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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

House Votes to Increase Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research

Aired May 24, 2005 - 22:00   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.


ANDERSON COOPER, GUEST HOST: Good evening, everyone.
It is no exaggeration to say that what has happening right now in Washington has something to do with politics and everything to do with life and death. The scientific discoveries that could save lives, in conflict with deeply held beliefs over when exactly life begins.

Today, members of the House of Representative, many of them Republicans, voted in favor of increased federal funding for stem cell research. Now, they voted against the policy that was sent down by the president just four years ago. In a moment, we'll look at the politics and the biology, but first, some of the lives at stake.

Here's CNN's Kathleen Koch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris, let's go test you.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Insulin tests seven times a day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There you go, buddy.

KOCH: Painful routine for a 4-year-old Christopher Wood, diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at 11 months. His mother Jan believes he has one chance for a normal life.

JAN WOOD, MOTHER: I have had researchers say to us that by the time Christopher goes to college, which at this point is, I guess about 14 years, they believe we will have a cure if they're allowed to do what they know how to do and that's stem cell research.

KOCH: A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds 42 percent of those surveyed believe the federal government should ease restrictions on funding stem cell research; 11 percent wanted no restrictions at all. Just 19 percent opposed funding. The numbers were closer in the House, which voted 238 to 194 to resume embryonic stem cell research.

REP. CHRIS SHAYS (R), CONNECTICUT: These are discarded embryos that were never in the womb. They weren't taken from it and they weren't put into it. But they can help save lives.

REP. DIANA DEGETTE (D), COLORADO: Every single American who suffers from a terrible disease should have the right to a cure.

KOCH: But opponents insist a curing a disease is not acceptable trade-off if it means destroying a life.

REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: It is morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans who believe as I do that human life is sacred and use it to destroy human embryos for research.

REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: It's just wrong. Not as a matter of ideology or even faith, but as a matter of respect and dignity. We are not asking anyone here to recognize the rights of human embryos but the wrongs of human adults.

KOCH: Opponents favored another measure that passed nearly unanimously, to increase by $79 million federal funding of research on stem cells from umbilical cord blood. President Bush is still promising to veto any measure that goes beyond his strict 2001 limits of embryonic stem cell research.

Even so, some ardent pro-life Republicans split from the president, voting for research that many say holds the cure for diseases from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to juvenile diabetes.

Congressman Duke Cunningham was moved by a 6-year-old with diabetes who told him he would die unless Congress changed the law.

REP. DUKE CUNNINGHAM (R), CALIFORNIA: I am for life and I'm for the quality of life, but I don't want another 6-year-old to die.

KOCH: Or a 4-year-old whose mother still remains full of hope.

WOOD: This research has incredible impact for living, breathing human beings who are a very important part of our world.

KOCH: Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, lives are on the line. As Kathleen Koch mentioned, the president is holding firm with not much in the way of middle ground to move to, at least not in political terms. Practically and morally, the White House is approaching the question of discarding embryos from another direction, not using them for research, but making them available for adoption. With that, CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Maura and John Daniel call 19- month-old Katherine their miracle baby. After five wrenching years of in vitro fertilization, finally, Maura got pregnant. She was in New York for treatment on 9/11. The trauma took a toll.

MAURA DANIEL, MOTHER: After that, we did get pregnant, and I was pregnant for seven weeks, and then we lost the baby.

BASH: Maura and John decided to adopt. Then Maura saw a story about something she'd never heard of, embryo adoption. DANIEL: And I called John into the living room to look at it on television, and, you know, we were thinking that this could be the way we have a family.

BASH: The Daniels contacted Nightlight, a Christian fertility clinic in California that offers up for adoption other families' unused embryos.

DANIEL: We handpicked them, and they handpicked us.

JOHN DANIEL, FATHER: And they're a beautiful family, that we've met. And met their children and to us it's the most wonderful gift that anyone could ever give, right? And, you know, we have a beautiful daughter. We have twins on the way.

M. DANIEL: Can you have more bite of egg? Nope.

BASH: Katherine is called a snowflake baby, one of about only 80 children in the country born from an adopted frozen embryo. Her parents have come to Washington to tell Congressmen to take a look at Katherine before allowing more frozen embryos to be used in federally funded stem cell research.

M. DANIEL: All we want to do is just raise their awareness and show them Wren's beautiful face and them know that, you know, when they're going to sign off on a bill or not, to think twice.

BASH: The Daniels were invited to the White House. They stood right behind the president. He called them an affirming alternative to using embryos for science.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH, UNITED STATES: The children here today are reminders that every human life is a precious gift of matchless value.

BASH: Like the president, the Daniels say they support current limits on stem cell research. John's father just died from Parkinson's disease.

J. DANIEL: ...continued research, stem cell research, we would be hypocrites to think it was wrong.

BASH: The president calls stem cell research a culture of life issue like abortion. Not the Daniels.

M. DANIEL: We are pro-choice, we are pro-science, so we're kind of unique I think in this situation, but we definitely are for these legislators making very informed decisions.

BASH: But the fact remains, very few of the estimated 400,000 frozen embryos in the U.S. ever become viable fetuses. Four were transferred into Maura; only Katherine survived. Maura says she understands why some people would want to give their embryos up for science, but that the gift of motherhood after so long pulled her into the political fray.

M. DANIEL: She's definitely going to know her story and the way -- the beautiful way she came into this world. And it's just -- it's overwhelming how much we love her.

BASH: Dana Bash, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Uh-oh. To help us get to the heart of what the fight is about, we're joined now by CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Beyond the politics, beyond the morality, literally, what is this fight about?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This fight is over these frozen embryos that are sitting in infertility clinics all over the country. There are about 300,000 of them. Now, we all know someone who has used in vitro to get pregnant. Well, many of those people have embryos that are left over. They've gotten pregnant. They've had their family, and so their embryos are sitting there, frozen. Now, some people choose to give them to another family that want them, and those are the babies who we saw in Dana's piece just now. But some people don't, and so some people say, well, we'd like to use those embryos for stem cell research.

But the problem is, to use those embryos to make stem cells, you have to destroy the embryo in the process, and that's why there's such a bitter debate over these tiny frozen embryos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): They're perhaps the most controversial frontier in modern medicine. Many scientists believe these tiny cells hold the potential to treat diseases, such as diabetes, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's and even spinal cord injuries.

Celebrity sufferers have beaten the drums for exploiting stem cells.

MICHAEL J. FOX, ACTOR: I'm one of a million involuntary experts on Parkinson's disease in the United States, battling its destructive nature as we wait for a cure.

CHRISTOPHER REEVE, ACTOR: It's a miracle. It's something that has unlimited potential for curing people.

COHEN: The search for a cure became the life work of actor Christopher Reeve before he died in 2004. Embryonic stem cells are unspecified or blank cells. Scientists hope they can manipulate these cells into becoming any type of cell.

For example, with some spinal cord injuries, broken vertebrae cut the bundle of nerves behind them. Many researchers believe stem cells could be grown into tissue to close the gap in the damaged nerves.

DR. BARTH GREEN, NEUROSURGEON: Stem cells not only can replace damaged cells, but they can help repair.

COHEN: There's been some progress with animals. These rats were given a severe spinal cord injury, and then injected with stem cells. Six weeks later their hind legs were functioning again.

DR. JOHN GEARHART, JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICAL INST.: We're well on our way in some of these areas, but we still have work to do.

COHEN: This area of medicine is so new, no one knows when or even if that work will actually come to fruition.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): Stem cell experts say that it will be at least a decade before embryonic stem cells could possibly be used to help treat an ailing person.

COOPER: Today the president appeared with children who he said had been adopted as embryos. How many of these embryos are actually -- end up being adopted and become children?

COHEN: Well, I was talking to Arthur Caplan, who's a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania and he says that, according to his surveys, less than 1 percent end up being adopted. The other ones, they're frozen. They just sit there frozen year after year or sometimes they're discarded.

COOPER: Just thrown out.

COHEN: That's right.

COOPER: OK, and those are the embryos that we're talking about for possible research?

COHEN: That's right. The ones that are either frozen forever or thrown out.

COOPER: In 2001 the president said what, we can use the embryos that currently exist now?

COHEN: Right. In August 9, 2001, President Bush said look, if you want federal funding, you scientists want federal funding, you can only use the embryos that have already been made into stem cells, that have already been destroyed. If you want to destroy anymore, you can't use federal funding for them. Those were 78 sets of stem cell. And scientists say look, those don't work. They were made in a certain way that made them basically useless to scientists. So, what the House said was you can use federal funding to destroy new ones, to make a better set of stem cell lines.

COOPER: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

More now on the political repercussions and complications and there are many. Representative Mike Castle is a Republican and Delaware's at large congressman. He's a co-sponsor of the stem cell Research Enhancement Act which passed today. We spoke with Congressman Castle earlier this evening.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Does your bill create new incentives for killing emerging human life?

