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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Congress Hears Testimony On Steroids In Baseball; Person Of Interest In Custody In Jessica Lunsford Kidnapping; Scott Peterson Enters San Quentin

Aired March 17, 2005 - 19:00   ET

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

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


HEIDI COLLINS, HOST: Good evening, everyone, from New York. I'm Heidi Collins. Anderson Cooper is on assignment in Lebanon and will be with us shortly.
Meanwhile, it's day one on death row.

360 starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: Convicted double murderer Scott Peterson sets foot on death row. Tonight, his chilling words, uttered to a San Quentin prison guard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. VERNELL CRITTENDON, SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON: Scott looked over at the officer and said, Man, I'm just too jazzed to even think about sleeping.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: A convicted sex offender in custody is a person of interest in the case of missing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUTH LUNSFORD, JESSICA'S GRANDMOTHER: I don't want nobody innocently punished for anything. But if he did do something, he needs to be punished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, do investigators have the right man? Or is the abductor still at large?

Sweaty bodies, soiled equipment. Is your gym a breeding ground for deadly bacteria? Tonight, meet a man who contracted a killer bug at the gym, and nearly lost a limb.

A wave of pro-democracy spreading across the Middle East. Young people of Lebanon calling on Syria to get out, and get out now. A 360 look at Lebanon's one small step toward democracy.

And a couple vanishes into thin air, nowhere to be found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are two people who have literally vanished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, the search for Rich Petrone and his girlfriend, Danielle Imbo. Did they run away, or run into foul play?

This is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360 with Anderson Cooper in Beirut, Lebanon, and Heidi Collins in New York.

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: And good evening again.

We are live in Martyr Square in downtown Beirut, literally ground zero of the pro-democracy movement here, the push to get Syria out of Lebanon, a country they have occupied with their soldiers and their intelligence agents for more than 30 years now, since the late 1970s.

This really is ground zero, and the world is watching history being made here this week, this month, as groups of protesters man their vigil 24 hours a day, seven days a week, demanding Syrian withdraw.

We actually went to Syria earlier today. We spent the day in Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world, walking around, talking to people. And what is fascinating there is how events in Lebanon are viewed in Syria. People are watching in Syria very closely, though the information they're getting is not always accurate.

On the streets, when you're talking to Syrians, they'll tell you that, in fact, they live in a democracy. That's what they say. Of course, Syria is a one-party state. It has been ruled by the Assad family with an iron grip for 30 years now.

But when the cameras are rolling, and when your government escorts are with you, and everywhere you go you have a government escort, the people will say, We love our president, we love the Assad family. We have absolutely no complaints.

Of course, when the cameras are gone, when the government escort is away, people will take you aside and say, This is a dictatorship. We wish we could tell you what we really think on camera, but if we did, the secret police would come and pay us a visit. In fact, one person took us aside and said, We wish what's happening right now here on the ground in Lebanon was happening in Damascus, happening in Syria.

It was a fascinating look inside a one-party dictatorship. And we were going to have more about that later on tonight on 360 and tomorrow as well.

We got a lot to tell you about what's happening here in Beirut. Let's go to right back to New York right now for some top stories from Heidi. Heidi?

COLLINS: Anderson, can't wait to see more of that. Thanks so much as you witness it all in person right there. Thanks again.

Tonight, though, we begin with the end, the end of the line for Scott Peterson. Right now the condemned killer, Scott Peterson, is sitting in an eight-by-five cell on San Quentin's death row. The man who received so much media attention after he murdered his wife and unborn child is now just another inmate, one of 641 facing execution in California.

His trip from the jail to San Quentin began early in the day with a defiant walk and, perhaps, even a smile.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BELMESSIERI, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: Guess what, Scotty?

RICHELLE NICE, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: San Quentin's your new home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS (voice-over): Day one on death row for convicted killer Scott Peterson. At 4:00 a.m. Pacific time, he was transported to the place his still-unsympathetic jury said he should be sent -- death row in San Quentin. Beneath the standard issue orange jumpsuit, a bulletproof vest, just in case.

His first stop, San Quentin's Adjustment Center, where he'll spend several weeks getting used to his new surroundings. Officers who escorted him to his cell said the new prisoner was polite and, not surprisingly, nervous.

LT. VERNELL CRITTENDON, SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON: Scott Peterson went in, and he immediately sat on the bunk, looking at the wall of the cell. He then -- the officer said, Well, Scott, I guess you want to plan to lay down and take a nap now. Scott looked over at the officer from the seated position and said, Man, I'm just too jazzed to even think about sleeping.

COLLINS: Scott Peterson's final home will most likely be here, Condemned Block Row 2, where his daily life will be carefully planned out -- breakfast at 6:30 a.m., a bagged lunch, and a hot dinner at 5:00 p.m. He'll be allowed visitors on weekends. He'll have a TV and radio in his cell and the option to spend five hours a day in the exercise yard where the exhaust pipe from the gas chamber looms overhead, a constant reminder that he is indeed a condemned man.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: You just heard from Lieutenant Vernell Crittendon, the spokesman from San Quentin. He joined me a short time ago with more details on Peterson's first day in prison.

Lieutenant Crittendon, I want to begin by asking you a little bit about Scott Peterson and how well he's settled in. How much interaction exactly do you think he'll have with the other inmates?

CRITTENDON: Well, initially, Heidi, that first four to eight weeks, he won't really have any interaction with any inmates. The only people he'll have direct contact with will be with the staff, as we're putting him through an assessment period, so that we can identify which group of the 640-plus inmates on death row here in the State of California that he will be best compatible with.

We divide our death row inmates into six exercise groups. The groups are 70 to 90 inmates in each group. So we'll be trying to assess which one is best for him.

COLLINS: So then, I'm imagining, after that assessment period, he will have contact with other inmates in these groups that he will be exercising with, yes?

CRITTENDON: Yes, I believe that he will more than likely -- and again, it's -- this is a guess on my part -- he will be in with people like Charles Ng, who had tortured 11 people, women and children. He'll be in with such people like Ramon Salcedo (ph), who slit the throats of his three baby children, killing two.

COLLINS: Well, when you mention those names, are there concerns, or is there talk about his safety, once he gets to that point of interaction?

CRITTENDON: Well, I believe it's -- this is early on in our assessment of him, but his first day in prison -- on death row at San Quentin.

But, yes, we are concerned about his safety, not so much because of his commitment offense. As you know, and as your viewers know, many of the men on death row are there for killing children and women -- but more that we think because of this media exposure that he has received, this may have some of the men on death row feeling that they can make their reputation by assaulting Scott Peterson. So for that reason, we want to look closely at what group of inmates we will be exposing him to.

COLLINS: Quickly, I know he's going to be able to watch TV, but what about newspapers, magazines, books?

CRITTENDON: Actually, I think that's part of the life in prison that makes it so difficult, because, as you indicated, yes, Heidi, he will be able to watch television, listen to radio. He'll be able to subscribe to magazines, he'll be able to become part of book clubs. And so he'll be able to see the world that's moving around him, but not be allowed to be a part of it.

COLLINS: Lieutenant, I know there have been 11 executions in the State of California since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1978. You have been involved with all of them. What is that like for you?

CRITTENDON: Well, I recognize that I have a professional responsibility to the citizens of the state of California, as do the other employees at San Quentin State Prison. So we're merely carrying out the will of the people, not carrying out Vernell Crittendon's personal will.

COLLINS: Lieutenant Vernell Crittendon tonight, thank you so much for your insight on this. Appreciate your time.

CRITTENDON: Heidi, it was very nice talking with you.

COLLINS: Martha Stewart has her own way of doing things. And she's made a lot of money that way. In fact, she seems to be dealing with her legal issues in the same fashion, going to jail before she even appealed her case. So today, ankle bracelet and all, she was back in court for the appeal.

And CNN's Allan Chernoff was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ankle bracelet in tow, Martha Stewart returned to the scene of her conviction for a chance to overturn it. Before a federal appeals court, Ms. Stewart's lawyer argued there had been procedural errors during the trial that led a jury to find Stewart lied about a stock sale.

(on camera): But the three-judge panel appeared more interested in discussing Martha Stewart's explanation of her sale of ImClone stock. It was an unbelievable coincidence, said one judge, that Martha Stewart was selling at the same time as the daughter of ImClone's chief executive.

(voice-over): How is it, asked a judge, that Martha Stewart claimed to federal agents she couldn't recall the message from her broker that the stock would fall, when she had tried to erase the very message from an assistant's phone log only four days earlier?

After his grilling, Stewart attorney Walter Dellinger put the best face on his confrontation with the judicial panel.

