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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Mystery of the Frozen Airman Continues
Aired November 01, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, HOST: Good evening, everybody. Welcome to NEWSNIGHT. As Larry just told you, I'm Paula Zahn, filling in for the two men, Anderson Cooper and Aaron Brown.
ANNOUNCER: He lost his life long ago, but there's still something modern science can give him back, his identity. The mystery of the frozen airman continues. Next stop, the lab.
And anger in the 'hood over a sign of the times.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If 50 Cent doesn't have good sense, then he needs to stop doing what he's doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: The rap star's new movie is one thing, but the billboards for it are another. Residents of Los Angeles want them and their message moved, and the studio is caving.
Also tonight, the rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall of Martha Stewart. How many ups and downs can one woman have?
This is NEWSNIGHT.
ZAHN: First, though, here's a quick check of some of the stories we're following tonight.
President Bush unveiled a $7.1 billion plan to help protect Americans against the threat from bird flu. It includes stockpiling enough vaccine to protect 20 million people. The president says there is no immediate threat, but there is cause for concern.
In Washington, tensions are high after an unusual Senate session. Democrats used a little-used rule to force a special closed session. Democrats say it was to force Republican leaders to complete a long- promised investigation into how Bush administration officials handled prewar intelligence on Iraq. Republicans, for their part, are calling it a political stunt.
And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says more American troops could soon be heading to Iraq. He says they will be needed temporarily to prevent an expected increase in insurgent attacks ahead of Iraq's parliamentary election in December. But we begin tonight with an ongoing mystery. Who is that lone man discovered last month frozen in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, with just a few tantalizing clues to his identity?
This we do know at this hour, the man died more than 60 years ago. He was in the military, apparently a World War II airman. And while it looks like his plane crashed in the mountains, so did 25 other planes around the same time.
Thelma Gutierrez went inside the forensic laboratory where scientists are trying to solve this mystery.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An address book, a plastic comb, a vintage penny.
You're looking at the last things a young airman put into his pockets on the day he died, clues to a world war II cold case that you're about to see for the very first time.
It is a mystery that begins high in the Sierra Nevada mountains at the bottom of a glacier.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got some teeth.
GUTIERREZ: Two weeks ago, climbers discovered a frozen man, face down in the snow, still in his Army Air Force uniform, and an unopened silk parachute.
After six decades, the airman is exhumed from his icy tomb and thawed out. But he's wearing no military dog tags or ID. Did this World War II pilot perish when his training flight crashed in the mountains, like 25 other ill-fated flights more than 60 years ago?
The search for clues takes us to Honolulu, Hawaii, to the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC.
(on camera): The mystery of the frozen airman is just one of more than 1,000 different unsolved cases that scientists here at JPAC are trying to solve. In this laboratory alone, I'm surrounded by the remains of at least 20 different service members, who are in the process of being identified so that they too can go home.
(voice-over): The investigation begins with a team of forensic specialists who probe and study the airman's bones, teeth, and his belongings to piece together who he is.
And almost immediately, clues begin to surface. Dr. Robert Mann, a forensic anthropologist, has determined that the airman was Caucasian and had fair hair.
DR. ROBERT MANN, FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST: Next, though, I'm going to have to look at his clavicle.
GUTIERREZ: The airman's collarbones and pelvic bones prove that he was in his 20s, and died in an airplane crash.
(on camera): So this is a person who likely died on impact, versus, perhaps, freezing to death up in the mountains?
MANN: I think that the injuries were so substantial and severe that it -- he wouldn't have felt anything. He would have died on it immediately.
One, two...
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): Another important clue.
MANN: He has a significant number of fillings.
GUTIERREZ: Like the bones, X-rays of his wisdom teeth tell us something about his age.
MANN: Root tips are closed, they're sealed up, which is more indicative of someone who would be at least 21 years old.
GUTIERREZ: And Dr. Andy Henry noticed something else. The airman had straight teeth.
(on camera): So he had a nice smile, good teeth?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I would have to say that, yes.
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): Then there are the material clues, the things he had on him when he died, that offer a snapshot into who he could have been.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If there's a badge or anything else.
GUTIERREZ: We know he was wearing a World War II Army Air Force uniform. Remnants of a sweater, undergarments, and socks are still intact. And more clues emerge from his tattered uniform, a corroded nameplate, this pin on his collar, and this Army Air Corps insignia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I found these insignia, I was happy to see them.
GUTIERREZ: And our young, light-haired airman also carried this black comb, and some pocket change, 45 cents' worth.
GUTIERREZ: These dimes are ranging from 1936 to 1942.
