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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Terri Shiavo Autopsy Results; Earthquake Hits Calfifornia;

Aired June 15, 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.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: We begin tonight with Terri Schiavo who died in the last day of March, two-and-a-half months ago, now. And whose life was the subject of a sad and often nasty fight for years before that. During all of the years the case wound its way through the courts, we heard two dramatically different versions to the truth from the people who loved her most.
Today, a third truth emerged. This one untainted by passion and despair. An autopsy report detailing the circumstances of Ms. Schiavo's death. It's findings answer many, though not all of the questions about the final years and the days of her life. And so we begin tonight with CNN Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Doctors say the autopsy didn't show why a heart healthy Terri Schiavo suddenly collapsed 15 years ago.

DR. JOHN THOGMARTIN, MEDICAL EXAMINER: Her brain suffered damage from lack of blood flow and oxygen. The cause of which cannot be determined with reasonable medical certainty.

CANDIOTTI: The chief medical examiner says Schiavo's brain injuries were beyond repair.

THOGMARTIN: The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain. This was due to diffused hypoxic eskemic damage. There was massive neuronal loss or death. This damage was irreversalable. And no amount of therapy or treatment would have generated the massive loss of neurons.

CANDIOTTI: After years of accusations that Terri Schiavo's husband may have physically attacked her, an autopsy also laid that to rest.

THOGMARTIN: No evidence of strangulation was found. No evidence of trauma, whatsoever, was noted by the physicians during her initial hospitalization.

CANDIOTTI: Pathologists say the young woman may have been dieting, but nothing in the autopsy turned up hard evidence of eating disorders or drugs that could have caused her heart to stop at age 26. Though it's been claimed that home videos show Terri Schiavo making eye contact with her family, doctors call it impossible.

THOGMARTIN: Her vision centers of her brain were dead. Therefore, Mrs. Schiavo had what's called corticol blindness. She was blind, could not see.

CANDIOTTI: Pathologists don't rule out some rudimentary interaction with her family. But say it's unlikely given the extent of Schiavo's brain damage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're certainly not saying that's impossible. There's nothing in her autopsy report, in her autopsy, that is inconsistent with persistent vegetative state.

CANDIOTTI: Among those anxious to hear Terri Schiavo's autopsy results.

SGT. PHIL BREWER, POLICE: This was just one more call at the time.

CANDIOTTI: Former patrolman who rushed to her apartment 15 years ago for a medical emergency. Sergeant Phil Brewer questioned Michael Schiavo.

BREWER: He said that he either awakened to the sound of a thud or had just awakened and then heard a thud, thought his wife may have fallen.

CANDIOTTI: Since Terri Schiavo couldn't talk, the officer examined her body at the hospital and found no signs of violence.

(on camera): Do you think something criminal went on that night?

BREWER: I don't think anything criminal went on that night.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): The officer says he found Michael Schiavo credible.

BREWER: I have nothing to indicate that he wasn't straight with me.

CANDIOTTI: What amazed pathologists is that Terri Schiavo survived at all that day 15 years ago.

THOGMARTIN: She went for really over an hour without really a blood pressure. And it's just a miracle that she was able to come back at all.

CANDIOTTI: Michael Schiavo had doctors pull his wife's feeding tube after a court agreed he was following her wishes. In the absence of food and water, the autopsy found Terri Schiavo died of dehydration, not starvation.

(on camera): Terri Schiavo was cremated in April. Her remains, according to a family member, are not buried yet. But for now, why her heart stopped beating so many years ago is a mystery.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Largo, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: There was little if anything that two sides in the Schiavo case agreed on during the last years of her life. The years they battled in court. So the idea that an autopsy report issued today would later rest the dispute once and for all seemed unlikely at best and it hasn't, not nearly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: We're not dead yet.

BROWN (voice-over): Almost from the beginning, nothing about this sad story lent itself to moderation.

ROBERT SCHINDLER, TERRI SCHIAVO'S FATHER: We are begging and pleading with the legislators and Governor Bush to save Terri from being murdered in cold blood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All Terri needs is a wheelchair and a tube.

BROWN: Though Michael Schiavo stayed mostly silent, Terri Schiavo's parents' side grew, and seemed to grow harsher daily.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to no longer be quiet. It's time to take the political gloves off. This is an innocent woman who is about to be starved to death in a way that we would not treat a dog.

BROWN: Her parents asserting what most doctors said was impossible.

R. SCHINDLER: I just was in to see Terri. She's alive. And she's fighting like hell to live and she's begging for help. She's still communicating. She's still responding.

MARY SCHINDLER, TERRI SCHIAVO'S MOTHER: Every time she hears my voice I know she knows who I am, because when I say it's mommy, she starts laughing and she starts trying to make vocal sounds.

BROWN: Today's autopsy report confirmed what Michael Schiavo had been saying all along.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO, TERRI SCHIAVO'S HUSBAND: She recognizes nobody. She has no brain left, basically.

GEORGE FELOS, MICHAEL SCHIAVO'S ATTORNEY: The medical examiner's report over and over, confirms what we've been saying, Terri was in a persistent vegetative state. There was no hope of recovery.

BROWN: But the science seemed to change few opinions. The Schindler family attorney kept up his attack on Michael Schiavo.

DAVID GIBBS, SCHINDLER FAMILY ATTORNEY: The 911 or the emergency call was placed at 5:40. And so clearly you can see if there is a woman, your wife, is down in the hallway, face down, collapsed at 4:30. I think this 70-minute time period, when all of this brain injury, when the blood flow is stopped is very significant. RANDALL TERRY, SOCIETY FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE: All you have to do is say, I want to live. And Terri responded, I waa, and then commotion broke out and their dialogue was interrupted.

BROWN: Right-to-life activist Randall Terry said the autopsy report changed nothing for him.

TERRY: How did she get in this state. And the family believes Michael had something to do with it. We may never know for sure, but I don't believe Michael is a good man that was doing a good deed to his disabled wife. I believe he is a dark man who had an agenda to see this wife dead.

BROWN: And one of the core Christian groups engaged in the Schiavo issue said their views remain the same as well.

CARRIE GORDAN EARLL, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY: There is no autopsy result that can change the underlying profound moral issues raised by this case. And that is, how are we going to care for people who are cognitively disabled?

BROWN: So the autopsy on Terri Schiavo has been completed. The medical questions answered, as much as they can be answered. But it seems that for the Schindler family and its supporters, nothing changed at all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Neither the Schindlers nor Michael Schiavo stepped in front of the cameras today. George Felos say he has all along, and as you heard a moment ago, spoke for Mr. Schiavo. And he sat down with us late this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you think that you and your client, most importantly your client, are owed an apology?

FELOS: Well, I certainly -- if anyone would like to apologize to my client, I hope they would. But there was really an unprecedented smear campaign waged against Mr. Schiavo. And what was so troubling about this, especially in the media, on the Internet and some aspects of cable, is that we saw really demagoguery instead of journalism. Not people in pursuit of the truth, but people in search of a scandal. And if there are any apologizes from those persons, I'd welcome them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, that's a question we will put to anyone on either side of the debate. William Green is the President of Rightmarch.com, which raised money for the Schindler family, lobbied on its behalf, and Mr. Green joins us tonight from Atlanta.

I don't know if it's possible to step back from this, but some horrible things were said actually about Michael Schiavo during all of this. Do you feel any sense that perhaps an apology is appropriate? WILLIAM GREENE, PRESIDENT RIGHTMARCH.COM: No. Really, I think the only apologizing that needs to go on -- and I think that this autopsy report confirms this -- the only apologizing that needs to go on is the part of those that condemned an innocent, severely disabled woman to death. She had done nothing wrong. All that was wrong with her was that she was severely disabled.

So if there's -- even an apology is not going to do any good now, because Terri Schindler-Schiavo is dead. She was killed by dehydration to death. She was not killed by the fact that she had an atrophied brain. She was killed by being dehydrated to death. And that's no something that should happen to anyone, especially the disabled.

