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Supreme Court Nominee Under Fire; GM to Declare Bankruptcy; Poor Training Cause of Air Crashes?; Army Base Copes with Issue of Suicide; North Korean Nuclear Plant Shows Recent Activity; Parents Have Rights in Kids' Medical Treatment; Retired Lieutenant General Honore Weighs In On North Korean Situation

Aired May 28, 2009 - 13:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And we are pushing forward now with the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM with Don Lemon.

DON LEMON, HOST: All right. Tony Harris, thank you very much.

Pushing forward on justice, race and politics, on business and bankruptcy and world peace.

Talk about big stories. Conservatives are trying to build a racism case against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. You'll hear the evidence, and we're going to play it for you, in context.

General Motors still seems headed into bankruptcy but without a lot of excess baggage from bond holders.

And if North Korea wanted more attention, it's got it. The U.S. and South Korea upgrade their recon as Pyongyang threatens war.

Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon, CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. Kyra is off today. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Well, when it comes to perspective, what Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, pushing forward means digging deeper in this case. Our Candy Crowley, you just heard it. She reported on the uproar over Sotomayor's address to law students at the University of California Berkeley. That was back in 2001. Well, the woman who now stands to be the court's first Hispanic member reflected on gender, ethnic background and legal reasoning.

Coming up just a little bit later on, right here in the CNN NEWSROOM, we are going to read Sotomayor's speech in context, in the context that it was presented, and we'll have that for you in just a moment. There is no tape of the speech itself, and we're going to walk you through it just as soon as we get it in just a second.

But now we want to talk to you about some of the critics back to 2009. Back to 2009. Conservative critics see an open and shut case of racism here.

Now, others see a desperate attempt to tear down what many people are calling a trailblazer. I want to talk to Barbara Perry now. She joins me now from Charlottesville, Virginia. Thank you very much, Professor Perry. She lectures on government at Sweet Briar College and is working on her sixth book about the Supreme Court. About the high court as they call it.

So we spoke just yesterday on the religious issues and other issues concerning this. Now let's talk about race and gender. When you talk about these things and when you hear it in context as we're going to play it, do you feel that her comments were racist, or are they taken out of context?

BARBARA PERRY, PROFESSOR/AUTHOR: I certainly don't think they were racist. And I do think they've been taken out of context, and understandably so, by the opposition. That's the role that they now play. And that is to find things that they can take issue with and perhaps blow them out of proportion.

LEMON: OK. So again, when you hear it, and even for people who may not hear it and may just hear that one statement that's been played over and over in the news, will this present a problem for Sonia Sotomayor in the confirmation process?

PERRY: I don't think in the end, Don, that it will present a problem for her. I think she will be confirmed. But as I say, the opposition needs to find some needles in the haystack, or perhaps this was a giant tree limb in the haystack, so that it wasn't that hard to find. But I think -- I think you're doing the right thing by putting it in context.

And beyond just the notion of her speech, the context was also that she was responding to something Sandra Day O'Connor had said about a wise old man and a wise old woman come to the same decision.

LEMON: Right. And she said, you know, a wise old man and a wise old woman. She's not always absolutely sure that they come to the same decision.

Do we have that speech in context now? We have it. OK. We're going to go to it, Ms. Perry, and when we finish, I want to get your perspective on it, as well as our viewers' perspective, as well. They can send their comments.

Let's take a listen to the speech in context.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON (voice-over): In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males.

I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.

Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case.

I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, sometimes that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care.

Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: An excerpt from her speech in 2001 at Berkeley. I know it's long, and it takes some time. But you have to present these things in context. It's not just a sound bite, because sound bites can be taken out of context.

We're talking now to Barbara Perry, who knows about these issues. She's writing a book on the Supreme Court.

OK. So you spoke about, you know, mentioning, you know, a wise old man and a wise old woman will come to the same conclusion on things, and she disagrees with that. It's important here. It appears that she's in front of a certain audience. Know your audience. She's speaking to issues concerning Hispanic representation in the judiciary. So again, does that help or hurt her case about this being possibly racist or not, Ms. Perry?

PERRY: I think putting it into context helps her case. Because she is saying that she doesn't mean that white men cannot be sympathetic or -- let's use the term empathy -- empathetic towards those who are different from them. But on the other hand she's saying that she's pretty certain in her case that her heritage has created the person she is. And I think if all judges were honest, they would say that that is the case.

