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The Craigslist Killer; Chevy Volt Battery May Catch Fire; The World Memory Project; Pakistan Angered by NATO Attack; "A Dark Cloud Over This Campus"; Astronomical Price
Aired November 26, 2011 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TED ROWLANDS, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ted Rowlands, in tonight for Don Lemon.
One of the Americans accused of throwing Molotov cocktails during the recent in Egypt is back in the United States tonight.
Gregory Porter arrived in Philadelphia. He and two other students had been in Egyptian custody since Monday. They were released Friday. All three were attending American University in Cairo on a semester long study abroad program and say they are innocent.
Porter was clearly happy to be back in the U.S. tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREGORY PORTER, AMERICAN STUDENT RELEASED BY EGYPT: I'd like to thank the embassy in Cairo for all the things they did for us, as well as the administration at the American University in Cairo for all their help and support, and my lawyers Ted and both in Egypt and here who worked tirelessly to obtain my freedom.
I'm just so thankful to be back. And I love to be in Philadelphia right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLANDS: The other two students arrested with Porter, Derrik Sweeney and Luke Gates, are also returning to the U.S. from Egypt at this hour.
Syria is running out of allies. You can add the Arab League to its list of critics. Finance ministers from the league want to punish Damascus for its crackdown on protesters.
A new video on YouTube showed enthusiastic demonstration in the city of Homs with Syrians pledging with the league to hit the regime hard, something you don't normally see in public. Proposed sanctions would include freezing government assets and those belonging to Syrian officials, along with travel restrictions.
Sunday morning, foreign ministers will decide whether to enforce the proposed sanctions.
Pakistan's relations with the U.S. and NATO are hitting another rough spot. Islamabad blames those two for an attack launched from Afghanistan that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead. The battles took place in the rugged terrain between the two countries where the border isn't always clear. In the aftermath of the attack, Pakistan cut off two vital supply lines into Afghanistan.
And the prime minister urged lawmakers to meet him in Islamabad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YOUSUF RAZA GILANI, PAKISTANI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This morning at 9:00 a.m., there was an attack on Pakistan, an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty and attack on Pakistan's security. Learning of this, I was going to attend meetings with my sons and brothers. But I'm now going to Islamabad to hold a special security session of the DCC. I'm calling on all the leaders of Pakistan to come and discuss this situation so that no one can even dare to attack Pakistan's sovereignty or Pakistan's security.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLANDS: The story continues to evolve. CNN's Reza Sayah reports on the fallout from the attack.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REZA SAYAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An angry reaction here in Pakistan to what government officials here are calling a NATO air strike that hit two Pakistani military check posts on Pakistani soil, killing at least two dozen Pakistani soldiers. This is an incident that has sparked some anti-American and anti-NATO protests in Pakistan. Some of the protests taking place in the city of Lahore.
Government officials here say this incident took place in Mohmand. This is a district that Pakistan's tribal region that sits right next to the Afghanistan border. This is an area where there is a lot of militant activity.
NATO troops oftentimes conduct military operations there. And that's what was happening according to NATO officials in the early morning hours of Saturday morning when this incident happened. The agreement between Pakistan and NATO is for NATO troops to stay on Afghanistan's soil.
But in this case, according to Pakistani officials, that didn't happen. The NATO air strikes hitting targets on Pakistani soil.
And Pakistani government officials are not happy. The prime minister issuing a blistering condemnation saying he plans to protest this incident with U.S. and NATO officials.
Here's what Pakistan's top military spokesperson had to say about the incident.
MAJ. GEN. ATHAR ABBAS, PAKISTANI SPOKESMAN (via telephone): There's a great resentment, because in the past also, these kind of incidents happen and the excuse was given that it was by mistake or it was confusion, because somehow, there was a case because of the militants crossing over. But the fact is that we got together at exact locations for exchange and said these are the border force being manned by Pakistani soldiers.
SAYAH: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani calling an emergency meeting on Saturday night with military and government leaders trying to formulate a response to this incident. We should also point out that Pakistan has shut down the two NATO supply routes, that takes supplies from Pakistan to Afghanistan. That means roughly 40 percent of NATO supplies are parked here in Pakistan and not clear when they're going to move again and not clear what other measures Pakistan is prepared to take in response to this incident.