GREENE: ...brain. She was killed by being dehydrated to death, and that's not something that should happen to anyone, especially to the disabled.

BROWN: Well, it -- look, I mean, there are profound, and I think, for me -- you may see this more simply -- but for me, complicated issues dealing with end of life, and how one ends life, and when one ends life, these are not simple questions. But it's a bit of a stretch to describe her simply as a disabled person. This is a woman who was essentially -- had no brain activity. That's different from a disabled person, isn't it?

GREENE: You see, that's not really true.

BROWN: Well, that's what autopsy concludes, that everything in the autopsy...

GREENE: But the thing is...

BROWN: Excuse me. Everything in the autopsy said -- said the coroner and neurologist was consistent with a persistent vegetative state.

GREENE: But a persistent vegetative state is relatively a new diagnosis that covers a wide gamut of activity. Even in a person that's in a PBS condition, which it was never actually proven that she was in. Someone who is -- this is not someone who is a vegetable, who couldn't move, who couldn't communicate at all. In fact, the people who were closest to her, they would constantly be in communication with her.

So, this is a woman that, even towards the end, when she was told if you just say, I want to live, you will be -- we can stop this now, and she tried so desperately to say such a thing.

BROWN: Well, Mr. Greene, we -- honestly, I mean, the problem with this, I think, and for people who are trying to look at this objectively, is we heard that. We heard that from Mr. Terry, that he was in the room. But we don't really see that. We never see that.

GREENE: Because Michael Schiavo never allowed...

BROWN: Well...

GREENE: ...for cameras and recording to go on in that room. He made sure that people couldn't see the condition she really was in.

BROWN: Doctors looked at her. Courts looked at the case. This is not -- again, I know, it's difficult to step back from this, but at some point, don't we have to step back and say, while this was a terribly difficult case and maybe you or I or somebody else would choose a different outcome, that he acted honorably in fulfilling the wishes of his wife?

GREENE: This is not something that we should ever step back from. We should never ignore what happened to Terri Schiavo and never forget what happened. When you have someone who is simply -- and she simply was severely disabled -- when you have a person like this and then you can have courts, judges, come in and -- a judge who never even bothered to go down and take a look at her actual condition, but just relied on the testimony of people like the lawyer, George Felos who called himself the death doctor -- the death lawyer -- if they're going to just rely on that and not observe themselves what's actually going, then you're going to have this again and again and again. We're far down a slippery slope. We should not step back from this. We should not ignore it and we should not forget what happened to Terri Schiavo.

BROWN: Mr. Greene, we appreciate your time tonight and the argument you made. Thank you very much.

In many ways, the Schiavo case was two national discussions going on at the same time. There was the debate over science and morality wrapped in a separate conversation about where the moderation went and why moderation got pushed aside.

Larry Sabato is a professor of politics at the University of Virginia. He is the author of "The Divided States of America." Kenneth Goodman, the director of bioethics at the University of Miami, and we spoke to both earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Professor Goodman, let me start with you. I have not heard a single person who was on, for lack of a better term, the side of the Schindler family in all of this, who has looked now, at the science, at pathology, at the autopsy that came out today, and changed their mind, and apologized at all, said anything differently than what they said when she died. What does that tell you?

KENNETH GOODMAN, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: It tells me that they though they were fighting the good fight, I suppose. I mean, it was never about science or evidence. All of the evidence was there before she died, that this poor woman was in a persistent vegetative state. But they didn't want to believe that.

Look what happened. The neurologists agreed unanimously, so the neurologists were wrong, and the husband said it's what she would've not wanted so the husband was a jerk, and the judges all agreed that the case should move forward a certain way, and so it was a case of judicial activism.

This was never really about the evidence in the case and the (INAUDIBLE) scientific facts in the matter. It was about other considerations.

BROWN: Larry, I haven't heard any the politicians who said, including the Senate majority leader by the way, who did a kind of sort of odd, sort of diagnosis, it seemed to me by looking at the tape, say, well, now that I see this, I look at it differently. What does that tell you?

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: It tells me that the politicians have gone on to four or five more extraneous debates since then. They have long since left Terri Schiavo. But fundamentally, number one, politicians never apologize for anything. It's just not done. Your opponents can use it at the next election.

But more importantly, this is part of a pattern, Aaron. Since the '60s and '70s, the hot-button social and cultural issues have taken over our politics, and they are literally defining red states, Republican states versus blue states, Democratic states. People don't change their minds about these fundamental issues.

BROWN: Were there not people in the middle who looked at this and said, you know, it's one thing to remove a life support system. It's another thing to stop feeding and giving fluids to someone, and those people, I'm not sure, are -- can properly be called right-to- lifers or not -right -- pro-choicers. They were just trying to see what made sense to them and perhaps for them.

Professor Goodman, do you think that they get any solace out of this autopsy?

GOODMAN: I think what most ordinary people thought was they don't want decisions being made the way they were made in this case. I think they felt jerked around by extremists. I think that felt that in the end of the day, the rules that we'd settled on -- this had been a settled area in the longest time in medicine, in faith, in ethics, mainly, that we don't stick tubes in people without their permission, and absent their ability to give permission, absent -- the permission of their loved ones. And I think that most ordinary people, by the way, didn't buy the line that she was starved to death or killed or having anything bad done to her.

What they said was after 15 years of permanent unconsciousness, most reasonable person don't value that and I think they found that they were besieged by partisans who were making points about different issues, ranging from abortion to stem cells to creationism.

BROWN: Larry, let me give you the last word here. Tell me if you think, when all said and done, and all the endless amount of time that was spent on this, if the debate itself on this most sensitive of issues, end of life decisions, was enhanced by all of this, or if it just became political theater, media circus and the rest?

SABATO: This was a lesson taught, not a lesson learned. I can guarantee you that the next time there is a controversial end-of-life issue like this, the politicians will go right back to their basic party constituency groups and will go with them because they're the people who vote in the primary elections.

BROWN: Gentlemen, it's good to see you both. Thanks for your time tonight.

SABATO: Thank you, Aaron.

GOODMAN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a few moments, how one city on the California coastline responded to a tsunami warning, but first, at about a quarter past the hour, Erica Hill is in Atlanta tonight and she has a look at some other stories that have made news on this day. Ms. Hill.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Mr. Brown, nice to see you this evening.

We start off with word of a Marine corps jet carrying four bombs. It crashed today in Arizona in a residential area. The Harrier (ph) jet was headed for landing at the Marine corps air station in Yuma. The pilot did eject safely. There are no reports of injuries on the ground. However, homes near the crash site were evacuated because of the bombs on board.

An Australian man is freed tonight after spending six weeks as a hostage in Iraq: 63-year-old Douglas Wood was found by Iraqi soldiers while they were searching for weapons in Baghdad. American military officials released videotape you're seeing here of Wood in a hospital bed. He appears to be in good shape. Wood was abducted April 30th.

In Philadelphia, Mississippi, opening statements in the trial of Edgar Ray Killen. He is charged with the murders of three civil rights workers back in 1964. The killings of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney shocked the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement. Killen is the only person ever charged with their murders.

Former Baylor University basketball player Carlton Dotson was sentenced today to 35 years behind bars for murdering his friend and teammate Patrick Dennehy two years ago. Dotson reportedly told authorities he and Dennehy bought guns because they received death threats and wanted that people wanted Dotson dead because he's the son of god. Patrick Dennehy was found shot to death.

And, Ashley Smith is writing a book. She, of course, is the Georgia woman who turned in Brian Nichols, the man charged with the deadly shooting at an Atlanta courthouse in March. Authorities say, after murdering four people, Nichols held Smith captive in her apartment for seven hours before releasing her. The book will be titled "Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero."

And Aaron, that is the latest from Headline News. Back over to you.

BROWN: Erica, thank you. We'll see you in a half hour or so.

Beyond the Schiavo case, there are other compelling end-of-life stories that are playing out tonight. In one of them is a beginning of life story as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON TORRES: I was talking to her. Trying to get her to eat some more. All of a sudden she just stopped.

