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Taliban Advances into Pakistan; Freddie Mac CEO Kellerman Suicide by Hanging; President Obama to Visit Iowa Wind Energy Plant; Planet Marks Earth Day; Some Troops Transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan as U.S. Strategy Changes; Environmental Police Are on the Beat in Big Apple
Aired April 22, 2009 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Taliban threat going beyond Afghan borders now and stirring up real concerns right here in the United States. The militant group now advancing deeper into Pakistan and just 60 miles from the capital. We have extensive, live coverage of this story including reports from Pakistan and Afghanistan where U.S. troops are.
We begin at the Pentagon with CNN's Barbara Starr.
Good morning, once again, Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Growing concern in the Obama administration and especially in the U.S. military with these reports that the Taliban are on the move. The map will tell you everything. Taliban forces now moving into a place called Buner district, some 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. This really does put the Taliban forces and their sharia law system which is quite extremist in the U.S. view within range of the Pakistan capital.
Today, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Islamabad for yet more talks with military leaders there about the security situation in Pakistan. We can also tell you that there is new U.S. intelligence that Pakistani Taliban leaders inside Pakistan are coordinating more closely, planning more attacks. There is growing concern about the number of Taliban forces that these leaders really have at their disposal and they're moving not just through that federal area along the border but now, of course, into central Pakistan, into the areas that the Pakistani government is supposed to be controlling - Heidi.
COLLINS: Understood. All right. Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. Thanks, Barbara.
We take you now to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad and CNN's Ivan Watson.
Ivan, good morning to you.
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Well, the Taliban have set up in this Buner district. In the past when they have made forays into this area, the locals have fought them off, but now there are hundreds of Taliban militants there. They are patrolling the streets openly armed, driving pickup trucks. They are broadcasting in FM radio there, Heidi, as well. And we spoke with the Taliban commander who is operating there. He says that he's there basically to enforce Islamic sharia law there.
And what is striking about this, Heidi, is that just last week the Pakistani government signed a peace deal with the Taliban in the nearby Swat Valley and the hope was that would appease the Taliban that would take away some of its popular support. Instead, the Taliban seems to have capitalized on this, proclaimed victory and now have made several very aggressive moves forward, even denouncing the Pakistani government, declaring it un-Islamic and demanding that Islamic law be spread all across Pakistan.
COLLINS: All right. CNN's Ivan Watson, thanks so much for that. We'll be keeping close tabs with you. Appreciate it.
CNN's Frederick Pleitgen is on the ground now in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He'll be joining us a little bit later this hour with one U.S. Army unit that served in Iraq and is now fighting the Taliban.
Shifting our focus a bit now, President Obama's intelligence director says controversial Bush-era interrogation methods revealed important information that helped the U.S. deal with the threat of terrorism. It was all laid out in a newly-released memo and CNN's White House correspondent Elaine Quijano is joining us now live with more details on that.
Hi there, Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Heidi, you know, it was just a couple of days ago that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said very clearly that former officials who in his words devised policy when it comes to these harsh interrogation techniques should not be prosecuted. But now take a close listen to what President Obama himself said on this issue just yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For those who carried out some of these operations within the four corners of legal opinions or guidance that had been provided from the White House, I do not think it's appropriate for them to be prosecuted.
With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don't want to prejudge that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, the question is, what changed?
The White House, we should tell you, Heidi, is actually not really acknowledging that there has been a policy change. In fact, there was a very telling moment in the White House briefing yesterday. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was asked very plainly, are you saying that there's been absolutely no policy change? And there was a little bit of a pause and Robert Gibbs didn't answer yes but instead he said I would point you to the president's comments.
So Heidi, clearly a number of very thorny issues, legal issues that the administration is trying to grapple with right now.
COLLINS: Yes. It sounds like you said he would leave it up to the attorney general.
QUIJANO: That's exactly right. And this is something that we had not heard before, which is why this has been something that reporters have really jumped on. Robert Gibbs had a contentious briefing with reporters who are trying to press him about whether or not President Obama was feeling the pressure not just from human rights groups, but also members of Congress, to try and not necessarily put up any kind of roadblocks into an investigation, perhaps, into how these techniques were actually used.
But again, this clearly illustrates it's a very difficult situation as the administration tries to carefully navigate its way around this. On the one hand trying to say, look, we don't believe that these techniques are right but at the same time struggling to figure out what to do about the fact that it happened in the first place - Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Elaine Quijano, definitely keeping us posted on that story, certainly, live from the White House this morning.
More support for Roxana Saberi, she is the Iranian-American journalist convicted by Iran of spying. At her family's request, Nobel laureate and human rights activist Sherin Ebadi is joining her legal team. They are planning an appeal now.