REP. MIKE CASTLE (R), DELAWARE: No, actually it doesn't do that at all. It is pretty simple. It is a process called in vitro fertilization. Embryos are created for the purpose of implanting them in the womb of a woman. Sometimes the couples decide they don't want to move ahead or for whatever reason they abandon the situation. You then have leftover embryos, these are five or six-day-old embryos which have stem cells in them. And they and buy and large almost 100 percent discarded as hospital waste. And we're saying instead of discarding them, why don't we use them for research on embryonic stem cells which have the potential to save a lot of people.

COOPER: The White House clearly disagrees with you. The president said he's going to veto this. He appeared today sort of surrounded by children who he said were adopted as embryos, if you will, and said that their lives had been saved through this. That their lives were created because someone had adopted these embryos. Essentially, what the White House is saying that you're killing potential children, that these embryos could be adopted by couples who are looking for kids.

CASTLE: Well, the definition of using the word killing is a little inflammatory. We are dealing with 5-day-old embryos which have been frozen for some period of time, which are going to be thrown out as hospital waste. If they have a problem with that, they better talk to the in vitro fertilization clinics.

COOPER: The White House today was saying, that really the research isn't there on embryonic stem cells, that why not use adult stem cells or cord blood?

CASTLE: Well, let me make it very clear about adult stem cells or core blood. There's not a researcher of any renown out there what so ever, who believes that they can do anything more than help with blood related diseases. As a matter of fact 14 of the 15 diseases that people most die from in the United States of America can never be addressed by adult stem cells.

COOPER: How tough has this debate been? I mean, you're a Republican. This has been supported by many Republicans. It's been a bruising fight. It obviously is not over. The president said he's going to veto it. From a Republican standpoint as a Republican member of Congress, what has it been like and where do you go from here?

CASTLE: It's not been easy or a lot of fun. It's been difficult. We did get 50 votes -- Republican votes on the floor of the House of Representatives today on the vote for the bill. And strong support from a number of those individuals. And there's a heck of a lot of other Republicans out there starting with Nancy Reagan, and going through a lot of others who have been supportive. So there's been encouraging signs along those lines.

But now it goes over to the Senate where they clearly have a majority. In fact, they may have a sufficient majority to override a veto which we don't in the House and never expected to have. And I think the time has come, frankly, for everyone to understand that this is coming. And if the president truly wants to veto it, that's fine. But he better look at the approval ratings in the polls I've seen which are 60 to 70 percent. And perhaps they'll sit down and negotiate a change in policy.

COOPER: Well, Representative Mike Castle, a victory for you today. And the battle continues, obviously, for you side. We appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you.

CASTLE: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: That was Congressman Mike Castle of Delaware.

There's more to come, starting with a bang.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If this is going to kill me, I'm saying, just do it. Get it over with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: But it didn't. Surviving the wrath of Mount St. Helens.

Also tonight, eluding an army, but for how much longer? Is Iraq's most wanted man also a wounded man?

Later separating the cheese from the sleazy from the obscene. OK, hold it right there. Is this another shot in the culture wars? Who's deciding what you see on television?

And it could change the way you live.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honey, here's a hi-fi turntable and AM/FM radio. And this is of course the television and the tape recorder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: No Lucy, it's called an X-Box and we've got some explaining to do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: In a moment, is the most wanted man in Iraq running now with battle injuries? All that ahead.

But first, about 18 past the hour, time for some headlines with Erica Hill at Headline News.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Hey, Anderson.

President Bush won big in his bid to get 10 controversial judicial appointments through Capitol Hill. The Senate on Tuesday voted 81 to 18 to bring the nomination of Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Appeals Court up for a final vote. This is the first result of the deal struck last night to avoid a fight over filibusters in the Senate. Now, however, another battle over a nomination is expected soon on Wednesday morning. The Senate will take up the nomination of John Bolton to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. That nomination, controversial and the debate is expected to be heated.

"Tonight Show" host Jay Leno played it straight. Leno drew crowds when he arrived at the courthouse as a witness today in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial. On the stand, Leno said he was never actually asked for money, but he did receive several odd phone messages from Jackson's accuser. Leno said, however, he assumed that's what the family was after. It's expected the defense will rest Wednesday without calling Jackson himself as a witness.

Some more trouble for Lionel Tate. He's the youngest person in the United States sentenced to life without parole. Tate was convicted of first degree murder when he was 14 for beating a 6-year- old girl to death when he was only 12. The conviction was overturned on appeal. Tate later pleaded guilty to second degree murder and got a year of house arrest and 10 years of probation. Well, now 18, Tate was arrested on Monday accused of robbing a pizza delivery man at gunpoint. Tate has said he's innocent of the new charges.

And charter aircraft we're learning will soon be able to take off and land at Washington's Reagan National Airport for the first time since the attacks of 9/11. Still not all private planes will be allowed. Only corporate aircraft with armed air marshals on board will be permitted to fly into Reagan National. And that's the latest from Headline News at this hour. Anderson, back over to you.

COOPER: Erica, thanks. We'll see you again in about 30 minutes.

Reports again today, that the most wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been wounded. Now, the reports were found on several Web sites often used by insurgents. U.S. officials would like to believe it, but they say they simply do not know.

They do know the violence in Iraq continues. More from CNN's senior correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Iraq, no let-up in the deadly attacks. In Baghdad, a car bomb explodes near a junior high school for girls, killing six people.

Nine U.S. troops have died in two days of insurgent attacks just in and around Baghdad. All together, 14 Americans and 49 Iraqis have been killed since Sunday in a string of explosions, suicide attacks and drive-by shootings carried out by insurgents, even as Internet sites declared their leader is wounded.

Pentagon military and intelligence officials tell CNN there is no intelligence to corroborate Web site claims that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been wounded. The postings on several insurgents Web sites purportedly come from a Zarqawi associate who contends Zarqawi has suffered a heroic wound and asks for "prayers for our leader."

The U.S. military admits it just doesn't know, but a spokesman puts the latest assertion in the same category as previous unconfirmed rumors Zarqawi was ill or injured.

The last month, one tip was deemed credible enough to launch a raid on a hospital in Ramadi, after an informer claimed the terrorist had gone there seeking medical treatment. An exhaustive search revealed no sign of Zarqawi or any other terrorist was ever there.

LT. GEN. JAMES CONWAY, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, JOINT CHIEFS: I can simply say there's been no evidence to indicate that he was there, either through interrogation of the people that we spoke to afterwards, or any physical evidence of his presence.

MCINTYRE: And there has been conjecture that Zarqawi may have been injured jumping from a moving vehicle on February 20th when the U.S. military stopped his car and captured his laptop computer. But that, too, remains unconfirmed speculation.

If Zarqawi was hurt, it didn't stop him from taping an audio message to his followers a month ago.

ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI (through translator): Dear brothers, be patient. It is only a matter of a few days, and you will be the ultimate winners, either by way of martyrdom or victory.

MCINTYRE (on camera): The bottom line is the U.S. military doesn't assign much credence to Web sites run by the insurgents. One military official quipped, "If the report are true, they should just tell us where he is, and we'll make sure Zarqawi gets all the medical attention he needs."

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, coming up tonight on the program, we're going to meet a college student with great investment ideas. A whiz kid who really knew Wall Street -- but, yes, there is a catch. Isn't there always?

And a young man who survived on a day when the world blew up around him. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Patches of blue sky peeked through the clouds above Mount St. Helens Tuesday, but on a Sunday morning 25 years ago, a teenage boy on a camping trip with his girlfriend watched as the blue sky turned white. It was Mount St. Helens erupting with a blast 500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima. Peter Viles reports on two young people surviving the unimaginable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the spot where Roald Reitan was sure he would die 25 years ago. In fact, he asked for death.

ROALD REITAN, SURVIVED ERUPTION: If it's going to kill me, I'm saying, "Just do it." You know, "Get it over with."

VILES: It started as a romantic camping trip, 19-year-old Roald, his girlfriend, Venus Dergan. True, Mount St. Helens was acting up, but nobody thought this area was at risk.

(on camera): How far are we right now from the mountain itself?

REITAN: Forty-six miles as you go on the highway.

VILES: Forty-six miles. So you're way in the safe area.

REITAN: Oh, yes.

VILES: Yes.

REITAN: I mean, I figured...

VILES: At least you thought you were.

REITAN: Yes. I mean, so did the scientists and everybody else.

VILES (voice-over): But on Sunday morning, May 18th, 1980, the peaceful river told violent.

REITAN: When it was rumbling around the corner, it sounded like a monster coming through the forest.

VILES: The monster was a river made of mud, ash and trees, a killer mudslide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All units in the area, we have a report of a mud flow 300 feet deep.