BROWN: But there's no stopping the cancer that is killing her. So now it's a race to keep her alive long enough to give her unborn baby a chance.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is that? Come here. Let's get in the car.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're having into a tsunami.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, turn right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're having a tsunami alarm.

BROWN: The tsunami that never came, but what if it had? How prepared was the California coast and.

And later, Al Capone, he's not but he does have a problem. Yes, why preschools are giving preschoolers the boot. What happens to the kids and the parents.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we're going to go to circle before we go back outside, all right?

BROWN: And we're taking a time out, but we'll be back because this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Lincoln Center, just up from us, a concert or something going on there tonight. No doubt, finally cooled down in the city today. In the 70s. Very pleasant.

Anyone whose ever decide when to let life end knows the decision involves seemingly endless shades of gray. Likewise, the decision to keep someone alive with extraordinary measures. When not one but two lives are at stake, the decision is that much more complicated. But perhaps easier in some ways, as a family in Virginia is learning tonight. Here is CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Susan and Jason Torres weren't too worried, but in May when she was three months pregnant with they're second child, she started getting headaches.

JASON TORRES, HUSBAND: We had gone around and gone to a couple of doctors and tried to figure stuff out. And she was dehydrated and things like that. And so, they said, you know, go home, feed her, drunk juice.

COHEN: So Jason took care of his wife, told her to lay down and rest. When he brought her something to eat...

TORRES: She was lying in bed. And I was talking to her, trying to get her to eat some more. Then, all of a sudden, she just stopped.

COHEN: Susan had had a stroke. Cancer had attacked her brain. It was too late to save her life. But they can, and they are, keeping her body functioning on a ventilator. But there's a risk, the melanoma that started in her skin and attacked her brain could also attack her baby.

DR. DAVID LAWSON, ONCOLOGIST, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Once it's in the blood stream, it can go almost anywhere -- melanoma.

COHEN: For Jason there was only one course of action.

TORRES: If you have a chance to save your child's life, you're going to do it. And I know for a fact that Susan would do whatever she needed to do just to give her child the chance.

COHEN: And now Jason hopes that their second child, due October 31 will stay in his wife's belly until at least July 11, to 25 weeks gestation.

DR. STEPHEN WEISS, OB/GYB, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Our good modern nursery care can save babies reliably starting at about 25 weeks.

COHEN: Jason's hopes are for his baby, since he knows, he's lost his wife.

TORRES: It sounds kind of hackneyed, but one day at a time.

COHEN: Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A bit now on raising children and the expectations that come with it. Back a half century ago -- oh my goodness -- when I was growing up, preschool was called nursery school, and honestly where I grew up at least, almost no one went.

Times change, preschool is a big deal now. Can't start the kids too young or perhaps you actually can. Maybe some kids simply aren't ready for the rules and regulations that schools require. Here's CNN's Alina Cho.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 10:30 in the morning, and already Timmy Anderson is acting up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No!

CHO: A fight over a spoon is quickly resolved, but a few minutes later, there's another problem.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In about five minutes, I'm going to call clean up time and we're going to go to circle before we go outside.

CHO: Timmy doesn't want to go to circle time. He and his buddy Josh are busy making something they call goop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's definitely goop. It's goopy.

CHO: The other kids are already in the circle. Timmy and Josh are still on their own and break into another fight, this time over pink paint.

This is a good day for Timmy. He's what they call a two-time offender, expelled from two preschoolers on to his third. The 5-year- old has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, he's hyperactive and his record shows he has a wicked throwing arm. Venus French is his mom.

VENUS FRENCH, MOTHER: A little girl had gotten her, hit her in the back of the head with a wooden toy. So he was suspended. And they've just kind of avoided him come back. And we've found another day care. He had issues there, too.

CHO: Timmy isn't alone.

DR. WALTER GILLIAM, YALE UNIVERSITY: Expulsion is the most extreme reaction.

CHO: Dr. Walter Gilliam spearheaded the Yale study which finds preschoolers are three times as likely to be expelled as students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

GILLIAM: When you're talking about K through 12 grades, you're talking about children who are largely required to be in school. And so expelling a child is a very legalized process. Because when you expel a child, it creates legal problem for the parents. There is no legal responsibility for preschoolers.

CHO: The study shows that most preschools do not have the support staff to handle kids with behavioral problems, that's especially true in private and faith-based schools, which according to the study, are quickest to expel.

Boys are more likely to be kicked out than girls, African- Americans more likely than children of other races.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Put this up in the house. You're going to lose it.

CHO: French says she can't even count how many months she spent working on Timmy's troubles and trying to place him in new schools.

FRENCH: I was so frustrated. I called every day care in the yellow pages. And the more nos you got, it was like, what am I going to do?

CHO: Three months ago, a relative suggested Kangaroo's Corner. A preschool that gives kids like Timmy a second chance.

CATHRINE RISIGO-WICKLINE, KANGAROO'S CORNER: They come here thinking that they're bad kids and they're not bad kids.

CHO: Kathy Rizigo-Wickline is the director.

RISIGO-WICKLINE: What we do here is we prepare them for school, preschool. So we teach them the foundation skills. We give them opportunities to develop all of their skills they need to be able to be ready to learn once they get to school.

RISIGO-WICKLINE: ... All of their skills they need to be able to be ready to learn once they get to school.

CHO: Which, by definition, is what preschool is supposed to be about. Isn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to learn how to love school before you're going learn much at it.

CHO: Which brings us back to circle time. Timmy's new teachers he's more well-behaved these days, but he still needs some encouraging.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's great, Timmy.

CHO: After washing his hands and playing with a puzzle, Timmy is finally ready to join his friends. No tantrum today: Timmy is making progress.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I believe a lot of love and support is going to pull everything through for him.

CHO: Alina Cho, CNN, Litchfield, Connecticut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on the program tonight: The quake was real, but the tsunami never happened. What if it had?

A report from the coast of California.

As we take a break around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Four major earthquakes, already this week, including the one yesterday off of the coast of northern California, and a very large quake, 7.8, in northern Chile on Monday.

The string of quakes has made a lot of people remember the horrible tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December. The California quake set off tsunami warnings and sent some people heading for hills as fast as they could go.

Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sierra. What is that? Come here, let's get in the car.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When they heard the siren and watched people grabbing their children and running, the Cuellar family knew they'd better leave, too.

LORI CUELLAR, TOURIST: The fear. They had -- they were like -- the whites of their eyes and they were in a panic and they wanted us to get out of their way.

ROWLANDS: The Cuellars, who were on vacation, were told to drive away from the ocean because a tsunami was coming.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Turn right. We're having a tsunami alarm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, follow the fire truck. Oh, my gosh.

ROWLANDS: Controlled panic erupted Tuesday night in Crescent City, California. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake offshore triggered the tsunami warning system. As sirens blared, surveillance video from a shoreline hotel shows police pulling up to get people out.

TOM RODDAN, TOURIST: A cop ran and said, "All right, everybody out."

I said, "What's going to happen?"

He said, "We've got a tsunami warning."

I said, "Is one going to hit?," and he said, "Five minutes."

So, we beat feet real fast.

ROWLANDS: The video also shows the hotel owner knocking on each of the 53 rooms, while yelling for people to leave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said, "No, you got to go. You -- don't go back and get your belongings. You must go."

ROWLANDS: The owner says he had the building cleared within 15 minutes.

Lori Cuellar says she was thinking about Southeast Asia as her family drove to higher ground.

CUELLAR: That came right to my mind -- about that catastrophe and I didn't want to be anywhere near it, especially with our kids.

ROWLANDS: While it turned out to be a false alarm, for local law enforcement it was a successful dress rehearsal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We estimate we displaced about 4,000 people within 20 minutes.

ROWLANDS (on camera): Tsunamis are taken very seriously here and for good reason. Crescent City has experienced the devastating power of a deadly wall of water firsthand.

(voice-over): In 1964, 11 people died when an estimated 20-foot wave took out five city blocks. Bob Miller, still remembers it.