WALTER DELLINGER, MARTHA STEWART'S ATTORNEY: They listened very intently. They really understand, I think, the issues in the case.

CHERNOFF: The appellate court will take at least a month to issue an opinion. But securities lawyers say Martha Stewart can forget about a reversal.

JACOB ZAMANSKY, SECURITIES ATTORNEY: All she's doing is grasping at straws with a bunch of technical legal arguments.

CHERNOFF: Stewart doesn't give up easily. She also has the lawyer asking that the judge resentence her, even though she's already served her five months at Alderson Federal Prison. She's hoping a recent Supreme Court ruling on sentencing guidelines could reduce her five months of home confinement.

And Ms. Stewart still has to confront the Securities and Exchange Commission charge of insider trading. Martha Stewart always wants to celebrate a holiday, certainly has got her Irish up for St. Patrick's Day.

QUESTION: What are you doing for St. Patty's Day?

MARTHA STEWART: I planted my potatoes.

CHERNOFF: Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: 360 next, a 9-year-old girl vanishes from her own bed, and tonight, a convicted sex offender is arrested. Find out his possible connection to the case.

Plus, steroids and baseball stars catching heat under oath. Find out what one angry parent had to say when he gave them a piece of his mind.

And a little later, an alleged plot to kidnap David Letterman's son. We have the details.

But first, your picks -- the most popular stories on CNN.com right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: A possible major break in the search for a missing girl. Tonight, a registered sex offender who lived within eyeshot of Jessica Lunsford's Florida home is now in police custody. John Evander Couey was arrested in Augusta, Georgia, this morning on unrelated charges.

The 46-year-old parolee is being described as a person of interest in connection with the 9-year-old's disappearance.

Jessica was reported missing on February 24. She was last seen inside her bedroom.

All day, this has been one of the most-viewed stories on CNN.com. Every day, 360's Rudi Bakhtiar looks into these Web stories to bring an angle you won't see anywhere else. So Rudi, what did you find out on this one?

RUDI BAKHTIAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, we've uncovered a lot of information about John Evander Couey and how some states won't tell you where sex, convicted sex offenders are living.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BAKHTIAR (voice-over): In 1997, Florida became one of the first states to put information about sex offenders on the Internet. On Wednesday, we ran John Evander Couey's name through the online database at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Citrus County Sheriff's Office. Both had a match. Couey is one of 202 sex offenders listed as living in Citrus County, population 126,000. Under Florida law, a convicted sex offender must register any change of address.

Florida is also one of 24 states that makes it mandatory to notify communities when a sex offender moves in. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is considered to have one of the most complete and uniform databases on sex offenders.

Available online are a directory and pictures of registered sex offenders. Databases of most states, 39 in all, feature pictures. Information about a Florida sex offender can also be obtained by phone.

What Florida does not provide is an online map showing where convicted sex offenders live.

The number of registered sex offenders in Florida more than doubled, from 9,000 in 1998 to 20,000 in 2001, according to the Department of Justice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BAKHTIAR: The reason for that increase? Well, officials say, a surge in sexual offenses in Florida, but also better registration of sexual offenders. Other states that have also had a large increase include Washington State, Alabama, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia.

And one more piece of information about sex crimes. The median age of sexual assault victims is less than 13 years old. How horrific is that?

COLLINS: It's tragic. All right, Rudi, thanks for that.

BAKHTIAR: Thank you, Heidi.

COLLINS: Baseball superstars under oath over drugs on Capitol Hill.

Erica Hill joins us now at 15 minutes past 7:00 with news making headlines. Hi, Erica.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Heidi.

A little bit of tension on Capitol Hill today, as baseball luminaries past and present testified before a House committee looking into the Major Leagues' steroid policy.

Former St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire, who acknowledged a steroid problem in baseball, told lawmakers he would help in their investigation, but said there are some things he would not do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MCGWIRE, FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYER: Asking me or any other player to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve the problem. If a player answers no, he simply will not be believed. If he answers yes, he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: And a little later, we'll hear from the anguished father who took those baseball stars on.

A carjacking and a 73-mile chase. Here, you're looking at the pictures -- David Letterman, though. So we will tell you about David Letterman, how about that?

This is actually a pretty scary story, a kidnapping plot here. Authorities in Montana arrested a man accused of plotting to kidnap David Letterman's young son and nanny from his home. Kelly Frank is being held on a felony charge of solicitation.

The police were tipped off by a man who said he was approached by Frank about the alleged plot. Now, police say Frank, who was working as painter at Letterman's ranch, intended to seek a $5 million ransom. A little scary there.

And back to that carjacking story. Get this, a carjacking and a 73-mile chase ended with an arrest on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway. Police say a man approached -- get this -- a Department of Corrections van and ordered an officer and five inmates out onto the side of the highway. A high-speed chase ensued, but ended when a flat tire sent the van off the road and rolling down a hill. Police wrestled the man to the ground. The good news here, no one was hurt. But, you know, if you're going to carjack, why do you go for the Department of Corrections van, Heidi?

COLLINS: Another excellent example of those stupid criminals.

HILL: Yes.

COLLINS: And I love the green there, my Erica. We'll see you again...

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: ... happy St. Patrick's Day.

COLLINS: OK, you too.

360 next now, Anderson Cooper live in Beirut, where a push to democracy is under way. So should President Bush get the credit? Find out what one of his toughest critics has to say about that, one on one with Bill Maher. His answers may surprise you.

Also, a Philadelphia mystery, a mother and father vanish into thin air after having a drink with friends. Tonight, police are asking you for help.

And a little later, superbug. It's a nasty skin infection you can catch in a gym or at a spa. Our 360 M.D., Sanjay Gupta, explains how to protect yourself from this bug that resists treatment. We're covering all the angles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Here in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today Syria should withdraw all its troops from Lebanon before parliamentary elections there next month. It's the first time he's set a deadline.

Anderson Cooper is in Beirut, where he's been covering developments all week -- pretty terrifically, I might add. He's joining us now. Hi, Anderson.

COOPER: Hey, Heidi.

Yes, it is amazing, considering that Syria has been occupying Lebanon for more than 30 years now. There are tens of thousands of soldiers here, some 14,000 soldiers in all, intelligence units here as well. And if they are true to their word, and they do pull out in just a matter of months, what an unraveling it has been. In just a few months, undoing the work that they have been doing here for some 30 years.

That, of course, is what these pro-democracy demonstrators want to see. They are continuing to hold this vigil, continuing to call for the removal of Syria from Lebanon. That's something that President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac have also been calling for. They continue to keep the pressure on.

We wanted to take a look, though, at how this story is playing in the United States, particularly among some of President book's -- Bush's most vocal and outspoken critics. I talked to HBO's Bill Maher from HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" just a short time ago.

So Bill, this is probably the first time you've ever been interviewed from Martyr Square in Beirut in the midst of a protest rally. I got to ask you, though, did George Bush get it right in the Middle East?

BILL MAHER, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": That's what it's looking like these days. I mean, he certainly didn't get the details right, but he's a big picture guy. You know, they always say the world's divided into foxes and hedgehogs. I'm not sure which one is which, but one is the type who gets the big picture. Reagan was that kind of guy, has one or two big ideas.

I don't think we'll ever let George Bush live down lying to us to get us into this war or handling it in such an incompetent way. But there is no doubt, I think, at this point, that the bigger picture that he had, that you could actually transform that part of the world, or at least start to do it, was valid, when nobody else thought that was so.

COOPER: You don't hear many Democrats saying, You know what? It was a roll of the dice, and, you know, it seemed to work out. MAHER: First of all, this is something that's going to, if it does work out, it's going to work out 20, 30, 50 years hence. It doesn't mean that we're safer in our lifetime. I think a lot of people are still concerned about the idea, Does this make us safer today? After all, that's the ball that we're supposed to be keeping our eye on.

And I don't know if it does.

COOPER: You don't think you're safer today because of elections in Iraq and Afghanistan and...

MAHER: Not today.

COOPER: ... what's going on here in Lebanon?

MAHER: Oh, certainly not today, no. We're talking way in the future. Yes, if democracy and freedom takes hold in the Middle East, and people there are less frustrated, and their, you know, the deep- seated problems start to go away.

I would also say that George Bush Jr.'s war in Iraq was a lot nobler than the one his father fought in Iraq.

COOPER: How do you mean?

MAHER: Well, I mean, the war that we fought in '91, the Gulf War, was really about protecting our oil supply and making sure that we still had cheap gasoline, and that the Iraqis didn't get into Saudi Arabia. That's a much more selfish motive, it seems, than what this war was really about, which apparently is now freedom.

