Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Red Tide Killing Manatees; Inside Mars Rocks; Sandberg Book on Empowering Women; Women Penalized for Negotiating Pay.

Aired March 12, 2013 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, in Vatican City, take a look at it, 115 Catholic cardinals gathered inside the Sistine Chapel. They're not going to have contact with outside world until they choose a new pope. You can see millions of folks around the world waiting to see what color smoke comes out of the chimney. As you know, white smoke means cardinals have chosen a new pope. Black smoke means they have not yet. We are watching it, too, of course, minute by minute. Anything happens, we'll bring that to you live. Just beautiful, the Sistine Chapel.

In Texas, a community is mourning the loss of five teenagers killed in an accident. Police say, Sunday afternoon, a 16-year-old driver ran a stop sign, collided with a gas tanker. Both vehicles went up in flames and the truck driver was seriously injured. None of the teens in the SUV survived.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STAR TOVAR, WORKED WITH VICTIM: There were always hanging out together.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

TOVAR: All five of them always together.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. It's hard just for one, much less five. Kids, you know, it just -- it's just hard. It's so quick.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: On the same day, six teenagers in Warren, Ohio, were killed when their SUV struck a guardrail flipped into the pond. Motor vehicle wrecks, number-one killer of young people in this country.

Another tragedy. This out of Chicago. This time it is a 6-month-old baby killed by gun violence. Doctors tried to save the baby but she died from gunshot wounds this morning. Police say she and her father were shot multiple times in their minute van on the south side. The father was changing her diaper. The shooter fled on foot, got away in a van.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GARRY MCCARTHY, CHICAGO POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: This is another tragedy because no child and certainly not an infant should be the victim of gang violence which, by the way, at this point, although there's a lot of angles that we're pursuing, there are very strong gang overtones to this particular event.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, so sad. Police are still searching for a suspect. The father, he was listed in serious condition.

Friends and family of a missing California teacher, they're holding a vigil and prayers from the gulf coast to the west coast. 26-year-old Terry Lynn Monette was last seen leaving a New Orleans area bar. That was in the early morning hours of March 2nd. Her car, it's also missing. Police have no suspects in her disappearance.

A record 174 manatees have been killed in Florida this year, all because of what is called red tide. It's especially tragic because manatee are endangered species list.

Chad is going to join us here, Chad Myers.

Chad, explain why this is happening. What is a red tide?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's alga bloom. It's algae in the water. This happens all the time but this particular year, started in September, typically, only lasts a few weeks or even if it starts in March or April lasts a few weeks. This has been a long-term problem here and the algae, as they die and fall out produce toxins. Toxins get on sea grass and the manatee will eat the sea grass. Everywhere here, from south of Tampa Bay all the way down to Port Charlotte, even as far south here as St. Marco Beach here, all of the area where we're seeing red tide and it's not blowing away. It's not going away.

Many times we talk about the red tie or alga bloom that comes out of the Gulf of Mexico with the chemicals that come out of the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi River, whether it's fertilizer, whatever. But this one here has been lasting a long time. To kill this many -- and it's just a brutal death that these manatees have been going through. They're trying to tow them out, move them back into fresher water. But this is very toxic water that they're swimming in now. And obviously toxic feed. Almost gets into their brain and they begin -- you can read it online, you can see -- rather than me try to describe it, what manatees go through before they die.

MALVEAUX: Wow. Chad, if they're sick, can they be cured?

MYERS: They can.

MALVEAUX: Can they be helped or do they automatically die?

MYERS: They can. They're taking some from Port Tampa, putting them into very fresh water and surviving. They're saying 99 percent of ones that they move are surviving. That's good news. But they're finding them dead. You can't move them all, there are so many. This is their ground. This is where they want to be. This is where the water's warm and that warm water obviously could be part of the problem and that's why the alga bloom haze not gone offshore. It's 30, 40 miles offshore. Right now, it's up against the coast where the manatees are.

MALVEAUX: Do we think it has anything to do with climate change?

MYERS: I don't think anybody really knows. I've read a number of articles, even saying this is probably not a man-made condition. But this is something different this year. There is something going on this year where the bloom is not going away and creating all of this toxin. I think it's too early to say what it is.

It could be a wind direction thing where the wind is pushing this bloom against the shore rather than blowing it offshore. We need like a wind coming from the east for a while to push some of this out so fresher water can come back in. And I wouldn't call that climate change. I would call it more of the way the weather patterns have been pushing all the red tide, all these alga blooms up against the shore rather than pushing them back out.

MALVEAUX: Chad, thank you. Appreciate it.

MYERS: OK.

MALVEAUX: Coming up, NASA says Mars could have supported ancient life. But what does that mean?

And we are now officially on chimney watch. This hour, the Catholic cardinals are at work selecting a new pope. They're meeting inside the Sistine Chapel and they're going to release smoke when they've voted. We'll continue to monitor throughout the hour and minute by minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Is it really life on Mars? This hour, we might be getting answers. The Mars rover called "Curiosity" landed on the red planet last August, and now we are finding out what's in the rocks on Mars.

