?
And interesting, too, the Syrian uprising was sparked by children because a group of children between the ages of 8 and 15, in early March, were spraying graffiti on walls in Daraa, which is become the center-point now for the revolution and they were mimicking the chants of Egypt and Tunisia and others, the people who want to topple the regime.
The regime arrested children and enraged their families who went out in peaceful protests. So, children in the Syrian revolution have been this theme we see coming up again and again.
ROMANS: Until now, this kind of repression has worked. It has worked because you've seen these leaders keep control on dissent and keep control on power. Has something changed? And what if something hasn't changed and this boy is gone and these protests fade away, and this regime stays in power?
ELTAHAWY: I think everything has changed. I think everything has changed because we now have these human faces of these brutal repressive regimes. But not just that, when you see all those people that Ali mentioned, you know, Eman in Libya, Khaled Said in Egypt, Mohammed Bouazizi in Tunisia and now, Hamza Khateeb in Syria, these are young people who have grown up with only one leader for their whole lives. They have no other leaders.
So, we're seeing now young people rise up and people rising up with them because they see those leaders are killing the youth of the countries. And when you see that one face, shattered, that body brutalized, you think this could be me.
VELSHI: It is universal. That's beyond politics.
ROMANS: Or my child or family and that becomes very --
VELSHI: Well, let's hope you're right and let's hope some good does come of it.
Mona, good to see you.
Mona Eltahawy is a columnist on Arab and Muslim issues. Thanks for being with us.
ELTAHAWY: Thanks for having me.
ROMANS: We'll be right back. It's 44 minutes past the hour.
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ROMANS: A lot going on this morning. Here's what you need to know to start your day:
Former Democratic senator and vice presidential nominee, John Edwards, could be indicted in North Carolina today. He's been the subject of a two-year investigation into whether he used political donations to pay his mistress, Rielle Hunter, to keep quiet about their affair and the child of that affair. Sources tell CNN his legal team is trying to negotiate a plea deal.
This morning's all-important May jobs report will be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. It's expected to show a gain of 170,000 jobs last month.
Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic appearing before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague this morning, remained defiant, saying he defended his people and his country in the Bosnian war and now intends to defend himself against war crimes charges. He shook his head when some of the charges against him were read, saying he had never heard such obnoxious and monstrous words.
Mladic faces charges of genocide among other war crimes.
Former Black Panthers Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt died yesterday in Tanzania. Pratt was wrongly imprisoned for 27 years. His murder conviction was overturned in 1997 when a judge ruled prosecutors withheld critical evidence.
The CDC confirms three E. coli cases in the U.S. It's the same strain of bacteria that killed 16 people in Europe and sickened 1,600 more. The patients recently traveled to Germany. The bacteria has not been found in U.S. food, but as a precaution, American Airlines will not serve salads on all flights departing from Europe.
And 14-year-old Sukanya Roy of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, is the 2011 National Spelling Bee champion, the word cymotrichous. I think, it means to have wavy hair.
You're caught up on this day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING is back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. This is most children's dream -- skateboarding and arcade games wrapped into one. Check it out. It's a skate park that works like a giant pinball machine.
ROMANS: Wow.
VELSHI: The skateboarders are the ball basically. Two pro- bowlers and a BMX rider designed the park in New Zealand with dozens of sensors in the ramps and jumps, so the boarders can rack up points when they hit the tricks. The cost of a pinball skate park is nearly half a million dollars. I don't what it costs these guys to do it, but it's kind of cool. Human pinball.
ROMANS: That is very cool. Pinball, a word I can spell. America has a new spelling bee champ.
VELSHI: Who, by the way, probably presently isn't playing arcade games or skateboarding.
ROMANS: She's 14-year-old Sukanya Roy of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. The winning word -- OK, you say the winning word.
VELSHI: Cymotrichous.
ROMANS: Cymotrichous.
VELSHI: Listen to her spell it, though.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUKANYA ROY, SPELLING BEE CHAMPION: C-Y-M-O-T-R-I-C-H-O-U-S.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: It means -- it's from the Greek. And it means to have wavy hair.
ROMANS: Which is why you were not familiar with it.
VELSHI: That's why I never heard. Nobody said that is some great cymotrichous you have, Ali.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: Sukanya said she knew how to spell the word as soon as she heard it, which puzzles me because someone could say cymotrichous to me 19 times and I wouldn't know how to spell it.
ROMANS: That leads us to our question.
VELSHI: But there are a lot of words I don't know how to spell.