COOPER: So what's the lesson? I mean, when you look at these pictures of these massive demonstrations, people, you know, I mean, people here never even talked about Syria. They were afraid to use the word "Syria." They're now out shouting, you know, Syria, get out. They're scrawling it on the statue behind me. When you see these pictures, I mean, what's the lesson you take away?

MAHER: Well, I think one of the lessons is that you have to think big. You have to imagine a world unlike the one you're living in. Cities like Beirut, cities like Baghdad, cities like Cairo, these were not backwaters for most of their history, they were sophisticated, cafe society, European-type cities. I know they called Beirut the Paris of the Middle East.

And if you just get the religious fanatics of their backs, you could actually have that again.

COOPER: Hey, Bill, thanks very much. Appreciate it. It's good to talk to you.

MAHER: OK. Stay safe. Wear your helmet.

ANNOUNCER: Sweaty bodies, soiled equipment. Is your gym a breeding ground for deadly bacteria? Tonight, meet a man who contracted a killer bug at the gym, and nearly lost a limb.

And a couple vanishes into thin air, nowhere to be found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are two people who have literally vanished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, the search for Rich Petrone and his girlfriend, Danielle Imbo. Did they run away, or run into foul play?

360 continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: On February 19 a couple walked out of a Philadelphia bar, said good-bye to friends, and vanished into thin air. Since that cold winter night, they have never been seen again. While police search for clues, their children wait for them to come home. CNN's Jason Carroll has more on the mystery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): South Street in Philadelphia, a trendy strip of shops, restaurants and bars like Abilene, a popular hang out. It's where Rich Patrone and his girlfriend Danielle Imbo met anther couple for drinks one Saturday night.

ANTHONY VALENTINO, FRIEND: Here when they left, everything was normal. The actually -- we hugged good-bye. Said -- he's, like, I'll give you a call tomorrow, everything was fine.

CARROLL: They left around midnight and disappeared.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Concern is growing tonight for a missing couple who mysteriously vanished.

CARROLL: Their story has been leading the local news...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scouring locations...

CARROLL: ...their faces never far from Sergeant Tim Cooney whose investigation has taken many turns.

SGT. TIM COONEY, PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPT: My gut feeling seems to change on a daily basis as this investigation goes on.

CARROLL: Sergeant Cooney says it's unlikely the couple ran away. Both have strong family ties.

Danielle has a two-year-old son and worked from home. Rich has a teenage daughter. He worked with his father at the family's bakery.

RICHARD PETRONE, FATHER: It's like being nowhere. Nothing means anything right now.

FELICE OTTOBRE, MOTHER: We just don't know. They're two people who have literally vanished.

CARROLL: Seemingly without leaving clues.

(on camera: Detectives say they've searched the streets, even the local waterways for the truck the couple was driving in. So far they've come up with nothing.

(voice-over): No sign of Rich's 2001 black Dodge Dakota. No evidence of an accident.

COONEY: Very, very frustrating. At this point, I can tell you that no one is a suspect and everyone is a subject of this investigation.

CARROLL: Computer records show their credit cards and cellphones haven't been used since that night, possibly indicating they were not victims of a random crime. So, investigators are checking people the couple knew, including Danielle's estranged husband who appealed for her safe return.

FORMER HUSBAND: Me, her family, her friends, we just need her back. He needs her back the most.

CARROLL: Police have no suspects. Rich's family fears the worst.

MARGE PETRONE, MOTHER: We don't know. Nobody knows how I feel. My heart is broken. I miss him so much.

CARROLL: A couple that is missed. A mystery police at least for now, are unable to solve.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: Richard's mother says Danielle's estranged husband had threatened the couple in the past. Police confirm there were some threats. But, again, they say they have no suspects. A $30,000 reward has been offered for any information as to the couple's whereabouts -- Heidi.

COLLINS: That's just awful. It doesn't seem like they had very much either.

CARROLL: Not very much to go on at all.

COLLINS: In fact, police are needing people's help in this search. If possible, they're looking for Richard's Patrone's truck. Once again, we want to show you this: it is a 2001 black Dodge Dakota with a license plate number YFH2319 -- YFH2319.

Jason Carroll, thanks for that.

360 next, some of baseball's biggest names under oath and talking about steroids. But perhaps the most riveting testimony didn't come from any of these guys. Have that story in a moment

Plus, danger at the gym. 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta tells us how your daily workout could expose you to potentially lethal bacteria.

Also tonight, you mother told you always to eat them, but you may be surprised by which fruits and vegetables may be the key to a longer life.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Moving testimony today before Congress from the father of a high school athlete who became addicted to steroids and then took his own life. The others who testified on that subject today in Washington are famous for standing tall at the plate with bats in their hands, fearlessly facing whatever pitchers throw at them. They mostly seemed less comfortable with questions than with fastballs.

The story now from CNN congressional correspondent Ed Henry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All of the pregame hype was about the big league ballplayers. But it was a grief-stricken father who stole the show.

DON HOOTON, STEROIDS CAUSED SON'S SUICIDE: Players that are guilty of taking steroids are not only cheaters, you are cowards. You're afraid to step on the field to compete for your positions and play the game without the aid of substances. Not only that, you are cowards when it comes to facing your fans and our children.

HENRY: Tough talk. But if anyone has the right to say it, it's Don Hooton.

D. HOOTON: Twenty short months ago, our youngest son Taylor took his own life. He was two weeks away from beginning his senior year in high school. He was carrying a 3.8 average, made excellent scores on his S.A.T. tests, and he and I were preparing to make college visits.

HENRY: Taylor was a right-handed pitcher with a nasty fast ball. He was already 175 pounds, but a coach urged him to bulk up, so he started secretly taking steroids and put on 30 pounds. He soon developed side effects, from acne to terrible mood swings. But the family missed all the warning signs. That still haunts the father, who is urging Congress to crack down on Major League Baseball.

D. HOOTON: Let me implore you to take steps to clean up this mess. Please help us to see that our children's lives were not lost in vain. You have the power to do something about it...

HENRY: Testifying after the father, Mark McGwire broke down as he recalled hearing Don Hooton and other parents tell their tragic stories.

MARK MCGWIRE, FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE STAR: My heart goes out to every parent whose son or daughter were victims of steroid use. I hope that these hearings can prevent other families from suffering.

HENRY: Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmiero emphatically denied, under oath, ever using steroids. Despite being pressed on the matter, McGwire refused to answer.

MCGWIRE: I'm not here to discuss the past. I'm here to be positive about this.

HENRY: Evasions like that make Hooton furious.

D. HOOTON: Show our kids that you're man enough to face authority, tell the truth, and face the consequences. Instead, you hide behind the skirts of your union, and with the help of management and your lawyers, you've made every effort to resist facing the public today. What message are you sending our sons and daughters? That you're above the law?

HENRY: Hooton says he's sick and tired of ballplayers saying they don't want to be considered role models, and he wants other parents to join him in holding the athletes' feet to the fire.

Ed Henry, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Powerful testimony today.

Let's go ahead and take a moment to find out what's coming up next on PAULA ZAHN NOW. Hi, Paula.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Heidi. Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

COLLINS: Thank you.

ZAHN: You got the color right tonight.

COLLINS: I do.

ZAHN: We have just heard some of that emotional and at times bitter testimony in Congress today, and at the top of the hour, a story we think every parent needs to see: the warning signs of a potentially deadly problem with your children and steroids.

We're going to hear from two parents who lost their son, and now have a warning for parents everywhere. We hope to see you at the top of the hour. Important stuff to talk about.

COLLINS: That's for sure.

All right, Paula, thanks.

While lawmakers take up the issue of steroids in baseball, health experts are focusing on the far more dangerous threat of super bugs. They are parasites that morph and change faster than we can develop new drugs to kill them, and they are resistant to treatment.

Tonight, 360 MD Sanjay Gupta shows us one super bug that may be thriving in your gym.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL EXPERT: On the day he found the little red welt on his calf, high school wrestling coach Chris Bettineski was casual, even dismissive.

BETTINESKI, WRESTLING COACH AND SUPERBUG VICTIM: Maybe it was a bug bite or an ingrown hair, something like that. It didn't appear to be anything really out of the ordinary.

GUPTA: But within a couple of days --

BETTINESKI: It went from looking like a mosquito bite or a bug bite to the about the circumference of a baseball on the side of my calf.

GUPTA: Doctors didn't know what to make of it. Eventually, they settled on draining it, giving Bettineski an antibiotic and sending him home. But days later, fluid would form a sac on his leg again. The infection spread quickly to his hip, and there was a chance he could lose his leg.

BETTINESKI: That was a really, really frightening time of not knowing what was going to happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard the nurses talking in the hallway, and they're saying oh, it's MRSA, it's MRSA, and I asked Dr. Adams, I said, what is MRSA? And his eyes got really big and he said, where did you hear that?

