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54 Killed in Turkey Wedding Bombing; ISIS Recruiting Child Soldiers for Terror; Clinton E-Mails Shadow Presidential Campaign; Ryan Lochte Loses Sponsors over Rio Incident; New Details from Prince's Death Investigation; Baby Born Amid the Ravages of War; U.S. National Parks Mark Centennial Year; Oldest Park Ranger Overcomes Assault. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired August 23, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:00:23] SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Las Vegas.

A horrific explosion at a wedding party in Turkey killing dozens of people and authorities are vowing vengeance on whoever is suspected of that blast.

Donald Trump calls Hillary Clinton an outright criminal launching a sharp new attack over her e-mails.

And new details on the death investigation of Prince -- a report finds that pills found in Paisley Park contained a drug that is 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Sara Sidner. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.

We begin tonight in a terrible blast in Turkey. Turkish authorities though are now saying they do not know if the suicide bomber who targeted a wedding over the weekend was a child or an adult. The Turkish president said on Sunday the attacker was a child between 12 and 14 years old. Dozens of people were killed in that blast in what has become Turkey's deadliest terror attack so far this year.

CNN's Ben Wedeman has more on the story from Gaziantep.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So far, 54 people have been killed in that Saturday night suicide attack on what was essentially a street party, a wedding celebration in a Kurdish working class neighborhood.

Turkish officials say of the dead, 22 are under the age of 14 and it is believed that the rest of the victims, many of them are women as well. Turkish investigators have found pieces of the suicide vest.

Now, adding to just the totally disturbing nature of this attack, the Turkish media was at the house outside of which the bomb went off and this was the house where the newlyweds were supposed to move into, Basna (ph) and Noureddin (ph).

Now they were only slightly injured in the attack. They spent the night in the hospital. When they went back to see their home, to see what had happened and they found out how many of their neighbors, friends and relatives were killed in the attack, they were utterly devastated. Friends and relatives tried to console them. That didn't work. They had to go back to the hospital because according to the Turkish media they suffered from a nervous breakdown.

Now Turkish officials do believe that it was ISIS behind the attack. This city is only 40 kilometers north of the Syrian border. This is a part of the country where ISIS has been known to operate in the past. Turkish police have cracked down on ISIS cells in Gaziantep itself and it's believed those cells are indeed still operating.

I'm Ben Wedeman -- CNN reporting from Gaziantep, Turkey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Terrible, terrible situation there.

In Iraq, authorities have proof that a child was about to become a suicide bomber except police captured the teenager before his bomb detonated. It happened in the northern city of Kirkuk in front of television cameras.

This is a dramatic video from Kurdistan 24 Television. It shows police removing a suicide vest from a 15-year-old boy. They say he was acting suspiciously and intended to target a Shia mosque. According to the local governor, the teen was trained and brainwashed by ISIS as one of their child soldiers.

Earlier my colleague Robyn Curnow spoke with Mia Bloom. Her latest book is about how children become involved in terrorist organizations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIA BLOOM, AUTHOR: They lure them in through a variety of tricks and treats they way pedophiles lure in young kids. But then also they brainwash them, they desensitize them to violence.

But very often what we are seeing especially if this boy is an IDP and he's either Iraqi or Syrian we saw a lot of Iraqi kids deployed in Syria and Syrian kids sent to Iraq. It's that, it may be that they had no choice but to join that perhaps in exchange for food or protection or not, you know, upsetting the authorities in Raqqa or in Mosul that they have no choice because not all the parents are willingly handing their children over. The foreign fighters are. But the locals are often in a very tough place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[00:04:58] SIDNER: Bloom also mentions that child soldiers are also being used as propaganda tools. Just a few months ago, ISIS released a video called "Blood for Blood" showing children being trained for terror attacks. Hillary Clinton's e-mails are dogging her U.S. presidential campaign

with her opponent launching a sharp new attack. A federal judge ordered the State Department to assess the possible release of nearly 15,000 documents from the FBI investigation of her private server.

Now Republican lawmakers issued subpoenas to three technology companies involved in her home set up and Donald Trump is now calling for a corruption investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The amounts involved, the favors done and the significant number of times it was done require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately, immediately, immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Here to talk about all this, CNN senior reporter for media and politics Dylan Byers who's joining us now live here in Los Angeles. Lots to talk about.