Reza Sayah, CNN, Islamabad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: Well, it will be a little late and a little short. But the NBA season is now going to happen if a deal holds between players and owners. The tentative agreement to end the 149-day lockout still has to be ratified. But if it stands up, the season would be 66 games instead of 82. And it would start Christmas Day.
Players union President Derek Fisher and NBA commissioner David Stern made the announcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
DAVID STERN, NBA COMMISSIONER: The greater good required us to knock ourselves out and come to this tenet of understanding. And so, I think that there is still a lot of shall we say other issues to be finished because we have the broadest outline.
DERRICK FISHER, PLAYERS' UNION PRESIDENT: The most important key thing here is that, you know, our fans and the support from the people and the patience, you know, through a large part of this process, you know, that's to a lot of this credit goes to.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
ROWLANDS: As we mentioned, on December 25th, the regular season will begin with a TV triple-header. Here are the matchups: Miami Heat versus the Dallas Mavericks, the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks, and the Chicago Bulls against the L.A. Lakers.
Florida A&M University has fired the director of its marching band days after a drum major's death. Police believe hazing was involved.
A former band member says he's not surprised. He actually sued after a brutal beating led to kidney failure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IVERY LUCKEY, HAZED AT FLORIDA A&M: I was taking into a room blindfolded and paddled with, you know, they have these wooden paddles. After the paddling stopped, it was actually physical blows, face slapping, just all sorts of things to cause pain and suffering.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLANDS: Lisa Sylvester has more on this culture of violence on campus.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are one of the best. With precision and technique, Florida A&M University's Marching 100 has stood out. The band program began more than 100 years ago, a proud tradition for the university.
But the entire band is now suspended indefinitely after the death of drum major Robert Champion. Authorities are investigating if hazing has played a role.
ROBERT CHAMPION SR., FATHER: I do want to know what happened because that would give me more understanding something like this, so I can accept knowing what happened.
SYLVESTER: Saturday night after the Florida Classic, Champion was found on a university bus outside of a hotel. He was reportedly throwing up, and said he couldn't breathe. He died shortly afterward.
The Orange County medical examiner has completed the autopsy, but says more information is needed before determining a final cause of death. The university announced that it's also forming a task force to review the circumstances of Champion's death.
JAMES AMMONS, PRESIDENT, FLORIDA A&M UNIVERSITY: The purpose of this review is not to establish culpability of individual band members in this particular case. But rather, to determine whether there are patterns of behavior by the band, or members of it, that should be addressed at the institution level.
SYLVESTER: Thirty band members were let go earlier this year because of hazing. Those investigations are ongoing.
Marching band members at historically black colleges have been tight- knit groups much like a sorority or fraternity. And hazing has long been a problem.
At Clark Atlanta University, the band director says a student handbook spells out it's against university policy to haze another student.
THOMAS WARNER JR., BAND DIRECTOR, CLARK ATLANTA: There's zero tolerance here at Clark Atlanta. We don't condone it at all.
SYLVESTER: And Robert Champion, his band director said he was to have been named the head drum major next year. But he never got the chance to tell him.
(on camera): A mother of a family of a marching band student has come forward to CNN detailing her many concerns with hazing within the program. Even though there is a zero tolerance policy there, she says it still happens. Her son told her, it is a right of passage, like a gang initiation. The quote that she said was, quote, "You have to be beaten to earn respect."
And she spoke to university officials before this happened and now, looking back, she says that Robert Champion's death could have been prevented.
Lisa Sylvester, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: Will curiosity solve the mysteries of Mars? NASA launched its new rover with that name today. And we'll tell you how the space agency is already working on its next exploration mission.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROWLANDS: NASA's biggest and most advanced probe yet is on its way to Mars.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Two, one, main engine start, zero -- and liftoff of the Atlas V with Curiosity, seeking clues to the planetary puzzle about life on Mars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLANDS: A successful launch this morning, it's the start of a very long journey. The Curiosity rover should make it to Mars next August. Curiosity is a self-contained science lab on wheels, facing some very high expectations, years of work, and $2.5 billion have gone into this mission.