John Zarrella, you got the info on all of the rocks. I want to know, I want to know if there's life on Mars. Was there life on Mars?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you want the good news or bad news, Suzanne?

(LAUGHTER)

I will give you -- you know, the bad news is, NASA scientists haven't found life on Mars yet and probably isn't any life existing there right now.

MALVEAUX: Oh. Oh. OK.

ZARRELLA: But, but the good news is that, what they are telling us today is, that they do in fact believe that at least at this particular site on Mars, maybe all over Mars, the prerequisite ingredients for life did exist. How did they find it? That's pretty important. That was one of the primary functions of the "Curiosity" mission, go to Mars, find out if there ware building blocks of life exist.

What they did was, last month, they drilled into their first rock on Mars. Then they scooped up the dust, the samples from the drill and put it in the on-board chemistry lab on the "Curiosity" rover. "Curiosity" has its own capability to analyze samples. You can see the animation showing that process attacking place. They found was sulfur, oxygen, they found some carbon dioxide, and all of those things lead them to believe now, that in fact, at one point in its ancient past, that Mars perhaps did -- was a habitable -- certainly, had some habitable regions where life might have existed. That's pretty cool.

MALVEAUX: Very cool.

ZARRELLA: Yes.

MALVEAUX: So there could have been life on Mars at some point, yes?

ZARRELLA: Yes, there could have been microbial life, not talking about -- we make that -- not talking --

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: Martians.

(LAUGHTER)

ZARRELLA: Martians, people waving at the camera. No. It was microbial life, at best, back in ancient Mars. But the evidence is there that there was running water at this particular landing site, the Gail Crater site, where "Curiosity" landed. One of the reasons they went there to begin with was because they believed water was there and they believed that ancient life, if it existed on Mars, might have existed there. Now they are saying, in fact, it looks like the building blocks are there. They don't have definitive proof that life once existed but that the ingredients were in fact there and were present on Mars.

MALVEAUX: We are not alone, John. We are not alone. Thank you.

ZARRELLA: No, we're not.

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has a message to working moms -- you can have it all -- but can they? We'll take a look at what women want, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: This whole idea of empowering women by the idea of being able to lean into an issue or a way that you can both develop your own self in a broader and a deeper way, but also to be able to help other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Former First Lady Laura Bush giving her spin on what it means for women to "Lean In." That is the title of Sheryl Sandberg's new book on empowering women. The Facebook COO says in the book, now is the time for women to lean in to their careers, not hold back, because they're planning to have children. But Sandberg's critics say, that's a hard thing to do. Here's why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): Some call Sheryl Sandberg's new book "Lean In" a rallying cry for women. She, herself, caws it a feminist manifesto.

The 43-year-old COO of Facebook urges women to lean into their ambition, don't hold back.

SHERYL SANDBERG, COO, FACEBOOK: They start leaning back, they say, oh, I'm busy, I want to have a child one day, I couldn't possibly take on anymore or, I'm still learn on my current job. I've never had a man say that stuff to me.

MALVEAUX: Sandberg had the same message for graduates at Barnard College back in 2011.

SANDBERG: If several years ago you stop challenging yourself, you're going to be bored. If you work for some guy who you used to sit next to and really he should be working for you, you're going to feel undervalued and you won't come back.

MALVEAUX: This mother of two calls on women who plan on being mothers not to stop shooting for the top position at their companies just because the work life balance is going to be hard.

SANDBERG: Maybe it's the fifth year in the law firm when they say I'm not sure I should go for the partner because I want kids eventually.

MALVEAUX: Sandberg's message has set off a firestorm of discussion. Can women really have it all? If their ambitious enough.

Ann Marie Slaughter, a former close adviser to Hillary Clinton, says ambition can only go so far. The real problem is employers and government policy.

ANN MARIE SLAUGHTER, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I couldn't make it work with raising then two teenage boys who did need two parents as the home. I was writing this to say, look, just say you have it all, which is what my generation has said for decades is not enough. MALVEAUX: As the first woman ever to serve as director of policy planning for the State Department, the 54-year-old stepped down after two years in Washington to teach at Princeton University.

Slaughter wrote this now-famous article in the "Atlantic," "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." She says Sandberg's Barnard speech put too much of the burden on women when the system's rigged. Her solutions: companies should allow more people to work from home, flex time so parents can do parenting and work, not just mothers, but fathers as well. She also wants the govnerment to require paid family leave in all jobs.

SLAUGHTER: I just don't want to let workplaces off the hook. We need to support all choices that women make but this is a larger social problem and an economic problem as well.

MALVEAUX: Despite her emphasis on personal ambition, Sandberg admits, throughout "Lean In," she's had an uphill battle to juggle her own work/life balance despite all of her best efforts.