LEMON: OK. Let's talk about in there -- recent years we've seen, you know, the confirmation hearing process for -- for Clarence Thomas, which was very controversial and very high-profile in the media. That involved sexism and sexual harassment. He was still confirmed.

And then in January of 2006, Samuel Alito. A Republican senator, Tom Coburn from Oklahoma asked Alito about his heart. He says, "What do you care about? What is on your heart, Mr. Alito?" And here's how he responded. Take a listen, Ms. Perry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTICE SAM ALITO, SUPREME COURT: Because when a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position. And so it's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.

But I have to, when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself and I do I say to myself, you know, "This could be your grandfather. This could be your grandmother. They were in -- they were -- they were not citizens at one time. They were people who came to this country."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And the question here is about historic bias when it comes to his family. No huge deal was made about that in the media or by people who were against his confirmation. So is there a double standard here?

PERRY: I don't think it's a double standard. I think it's just whatever, as you use the term, sound bite rises to the top of the heap. And I think Judge Sotomayor is so qualified by virtue of her education and her experience on the federal judiciary that it is a bit grasping at straws to single out just one statement or two that she made that could be viewed as controversial.

LEMON: Barbara Perry, we expect your perspective. Thank you very much for that.

PERRY: Happy to be with you today.

LEMON: All right. Now it is your turn, the audience. We want you to give us your take on this controversy and judicial objectivity. Weigh in on Newsroom PM Web page. Or use Twitter at DonLemonCNN. You can go there. We'll take your comments. We like getting them on the air. We'll post them on the air. And Candy Crowley will join me live next hour with her thoughts on this entire controversy, as well.

All right. Let's talk GM now. General Motors has struck a revised deal with bond holders, but it probably won't keep the company out of bankruptcy. GM sweetened the pot, well, just a little bit. Bond holders now get 10 percent of the company, and on top of that, rights to buy another 15 percent at a low price.

In return, they don't fight the government's plans for a quick GM bankruptcy. Today's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission also said GM's unsecured debt would be wiped away, and Uncle Sam would own nearly three-quarters of that company.

The deadline to restructure or file for bankruptcy is on Monday.

So hold on just a sec. Sounds like a bunch of SEC speak, right? We hear about bond holders and all of that. What does all of this mean for you, me, Detroit, and the country?

Peter Valdes-Dapena from CNNmoney.com is here to draw us the bigger picture.

Peter, who are these bond holders we're hearing about that approved this -- this new restructuring?

PETER VALDES-DAPENA, CNNMONEY.COM: Well, I don't have the names for you, but I know that 20 -- we know that roughly 20 percent are going to be smaller bond holders and individuals who have just bought some GM bonds because they thought, ironically, this was a safe investment: "It's a big company and this is something I can count on for my retirement."

More of them are going to be larger institutional bond holders of various types that hold multiple corporate debt from various multiple companies.

LEMON: So if I'm at home, I'm watching television, and you know, I may have -- I may have had some GM stock and may have some in my 401(k) without even knowing about it, what does this mean for you? What does it mean for me?

VALDES-DAPENA: Well, I think for the majority of folks right now, GM has been in trouble for a while. So -- and their stock is trading little right now, because in bankruptcy GM stockholders are not going to come out of this with very much. So their stock has been going down for a while.

If you're talking about a 401(k) plan, you probably aren't going to be terribly affected by this, I don't think, because you probably are not -- you know, people running your 401(k) probably are not still holding, I would think, a lot of GM stock or a lot of GM debt in those holdings. It's kind of hard to say. Depends on your individual circumstances. But I don't see a big impact for most people there.

I think most people looking at this in America and, certainly, the Treasury Department that's been working through this, are more concerned with the economic impact of GM than with the company and the debt holders themselves, in saying, look, the bigger picture here is we need this company to continue, to continue as an economic force in the United States, to continue employing people and building cars here and selling cars here.

LEMON: Peter Valdes-Dapena of CNNmoney.com. We appreciate it. If you want more information on this, on GM, go to CNNmoney.com. Appreciate it, sir.

Here's another part of the economic shock wave coming out of Detroit. Visteon is a company that makes parts for the automakers. It filed today for bankruptcy protection. The orders just aren't coming in from its big clients here.

Visteon used to be part of Ford. It was spun off into its own company nine years ago. About 31,000 people in 27 countries work for Visteon.