And the Reverend Jesse Jackson offering to go to Iran to meet with religious and political leaders there. He wants to make what he calls a mercy appeal. Saberi's father is already there and talked with Roland Martin last night.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROLAND MARTIN, CNN HOST: Are you at all concerned about your safety talking to American media with regards to the case?
REZA SABERI, FATHER OF JAILED JOURNALIST (via telephone): Well, I don't - I don't think so. We are just saying what's happening, and they're not talking politics. Just - it just - our daughter's case here.
MARTIN: Are you talking to your daughter every day? Are you allowed to see her? How are you communicating with your daughter?
SABERI: Only once a week we can visit her. MARTIN: So you can visit her once a week for how long?
SABERI: For 20 minutes.
MARTIN: Does the day vary? Is it the same day each week or is it whenever you choose?
SABERI: No. It is a certain day, no. Once a week, yes, on a certain day.
MARTIN: And I would assume that you're going to stay there as long as necessary until you are able to bring your daughter home. Correct?
SABERI: That's correct.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Another show of support in Fargo, North Dakota, Saberi's hometown. Yellow ribbons tied around trees near her home.
Now more on that developing story about a Freddie Mac executive being found dead this morning. He's the very latest - here is the very latest information we know at this hour.
The body of David Kellermann was found inside his northern Virginia home earlier this morning. Police tell CNN no foul play is suspected and his death may have been a suicide. Kellermann had been chief financial officer at the mortgage giant since September. The government-controlled company has been hobbled by bad loans and has been kept afloat by billions of dollars in taxpayer money. The company's under federal investigation. Probes have been launched by the Securities and Exchange Commissions and the U.S. attorney's offices in both New York and Virginia.
All right. I want to get a check of the big board now. You can see Dow Jones Industrial Average down just a tiny bit there, about five points or so resting just below the 8000 mark. We, of course, are going to stay on top of those numbers for you all day long right here on CNN.
Also, this foreclosures hit home. A new report shows which areas are now the hardest hit and the impact ripples far beyond just the people losing their homes. CNN's Christine Romans is part of the CNN Money Team and she is joining us now from New York.
Yes, it really does have sort of a domino effect.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It really does. And frankly, Heidi, you are seeing people lose their jobs and that's making this foreclosure crisis worse because a lot of people who are living paycheck to paycheck and had been able to grasp the American dream of home ownership, now they've lost that paycheck and so you are seeing that home ownership slip through their fingers. And that is why the foreclosure filings are frankly still accelerating here. According to RealtyTrac, they're concentrated in four states. Fascinating that 26 of the top cities with the worst foreclosures are all in these four states, California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada. You throw in Illinois which we put on the list, as well here, and they together make up 60 percent of all foreclosure activity in the first quarter.
So you can see even among the people who are studying these numbers at RealtyTrac, they were surprised by how top heavy this list was that there was a concentration in those places, Each one of these statistics, too, Heidi, there's a person, a family behind those statistics and so we know that this situation's getting worse.
COLLINS: Yes. Do they point to reasons why? I mean I have heard a few reasons before. I just want to get that all are still the same.
ROMANS: Originally, it started in subprime and frankly, it was bad loans. It was loans to people that people who simply were not appropriate for those loans. It has spread now. Of course, to people who a year ago looked like their loan was just fine and they are in a perfectly fine position to have that mortgage but now they have lost a job and it's the job loss that is making it worse.
COLLINS: Yes, understood.
All right. CNN's Christine Romans, thanks, Christine.
Bad news gets worse for Internet company Yahoo!, a three year slump has now deepened. The company says it will lay off nearly 700 of its workers. That's about five percent of its work force. It's the third round of job cuts at Yahoo! in just over a year. COLLINS: Yes. Understood. All right. CNN's Christine Romans, thanks.
President Obama heads to Iowa this hour to celebrate Earth Day and pitch his energy plan. He's traveling to the town of Newton, which is the hard hit by the closing of a Maytag plant. The president will tour a new plant which was built in its place. That plant builds towers or wind turbines. The White House says the president will highlight plans to create jobs and protect the environment.
Here's a look now at the president's schedule as he commemorates Earth Day. Leaving for Iowa this hour, he'll tour Newton's wind energy plant just after noon and then the president will give remarks on his energy policy before heading back to Washington.
Some of you may not be able to enjoy Earth Day outside when it's icy cold and blowing snow. Rob Marciano, did you realize it's almost May. What's the deal?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, some places, you know, have to deal with that. Is that the 747 Air Force One I see on the tarmac?