GUTIERREZ: In the uniform breast pocket, Dr. Paul Imanofski (ph) found this vintage Schaefer pen, and three small leather-bound address books. The pages have been decomposing, but could they contain the names of friends and loved ones?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to put it in a spectrocomparator.
GUTIERREZ: At first, nothing. Then, like magic, clues begin to emerge. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can see all these letters from the calendar, and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday up at the top, 1, 9, 4, and 2.
GUTIERREZ: Nineteen forty-two.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
GUTIERREZ: After hours of meticulous examination of each address book, they yield no personal information, clues that could have faded with time.
And so, while we still do not know who our 20-something fair- haired airman is, enormous progress has been made. Out of the thousands of unidentified World War II service members, Dr. Mann says they've narrowed it down to just 10.
(on camera): So what was it like to grow up here?
(voice-over): In Pleasant Grove, Ohio, we recently met these three sisters, all in their 80s, who have high hopes that the frozen airman proves to be their big brother, Glen Munn (ph), whose plane went missing in the Sierra back in 1942.
SEYER ZEYER, SISTER OF MISSING WORLD WAR II AIRMAN: Just wanted the final, you know, to know that he was found, and that we can have him brought home here to -- for burial and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't know that, though.
ZEYER: We don't, but that's my wishes.
GUTIERREZ: And until they learn otherwise, they say, they will keep that hope alive.
And in the weeks and months ahead, scientists are convinced they will identify this airman and return him home to his family, wherever they might be.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Honolulu, Hawaii.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And there are some new developments to talk about tonight. Scientists may be even closer to solving the mystery.
For an update, we're joined by Dr. Robert Mann, one of the senior scientists you just saw working on this cold case.
Thanks for spending time with us tonight, doctor.
We understand since Thelma left your laboratories, you've now whittled this down to perhaps four airmen. Is that true?
MANN: Hi, Paula. Yes, we have. When the remains came in a little over a week ago, our analysts and historians got to work on that, and they were able to whittle it down, the number of missing aircraft, to a few. And at this point, they've whittled it down to one aircraft, and a missing crew of four individuals. So we've gone from several possible aircraft, to one aircraft, and from several missing airmen, to four.
ZAHN: So how much easier will that make it for you to unlock this case, do you think?
MANN: Well, I think it'll help quite a bit. Anytime you've got a body or remains like this that have come in, and they're in pretty good condition, such as this one is, it's mummified remains, we have some soft tissue we can deal with. So we can look at the color of the hair, we can tell right away the race and the sex of the individual.
But then there are other things that are hidden beneath the soft tissue that are revealed only in the skeleton. And that's where we're going to now.
ZAHN: So in the interests of full disclosure, what I know about forensics is basically what I've learned on "CSI." And one would think, since you've got it now narrowed down to four potential airmen, that perhaps you could go to four families, get strands of hair, and try to do a potential DNA match with what you found in the ice. Is it not that simple?
MANN: Well, no, no. It's not that simple. One of things we always talk to people about is the pool of aircraft and missing airmen could be larger than what we're looking at. And what we want to do is, we don't want to just look at the material evidence that we have and immediately make a -- jump to a conclusion this is a certain individual.
What we want to do is have the evidence speak for itself. And when we look at this individual, we've done as we've done the biological profile, looking at the remains, his bones, his teeth, and the material evidence. And what we're able to tell from this individual is that he is -- he died in his 20s, he stood somewhere between five-foot-nine and six-foot-two inches tall. He sustained massive trauma to his body on impact.
And, we have -- he's a caucasoid male. And so we know much more now just one week later than what we did when he came in here about eight days ago.
ZAHN: So the most important question is, when do you think you're going to know exactly who he is?
MANN: Well, that's the most commonly asked question that we have. The reality is, nobody can give you the answer. Nobody knows for sure exactly when we'll identify him. What it depends on is that all the lines of evidence come together for a successful identification. If I were to give my best opinion on this, it would be a few weeks to a few months.
ZAHN: Well, we'll be keeping our fingers crossed for you. Know how hard you all are working in the lab there. Dr. Mann, thank you for spending some time with us tonight. MANN: Thank you, Paula.
ZAHN: Our pleasure.
MANN: Thanks.
ZAHN: We're going to turn now to some of the other stories in our world tonight. Here's Erica Hill from Headline News. Hi, Erica.
ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Paula.
We start off, a tragedy dispute after a traffic, a tragic death has now been settled in court. Now, the dispute came between divorced parents over to where bury their son, who was killed in Iraq. A California judge has now ruled Army Staff Sergeant Jason Hendricks should remain buried next to his grandmother -- grandfather, that is, in Oklahoma, where his father lived. His mother claimed her son wants to be buried in California, where she lives, but the judge says her testimony was, quote, "forced and contrived."