BOB MILLER, CRESCENT CITY RESIDENT: It was a lot of destruction, let me tell you that.

ROWLANDS: The '64 tsunami is very much a part of this city, from the bowling alley to the shopping center. People take pride that the city withstood one of Mother Nature's deadliest forces. They also know, it could happen again.

MILLER: We have to be faced -- and accept that as a fact. The plates of this Earth are moving all the time.

ROWLANDS: Ted Rowlands, CNN, Crescent City, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT: Giving new meaning to dress for success -- a kid and his neck ties. He is very much on the rise.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When men speak of the ties that bind, they're often talking about the one around their neck and for boys, the dress codes that make them wear one. But on the rise tonight, a young man who turned a bandana into a tie into a business. He graduates from high school tomorrow on his way to Harvard, of course. And on Sunday, he'll be giving his father a tie and a whole lot more to be proud of for Father's Day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Baruch Shento (ph). And I'm 17- years-old. Just about two years ago, I began to design and to produce my own line of neckware. I began with neck ties in particular when I was 15-years-old, because as part of our school dress code, we need to wear neck ties. I got bored wearing the same old ties every day. And I thought, let me try to, you know, reinterpret the tie. Let me inject my ties with some bold flavor.

This is the first tie that I ever made. And this is really how it all started. It's a little bit crude. It was just a thin bandana tie. And people loved it. So I decided to have them manufactured.

All my ties are hand made right here in New York City. They're done in a factory here.

These are some examples from my spring and fall collections. I realized that many people really saw the neck tie as a burden. Men really just saw it as something they removed when they left the office. I decided that neck ties could be the way in which men could really express their sense of fashion. And I decided that I would reinvent the neck tie, reinterpret it through unusual fabrics like kimono fabrics. My vintage couture fabrics, and my double tie.

That's a layered tie.

My ties are primarily available at Takeshimia (ph), it's a Japanese department store in New York City. They're also available online.

I'm working on expanding my line and expanding the distribution of my line. My ties retail for between $95 and $110. That really is the price of a luxury neck tie.

The business is a profitable business which is great. You know, again I didn't do it for the money, but it's always good if it's profitable. And the way I look at fact it's been profitable is that, that just means people are interested in the designs.

What's really the most satisfied over the past two years, has been the fact that I have been able to witness others enjoying my creativity. And to witness their appreciation of my neck ties, has really been an absolute reward in itself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Some day I want to be as mature as he is.

Ahead on the program, loss and living with loss in the wake of Oklahoma City. We'll take a break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Everybody loves the kid and the ties.

Oklahoma City was 10 years ago, 168 people died, 19 of them were children. Two of those kids were brothers, the sons of Edye Lucas. Her story is the focus of our anniversary series tonight, "Then & Now."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her personal pain symbolized the nation's in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Edye Smith was a 23-year-old divorced mother whose three-year son Chase and two-year-old son Holton (ph) died at the daycare center inside the federal building.

EDYE SMITH, MOTHER OF OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING VICTIM: What do you do when people ask you, you have children, what do you say? Well, I did have children? My children are dead. What do you say? You don't know what to say.

TUCHMAN: After the bottoming Edye remarried the boy's father Tony Smith only to divorce him a second time. She went on to marry again, have another son Glenn who is now seven-years-old. But Edye still thinks about the son she lost.

SMITH: I never got to see him ride a bike or go to kindergarten. I don't know what they would look like or how tall they would be.

TUCHMAN: Edye maintains there was a government coverup in the Oklahoma City bombing. Her mother Kathy even wrote a book about the allegations. She is now Edye Lucas, owns her own hair salon, is expecting another baby in December.

SMITH: This is probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. And I just -- I don't feel the need to be angry. Because anger will consume you. I'm not mad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: All year long as we mark 25 years of reporting the news, we're looking back at people and the stories that helped define the extraordinary era in which we live.

Quarter till the hour, thereabouts, we go to Erica Hill in Atlanta. Erica, did you see the kids and the ties?

HILL: I did. And I'm with you on hoping I can one day be as mature as him, because he's got...

BROWN: You have a chance. I'm pretty much hopeless.

HILL: Well, you know, at least you recognize that though, and acceptance is the first step, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

HILL: There you go.

Starting off our headlines tonight, a rare act of defiance in Washington today. The Republican-controlled House voted to put limits on the Patriot Act, which President Bush signed into law after 9/11. Those limits would block the government's right to search library circulation records, and bookstore sales, to track down suspected terrorists. The measure must still pass the Senate. President Bush has threatened though to veto it.

Spanish police have arrested 16 suspected Islamic terrorists including 11 linked to the most wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. The interior ministry announced the arrest today. The other five suspects were linked to the deadly Madrid train bombings last year which killed almost 200 people.

In Aruba, the search continues for missing teen, Natalee Holloway. Today, police searched the home of a high-ranking judge. His son is one of three suspects being detained. Investigators carried suitcases and bags of evidence out of the house. Police towed a way a sport utility vehicle and a red Jeep.

And King Tut making a comeback after more than 3,000 years. It's about time. The treasures buried with the boy king are going on tour again after more than 8 million people flocked to see them 25 years ago. The exhibit will open tomorrow in Los Angeles. Some might say in a way, those treasures may have made King Tut a immortal after all.

And finally, it is Pepsi time against for the Los Angeles Public Schools, but not of the soda variety. Pepsi will provide water, juice and sports drinks to the schools. It's all part of a $26 million deal. But we should point out here, the sale of soft drinks and junk food to students was banned three years ago in L.A. schools. School officials say the new deal will provide healthy beverages for kids. The money will help pay for school athletics.

And there you have it, Aaron, back over to you.

BROWN: Erica, thank you. We'll talk tomorrow.

GM goes hip, it's one of the morning paper headlines and morning papers are coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Some very good ones tonight. So if you are planning to set off early, don't.

The "Christian Science Monitor." We haven't done the Monitor in awhile, at least I don't think we have. "Debate Deepens Over Guantanamo. Yesterday's hearing in Congress highlights the rift between the Bush administration and critics over the role of detention." This story with much gray.

Everybody wants to make this black and white, but I think there's much gray in this, to me.

"The Detroit News," "Michigan Sees More Jobs Slip Away." Not good news there. Gap with nationwide say the state jobless rate nudges up to 7.1 percent, 15,000 jobs lost.

But down here if you will, Edward, finally some good news, GM may have a hit on its hands. I don't know if you can see this. I, of course, can't because I took my glasses off but it's the 2006 Pontiac Solstice. Kind of a cool little two seater. And just -- you know, GM has got lots of troubles. And why don't you just go out and buy one and help them out? Buy two. They're small.

"Dallas Morning News." "House Curbs Patriot Powers." We talked about that a little bit earlier. Terri Schiavo on the front page of many newspapers. "Schiavo Autopsy Finds No Abuse: Husband Vindicated." "Parents still say she could have recovered."

"The Examiner" in Washington -- thank you, Will, I was about to ask you how much time. "One Hell Of A Test: U.S. Open Begins Down at Pinehurst." One of great golf courses in America. Tiger and company down there. But here's -- note, "House Reinforces High Court's Pot Ruling." Kind of a play on words there, get it? "Representatives resoundingly defeat medical marijuana bill." OK!

"The Oregonian" -- kind of slightly different spin on the tsunami story we told you about. "Tsunami Alert Exposes Shore Safety Breaches. The scare serves as a live test and not all Oregon's vulnerable coastal ordinances passed."

Quickly, "The Daily News" in New York. Up here. "Oh, Babe, What A Plan." New plans for Yankee Stadium and in case you're wondering, the weather in Chicago is going? Thank you. Cowabunga.

The picture of the day after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Here's your picture of the day. This is an extremely rare dual gender crab. The red indicates that's it female and the blue indicates it's a male. It is extraordinarily confused as well. It was just caught in Chesapeake Bay. I'm not making this stuff up, it's on the front page of the "Washington Post."