GUPTA: The hushed tones would stoke the Bettineski's fears until they finally deciphered that MRSA was "methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus," or MRSA, a simple staff infection that over the years has morphed into a potentially dead bacteria, resistant to most antibiotics.

DR. GREGORY MORAN, OLIVE VIEW UCLA MEDICAL CENTER: It's gone from being something extremely rare to the most common bacteria that we isolate from skin infections.

GUPTA: It seems to fester in locker rooms and gyms. The heat generated there, shared mats and towels, and skin-to-skin contact make gyms and locker rooms a perfect host.

The Centers for Disease Control documented eight cases among the St. Louis Rams in 2003, the same year Miami Dolphins linebacker Junior Seau also contracted the infection.

MORAN: He had a number of these outbreaks. It's involved some breaks in the skin. Among the football players there were turf burns and other breaks in the skin that provided a way for the bacteria to gain entry.

GUPTA: Bettineski believes he got it on the mat, wrestling with students he coaches. He's fine now after months of rehab. That little red welt may have left a nasty scar, but at least it didn't rob him from the ability to do the things he loves.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: And from super bugs to super foods, 360 next. Find out what foods can give you that boost you need for a healthier life. A report that may actually surprise you.

Also, tonight, Anderson takes us inside the changing times in Lebanon with his "Reporter's Notebook."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: The highest court weighs in on a battle of life and death. Erica Hill joins us now, quarter to eight, with the news making headlines right now.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Heidi.

The Supreme Court has rejected a last-minute appeal by the parents of Terry Schiavo to stop the removal of her feeding tube. It is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Friday, tomorrow. The parents of the brain-damaged woman argue their daughter's religious freedom and due process rights were violated.

In the Michael Jackson trial today, the pop star's former housekeeper testified the children, quote, "became wild" during visits to Jackson's Neverland Ranch. She said they drank alcohol in Jackson's presence, and often slept with him, instead of in their assigned rooms. Jackson denies accusations he molested a then 13- year-old boy at his Neverland Ranch.

Rapper Lil' Kim has been convicted of perjury for lying to a federal grand jury investigating a shooting outside a Manhattan radio station. That's according to the Associated Press. The shootout happened when Lil' Kim's entourage crossed paths with that of a rival artist, all this about four years ago outside that radio station. Prosecutors accuse Kim of telling preposterous lies when testifying as an eyewitness. She now faces up to 20 years in prison.

Parents may not be aware of how prevalent inhalant abuse is among young people, but a new government study finds nearly one in every dozen 12 and 13 year olds has used inhalants such as glue and shoe polish, all to get high. The figures from 2003 also show a higher percentage used inhalants than used marijuana. Scary statistics there.

On that light note, Heidi, I'll hand it back to you.

COLLINS: Ouch. All right, Erica, thank you. We're going to see you again in 30 minutes.

For the first time in years, scientists are looking into the future and predicting a leveling off or reversal in the average human life expectancy, all due to the obesity epidemic among children. The report in today's "New England Journal of Medicine" says lifespans will drastically shorten because of a surge in obesity-related illnesses like heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer.

Now the good news: there is something you can do to change the future of your family's health -- talking about adding antioxidants by eating super foods. CNN Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now with a list of the best power foods, and some of these are actually going to surprise a lot of people, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You might not think of some of these foods as being super foods that we're going to tell you about in a little bit, but they are because they pack a powerful wallop with their antioxidants.

Now antioxidants are the good guys. The bad guys are molecules called free radicals. They're these molecules that kind of run around in their body and they do damage to cells.

If you want to think your cells as cars, they put rust on those cells. And the antioxidants, well, they're kind of like a rust remover. They come and they get rid of that rust. And here you see strawberries here. That's one of the foods.

So these foods are healthy for you. Plus they pack just that little bit of extra wallop -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Most of us seem to know the big three, Elizabeth like blueberries, salmon, broccoli. But really only one of those made it into the top five on the super food list. So what foods should we be eating?

COHEN: That's right, Heidi. This is a list from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They put together a list of the foods that have the most of these antioxidants. And the first one is beans. You can never eat too many beans. I'm sure you've heard that before. Red beans, kidney beans, pinto bean -- or something like that -- reds, kidneys, pintos and blacks, those especially are very good for you.

And also berries: blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries. All of those, not only are they delicious, but they also have a lot of the antioxidants.

Artichokes also made the list, and apples, such as red and Granny Smith and Gala apples and also Russet potatoes high in antioxidants.

So remember, there are all sorts of foods that are healthy. These also have that extra antioxidants.

Also wine and coffee have a lot of antioxidants. We're not saying you should have a diet heavy in wine or coffee, but it is good to know that those popular drinks do have some healthy things to them as well.

COLLINS: Interesting. All right. Also, we always hear you can overdo too much of a good thing. Can you overdo these antioxidants? COHEN: You can't overdo them if all you're doing is eating the foods. You know, you can't eat too many strawberries. But what some people do is they go out and they find an individual antioxidant, let's say vitamin E and just take tons of it. That actually, studies show, can be a problem.

So, stick to the foods or stick to a multivitamin. A multivitamin is probably not going to have too much of any one antioxidant.

COLLINS: All right. Elizabeth Cohen some great advice tonight. Thank you.

COHEN: Thanks.

COLLINS: 360 next now, Anderson live in Beirut in a whirlwind of change. His perspective when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Martyr's Square is one of the most symbolically important places in Beirut. And it's where history has been playing out over the last few weeks. And Anderson Cooper continues his reporting from there now.

Hi, Anderson

COOPER: Hey, Heidi.

During the height of the civil war here, I couldn't stand in this square. It was a killing zone, a no-man's land. So much in Beirut has changed, so much has been rebuilt. But it's important not to forget what happened here, the years of violence and bloodshed.

I walked around Beirut the other day with CNN's Beirut bureau chief, Brent Sadler.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN BEIRUT BUREAU CHIEF: This week, although sporadic fighting is continuing, the area...

(voice-over): That was back in 1983...

All told, I covered the war here for more than 20 years.

(on camera): There was no more dangerous place a journalist could be during those years. This location is where I nearly bought it.

Yeah, OK, there's the hill there. So we would have been about here.

COOPER: Could you actually see who was shooting at you?

SADLER: No. We just heard very heavy-caliber machine gunfire. And then it was like Roman candles, like fireworks pouring down on us, bright orange balls of fire, sparks falling, and the fwack as bullets hit concrete and metal. You knew you were about to die.

COOPER: And after you were shot over here, you ran into this area.

SADLER: That's right. After the cannon fire came down, I hit the deck, saw the rounds coming backwards and forwards going both sides of my body. And then I heard shouting, Brent, Brent, move, move, move!

So, I looked and all my colleagues were in there. So I just -- my cameraman was hit in the wrist, and nearly died here.

COOPER (voice-over): During the war years, whole sections of Beirut were reduced to rubble. Last month, when the former prime minister was blown up and an entire city block was destroyed in the blast, the scene looked all too familiar.

SADLER: The Rafik Hariri assassination is just a mile down there. So you've got Rafik Hariri's massive bomb blast, a turning point of Lebanese history just down there. And just here in front of us, an awful reminder of what happened in that massive car bomb against the U.S. here.

COOPER: So this was the site of the U.S. Embassy.

SADLER: The images of that day were -- I remember vividly, the collapsed floors of the building, body parts hanging out of some of the floors. It came down like a deck of cards.

The car bomb is a weapon of choice by terrorists really was developed in this country. The car bomb and the truck bomb had a devastating impact, claimed more than 240 American Marine lives at the airport. Who could not forget those horrendous images that day.

All of the buildings downtown used to look like this, millions of bullet holes everywhere. This would be around about here, you can see the archway here, this is what it was like throughout the city. This was the Green Line area dividing Christian east from Muslim west. This is where some of the worst battles took place.

COOPER: I mean, is change possible here?

SADLER: It has changed, Anderson. Don't forget, these people, the sectarian divide here, were tearing each other's throats out. They hated each other. They murdered each other.

I guess I've learned more than anything else the durability of mankind to withstand some of the most incredible horrors and bloodshed, and also learned that deep divisions between societies, political groups, religious divides cannot be just brought together like that with some neat, magic formula. For policies to expect to change people's mindsets and traditions and culture and history is no overnight job.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, no one knows Beirut better than our bureau chief, Brent Sadler, a remarkable reporter who has spent much of his life covering the situation here. And there is so much optimism these days in Lebanon, in Beirut. It is a city rebuilding. It is a city and a country and a region on the brink of change. We'll continue to follow it.