First, Hillary Clinton, we heard the attack there. Trump basically saying you have to go after the Clinton Foundation. Is there any possibility that some kind of investigation into the foundation will actually happen?

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: No. Not at least within the time between now and November 8. What I do think is that this is an issue that's going to resonate with voters. And I don't think it's just -- you know, so many of the things Trump talks about out there on the campaign trail goes straight to his base and to nobody else.

This is an issue that really resonates with voters who haven't made up their mind yet. There are trust issues. There are accountability issues with Hillary Clinton. The e-mail -- unlike other sort of perceived controversies, the e-mail issue is one that does not sit well with voters.

Running against any other Republican candidate with say the possible exception of Ted Cruz, this would be a huge issue. This would be the dominating issue in the news cycle is the fact that these questions about the e-mails, this question about the e-mail servers and it's one that would be dogging her campaign even more so than it already is.

But look, Donald Trump has a litany of issues to deal with between now and November. Hillary Clinton has one big issue and it's this one.

SIDNER: And they keep now bringing it up. Before Trump is sort of stumbling over himself making news and it was negative for him. Now it seems like he is really focusing in on some of the things that could hurt her.

BYERS: And I would say that is probably a reflection of the new sort of campaign management that has been brought in. Steve Bannon from Breitbart has been brought and sort of giving it a focus on this one issue that he knows will, of course, really resonate with those voters.

SIDNER: Let's talk about something else now -- Clinton's health. There have been a lot of conspiracy theories and the conservative media are -- they're all over that -- talking a lot about whether or not she is physically and mentally able to be the president.

She has responded mostly with humor, sometimes with a little jawing back. But let me show you what she did on late night television just an hour ago when she was talking or asked about her sort of health concerns. Here's a little thing that she pulled off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you open this jar of pickles? This has not been tampered with. This is --

It's not been touched.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So we had some audible laughs from our crew. Did that work? Does that help her in all of these attacks on her health and well being?

BYERS: Yes, I would say it does. If the e-mail issue is a serious issue that warrants further investigation, the issue of her health is something that dates back to the sort of -- the vast right wing conspiracy that she used to talk about back in the 90s when her husband was president.

There are so many conspiracy theories out there about the Clintons especially about Hillary Clinton and the sort of rise in the right wing media of this health issue, this sort of vague idea that somehow she needs to lean on bars or lean on chairs when she stands around. That she needs pillows to sit on.

Look, she is one of the older people -- she's not as young as Barack Obama. She's going to be 69 years old if and when she takes office. That means if she serves two terms she will be 77 by the time she leaves.

All of that said, so far there is no there, there. And for the Republicans to go out or at least for the Trumpians to go out and sort of keep pushing this issue to me is indicative of this sort of right wing echo chamber that they live in where rather than face the issues they need to face in order to bring in more voters, they sort of are trying to scare voters in.

SIDNER: Look, there are going to be a lot of people her age out at the polls who do not feel like they are old and infirm.

BYERS: Right. And who don't like being treated that way by the opposing candidate. SIDNER: Right. All right. Let's move on to something that Trump said. Now he has doubled down on one part of his immigration policy. I want to let you hear what he said about the wall that he said he's going to build.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[00:10:00] TRUMP: We're going to build a wall, folks. We're going the build a wall. We're going to build it. Don't worry. We're going to build a wall. That wall will go up so fast your head will spin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And he added the line and Mexico will pay for it. And there's one thing that we know, all the Mexican presidents they can't agree on much but they can agree on one thing. They say Mexico is not going to pay for that wall very adamantly.

That being said he hasn't come forward with his big immigration speech. Why is that? And does that give us some inkling into him maybe changing some of his tough stances on other items?

BYERS: I think so. Look, going all the way back to the he announced he is running for president. He only had one policy proposal. And up until recently when he's had to shape some policy proposal in order to just, you know, run a general election campaign. He had one policy proposal. I'm going to build a wall.

He has been saying it over and over again. He sort of hedged. He's saying the wall will do this, do that. If he takes away that line he doesn't have the foundation of the candidacy that he's built which is based on an anti-immigrant sentiment.