VILES: In an instant, it swept away the two teenagers.

REITAN: I told Venus to jump. I said, "Jump." You know, then we jumped. And I landed on a big log like you ride a horse, just -- and she went just right in between two of them, and she was gone.

VILES (on camera): She went under?

REITAN: Yes. It's like, I mean, gone. Like, you know, she was next to me one second when we jumped, and when I hit a log, you know, I looked at her, I just saw her go right in between two of them. And I thought she was dead for sure.

VILES: Right.

REITAN: You know, and I thought I was going to be dead, too. VILES (voice-over): Somehow, Roald steadied himself. Twice, he grabbed his girlfriend, but twice the river took her back.

REITAN: Fear's ebbing from me, and now I'm getting mad. I mean, I'm really getting mad, because it's like, you know, I found her twice. It's like -- and it's taking it away from me. It's like, no way.

VILES: The third time he held on.

REITAN: She was freezing. And I grabbed her by her shoulders and her hair, and I pulled her out of it, all the way out. You know, and I was telling myself, "There's no way I'm going to let her go."

VILES: He held on for half an hour, fighting their way out of the torrent of mud.

REITAN: When we got out of it, the ordeal wasn't over. You know what I mean? Basically, the worst part of it was when we got out, because we had to walk all the way back.

VILES: They stumbled in the woods for hours, rescued at least by helicopter. And only then did the pilot reveal to Roald what had caused this epic mudslide.

REITAN: He looked at me and he goes, "You want to see what almost killed you?" And I said, "What?" And that's when I saw it. The mountain, oh, yeah, and it just like -- like a surreal steam engine, I mean, just the smoke going straight up.

VILES (voice-over): In an instant, Mount St. Helens had blown apart in a massive eruption that killed 57 people, flattened huge forests, and created deadly mud flows. Roald's girlfriend, Venus, survived, but her injuries were severe. She couldn't walk for three months.

REITAN: She doesn't really like to come down here, you know, and I don't blame her, you know. Because what, you know, her injuries were worse than mine, really, they were. Her ordeal started when she got to the hospital. Because all her abrasions and everything had to be scrubbed with a brush to get the volcanic ash out of her skin.

VILES: Roald and Venus are still friends. The river that almost killed them is peaceful again.

REITAN: Just like it was yesterday. I can close my eyes and relive it every second of what happened.

VILES: Peter Viles for CNN, Toutle, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It's hard to believe they survived.

From the terrors of nature now to human nature, and a funny thing about it. The more you pay for something, the less likely you are to question its authenticity, which is why there are probably more Picassos hanging on walls than Picasso ever painted.

It may also explain the story of a bright and energetic young college student. Here is CNN's Maria Hinojosa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Skinny, scruffy Hakan Yalincak had a way with words and numbers. With his words, he talked about his billionaire Turkish family. With his numbers, he impressed sophisticated investors.

ROBERT CHAN, YALINCAK'S ATTORNEY: Derivatives with trading bonds against stocks, and dollars against euros, and very sophisticated.

HINOJOSA: As a 21-year-old college senior, Yalincak wowed New York University by donating more than $1 million to name a lecture hall after his family, and promising another $21 million for a new building.

CHAN: He inspires a lot of confidence. He's obviously knowledgeable and smart.

HINOJOSA: Just three years after high school, he rented an office in affluent Greenwich, Connecticut, to start a hot new hedge fund.

PAUL ARDAJI, JR., YALINCAK'S LANDLORD: They had showed us financials that were valued at about $800 million that were under their management and they said that the Greenwich office was going to raise another $800 million.

HINOJOSA: The buzz lured million-dollar investors. He hired a prominent Chicago lawyer to handle the money rolling in.

ARDAJI: When you meet people like this, you, kind of, you judge them sort of superficially, and you say, wow, it is amazing that these people are able to be successful in business.

HINOJOSA: Just days before Yalincak was to graduate from NYU, federal prosecutors exposed his story as a multimillion dollar money scam.

KEVIN O'CONNOR, US ATTORNEY, CONNECTICUT: He was creating the appearance of wealth that didn't truly exist. We allege that he was passing $25 million checks in between accounts in an effort to mislead the banks into believing he actually had that money.

HINOJOSA: Yalincak never even paid rent on his hedge-fund office. His high-end furniture was for a fictitious staff. The Web sites he created for his supposed billionaire Turkish family were fakes, and so, some allege, were those family connections. His computers, never plugged in. The con didn't pay for them either.

JONATHAN GOULD, COMPUTER STORE OWNER: He said, OK, well, I'll take 100, but upon delivery you'll get payment. And I said, whoa, time out. No, no, no, that's not the way it's done. HINOJOSA: A bank foreclosed on his modest house in a nearby blue collar town. His mother's fancy mortgage firm was suddenly abandoned. Her true story? An ex-con who served time for impersonating a doctor.

O'CONNOR: This was not a case where he was -- he's alleged to have swindled 80-year-old naive, you know, retirees. This is a case where we allege that he was perpetrating a fraud on sophisticated banks.

HINOJOSA: Yalincak was indicted on a single federal bank fraud charge after allegedly passing counterfeit checks totalling $43 million. Then the civil lawsuits began, investors suing to get their millions.

CHAN: This is a boy who, coming out of school, could have gotten a job paying him almost $1 million a year managing money, simply on the strength of his ability and his personality and for him now to be in a federal lockup without bail facing serious criminal charges is a tragedy.

HINOJOSA: Yalincak has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail. The U.S. attorney says there's a lesson to be learned from this story.

O'CONNOR: Now, more than ever, I think it is easy for people to pretend to be something they're not.

HINOJOSA: Even, it seem, among sophisticated investors.

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, Greenwich, Connecticut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Remarkable story.

Still to come on -- tonight, Paris Hilton. Once again, do we really need to say anything else? Well, yes, we do, but we'll talk about that ahead.

And, how the home of the future might show up disguised as a video game box. From around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: All right. So, for those of you who still think Paris Hilton is a room with a view on the river Seine, take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (SINGING): I love Paris in the springtime...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Hey, lady! Somewhere in this bump and grind there's a hamburger commercial trying to wriggle itself out. Today the burger chain, Carl's Jr., defended the ad against the Parents' Television Council, which has called it soft core porn. And whether it is or isn't is in the eye of the beholder. Well, actually, not just the eye of the beholder, but increasingly, the government as well.

So, with the latest on that and the rest of the culture war, here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): When broadcasters gather for their annual convention in Las Vegas, companies spend millions trying to dazzle potential customers with the latest high- tech wonders.

But what's really caught the attention of the television industry is not any technical gizmo that goes into the television set, but what they see as Washington's increasing impatience, frustration and even anger at some of what's coming out of the television set.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you wonder why I sleep with men before I come home.

GREENFIELD: There's no doubt that TV has got an lot more relaxed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was hoping you'd notice.

GREENFIELD: Or free or coarse over the decades.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big dog wants some candy.

GREENFIELD: And there's also no doubt that when networks tout shows through promos, they go right for the heart of the matter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...his wife's sister. Fox, tonight, the little bookstore around the corner.

GREENFIELD: But it was Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl that set regulators and politicians to beating their own breasts about what's on the air. The FCC has proposed fining CBS stations more than half a million dollars for carrying that halftime show.

It's also levied a $1.2 million fine against Fox network affiliated stations for airing "Married by America," which featured a scene in which strippers enlivened a bachelor party. And the commission overruled its staff by finding that this live outburst by U2's Bono...

BONO, U2: That's really, really (EXPLETIVE DELETED) brilliant.

GREENFIELD: ...may have stepped over the FCC's indecency rule. And this may only be the beginning. The incoming FCC chair, Kevin Martin, wants the commission to do more. So does Democratic appointee Michael Kopps. Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Stevens is on board. This year, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would raise the fine for every violation to as much as $500,000. That bill is awaiting Senate action.

HOWARD STERN, RADIO PERSONALITY: And do you give an aggressive lap dance?

GREENFIELD: And when the FCC slapped a $500,000 fine on radio's Howard Stern last year, Clear Channel, the largest owner of stations in the country, kicked Stern off its stations and announced a zero- tolerance policy for its talent. If the FCC finds you indecent, Clear Channel said, you are off our air.

Jonathan Adelstein is one of the five FCC commissioners.

JONATHAN ADELSTEIN, FCC COMMISSIONER: You've seen over the last couple of years unprecedented efforts by the FCC to enforce our rules and the result is now that I think broadcasters are taking them more seriously. We're seeing fewer incidents that are really egregious. I'm concerned sometimes that it has almost a chilling effect where broadcasters are afraid to put material on the air that we probably wouldn't find indecent.