Austin, Texas, Republican Congressman Tom DeLay gets his way. The judge scheduled to preside over his trial was removed from the case today. DeLay's attorneys had sought the recusal because they questioned the judge's impartiality, since he had contributed to Democratic causes. DeLay is charged with money laundering and conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty.
In Washington, the Federal Reserve once again raising a key short-term interest rate by a quarter percent. It is the 12th such hike since June of last year. More could be on the way. In its statement, the Fed dismissed concerns that the economy has slowed down because of Hurricane Katrina.
And, in case you missed it, the royals are here. Today, Britain's Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, laid flowers at the World Trade Center site in New York, and then dedicated a nearby memorial to British victims of the 9/11 attacks. It is the first stop on their eight-day trip across the United States, Paula, and I'm sure we'll hearing a little bit more about it all week.
ZAHN: Yes, Erica, I actually bumped into them, along with 300 of their closest friends, earlier tonight, on the last stop of the day here in New York. And they were amazingly casual and accessible. We were all quite surprised.
HILL: That's good to hear.
ZAHN: Thanks, Erica. See you a little bit later on.
And still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, the saddest post-Katrina stories were those of the elderly who died in hospitals and nursing homes. Now there are 13 investigations into why and how such tragedies happened.
And supermodels aren't the only ones to whom weight matters. Jockeys also may go too far to stay thin, much too far. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I at my worst, I was heaving three or five to six, seven times a day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Starving to stay thin.
That and more still to come on NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: They happen to be among the most vulnerable of hurricane victims, the elderly, many desperately ill, living in nursing homes, their fate in the hands of others. Dozens died. There are at least 13 investigations now under way, and at some nursing homes, the failure to evacuate cost lives. In other cases, it was the evacuation itself that proved fatal.
Here's Keith Oppenheim.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PRISCILLA SCOTT, DAUGHTER: My mother was Thelma Wall, she was 90 years old. She was a very good mother. She was at Huntington because she needed care.
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Priscilla Scott is mourning. Her 90-year-old mother, Thelma Wall, was a resident of the Huntington Place Nursing Home in Chalmette, outside New Orleans. Priscilla says Thelma Wall had serious osteoporosis, fractures in her vertebrae, but says Thelma was not on the verge of death. On Sunday, August 28, the day before Hurricane Katrina struck, the nursing home decided to evacuate patients.
SCOTT: They waited too late to make the decision.
OPPENHEIM: Priscilla says her mother should have been transported by ambulance. Instead, she says, her mother sat on a school bus for 12 hours to Lafayette, Louisiana, normally a three-hour trip. And she says police told her there was no air conditioning. Police declined comment.
The owner of the nursing home Thelma Wall was being taken to tells us by the time the bus arrived, Thelma Wall was dead.
SCOTT: I feel like that the bus is what did it to her. She was alive when she left that nursing home. But she was not alive when she got to the Lafayette area.
OPPENHEIM (on camera): CNN made repeated attempts to contact administrators or representatives of Huntington Place, but either we could not make contact, or our calls were not returned.
But staff from the Louisiana attorney general's office did speak to us by phone and confirmed that the matter of just what happened to Thelma Wall when she was transported from this facility is under investigation.
(voice-over): After dozens of patients died in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, nursing homes have been under scrutiny. Thirty- four patients were left behind at St. Rita's Nursing Home near New Orleans when Katrina hit. They all died in the flood. The owners were charged with negligent homicide. The county coroner says he urged St. Rita's to move its patients. They insisted several patients were too fragile to move.
Before Hurricane Rita, a busload of nursing home residents were being evacuated from Houston, but during the ride, a fire from a back wheel accelerated because of oxygen canisters patients on board were using. Twenty-three people died. Federal officials are investigating. No charges have been filed.
Joe Donchess, executive director of the Louisiana Nursing Home Association, says when it comes to evacuations, elder care facilities are damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
JOE DONCHESS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LOUISIANA NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION: Walk a mile in our shoes, that's all I have to say, because anybody who works in a nursing home will very quickly learn that these are very fragile patients. We did the very best we could in these situations.
OPPENHEIM: Donchess says the reality is, old, sick patients are always in jeopardy when a hurricane strikes, a dilemma made worse by traffic jams during prestorm evacuations.
DONCHESS: I mean, if they're on a bus for nine or 12 hours, there's a good chance someone's going to die, unfortunately.
STEVE RITEA, "THE TIMES-PICAYUNE": Certainly it's a very, very difficult question to answer, Should I evacuate.