But yes, they have to reshape it. They have to refine that to make it somewhat realistic because no, Mexico is not going to pay for that wall if you ask any single expert who knows what they're talking. And B, he has to be cognizant of what he can actually promise voters so that it seems feasible to those people who are going into the voting booth.

SIDNER: I want to ask you about a decision that we've seen reported out there. They're saying that Donald Trump is going to only do interviews with Fox News. If those reports turn out to be true, is that smart? Aren't those the people who are already going to vote for him?

BYERS: You are absolutely right. This goes back to the sort of right wing echo chamber that we talked about. When you are down in the polls and running for president -- and we saw this happen back in 2012 -- there can be a tendency to want to just live in the cocoon where people tell you that you're going to win, that the polls aren't accurate, that the media is wrong and biased; that the whole system is rigged against you. There is a tendency to want to live in this comfort zone where there's an alternate reality that you are going to win and these other polls that tell you're up. By going to Fox News, by going to places like Sean Hannity's show, he is living in that cocoon. He doesn't need the Fox News voters. He has many of those Fox News voters and he's lost some of them. But what he needs, he needs to be reaching out to CNN, to MSNBC. He needs to be going to the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post". He needs to be expanding far beyond his base. And that's something we have continuously seen him not willing or able to do for several weeks now.

SIDNER: I want to ask you and quickly. We'll try to get this -- this is a nasty campaign, I'm sorry to say. And when you look at what's happened. Now we're seeing some information about Melania Trump. And I don't even want to go there. But I'm going to let you go there because you've done some reporting on it.

BYERS: Sure. Well, absolutely. There was this sort of very tenuous report from the "Daily Mail" at the end of last week that's citing sort of rumor mill alleging that her modeling agency that she belonged to in New York could actually have been an escort agency, et cetera, et cetera.

None of this was founded. None of this we know to be necessarily true. None of it has been confirmed. And yet news organizations pick something like that up. Lo and behold Melania Trump's lawyer has gone after ten news organizations including the "Daily Mail", the "Week", "Politico" basically alleging defamation either for that or for reporting based on her immigration history.

Now, the question is will they actually sue? All they've done so far is give notice. Well, giving notice says hey, you need to retract this, you need to correct this and you need to do it now, otherwise we're going to bring a lawsuit. Of course, many of the folks I have talked to sort of around Trump don't actually believe that any lawsuits will be brought.

SIDNER: All right. We have heard that from Trump before. He's going to sue and sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't.

BYERS: Right. A favorite tactic.

SIDNER: Yes.

BYERS: To threaten.

SIDNER: Dylan Byers, thank you so much for coming and chatting on all these many issues. We appreciate it.

BYERS: Thank you.

SIDNER: U.S. Olympian swimmer Ryan Lochte's Rio robbery story is hitting him hard in the wallet. His lucrative endorsements are disappearing -- Speedo, Polo, Ralph Lauren, Gentle hair removal and mattress maker Air Weave have all announced they're cutting ties with the swimmer. Lochte said he wasn't lying but said he over-exaggerated and I'm quoting here about being robbed at gunpoint in Rio with three of his teammates. But the plain and simple truth was he was not robbed at gunpoint as he first said. He has since apologized saying he should have been more careful and candid.

Let's bring in sports agent Lee Steinberg, founder of Steinberg Sports and Entertainment. He joins us now via Skype from Irvine, California. Thank you so much for joining us.

You are a legendary sports agent who has probably seen it all in your day. Is this any surprise to you what has happened with these endorsements going away now for Lochte?

LEE STEINBERG, SPORTS AGENT: First, Sara, I don't know how you over- exaggerate. You can exaggerate but over-exaggerate, and then you can sort of lie.

No, it's not a surprise. Because if you think about a week ago Sunday this happened and by not stepping forward rapidly, he's allowed day after day after day of negative publicity to go on.

[00:15:10] You can argue that the media jumped on this story and has repeated it over and over again and made a mountain out of a mole hill.