GREENFIELD: That may in fact have happened when ABC aired "Saving Private Ryan" last year with the rough language of combat left intact.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're killing us. If we don't have the (EXPLETIVE DELETED), it ain't fair.

GREENFIELD: Dozens of affiliates did not air the movie fearing an FCC indecency ruling, which the commission did not do. And while surveys show the public did not care about offensive of there, Tony Vinciguerra, who oversees programming for the FOX networks says those numbers are misleading.

TONY VINCIGUERRA, FOX: American parents think that they're controlling what their children are watching and feel very comfortable with it. And the vast majority of Americans don't want the government telling them what they can and can't watch.

GREENFIELD: Some questions. Do the range of blocking devices and rating guides now available to parents mean they can exercise more responsibility without government regulations? Does it still make sense to distinguish between traditional broadcast outlets and cable? Which the law now says the FCC can't regulate. And at root, is there really any reliable consistent definition of just what indecency is and is not.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Las Vegas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I can't really come up with any real legitimate reasons to do it. But let's just take another quick look at that Paris Hilton commercial. Her parents must be so proud.

Still ahead tonight, the home of the future. Is it just really around the corner this time. A break first -- see you got me all flustered. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And the Empire State Building, red, white and blue in honor of fleet week, as we approach this Memorial Day weekend.

In a moment, a game machine with a serious mission and the potential to reshape the world around it.

But first at about a quarter to the hour, let's get the rest of the headlines from Erica Hill over at Headline News. Hey, Erica.

HILL: Hi, again, Anderson.

The governor of Indiana has refused to block the execution of a convicted murderer. He wanted time to donate his liver to an ailing sister. The governor's office released a letter from two doctors stating Gregory Johnson would not be a suitable donor. Johnson was convicted of beating an 82-year-old woman to death and is scheduled to execution by lethal injection Wednesday.

Parents at a Seattle high school say military recruiters are no longer welcome on campus, charging the recruiters unfairly target poor inner city kids. The co-chairman of the Garfield High School Parents/Teacher/Student Association say it is poor kids who fight for war. It is illegal -- the war that is -- legally they cannot keep recruiters off campus.

The embattled mayor of Spokane, Washington, faces new allegations. A local newspaper reports accusations the mayor made an inappropriate sexual comment about the son of a state legislator. Mayor Dick West, a conservative Republican and longtime opponent of gay rights denied the allegations. The mayor refused to resign after earlier press reports of child molestation, but has admitted to having relations with adult men.

And finally in Los Angeles, lets light it up for you here folks, what you may call a bad hair day for murder suspect Phil Spector. The record producer also got some bad news from the judge yesterday, who ruled prosecutors can present evidence that Spector allegedly pulled guns on four women in the past. Spector is accused of shooting to death an actress in in his home in February of 2003. The hair, by the way, a bit of a change -- if we still have the old picture of his hair, I'm not sure if we do. Maybe we don't. But it may have just been a reaction to that Paris Hilton ad, Anderson.

COOPER: I find it ironic that he stand joins himself with bald guys, though. It's sort of an odd juxtapositioning.

HILL: Maybe it just makes him more hair worthy.

COOPER: Is that a word?

HILL: It is now. Go ahead using it in a sentence.

COOPER: Hair worthy, I'll try to work it in some how before the program ends.

HILL: OK.

COOPER: I've got 14 minutes left to do it.

HILL: I have faith in you. You can do it.

COOPER: Thanks very much, Erica Hill, appreciate the hair worthy report. This one for me.

A buzz word now, hairspray. No, no, no, not convergence. Another way of saying it is two, two, two mints in one. Your cell phone, as a camera, as an MP3 player, as a gadget for getting e-mail. And because it is Apple can sell you music, Hewlett Packard can sell you a printer, and everyone can send you spam. Convergence happened first with cell phones. You can only cram so much into your pocketbook. It's happening next at home.

Here's CNN's Daniel Sieberg.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCILLE BALL, ENTERTAINER: Honey, here's a HI-FI turntable and AM/FM radio. This is the television and the tape recorder. And they all play through a three-speaker stereo sound system.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Lucy made it seem so easy. Your living room, your home, transformed by technology. Nowadays it's a bit more complicated.

AARON BOBICK, GEORGIA TECH: I can often see her watching TV. She's on -- she's got a laptop which is on the Internet, so she's IMing her friends who are watching the same show, and meanwhile she's talking to somebody else on the cell phone.

SIEBERG: A new study by the Consumer Electronics Association says the average U.S. Household has 25 electronic gadgets.

Aaron Bobick, father of three, takes his work home with him.

(on camera): What have we got down here?

BOBICK: Well, here we have a summertime present to myself from last year, the big screen TV.

SIEBERG (voice-over): He's a computer scientist working on how to integrate technology into our daily lives. His house acts as a case study. Near his multitasking daughter, his son is playing a computer game. And down the hall is where dad works when he's not at the office and dabbles in digital photography. He's not satisfied, though. BOBICK: Really, you want to be able to do whatever it is you want to do where you want to do it.

SIEBERG: What if, like Lucy suggested, all these machines, computers, video games, music, TV work together and you had access to all of them from anywhere, all spokes from a single hub? And what if that hub was disguised as a video game machine? That's what's in the cards with the new X-Box or Sony's new Playstation, designed from the ground up, not only to play video games like halo 2, in Microsoft's case, but to integrate music, data, voice and video?

The key, says Bobick, is to make this integration easy and unintrusive. For example...

BOBICK: In your car right now, there are probably hundreds of little chips doing things. But as far as your concerned, you still get in the car and step on the gas and steer. These technologies have to evolve, but they have to do it in such a way that they're not in your face. Instead, you just want to be worried about what you're trying to do.

SIEBERG: Microsoft already dominates the desktop. And now the promise is that by upgrading your home with a multimedia device like an X-Box it's gaining a place in your living room. Sony is there also and others will follow.

BOBICK: Games is one version of digital media, videos, pictures, music, it's all just digital media. And so by having a digital media box that lets you do all this stuff, you can decide what to do in that one location.

SIEBERG: Once they're in, additional benefits for you and profits for Microsoft might come from services like e-mail, video conferencing, downloaded music or on demand TV.

BOBICK: I'm still going to want to have an office. And I'm still going to want to have a kitchen. And I'm still going to want to have a living room. And I'm still going to want to have a theater. And so I'll have -- I'll have these devices in these places doing these different things for me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And practically everything in this house is available today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't blame you for that.

SIEBERG: But hang on, the first of the new game machines won't come out until the end of the year.

Daniel Sieberg, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Oh, look, it's an X-Box 360, yeah. Original name there, Bill Gates.

Still to come, a fond look at an old and sadly dying sport. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Over the years, poets have spilled a lot of ink about baseball, but not about bowling, which we think is a shame. There's a rhythm to bowling, a purity of line, and crucial to poetry, a kind of sadness as well. Because bowling, at least the kind of bowling you are about to see, is dying. It's called candlepin bowling, played mostly in New England and parts of Canada. But in the Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury, not for much longer. Here is a look, courtesy of CNN photojournalist Bob Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Candlepin bowling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the only game in town.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Around here, this is real bowling.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've been here for over 35 years. It's family owned. I'm the third generation. Sure, thanks.

I've grown up here. Everybody comes here. Everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Candlepin bowling is unique to this section of the country. It's not even bowled throughout Massachusetts. I've been bowling on these alleys for about, oh, eight or nine years. The alleys are closing. They're going to put a post office here. And the problem is there aren't any places to go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The post office needed a new site. And they're really interested in this one. I can't imagine that this place would be gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These machines are about 50 years old. Pins come up on this side, balls come up on this side. I've been working here behind these machines, first day I've started. They're my machines. The owner just doesn't know it yet. Twelve, 13 years of my life spent in this building. It's tough. It's like watching your first house that you lived in get sold to a different family, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If this lane closes, that's the end of the league, because, frankly, there's no place for us to go as a league. We'll all miss it. I'll miss it a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are worried that candlepin bowling is going to eventually be extinct. My best case scenario would be, you know, we'll have a nice new place and I can continue doing what I love to do. Or the sad thing, we'll just have to say good-bye.

We'll always have our memories that we have had. And it's been a really good 35 years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: That piece by CNN's Bob Crowley.

We're going to wrap things up in just a moment. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Let's see what's coming up tomorrow morning on "AMERICAN MORNING" with Bill Hemmer -- Bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow, part three in our "get ready for summer" series, surviving family vacations, and we're going on a wild ride, too. Theme parks, always a popular destination. We'll check out the hot parks this summer with the best and the scariest attractions. The inside scoop for thrill seekers, and something for the faint of heart as well. We'll have that for you tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time here on "AMERICAN MORNING."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And that's it for me and NEWSNIGHT tonight. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back tomorrow night as well on NEWSNIGHT, also on "360," at 7:00 o'clock Eastern time. Hope you join me then. Have a great evening.