Tomorrow night, CNN's Ali Velshi and Christine Romans explore the auto -- American auto industry and where it might go from here. "How the Wheels Came Off: The Rise and Fall of the American Auto Industry" runs Friday night, 8 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.

In other news, three fatal aircraft accidents, and they all have a common link.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAT MOORE, COMMERCIAL PILOT: When I get on an airplane, I expect a fully qualified crew.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You will be surprised how quickly a Florida flight school's pilots in training can take the controls of the commercial flights. It's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Three Ft. Campbell soldiers killed so far this year serving in Afghanistan. Eleven dead by their own hand. What's wrong with this picture? Commanders are going to extraordinary length to try to answer that question.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Some terrifying moments here. A paradise for divers and snorkelers on edge today after a deadly earthquake. The quake, with a magnitude of 7.1, struck before dawn off the coast of Honduras. It was centered near the country's biggest bay island there. At least three dozen -- three deaths, I should say, and dozens of injuries are reported. Terrified residents and tourists ran into the streets when the earth started shaking right beneath them. Right now authorities are still trying to determine the extent of that damage.

Well, the new Atlantic hurricane season is just four days away, and you'd think Americans living in the danger zones, they'd be prepared, right? Not so much.

A new poll shows 83 percent of those surveyed have taken no steps to make their home stronger. Sixty-six percent have no hurricane survival kits, basics like food and water, which should last for about three days. And 53 percent don't know if their insurance policy covers hurricane damage. Now, the survey covered coastal areas from Maine all of the way to Texas.

Well, just ahead of hurricane season a tropical depression out in the Atlantic. The man who's going to tell us about that, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. Hey, right on cue.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Just -- four days early, even. Tropical depression No. 1 doesn't have a name. It has to get to be a storm before it's going to have a name. But there it is, kind of that big blob of convection. It's kind of headed up toward Newfoundland, and it's still -- Newfoundland, you're not out of the complete picture here. And we do expect this to become a storm. That is the official forecast.

Let's bring it down here from the hurricane center. Right now just a low. That's why it's still just an "L." But as this moves on up into colder water. This is still the Gulfstream. This symbol right there means it is forecast to become a storm. A small storm, 40 miles per hour, 1-mile-per-hour over being just a tropical depression. But it would be Ana, Ana if it did become a storm. It would be nice to get one name out of the way, wouldn't it?

Here are the computer models. Nothing taking it toward the U.S. Nothing even taking it toward Newfoundland, St. John's, but it does kind of get so close up here that I'm still -- I want everybody up here in Atlantic Canada to kind of keep watching this system, because there still is obviously that potential.

And the potential for the rest of the day, severe weather. All the way from Ohio right on down to the Gulf of Mexico. This is where the storm would be. It's moving completely away from land, not being sucked in by this low. So we don't have this perfect storm situation going.

But this is the area we're going to watch, from Kentucky through Tennessee, parts of Georgia, including Atlanta, all the way down into probably Mobile and Pensacola for the next couple of hours as storms pop up during the day.

Typical showers, thunderstorms. No real big giant F-4 or -5 tornadoes today. But certainly, some hail and some gusty winds and a small little land spout or small little spin up of an F-0, F-1 tornado not out of the question today, Don.

And a new Saffir-Simpson scale for this year just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water they changed it again. We'll tell you about that before hurricane season starts.

LEMON: Look how excited you are, Mr. Meteorologist.

MYERS: That means I get to talk about it.

LEMON: I know. Saffir-Simpson. Everybody's "What?"

MYERS: No cat, one cat, two cat, three?

LEMON: Yes.

MYERS: We're going to change it up a little bit.

LEMON: I'm looking forward to it, too. And I'm not a weather head. A weather guy. Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You bet.

LEMON: You know, they are common threads in three fatal airline accidents in three different parts of the country. Pilot error is the suspected cause, and the pilots learned to fly at the same training facility in south Florida.

CNN's Allan Chernoff reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, when we get on board a commercial flight, we'd like to believe that the people in the cockpit have plenty of experience. That's not always the case.

(voice-over) Fifty dead near Buffalo in a Colgan Air crash. The National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary finding indicate Captain Marvin Renslow responded incorrectly to a stall warning.

Two pilots dead near Jefferson City, Missouri, after taking a Pinnacle Air plane on a joy ride up to 41,000 feet. The NTSB blamed the pilot's unprofessional behavior and poor airmanship.

And five dead when an inexperienced private pilot crashed into another plane above Deerfield Beach, Florida.