But this was done at the Olympics with every reporter, electronic and print in the world there. And it was a slam. So had he come out very rapidly, he might have been able to defuse this. But those sponsors are looking for positive attributes to be transferred to their goods and services so people will buy them. They're not looking for negatives to be transferred and in each of those contracts there are public behavior clauses that allow the advertiser to get out of the contract.

SIDNER: Let me ask you this. Do you think that Lochte can recover from this in any way? Because this is going to hurt not only his sponsorship but potentially his ability to be a part of the Olympics if he decides to again.

STEINBERG: First of all I think he probably is going to get suspended for some period of time by the USOC and will not be able to swim.

Second of all, the difficulty is this is the big stage. People don't normally follow swimming between the four year span. So it makes his task a little more difficult than say a team sport, basketball or baseball player who would be able to go ahead and play and not have a recurrence.

Now everything fades. So if people accept his apology and we don't throw the young man on the trash heap of history for one untoward incident and some of the things he's been doing since in terms of apologizing. So he stole the thunder for a whole week instead of concentrating on the incredible achievements of the 120 gold medal and silver medal and bronze medal winners it's all Lochte, Lochte, Lochte. They can't be real happy.

He's done the right thing. But it might be too late. Eventually, yes, this will fade.

SIDNER: Let me quickly ask you, what would you advise someone in Lochte's position to do now? If you could sum it up in a couple of words. What does he do?

STEINBERG: Continues to be repentant and stops any recurrence and probably does something dramatic for Rio de Janeiro.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you so much. Lee Steinberg -- we appreciate your time. We know that you have represented a lot of athletes and I'm sure at some point, suffice it to say, you have had to help them out a bit with some trouble they have been in as well. We appreciate you coming on the show.

STEINBERG: My pleasure.

Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, four months after Prince's death, new allegations are coming out about the drug that killed him. Next -- what the labels on pills found in his house could tell investigators.

Plus, (inaudible) to the Grand Canyon U.S. National Parks attract millions of visitors from around the world. And as the park service celebrates its 100th birthday we look at why the parks are so important.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Four months after Prince's death we are learning about medications that investigators found and seized in his Paisley Park compound. Prince was found dead on April 21 in that compound in an elevator.

The revelations are coming from a Minneapolis newspaper and they give insight into the investigation that is still ongoing into the superstar's death.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: The "Minneapolis Star Tribune" says a source revealed the pills seized in Prince's Paisley park compound were mismarked as hydrocodone but when tested turned out to be the much more potent drug Fentanyl. But the source also told the paper several other drugs were found in his system including Lidocaine, Percocet and Alprazolam.

The combination of drugs could have had deadly consequences too. But Fentanyl toxicity is what the medical examiner listed as the cause of Prince's death. Either the drug manufacturer mismarked the pills which could have resulted in a recall and health hazard or the most likely scenario, the pills were illegally manufactured and illegally sold.

The big question for investigators, how did Prince get them? Did he know what he was taking and did he actually take those pills? The Drug Enforcement Administration says counterfeit Fentanyl-laced pills are coming into the country in record numbers with deadly consequences. JOHN MARTIN, DEA SPECIAL AGENT: It's 50 to 100 times more potent than

morphine and 25 to 50 times more potent than heroin. So a little bit goes a long way.

SIDNER: For drug cartels, the extremely potent opioid painkiller Fentanyl is a best seller. For users it's a prolific killer, so dangerous that law enforcement has to wear the highest protection hazmat suits just to confiscate it.

MARTIN: It can be absorbed through the skin and it can be absorbed through the eyes. So it poses a threat to law enforcement also.

NATASHA BUTLER, SON DIED FROM FENTANYL: I don't wish this on nobody. And nobody should have to lose their child like this.

He called and said his heart hurts.

SIDNER: So after taking how many pills?

BUTLER: It was stated the young man who was there with him that he had one and the young man had three.

SIDNER: So just one?

BUTLER: Just one. Just one. This was something that was purposely done.

SIDNER: Jerome Butler was one of ten people to die in just 12 days in Sacramento County alone. And those clusters of deaths are happening all over the United States.

Here's just a small sample of what is happening. In Ohio, there were 514 Fentanyl-related deaths up from 92 the year before. That is five times the number of deaths. In Florida, 397 deaths, up from 185. And in Maryland, 185 deaths, up from 58.