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 May 24, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, GUEST HOST: Good evening, everyone.
It is no exaggeration to say that what has happening right now in Washington has something to do with politics and everything to do with life and death. The scientific discoveries that could save lives, in conflict with deeply held beliefs over when exactly life begins.

Today, members of the House of Representative, many of them Republicans, voted in favor of increased federal funding for stem cell research. Now, they voted against the policy that was sent down by the president just four years ago. In a moment, we'll look at the politics and the biology, but first, some of the lives at stake.

Here's CNN's Kathleen Koch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris, let's go test you.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Insulin tests seven times a day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There you go, buddy.

KOCH: Painful routine for a 4-year-old Christopher Wood, diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at 11 months. His mother Jan believes he has one chance for a normal life.

JAN WOOD, MOTHER: I have had researchers say to us that by the time Christopher goes to college, which at this point is, I guess about 14 years, they believe we will have a cure if they're allowed to do what they know how to do and that's stem cell research.

KOCH: A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds 42 percent of those surveyed believe the federal government should ease restrictions on funding stem cell research; 11 percent wanted no restrictions at all. Just 19 percent opposed funding. The numbers were closer in the House, which voted 238 to 194 to resume embryonic stem cell research.

REP. CHRIS SHAYS (R), CONNECTICUT: These are discarded embryos that were never in the womb. They weren't taken from it and they weren't put into it. But they can help save lives.

REP. DIANA DEGETTE (D), COLORADO: Every single American who suffers from a terrible disease should have the right to a cure.

KOCH: But opponents insist a curing a disease is not acceptable trade-off if it means destroying a life.

REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: It is morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans who believe as I do that human life is sacred and use it to destroy human embryos for research.

REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: It's just wrong. Not as a matter of ideology or even faith, but as a matter of respect and dignity. We are not asking anyone here to recognize the rights of human embryos but the wrongs of human adults.

KOCH: Opponents favored another measure that passed nearly unanimously, to increase by $79 million federal funding of research on stem cells from umbilical cord blood. President Bush is still promising to veto any measure that goes beyond his strict 2001 limits of embryonic stem cell research.

Even so, some ardent pro-life Republicans split from the president, voting for research that many say holds the cure for diseases from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to juvenile diabetes.

Congressman Duke Cunningham was moved by a 6-year-old with diabetes who told him he would die unless Congress changed the law.

REP. DUKE CUNNINGHAM (R), CALIFORNIA: I am for life and I'm for the quality of life, but I don't want another 6-year-old to die.

KOCH: Or a 4-year-old whose mother still remains full of hope.

WOOD: This research has incredible impact for living, breathing human beings who are a very important part of our world.

KOCH: Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, lives are on the line. As Kathleen Koch mentioned, the president is holding firm with not much in the way of middle ground to move to, at least not in political terms. Practically and morally, the White House is approaching the question of discarding embryos from another direction, not using them for research, but making them available for adoption. With that, CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Maura and John Daniel call 19- month-old Katherine their miracle baby. After five wrenching years of in vitro fertilization, finally, Maura got pregnant. She was in New York for treatment on 9/11. The trauma took a toll.

MAURA DANIEL, MOTHER: After that, we did get pregnant, and I was pregnant for seven weeks, and then we lost the baby.

BASH: Maura and John decided to adopt. Then Maura saw a story about something she'd never heard of, embryo adoption. DANIEL: And I called John into the living room to look at it on television, and, you know, we were thinking that this could be the way we have a family.

BASH: The Daniels contacted Nightlight, a Christian fertility clinic in California that offers up for adoption other families' unused embryos.

DANIEL: We handpicked them, and they handpicked us.

JOHN DANIEL, FATHER: And they're a beautiful family, that we've met. And met their children and to us it's the most wonderful gift that anyone could ever give, right? And, you know, we have a beautiful daughter. We have twins on the way.

M. DANIEL: Can you have more bite of egg? Nope.

BASH: Katherine is called a snowflake baby, one of about only 80 children in the country born from an adopted frozen embryo. Her parents have come to Washington to tell Congressmen to take a look at Katherine before allowing more frozen embryos to be used in federally funded stem cell research.

M. DANIEL: All we want to do is just raise their awareness and show them Wren's beautiful face and them know that, you know, when they're going to sign off on a bill or not, to think twice.

BASH: The Daniels were invited to the White House. They stood right behind the president. He called them an affirming alternative to using embryos for science.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH, UNITED STATES: The children here today are reminders that every human life is a precious gift of matchless value.

BASH: Like the president, the Daniels say they support current limits on stem cell research. John's father just died from Parkinson's disease.

J. DANIEL: ...continued research, stem cell research, we would be hypocrites to think it was wrong.

BASH: The president calls stem cell research a culture of life issue like abortion. Not the Daniels.

M. DANIEL: We are pro-choice, we are pro-science, so we're kind of unique I think in this situation, but we definitely are for these legislators making very informed decisions.

BASH: But the fact remains, very few of the estimated 400,000 frozen embryos in the U.S. ever become viable fetuses. Four were transferred into Maura; only Katherine survived. Maura says she understands why some people would want to give their embryos up for science, but that the gift of motherhood after so long pulled her into the political fray.

M. DANIEL: She's definitely going to know her story and the way -- the beautiful way she came into this world. And it's just -- it's overwhelming how much we love her.

BASH: Dana Bash, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Uh-oh. To help us get to the heart of what the fight is about, we're joined now by CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Beyond the politics, beyond the morality, literally, what is this fight about?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This fight is over these frozen embryos that are sitting in infertility clinics all over the country. There are about 300,000 of them. Now, we all know someone who has used in vitro to get pregnant. Well, many of those people have embryos that are left over. They've gotten pregnant. They've had their family, and so their embryos are sitting there, frozen. Now, some people choose to give them to another family that want them, and those are the babies who we saw in Dana's piece just now. But some people don't, and so some people say, well, we'd like to use those embryos for stem cell research.

But the problem is, to use those embryos to make stem cells, you have to destroy the embryo in the process, and that's why there's such a bitter debate over these tiny frozen embryos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): They're perhaps the most controversial frontier in modern medicine. Many scientists believe these tiny cells hold the potential to treat diseases, such as diabetes, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's and even spinal cord injuries.

Celebrity sufferers have beaten the drums for exploiting stem cells.

MICHAEL J. FOX, ACTOR: I'm one of a million involuntary experts on Parkinson's disease in the United States, battling its destructive nature as we wait for a cure.

CHRISTOPHER REEVE, ACTOR: It's a miracle. It's something that has unlimited potential for curing people.

COHEN: The search for a cure became the life work of actor Christopher Reeve before he died in 2004. Embryonic stem cells are unspecified or blank cells. Scientists hope they can manipulate these cells into becoming any type of cell.

For example, with some spinal cord injuries, broken vertebrae cut the bundle of nerves behind them. Many researchers believe stem cells could be grown into tissue to close the gap in the damaged nerves.

DR. BARTH GREEN, NEUROSURGEON: Stem cells not only can replace damaged cells, but they can help repair.

COHEN: There's been some progress with animals. These rats were given a severe spinal cord injury, and then injected with stem cells. Six weeks later their hind legs were functioning again.

DR. JOHN GEARHART, JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICAL INST.: We're well on our way in some of these areas, but we still have work to do.

COHEN: This area of medicine is so new, no one knows when or even if that work will actually come to fruition.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): Stem cell experts say that it will be at least a decade before embryonic stem cells could possibly be used to help treat an ailing person.

COOPER: Today the president appeared with children who he said had been adopted as embryos. How many of these embryos are actually -- end up being adopted and become children?

COHEN: Well, I was talking to Arthur Caplan, who's a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania and he says that, according to his surveys, less than 1 percent end up being adopted. The other ones, they're frozen. They just sit there frozen year after year or sometimes they're discarded.

COOPER: Just thrown out.

COHEN: That's right.

COOPER: OK, and those are the embryos that we're talking about for possible research?

COHEN: That's right. The ones that are either frozen forever or thrown out.

COOPER: In 2001 the president said what, we can use the embryos that currently exist now?

COHEN: Right. In August 9, 2001, President Bush said look, if you want federal funding, you scientists want federal funding, you can only use the embryos that have already been made into stem cells, that have already been destroyed. If you want to destroy anymore, you can't use federal funding for them. Those were 78 sets of stem cell. And scientists say look, those don't work. They were made in a certain way that made them basically useless to scientists. So, what the House said was you can use federal funding to destroy new ones, to make a better set of stem cell lines.

COOPER: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

More now on the political repercussions and complications and there are many. Representative Mike Castle is a Republican and Delaware's at large congressman. He's a co-sponsor of the stem cell Research Enhancement Act which passed today. We spoke with Congressman Castle earlier this evening.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Does your bill create new incentives for killing emerging human life?