COLLINS: Yes. MARCIANO: Ready to fly to Iowa for Earth Day. I mean it's a pretty big -- carbon footprint just to make a speech in front of a windmill. Come on, let's park the jumbo jet just for Earth Day, Mr. President.
All right. Forget about Earth Day, they are saying it's a snow day yesterday in Wisconsin. In some case, over 20 inches of snow in the U.P. of Michigan. We'll run down on that. It's just getting a little bit better and things on the east coast will be warming up. Fall weather coming up when the CNN NEWSROOM comes right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: All right. I'm standing on the flight deck of the USS Harry Truman and we are in the middle of CQs, carrier qualification and right now we are getting ready to watch some of these F-18s come in, in the middle of the night, night ops. Take a look.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIANO: That's hot. Heidi Collins doing a night landing on an aircraft carrier with all the military gear and power behind her. My goodness. What happened?
COLLINS: Well, you know, to be fair, I didn't do anything. I just stood there.
Yes, we were on the flight deck of the USS Harry S. Truman. OK, we stayed overnight. It was an incredible adventure on a Sunday night and what we were watching is night ops because they were doing what I was saying, CQ, carrier qualifications.
And the men and women have to come in, they are flying F-18s out there, two different types, and they're coming in. They are doing the traps. They have to make sure that they know how to catch the wire and they do touch and gos. They touchdown, take right back off and then they also have to do their catapults.
So, this is the USS Truman that we're looking at right here. And, boy, was that exciting. I've never been out for night ops before and there are several people that we talked to, who have - this is the group that I went with. There's the F-18s. This is daytime, obviously, landing right behind it. You can tell because of how fast it's going.
MARCIANO: That's pretty hot too. Awesome.
COLLINS: But let me tell you, some of these pilots have been flying for a very long time, we had the opportunity to go around with Admiral Mark Fox. I mean, how many landings this gentleman has done? Who knows? But he even said when you're doing it at night, it is a whole different ball of wax. I mean, you know, they call it sporty. It still is a little sporty.
MARCIANO: Sporty. That's what the tough guys say when you're nervous.
COLLINS: And you can see right here. This is one of the wires, I always wanted to get the third wire.
MARCIANO: OK.
COLLINS: That's the best wire. You know four of them lined up, but the third one...
MARCIANO: But it's pretty hard when you actually hit the...
COLLINS: Yes, pretty hard. I would say pretty hard. It is rough. This is back in the bridge here.
This is the captain of the ship (INAUDIBLE) and we were able to watch over the flight operations going on, all day long. Six thousand men and women out there, sailors, working their tails off.
Here you can see cleaning the deck.
Do you know what happens when an itty, bitty, little tiny pin or any type of debris falls on that deck? They basically have to shut down. They have to find that. That's know as FOD, foreign object debris. It can get into the engine, shut down one of those engines, damage the engine and the plane can't fly.
So they walk in like four rows - I don't know how many hundreds at a time basically step by step looking down until they find that itty bitty - and there were all kinds of examples that they showed us. And I'm talking about a nut or a bolt. You know, that big. Very, very...
MARCIANO: Can't get out there with a leaf blower? And just kind of blow it off to the ocean? No.
COLLINS: No. Not so much. But it was really an honor to be out there and see how hard these men and women are working.
MARCIANO: I'm jealous. I'm thrilled for you that you got that opportunity and of course, you have been working with the Intrepid and their renovation in the past several years. So - and good work for you.
COLLINS: This is how you're trying to get a ride, right?
MARCIANO: Yes. yes. I haven't been on night ops. All right. My turn, Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes.
MARCIANO: Actually, let's show this video.
COLLINS: OK.
MARCIANO: Shall we?
COLLINS: Yes.
MARCIANO: Virginia flooding. Several inches of rain in spots. Falling in Virginia and the Delmarva yesterday, causing some street flooding. Not too huge of a deal but the kids in Wisconsin and the U.P. of Michigan certainly celebrating because winter just doesn't want to go away.
COLLINS: Wow.
MARCIANO: So big-time snow there. Accumulating on the sides of the roadways and in some cases we had a fair amount accumulating. My goodness. Oh, here they are.
COLLINS: I'm going to get out of the way here.
MARCIANO: All right.
You're losing your microphone, pen. Always nice to have you in the Weather Center.
COLLINS: Thank you.
MARCIANO: We'll continue with a list of some of these snow totals. These are in inches, 23.1 inches at Rockland, Michigan. And 21 in Herman. So that's enough to certainly slow the roadways down and in some cases like canceled school. But winding down a little bit, some cool and showery activity expected across parts of the northeast today and then back across the west, definitely expecting more in the way of hot weather but things real change as we go through time.
