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American Killed in Mexico; Health Reform's Final Push; Google Decides on China; Clothing Deal All Sewn Up; Facebook Expands; Waiting On The Fed; Life in Prison for 12-Year-Old?; Helping Haiti Recover
Aired March 15, 2010 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ROMANS: All right. That does it for us this morning.
ROBERTS: Yes. We'll see you back again bright and early tomorrow. Meantime the news continues with CNN with Kyra Phillips in the "CNN NEWSROOM."
Good morning, Kyra.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, guys. Happy Monday. All right. We're going to all get through this together.
We don't need to hear anything. The pictures tell it all. How would you like to have this as a job? It looks like he's covering a hurricane, doesn't it? Well, no, just a March night in New Jersey. Plenty of lousy weather for everyone today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would you do? Would you turn your back on your own son because somebody else believes he's guilty? Not me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: A 12-year-old boy accused of murder. What do you think? Try him as he's a grown man, throw him in prison and be done with him? Or try him like he's a child and give him another chance?
And a Haitian earthquake survivor is ready to get on with the rest of his life. Children by his side, violin in hand, music to our ears.
All those stories are coming at you and for months we've reported on how dangerous and violent Juarez, Mexico is. Now it seems the bloodshed has crossed the line. Rafael Romo will explain that for us in just a second.
Also Kate Bolduan in D.C. with the health care reform debate. This week might be the week. No, really, it might be.
And Mother Nature wakes up on the wrong side of the bed again. Mountains of snow replaced by oceans of rain. We're going to check in with Rob Marciano in just a few minutes.
But first, a staggering death toll, a sense of helplessness, what to do in the violence-plagued border city of Juarez, Mexico? We begin with the shooting deaths of three people, two of them Americans, and CNN's Rafael Romo is CNN's senior Latin American affairs editor.
All three victims connected to the consulate there, right?
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: That's right, Kyra. And one of the fatal victims -- Lesley Enriquez -- worked at the consulate and was shot and killed while in a car with her husband, Arthur Redelfs, in Juarez.
The third victim was the husband of a Mexican employee at the U.S. consulate in the border city across from El Paso, Texas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROMO (voice-over): The shooting happened right across the street from city hall in Ciudad Juarez. According to Mexican authorities, two Americans -- Leslie Enriquez, who was an employee at the American consulate in Juarez, and her 34-year-old husband, Arthur Redelfs, a detention officer with the El Paso Sheriff's Department -- were shot and killed after a short car chase through the streets of the Mexican border city across from El Paso, Texas.
Police found the couple's 3-month-old daughter in the back seat. She was not injured.
JOSE REYES FERRIZ, MAYOR, JUAREZ, MEXICO: Foot patrol police officer who was stationed a couple of miles east of where the incident took place -- he saw the two cars, one chasing each other and shooting at that car.
ROMO: On a separate incident, 37-year-old Jorge Salcido, the husband of a U.S. consulate's Mexican employee, was also killed Saturday afternoon. Two children, ages 4 and 7, were injured in that shooting and transported to the hospital according to local authorities.
FERRIZ: The second killing was a state police officer, an investigative police officer, married to a Mexican working at the U.S. consulate, and they were both at a children's party earlier that morning.
ROMO: The U.S. State Department has authorized the departure of Americans working in U.S. consulates in six cities along the U.S./Mexico boarder until April 12th while they investigate the incidents and assess the threat of violence.
The White House issued a statement saying President Obama is deeply saddened and outraged by the news of the attacks and murders. The statement also says, "We will continue to work with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his government to break the power of the drug trafficking organizations that operate in Mexico and far too often target and kill the innocent."
(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIPS: So now we're hearing of these murders, two Americans tied to the consulate. Could this lead to any new measures to stop this violence?
ROMO: Well, precisely because of this problem, Kyra, last year President Felipe Calderon dispatched about 7,000 troops to the border. But what's we're seeing deaths of the civilians who are not involved in the drug trade and also who are not with police or with the military.