REP. MIKE CASTLE (R), DELAWARE: No, actually it doesn't do that at all. It is pretty simple. It is a process called in vitro fertilization. Embryos are created for the purpose of implanting them in the womb of a woman. Sometimes the couples decide they don't want to move ahead or for whatever reason they abandon the situation. You then have leftover embryos, these are five or six-day-old embryos which have stem cells in them. And they and buy and large almost 100 percent discarded as hospital waste. And we're saying instead of discarding them, why don't we use them for research on embryonic stem cells which have the potential to save a lot of people.

COOPER: The White House clearly disagrees with you. The president said he's going to veto this. He appeared today sort of surrounded by children who he said were adopted as embryos, if you will, and said that their lives had been saved through this. That their lives were created because someone had adopted these embryos. Essentially, what the White House is saying that you're killing potential children, that these embryos could be adopted by couples who are looking for kids.

CASTLE: Well, the definition of using the word killing is a little inflammatory. We are dealing with 5-day-old embryos which have been frozen for some period of time, which are going to be thrown out as hospital waste. If they have a problem with that, they better talk to the in vitro fertilization clinics.

COOPER: The White House today was saying, that really the research isn't there on embryonic stem cells, that why not use adult stem cells or cord blood?

CASTLE: Well, let me make it very clear about adult stem cells or core blood. There's not a researcher of any renown out there what so ever, who believes that they can do anything more than help with blood related diseases. As a matter of fact 14 of the 15 diseases that people most die from in the United States of America can never be addressed by adult stem cells.

COOPER: How tough has this debate been? I mean, you're a Republican. This has been supported by many Republicans. It's been a bruising fight. It obviously is not over. The president said he's going to veto it. From a Republican standpoint as a Republican member of Congress, what has it been like and where do you go from here?

CASTLE: It's not been easy or a lot of fun. It's been difficult. We did get 50 votes -- Republican votes on the floor of the House of Representatives today on the vote for the bill. And strong support from a number of those individuals. And there's a heck of a lot of other Republicans out there starting with Nancy Reagan, and going through a lot of others who have been supportive. So there's been encouraging signs along those lines.

But now it goes over to the Senate where they clearly have a majority. In fact, they may have a sufficient majority to override a veto which we don't in the House and never expected to have. And I think the time has come, frankly, for everyone to understand that this is coming. And if the president truly wants to veto it, that's fine. But he better look at the approval ratings in the polls I've seen which are 60 to 70 percent. And perhaps they'll sit down and negotiate a change in policy.

COOPER: Well, Representative Mike Castle, a victory for you today. And the battle continues, obviously, for you side. We appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you.

CASTLE: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: That was Congressman Mike Castle of Delaware.

There's more to come, starting with a bang.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If this is going to kill me, I'm saying, just do it. Get it over with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: But it didn't. Surviving the wrath of Mount St. Helens.

Also tonight, eluding an army, but for how much longer? Is Iraq's most wanted man also a wounded man?

Later separating the cheese from the sleazy from the obscene. OK, hold it right there. Is this another shot in the culture wars? Who's deciding what you see on television?

And it could change the way you live.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honey, here's a hi-fi turntable and AM/FM radio. And this is of course the television and the tape recorder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: No Lucy, it's called an X-Box and we've got some explaining to do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: In a moment, is the most wanted man in Iraq running now with battle injuries? All that ahead.

But first, about 18 past the hour, time for some headlines with Erica Hill at Headline News.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Hey, Anderson.

President Bush won big in his bid to get 10 controversial judicial appointments through Capitol Hill. The Senate on Tuesday voted 81 to 18 to bring the nomination of Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Appeals Court up for a final vote. This is the first result of the deal struck last night to avoid a fight over filibusters in the Senate. Now, however, another battle over a nomination is expected soon on Wednesday morning. The Senate will take up the nomination of John Bolton to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. That nomination, controversial and the debate is expected to be heated.

"Tonight Show" host Jay Leno played it straight. Leno drew crowds when he arrived at the courthouse as a witness today in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial. On the stand, Leno said he was never actually asked for money, but he did receive several odd phone messages from Jackson's accuser. Leno said, however, he assumed that's what the family was after. It's expected the defense will rest Wednesday without calling Jackson himself as a witness.

Some more trouble for Lionel Tate. He's the youngest person in the United States sentenced to life without parole. Tate was convicted of first degree murder when he was 14 for beating a 6-year- old girl to death when he was only 12. The conviction was overturned on appeal. Tate later pleaded guilty to second degree murder and got a year of house arrest and 10 years of probation. Well, now 18, Tate was arrested on Monday accused of robbing a pizza delivery man at gunpoint. Tate has said he's innocent of the new charges.

And charter aircraft we're learning will soon be able to take off and land at Washington's Reagan National Airport for the first time since the attacks of 9/11. Still not all private planes will be allowed. Only corporate aircraft with armed air marshals on board will be permitted to fly into Reagan National. And that's the latest from Headline News at this hour. Anderson, back over to you.

COOPER: Erica, thanks. We'll see you again in about 30 minutes.

Reports again today, that the most wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been wounded. Now, the reports were found on several Web sites often used by insurgents. U.S. officials would like to believe it, but they say they simply do not know.

They do know the violence in Iraq continues. More from CNN's senior correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Iraq, no let-up in the deadly attacks. In Baghdad, a car bomb explodes near a junior high school for girls, killing six people.

Nine U.S. troops have died in two days of insurgent attacks just in and around Baghdad. All together, 14 Americans and 49 Iraqis have been killed since Sunday in a string of explosions, suicide attacks and drive-by shootings carried out by insurgents, even as Internet sites declared their leader is wounded.

Pentagon military and intelligence officials tell CNN there is no intelligence to corroborate Web site claims that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been wounded. The postings on several insurgents Web sites purportedly come from a Zarqawi associate who contends Zarqawi has suffered a heroic wound and asks for "prayers for our leader."

The U.S. military admits it just doesn't know, but a spokesman puts the latest assertion in the same category as previous unconfirmed rumors Zarqawi was ill or injured.

The last month, one tip was deemed credible enough to launch a raid on a hospital in Ramadi, after an informer claimed the terrorist had gone there seeking medical treatment. An exhaustive search revealed no sign of Zarqawi or any other terrorist was ever there.

LT. GEN. JAMES CONWAY, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, JOINT CHIEFS: I can simply say there's been no evidence to indicate that he was there, either through interrogation of the people that we spoke to afterwards, or any physical evidence of his presence.

MCINTYRE: And there has been conjecture that Zarqawi may have been injured jumping from a moving vehicle on February 20th when the U.S. military stopped his car and captured his laptop computer. But that, too, remains unconfirmed speculation.

If Zarqawi was hurt, it didn't stop him from taping an audio message to his followers a month ago.

ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI (through translator): Dear brothers, be patient. It is only a matter of a few days, and you will be the ultimate winners, either by way of martyrdom or victory.

MCINTYRE (on camera): The bottom line is the U.S. military doesn't assign much credence to Web sites run by the insurgents. One military official quipped, "If the report are true, they should just tell us where he is, and we'll make sure Zarqawi gets all the medical attention he needs."

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, coming up tonight on the program, we're going to meet a college student with great investment ideas. A whiz kid who really knew Wall Street -- but, yes, there is a catch. Isn't there always?

And a young man who survived on a day when the world blew up around him. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Patches of blue sky peeked through the clouds above Mount St. Helens Tuesday, but on a Sunday morning 25 years ago, a teenage boy on a camping trip with his girlfriend watched as the blue sky turned white. It was Mount St. Helens erupting with a blast 500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima. Peter Viles reports on two young people surviving the unimaginable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the spot where Roald Reitan was sure he would die 25 years ago. In fact, he asked for death.

ROALD REITAN, SURVIVED ERUPTION: If it's going to kill me, I'm saying, "Just do it." You know, "Get it over with."

VILES: It started as a romantic camping trip, 19-year-old Roald, his girlfriend, Venus Dergan. True, Mount St. Helens was acting up, but nobody thought this area was at risk.

(on camera): How far are we right now from the mountain itself?

REITAN: Forty-six miles as you go on the highway.

VILES: Forty-six miles. So you're way in the safe area.

REITAN: Oh, yes.

VILES: Yes.

REITAN: I mean, I figured...

VILES: At least you thought you were.

REITAN: Yes. I mean, so did the scientists and everybody else.

VILES (voice-over): But on Sunday morning, May 18th, 1980, the peaceful river told violent.

REITAN: When it was rumbling around the corner, it sounded like a monster coming through the forest.

VILES: The monster was a river made of mud, ash and trees, a killer mudslide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All units in the area, we have a report of a mud flow 300 feet deep.