We're not making this up either. Good to have you with us tonight. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. Until tomorrow, good night for all of us.

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 June 15, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: We begin tonight with Terri Schiavo who died in the last day of March, two-and-a-half months ago, now. And whose life was the subject of a sad and often nasty fight for years before that. During all of the years the case wound its way through the courts, we heard two dramatically different versions to the truth from the people who loved her most.
Today, a third truth emerged. This one untainted by passion and despair. An autopsy report detailing the circumstances of Ms. Schiavo's death. It's findings answer many, though not all of the questions about the final years and the days of her life. And so we begin tonight with CNN Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Doctors say the autopsy didn't show why a heart healthy Terri Schiavo suddenly collapsed 15 years ago.

DR. JOHN THOGMARTIN, MEDICAL EXAMINER: Her brain suffered damage from lack of blood flow and oxygen. The cause of which cannot be determined with reasonable medical certainty.

CANDIOTTI: The chief medical examiner says Schiavo's brain injuries were beyond repair.

THOGMARTIN: The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain. This was due to diffused hypoxic eskemic damage. There was massive neuronal loss or death. This damage was irreversalable. And no amount of therapy or treatment would have generated the massive loss of neurons.

CANDIOTTI: After years of accusations that Terri Schiavo's husband may have physically attacked her, an autopsy also laid that to rest.

THOGMARTIN: No evidence of strangulation was found. No evidence of trauma, whatsoever, was noted by the physicians during her initial hospitalization.

CANDIOTTI: Pathologists say the young woman may have been dieting, but nothing in the autopsy turned up hard evidence of eating disorders or drugs that could have caused her heart to stop at age 26. Though it's been claimed that home videos show Terri Schiavo making eye contact with her family, doctors call it impossible.

THOGMARTIN: Her vision centers of her brain were dead. Therefore, Mrs. Schiavo had what's called corticol blindness. She was blind, could not see.

CANDIOTTI: Pathologists don't rule out some rudimentary interaction with her family. But say it's unlikely given the extent of Schiavo's brain damage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're certainly not saying that's impossible. There's nothing in her autopsy report, in her autopsy, that is inconsistent with persistent vegetative state.

CANDIOTTI: Among those anxious to hear Terri Schiavo's autopsy results.

SGT. PHIL BREWER, POLICE: This was just one more call at the time.

CANDIOTTI: Former patrolman who rushed to her apartment 15 years ago for a medical emergency. Sergeant Phil Brewer questioned Michael Schiavo.

BREWER: He said that he either awakened to the sound of a thud or had just awakened and then heard a thud, thought his wife may have fallen.

CANDIOTTI: Since Terri Schiavo couldn't talk, the officer examined her body at the hospital and found no signs of violence.

(on camera): Do you think something criminal went on that night?

BREWER: I don't think anything criminal went on that night.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): The officer says he found Michael Schiavo credible.

BREWER: I have nothing to indicate that he wasn't straight with me.

CANDIOTTI: What amazed pathologists is that Terri Schiavo survived at all that day 15 years ago.

THOGMARTIN: She went for really over an hour without really a blood pressure. And it's just a miracle that she was able to come back at all.

CANDIOTTI: Michael Schiavo had doctors pull his wife's feeding tube after a court agreed he was following her wishes. In the absence of food and water, the autopsy found Terri Schiavo died of dehydration, not starvation.

(on camera): Terri Schiavo was cremated in April. Her remains, according to a family member, are not buried yet. But for now, why her heart stopped beating so many years ago is a mystery.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Largo, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: There was little if anything that two sides in the Schiavo case agreed on during the last years of her life. The years they battled in court. So the idea that an autopsy report issued today would later rest the dispute once and for all seemed unlikely at best and it hasn't, not nearly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: We're not dead yet.

BROWN (voice-over): Almost from the beginning, nothing about this sad story lent itself to moderation.

ROBERT SCHINDLER, TERRI SCHIAVO'S FATHER: We are begging and pleading with the legislators and Governor Bush to save Terri from being murdered in cold blood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All Terri needs is a wheelchair and a tube.

BROWN: Though Michael Schiavo stayed mostly silent, Terri Schiavo's parents' side grew, and seemed to grow harsher daily.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to no longer be quiet. It's time to take the political gloves off. This is an innocent woman who is about to be starved to death in a way that we would not treat a dog.

BROWN: Her parents asserting what most doctors said was impossible.

R. SCHINDLER: I just was in to see Terri. She's alive. And she's fighting like hell to live and she's begging for help. She's still communicating. She's still responding.

MARY SCHINDLER, TERRI SCHIAVO'S MOTHER: Every time she hears my voice I know she knows who I am, because when I say it's mommy, she starts laughing and she starts trying to make vocal sounds.

BROWN: Today's autopsy report confirmed what Michael Schiavo had been saying all along.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO, TERRI SCHIAVO'S HUSBAND: She recognizes nobody. She has no brain left, basically.

GEORGE FELOS, MICHAEL SCHIAVO'S ATTORNEY: The medical examiner's report over and over, confirms what we've been saying, Terri was in a persistent vegetative state. There was no hope of recovery.

BROWN: But the science seemed to change few opinions. The Schindler family attorney kept up his attack on Michael Schiavo.

DAVID GIBBS, SCHINDLER FAMILY ATTORNEY: The 911 or the emergency call was placed at 5:40. And so clearly you can see if there is a woman, your wife, is down in the hallway, face down, collapsed at 4:30. I think this 70-minute time period, when all of this brain injury, when the blood flow is stopped is very significant. RANDALL TERRY, SOCIETY FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE: All you have to do is say, I want to live. And Terri responded, I waa, and then commotion broke out and their dialogue was interrupted.

BROWN: Right-to-life activist Randall Terry said the autopsy report changed nothing for him.

TERRY: How did she get in this state. And the family believes Michael had something to do with it. We may never know for sure, but I don't believe Michael is a good man that was doing a good deed to his disabled wife. I believe he is a dark man who had an agenda to see this wife dead.

BROWN: And one of the core Christian groups engaged in the Schiavo issue said their views remain the same as well.

CARRIE GORDAN EARLL, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY: There is no autopsy result that can change the underlying profound moral issues raised by this case. And that is, how are we going to care for people who are cognitively disabled?

BROWN: So the autopsy on Terri Schiavo has been completed. The medical questions answered, as much as they can be answered. But it seems that for the Schindler family and its supporters, nothing changed at all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Neither the Schindlers nor Michael Schiavo stepped in front of the cameras today. George Felos say he has all along, and as you heard a moment ago, spoke for Mr. Schiavo. And he sat down with us late this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you think that you and your client, most importantly your client, are owed an apology?

FELOS: Well, I certainly -- if anyone would like to apologize to my client, I hope they would. But there was really an unprecedented smear campaign waged against Mr. Schiavo. And what was so troubling about this, especially in the media, on the Internet and some aspects of cable, is that we saw really demagoguery instead of journalism. Not people in pursuit of the truth, but people in search of a scandal. And if there are any apologizes from those persons, I'd welcome them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, that's a question we will put to anyone on either side of the debate. William Green is the President of Rightmarch.com, which raised money for the Schindler family, lobbied on its behalf, and Mr. Green joins us tonight from Atlanta.

I don't know if it's possible to step back from this, but some horrible things were said actually about Michael Schiavo during all of this. Do you feel any sense that perhaps an apology is appropriate? WILLIAM GREENE, PRESIDENT RIGHTMARCH.COM: No. Really, I think the only apologizing that needs to go on -- and I think that this autopsy report confirms this -- the only apologizing that needs to go on is the part of those that condemned an innocent, severely disabled woman to death. She had done nothing wrong. All that was wrong with her was that she was severely disabled.

So if there's -- even an apology is not going to do any good now, because Terri Schindler-Schiavo is dead. She was killed by dehydration to death. She was not killed by the fact that she had an atrophied brain. She was killed by being dehydrated to death. And that's no something that should happen to anyone, especially the disabled.

GREENE: ...brain. She was killed by being dehydrated to death, and that's not something that should happen to anyone, especially to the disabled.