BUTLER: What are we doing? What are we doing about it? I'm willing to do everything that I can.

SIDNER: The DEA says Fentanyl is flowing in record amounts from China through Mexico and into the United States.

It's growing.

MARTIN: The trend has indicated that it has right now. It's feeding America's addiction to opioids.

SIDNER: On the East Coast it's showing up mostly as powder. On the West Coast it's mostly pills. The pills bring even more danger to the public because often they are a perfect counterfeit copy labeled as other drugs.

Compared to some of these other drugs how strong is Fentanyl?

TERRY BAISA, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: It's much stronger -- much stronger. You can get a morphine tablet that contains 30 milligrams and this is what 30 milligrams would look like. If this was heroin it would be in a dose of maybe 10 milligrams if it was pure. 1 milligram looks like this.

SIDNER: I can't even see that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Psychiatrist and addiction specialist, physician Reef Karim joins me now to discuss some of this. He is the founder and medical director of the Control Center of Beverly Hills.

[00:25:06] First, just looking at some of the source reporting on Prince. That he had lidocaine, percocet and benzodiazepine in his system as well as Fentanyl but it was Fentanyl toxicity that killed him. What does that tell you about him and what he might have been going through?

REEF KARIM, CONTROL CENTER OF BEVERLY HILLS: Well, first off, Fentanyl definitely is our new problem. It's our new public health crisis. So let's just put that out there first and foremost. 50 times stronger than heroin -- it is a huge problem.

Now, when you are combining a benzodiazepine with opiates like Fentanyl, they both work synergistically in regards to their side effects. That means the side effects of both is decreasing your respiratory drive and getting to the point where you stop breathing.

Now if I'm -- this is all supposition because --

SIDNER: So you can aspirate. I mean basically if you take them both you could accidentally overdose because you had these two drugs in your system doing the exact same thing.

KARIM: Here's the cocktail -- the death cocktail: alcohol, benzodiazepines, opiates. They often all three go together. Somebody wants to mellow out they pop a pill, they pop another pill and they drink and they think they're going to be ok and they don't wake up.

SIDNER: I have to put this out there because the people around Prince have said that he didn't drink. He was very health conscious. There have been reports that he was having some hip pain after years and years and years of performing and jumping off of rafters and, you know, doing all sorts of wild moves at 57 years old.

One of the things that I find curious is that -- what are the chances that this is a manufacturer mistake? I mean wouldn't we have heard of some sort of recall if these were mislabeled? I mean what a danger to the public that would be.

KARIM: This is not mislabeled. I mean this is addiction and addiction in this sense comes in two varieties. Either it's the synthetic manufacturer, synthetic manufacturer -- that means not necessarily the pharma company but we're getting it from Mexican cartels. We're getting a lot of drugs brought into the country.

They can mislabel. They can put a drug that is Fentanyl and cut it and you think it's another product but it's made cheaper because it's Fentanyl and then they use it and then someone OD's because they didn't know. Or the individual does know and they go through the escalation process. So the escalation process is maybe you went to a dentist, may you have hip pain, maybe you're a performer, maybe -- whatever; you need pills.

You start popping the pills, you develop a tolerance to the pills. You need more and more to get the same desired effect. Then you start popping more pills. More pills doesn't work so you need a higher, higher level of a drug. You end up getting Fentanyl thinking you could just take a small dose. You start taking the small dose, you develop tolerance to Fentanyl. All of a sudden you need more and more of it to get the same desired and then you wake up and you stop breathing.

SIDNER: Let me lastly ask you. I mean what is Fentanyl usually used for? It's for really severe pain, correct?

KARIM: Yes, it's used for chronic pain. It's used for cancer patients. It is supposed to be used sparingly for patients that, you know, really don't have any other way of dealing with their pain. It's not supposed to be used for just general pain or for acute pain.

SIDNER: Ok. Doctor -- thank you so much. I think you mentioned this and I think it's really important to re-mention this that this has become a health crisis. A lot of people look at heroin very differently than they look at some of these other opioids, but it's all the same thing, right.

KARIM: Yes.

SIDNER: I mean basically it does the same thing to your body.