VILES: In an instant, it swept away the two teenagers.

REITAN: I told Venus to jump. I said, "Jump." You know, then we jumped. And I landed on a big log like you ride a horse, just -- and she went just right in between two of them, and she was gone.

VILES (on camera): She went under?

REITAN: Yes. It's like, I mean, gone. Like, you know, she was next to me one second when we jumped, and when I hit a log, you know, I looked at her, I just saw her go right in between two of them. And I thought she was dead for sure.

VILES: Right.

REITAN: You know, and I thought I was going to be dead, too. VILES (voice-over): Somehow, Roald steadied himself. Twice, he grabbed his girlfriend, but twice the river took her back.

REITAN: Fear's ebbing from me, and now I'm getting mad. I mean, I'm really getting mad, because it's like, you know, I found her twice. It's like -- and it's taking it away from me. It's like, no way.

VILES: The third time he held on.

REITAN: She was freezing. And I grabbed her by her shoulders and her hair, and I pulled her out of it, all the way out. You know, and I was telling myself, "There's no way I'm going to let her go."

VILES: He held on for half an hour, fighting their way out of the torrent of mud.

REITAN: When we got out of it, the ordeal wasn't over. You know what I mean? Basically, the worst part of it was when we got out, because we had to walk all the way back.

VILES: They stumbled in the woods for hours, rescued at least by helicopter. And only then did the pilot reveal to Roald what had caused this epic mudslide.

REITAN: He looked at me and he goes, "You want to see what almost killed you?" And I said, "What?" And that's when I saw it. The mountain, oh, yeah, and it just like -- like a surreal steam engine, I mean, just the smoke going straight up.

VILES (voice-over): In an instant, Mount St. Helens had blown apart in a massive eruption that killed 57 people, flattened huge forests, and created deadly mud flows. Roald's girlfriend, Venus, survived, but her injuries were severe. She couldn't walk for three months.

REITAN: She doesn't really like to come down here, you know, and I don't blame her, you know. Because what, you know, her injuries were worse than mine, really, they were. Her ordeal started when she got to the hospital. Because all her abrasions and everything had to be scrubbed with a brush to get the volcanic ash out of her skin.

VILES: Roald and Venus are still friends. The river that almost killed them is peaceful again.

REITAN: Just like it was yesterday. I can close my eyes and relive it every second of what happened.

VILES: Peter Viles for CNN, Toutle, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It's hard to believe they survived.

From the terrors of nature now to human nature, and a funny thing about it. The more you pay for something, the less likely you are to question its authenticity, which is why there are probably more Picassos hanging on walls than Picasso ever painted.

It may also explain the story of a bright and energetic young college student. Here is CNN's Maria Hinojosa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Skinny, scruffy Hakan Yalincak had a way with words and numbers. With his words, he talked about his billionaire Turkish family. With his numbers, he impressed sophisticated investors.

ROBERT CHAN, YALINCAK'S ATTORNEY: Derivatives with trading bonds against stocks, and dollars against euros, and very sophisticated.

HINOJOSA: As a 21-year-old college senior, Yalincak wowed New York University by donating more than $1 million to name a lecture hall after his family, and promising another $21 million for a new building.

CHAN: He inspires a lot of confidence. He's obviously knowledgeable and smart.

HINOJOSA: Just three years after high school, he rented an office in affluent Greenwich, Connecticut, to start a hot new hedge fund.

PAUL ARDAJI, JR., YALINCAK'S LANDLORD: They had showed us financials that were valued at about $800 million that were under their management and they said that the Greenwich office was going to raise another $800 million.

HINOJOSA: The buzz lured million-dollar investors. He hired a prominent Chicago lawyer to handle the money rolling in.

ARDAJI: When you meet people like this, you, kind of, you judge them sort of superficially, and you say, wow, it is amazing that these people are able to be successful in business.

HINOJOSA: Just days before Yalincak was to graduate from NYU, federal prosecutors exposed his story as a multimillion dollar money scam.

KEVIN O'CONNOR, US ATTORNEY, CONNECTICUT: He was creating the appearance of wealth that didn't truly exist. We allege that he was passing $25 million checks in between accounts in an effort to mislead the banks into believing he actually had that money.

HINOJOSA: Yalincak never even paid rent on his hedge-fund office. His high-end furniture was for a fictitious staff. The Web sites he created for his supposed billionaire Turkish family were fakes, and so, some allege, were those family connections. His computers, never plugged in. The con didn't pay for them either.

JONATHAN GOULD, COMPUTER STORE OWNER: He said, OK, well, I'll take 100, but upon delivery you'll get payment. And I said, whoa, time out. No, no, no, that's not the way it's done. HINOJOSA: A bank foreclosed on his modest house in a nearby blue collar town. His mother's fancy mortgage firm was suddenly abandoned. Her true story? An ex-con who served time for impersonating a doctor.

O'CONNOR: This was not a case where he was -- he's alleged to have swindled 80-year-old naive, you know, retirees. This is a case where we allege that he was perpetrating a fraud on sophisticated banks.

HINOJOSA: Yalincak was indicted on a single federal bank fraud charge after allegedly passing counterfeit checks totalling $43 million. Then the civil lawsuits began, investors suing to get their millions.

CHAN: This is a boy who, coming out of school, could have gotten a job paying him almost $1 million a year managing money, simply on the strength of his ability and his personality and for him now to be in a federal lockup without bail facing serious criminal charges is a tragedy.

HINOJOSA: Yalincak has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail. The U.S. attorney says there's a lesson to be learned from this story.

O'CONNOR: Now, more than ever, I think it is easy for people to pretend to be something they're not.

HINOJOSA: Even, it seem, among sophisticated investors.

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, Greenwich, Connecticut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Remarkable story.

Still to come on -- tonight, Paris Hilton. Once again, do we really need to say anything else? Well, yes, we do, but we'll talk about that ahead.

And, how the home of the future might show up disguised as a video game box. From around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: All right. So, for those of you who still think Paris Hilton is a room with a view on the river Seine, take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (SINGING): I love Paris in the springtime...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Hey, lady! Somewhere in this bump and grind there's a hamburger commercial trying to wriggle itself out. Today the burger chain, Carl's Jr., defended the ad against the Parents' Television Council, which has called it soft core porn. And whether it is or isn't is in the eye of the beholder. Well, actually, not just the eye of the beholder, but increasingly, the government as well.

So, with the latest on that and the rest of the culture war, here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): When broadcasters gather for their annual convention in Las Vegas, companies spend millions trying to dazzle potential customers with the latest high- tech wonders.

But what's really caught the attention of the television industry is not any technical gizmo that goes into the television set, but what they see as Washington's increasing impatience, frustration and even anger at some of what's coming out of the television set.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you wonder why I sleep with men before I come home.

GREENFIELD: There's no doubt that TV has got an lot more relaxed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was hoping you'd notice.

GREENFIELD: Or free or coarse over the decades.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big dog wants some candy.

GREENFIELD: And there's also no doubt that when networks tout shows through promos, they go right for the heart of the matter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...his wife's sister. Fox, tonight, the little bookstore around the corner.

GREENFIELD: But it was Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl that set regulators and politicians to beating their own breasts about what's on the air. The FCC has proposed fining CBS stations more than half a million dollars for carrying that halftime show.

It's also levied a $1.2 million fine against Fox network affiliated stations for airing "Married by America," which featured a scene in which strippers enlivened a bachelor party. And the commission overruled its staff by finding that this live outburst by U2's Bono...

BONO, U2: That's really, really (EXPLETIVE DELETED) brilliant.

GREENFIELD: ...may have stepped over the FCC's indecency rule. And this may only be the beginning. The incoming FCC chair, Kevin Martin, wants the commission to do more. So does Democratic appointee Michael Kopps. Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Stevens is on board. This year, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would raise the fine for every violation to as much as $500,000. That bill is awaiting Senate action.

HOWARD STERN, RADIO PERSONALITY: And do you give an aggressive lap dance?

GREENFIELD: And when the FCC slapped a $500,000 fine on radio's Howard Stern last year, Clear Channel, the largest owner of stations in the country, kicked Stern off its stations and announced a zero- tolerance policy for its talent. If the FCC finds you indecent, Clear Channel said, you are off our air.

Jonathan Adelstein is one of the five FCC commissioners.

JONATHAN ADELSTEIN, FCC COMMISSIONER: You've seen over the last couple of years unprecedented efforts by the FCC to enforce our rules and the result is now that I think broadcasters are taking them more seriously. We're seeing fewer incidents that are really egregious. I'm concerned sometimes that it has almost a chilling effect where broadcasters are afraid to put material on the air that we probably wouldn't find indecent.

GREENFIELD: That may in fact have happened when ABC aired "Saving Private Ryan" last year with the rough language of combat left intact.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're killing us. If we don't have the (EXPLETIVE DELETED), it ain't fair.