OPPENHEIM: Jeff Meitrodt and Steve Ritea write for "The Times- Picayune," New Orleans's daily newspaper. They say nursing homes had to make tough calls. But last spring, in a series of stories called "State of Neglect," they reported that Louisiana's nursing homes are often poorly run and poorly regulated.
JEFF MEITRODT, "THE TIMES-PICAYUNE": Nursing homes that kill residents, nursing homes that seriously injure patients because of bad care. The state doesn't really do very much about it. And so the nursing home owners know that in a lot of cases, it's less expensive to break the rules and to hurt people than it is to provide the level of care that the residents and their families are expecting.
OPPENHEIM: Huntington Place was criticized in the articles, and has had several lawsuits brought against it, but it had a good inspection record. Priscilla Scott says she is trying to contact the nursing home owners, but hasn't been able to find them. She feels even if they had to make a tough call, they owe her a better explanation as to why her mother died. Keith Oppenheim, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: It still isn't clear why Huntington evacuated Thelma Wall by bus rather than by ambulance, but officials have said there were not enough ambulances to take care of everyone in the region.
Tomorrow night, I will have a special report on a struggle that affects more than 10 million Americans, including 1 million men, the struggle with eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia. As I just said, it's not just women and girls who are affected. Men too struggle with these disorders.
And I interviewed one of the nation's top jockeys, Shane Sellars (ph), about the battle he waged every day to control his weight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHANE SELLARS, JOCKEY: In the morning, I'd get up and take a diet pill, drink a cup of coffee, and then head out to the racetrack, and...
ZAHN: With no food in your stomach at all?
SELLARS: No food in my stomach, you know. And you go and see the trainers and work your horses in the morning that you have to work. By 10:00 you finish. I'd go...
ZAHN: Are you hungry at this point?
SELLARS: Oh, I'm starving. You know, I mean, I went to bed with nothing in my stomach either. Maybe just a -- you know, just a piece of ham, or, you know, just grab something to put in my stomach before I went to bed. And head to the track, and maybe lay down for an hour, and then head to the hotbox with -- for a couple of hours, and pulling (ph) four or five pounds of water.
ZAHN (voice-over): The hotbox is a sauna, a fixture in almost every jockey locker room.
SELLARS: The hotbox, sweatbox.
ZAHN (voice-over): Sellars would often spend two hours inside, pulling or sweating off extra pounds.
(on camera): And are you miserable the whole time you're in there?
SELLARS: Oh, it's horrible.
ZAHN: You have to be very weak.
SELLARS: Weak. You have nothing -- you're already dehydrated, you know. ZAHN: So for more than 20 years, you went through this process of basically not eating anything during the day, sitting in the sauna a couple of hours a day, sweating two or three pounds off, getting back on your horses, training, and maybe, maybe having a piece of ham, and that's all you had to sustain you.
SELLARS: Right. If I did eat anything -- sometimes when I was at my worst, I was heaving three or five to six, seven times a day. I was heaving.
ZAHN (voice-over): Jockeys call it heaving or flipping. Most doctors would call it bulimia. Overcome by hunger pains, Sellars would eat massive amounts of food, and then throw it up to make weight. He says a tour of the jockey locker room shows you just how easy and accepted it was.
SELLARS: These are regular toilets. And this is what they call the heaving, this is where they heave, you know. It's a much different type of commode. I don't know, it's not -- I don't know if it was especially made to -- for that purpose. But it's -- it's sure not the same as the other. And that's what we used it for.
ZAHN (on camera): Is it true that some of you got so efficient at flipping that you could actually do it without putting your finger down your throat?
SELLARS: I was one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Jockey Shane Sellars, just one of the many people you'll meet tomorrow night in "Walking the Thin Line." It is a special edition of "PAULA ZAHN NOW" that gets underway at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, the Senate shuts down its doors, clears the gallery. Was today's rare closed session needed to guard national secrets, or was it a political ploy?
And the president wants billions to help fight a possible bird flu pandemic. Sounds like a lot of money. But will it actually be enough?
Also tonight, rap star 50 Cent may be at the top of the charts, but one L.A. neighborhood isn't buying it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: We can't say how those who will be voting on Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court feel about him, but we (INAUDIBLE) can say something about how you feel tonight. Here are the results of a CNN-"USA Today"-Gallup poll released just minutes ago of those asked about the president's choice of Judge Alito to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Seventeen percent says an excellent choice, 26 percent called him a good choice, 22 percent rated him only fair, 17 percent thought he was a poor choice.
Questions about the facts or what were presented as facts that led the United States into the war in Iraq spilled into open warfare today on the Senate floor. Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed-door session. Republican leader Bill Frist said the Senate was hijacked.