Showers here beginning to wind down but we may see some heavy rains again across the northeast. The area of low pressure, this bulk of moisture heading towards Long Island. That's a storm that's going to gather some strength and maybe cause some heavy rain across parts of New England.
Once again, record high temperatures yesterday. A third day in a row and it might do it again today. Finally a cool down coming. 98 degrees in downtown L.A. and 101 in Riverside and temperatures expected to cool down there in the next couple of days and then heat up towards the east coast and you'll feel like spring, more like summer, actually, on the eastern seaboard as we head towards Saturday and Sunday - Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Rob, thanks so much. We sure do appreciate it.
MARCIANO: All right.
COLLINS: Quickly, we need to show this while we can. We are looking for the president here as he gets ready to depart for Newton, Iowa as we had been talking with us on this Earth Day.
Maybe he'll be coming out. We're trying to get a good look for you here. You can't quite tell. Marine One guys, they are getting ready to get on Air Force One, I believe, obviously, they are at Andrews Air Force Base. Of course, and if he will be making those remarks - there he is. President Barack Obama coming off of Marine One, making his way over to Air Force One. He could be making remarks in Newton, Iowa once he gets there about clean energy.
And we will be commemorating Earth Day here as well, all day long right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Kids addicted to video games. It is a real possibility according to a new study. CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here now to break it all down for us.
So this is alarming for a lot of parents, because kids want to play those games all the time. What did the study find?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the study finds that most kids play games just fine, but what they did find is that a small number but an important number get into pathological video game use. That's the term that they use. It does sound terrible.
What they found is that nearly one in 10 children are showing signs of video game addiction. So what they mean is that some of these kids, for example, would lie to their parents about how much they're using it or couldn't go to school because they were too exhausted because they were gaming. Or got really irritable and sometimes even nasty when their parents said, hey, could you use that a little bit less or if they were let's say on vacation and couldn't game.
So those are some signs that things are going wrong.
COLLINS: All right. Well I imagine it's different regarding what age group you're talking about but give parents some help here. What do you look for?
COHEN: Right. The first point to make is that most kids use video games just fine and the researcher said it's not the game's fault but it's just some kids don't do so well with them.
So here are the signs to look for. First of all, what you want to look for is does your child fall asleep in school because they're exhausted from gaming? Are their grades going down? Do they lie about their video game use? Do they choose to play a video game rather than see the real friends? Are they stealing money to buy or play games and do they become irritability when not playing a video game.
Heidi, I did a story once with a young man. He was 16 and when his parents said, I think we're going to take this away, he overturned furniture. I mean, that's a sign that there's trouble.
COLLINS: Absolutely. What becomes so addictive about these games? Is it trying to get to the next level?
COHEN: Yes.
There's such a reward. You're always getting the next level, you're always doing better and there's always that promise around the corner of some new achievement and dopamine levels in our brains go up. That's sort of one of those pleasure chemicals and its similar in a ways to what happens in drug addicts' brains is that the dopamine levels go up and you kind of get addicted. You get a high from that.
COLLINS: What does the video game industry say about all of these?
COHEN: Well, when I interviewed them for a story a couple of years ago, Heidi. What they said is, look, hundreds of millions of kids use these games thus far. And if your child is not using it fine, you should be a grown up, you should be a parent and you should take that game away.
COLLINS: Watch your kid. Know what they are going.
COHEN: Exactly.
COLLINS: OK. Elizabeth Cohen, I sure do appreciate it. Thank you.
Well, you don't want to miss this. We will put you in the cockpit of a homemade plain and then the engine dies, the pilot scrambles and the drama unfolds, get ready to buckle up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN NEWSROOM, Heidi Collins.
COLLINS: We have grim new details in this morning's death of a Freddie Mac executive. The body of David Kellermann was found inside his home in northern Virginia. He was the acting chief financial officer for the troubled mortgage giants.
CNN's Kate Bolduan joining us now from outside the home in Vienna, Virginia.
Kate, good morning.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
The mood here, the weather fitting the mood here in northern Virginia. Very somber. Many neighbors very surprised that when's happening here and what has transpired. But I learned from a source close to the investigation of the death of David Kellermann that he died of an apparent hanging. So law enforcement here on the scene Heidi, saying that he was dead when officers arrived. They got the call just before 5:00 this morning.