GREENFIELD: Dozens of affiliates did not air the movie fearing an FCC indecency ruling, which the commission did not do. And while surveys show the public did not care about offensive of there, Tony Vinciguerra, who oversees programming for the FOX networks says those numbers are misleading.

TONY VINCIGUERRA, FOX: American parents think that they're controlling what their children are watching and feel very comfortable with it. And the vast majority of Americans don't want the government telling them what they can and can't watch.

GREENFIELD: Some questions. Do the range of blocking devices and rating guides now available to parents mean they can exercise more responsibility without government regulations? Does it still make sense to distinguish between traditional broadcast outlets and cable? Which the law now says the FCC can't regulate. And at root, is there really any reliable consistent definition of just what indecency is and is not.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Las Vegas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I can't really come up with any real legitimate reasons to do it. But let's just take another quick look at that Paris Hilton commercial. Her parents must be so proud.

Still ahead tonight, the home of the future. Is it just really around the corner this time. A break first -- see you got me all flustered. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And the Empire State Building, red, white and blue in honor of fleet week, as we approach this Memorial Day weekend.

In a moment, a game machine with a serious mission and the potential to reshape the world around it.

But first at about a quarter to the hour, let's get the rest of the headlines from Erica Hill over at Headline News. Hey, Erica.

HILL: Hi, again, Anderson.

The governor of Indiana has refused to block the execution of a convicted murderer. He wanted time to donate his liver to an ailing sister. The governor's office released a letter from two doctors stating Gregory Johnson would not be a suitable donor. Johnson was convicted of beating an 82-year-old woman to death and is scheduled to execution by lethal injection Wednesday.

Parents at a Seattle high school say military recruiters are no longer welcome on campus, charging the recruiters unfairly target poor inner city kids. The co-chairman of the Garfield High School Parents/Teacher/Student Association say it is poor kids who fight for war. It is illegal -- the war that is -- legally they cannot keep recruiters off campus.

The embattled mayor of Spokane, Washington, faces new allegations. A local newspaper reports accusations the mayor made an inappropriate sexual comment about the son of a state legislator. Mayor Dick West, a conservative Republican and longtime opponent of gay rights denied the allegations. The mayor refused to resign after earlier press reports of child molestation, but has admitted to having relations with adult men.

And finally in Los Angeles, lets light it up for you here folks, what you may call a bad hair day for murder suspect Phil Spector. The record producer also got some bad news from the judge yesterday, who ruled prosecutors can present evidence that Spector allegedly pulled guns on four women in the past. Spector is accused of shooting to death an actress in in his home in February of 2003. The hair, by the way, a bit of a change -- if we still have the old picture of his hair, I'm not sure if we do. Maybe we don't. But it may have just been a reaction to that Paris Hilton ad, Anderson.

COOPER: I find it ironic that he stand joins himself with bald guys, though. It's sort of an odd juxtapositioning.

HILL: Maybe it just makes him more hair worthy.

COOPER: Is that a word?

HILL: It is now. Go ahead using it in a sentence.

COOPER: Hair worthy, I'll try to work it in some how before the program ends.

HILL: OK.

COOPER: I've got 14 minutes left to do it.

HILL: I have faith in you. You can do it.

COOPER: Thanks very much, Erica Hill, appreciate the hair worthy report. This one for me.

A buzz word now, hairspray. No, no, no, not convergence. Another way of saying it is two, two, two mints in one. Your cell phone, as a camera, as an MP3 player, as a gadget for getting e-mail. And because it is Apple can sell you music, Hewlett Packard can sell you a printer, and everyone can send you spam. Convergence happened first with cell phones. You can only cram so much into your pocketbook. It's happening next at home.

Here's CNN's Daniel Sieberg.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCILLE BALL, ENTERTAINER: Honey, here's a HI-FI turntable and AM/FM radio. This is the television and the tape recorder. And they all play through a three-speaker stereo sound system.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Lucy made it seem so easy. Your living room, your home, transformed by technology. Nowadays it's a bit more complicated.

AARON BOBICK, GEORGIA TECH: I can often see her watching TV. She's on -- she's got a laptop which is on the Internet, so she's IMing her friends who are watching the same show, and meanwhile she's talking to somebody else on the cell phone.

SIEBERG: A new study by the Consumer Electronics Association says the average U.S. Household has 25 electronic gadgets.

Aaron Bobick, father of three, takes his work home with him.

(on camera): What have we got down here?

BOBICK: Well, here we have a summertime present to myself from last year, the big screen TV.

SIEBERG (voice-over): He's a computer scientist working on how to integrate technology into our daily lives. His house acts as a case study. Near his multitasking daughter, his son is playing a computer game. And down the hall is where dad works when he's not at the office and dabbles in digital photography. He's not satisfied, though. BOBICK: Really, you want to be able to do whatever it is you want to do where you want to do it.

SIEBERG: What if, like Lucy suggested, all these machines, computers, video games, music, TV work together and you had access to all of them from anywhere, all spokes from a single hub? And what if that hub was disguised as a video game machine? That's what's in the cards with the new X-Box or Sony's new Playstation, designed from the ground up, not only to play video games like halo 2, in Microsoft's case, but to integrate music, data, voice and video?

The key, says Bobick, is to make this integration easy and unintrusive. For example...

BOBICK: In your car right now, there are probably hundreds of little chips doing things. But as far as your concerned, you still get in the car and step on the gas and steer. These technologies have to evolve, but they have to do it in such a way that they're not in your face. Instead, you just want to be worried about what you're trying to do.

SIEBERG: Microsoft already dominates the desktop. And now the promise is that by upgrading your home with a multimedia device like an X-Box it's gaining a place in your living room. Sony is there also and others will follow.

BOBICK: Games is one version of digital media, videos, pictures, music, it's all just digital media. And so by having a digital media box that lets you do all this stuff, you can decide what to do in that one location.

SIEBERG: Once they're in, additional benefits for you and profits for Microsoft might come from services like e-mail, video conferencing, downloaded music or on demand TV.

BOBICK: I'm still going to want to have an office. And I'm still going to want to have a kitchen. And I'm still going to want to have a living room. And I'm still going to want to have a theater. And so I'll have -- I'll have these devices in these places doing these different things for me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And practically everything in this house is available today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't blame you for that.

SIEBERG: But hang on, the first of the new game machines won't come out until the end of the year.

Daniel Sieberg, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Oh, look, it's an X-Box 360, yeah. Original name there, Bill Gates.

Still to come, a fond look at an old and sadly dying sport. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Over the years, poets have spilled a lot of ink about baseball, but not about bowling, which we think is a shame. There's a rhythm to bowling, a purity of line, and crucial to poetry, a kind of sadness as well. Because bowling, at least the kind of bowling you are about to see, is dying. It's called candlepin bowling, played mostly in New England and parts of Canada. But in the Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury, not for much longer. Here is a look, courtesy of CNN photojournalist Bob Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Candlepin bowling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the only game in town.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Around here, this is real bowling.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've been here for over 35 years. It's family owned. I'm the third generation. Sure, thanks.

I've grown up here. Everybody comes here. Everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Candlepin bowling is unique to this section of the country. It's not even bowled throughout Massachusetts. I've been bowling on these alleys for about, oh, eight or nine years. The alleys are closing. They're going to put a post office here. And the problem is there aren't any places to go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The post office needed a new site. And they're really interested in this one. I can't imagine that this place would be gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These machines are about 50 years old. Pins come up on this side, balls come up on this side. I've been working here behind these machines, first day I've started. They're my machines. The owner just doesn't know it yet. Twelve, 13 years of my life spent in this building. It's tough. It's like watching your first house that you lived in get sold to a different family, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If this lane closes, that's the end of the league, because, frankly, there's no place for us to go as a league. We'll all miss it. I'll miss it a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are worried that candlepin bowling is going to eventually be extinct. My best case scenario would be, you know, we'll have a nice new place and I can continue doing what I love to do. Or the sad thing, we'll just have to say good-bye.

We'll always have our memories that we have had. And it's been a really good 35 years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: That piece by CNN's Bob Crowley.

We're going to wrap things up in just a moment. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Let's see what's coming up tomorrow morning on "AMERICAN MORNING" with Bill Hemmer -- Bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow, part three in our "get ready for summer" series, surviving family vacations, and we're going on a wild ride, too. Theme parks, always a popular destination. We'll check out the hot parks this summer with the best and the scariest attractions. The inside scoop for thrill seekers, and something for the faint of heart as well. We'll have that for you tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time here on "AMERICAN MORNING."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And that's it for me and NEWSNIGHT tonight. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back tomorrow night as well on NEWSNIGHT, also on "360," at 7:00 o'clock Eastern time. Hope you join me then. Have a great evening.

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