All of these fatal crashes within the past six years share a common link. The pilots all trained at the Gulfstream Training Academy in Ft. Lauderdale.

CAPT. JACK CASEY, COO, SAFETY OPERATING SYSTEM: The one thing that ties them all together is poor airmanship. You cannot build sophisticated airline pilot skills on top of a soft foundation.

CHERNOFF: Gulfstream Training Academy is widely criticized among veteran pilots as a pilot factory, a program that quickly trains students and then sends them out to work for commercial airlines, including its affiliate, Gulfstream International Airlines. It's a quick ticket into the cockpit.

Airline pilots who are not in the military typically gain experience over several years as flight instructors in small private planes, but for aspiring commercial pilots who have just 250 hours of experience and $30,000 tuition, Gulfstream Training Academy speeds the process.

Students study for three months and then serve as first officers on continental connection flights in Florida and the Bahamas operated by Gulfstream International Airlines. Students get 250 hours of on- the-job training. Compare that to the traditional minimum of 1,500 hours flight time most major airlines require.

MOORE: I don't know how they can justify that. When I get on an airplane, I expect a fully qualified crew.

CHERNOFF: Continental Airlines told CNN, "We expect our partners to adhere to the highest safety standards."

Gulfstream told CNN it was not prepared to appear on camera but said, "Gulfstream does an outstanding job training commercial pilots, and it has done so for nearly two decades. Every U.S. commercial carrier has pilots who received their training here."

(on camera) As good as the training may be at Gulfstream, veteran pilots say there's no substitute for experience. They say anyone stepping into the cockpit of a commercial plane should have significant flying time, far more than many students at Gulfstream.

(voice-over) Even so, flight schools like Gulfstream have been gaining popularity as more pilots try to accelerate their careers. But longtime pilots warn their career path is not one to be rushed, because a speedy path to the cockpit may compromise safety.

MOORE: We're talking about lives here. This is not "Gee, I like flying airplanes. I think it's cool." This is "If I make a mistake and I'm not trained properly or my crew is not trained properly, people can be injured or die."

CHERNOFF (on camera): Tragically, that has happened in several cases. Veteran pilots say they believe it's no coincidence that the crews involved in those accidents attended the Gulfstream Academy -- Don.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right. Thank you very much, Allan Chernoff.

When judges judge, does gender matter? Does race, wealth, culture? E-mail or tweet us your take on the racism claims against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Weigh in at CNN.com/Newsroom. Of you can use Twitter at DonLemonCNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, is in the second day of a three- day stand-down. Army commanders are trying to find a solution to the growing problem of suicides. Eleven soldiers have killed themselves since January 1, two just within the past week.

Here's CNN's Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is nothing like a few days off. This is telling every soldier here on base "push all of your normal work load off to the side for three days and just focus on this one problem of preventing suicide."

The soldiers here comprise the 101st Airborne, heavily-deployed unit to Iraq and Afghanistan. They're being told over these next three days, commanders, update your lists of at risk soldiers, pound it into the head of everyone on base the programs and the people that are in place for them to go for help.

They've all got these cards with hotline numbers. Every soldier here has been assigned a battle buddy, someone he's responsible for and someone to look out after.

This particular base has been probably the hardest hit. So far this year, a Ft. Campbell soldier is nearly three times more likely to kill himself than die in battle. Think about that for a second. Three soldiers from here were killed in Afghanistan this year; 11 committed suicide. That is a startling number, and that's why the commander ordered the stand-down.

But it really doesn't stop with just one base. Already this year, the Army has about 64 suspected suicides, and last year the Marines had 41.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Ft. Campbell.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right. Chris, thank you.

North Korea is making new threats and rattling new sabers. No doubt the communist country likes to push things as far as it can. But how far will it go this time, and how will the U.S. push back?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: North Korea pushing its rhetoric, aggression and America's patient to the edge. U.S. and South Korean forces have raised the surveillance alert level on the Korean peninsula amid a string of threatening moves from the North Koreans. They started with a nuclear test early this week followed by the test-firing of five short range missiles, then a threat to attack any U.S. or South Korean ships that try to inspect North Korean vessels.

Now, U.S. sources tell CNN there's been some kind of recent activity at a major North Korean nuclear plant. U.S. and South Korean troops on one side, North Korean forces on the other. In between, one of the most volatile borders on the face of the earth.