CNN's Ed Henry was there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: A Democratic sneak attack that sent shock waves through the Senate.
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: Mr. President, enough time has gone by. I demand, on behalf of the American people, that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted.
HENRY: Democratic leader Harry Reid accused Republicans of failing to probe allegations the White House manipulated intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.
REID: And in accordance with Rule 21, I now move the Senate go into closed session.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, I second the motion.
HENRY: An easy but rare maneuver with extraordinary consequences, the Senate chamber was locked down, television cameras shut off so lawmakers could go into secret session to debate.
Republican leader Bill Frist was enraged.
SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: Not with the previous Democratic leader, or the current Democratic leader, have ever I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution.
There has been at least consideration for the other side of the aisle before a stunt, and this is a pure stunt.
HENRY: Reid refused to back down, demanding the Republican-led Intelligence Committee finish a long-awaited report on whether the Bush administration twisted intelligence.
REID: This investigation has been stymied, stopped, obstructions thrown up every step of the way. That's the real slap in the face. That's the slap in the face. And today the American people are going to see little bit of light.
HENRY: What's really going on is, Democrats feel emboldened by the indictment of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, believing this is their chance to issue a broader indictment of the Bush administration.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), MINORITY WHIP: We have lost over 2,000 of our best and bravest. Over 15,000 have been seriously wounded. We are spending more than $6 billion a month with no end in sight. And this Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee refuses to even ask the hard questions about the misinformation...
HENRY: Republicans insist they're completing the investigation, and this is just a distraction.
SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R), PENNSYLVANIA: This is purely political. This is settling an old political score.
HENRY: Democrats say they also want to signal they're ready to stand up to the Republican majority and may even filibuster the president's latest Supreme Court pick, Samuel Alito, a move that would make these events seem like the opening fireworks in a much nastier battle.
Ed Henry, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: So do you think we just saw the outlines to what the midterm election battle lines might look like? The debate that's likely to rage on for many months to come.
Turning our attention now to something that has a lot of folks concerned, you have been hearing a lot about avian or bird flu, the most common and deadly form has already spread in birds from South Asia to Europe, and now, there is real concern that the virus could mutate and become devastating to humans.
In fact, some health experts say it is just a matter of time. Today, President Bush unveiled a $7.1 billion plan to prepare for a possible flu pandemic. Now, much of that money would go towards stockpiling enough vaccine to protect 20 million healthcare workers and other first responders.
Speeding up production of vaccines and buying the antiviral drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, which some cases prevent flu infection and we now turn to senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta who has just back from South Asia where bird flu has in the past two years killed at least 62 people. About half of those who were struck with it.
Hundreds of millions of birds around the world have been destroyed trying to contain the disease. And Dr. Gupta now joins us from the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Always good to see you, doctor.
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks.
ZAHN: So I know you have had a chance to study the plan the president put forth today. Does it go far enough in your estimation?
GUPTA: You know, it is interesting, Paula. On one hand, remarkable the president devoting as much time and money, all towards a disease that doesn't exist yet. Pandemic flu doesn't exist yet but a lot of people are talking about it. And I think that's remarkable to people who are citizens and a lot of people in the public health community, as well.
On the other hand, to be able to outline and do the things talked about today to basically completely revamp the public health system so that local officials can talk to state officials and talk to federal officials, to pinpoint exactly when a cluster of bird flu happens, that takes probably a lot more money and really a complete revamping of our public health systems.
The other thing, Paula, really important is that they talk about the fact that we're a lot better at taking care of patients than we were at 1918. We have ICUs in the hospital behind to me to take care of critically ill patients. A problem, though, at any given time, 80 to 90 percent of the rooms are full. So we don't have the surge capacity and that's going to cost lots and lots of money to create the health system where we can take care of not only the ill now, but the ill that might come in with a pandemic. Paula?
ZAHN: Let's talk about the other prong of the plan where the president will spend, or wants to spend a billion dollars to stockpile antiviral medicine like Tamiflu and Relenza. Do we even know if these two medications are going to be effective against the strain that's not presented itself?
GUPTA: Here's the important thing about that. We don't know for sure. A lot of people focusing a lot of energy on Tamiflu and Relenza. These are antiviral drugs. They are not vaccines. They're antiviral drugs designed to basically shorten how bad the flu might affect you, try and lessen the impact.
But we only know that it might work because of laboratory studies and animal studies in particular. The way to really study would be to knowingly expose people to bird flu. And nobody will actually ever do that for obvious reasons. So it's just theoretical, really, for the most part, that those will work, Paula.