The story tomorrow, we'll bring you our report from Syria tomorrow night.

Right now, let's go to Paula Zahn in New York.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired March 17, 2005 - 19:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, HOST: Good evening, everyone, from New York. I'm Heidi Collins. Anderson Cooper is on assignment in Lebanon and will be with us shortly.
Meanwhile, it's day one on death row.

360 starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: Convicted double murderer Scott Peterson sets foot on death row. Tonight, his chilling words, uttered to a San Quentin prison guard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. VERNELL CRITTENDON, SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON: Scott looked over at the officer and said, Man, I'm just too jazzed to even think about sleeping.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: A convicted sex offender in custody is a person of interest in the case of missing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUTH LUNSFORD, JESSICA'S GRANDMOTHER: I don't want nobody innocently punished for anything. But if he did do something, he needs to be punished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, do investigators have the right man? Or is the abductor still at large?

Sweaty bodies, soiled equipment. Is your gym a breeding ground for deadly bacteria? Tonight, meet a man who contracted a killer bug at the gym, and nearly lost a limb.

A wave of pro-democracy spreading across the Middle East. Young people of Lebanon calling on Syria to get out, and get out now. A 360 look at Lebanon's one small step toward democracy.

And a couple vanishes into thin air, nowhere to be found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are two people who have literally vanished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, the search for Rich Petrone and his girlfriend, Danielle Imbo. Did they run away, or run into foul play?

This is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360 with Anderson Cooper in Beirut, Lebanon, and Heidi Collins in New York.

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: And good evening again.

We are live in Martyr Square in downtown Beirut, literally ground zero of the pro-democracy movement here, the push to get Syria out of Lebanon, a country they have occupied with their soldiers and their intelligence agents for more than 30 years now, since the late 1970s.

This really is ground zero, and the world is watching history being made here this week, this month, as groups of protesters man their vigil 24 hours a day, seven days a week, demanding Syrian withdraw.

We actually went to Syria earlier today. We spent the day in Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world, walking around, talking to people. And what is fascinating there is how events in Lebanon are viewed in Syria. People are watching in Syria very closely, though the information they're getting is not always accurate.

On the streets, when you're talking to Syrians, they'll tell you that, in fact, they live in a democracy. That's what they say. Of course, Syria is a one-party state. It has been ruled by the Assad family with an iron grip for 30 years now.

But when the cameras are rolling, and when your government escorts are with you, and everywhere you go you have a government escort, the people will say, We love our president, we love the Assad family. We have absolutely no complaints.

Of course, when the cameras are gone, when the government escort is away, people will take you aside and say, This is a dictatorship. We wish we could tell you what we really think on camera, but if we did, the secret police would come and pay us a visit. In fact, one person took us aside and said, We wish what's happening right now here on the ground in Lebanon was happening in Damascus, happening in Syria.

It was a fascinating look inside a one-party dictatorship. And we were going to have more about that later on tonight on 360 and tomorrow as well.

We got a lot to tell you about what's happening here in Beirut. Let's go to right back to New York right now for some top stories from Heidi. Heidi?

COLLINS: Anderson, can't wait to see more of that. Thanks so much as you witness it all in person right there. Thanks again.

Tonight, though, we begin with the end, the end of the line for Scott Peterson. Right now the condemned killer, Scott Peterson, is sitting in an eight-by-five cell on San Quentin's death row. The man who received so much media attention after he murdered his wife and unborn child is now just another inmate, one of 641 facing execution in California.

His trip from the jail to San Quentin began early in the day with a defiant walk and, perhaps, even a smile.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BELMESSIERI, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: Guess what, Scotty?

RICHELLE NICE, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: San Quentin's your new home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS (voice-over): Day one on death row for convicted killer Scott Peterson. At 4:00 a.m. Pacific time, he was transported to the place his still-unsympathetic jury said he should be sent -- death row in San Quentin. Beneath the standard issue orange jumpsuit, a bulletproof vest, just in case.

His first stop, San Quentin's Adjustment Center, where he'll spend several weeks getting used to his new surroundings. Officers who escorted him to his cell said the new prisoner was polite and, not surprisingly, nervous.

LT. VERNELL CRITTENDON, SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON: Scott Peterson went in, and he immediately sat on the bunk, looking at the wall of the cell. He then -- the officer said, Well, Scott, I guess you want to plan to lay down and take a nap now. Scott looked over at the officer from the seated position and said, Man, I'm just too jazzed to even think about sleeping.

COLLINS: Scott Peterson's final home will most likely be here, Condemned Block Row 2, where his daily life will be carefully planned out -- breakfast at 6:30 a.m., a bagged lunch, and a hot dinner at 5:00 p.m. He'll be allowed visitors on weekends. He'll have a TV and radio in his cell and the option to spend five hours a day in the exercise yard where the exhaust pipe from the gas chamber looms overhead, a constant reminder that he is indeed a condemned man.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: You just heard from Lieutenant Vernell Crittendon, the spokesman from San Quentin. He joined me a short time ago with more details on Peterson's first day in prison.

Lieutenant Crittendon, I want to begin by asking you a little bit about Scott Peterson and how well he's settled in. How much interaction exactly do you think he'll have with the other inmates?

CRITTENDON: Well, initially, Heidi, that first four to eight weeks, he won't really have any interaction with any inmates. The only people he'll have direct contact with will be with the staff, as we're putting him through an assessment period, so that we can identify which group of the 640-plus inmates on death row here in the State of California that he will be best compatible with.

We divide our death row inmates into six exercise groups. The groups are 70 to 90 inmates in each group. So we'll be trying to assess which one is best for him.

COLLINS: So then, I'm imagining, after that assessment period, he will have contact with other inmates in these groups that he will be exercising with, yes?

CRITTENDON: Yes, I believe that he will more than likely -- and again, it's -- this is a guess on my part -- he will be in with people like Charles Ng, who had tortured 11 people, women and children. He'll be in with such people like Ramon Salcedo (ph), who slit the throats of his three baby children, killing two.

COLLINS: Well, when you mention those names, are there concerns, or is there talk about his safety, once he gets to that point of interaction?

CRITTENDON: Well, I believe it's -- this is early on in our assessment of him, but his first day in prison -- on death row at San Quentin.

But, yes, we are concerned about his safety, not so much because of his commitment offense. As you know, and as your viewers know, many of the men on death row are there for killing children and women -- but more that we think because of this media exposure that he has received, this may have some of the men on death row feeling that they can make their reputation by assaulting Scott Peterson. So for that reason, we want to look closely at what group of inmates we will be exposing him to.

COLLINS: Quickly, I know he's going to be able to watch TV, but what about newspapers, magazines, books?

CRITTENDON: Actually, I think that's part of the life in prison that makes it so difficult, because, as you indicated, yes, Heidi, he will be able to watch television, listen to radio. He'll be able to subscribe to magazines, he'll be able to become part of book clubs. And so he'll be able to see the world that's moving around him, but not be allowed to be a part of it.

COLLINS: Lieutenant, I know there have been 11 executions in the State of California since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1978. You have been involved with all of them. What is that like for you?

CRITTENDON: Well, I recognize that I have a professional responsibility to the citizens of the state of California, as do the other employees at San Quentin State Prison. So we're merely carrying out the will of the people, not carrying out Vernell Crittendon's personal will.

COLLINS: Lieutenant Vernell Crittendon tonight, thank you so much for your insight on this. Appreciate your time.

CRITTENDON: Heidi, it was very nice talking with you.

COLLINS: Martha Stewart has her own way of doing things. And she's made a lot of money that way. In fact, she seems to be dealing with her legal issues in the same fashion, going to jail before she even appealed her case. So today, ankle bracelet and all, she was back in court for the appeal.

And CNN's Allan Chernoff was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ankle bracelet in tow, Martha Stewart returned to the scene of her conviction for a chance to overturn it. Before a federal appeals court, Ms. Stewart's lawyer argued there had been procedural errors during the trial that led a jury to find Stewart lied about a stock sale.

(on camera): But the three-judge panel appeared more interested in discussing Martha Stewart's explanation of her sale of ImClone stock. It was an unbelievable coincidence, said one judge, that Martha Stewart was selling at the same time as the daughter of ImClone's chief executive.

(voice-over): How is it, asked a judge, that Martha Stewart claimed to federal agents she couldn't recall the message from her broker that the stock would fall, when she had tried to erase the very message from an assistant's phone log only four days earlier?

After his grilling, Stewart attorney Walter Dellinger put the best face on his confrontation with the judicial panel.

WALTER DELLINGER, MARTHA STEWART'S ATTORNEY: They listened very intently. They really understand, I think, the issues in the case.