NASA plans to put a new space telescope in orbit in 2018. It's so powerful, experts say, it will make the Hubble look like something for a backyard astronomer.
But anything this good comes with a pretty big price tag, as John Zarrella found out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the future, outside the Maryland Science Center. It's a full-scale model of NASA's James Webb space telescope. Scientists believe the real thing will redefine our understanding of our place in the universe.
It will be so unique, it can look further back in time than the Hubble telescope, almost to the dawn of creation.
JOHN MATHER, SENIOR PROJECT SCIENTIST: The James Webb telescope is to help us find our history, from the first things after the Big Bang, to how the first galaxies are born. ZARRELLA: And astronomers say if they look in the right place and get a bit lucky --
ADAM RIESS, ASTROPHYSICIST: This may give us our clues about the existence life in another solar system.
MATHER: If we could see a planet like earth with an ocean, I think that would be really cool.
ZARRELLA: Webb will orbit one million miles from earth. Its instruments are designed to image primarily in the infrared range -- light we can't see. Webb's capabilities will allow it to literally look where Hubble could not into gas and dust clouds at the birth of the first stars and planets.
Sounds incredible, right? Webb might get us another step closer to solving the puzzle: are we alone?
RIESS: I don't even know how you put a price on being able to answer questions like, how old is the universe? How did this all start? Where is it going? What is it made of? Are there other people out there like us?
These questions are just so intrinsic.
ZARRELLA: But there is a price tag. When Webb is launched in 2018, it will be years behind schedule and cost about $8.8 billion, $6.5 billion more than the original estimate. At one point, Congress came close to killing it.
So, what happened? How did it end up astronomy at an astronomical cost?
RICK HOWARD, WEBB PROGRAM DIRECTOR: When you're going inventions and things for the first time, you don't know exactly what you're going to run into. And we found several things that we had to work around.
ZARRELLA: And it better work from the get go.
When Hubble ran into problems, space shuttle astronauts came to the rescue. But Hubble was only 300 miles up. At one million miles away, even if the shuttle was still flying, it couldn't get there to fix Webb.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: That was John Zarrella reporting for us.
What's the best way to teach young people how to succeed in life?
CNN education contributor Steve Perry sits down with comedian Steve Harvey and his wife for a serious discussion about giving kids direction through mentoring.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEVE PERRY, CNN EDUCATION CONTRIBUTOR (voice-over): Comedian Steve Harvey believes being a man is no joke.
STEVE HARVEY, THE STEVE AND MAJORIE HARVEY FOUNDATION: Real men respect women. Real men go to work every day. Real men work hard -- that's what real men do.
PERRY: Since 2009, Harvey's mentoring weekend has welcomed teen boys from single-mom households. It's an all-male event with a heavy dose of tough love.
S. HARVEY: We have a program that works. And we give them a snapshot of what manhood is.
PERRY: Harvey's wife, Marjorie, hosts "Girls who Rule the World" to promote self-esteem and leadership.
S. HARVEY: Mentoring gives a child what to shoot for. It's a new target -- instead of what they see in their neighborhoods.
MARJORIE HARVEY, THE STEVE AND MAJORIE HARVEY FOUNDATION: And it's also giving the kids to understand about making the right decisions. You have to be accountable.
PERRY: Lessons both Steve and Marjorie learned from their dads.
M. HARVEY: My father taught me so many lessons. The way a man should treat a woman. The way a father is supposed to be.
S. HARVEY: My father was the greatest influence in my life. You got to find somebody to be like, and that's why I'm messed up for kids that don't have fathers, man.
PERRY (on camera): What's something that you think people should know about how they can be impactful?
M. HARVEY: We all have stuff that we deal with, but we can learn from each other.
S. HARVEY: We've got to turn these boys around. We're losing a generation here, man. We're spiraling out of control unless we stop it.