ZAHN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks for the update.
By the way, are you catching a cold?
GUPTA: A little bit. You know, I just got back and the 19-hour plane ride, not bird flu, though, I can assure you that, Paula.
ZAHN: Chicken soup.
GUPTA: That's right.
ZAHN: Works all the time.
GUPTA: What the doctor ordered. That's right. Thanks.
ZAHN: Made a free house call for you, doctor.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, cooking a turkey is fine. Appearing in one isn't. Will her Neilson ratings do to Martha Stewart what prison time didn't?
Rapper $0.50, or "Fiddy Cent" as some of you say, sells millions of records. But one neighborhood doesn't like the sales pitch.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: They call him $0.50, but he is worth millions. The music, like the gold single "P-I-M-P" may come from violent inner city streets but suburban kids from coast to coast love the heavy bass beat. The music sells but not everyone is buying the message. Sibila Vargas reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you do?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a gangster.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a scene from the trailer of Paramount Pictures and rapper $0.50's new movie "Get Rich or Die Trying." And these the movie's billboards, billboards showing the rapper in a crucifixion-like pose, his bare tattooed torso revealing a bullet-scarred back A microphone in one hand and a gun in the other.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're kicking you out. You've got to go.
VARGAS: Posted near elementary schools and even one preschool, they were billboards that pushed community members in South Central Los Angeles over the edge, and they rallied do something about it.
EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON, L.A. URBAN POLICY ROUND: The message is violence is okay, is promoted at the highest level, and we say Paramount, you are doing damage to our community, you are doing an injustice to our community and you are committing violence in our community, and that includes $0.50, too. It must go.
VARGAS: In communities plagued with gun violence and gangs, enough was enough.
LITA HERRON, MOTHERS ON THE MARCH: If $0.50 doesn't have good sense, then he needs to stop doing what he's doing or teach our men more productive ways to live. Because I'm not raising five grandchildren to follow him into the thug life or to follow him into prison or to follow him to the cemetery either.
VARGAS: The community campaigned Paramount Pictures to take down the ads. It's a story of a community against a corporation, and the community won.
SHOWBIZ TONIGHT spoke to an insider at Paramount who told us they have taken down some of the billboards in the neighborhood and might take more. It's a win for a community living with gun violence every day. I went to the South Central neighborhood preschool right near where one of the billboards used to hang.
(on camera): What do you think the impact of this victory is?
CYNTHIA OLIVAS, GOLDEN DAY PRESCHOOL: I think it's a star for the community.
VARGAS: What is the message here?
OLIVAS: The message here is we should feel free to call somebody for help when we need it and get together and do things together the way everybody came together to get the billboards down.
VARGAS (voice over): This isn't first time rapper $0.50 has come under criticism for promoting gun violence. And here's the first look at his new video game Bulletproof. In the game, you shoot, stab and break the necks of drug dealers using dozens of weapons including many guns and knives. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT spoke with the executive producer of the game that's in the crossfire of controversy, too.
ANDRE EMERSON, VIVENDI/UNIVERSAL GAMES: Because of the violence and mature content and the language it's definitely a mature title. And we targeted that from the start and it's like we knew what the kind of things - knew the aggressive nature of the game. We knew it was going to be mature. But we didn't try to go over the top, make it gratuitous.
VARGAS: But some would argue there is sometimes no way to avoid these children playing the video games or watching these movies. But now some of the billboards are off the streets, the community says it's one small step for change.
HERRON: And the public should note, that since 2000 there have been 800 homicides in this community! Now, who wants to uphold that standard? Who wants to keep perpetrating that madness?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I carry this little packet my kids gave me. See my daughter, daddy, I love you, miss you. Come home ASAP.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Danger on the ground in Iraq. And, under it. IEDs, improvised explosive devices take a terrible toll.
And prison barely dented her popularity but can Martha Stewart survive her primetime ratings?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Every day in Iraq U.S. soldiers work very hard to reassure local civilians, train the Iraqi army, and stay alive. But with the increasing power of improvised explosive devices, IEDs, staying alive takes a lot of training and time. Aneesh Raman is imbedded with American soldiers in northern Babel Province.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LTC ROSS BROWN, U.S. ARMY: As an informant, come here. Come here, Strobel (ph) listen up, please.
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Like the soldiers he commands, Lieutenant Colonel Ross Brown suits up daily, trying to rid his area of roadside bombs.
BROWN: Whenever you roll out of the gate and out there operating, you don't know if you hit one of these or not.
RAMAN: The first stop today is Route Tampa, some of the worst stretch of highway in called the triangle of death. Where these stall owners Brown's told are aware of impending attack.