CHERNOFF: The appellate court will take at least a month to issue an opinion. But securities lawyers say Martha Stewart can forget about a reversal.

JACOB ZAMANSKY, SECURITIES ATTORNEY: All she's doing is grasping at straws with a bunch of technical legal arguments.

CHERNOFF: Stewart doesn't give up easily. She also has the lawyer asking that the judge resentence her, even though she's already served her five months at Alderson Federal Prison. She's hoping a recent Supreme Court ruling on sentencing guidelines could reduce her five months of home confinement.

And Ms. Stewart still has to confront the Securities and Exchange Commission charge of insider trading. Martha Stewart always wants to celebrate a holiday, certainly has got her Irish up for St. Patrick's Day.

QUESTION: What are you doing for St. Patty's Day?

MARTHA STEWART: I planted my potatoes.

CHERNOFF: Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: 360 next, a 9-year-old girl vanishes from her own bed, and tonight, a convicted sex offender is arrested. Find out his possible connection to the case.

Plus, steroids and baseball stars catching heat under oath. Find out what one angry parent had to say when he gave them a piece of his mind.

And a little later, an alleged plot to kidnap David Letterman's son. We have the details.

But first, your picks -- the most popular stories on CNN.com right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: A possible major break in the search for a missing girl. Tonight, a registered sex offender who lived within eyeshot of Jessica Lunsford's Florida home is now in police custody. John Evander Couey was arrested in Augusta, Georgia, this morning on unrelated charges.

The 46-year-old parolee is being described as a person of interest in connection with the 9-year-old's disappearance.

Jessica was reported missing on February 24. She was last seen inside her bedroom.

All day, this has been one of the most-viewed stories on CNN.com. Every day, 360's Rudi Bakhtiar looks into these Web stories to bring an angle you won't see anywhere else. So Rudi, what did you find out on this one?

RUDI BAKHTIAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, we've uncovered a lot of information about John Evander Couey and how some states won't tell you where sex, convicted sex offenders are living.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BAKHTIAR (voice-over): In 1997, Florida became one of the first states to put information about sex offenders on the Internet. On Wednesday, we ran John Evander Couey's name through the online database at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Citrus County Sheriff's Office. Both had a match. Couey is one of 202 sex offenders listed as living in Citrus County, population 126,000. Under Florida law, a convicted sex offender must register any change of address.

Florida is also one of 24 states that makes it mandatory to notify communities when a sex offender moves in. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is considered to have one of the most complete and uniform databases on sex offenders.

Available online are a directory and pictures of registered sex offenders. Databases of most states, 39 in all, feature pictures. Information about a Florida sex offender can also be obtained by phone.

What Florida does not provide is an online map showing where convicted sex offenders live.

The number of registered sex offenders in Florida more than doubled, from 9,000 in 1998 to 20,000 in 2001, according to the Department of Justice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BAKHTIAR: The reason for that increase? Well, officials say, a surge in sexual offenses in Florida, but also better registration of sexual offenders. Other states that have also had a large increase include Washington State, Alabama, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia.

And one more piece of information about sex crimes. The median age of sexual assault victims is less than 13 years old. How horrific is that?

COLLINS: It's tragic. All right, Rudi, thanks for that.

BAKHTIAR: Thank you, Heidi.

COLLINS: Baseball superstars under oath over drugs on Capitol Hill.

Erica Hill joins us now at 15 minutes past 7:00 with news making headlines. Hi, Erica.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Heidi.

A little bit of tension on Capitol Hill today, as baseball luminaries past and present testified before a House committee looking into the Major Leagues' steroid policy.

Former St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire, who acknowledged a steroid problem in baseball, told lawmakers he would help in their investigation, but said there are some things he would not do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MCGWIRE, FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYER: Asking me or any other player to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve the problem. If a player answers no, he simply will not be believed. If he answers yes, he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: And a little later, we'll hear from the anguished father who took those baseball stars on.

A carjacking and a 73-mile chase. Here, you're looking at the pictures -- David Letterman, though. So we will tell you about David Letterman, how about that?

This is actually a pretty scary story, a kidnapping plot here. Authorities in Montana arrested a man accused of plotting to kidnap David Letterman's young son and nanny from his home. Kelly Frank is being held on a felony charge of solicitation.

The police were tipped off by a man who said he was approached by Frank about the alleged plot. Now, police say Frank, who was working as painter at Letterman's ranch, intended to seek a $5 million ransom. A little scary there.

And back to that carjacking story. Get this, a carjacking and a 73-mile chase ended with an arrest on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway. Police say a man approached -- get this -- a Department of Corrections van and ordered an officer and five inmates out onto the side of the highway. A high-speed chase ensued, but ended when a flat tire sent the van off the road and rolling down a hill. Police wrestled the man to the ground. The good news here, no one was hurt. But, you know, if you're going to carjack, why do you go for the Department of Corrections van, Heidi?

COLLINS: Another excellent example of those stupid criminals.

HILL: Yes.

COLLINS: And I love the green there, my Erica. We'll see you again...

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: ... happy St. Patrick's Day.

COLLINS: OK, you too.

360 next now, Anderson Cooper live in Beirut, where a push to democracy is under way. So should President Bush get the credit? Find out what one of his toughest critics has to say about that, one on one with Bill Maher. His answers may surprise you.

Also, a Philadelphia mystery, a mother and father vanish into thin air after having a drink with friends. Tonight, police are asking you for help.

And a little later, superbug. It's a nasty skin infection you can catch in a gym or at a spa. Our 360 M.D., Sanjay Gupta, explains how to protect yourself from this bug that resists treatment. We're covering all the angles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Here in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today Syria should withdraw all its troops from Lebanon before parliamentary elections there next month. It's the first time he's set a deadline.

Anderson Cooper is in Beirut, where he's been covering developments all week -- pretty terrifically, I might add. He's joining us now. Hi, Anderson.

COOPER: Hey, Heidi.

Yes, it is amazing, considering that Syria has been occupying Lebanon for more than 30 years now. There are tens of thousands of soldiers here, some 14,000 soldiers in all, intelligence units here as well. And if they are true to their word, and they do pull out in just a matter of months, what an unraveling it has been. In just a few months, undoing the work that they have been doing here for some 30 years.

That, of course, is what these pro-democracy demonstrators want to see. They are continuing to hold this vigil, continuing to call for the removal of Syria from Lebanon. That's something that President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac have also been calling for. They continue to keep the pressure on.

We wanted to take a look, though, at how this story is playing in the United States, particularly among some of President book's -- Bush's most vocal and outspoken critics. I talked to HBO's Bill Maher from HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" just a short time ago.

So Bill, this is probably the first time you've ever been interviewed from Martyr Square in Beirut in the midst of a protest rally. I got to ask you, though, did George Bush get it right in the Middle East?

BILL MAHER, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": That's what it's looking like these days. I mean, he certainly didn't get the details right, but he's a big picture guy. You know, they always say the world's divided into foxes and hedgehogs. I'm not sure which one is which, but one is the type who gets the big picture. Reagan was that kind of guy, has one or two big ideas.

I don't think we'll ever let George Bush live down lying to us to get us into this war or handling it in such an incompetent way. But there is no doubt, I think, at this point, that the bigger picture that he had, that you could actually transform that part of the world, or at least start to do it, was valid, when nobody else thought that was so.

COOPER: You don't hear many Democrats saying, You know what? It was a roll of the dice, and, you know, it seemed to work out. MAHER: First of all, this is something that's going to, if it does work out, it's going to work out 20, 30, 50 years hence. It doesn't mean that we're safer in our lifetime. I think a lot of people are still concerned about the idea, Does this make us safer today? After all, that's the ball that we're supposed to be keeping our eye on.

And I don't know if it does.

COOPER: You don't think you're safer today because of elections in Iraq and Afghanistan and...

MAHER: Not today.

COOPER: ... what's going on here in Lebanon?

MAHER: Oh, certainly not today, no. We're talking way in the future. Yes, if democracy and freedom takes hold in the Middle East, and people there are less frustrated, and their, you know, the deep- seated problems start to go away.

I would also say that George Bush Jr.'s war in Iraq was a lot nobler than the one his father fought in Iraq.

COOPER: How do you mean?

MAHER: Well, I mean, the war that we fought in '91, the Gulf War, was really about protecting our oil supply and making sure that we still had cheap gasoline, and that the Iraqis didn't get into Saudi Arabia. That's a much more selfish motive, it seems, than what this war was really about, which apparently is now freedom.

COOPER: So what's the lesson? I mean, when you look at these pictures of these massive demonstrations, people, you know, I mean, people here never even talked about Syria. They were afraid to use the word "Syria." They're now out shouting, you know, Syria, get out. They're scrawling it on the statue behind me. When you see these pictures, I mean, what's the lesson you take away?