BROWN: Well, it -- look, I mean, there are profound, and I think, for me -- you may see this more simply -- but for me, complicated issues dealing with end of life, and how one ends life, and when one ends life, these are not simple questions. But it's a bit of a stretch to describe her simply as a disabled person. This is a woman who was essentially -- had no brain activity. That's different from a disabled person, isn't it?

GREENE: You see, that's not really true.

BROWN: Well, that's what autopsy concludes, that everything in the autopsy...

GREENE: But the thing is...

BROWN: Excuse me. Everything in the autopsy said -- said the coroner and neurologist was consistent with a persistent vegetative state.

GREENE: But a persistent vegetative state is relatively a new diagnosis that covers a wide gamut of activity. Even in a person that's in a PBS condition, which it was never actually proven that she was in. Someone who is -- this is not someone who is a vegetable, who couldn't move, who couldn't communicate at all. In fact, the people who were closest to her, they would constantly be in communication with her.

So, this is a woman that, even towards the end, when she was told if you just say, I want to live, you will be -- we can stop this now, and she tried so desperately to say such a thing.

BROWN: Well, Mr. Greene, we -- honestly, I mean, the problem with this, I think, and for people who are trying to look at this objectively, is we heard that. We heard that from Mr. Terry, that he was in the room. But we don't really see that. We never see that.

GREENE: Because Michael Schiavo never allowed...

BROWN: Well...

GREENE: ...for cameras and recording to go on in that room. He made sure that people couldn't see the condition she really was in.

BROWN: Doctors looked at her. Courts looked at the case. This is not -- again, I know, it's difficult to step back from this, but at some point, don't we have to step back and say, while this was a terribly difficult case and maybe you or I or somebody else would choose a different outcome, that he acted honorably in fulfilling the wishes of his wife?

GREENE: This is not something that we should ever step back from. We should never ignore what happened to Terri Schiavo and never forget what happened. When you have someone who is simply -- and she simply was severely disabled -- when you have a person like this and then you can have courts, judges, come in and -- a judge who never even bothered to go down and take a look at her actual condition, but just relied on the testimony of people like the lawyer, George Felos who called himself the death doctor -- the death lawyer -- if they're going to just rely on that and not observe themselves what's actually going, then you're going to have this again and again and again. We're far down a slippery slope. We should not step back from this. We should not ignore it and we should not forget what happened to Terri Schiavo.

BROWN: Mr. Greene, we appreciate your time tonight and the argument you made. Thank you very much.

In many ways, the Schiavo case was two national discussions going on at the same time. There was the debate over science and morality wrapped in a separate conversation about where the moderation went and why moderation got pushed aside.

Larry Sabato is a professor of politics at the University of Virginia. He is the author of "The Divided States of America." Kenneth Goodman, the director of bioethics at the University of Miami, and we spoke to both earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Professor Goodman, let me start with you. I have not heard a single person who was on, for lack of a better term, the side of the Schindler family in all of this, who has looked now, at the science, at pathology, at the autopsy that came out today, and changed their mind, and apologized at all, said anything differently than what they said when she died. What does that tell you?

KENNETH GOODMAN, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: It tells me that they though they were fighting the good fight, I suppose. I mean, it was never about science or evidence. All of the evidence was there before she died, that this poor woman was in a persistent vegetative state. But they didn't want to believe that.

Look what happened. The neurologists agreed unanimously, so the neurologists were wrong, and the husband said it's what she would've not wanted so the husband was a jerk, and the judges all agreed that the case should move forward a certain way, and so it was a case of judicial activism.

This was never really about the evidence in the case and the (INAUDIBLE) scientific facts in the matter. It was about other considerations.

BROWN: Larry, I haven't heard any the politicians who said, including the Senate majority leader by the way, who did a kind of sort of odd, sort of diagnosis, it seemed to me by looking at the tape, say, well, now that I see this, I look at it differently. What does that tell you?

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: It tells me that the politicians have gone on to four or five more extraneous debates since then. They have long since left Terri Schiavo. But fundamentally, number one, politicians never apologize for anything. It's just not done. Your opponents can use it at the next election.

But more importantly, this is part of a pattern, Aaron. Since the '60s and '70s, the hot-button social and cultural issues have taken over our politics, and they are literally defining red states, Republican states versus blue states, Democratic states. People don't change their minds about these fundamental issues.

BROWN: Were there not people in the middle who looked at this and said, you know, it's one thing to remove a life support system. It's another thing to stop feeding and giving fluids to someone, and those people, I'm not sure, are -- can properly be called right-to- lifers or not -right -- pro-choicers. They were just trying to see what made sense to them and perhaps for them.

Professor Goodman, do you think that they get any solace out of this autopsy?

GOODMAN: I think what most ordinary people thought was they don't want decisions being made the way they were made in this case. I think they felt jerked around by extremists. I think that felt that in the end of the day, the rules that we'd settled on -- this had been a settled area in the longest time in medicine, in faith, in ethics, mainly, that we don't stick tubes in people without their permission, and absent their ability to give permission, absent -- the permission of their loved ones. And I think that most ordinary people, by the way, didn't buy the line that she was starved to death or killed or having anything bad done to her.

What they said was after 15 years of permanent unconsciousness, most reasonable person don't value that and I think they found that they were besieged by partisans who were making points about different issues, ranging from abortion to stem cells to creationism.

BROWN: Larry, let me give you the last word here. Tell me if you think, when all said and done, and all the endless amount of time that was spent on this, if the debate itself on this most sensitive of issues, end of life decisions, was enhanced by all of this, or if it just became political theater, media circus and the rest?

SABATO: This was a lesson taught, not a lesson learned. I can guarantee you that the next time there is a controversial end-of-life issue like this, the politicians will go right back to their basic party constituency groups and will go with them because they're the people who vote in the primary elections.

BROWN: Gentlemen, it's good to see you both. Thanks for your time tonight.

SABATO: Thank you, Aaron.

GOODMAN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a few moments, how one city on the California coastline responded to a tsunami warning, but first, at about a quarter past the hour, Erica Hill is in Atlanta tonight and she has a look at some other stories that have made news on this day. Ms. Hill.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Mr. Brown, nice to see you this evening.

We start off with word of a Marine corps jet carrying four bombs. It crashed today in Arizona in a residential area. The Harrier (ph) jet was headed for landing at the Marine corps air station in Yuma. The pilot did eject safely. There are no reports of injuries on the ground. However, homes near the crash site were evacuated because of the bombs on board.

An Australian man is freed tonight after spending six weeks as a hostage in Iraq: 63-year-old Douglas Wood was found by Iraqi soldiers while they were searching for weapons in Baghdad. American military officials released videotape you're seeing here of Wood in a hospital bed. He appears to be in good shape. Wood was abducted April 30th.

In Philadelphia, Mississippi, opening statements in the trial of Edgar Ray Killen. He is charged with the murders of three civil rights workers back in 1964. The killings of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney shocked the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement. Killen is the only person ever charged with their murders.

Former Baylor University basketball player Carlton Dotson was sentenced today to 35 years behind bars for murdering his friend and teammate Patrick Dennehy two years ago. Dotson reportedly told authorities he and Dennehy bought guns because they received death threats and wanted that people wanted Dotson dead because he's the son of god. Patrick Dennehy was found shot to death.

And, Ashley Smith is writing a book. She, of course, is the Georgia woman who turned in Brian Nichols, the man charged with the deadly shooting at an Atlanta courthouse in March. Authorities say, after murdering four people, Nichols held Smith captive in her apartment for seven hours before releasing her. The book will be titled "Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero."

And Aaron, that is the latest from Headline News. Back over to you.

BROWN: Erica, thank you. We'll see you in a half hour or so.

Beyond the Schiavo case, there are other compelling end-of-life stories that are playing out tonight. In one of them is a beginning of life story as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON TORRES: I was talking to her. Trying to get her to eat some more. All of a sudden she just stopped.