BROWN: Did you know in advance that the IED going to go off over there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in Arabic). No.
BROWN: Tell him to look me in the eye. Tell me that again.
He's lying.
RAMAN: It is a fine line to walk, routing out information without creating new enemies, battling an insurgency that kills at will, that turns civilians into accomplices.
BROWN: Scared to death. They see us as temporary, they have to live with those people forever.
RAMAN: Finding friends locally seems the toughest part of Brown's strategy but his next task proves just as difficult.
(on camera): Here the lieutenant colonel stopped at a firm base, one of the areas that Iraqis manning their own position.
(voice-over): The commander on duty emerges out of uniform and the lieutenant colonel struggles to find progress.
BROWN: Didn't do too much work yesterday, they didn't do too muck work the day before. They haven't done too much work since they've been here.
RAMAN: Brown is unsure if this unit can survive an insurgent attack. Uncertainty shared by the U.S. forces as well, each soldier with his own way to cope.
BROWN: Carry anything special with you on mission to help you out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Carry my wedding ring, a bracelet my wife sent me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A Bible. Psalm 91.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An archangel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I carry this little packet my kids gave me. See what my daughter, daddy, I love you, miss you. Be safe. Come home ASAP. Isn't that cool?
BROWN: Let's go.
RAMAN: Overhead helicopters are responding to an I tack that moments ago killed Colonel William Wood, the highest ranking U.S. officer to die in combat in Iraq, a personal friend of Brown's. An added personal reason why tomorrow he'll be suiting up again. Aneesh Raman, CNN, northern Babel Province.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And we turn our attention now to London where a memorial service was held today for the 52 victims of the bomb attacks in the city's public transport system back in July. Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Tony Blair attended and relatives of those who died and emergency workers who responded to the terrorist attacks.
Andrew Kerry has the story of three firefighters who were first on the scene at one of the bombings.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A major incident in central London.
ANDREW KERRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four explosions ripping into the city's subways.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chaos on the services with some passengers trapped underground.
PAUL KELLY, FIREFIGHTER: Began as any other day, you know. Doing a normal checks.
STEVE SUDBURY, FIREFIGHTER: At 9:00, we started our shift.
KELLY: So the bells went.
SUDBURY: It was about a minute past 9:00 when we were getting the shout for smoke issuing in the tube station.
KERRY: The explosion at Algate was the first of the four bombs to go off on July 7th at 8:50 in the morning but Paul Kelly, Steve Sudbury and Mel Anderson of Chatwell (ph) fire station's blue watch had no idea what had happened as they got into the fire engine to answer the call.
KELLY: On arrival at Algate, we saw dozens of casualties sitting down and it looked so serious you that I thought it must be a training exercise. MEL ANDERSON, FIREFIGHTER: These people had flesh injuries but they also had psychological injuries. Need reassurance. They needed reassurance because they were scared, it always happens to someone else on the television, a terrorist incident.
KERRY: As medical teams arrived at the scene, Steve, Paul and two other firefighters went into the station.
SUDBURY: The scene walking down, down a platform and down the tracks with lines of injured people walking past you out the other way, it's -- I'll remember it forever, I think.
KERRY: By the time they reached the second carriage, they knew they were dealing with a bomb explosion.
KELLY: Carnage. Half his leg. There was what I -- a person lying down like half a torso. In front of the carriage as you go in.
SUDBURY: Sounds very harsh to say now, but when you're down there and you're dealing with it, it kind of just happens. You go into autopilot and you look and think, I can't help that person. Let's move on to the next one.
KELLY: Eight people including the bomber died at Algate; 120 injured. At the end of the day, back home with their loved ones, a time for the firefighters to reflect. And some mixed emotions.
ANDERSON: To them it was their happiness of me going through the door but I know somewhere someone's daughter wasn't coming home, their father wasn't coming home. Watch it on the news, it's completely different to look it in the eyes of a wounded person. As a fire brigade, you are there to rescue them and always a sense of regret, we did as much as we could and still a human cost and there's nothing that we'll ever be able to do about it.
KERRY: Andrew Kerry, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: A producer from our London bureau.
Still to come, the ups and downs of Martha Stewart. And, the British are coming. The British are coming. No, wait. Aren't they already here? But does anyone really care?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: And now we're going to take a look at the trials and tribulations of Martha Stewart. You might have thought serving time in prison was tough. As it turns out, being on the outside might be even tougher.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN (voice-over): It seems like just yesterday. Martha Stewart was sprung from prison and poised for her come back. MARCUS MABRHY, "NEWSWEEK": This is a country where we believe in second acts. We believe in redemption. We believe in confessional stories, we believe in the come back.