MAHER: Well, I think one of the lessons is that you have to think big. You have to imagine a world unlike the one you're living in. Cities like Beirut, cities like Baghdad, cities like Cairo, these were not backwaters for most of their history, they were sophisticated, cafe society, European-type cities. I know they called Beirut the Paris of the Middle East.

And if you just get the religious fanatics of their backs, you could actually have that again.

COOPER: Hey, Bill, thanks very much. Appreciate it. It's good to talk to you.

MAHER: OK. Stay safe. Wear your helmet.

ANNOUNCER: Sweaty bodies, soiled equipment. Is your gym a breeding ground for deadly bacteria? Tonight, meet a man who contracted a killer bug at the gym, and nearly lost a limb.

And a couple vanishes into thin air, nowhere to be found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are two people who have literally vanished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, the search for Rich Petrone and his girlfriend, Danielle Imbo. Did they run away, or run into foul play?

360 continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: On February 19 a couple walked out of a Philadelphia bar, said good-bye to friends, and vanished into thin air. Since that cold winter night, they have never been seen again. While police search for clues, their children wait for them to come home. CNN's Jason Carroll has more on the mystery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): South Street in Philadelphia, a trendy strip of shops, restaurants and bars like Abilene, a popular hang out. It's where Rich Patrone and his girlfriend Danielle Imbo met anther couple for drinks one Saturday night.

ANTHONY VALENTINO, FRIEND: Here when they left, everything was normal. The actually -- we hugged good-bye. Said -- he's, like, I'll give you a call tomorrow, everything was fine.

CARROLL: They left around midnight and disappeared.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Concern is growing tonight for a missing couple who mysteriously vanished.

CARROLL: Their story has been leading the local news...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scouring locations...

CARROLL: ...their faces never far from Sergeant Tim Cooney whose investigation has taken many turns.

SGT. TIM COONEY, PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPT: My gut feeling seems to change on a daily basis as this investigation goes on.

CARROLL: Sergeant Cooney says it's unlikely the couple ran away. Both have strong family ties.

Danielle has a two-year-old son and worked from home. Rich has a teenage daughter. He worked with his father at the family's bakery.

RICHARD PETRONE, FATHER: It's like being nowhere. Nothing means anything right now.

FELICE OTTOBRE, MOTHER: We just don't know. They're two people who have literally vanished.

CARROLL: Seemingly without leaving clues.

(on camera: Detectives say they've searched the streets, even the local waterways for the truck the couple was driving in. So far they've come up with nothing.

(voice-over): No sign of Rich's 2001 black Dodge Dakota. No evidence of an accident.

COONEY: Very, very frustrating. At this point, I can tell you that no one is a suspect and everyone is a subject of this investigation.

CARROLL: Computer records show their credit cards and cellphones haven't been used since that night, possibly indicating they were not victims of a random crime. So, investigators are checking people the couple knew, including Danielle's estranged husband who appealed for her safe return.

FORMER HUSBAND: Me, her family, her friends, we just need her back. He needs her back the most.

CARROLL: Police have no suspects. Rich's family fears the worst.

MARGE PETRONE, MOTHER: We don't know. Nobody knows how I feel. My heart is broken. I miss him so much.

CARROLL: A couple that is missed. A mystery police at least for now, are unable to solve.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: Richard's mother says Danielle's estranged husband had threatened the couple in the past. Police confirm there were some threats. But, again, they say they have no suspects. A $30,000 reward has been offered for any information as to the couple's whereabouts -- Heidi.

COLLINS: That's just awful. It doesn't seem like they had very much either.

CARROLL: Not very much to go on at all.

COLLINS: In fact, police are needing people's help in this search. If possible, they're looking for Richard's Patrone's truck. Once again, we want to show you this: it is a 2001 black Dodge Dakota with a license plate number YFH2319 -- YFH2319.

Jason Carroll, thanks for that.

360 next, some of baseball's biggest names under oath and talking about steroids. But perhaps the most riveting testimony didn't come from any of these guys. Have that story in a moment

Plus, danger at the gym. 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta tells us how your daily workout could expose you to potentially lethal bacteria.

Also tonight, you mother told you always to eat them, but you may be surprised by which fruits and vegetables may be the key to a longer life.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Moving testimony today before Congress from the father of a high school athlete who became addicted to steroids and then took his own life. The others who testified on that subject today in Washington are famous for standing tall at the plate with bats in their hands, fearlessly facing whatever pitchers throw at them. They mostly seemed less comfortable with questions than with fastballs.

The story now from CNN congressional correspondent Ed Henry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All of the pregame hype was about the big league ballplayers. But it was a grief-stricken father who stole the show.

DON HOOTON, STEROIDS CAUSED SON'S SUICIDE: Players that are guilty of taking steroids are not only cheaters, you are cowards. You're afraid to step on the field to compete for your positions and play the game without the aid of substances. Not only that, you are cowards when it comes to facing your fans and our children.

HENRY: Tough talk. But if anyone has the right to say it, it's Don Hooton.

D. HOOTON: Twenty short months ago, our youngest son Taylor took his own life. He was two weeks away from beginning his senior year in high school. He was carrying a 3.8 average, made excellent scores on his S.A.T. tests, and he and I were preparing to make college visits.

HENRY: Taylor was a right-handed pitcher with a nasty fast ball. He was already 175 pounds, but a coach urged him to bulk up, so he started secretly taking steroids and put on 30 pounds. He soon developed side effects, from acne to terrible mood swings. But the family missed all the warning signs. That still haunts the father, who is urging Congress to crack down on Major League Baseball.

D. HOOTON: Let me implore you to take steps to clean up this mess. Please help us to see that our children's lives were not lost in vain. You have the power to do something about it...

HENRY: Testifying after the father, Mark McGwire broke down as he recalled hearing Don Hooton and other parents tell their tragic stories.

MARK MCGWIRE, FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE STAR: My heart goes out to every parent whose son or daughter were victims of steroid use. I hope that these hearings can prevent other families from suffering.

HENRY: Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmiero emphatically denied, under oath, ever using steroids. Despite being pressed on the matter, McGwire refused to answer.

MCGWIRE: I'm not here to discuss the past. I'm here to be positive about this.

HENRY: Evasions like that make Hooton furious.

D. HOOTON: Show our kids that you're man enough to face authority, tell the truth, and face the consequences. Instead, you hide behind the skirts of your union, and with the help of management and your lawyers, you've made every effort to resist facing the public today. What message are you sending our sons and daughters? That you're above the law?

HENRY: Hooton says he's sick and tired of ballplayers saying they don't want to be considered role models, and he wants other parents to join him in holding the athletes' feet to the fire.

Ed Henry, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Powerful testimony today.

Let's go ahead and take a moment to find out what's coming up next on PAULA ZAHN NOW. Hi, Paula.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Heidi. Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

COLLINS: Thank you.

ZAHN: You got the color right tonight.

COLLINS: I do.

ZAHN: We have just heard some of that emotional and at times bitter testimony in Congress today, and at the top of the hour, a story we think every parent needs to see: the warning signs of a potentially deadly problem with your children and steroids.

We're going to hear from two parents who lost their son, and now have a warning for parents everywhere. We hope to see you at the top of the hour. Important stuff to talk about.

COLLINS: That's for sure.

All right, Paula, thanks.

While lawmakers take up the issue of steroids in baseball, health experts are focusing on the far more dangerous threat of super bugs. They are parasites that morph and change faster than we can develop new drugs to kill them, and they are resistant to treatment.

Tonight, 360 MD Sanjay Gupta shows us one super bug that may be thriving in your gym.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL EXPERT: On the day he found the little red welt on his calf, high school wrestling coach Chris Bettineski was casual, even dismissive.

BETTINESKI, WRESTLING COACH AND SUPERBUG VICTIM: Maybe it was a bug bite or an ingrown hair, something like that. It didn't appear to be anything really out of the ordinary.

GUPTA: But within a couple of days --

BETTINESKI: It went from looking like a mosquito bite or a bug bite to the about the circumference of a baseball on the side of my calf.

GUPTA: Doctors didn't know what to make of it. Eventually, they settled on draining it, giving Bettineski an antibiotic and sending him home. But days later, fluid would form a sac on his leg again. The infection spread quickly to his hip, and there was a chance he could lose his leg.

BETTINESKI: That was a really, really frightening time of not knowing what was going to happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard the nurses talking in the hallway, and they're saying oh, it's MRSA, it's MRSA, and I asked Dr. Adams, I said, what is MRSA? And his eyes got really big and he said, where did you hear that?