CNN's Zain Verjee got some up-close access to the demilitarized zone. That was back in 2006. It was just before a previous nuclear test by North Korea. The report she filed then still holds true today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A North Korean soldier trains his binoculars on us while another peeks through a window, then abruptly withdraws.

(on camera): This is North Korean People's Army building. You can identify it by the silver structure. The blue ones over there are representative of the U.N. buildings. But as we've been standing here, the North Koreans are actually going behind the curtains, and every so often lifting them up and taking a look at us.

And it's actually quite humorous. We're standing out here filming them, and they're...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're looking right now.

VERJEE: They're looking right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Take a look.

VERJEE (voice-over): And the North Korean soldiers aren't only ones watching. A Chinese group visits on the other side, filming us as we film them. While the hard stares and tough-guy poses were apparent, what's also striking is a parallel atmosphere of casualness. Despite the standoff, the two sides do occasionally talk, and when they do it, it's in this building called T-2.

(on camera): The most interesting thing in this room is actually this table. You can see a line sort of runs right through the middle of it. And the most fascinating and exciting thing about being here in this otherwise ordinary room is that this is the south. But when I step over this way across this line, I'm in North Korea.

And if I open this door right here, which I can't because South Korean and American troops are guarding it and protecting us, we'd go straight into the arms of the North Korean military on the other side.

(voice-over): North and South Korea are still officially at war. A peace treaty's never been signed. The troops here would be in the front line of fire if a battle were ever to break out again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Well, General Russel Honore knows every inch of the demilitarized zone. He commanded 18,000 American troops there for two years. Well, today he's got some very strong opinions about how we should take on North Korea. Very strong opinions about that, and true to form, he is not holding back. General Russel Honore, live and unfiltered this hour in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Now we want to get back to that flak over the law school speech by a future nominee to the highest court in the land. Well, we have been reporting on a conservative outcry over one or two sentences from Judge Sonia Sotomayor at UC Berkeley back in 2001. Now, here's one of those sentences that is drawing so much controversy here.

She says, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Well, so, is that racism, as some say it is? We want it know what's on your mind, what you think. And so far, you have been sending us your tweets. So, just go through, and the first one here is from survanio. She says, "What she said was not nice, and to be a judge, it made it even worse. The law should be on her mind, not race."

"A very smart analytical woman," mbillups says. "Never have I heard nuances of sound and judgment in context of ethnicity and culture so well stated." One says, "GOP critics of Sotomayor ask, 'What if a white male nominee made a similar comment?' WM do say the same about minorities." I guess that would be white males.

Greenchick says, "Sotomayor is a superior pick. Republicans should begin thinking of our country and less about themselves." MariaNYC says, "Don! Thank you for presenting the full context of Judge Sotomayor's widely published quote. The GOP is grasping at straws." Bobdobolina says, "Thanks for giving the Sotomayor statement a little context. Your balanced reporting is greatly appreciated." Vannessagriggs: "Thank you for taking the time to read the whole context of Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor's comments. A sound bite wasn't fair."

Again, rjoseph: "Thanks for presenting the entire speech by Judge Sotomayor this morning. It's an excellent speech with words in context."

And on and on, people are saying thanks for putting it in context. We knew that it was a long statement, and in television, sometimes we don't have the time to do that. But we figured it's important to hear. Context is so important. So, thank you very much for paying attention to that and for your feedback. We appreciate it.

A doctor's advice collides with a parent's wishes. Who gets the final say on the course of treatment for a sick child? Well, we'll guide you through this legal and medical debate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: A school trip to China ruined by swine flu fears. Chinese officials have quarantined 21 students and three teachers from the Barrie School in Silver Spring, Maryland. Now, they have been stuck at their hotel because a passenger on the group's flight had a fever.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH WRIGHT, MOTHER: They've been planning this for many months, and they were very, very excited. On the flight out, there was an alleged or suspected case of swine flu on the plane.

MICHAEL KENNEDY, HEADMASTER: I think China is really reacting not to swine flu but to the terrible experience they had a few years ago with SARS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right, well, the group has been inside their hotel since last Friday. They're scheduled to fly home on Sunday. CNN did contact the Chinese government for comment on this story, but so far, we have not gotten a response.

Boy, everyone has been paying attention to this story. We're talking about 13-year-old Daniel Hauser. He is expected to resume chemotherapy today as ordered by the court. He's a Minnesota teenager with Hodgkin's lymphoma who fled with his mother earlier this month rather than undergo more treatment. His family preferred natural healing practices.