BROWN: But there's no stopping the cancer that is killing her. So now it's a race to keep her alive long enough to give her unborn baby a chance.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is that? Come here. Let's get in the car.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're having into a tsunami.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, turn right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're having a tsunami alarm.

BROWN: The tsunami that never came, but what if it had? How prepared was the California coast and.

And later, Al Capone, he's not but he does have a problem. Yes, why preschools are giving preschoolers the boot. What happens to the kids and the parents.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we're going to go to circle before we go back outside, all right?

BROWN: And we're taking a time out, but we'll be back because this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Lincoln Center, just up from us, a concert or something going on there tonight. No doubt, finally cooled down in the city today. In the 70s. Very pleasant.

Anyone whose ever decide when to let life end knows the decision involves seemingly endless shades of gray. Likewise, the decision to keep someone alive with extraordinary measures. When not one but two lives are at stake, the decision is that much more complicated. But perhaps easier in some ways, as a family in Virginia is learning tonight. Here is CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Susan and Jason Torres weren't too worried, but in May when she was three months pregnant with they're second child, she started getting headaches.

JASON TORRES, HUSBAND: We had gone around and gone to a couple of doctors and tried to figure stuff out. And she was dehydrated and things like that. And so, they said, you know, go home, feed her, drunk juice.

COHEN: So Jason took care of his wife, told her to lay down and rest. When he brought her something to eat...

TORRES: She was lying in bed. And I was talking to her, trying to get her to eat some more. Then, all of a sudden, she just stopped.

COHEN: Susan had had a stroke. Cancer had attacked her brain. It was too late to save her life. But they can, and they are, keeping her body functioning on a ventilator. But there's a risk, the melanoma that started in her skin and attacked her brain could also attack her baby.

DR. DAVID LAWSON, ONCOLOGIST, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Once it's in the blood stream, it can go almost anywhere -- melanoma.

COHEN: For Jason there was only one course of action.

TORRES: If you have a chance to save your child's life, you're going to do it. And I know for a fact that Susan would do whatever she needed to do just to give her child the chance.

COHEN: And now Jason hopes that their second child, due October 31 will stay in his wife's belly until at least July 11, to 25 weeks gestation.

DR. STEPHEN WEISS, OB/GYB, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Our good modern nursery care can save babies reliably starting at about 25 weeks.

COHEN: Jason's hopes are for his baby, since he knows, he's lost his wife.

TORRES: It sounds kind of hackneyed, but one day at a time.

COHEN: Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A bit now on raising children and the expectations that come with it. Back a half century ago -- oh my goodness -- when I was growing up, preschool was called nursery school, and honestly where I grew up at least, almost no one went.

Times change, preschool is a big deal now. Can't start the kids too young or perhaps you actually can. Maybe some kids simply aren't ready for the rules and regulations that schools require. Here's CNN's Alina Cho.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 10:30 in the morning, and already Timmy Anderson is acting up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No!

CHO: A fight over a spoon is quickly resolved, but a few minutes later, there's another problem.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In about five minutes, I'm going to call clean up time and we're going to go to circle before we go outside.

CHO: Timmy doesn't want to go to circle time. He and his buddy Josh are busy making something they call goop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's definitely goop. It's goopy.

CHO: The other kids are already in the circle. Timmy and Josh are still on their own and break into another fight, this time over pink paint.

This is a good day for Timmy. He's what they call a two-time offender, expelled from two preschoolers on to his third. The 5-year- old has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, he's hyperactive and his record shows he has a wicked throwing arm. Venus French is his mom.

VENUS FRENCH, MOTHER: A little girl had gotten her, hit her in the back of the head with a wooden toy. So he was suspended. And they've just kind of avoided him come back. And we've found another day care. He had issues there, too.

CHO: Timmy isn't alone.

DR. WALTER GILLIAM, YALE UNIVERSITY: Expulsion is the most extreme reaction.

CHO: Dr. Walter Gilliam spearheaded the Yale study which finds preschoolers are three times as likely to be expelled as students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

GILLIAM: When you're talking about K through 12 grades, you're talking about children who are largely required to be in school. And so expelling a child is a very legalized process. Because when you expel a child, it creates legal problem for the parents. There is no legal responsibility for preschoolers.

CHO: The study shows that most preschools do not have the support staff to handle kids with behavioral problems, that's especially true in private and faith-based schools, which according to the study, are quickest to expel.

Boys are more likely to be kicked out than girls, African- Americans more likely than children of other races.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Put this up in the house. You're going to lose it.

CHO: French says she can't even count how many months she spent working on Timmy's troubles and trying to place him in new schools.

FRENCH: I was so frustrated. I called every day care in the yellow pages. And the more nos you got, it was like, what am I going to do?

CHO: Three months ago, a relative suggested Kangaroo's Corner. A preschool that gives kids like Timmy a second chance.

CATHRINE RISIGO-WICKLINE, KANGAROO'S CORNER: They come here thinking that they're bad kids and they're not bad kids.

CHO: Kathy Rizigo-Wickline is the director.

RISIGO-WICKLINE: What we do here is we prepare them for school, preschool. So we teach them the foundation skills. We give them opportunities to develop all of their skills they need to be able to be ready to learn once they get to school.

RISIGO-WICKLINE: ... All of their skills they need to be able to be ready to learn once they get to school.

CHO: Which, by definition, is what preschool is supposed to be about. Isn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to learn how to love school before you're going learn much at it.

CHO: Which brings us back to circle time. Timmy's new teachers he's more well-behaved these days, but he still needs some encouraging.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's great, Timmy.

CHO: After washing his hands and playing with a puzzle, Timmy is finally ready to join his friends. No tantrum today: Timmy is making progress.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I believe a lot of love and support is going to pull everything through for him.

CHO: Alina Cho, CNN, Litchfield, Connecticut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on the program tonight: The quake was real, but the tsunami never happened. What if it had?

A report from the coast of California.

As we take a break around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Four major earthquakes, already this week, including the one yesterday off of the coast of northern California, and a very large quake, 7.8, in northern Chile on Monday.

The string of quakes has made a lot of people remember the horrible tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December. The California quake set off tsunami warnings and sent some people heading for hills as fast as they could go.

Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sierra. What is that? Come here, let's get in the car.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When they heard the siren and watched people grabbing their children and running, the Cuellar family knew they'd better leave, too.

LORI CUELLAR, TOURIST: The fear. They had -- they were like -- the whites of their eyes and they were in a panic and they wanted us to get out of their way.

ROWLANDS: The Cuellars, who were on vacation, were told to drive away from the ocean because a tsunami was coming.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Turn right. We're having a tsunami alarm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, follow the fire truck. Oh, my gosh.

ROWLANDS: Controlled panic erupted Tuesday night in Crescent City, California. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake offshore triggered the tsunami warning system. As sirens blared, surveillance video from a shoreline hotel shows police pulling up to get people out.

TOM RODDAN, TOURIST: A cop ran and said, "All right, everybody out."

I said, "What's going to happen?"

He said, "We've got a tsunami warning."

I said, "Is one going to hit?," and he said, "Five minutes."

So, we beat feet real fast.

ROWLANDS: The video also shows the hotel owner knocking on each of the 53 rooms, while yelling for people to leave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said, "No, you got to go. You -- don't go back and get your belongings. You must go."

ROWLANDS: The owner says he had the building cleared within 15 minutes.

Lori Cuellar says she was thinking about Southeast Asia as her family drove to higher ground.

CUELLAR: That came right to my mind -- about that catastrophe and I didn't want to be anywhere near it, especially with our kids.

ROWLANDS: While it turned out to be a false alarm, for local law enforcement it was a successful dress rehearsal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We estimate we displaced about 4,000 people within 20 minutes.

ROWLANDS (on camera): Tsunamis are taken very seriously here and for good reason. Crescent City has experienced the devastating power of a deadly wall of water firsthand.

(voice-over): In 1964, 11 people died when an estimated 20-foot wave took out five city blocks. Bob Miller, still remembers it.