So this is a new low point in the drug -- war against drugs in Juarez.
PHILLIPS: And you bring up an interesting point. I mean the military has been brought in before. It took care of the problem for a short period of time. Then they left. The violence increased again. It just seems like it keeps repeating itself.
ROMO: It's right in the middle of a draw between two very powerful drug cartels, and that's the problem that Juarez is located right in the center. And so when the Mexican military kills a drug lord on either side, there's a need to fill the gap and that's when you see the kind of violence that we saw over the weekend erupting all of a sudden.
PHILLIPS: We will follow the story with you. Rafael, thank you.
ROMO: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: President Obama scrambling for support from Capitol Hill to the heartland in the battle over health care reform. And today he's making a sales pitch in Ohio, but the biggest question is, can he win those last critical votes?
CNN's Kate Bolduan joining me now live from the White House.
Hi, Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Kyra. Well, despite the fact that the man in charge of counting votes in the House of Representatives for the Democrats says that they don't have the votes right now, White House officials are making some bold predictions for health care reform this week. Listen here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I can tell you this. We will have the votes and this time next week somebody will walk out the door and you'll be talking about, not a proposal in the House, but something that the president is ready to sign into law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: You really get the sense that this is crunch time for the Obama White House and their efforts to pass the Democratic health care bill. Now what is expected this week is that the House is expected to vote on the Senate passed version of health care reform. If the Democrats have the votes there, well, then they basically have to trust the Senate will then approve a package of changes to the bill through the process of reconciliation, Kyra -- we've talked about that a lot -- which requires a simple majority rather than the 60-vote super majority that would otherwise be needed to overcome Republican opposition.
And Republicans, they're vowing to fight until the end adding that the White House's proposed path forward here could very well hurt bipartisan efforts down the road.
Listen here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: If they jam through health care through the House and try to use a trick or a gimmick called reconciliation which is playing with 12 people on the field if it were a football game, you're going to have a hard time convincing Democrats or Republicans to do the hard things because you poisoned the well.
There will be a price to be paid to jam a bill through the American people don't like using a sleazy process.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Strong words there from the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. Now the president will be hitting the road to fight for health care reform today, heading to Ohio, outside of Cleveland, for another campaign style event similar to basically what he did a couple of times last week in Pennsylvania and Missouri.
Hitting the road again today. Really trying to keep the message in his court, Kyra, that they need to get health care reform passed this week.
PHILLIPS: Kate, thanks. And we're going to have live coverage of President Obama's remarks in Ohio. He's expected to speak just after 1:00 Eastern and we'll carry his comments once he takes the stage.
So flying today? Better bring a book. Major delays expected thanks to the nasty northeast storm over the weekend. As you can see flooding is still a major problem in Massachusetts. It's so bad that some people can't even get to their homes or even to work.
And at least seven people died as a result of the storm. Most of them from falling trees like you see right here in Connecticut. Those trees going down easily because the ground is already so soaked from a record snow this winter.
The trees also vulnerable from wind gust that reached hurricane speed. Power lines went down leaving half a million homes in the dark yesterday. Tens of thousands of people still waiting to get their power back.
Our iReporter Andrew Sommerfed sent us these photos of that wind damage. First a tree down on a road. Even worse, a large tree crushing a car. Thankfully nobody was inside.
And that same tree from another an angle, you can actually tell how mammoth that trunk is from this shot.
Rob Marciano, are you there?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey. Yes, I'm here.
PHILLIPS: OK.
MARCIANO: I'm just --
(LAUGHTER)
MARCIANO: Seventy-mile-an-hour wind gusts were reported and you saw some of the results from that hurricane-strength winds with this storm. Certainly remarkable. Not a hurricane but the net-net results very similar with the rain and the saturated grounds taking over those old trees and damage done in some cases.