Well, Daniel's case and others like it have many people wondering what rights parents have to choose treatment for their child. Our senior medical correspondent, there you see her there, Elizabeth Cohen, she joins us now with this week's "Empowered Patient" segment.

So, Elizabeth, with whom do the courts usually side in these cases?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: In cases like this, where a child's life is in question, they usually do side with the doctors, saying that a parent is not allowed to withhold life- saving treatment from a child, for example, with cancer, especially with a cancer like this that is so highly treatable.

But I do want to say a little something to all of the parents who have asked me, and there have been many, do parents have rights when their child has an illness like this? And the answer is yes. There have been some cases where courts have sided with the family.

Let's take an example. Talking about the Maxen (ph) family in Ohio. They had a case where they did not want their 7-year-old son, seen there in the white shirt, to have chemotherapy. And they actually won the right to have a doctor, a real M.D. but one who believed in alternative medicine, oversee his care. And Noah did not get chemotherapy for five months.

And then his parents put him back on. Sadly, Noah died several years later from his cancer.

There's also the (INAUDIBLE) family. Very similar situation. The parents wanted holistic healing, and their son, Abraham, was taken off of chemotherapy, and many years later -- he's 19 -- and he says he's in good health. So, most of the time courts do side with doctors, but parents do have some rights in these situations.

LEMON: OK, so something -- I'm hearing something's wrong with her microphone. Is that it? I'm going to turn it up there.

COHEN: Oh, thank you.

LEMON: Is that better? Can you guys hear?

OK, so you mentioned Hauser, and then you mentioned two other cases. Those were life-threatening situations, right?

COHEN: Right.

LEMON: But what about when it's not life-threatening situations? Do parents have any rights, like if it's not going to threaten someone's life?

COHEN: Right. They have a lot of rights in that situation. Parents have a lot of leeway when their child's life is not at stake. Let's say for example your child has asthma and you want to treat it with herbs and yoga. That is OK. You're allowed to do that.

Now, if your child's asthma becomes so bad, if your child's asthma becomes so bad that your child is in danger of dying, then that's a different situation.

LEMON: We're going to move on now because we're having mike problems.

COHEN: And here's your mike.

LEMON: Thank you very much. We don't know what's going on. But it's very interesting, and it's very important information for parents to get to know what rights they do have and what they don't have when it comes to their children. Thank you very much for that, Elizabeth Cohen. We appreciate it.

Want to tell you about a bizarre side effect from one man's cancer treatment. His medication erased his fingerprints. He found out when he flew from his native Singapore to the U.S. Listen to this. An immigration worker couldn't get his fingerprints in. Well, the drug he was taking to treat his head and neck cancer is called Zalota (ph) or Zolota (ph). Doctors say it is a rare but not unheard- of side effect. Now, the prints do come back when patients stop taking the drug. Wow.

OK. So, does that star-spangled banner get waved thing -- you know what I mean, "Oh Say Can You See," "The Star-Spangled Banner." Well, not at one Texas hospital, where a military mom, her flag is removed by an upset co-worker. We're going to tell you about that.

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LEMON: All right, she was two months away from losing $10 million, and she didn't even know it. An Australian woman is lucky twice over. She was worrying about her parents' finances and suddenly remembered some old lottery tickets just laying around. So, she goes to cash them in, hoping just to make a few dollars.

Well, it turns out she hit the jackpot ten months earlier and didn't know about it. And she almost lost it all because she almost hit that one-year mark. It is a one-year deadline there, and that one-year mark was in July. She is $10 million richer today.

The people of South Dakota, well, they don't make that mistake. Check your Powerball tickets now, please. The winning ticket in last night's huge pot was bought -- get this -- by a winner in South Dakota. Winner, I should say, in winter. They're a winner, as well, South Dakota -- 232 million bucks. And unlike that lucky Aussie, you've only got 180 days to claim your millions.

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LEMON: We are just getting started today in the CNN NEWSROOM. Sonia Sotomayor isn't on the Supreme Court yet, but she's already being judged. There's a whole lot of (INAUDIBLE) rolling around her now, and we'll bring you the substance today.

Plus, GM is talking stocks, bonds and potential bankruptcy, but we want to talk people, jobs and where those jobs might go. GM on the road to where?