BOB MILLER, CRESCENT CITY RESIDENT: It was a lot of destruction, let me tell you that.

ROWLANDS: The '64 tsunami is very much a part of this city, from the bowling alley to the shopping center. People take pride that the city withstood one of Mother Nature's deadliest forces. They also know, it could happen again.

MILLER: We have to be faced -- and accept that as a fact. The plates of this Earth are moving all the time.

ROWLANDS: Ted Rowlands, CNN, Crescent City, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT: Giving new meaning to dress for success -- a kid and his neck ties. He is very much on the rise.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When men speak of the ties that bind, they're often talking about the one around their neck and for boys, the dress codes that make them wear one. But on the rise tonight, a young man who turned a bandana into a tie into a business. He graduates from high school tomorrow on his way to Harvard, of course. And on Sunday, he'll be giving his father a tie and a whole lot more to be proud of for Father's Day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Baruch Shento (ph). And I'm 17- years-old. Just about two years ago, I began to design and to produce my own line of neckware. I began with neck ties in particular when I was 15-years-old, because as part of our school dress code, we need to wear neck ties. I got bored wearing the same old ties every day. And I thought, let me try to, you know, reinterpret the tie. Let me inject my ties with some bold flavor.

This is the first tie that I ever made. And this is really how it all started. It's a little bit crude. It was just a thin bandana tie. And people loved it. So I decided to have them manufactured.

All my ties are hand made right here in New York City. They're done in a factory here.

These are some examples from my spring and fall collections. I realized that many people really saw the neck tie as a burden. Men really just saw it as something they removed when they left the office. I decided that neck ties could be the way in which men could really express their sense of fashion. And I decided that I would reinvent the neck tie, reinterpret it through unusual fabrics like kimono fabrics. My vintage couture fabrics, and my double tie.

That's a layered tie.

My ties are primarily available at Takeshimia (ph), it's a Japanese department store in New York City. They're also available online.

I'm working on expanding my line and expanding the distribution of my line. My ties retail for between $95 and $110. That really is the price of a luxury neck tie.

The business is a profitable business which is great. You know, again I didn't do it for the money, but it's always good if it's profitable. And the way I look at fact it's been profitable is that, that just means people are interested in the designs.

What's really the most satisfied over the past two years, has been the fact that I have been able to witness others enjoying my creativity. And to witness their appreciation of my neck ties, has really been an absolute reward in itself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Some day I want to be as mature as he is.

Ahead on the program, loss and living with loss in the wake of Oklahoma City. We'll take a break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Everybody loves the kid and the ties.

Oklahoma City was 10 years ago, 168 people died, 19 of them were children. Two of those kids were brothers, the sons of Edye Lucas. Her story is the focus of our anniversary series tonight, "Then & Now."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her personal pain symbolized the nation's in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Edye Smith was a 23-year-old divorced mother whose three-year son Chase and two-year-old son Holton (ph) died at the daycare center inside the federal building.

EDYE SMITH, MOTHER OF OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING VICTIM: What do you do when people ask you, you have children, what do you say? Well, I did have children? My children are dead. What do you say? You don't know what to say.

TUCHMAN: After the bottoming Edye remarried the boy's father Tony Smith only to divorce him a second time. She went on to marry again, have another son Glenn who is now seven-years-old. But Edye still thinks about the son she lost.

SMITH: I never got to see him ride a bike or go to kindergarten. I don't know what they would look like or how tall they would be.

TUCHMAN: Edye maintains there was a government coverup in the Oklahoma City bombing. Her mother Kathy even wrote a book about the allegations. She is now Edye Lucas, owns her own hair salon, is expecting another baby in December.

SMITH: This is probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. And I just -- I don't feel the need to be angry. Because anger will consume you. I'm not mad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: All year long as we mark 25 years of reporting the news, we're looking back at people and the stories that helped define the extraordinary era in which we live.

Quarter till the hour, thereabouts, we go to Erica Hill in Atlanta. Erica, did you see the kids and the ties?

HILL: I did. And I'm with you on hoping I can one day be as mature as him, because he's got...

BROWN: You have a chance. I'm pretty much hopeless.

HILL: Well, you know, at least you recognize that though, and acceptance is the first step, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

HILL: There you go.

Starting off our headlines tonight, a rare act of defiance in Washington today. The Republican-controlled House voted to put limits on the Patriot Act, which President Bush signed into law after 9/11. Those limits would block the government's right to search library circulation records, and bookstore sales, to track down suspected terrorists. The measure must still pass the Senate. President Bush has threatened though to veto it.

Spanish police have arrested 16 suspected Islamic terrorists including 11 linked to the most wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. The interior ministry announced the arrest today. The other five suspects were linked to the deadly Madrid train bombings last year which killed almost 200 people.

In Aruba, the search continues for missing teen, Natalee Holloway. Today, police searched the home of a high-ranking judge. His son is one of three suspects being detained. Investigators carried suitcases and bags of evidence out of the house. Police towed a way a sport utility vehicle and a red Jeep.

And King Tut making a comeback after more than 3,000 years. It's about time. The treasures buried with the boy king are going on tour again after more than 8 million people flocked to see them 25 years ago. The exhibit will open tomorrow in Los Angeles. Some might say in a way, those treasures may have made King Tut a immortal after all.

And finally, it is Pepsi time against for the Los Angeles Public Schools, but not of the soda variety. Pepsi will provide water, juice and sports drinks to the schools. It's all part of a $26 million deal. But we should point out here, the sale of soft drinks and junk food to students was banned three years ago in L.A. schools. School officials say the new deal will provide healthy beverages for kids. The money will help pay for school athletics.

And there you have it, Aaron, back over to you.

BROWN: Erica, thank you. We'll talk tomorrow.

GM goes hip, it's one of the morning paper headlines and morning papers are coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Some very good ones tonight. So if you are planning to set off early, don't.

The "Christian Science Monitor." We haven't done the Monitor in awhile, at least I don't think we have. "Debate Deepens Over Guantanamo. Yesterday's hearing in Congress highlights the rift between the Bush administration and critics over the role of detention." This story with much gray.

Everybody wants to make this black and white, but I think there's much gray in this, to me.

"The Detroit News," "Michigan Sees More Jobs Slip Away." Not good news there. Gap with nationwide say the state jobless rate nudges up to 7.1 percent, 15,000 jobs lost.

But down here if you will, Edward, finally some good news, GM may have a hit on its hands. I don't know if you can see this. I, of course, can't because I took my glasses off but it's the 2006 Pontiac Solstice. Kind of a cool little two seater. And just -- you know, GM has got lots of troubles. And why don't you just go out and buy one and help them out? Buy two. They're small.

"Dallas Morning News." "House Curbs Patriot Powers." We talked about that a little bit earlier. Terri Schiavo on the front page of many newspapers. "Schiavo Autopsy Finds No Abuse: Husband Vindicated." "Parents still say she could have recovered."

"The Examiner" in Washington -- thank you, Will, I was about to ask you how much time. "One Hell Of A Test: U.S. Open Begins Down at Pinehurst." One of great golf courses in America. Tiger and company down there. But here's -- note, "House Reinforces High Court's Pot Ruling." Kind of a play on words there, get it? "Representatives resoundingly defeat medical marijuana bill." OK!

"The Oregonian" -- kind of slightly different spin on the tsunami story we told you about. "Tsunami Alert Exposes Shore Safety Breaches. The scare serves as a live test and not all Oregon's vulnerable coastal ordinances passed."

Quickly, "The Daily News" in New York. Up here. "Oh, Babe, What A Plan." New plans for Yankee Stadium and in case you're wondering, the weather in Chicago is going? Thank you. Cowabunga.

The picture of the day after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Here's your picture of the day. This is an extremely rare dual gender crab. The red indicates that's it female and the blue indicates it's a male. It is extraordinarily confused as well. It was just caught in Chesapeake Bay. I'm not making this stuff up, it's on the front page of the "Washington Post."

We're not making this up either. Good to have you with us tonight. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. Until tomorrow, good night for all of us.

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