PERRY: Steve Perry, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: Christchurch, New Zealand, tries to get back to normal after a massive earthquake. Parts of a historic square reopened today. But find out why the continued shaking is rattling more than just buildings.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROWLANDS: There were tears, prayers and silence and for many, stunned silence from New Zealanders today as they toured Christchurch's shattered cathedral square. Nine months after a devastating earthquake, authorities temporarily reopened the square which suffered extensive damage.
TVNZ's Joy Reid has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOY REID, TVNZ REPORTER (voice-over): Tears and shock. Stunned silence. And just click of cameras, the reaction of (INAUDIBLE) saying the buildings they love now in ruins.
A hundred and sixty-three people cued to be the first on the tour this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Interesting, isn't it?
REID: Walking where for months it's been out of bounds, and seeing firsthand the earthquake's giant footprint.
ROSE CASEY, CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND RESIDENT: It actually hit me as soon as I walked down. It's just sad. Yes. I don't like seeing my city like this.
IAN BRACKENBURY CHANNELL, THE WIZARD OF NEW ZEALAND: It's death. This is a funeral procession.
REID: The wizard paying a special tribute and giving the cathedral a new name.
MAYOR BOB PARKER, CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND: It's being able to be made safe enough with a protective walkway to get people into this area. Which is, I think, a pretty symbolic moment.
REID (on camera): The only way is possible is because of a short break in the demolition schedule. But as soon as this building starts to come down in a couple of weeks time, access to the public will again have to be stopped.
(voice-over): For now though --
CASEY: You get a feel for what it's like seeing it on television and seeing it for real was just brings it all home.
REID: Plenty of taking this opportunity to reflect and then look ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's exciting to think of what could be here soon.
REID: To what may stand here in the years to come.
Joy Reid, 1 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: And Karen Maginnis is here with us now. And the folks in New Zealand have suffered so much. They continue to have after shocks.
KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: They do. We had a 3.1 magnitude earthquake today, or after shock. I mean, this is something they really wouldn't feel.
But since this major earthquake, they've seen more than 8,500 after shocks. And even six months afterwards, they were still looking at magnitude 6.0 and above that.
They took a poll back in June or July and they said -- they asked people there, would you stay in Christchurch? Sixty-four percent of the people said if we didn't have to stay here, we wouldn't.
Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, five years from now they'll say this is a great city. We want to be here. We're going to stay here. But it just has shaken them up more ways than one.
ROWLANDS: There is no end in sight. There is no indication this is going to end.
MAGINNIS: It tapers off. It certainly does.
Any time you see an earthquake of great magnitude like we saw in Haiti or in South America, they do start to taper off. But this is an on going process. The tectonic plates are re-adjusting and they continue to do that. And that's why the aftershocks will continue for quite some time, in some cases more than a year. But when you are right at that yearly point, they really do start to diminish dramatically.
I want to tell you about some travel weather.
We've got a frontal system stretching all the way from the Great Lakes, down towards the Gulf Coast. Behind this weather system in Chicago, we're looking at temperatures that go from readings in the 60s to in the 50s. We did see some earlier delays coming out of Houston's Bush Airport. But now this weather system is traveling towards the east.
So guess what? Just in time for tomorrow's big travel day, if you're going into or out of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, I think we're going to see some pretty significant delays.
Ted, are you headed out tomorrow?
ROWLANDS: No, I'll be here through Tuesday. So --
MAGINNIS: OK. But it looks like for Atlanta tomorrow, anticipate some of those delays coming up because the rainfall may be heavy at times. Not so much in that all important corridor in the Northeast for places like New York and Boston and Philadelphia. It looks like those temperatures fairly mild tomorrow, but much colder going in towards Monday.
And we start to see the rainfall occur then. So that's when we start to see problems.
ROWLANDS: All right. Thank you, Karen. Appreciate it.
Up next, a check of our top stories and from Sesame Street to Wall Street, creative gift ideas for kids to save money and even make money. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROWLANDS: Well, the holiday season for shopping is clearly well under way. But before you head out to the mall, the best gifts for your children may be just a click away.
Joining us live from Orlando, not Chicago as normal, Terry Savage. She is the author of the book "The Savage Truth on Money" and a personal finance columnist with "The Chicago Sun Times."