All right, so, Virginia may be for lovers, but it's not for grinners. The state the latest to ban smiling in your driver's license photo -- I can't smile -- all in the name of security, of course. Meantime, Arkansas, well, Arkansas wants you to know despite reports to the contrary, they love to see your pearly whites.

Here's Pete Thompson from our affiliate KARK.

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PETE THOMPSON, KARK-TV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A driver's license photo sticks with you for four years. That's why many people give it some thought before their picture is taken.

SUSAN WEAVER, GETTING DRIVER'S LICENSE: I used to smile. But driving over here today, I looked in the mirror and tried it and decided I wouldn't smile today.

THOMPSON: Many people choose to smile. Others just like to have the option.

WEAVER: Oh, I definitely think you should be able to smile. Certainly.

THOMPSON: But according to a "USA Today" article, Arkansas is one of four states that require people to have a, quote, "neutral facial expression" when their license photo is snapped.

MICHAEL MUNNS, ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION: Well, that was a real shock for us to see that this morning.

THOMPSON: And completely untrue, according to Michael Munns of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.

MUNNS: We encourage people to smile when they're having their driver's license or ID cards made with us. We think it makes a better picture, and we think the public likes that also.

THOMPSON: The article later asserts that Arkansas does allow people to smile slightly, but Munns says even that's not true.

MUNNS: We like to see teeth.

THOMPSON: What is true is that Arkansas does have face- recognition software. The way it works, each license photo is fed into a database. If it matches another photo with a different name, the system flags it for possible identity theft. If you distort your face dramatically during your picture, it can be hard for the system to process it.

MUNNS: It makes it more difficult if you distorted your face. But it's not impossible.

THOMPSON: And Munns says smiles will always be allowed here, even if there is a problem in the system.

MUNNS: We have a human being then will look at that to make their choice, is this the same person or not.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: OK, so, in all, 37 states use that facial recognition software. So far, only Virginia, Nevada and Indiana suppress smiles. So, be careful when you go to get your driver's license.

You know, this is an eye-popping story anytime, but especially around Memorial Day here, just a couple days ago. A woman hangs an American flag at the hospital where she works, only to have a co- worker complain and then remove it.

Debbie McLucas says she was told a co-worker who shares the office found the flag to be offensive. Well, as you can imagine, once this got out, instant outrage, especially since McLucas's daughter is a combat medic in Iraq. Now, the company that runs the hospital is trying to clarify all of this. They say that co-worker was unhappy with the flag's size, and they have invited McLucas to re-hang her star-spangled banner. We'll follow up, see what happens there.

Diplomacy, sanctions, force. How do we deal with North Korea's new military threat? Potential land mines wherever we go. We'll navigate the field with General Russel Honore.

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LEMON: Raging rhetoric backed by a string of aggressive actions. North Korea once again pushing things to the edge. Here's the very latest for you. U.S. and South Korean forces have now raised the surveillance alert to the highest level in about three years. This after North Korea threatened to attack any American or South Korean ship that tries to inspect North Korean vessels. A nuclear test by the communist country sparked the latest standoff earlier this week, followed by the test-firing of five short-range missiles. And now, U.S. sources tell CNN there's been some kind of recent activity at a major North Korean nuclear plant.

So, I want to ask you -- how do we deal with North Korea's bargaining, threats, sanctions, force, any of it. Every one of those passes filled with potential land mines.

And no one knows that better than retired General Russel Honore. You know him from hurricane Katrina and our recovery efforts coverage. Also our survivor coverage, as well. He's got a new book out that focuses on that.

But, did you know he also commanded 18,000 American troops along the Demilitarized Zone on the Korean peninsula? He did that for two years. And that's why he's on the phone right now to talk to us about it.

Thank you, General, for joining us. You worked there, you lived there. We're on heightened alert now. But what, if any, real military options do we have in terms of the U.S.?

Do we have any real military options here?

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE (RET.), CNN CONTROBUTOR (via telephone): Well, we do have the options along with allies to work the shipping channels. But, you know, Don, that's a big leap to start talking about blocking shipping channels when we have not used all the elements of U.S. power, such as trying to get the Chinese to go in and try to get these North Koreans to negotiate.

I mean, that's what the administration said they were going to do. But we've skipped a few steps. After all, they have not fired one of these weapons at anyone or the long-range missiles, while they're a threat, we need to take a knee and make sure we've used all elements of power. We got to make sure the South Korean people understand what we are proposing, because if the North does take aggressive action, those rounds are going to land on South Korea.