But as is typical, they say they do not expect foul play, but they would not go as far to say it is a suicide until the medical examiner makes that determination. But I am told by a source close to this investigation that it was an apparent hanging, so we have now learned that. All morning, since we've gotten on scene, we've seen people going in and out, of course some being law enforcement officers.
But we are told that the family is inside the home. We don't know how many people are in the home, but we are told that they're in the home right now, of course, going through the grieving process and being questioned by law enforcement as they continue investigating this scene. They're not calling it a crime scene at this time, however -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Wow. All right. CNN's Kate Bolduan for us. Thank you, Kate.
On Wall Street this morning, it's a tale of two financial companies. Wells Fargo reported a record profit today, while Morgan Stanley reported a big loss. For a look at what's going on with the banking sector, let's go straight to Susan Lisovicz, who's on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Hi there, Susan. It was the best of times, it was the worst times.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes it was. It's Dickensian, if you will, that's for sure. Heidi, we are seeing pretty good headline numbers, and I guess case in point would be Wells Fargo. Now, that may sound familiar to you because Wells Fargo forecast two weeks ago it was going to make a lot of money in the first quarter. And indeed it did, $3 billion.
Strong mortgage and home equity loan activity, very nice, but Wells Fargo doubled its loan loss provisions, and that's something we've been hearing a lot about in the past week. It's as simple as this: Consumers are having a hard time paying their bills.
Let's go to Morgan Stanley. It lost nearly $200 million in the first quarter. It's it's second straight quarterly loss. Big problem, commercial real estate market. It saw $1 billion in losses on real estate, commercial real estate. Morgan Stanley shares are down 2 percent. Wells Fargo shares are up 8 percent and the market has turned around. Nice turnaround, Heidi. The Dow is up 61 points. Nasdaq is up 21.
COLLINS: Yes. The home mortgage numbers down -- sorry, with the residential market. But now you're talking about commercial loans. Are things getting worse on that front?
LISOVICZ: No question about it. You know, Heidi, last week, the second largest mall operator in the U.S., General Growth, which has 200 malls throughout the U.S., three of them in the Atlanta area, filed for bankruptcy protection. I don't know if you checked out "The Wall Street Journal" today. In Atlanta, irrational building exuberance.
Let me just read to you one sentence from there: "Separate developers in Buckhead" -- which is a high-end area in Atlanta -- "are building four speculative office buildings at the same time with virtually no leasing activity." That pretty much -- you probably know some of them.
COLLINS: Yes. Absolutely.
LISOVICZ: Some of these, because some of them are not -- there's no activity, no construction going on right now.
COLLINS: That's right. Yes. No question about it. The government, though, has been measuring banks' financial health, too. What are the results of those stress tests? We talked about them for a couple of days here. When are those results going to be released?
LISOVICZ: And that's something that's a big topic on the floor for days now. Banks themselves will meet with regulators this Friday, and they will discuss or debate, if you will, the results. The public should get the results on May 4th. We may not get the complete results, but we will hear something on May 4th.
The intent, obviously, is to show which banks need more help. And the earnings that we're getting now will give us some clue. But remember, these are called stress tests for a reason, Heidi. They're measured under extreme conditions -- an unemployment rate of 10 percent, for instance, and big losses in a whole bunch of areas like home equity, commercial real estate, credit cards. This kind of thing. So, they are put under stress, and some obviously will do better than others -- Heidi.
LISOVICZ: Yes, no question. All right, Susan Lisovicz watching it all for us, thank you.
LISOVICZ: You're welcome.
COLLINS: President Obama on his way to Iowa right now to mark Earth Day. The president will visit the town of Newton, hard hit by the closing of a Maytag plant there. And the president will tour a new wind energy plant, which was built in its place. And he'll pitch the energy policy and environmentally friendly jobs. So, we'll be watching for that.
Now, some of the people who used to work at the Maytag plant before it closed now work at the new Trinity wind energy plant. And one of them is Rich Mulbrook -- pardon me, Rich. And he has the honor of actually introducing the president today. He's joining us now from Newton.
So, Rich, what's the deal? How did you get this job?
RICH MULBROOK, EMPLOYEE, TRINITY STRUCTURAL TOWERS, INC.: I think just being the farmer and actually worked at Maytag, had a lot of green experience, being the farm boy all my life.
COLLINS: Sure. I actually mean, though, how did you get the job of introducing the president. Are you excited about that?
MULBROOK: Yes, I am.
COLLINS: What are you going to say?
MULBROOK: Uh...
(LAUGHTER)
COLLINS: You're still working on that.
MULBROOK: Yes.
COLLINS: It is going to be quite an honor, I'm sure, to have him there and to have you of all people introducing him. Tell us a little bit about what has changed in your town when Maytag shut down and now this new wind power plant.