SANDBERG: If you think big, if you own your own success, if you lead it won't just have external costs, but it may cause you personal sacrifice. Men make far fewer compromises than women to balance professional success and personal fulfillment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Up next, why a Harvard researcher says women workers are penalized when they asked for more money. What they say to do to stop it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: So, say you're negotiating pay for a new job, do you push for higher salary or do you accept the first offer? Well, one of the points that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg makes in her book "Lean In" is women generally don't feel comfortable asking for more money. Sandberg says she almost accepted the first offer that Facebook gave her to run the social network.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDBERG: I was like, are you kidding? You can't take the first offer. I'm, like, well, it is a generous offer and I really want this job. And finally, with Dave there, my brother-in-law mark looked at me and said, don't make less than any man would make doing this job. There is no man taking this job who would take the first offer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Wow. All right.

Joining us, Harvard's Hannah Riley Bowles, faculty director for the Kennedy School's executive program for women leaders.

Hannah, thank you very much. You've done a lot of research on this how gender affects salaries, negotiations, all kinds of things. What she describes, is that pretty common that women essentially feel lucky, feel fortunate for what they have been offered instead of asking for more?

HANNAH RILEY BOWLES, FACULTY DIRECTOR, KENNEDY SCHOOL EXECUTIVE PROGRAM FOR WOMEN LEADERS: I don't know if they always feel lucky and fortunate for what they have been offered but there is often a hesitation on women's behalf to negotiate for things like higher compensation.

What we have shown in our research is this has to do with the feedback that women get that is different from men when they do negotiate for higher pay.

So what we looked at in our research is the impressions --

(CROSSTALK)

BOWLES: So let me tell you. So what we looked at in our research is the impressions that men and women make when they negotiate for higher compensation. And what we find is that both men and women, when they negotiate for higher pay, appear less nice, so less warm, agreeable, sensitive to the concerns of others. They also see more demanding, so things like, you know, pushy, presumptuous, cocky. But for women, because when they're negotiating for higher pay, they appear less nice and more demanding, people are disinclined to work with them. Our evaluators report that they're less inclined to work with a woman who attempted to negotiate for higher pay than one who stayed mum and let the opportunity to negotiate pass.

MALVEAUX: Wow.

BOWLES: We find no such effect for men.

MALVEAUX: So what you do --

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: -- if you're in a position where you think you should get more money, you would like to negotiate but don't want to come across as somebody who is mean and not flexible, what do you do, what do you say?

BOWLES: Well, Sheryl Sandberg -- we've got research on this, how women can get what they want and make the impression they want to make. And Sheryl Sandberg describes our strategy as "Think I, but talk we." You know, the key is that you got to go for what you want, but you need to make clear to the organization that you're taking their perspective, but also why it makes sense for you to negotiate. So I can give you an example that Sheryl uses --

MALVEAUX: Yes.

BOWLES: -- talking about negotiating her compensation at Facebook. And it is close to what we've tested in our research. Instead of asking for higher compensation, a woman could say something like, you and I are going to be on the same team, and you want people on your team who negotiate, and so I hope you'll see my negotiating as a strength I'm going to be bringing to the team.

MALVEAUX: OK, that's a good point. I guess in some ways we can kind of manipulate the system. But how do we change the way people think, their attitudes about women negotiating for salaries? Isn't this kind of the onus on the man as well?

BOWLES: Well, of course, yes, the onus is on the man as well. I think it is both. You talk -- Ann Marie Slaughter is arguing it's the organization. Sheryl Sandberg is arguing the women have to lean in. It is obviously both. People, hopefully, when they hear about this research, some people will say, wow, do I do that?

But also very important is, I think, every woman who paves the path and sets the example and starts setting the expectation that women do and can and should negotiate for things like higher compensation, I think that makes a contribution.

MALVEAUX: All right. Professor Hannah Riley Bowles, thank you very much. Appreciate it as always.

BOWLES: Thanks for having me.

MALVEAUX: Sure.

Actress Valerie Harper, she has cancer. And how she's actually staying positive despite being told that she only has a few months to live.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIE HARPER, ACTRESS: Yes, kind of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Actress Valerie Harper just announced she has terminal brain cancer. But the 73-year-old is best known for her role as Rhoda in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and her own sitcom. She says that she is staying positive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARPER: Forgiving is giving up the wish that things could have been different. They weren't. That's the past. Let it go. I have cancer. It's in my brain, in a strange way. What are you going to do about it?

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, TODAY SHOW CO-HOST: You are a spiritual person? Do you think about what comes after this life?

HARPER: Sure. What's fascinating, I see it as a passage. You have to just say, I'm willing to embrace it, whatever it is. (END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Valerie Harper talks with Piers Morgan tonight at 9:00 eastern.

That's it for me. CNN NEWSROOM continues with Brooke Baldwin.

(MUSIC)