LEMON: And I've just been reading some of the things you said here. You said that -- you said that South Korea and Japan make all the difference here.

Is it time for them to stand up? And if so, why, General?

HONORE: They need to have a stiff back on this issue because they will be in range of North Korean missiles. It's imperative that the South Koreans and the Japanese government is full in support of what our State Department is proposing -- over.

LEMON: All right. You said that -- you talked to us about domestic, the options that we have here. What about as far as United Nations? What about the options? Because we've seen sanction after sanction after sanction, and nothing appears to be working here.

Is it time to do more?

HONORE: It may be time to do more but it's going to take time to get a plan for ships at sea to block those shipping lanes and have a coalition that is built, that is beyond any waver. And this must come with Chinese and Russian support. Without the Chinese and the Russians who support this sea blockade will not work.

LEMON: All right, Retired Lieutenant General Russel Honore, we appreciate your expertise.

Thank you very much, sir.

HONORE: Good day.

LEMON: North Korea pushing its rhetoric and aggression to the edge. How far will it go? And will the U.S. push back?

Here's the very latest for you again. U.S. and South Korean forces have now raised the surveillance alert level on the Korean peninsula amid the string of threatening moves from the North Koreans. They started with a nuclear test early this week, followed by the test-firing of five short-range missiles, then a threat to attack any U.S. or South Korean ships that try to inspect North Korean vessels. Now U.S. sources tell CNN there's been some kind of recent activity at the major North Korean nuclear plant.

So, is all of this a new and significant threat? Is it new and significant? Or is it the same old saber-rattling we've come to expect from North Korea?

Well, let's push this forward with our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour. Christiane, always good to talk to you here. Here's what I want to ask you. South Korean and U.S. troops are on high alert here. So, what does this mean about the seriousness of this threat?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, clearly they are taking it seriously, and North Korea has done several things since Monday to ratchet up the tensions on that peninsula, starting with its detonation of a nuclear device that apparently the Russians are saying was 10 to 20 kilotons, which means that it's significantly stronger than the one they tried to test back in 2006. It's also tested some short-range missiles this week.

Now, it also said that it does not any longer consider the 1953 armistice that essentially stopped the war between the Koreas back in 1953 to be valid any longer because of South Korea's decision to join the U.S.-led kind of naval blockade flotilla called the Nuclear Security Initiative or the Proliferation Security Initiative down there.

So, this is what's happening right now in terms of the ratcheting up of those tensions. But the real question is, what does one do about it to make sure that it doesn't tip over into a worse situation and that it does not escalate militarily? LEMON: The White House spokesperson yesterday during his press conference mentioned when he talked about North Korea, he talked about saber-rattling here, Christiane, and, you know, when does saber rattling become a significant threat? We have journalists who are being held there. We have all this activity that's happening now, the testing of missiles. Is it really time to get more aggressive? I mean, what gives here?

AMANPOUR: Well, the U.S. does not really have the option, nor do the other countries. I mean, while they could -- they have military strength and military power -- it's long been considered not a useful option to use military power against North Korea.

Instead, you can call it saber rattling, or whatever. Really, that goes to what you think the intention of the North Koreans is.

If you believe, as some analysts do, that this is just to get attention to win concessions, to win money, to win food aid, fuel aid, all those kinds of things that that country has long wanted and needed, you could call it saber rattling. If, on the other hand, you think that it's something more serious, the manifestation of a difficult power struggle, succession struggle with the hard-liners in the military, potentially flexing their muscles there, if, on the other hand, you think it is something that's a direct response to South Korea right now, then it's more and it's more significant.

The issue, again, is, what does one do? And that there are several different kinds of scenarios that people put out.

For instance, what's going on at the United Nations right now, where the U.S. and the other members of the Security Council are trying to come up with a tough, as they call it, regime with teeth, try to get more sanctions, try to levy some sort of punitive measures against companies, North Korean companies, or others that do business with them. And also potentially have the U.S. Treasury Department try to put some banking limitations in place that would directly affect the North Korean regime.

Others, on the other hand, say that none of this is going to make an effect. The only thing that's going to make an effect is to gradually bring them back into the talking mode. And, look, we were there last year. We saw what it was like when they were in the talking mode.

LEMON: Yes. And Christiane, I was going to say, I watched your special on North Korea last night, it was very interesting, very in- depth.

Christiane has covered this region for years. She is our senior international correspondent.

We appreciate your expertise on this, Christiane.