GUPTA: The hushed tones would stoke the Bettineski's fears until they finally deciphered that MRSA was "methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus," or MRSA, a simple staff infection that over the years has morphed into a potentially dead bacteria, resistant to most antibiotics.

DR. GREGORY MORAN, OLIVE VIEW UCLA MEDICAL CENTER: It's gone from being something extremely rare to the most common bacteria that we isolate from skin infections.

GUPTA: It seems to fester in locker rooms and gyms. The heat generated there, shared mats and towels, and skin-to-skin contact make gyms and locker rooms a perfect host.

The Centers for Disease Control documented eight cases among the St. Louis Rams in 2003, the same year Miami Dolphins linebacker Junior Seau also contracted the infection.

MORAN: He had a number of these outbreaks. It's involved some breaks in the skin. Among the football players there were turf burns and other breaks in the skin that provided a way for the bacteria to gain entry.

GUPTA: Bettineski believes he got it on the mat, wrestling with students he coaches. He's fine now after months of rehab. That little red welt may have left a nasty scar, but at least it didn't rob him from the ability to do the things he loves.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: And from super bugs to super foods, 360 next. Find out what foods can give you that boost you need for a healthier life. A report that may actually surprise you.

Also, tonight, Anderson takes us inside the changing times in Lebanon with his "Reporter's Notebook."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: The highest court weighs in on a battle of life and death. Erica Hill joins us now, quarter to eight, with the news making headlines right now.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Heidi.

The Supreme Court has rejected a last-minute appeal by the parents of Terry Schiavo to stop the removal of her feeding tube. It is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Friday, tomorrow. The parents of the brain-damaged woman argue their daughter's religious freedom and due process rights were violated.

In the Michael Jackson trial today, the pop star's former housekeeper testified the children, quote, "became wild" during visits to Jackson's Neverland Ranch. She said they drank alcohol in Jackson's presence, and often slept with him, instead of in their assigned rooms. Jackson denies accusations he molested a then 13- year-old boy at his Neverland Ranch.

Rapper Lil' Kim has been convicted of perjury for lying to a federal grand jury investigating a shooting outside a Manhattan radio station. That's according to the Associated Press. The shootout happened when Lil' Kim's entourage crossed paths with that of a rival artist, all this about four years ago outside that radio station. Prosecutors accuse Kim of telling preposterous lies when testifying as an eyewitness. She now faces up to 20 years in prison.

Parents may not be aware of how prevalent inhalant abuse is among young people, but a new government study finds nearly one in every dozen 12 and 13 year olds has used inhalants such as glue and shoe polish, all to get high. The figures from 2003 also show a higher percentage used inhalants than used marijuana. Scary statistics there.

On that light note, Heidi, I'll hand it back to you.

COLLINS: Ouch. All right, Erica, thank you. We're going to see you again in 30 minutes.

For the first time in years, scientists are looking into the future and predicting a leveling off or reversal in the average human life expectancy, all due to the obesity epidemic among children. The report in today's "New England Journal of Medicine" says lifespans will drastically shorten because of a surge in obesity-related illnesses like heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer.

Now the good news: there is something you can do to change the future of your family's health -- talking about adding antioxidants by eating super foods. CNN Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now with a list of the best power foods, and some of these are actually going to surprise a lot of people, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You might not think of some of these foods as being super foods that we're going to tell you about in a little bit, but they are because they pack a powerful wallop with their antioxidants.

Now antioxidants are the good guys. The bad guys are molecules called free radicals. They're these molecules that kind of run around in their body and they do damage to cells.

If you want to think your cells as cars, they put rust on those cells. And the antioxidants, well, they're kind of like a rust remover. They come and they get rid of that rust. And here you see strawberries here. That's one of the foods.

So these foods are healthy for you. Plus they pack just that little bit of extra wallop -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Most of us seem to know the big three, Elizabeth like blueberries, salmon, broccoli. But really only one of those made it into the top five on the super food list. So what foods should we be eating?

COHEN: That's right, Heidi. This is a list from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They put together a list of the foods that have the most of these antioxidants. And the first one is beans. You can never eat too many beans. I'm sure you've heard that before. Red beans, kidney beans, pinto bean -- or something like that -- reds, kidneys, pintos and blacks, those especially are very good for you.

And also berries: blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries. All of those, not only are they delicious, but they also have a lot of the antioxidants.

Artichokes also made the list, and apples, such as red and Granny Smith and Gala apples and also Russet potatoes high in antioxidants.

So remember, there are all sorts of foods that are healthy. These also have that extra antioxidants.

Also wine and coffee have a lot of antioxidants. We're not saying you should have a diet heavy in wine or coffee, but it is good to know that those popular drinks do have some healthy things to them as well.

COLLINS: Interesting. All right. Also, we always hear you can overdo too much of a good thing. Can you overdo these antioxidants? COHEN: You can't overdo them if all you're doing is eating the foods. You know, you can't eat too many strawberries. But what some people do is they go out and they find an individual antioxidant, let's say vitamin E and just take tons of it. That actually, studies show, can be a problem.

So, stick to the foods or stick to a multivitamin. A multivitamin is probably not going to have too much of any one antioxidant.

COLLINS: All right. Elizabeth Cohen some great advice tonight. Thank you.

COHEN: Thanks.

COLLINS: 360 next now, Anderson live in Beirut in a whirlwind of change. His perspective when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Martyr's Square is one of the most symbolically important places in Beirut. And it's where history has been playing out over the last few weeks. And Anderson Cooper continues his reporting from there now.

Hi, Anderson

COOPER: Hey, Heidi.

During the height of the civil war here, I couldn't stand in this square. It was a killing zone, a no-man's land. So much in Beirut has changed, so much has been rebuilt. But it's important not to forget what happened here, the years of violence and bloodshed.

I walked around Beirut the other day with CNN's Beirut bureau chief, Brent Sadler.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN BEIRUT BUREAU CHIEF: This week, although sporadic fighting is continuing, the area...

(voice-over): That was back in 1983...

All told, I covered the war here for more than 20 years.

(on camera): There was no more dangerous place a journalist could be during those years. This location is where I nearly bought it.

Yeah, OK, there's the hill there. So we would have been about here.

COOPER: Could you actually see who was shooting at you?

SADLER: No. We just heard very heavy-caliber machine gunfire. And then it was like Roman candles, like fireworks pouring down on us, bright orange balls of fire, sparks falling, and the fwack as bullets hit concrete and metal. You knew you were about to die.

COOPER: And after you were shot over here, you ran into this area.

SADLER: That's right. After the cannon fire came down, I hit the deck, saw the rounds coming backwards and forwards going both sides of my body. And then I heard shouting, Brent, Brent, move, move, move!

So, I looked and all my colleagues were in there. So I just -- my cameraman was hit in the wrist, and nearly died here.

COOPER (voice-over): During the war years, whole sections of Beirut were reduced to rubble. Last month, when the former prime minister was blown up and an entire city block was destroyed in the blast, the scene looked all too familiar.

SADLER: The Rafik Hariri assassination is just a mile down there. So you've got Rafik Hariri's massive bomb blast, a turning point of Lebanese history just down there. And just here in front of us, an awful reminder of what happened in that massive car bomb against the U.S. here.

COOPER: So this was the site of the U.S. Embassy.

SADLER: The images of that day were -- I remember vividly, the collapsed floors of the building, body parts hanging out of some of the floors. It came down like a deck of cards.

The car bomb is a weapon of choice by terrorists really was developed in this country. The car bomb and the truck bomb had a devastating impact, claimed more than 240 American Marine lives at the airport. Who could not forget those horrendous images that day.

All of the buildings downtown used to look like this, millions of bullet holes everywhere. This would be around about here, you can see the archway here, this is what it was like throughout the city. This was the Green Line area dividing Christian east from Muslim west. This is where some of the worst battles took place.

COOPER: I mean, is change possible here?

SADLER: It has changed, Anderson. Don't forget, these people, the sectarian divide here, were tearing each other's throats out. They hated each other. They murdered each other.

I guess I've learned more than anything else the durability of mankind to withstand some of the most incredible horrors and bloodshed, and also learned that deep divisions between societies, political groups, religious divides cannot be just brought together like that with some neat, magic formula. For policies to expect to change people's mindsets and traditions and culture and history is no overnight job.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, no one knows Beirut better than our bureau chief, Brent Sadler, a remarkable reporter who has spent much of his life covering the situation here. And there is so much optimism these days in Lebanon, in Beirut. It is a city rebuilding. It is a city and a country and a region on the brink of change. We'll continue to follow it.

The story tomorrow, we'll bring you our report from Syria tomorrow night.

Right now, let's go to Paula Zahn in New York.

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