MULBROOK: Well, it's jobs for the community. Plus everything in this plant now is concentrated on going green. Our steel is recycled. Even our electrical, we're trying to keep all the lights to low energy. So, it's a really exciting time.
COLLINS: Yes. I mean, you've been with Maytag for something like 23 years or so. And to see such a big turnaround, it's very, very interesting that they are going this direction. We're looking at some of the video right now of the wind turbines. Well, we certainly appreciate your time, Rich. And we wish you all of the luck in introducing President Barack Obama, who will be there shortly.
MULBROOK: Well, thank you very much.
COLLINS: Good luck, OK?
MULBROOK: Thanks.
COLLINS: And here's a look now at the president's schedule as he celebrates Earth Day. He left Andrews Air Force Base just moments ago heading for Newton, Iowa. He'll tour Newton's wind energy plant shortly after noon, and then the president will give remarks on his energy plan before heading back to Washington.
The engine cuts out on a homemade airplane and forces an emergency landing on a busy Florida street. The drama captured in the pilot's words and by the two cameras mounted on the aircraft. See and hear for yourself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KYLE DAVIS, PILOT: When I landed on the street and I realized I hadn't damaged the airplane, anybody, I was OK, it was incredibly relieving. It was a feeling like no other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Neither the plane nor the men aboard suffered a scratch. At least on the outside, anyway.
It's right thing to do for your planet and your wallet, going green and saving green.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: People all over the world doing all kinds of environmental activities today in honor of Earth Day. From the Philippines to Washington to your iReports, we're getting lots of video. And our Josh Levs of course is keeping track of it all for us. What do you have there, Josh?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we've got a bunch of it pulled up here. It's great, Heidi. As the video comes in, we're going to start pulling up the best stuff for you all day long. Let me start off with this, one of the first celebrations in a sense that we got on Earth Day at all comes from the Philippines here.
Let's pull in the sound, too. And you can see what they're doing here. They're working on this river that feeds a lot of the areas in Manila. Used to be a critical water source, and now it's been so polluted, they can't even use it.
So, some boats went out today, did some work on this, tried to clean it up, and then they held a parade. Let's see if we can get a little bit of sound from that parade here. You can hear people. First, they did sort of a boat parade, talking about how important this is. Then they got on the streets. You can hear the horns honking.
So, that's from Manila, one of the farthest events that we got. Now I want to bring it home a little bit. We were just looking at President Obama and how he was -- let me see if I can shrink this down -- and about how he's heading off to Iowa. Right? We were talking about that. Well, yesterday, some people don't know he went and did this. He planted a tree with some high school students. Let's listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What are you talking about? All I know is...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at how big my tree is.
OBAMA: ... all I do is, I just see you over there talking trash. And we planted a tree.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: So, he's doing some bonding with the high school students, planting a tree with them, talking about the importance of environmentalism. That's a feed that we got from something yesterday in the Washington, D.C. area.
Now, here's a little gathering of a different kind in the Galapagos. Some scientists sent us this. They're meeting on Earth Day. I thought you would like this. Listen to them eat. Adorable. Take a listen. (VIDEO CLIP -- TURTLES EATING)
COLLINS: Seriously? We're listening to them eat?
LEVS: I love these guys.
COLLINS: I do, too.
LEVS: It's a group of scientists that got together in the Galapagos in honor of Earth Day. And they're saying there's actually a lot you can learn about the development of animal life in that area that might help all creatures protect ourselves and adapt to changing environments. And that one's gone.
Finally, don't want to lose this. We're getting a lot of incredible iReports from around the world. Look at these incredible shots, Heidi. These are all our own iReporters taking pictures of some of their favorite spots on Earth, sharing them with us and saying in honor of Earth Day they want to point to some of what they feel needs to be protected, most important on Earth. Beautiful.
I mean, these are how good the shots are that we get on iReport. We're very lucky. So, keep them coming, iReport.com. One of the many things people are taking a look at today, Heidi. Your thoughts on this and any video, photos you want to send us, iReport.com, send it along.
COLLINS: Yes, so, next hour you're going to be sharing what some of our viewers have been saying about Earth Day, right?
LEVS: Yes, exactly. We're going to be looking -- in fact, we have a screen here. It shows you how to contact us. You've got Facebook. You've got Twitter. Just let us know your thoughts about Earth Day.
We want to read your words as well. Maybe you think it's a bad idea. Maybe you think it's a great idea but not worth your time. Maybe you're just dropping everything to go do Earth Day stuff. Let us know what your thoughts are right there. Facebook, Josh Levs CNN, Twitter.com/joshlevscnn or right here at iReport.com. We're going to bring you all those next hour, Heidi.