All right, Terry, I hear you've got some great ideas for kids that will help them not spend as much and even maybe make some money? Is that true? Make money?
TERRY SAVAGE, PERSONAL FINANCE COLUMNIST: You know, we're giving gifts to kids. And you know they're going to be broken maybe before the holiday season is over. They're going to be given away, worn out.
So, how about some gifts that teach children about personal finance? Who better to teach kids about personal finance than Sesame Street's Elmo?
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
SAVAGE: So, these are free DVDs. This is a wonderful new program by the Sesame Street workshop. They're available online at SesameStreet.org/save. You can view them there. And PNC Bank funded this nationally. And so, you get the DVDs in both English and Spanish at PNC Bank branches.
So, what a great way to start your little kids out learning about money. The new DVDs about personal finance from Sesame Street.
I give you another one. Little kids like piggy banks. But what do they know about piggy banks?
There is a terrific piggy bank at a Web site called MS Gen -- it stands for money savvy generation -- MSGen.com. It's a four-chambered piggy bank. It costs $16.99. And there is a category for save, spend, for donate, for invest. So, you can see your money into each of the categories.
For $2.75, you get another little workbook and activity book. So it's MSGen.com. The money savvy piggy bank. That's a great one.
Now, a lot of parents and grandparents want to give gifts of stock to their children. But they don't know how to do it. It's usually very expensive. There is one website that will make this easy. It's called sharebuilder.com. It's a division of ING Direct. And share builder allows you to set up a regular program of buying stocks, no minimum investment for only $4 per transaction. It is fascinating. You can buy any of 7,000 different stocks or 250 no load mutual funds including Fidelity and Vanguard. If you want to buy specific stock at a specific time, it will cost you a little more. But this is a great place to even have a gift package for kids that will help you get started teaching them about the stock market.
ROWLANDS: All right. I like that. Yes.
SAVAGE: Those are great ways to get started.
ROWLANDS: Definitely get the kids working, earning their own money. That sounds like a good plan to me. Black Friday, obviously big hit. The numbers say it's a big hit this year. How big was it as far as you know? What you are hearing?
SAVAGE: Well, you know, we're getting the first numbers out of shopper track which watches the number of people going in and out of the stores. And it gives you an estimate. And the first estimates are really astounding. They said this is one of the best black Fridays we've ever seen. They're looking at sales that are up 6.6 percent on Black Friday to $11.4 billion. So that's a pretty good haul for the stores. The previous week's sales have been up 3.6 percent and 3.8 percent. So what we're going to wait to see though is if all those great deals and all the shoppers running into the stores turn into profits for the businesses.
Because if you just have lost leaders as you saw many stores starting at midnight. That doesn't necessarily turn into profits. We will see the official retail chain store figures out coming out next week on Thursday. We'll have another round, don't forget, of unemployment numbers next Friday. So while it's not a booming economy, in fact, this is arguably the fifth year since 2007 when the market peaked and then 2008 when Lehman crashed, the fifth year of going into Thanksgiving and the holiday season with a bad economy. Let's hope that these early numbers show us we're going to have a good holiday season.
ROWLANDS: All right. Let's hope. Terry Savage, good stuff. Thanks as always.
SAVAGE: Thank you.
ROWLANDS: We'll see you back in Chicago.
Coming up, a bizarre case out of Ohio involving a possible Craigslist scam. Susan Candiotti has the details coming up next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROWLANDS: Now to rural Ohio and the so-called Craigslist killings. Two more bodies have been discovered. Police believe they're linked to a phoney job ads posted on Craigslist. So far authorities suspect at least four victims including one who managed to escape. CNN's Susan Candiotti is working the story for us. Susan, what's the latest? SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Timothy Kern was just looking for some honest work when he answered an advertisement on Craigslist a few weeks ago. After leaving to start a job, Kern's family never heard from him again. His body was found yesterday behind an abandoned strip mall near Akron, Ohio. The medical examiner identified Kern's body today and says Kern was shot more than once in the head.