KARIM: America is in pain -- physical pain and emotional pain -- and we have to be really careful about what we put in our bodies. And you have to ask your doctor why am I taking this? What are the alternatives and what are the risks?

SIDNER: Great advice. We appreciate you coming on the show.

And just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM L.A. -- two lives but only one heartbeat. In the midst of a brutal war, a miraculous new life to celebrate in Syria.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:31:40] SIDNER: Welcome back. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm Sara Sidner. And your headlines at this hour.

Turkish authorities now say they don't know the age of the suicide bomber who struck a wedding in Gaziantep over the weekend. The Turkish president initially said on Sunday that the attacker was between 12 and 14 years old. 54 people died in that blast. And officials believe that ISIS is responsible. However, they have not yet taken responsibility for it. A familiar face has thrown his hat into the ring for next year's French presidential election. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy will try to make a political comeback after being defeated by Francois Hollande back in 2012. Sarkozy declared his candidacy on Monday and he released excerpts from his new book on social media.

And the terrible toll of Syrian air strikes took on a human face last week when the world saw that heart breaking image of this little boy pulled from the rubble in Aleppo. Like many of Syria's children, the boy has known nothing but war.

And for an expectant mother trying to get to an Aleppo hospital to give birth, even the newest lives face a deadly threat from above.

Nima Elbagir's report contains disturbing video and graphic scenes of an emergency room delivery. And she takes us inside that hospital to witness a baby born amid war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two lives. One heartbeat sustaining both. Mesa (ph) is nine months pregnant. She was already on her way to the hospital when the airstrike hit. Mesa's (ph) arm and leg are broken. Her belly sprayed with shrapnel.

But what about her baby?

Mesa's (ph) wail pierces the silence. The doctors keep on going.

The baby out into the bright lights. Silent and still.

They fight on. The little chest pummelled up and down, harder and harder. His airways cleared, anything and everything. Then a flutter, blood in the umbilical cord. Color floods his little body.

Cries of "God is great" break the tension.

(BABY CRYING)

A moment of triumph over the spectre of greedy death stalking the city streets. A moment that here in Aleppo must be waged again and again.

Nima Elbagir, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: It's hard to even imagine going through that. But we do have a positive note for you.

We want you to know that thanks to the heroic efforts of those doctors that you saw working so hard to save that baby's life, they also managed to save the mother's life.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [00:31:30] SIDNER: We all need some beauty in our lives. And the U.S. National Park Service is celebrating its 100th birthday this week. The agency manages 59 national parks found all over the United States as well as other natural and historic landmarks.

We sent CNN's Paul Vercammen on a trek to the Channel Islands National Park off the Coast of California for a glimpse of what the incredible park system has to offer everyone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): I'm at the east end of Anacapa Island, one of five islands in the Channel Islands National Park and this is the iconic Arch Rock behind me. It is raw, it is beautiful, it is rugged, it is craggy, and it is memorable.

With me is Kelly Moore of the National Park Service.

And, Kelly, what does Arch Rock symbolized in terms of these islands?

KELLY MOORE, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE: So many people associate this rock with the Channel Islands. It's the first thing you see when you visit Anacapa Island and you can't help but be moved by this beautiful geographic feature.

VERCAMMEN: Breathtaking, Cathedral Cave and Cathedral Cove here in Anacapa Island. There are 30 caves on this island and you'll notice that we're wearing our helmets and that's because this is a little tricky, you got to shot the gap here and when the swell comes up, it's possible for you to get bounce a little. They certainly don't want anybody hitting their heads on the sides of these walls.

And we shoot out to the other side. Look out, Kelly.

Coming out to these Channel Islands, sea lions and harbor seals, they find a nice flat spot on the rocks and lounge around. They come out here also because this is a great abundance of food for them and, Kelly, it's also a place for romance.

MOORE: That's right, Paul. Yep, this is a very important place for them to breed. And you can find them out here year-round.

VERCAMMEN: And it's important that I pay attention with Kelly instead, because she said if this current gets a little strong, you can wind up on the rocks and get the cheese grater to your legs.

MOORE: Nobody wants to be cheese grated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: That is Paul Vercammen in the Channel Islands.

And, by the way, they did not crash onto the rocks. They got out of their safely and he had a wonderful time.