COLLINS: You are so connected.
LEVS: Do my best. Like an octopus.
COLLINS: Josh Levs, thank you.
LEVS: Thank you.
COLLINS: We've got more for you on Earth Day. Here's a look now at some ways you can go green in your home and save money at the same time.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MARION WEBB, ECOBROKER: Despite the tight economy, there's still inexpensive ways to go green, save money and of course save our planet. We can start looking at the places where energy is lost. A vampire plug is those devices like the cords that you use to connect your cell phone. They don't have an on/off switch, so even when the device is off, you're still pulling power, so with something like a power strip, with an on/off switch, you can simply flip that switch off. So, this is a great investment, under $20.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Other things we've done is replaced the windows on our home because it's an old home and had additional insulation blown in, just some of the pragmatic measures we can take.
WEBB: A pack of these things costs about $1.13, and you get about six. If you'll insulate your pipes, you can buy these little foam things to put around your pipes. You can purchase shrink and seal window kits. Very easy to install on your windows. You lose a lot of your energy through your windows and your doors. You can pick it up for under four bucks.
RON PAULINELLI, ECOTRANSITIONS: Over the course of a year for a family of four, you're flushing the equivalent of about an 18 by 36 in-ground swimming pool.
WEBB: You can invest in a toilet tank bank. This reduces the amount of water that's needed to fill up your (INAUDIBLE). Turn your hot water tanks down. Normally, it's set at about 140. If you turn it down to about 110 or 120, free, costs you nothing.
When you're reducing your energy consumption, you're reducing the amount of CO2, you are reducing the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to save the planet, too? Give me five.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: This weekend, Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta take you to the front lines of the ultimate battle over natural resources. An encore presentation of "PLANET IN PERIL: BATTLE LINES" Saturday and Sunday night at 11:00 p.m. Eastern only right here on CNN.
They're leaving Iraq, but they don't get to go home just yet. We are traveling with one of the first units to redeploy from Iraq to Afghanistan.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: They're leaving one war-torn country but stepping right into another. The plan to shift U.S. forces from Iraq to Afghanistan is already happening. Our Frederik Pleitgen is traveling now with one of the first units to make the shift, and he's joining us live from Kandahar now. So, Frederik, tell us a little bit about the mission there. FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Heidi. What happened is that these troops had been in Iraq for about two weeks when they got their redeployment orders. And if you've ever made a move yourself, you know that about two weeks is about the time you need to get unpacked and get settled. And then they got their marching orders to come here to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
Now, this is really a remarkable logistical operation that the military is conducting here. This unit is moving with a lot of heavy vehicles, a lot of armored vehicles. It's a unit that does route clearance. That means they clear roads of roadside bombs and land mines. And all that stuff is being put into 70 gigantic C-17 cargo planes.
And we were able to ride on one of those cargo planes, which really was a remarkable experience. We got to ride in the cockpit all during takeoff and landing, which is an amazing experience. And how this unit is going to get here because their skills are so badly needed in this war theater here.
We were asking around the camp here in Kandahar after we had landed, and everybody here says that route clearance is something that simply has not been done here in this war theater over the past couple of years, Heidi.
COLLINS: And Frederik, we should be clear that not everybody who is in Iraq is going to, when they finish their tours there, is going to then head over to Afghanistan. But this particular unit is doing that. Talk a little bit about the morale and what you're seeing on that front.
PLEITGEN: Well, it's been surprisingly good. I mean, of course, there were a couple of guys who were a little bit concerned about going to Afghanistan. Some of them said their families were fairly concerned about going to this different place.
Of course, it is something very hard to do, after being deployed for only two weeks, to move over to a completely different country with completely different terrain, with a completely a different enemy to combat, as well. But most of the guys that we have been talking to, they said that they were ready for this shift. They were ready to go here.
They said that no matter what the enemy does, they plan to bring a bigger fight. And they also said that they've been fairly well prepared for what is going on right now. So, certainly the solders that we've been talking to, their morale was really, really high, and a lot of them say they believe that at this point in time, Afghanistan is the country where they think they can make more of a difference -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Our Fred Pleitgen coming to us live from Kandahar today. All right, Fred, we'll be checking in with you. Thank you.
Former South African President Mandela taking part in the democratic process he helped usher in. The 90-year-old, yes, 90 years old now, cast his vote in the elections happening today in his country. He supports his party's presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma, who is expected to win. Mandela was South Africa's first democratically elected president in 1994. Before that, he was a political prisoner for 27 years.