I spoke to his son earlier today. He says his dad was promised a place to live, a truck to drive and was "stoked to have what he called a good job." Police have two suspects in custody. This man, Richard Beasley, has not been charged in the murders but is being held on unrelated matters. A 16-year-old boy has been charged with attempted murder, Ted.
ROWLANDS: How did the authorities become aware of these alleged murders?
CANDIOTTI: Yes, you know, it began with a South Carolina man. He had answered one of these Craigslist ads that was promising a farm job. He had breakfast with two men and then the three rode together to a secluded wooded area. They came to a closed road and they started to walk through the woods. And that's when this man says he heard a gun being cocked. He turned around and he sees a gun pointed at his head. He manages to escape. But as he's running, he is shot in the arm. He managed to hide for seven hours before getting to a farmhouse for help.
Now a search of the woods turned up an empty shallow grave and nine days later another grave with a body in it fatally shot. So it goes on and on.
ROWLANDS: Well, this is incredible. What do we know about the suspects and their motive was just robbery? They're willing to just kill these people?
CANDIOTTI: You know, it's possible, authorities say, that robbery was a motive. But the question is why would anyone target someone who didn't have a job? It just doesn't seem to make much sense. But as for the two suspects, the father of the teenager says that Beasley was a mentor to the 16-year-old. Now the father suspects that Beasley may have manipulated his son. Beasley's mother on the other hand says her son is a good man and it was the boy who was the troubled one of the two.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAROL BEASLEY, MOTHER OF RICHARD BEASLEY: He was a kid we have taken to church since he was seven or eight years old. Wow. He's had such a tough life. His mother has had a severe drug problem all her life and still has.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CANDIOTTI: Now, the question now for authorities is whether there are any more victims they don't know about just yet, Ted. ROWLANDS: All right. Crazy story. Thank you, Susan Candiotti. I'm sure we'll hear a lot more on this as it develops. Thanks, Susan.
Well, investigators search the home of a Syracuse University assistant basketball coach who has been accused of sexually abusing two ball boys. Authorities scoured Bernie Fein's house. Police, state troopers, even the secret service and the U.S. attorneys office reportedly took part. It's not clear what they were looking for but CNN affiliate WSYR is reporting they left with three filing cabinets labeled evidence.
Fein is on paid administrative leave from Syracuse. The former ball boys, Bobby Davis and his stepbrother Mike Lange accused Fein of molesting them years ago.
Checking the headlines, federal investigators are looking into the crash of a small plane outside of Crystal Lake, Illinois. That's just west of Chicago. Four people are confirmed dead. The FAA says the plane was flying under visual flight rules suggesting that weather was clear at the time of the crash.
The federal government is also investigating the Chevy Volt and fears that the electric car's batteries may pose a fire risk. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the Volt's lithium ion batteries could catch fire in a crash. So far there have been no accidents involving fires and there's no recall. GM is insisting that the car is absolutely safe.
Gary Giordano apparently will be freed Tuesday in Aruba despite prosecutors' objections. The judge there rejected the prosecutor's requested to hold the American citizen as they investigate the disappearance of his traveling companion Robin Gardiner. Giordano has been in custody since August. He denies any involvement in Gardiner's disappearance. The prosecution is appealing the decision.
It's the world's largest online resource for holocaust victims. We'll show you the amazing work being done by the World Memory Project to help families and survivors discover missing chapters of their history. That's coming up. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROWLANDS: Scouring millions of historical documents on the holocaust and their victims compiling all the information and putting it online. It is a massive project. But also a labor of love for thousands of volunteers who are helping uncover the missing chapters of these victims' lives.
Here's CNN's Athena Jones.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Well, this is Bella Shein.
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Alison Shein's great, great grandmother, Bella, died in the holocaust. ALISON SHEIN, VOLUNTEER, WORLD MEMORY PROJECT: They're living in a town called (INAUDIBLE) which is currently in Belarus.
JONES: Internet research helped her track down information about the circumstances surrounding Bella's death. Now Alison is helping others learn about their own relatives as part of the World Memory Project. A joint effort by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the genealogy website ancestry.com.
SHEIN: I just think that it's really important to keep the memory of these people who died alive.