ZAHN: Five months behind bars hadn't dimmed Martha's image. If anything, it was soaring along with her company's stock. It doubled during that time.
Martha, once again, took the helm of the company and her magazine. She also landed a starring role in the spin-off of one of TV's hottest reality shows "The Apprentice." Martha, the woman everyone loves to hate was loved.
MARTHA STEWART, EX-CON: It's really wonderful to be back. I've missed you as you can imagine.
ZAHN: But what a difference a TV show makes. Especially when that show is a flop.
STEWART: I'm looking for the apprentice.
ZAHN: "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" debuted at the end of the September. Her ratings tanked and her stock followed suit. Plunging about 47 percent since the release from prison in March. Once again, Martha Stewart is persona non grata. Even her friend and fellow "Apprentice" star Donald Trump made it clear the show was not a good thing. He had this to say in a recent radio interview:
"I think there was confusion between Martha's 'Apprentice' and mine and mine continues to do well and the other has struggled very severely. I think it probably hurt mine and I sort of predicted that it would.
DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE TV PERSONALITY: You're fired.
ZAHN: Ouch. Smack down from the Donald.
STEWART: Donald.
ZAHN: Martha Stewart punched back in a recent "Fortune Magazine" interview saying she was actually told that she would be firing the Donald. Is the old Martha back again?
MIKE PAUL, P.R. AND IMAGE CONSULTANT: She has a track record of being associated unfortunately with the B-word. And not a little B. But a capital B.
STEWART: New York City is pretty ...
ZAHN: Can the come back queen come back again?
PAUL: I think she can be saved. Anybody can be saved, any organization can be saved. But it takes a lot of hard work.
ZAHN: Isn't that one of the reasons for our infatuation with Martha? She is the perennial story of celebrity redemption. She said this to "Fortune" magazine - "I have learned that I really cannot be destroyed."
Apparently, Martha Stewart is betting on her own come back, as well.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN (on camera): We'll see. Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the prince and his brand new wife making the first trip to the U.S. since their marriage. This time, it's not exactly a fairy tale.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: This week Americans are getting a rare chance to treat royalty well, like royalty. Prince Charles and his new wife Camilla have jumped across the Pond and are touring the United States making the first stop today in New York. It's Charles' first opportunity to showcase his new wife, but few Americans seem to care. Here's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What a difference two decades make. Charles and Diana visited a J.C. Penney on the prince's last official U.S. tour. Twenty years later, here's the prince with his new wife, attending a party at the Museum of Modern Art along with Yoko Ono. Diane Sawyer. Henry Kissinger. Donald trump. Joan Collins. And even Sting.
But it's still stings some Diana fans to see those old shots of glamorous Princess Di dancing with John Travolta at the White House, but when it comes to Camilla, gossip columnists can get pretty catty.
CINDY ADAMS, GOSSIP COLUMNIST: We are welcoming the prince and the duchess or mistress or whatever she is this week.
MOOS: A lone protester parked herself outside the U.N. where Charles would later visit. Camilla you are no princess, said her sign, with a horse on it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The horse is basically Camilla. We all know she's a horse. She doesn't belong here and she'll never be able to take Diana's place, ever.
MOOS: But at least the horse is pretty.
The royals flew in amid headlines declaring their visit a royal bore. And only 19 percent of Americans polled said they were interested in the visit, 81 percent said they were not.
(on camera): Prince Charles and Camilla are in town. Do you care?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not a whit.
MOOS: Royal watching is not for you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I haven't watched it yet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I loved Princess Diana. I don't care for the new chick in town. Sorry.
MOOS: The new chick and her prince started the day with a visit to Ground Zero and they then unveiled a memorial to British victims of 9/11. Everywhere they went, there were curtsies and the always curt screaming press.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Security! Out of the way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, photographer!
MOOS: But Prince Charles was unflappable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prince Charles, what do you think of New York?
MOOS: What does New York think of him?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome, Prince Charles, to New York City.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a "Prince Charming."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People like them really a lot, and they've taken New York by storm.
MOOS: Oh, yeah? This gentleman mentioned royal burping to explain his disinterest.
(on camera) Just because a royal burps, doesn't mean what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My stomach has to growl.
MOOS: As for the woman Charles refered to as "my darling wife":
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She looks like Seabiscuit.
MOOS: Seabiscuit? He's tough; is he yours?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's part of the family.
MOOS: But not the royal family.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
ZAHN: All right, all right! No one ever said New Yorkers were easy. The royal visit will last 8 days: New Orleans, Washington, San Francisco all stops along the way.
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