Conservation at a cost. Plans to help clean up the planet come with a price tag.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: On this Earth Day, ask yourself, are you willing to pay higher electric bills to help clean up the planet? CNNMoney.com's Poppy Harlow has our "Energy Fix" now from New York. Boy, this is your kind of day, Poppy, right?
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: Right. But I think everyone would say yes to that question on Earth Day, Heidi. We'll see in the long run, though. We could all be paying more, folks, if this energy bill that is moving through Congress does get signed into law. The head of the EPA, the secretaries of energy and transportation right now testifying on Capitol Hill.
Take a look at those live pictures there. That is the secretary of energy, Steven Chu, testifying before a House committee on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 put forth just a little bit earlier this year. That bill calls for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020, an 80 percent reduction by 2050, all through a cap and trade system. And Heidi, as you know, essentially that's where essentially businesses pay more when they exceed those emission targets that they're allotted. And they save when they cut those emissions. Heidi, it's very controversial among other things -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes. A big concern is that those companies will pass increased costs to the consumer. So, how much more could we be paying in electric bills, then?
HARLOW: It's a big question. We posed it to Lisa Jackson, the head of the EPA, when we spoke with her on Friday. And there's a new EPA report out, just released yesterday, and it says that the average American household would pay an extra $98 to $140 a year if this goes through.
To be clear, though, these calculations assume that through the bill we'd all get a lump-sum government rebate from the money raised through the cap and trade system. If that doesn't happen, it's going to cost us all a lot more. I asked Lisa Jackson, the head of the EPA, just how effective she thinks the cap and trade system would be when it comes to our energy prices. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LISA JACKSON, ADMINISTRATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: Cap and trade uses the economy in our favor because it prices emissions and slowly allows private investment to bring about the kind of energy innovation that will actually in the long run lower energy costs and break our dependence on foreign oil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: All right. Essentially, she's saying we may incur greater costs at first. Down the road, though, Heidi, energy prices through cap and trade will fall even below where they are now. That's the guess, according to the EPA. Of course, though, she did say -- I'll leave you with this on Earth Day -- the cheapest kilowatt of energy is the one that you never use. So, conservation is key, right, Heidi?
COLLINS: Yes, definitely. All right, Poppy Harlow, thank you.
HARLOW: Sure.
COLLINS: Consider it the thin green line. Environmental police officers out to save the world one ticket at a time. CNN's Richard Roth has their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are counting...
RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Officer Matthew Nichols is on a mission.
OFFICER MATTHEW NICHOLS, NEW YORK STATE ENVIRONMENTAL POLICE: This is where it starts, in the field and on the streets.
ROTH: On this day, a surprise visit to a market in Brooklyn's Chinatown.
NICHOLS: Go ahead, (INAUDIBLE).
ROTH: He's looking for illegal fish and marine life for sale.
NICHOLS: Where did the rainbow trout come from?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) from the market.
NICHOLS: OK. Do you have tags for that?
ROTH: Nichols and his colleague, Lieutenant John Fitzpatrick, are two of only 20 environmental officers patrolling New York City.
LIEUTENANT JOHN FITZPATRICK, NEW YORK STATE ENVIRONMENTAL POLICE: It's funny because when I tell people what I do for a living, the first response usually is, you're the environmental police? There is no environment in New York City.
Here it is right here. Look at that.
ROTH: Ah, but there is. You never know when a humpback whale may lose its way. Earlier this month, one ended up in New York Harbor. The ecopolice got a call to help. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, our goal is just to keep the whale safe, keep all the commercial and the recreation, hunting vessels away from the whale right now.
ROTH: The humpback safely made its way back to sea.
NICHOLS: Looking for vehicles that are spewing that black smoke.
ROTH: Back on land, Officer Nichols deals with spouting trucks that may have lost their environmental way. Their foul air can lead to asthma and other problems.
NICHOLS: Sir, you got your license and registration on you? I issued you a summons. Just get your truck fixed. There's obviously something wrong with your engine.
ROTH: While emissions inspections seem tedious, Nichols and the other officers feel their work is important in the grand scheme of things.
NICHOLS: I do feel like I'm saving the planet. It is a large picture and to take piece by piece, and every little bit counts, and that's what I feel like we're doing out here every day.
ROTH: Richard Roth, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: And this weekend, Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta take you to the front lines to the ultimate battle of resources in the encore presentation of "PLANET IN PERIL: BATTLE LINES" Saturday and Sunday night at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.
I'm Heidi Collins. Going green, stay with CNN all day for Earth Day events and information. CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Tony Harris.