JONES: Six million Jews and millions of Pols, Soviet POWs and others were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators in World War II. Some died after allied forces liberated their concentration camps. Many of their stories will never be known. But decades old documents found all around the world from transport records to death camp rolls to shipping manifests could help. Volunteers like Alison log on to ancestry.com to download records and enter key information into a data base.
SHEIN: They give you a little instruction set here which tips on what you're looking at.
JONES: She types in names, places, and dates from documents like this one in French.
SHEIN: His first name is Avaron. And it looks like - OK, he's from Romania.
JONES: To help insure accuracy, each record is assigned to two volunteers. An arbitrator steps when necessary to clear up discrepancies. Anyone with an internet connection can search these data bases free of charge. And if they find information about a family member, the museum will send them a copy of the record, also for free.
(on camera): The museum has more than 170 million documents related to the holocaust. The hope is that the volunteers taking part in the World Memory Project will help survivors and their families find out more about what happened to their loved ones.
(voice-over): Project leader Lisa Yavnai says it's a race against time.
LISA YAVNAI, WORLD MEMORY PROJECT LEADER: The goal of the World Memory Project is to have the largest online resource about the victims of the holocaust and Nazi persecution. In order to get this information to survivors before it's too late, we need all the help that we can get.
JONES: So far, more than 2100 volunteers from around the world, some as young as 12, have indexed more than 765,000 records.
YAVNAI: Nazis gave them numbers. And we're giving them back their names. And the public can help us do this by participating in this project.
JONES: Athena Jones, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: There's big buzz around Hollywood this weekend. J-Lo being criticized for one of her recent commercial shoots and Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett? Is there a musical romance blooming? Shanon Cook gives us the scoop coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROWLANDS: Well, it's been hard to miss this Fiat commercial featuring Jennifer Lopez harkening back to her Jenny from the block days in the Bronx.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER LOPEZ, ACTRESS: This place inspires me. To be tougher -- to stay sharper -
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLANDS: Jut one thing, Lopez didn't shoot this anywhere close to her old neighborhood. Let's bring in CNN entertainment reporter Shanon Cook.
Shanon, you know, no big deal normally. But this commercial is one that, you know, you watch it over and over. It has gotten a lot of play. And she really makes it, you know, seem like she's getting all this inspiration and she goes there every weekend. But it's really just a Hollywood illusion.
SHANON COOK, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Well, yes. Apparently her GPS system was really on the fritz there, Ted. Yes, because you see these - you see her looking all sentimental and getting all warm and fuzzy as she's driving through the Bronx where she grew but these nice close-up shots were actually filmed according to reports in Los Angeles. So what about the scenes where it's obviously shot in the Bronx?
Apparently that was a body double. This is according to sources who spoke to "The Smoking Gun." And you know, vague statements from both Fiat and Lopez's reps back up the story. Lopez was too busy to jump on a plane and fly to New York and shoot this in the Bronx.
ROWLANDS: Well, she's a great actress, which we know. She definitely show it is there. Let's switch gears here. There's a - a major star is embracing a great idea, new idea in the music world, his very own app.
COOK: Exactly. Yes, we're talking about Sting here and he's released an app for the iPad. It's free, mind you and it chronicles 25 years, the last 25 years of his career basically. He says he looks at this app as a replacement for CD liner notes, which we all know are kind of going out of style and it's also a really great way to archive his body of work. In the app you see rare photos, there's commentary from Sting and of course there's a lot of Sting's music and there's some exclusive footage from his 60th birthday concert, which took place in October which included a really star-studded lineup, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder.
And in the spirit of full disclosure, Ted, I should point out that my interview with Sting for CNN which aired recently is also on his app, which is reason enough to go and download it.
ROWLANDS: Absolutely. You know, it's actually a great idea. If you're a huge fan of any artist and they put all of this stuff in one app, I would think that a lot of people would go for it. Why is he offering it for free?
COOK: Well, in Sting's word he says that this is the first of its kind so we don't know what it's worth yet. Plus the app has two big sponsors so no doubt recouping production costs on this app is not really a factor here. And also keep in mind that the app has to compete with a lot of free material that already exists about Sting online. Hence why it offers some unique content like this but exclusive concert footage as I mentioned.