ROMANS: That's right. And some of them are not as difficult as cymotrichous. What word can't you spell?
It's interesting. Amateur is one of them. Chris group (ph) says, "I can't spell -- nine times out of 10, I get this one wrong. Oh, the irony."
VELSHI: Yes, Jen Passen (ph) writes, "this is one I get wrong a lot." Renaissance, she never remembers the "I" in renaissance.
ROMANS: I always forget if it's with two N's or S's.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: And spellcheck fixes it.
VELSHI: Yes. So, you don't know. You still don't know.
ROMANS: Right. So that I never learned.
Convenient is another one. This is from @Jandal (ph). That's a good one.
VELSHI: And Daniel Holt (ph) writes ambidextrous is one of the ones he has trouble with. I get around that by just never using ambidextrous when I write with either hand.
ROMANS: Hippopotamus is another one. I wonder where the all the P's are.
VELSHI: And T.J. Bayers (ph) having some fun with this morning, say, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Wow, I didn't think we had enough letters in our graphics or our screen to get that all one.
Keep the words coming. Send us an email. You don't even have to spell it right. A tweet or tell us on Facebook. We'll read some more of your responses a bit later. Words that mess you up that you can't spell.
ROMANS: OK. We've really had to choose our words carefully on this one.
VELSHI: The Congressman Weiner Twitter controversy has us all stumbling and fumbling.
Jeanne Moos has been taking notes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Over Memorial Day weekend, we went from toasting weiners to roasting Congressman Weiner.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG, TV HOST: Weiner-gate.
CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS: The answers to him are un-Weiner-like.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Weiner is in a bit of hot water.
MOOS: Leaving those of us in the media searching for the right words to mention the unmentionable.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bulging underwear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bulging underpants.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Sending a picture, an aroused -- anyway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, yes, it might have been my area.
LUKE RUSSERT, NBC NEWS: His below the waist area.
MICHELLE MALKIN: It may or may not be his package.
MOOS: And what's being delivered often comes in puns from front pages meant to tickle to editorials.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This Weiner is cooked.
STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDIAN: Is this or is this not Representative Weiner's chief of staff?
MOOS: As "New York Times" reporter John Schwartz tweeted, all the bad Weiner puns show that America is emotionally a sixth grader.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The long and short of it is over the weekend you discovered --
REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: You didn't just introduce that by saying the long and short of it. Do you, Errol?
MOOS: Congressman Weiner even punning himself.
WEINER: Other reasons why I was, perhaps, forgive me a little bit stiff yesterday.
MOOS: Everything starting to look Weiner-like. There are Weiner cartoons. Isn't that Anthony Weiner in the ballet tights?
The news is coming across as comedy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you guys know what your drawers look like?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know what I look like in my drawers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You do?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I could tell you, I can identify my pelvis in a lineup.
MOOS: Some can identify with Anthony Weiner.
(on camera): So, the guy behind the camera, Jamie, what's your last name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Weiner.
MOOS: Give me the camera. Just give it to me.
All right. Talk to me about being a Weiner?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you know, being a Weiner is not that bad.
MOOS (voice-over): Actually, we both know a little bit about being called Weiner. Look what my high school nickname was, inscribed in my yearbook, wiener.
(on camera): Because I was so tall and skinny. But no one -- just watch where you point that thing.
(MUSIC)
MOOS (voicie-over): Anyone named Weiner has a love/hate relationship with that song.
(MUSIC)
MOOS: These days, Anthony Weiner probably wishes he wasn't one, even old friends are making jokes.
JON STEWART, COMEDIAN: In real life, my memory, is this cat had a lot more Anthony and a lot less Weiner. This is not --
MOOS: Or comedians. Like shooting fish in the barrel, pants.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: So the thing most captivated me in all of this discussion is the number of words people for have for underpants, underwear, shorts, skibbies, the folks on FOX said drawers. Have you heard anyone refer to them as drawers?
ROMANS: I haven't heard the word drawers like since 1930. But that's good. Trousers.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMASN: I guess trousers go on top of the drawers.
Anyway, the whole thing has gone into silly town and he has tried to put it to rest. We'll see if it actually --
VELSHI: Fortunately, we have other news to talk about as well. Coming up, this critical jobs report, the one everybody is looking for, out this morning at 8:30. And things have been looking a little tough for the economy this week. So, what do you do if you are working, but you want to work more? We're going to have a discussion about the under employed in our society.
It's 56 minutes after the hour. We'll be right back.
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