Now further up the California Coast, a 95-year-old woman has returned to work. Betty Reid Soskin the oldest park ranger in the entire United States of America went through a really troubling ordeal. She was robbed and beaten in her home a few months ago and she lost her most prize possession, one of them, at least. But she is holding tight to her love of leading tours at a historical park.

Betty joins us now live from Oakland, California.

Betty, first of all, let's get the hard part over first.

Tell me what happened to you. You were attacked, correct?

BETTY REID SOSKIN, OLDEST PARK RANGER IN THE U.S.: Yes, I woke up to find a man, a stranger, in my bedroom. Standing about, oh, five or six feet away from me. And realized that he was an intruder and I was in danger. And we struggled.

He wrested my cell phone out of my hand, and I was very, very glad that it wasn't a gun. And we -- he was, I think, trying to keep me quiet. I'm not sure that I would have been beaten except that I kept screaming. And I finally got away from him and into the bathroom, where I sat with my feet against the door and my back against the sink.

I remembered that the -- that my electric iron was under the sink, and I pulled it out and plugged it in and lean in, and planned to bland him for the police if he broke in the door.

SIDNER: What a story. I'm pretty sure you probably never thought that would happen to you after you lived such a complete and wonderful life.

I do want to ask you now about the national park system. Because we are celebrating a 100 years ago. That was created 100 years ago. You've lived almost the entire time that this national park system was open.

SOSKIN: The park only has five years on me.

(LAUGHTER)

SIDNER: Well, you look lovely just like the park.

Does it have any special significance to you as you watched it grow in your lifetime? What changes have you seen?

SOSKIN: Well, I haven't really been very aware of the national parks until I began to work for them. I have been with the parks now about 15 years. But the parks, I'm more closely associated with, are those parks that are created for the people within urban centers.

SIDNER: Those are really, really important, because some people don't get the chance to go way out and travel out to some of these beautiful national parks that exist for free, for the population here.

SOSKIN: Absolutely true. SIDNER: I do want to ask you about Rosie the Riveter, and what this means to women. Often sometimes forgotten by history, we are starting to delve into, you know, the impact that women have made all throughout the beginning of the United States.

SOSKIN: Yes. Women have played their roles throughout history. But since the Second World War, women were brought out of their home into non-traditional labor for the first time. And that was a rather important feminist story.

However, the story tends to be a white woman's story as it's told. Because black women have been working outside their homes in slavery.

My great grandmother was born into slavery in 1846, in St. James Parish, Louisiana. And she lived to be 102, which means that she didn't die until 1948. My mother was born in 1894. And lived to be 101, dying in 1995. And I was born in 1921. And my 95th birthday is on the 22nd of September of this year.

And that means that the three of us were all alive at the same time. And I was 27 years old when my great grandmother died. I knew her as a matriarch of my family.

I say that to illustrate that on January 20th of 2009, I'm a seated guest on the Capital Mall with a picture of my great grandmother in my breast pocket witnessing the inauguration of America's first African- American president, but that was happening in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial whose life was contemporary with the life of my great grandmother. And if I were to tell young people, if there was a message I can give, it would be that the time goes so fast.

Because sitting there with a picture of my great grandmother knowing that her life was contemporary with the life of Lincoln, and that I was still there and I had never realized then how fast the time went and it does.

I have seen so much change. The parks express that change. It's possible for us now to revisit almost any era in our history through the parks. It would be just absolutely wonderful if every child could visit the national parks throughout their lives.

See, this is a place that tells us who we are, who we've been in order to help us to be who we will become.

SIDNER: That's beautiful, sage advice. It sounded like something my grandmother used to say to me, which is, you know, if you are going to get perspective, you have to know your history to understand what happened before you.

SOSKIN: Absolutely.

SIDNER: And to see what could be possible in the future.

So thank you so much. We're so glad to hear you are back at work after that attack. And we're so glad that you took the time to spend with us and give us some of your insight and share with us some of your amazing history, all 95 years. Thank you so much for being with us.

SOSKIN: Thank you so much, Sara.

SIDNER: And remember, her 96th birthday coming up, September 22nd.

Stay with us. "World Sport" is up next.

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