ROWLANDS: All right, less than a minute here. Let's talk Lady Gaga for a minute. We know that she and Tony Bennett have a good friendship, they collaborated on a song and a video for Bennett's Duets 2 album. But if you watched her Thanksgiving special on ABC, you learn something very surprising, Tony Bennett has seen Lady Gaga naked. Explain.
COOK: Yes, well you know, with some of the costumes she wears, I kind of feel like I've seen Lady Gaga naked. Basically she stripped down so that Bennett could sketch her, this is for a "Vanity Fair" shoot when the "Vanity Fair" magazine comes out next year. It was photographer Annie Liebovitz's idea. And if it sounds kind of creepy to you, just keep in mind it's all art, darling, it's all art.
ROWLANDS: All right. Shanon Cook, thank you very much, as that image, get it out of your mind.
COOK: Thanks, Ted.
ROWLANDS: Remember the pepper spraying cop caught on camera. He's being ridiculed all over the web for the video of him dousing a line of protesters sitting on the ground.
Jeanne Moos will give us a look at a unique pepper spray incident heard around the world. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROWLANDS: Police in southern California now know the identity of the shopper who reportedly pepper sprayed other shoppers at a Wal-Mart on Black Friday. The woman turned herself in to police last night. She hasn't been charged in the case because police are still interviewing witnesses. The woman was seen pepper spraying a crowd of people who were scrambling to get their hands on discounted XBOX video game counsels.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUAN CASTRO, WITNESS: I didn't see her personally but I got the scent of the mace. I got it in my throat. It was burning. I saw people around me, they got it really bad. I tried to get away from it as quickly as possible because I didn't think those were worth it. No deal is worth that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLANDS: Ten people required treatment.
Well, pepper spray can hurt but online mockery stings for a lot longer, as the police officer who sprayed students at the University of California Davis a week ago may be finding out. Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): First, an officer hosed down protesters with pepper spray. Now he's getting hosed back, peppered with ridicule for watering my hippies.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was like watering the garden like this.
MOOS: Now he's spraying everyone from Santa to Jesus at the Last Supper. He's spraying Lassie. He's spraying Snoopy. He's become what's called a (INAUDIBLE), an idea reproducing across the web, even spraying another internet (INAUDIBLE), the keyboard cat. He's spraying the Beatles. He's spraying to stop the flag raisers at Hiroshima. His pepper spray replaces the torch on the statue of liberty. He's spraying in famous paintings, at historic moments, at national monuments and now we know why House Speaker John Boehner cries. He, too has been pepper sprayed by the now infamous officer.
(on camera): His real name is Lieutenant John Pike but has been tagged with the nickname Pepper Spray Pike. That's the name on his fake parody twitter account full of (INAUDIBLE) tweets. Want to see the super committee do something? Give me 10 minutes with them in a locked room with spray. The hacker group anonymous went after Lieutenant Pike by publicizing his phone and address.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to make you squeal.
MOOS (voice-over): Someone even created the pepper spray cop's lament.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, kid, sorry I pepper sprayed you.
MOOS: And when Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly described pepper spray this way -
MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: It's like a derivative of actual pepper. It's a food product essentially - MOOS: She was mocked. Megyn Kelly on the electric chair, "It's a massage chair essentially." Megyn Kelly on mustard gas, "It's a hotdog condiment, essentially."
(on camera): Megyn Kelly would probably like to eat her words, as long as they weren't seasoned with pepper sprays.
(voice-over): On Amazon.com, critics are writing reviews of actual pepper spray, calling it the Cadillac of citizen repression technology. Pepper spray is being aimed at old people and the village people. It's even being shot up Marilyn Monroe's dress. Anyone care to give thanks for pepper spray on turkey day?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move or you're going to get it in the face. Move! Move!
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, Pepper spray, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: All right. Ted Rowlands at the CNN Center in Atlanta. A CNN presents special report, "GERRY-RIGGED, WHY YOUR VOTE FOR CONGRESS MAY NOT MATTER" begins right now.