The power won't be back on for some time to come. The storm itself is still swirling around the northeast. There are already two-hour-plus delays at LaGuardia. So those of you on the increase throughout the day.
The storm eventually will go out to sea. We'll tell you when and where that's going to happen a little bit later in the program.
PHILLIPS: Sounds good. Thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: All right.
PHILLIPS: And on a cold mountain in the Canadian Rockies beneath an avalanche covered landscape, the search for victims buried beneath the snow.
Plus, he's just a child, but he's created a dilemma for Pennsylvania judge. Should a 12-year-old on trial for murder be tried as an adult? A conviction would mean life behind bars. What would you do?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: In Iraq at least seven people dead and another 13 wounded after a car bomb explodes. That blast happened this morning in Fallujah some 40 miles south of Baghdad in the Sunni dominated Anbar Province.
It's the first serious attack since Iraqis went to the polls eight days ago to decide their parliamentary elections.
And would you believe that they're still counting the ballots? Iraqi election officials hope to have tallied more than half of the 17 million votes cast by later today. According to the Electoral Commission, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's alliance has the lead after partial results showed his group ahead in seven provinces including Baghdad with the most parliamentary seats. Sixty-eight out of 325 are at stake.
And can you believe a civilized country without Google? Can you be a civilized search engine without China? We're about to find out. Google says it's 99.9 percent sure it's going to leave China.
Christine Romans here with the details. Christine?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, China wants to censor Google's search results in China and Google doesn't want to be censored, Kyra, essentially.
And this is a conflict that has been coming to a head here. Widespread reports that it's very, very close to a decision that Google might just pull out of the country altogether. It's the latest round in a back and forth, Kyra, that started back in January, you might recall, when Google said it would pull out of China if China would -- wouldn't -- let them offer an unfiltered version of the Chinese search engine.
That particular threat from Google came after, you might recall, a cyber attack that experts said originated in China and targeted 30 companies including Google -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And so what's the Chinese government's response been?
ROMANS: Well, now the Chinese government is getting tough because the Minister of Industry and Information said late Friday, and this is the quote exactly, "I hope Google can abide by China's laws and regulations. It is irresponsible and unfriendly if Google insists in doing something that goes against China's laws and regulations, and it will have to bear the consequences for doing so."
Going against China's laws and regulations is censoring people's freedom of expression, freedom of their ability to go and look up democracy, freedom of talking and searching on the Internet, and that is something Google has said it is not comfortable with.
PHILLIPS: China is the largest emerging market in the world. So what kind of impact would this shutdown have on Google's business?
ROMANS: Well, there is another search engine in China called Baidu that has more market share than Google does, so it is not the dominant player in the search results there. But a lot of companies are watching this -- watching this, and here's why.
Because they're trying to figure out if it's American business and democracy that's changing China or China that is changing American business and democracy, and a lot of different kinds of industries are watching what happens between Google and the Chinese communist regime to see exactly how this is going to work out and if it is, in fact, American multinational businesses and technology that are strengthening communism and not democracy instead of the other way around.
People -- many of these companies, Kyra, have been there long enough now that they thought that they would be seeing the fruits of less censorship and more information. I mean they're concerned that it's not going in their direction.
PHILLIPS: We'll stay on the story. Thanks, Christine.
ROMANS: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Japan feels the ground shake, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 hit yesterday afternoon just north of Tokyo.
Check out the shaking from the stationary camera in a province just north of the capital. The quake rattled buildings here and across the country including Tokyo. But we're told that no one was hurt.
And working to save a life. That's what these people are doing in British Columbia. An avalanche roared down Boulder Mountain near Rebel Stoke over the weekend killing two men from Alberta. Thirty others were hurt.
About 200 people were watching a snowmobile competition when the avalanche happened. Police believe they have accounted for everyone.
It's not snow but rain and wind that's causing headaches for so many people in the northeast, right, Rob?
MARCIANO: Yes, well, the snow from this past winter didn't help either because you had a tremendous snowpack. Some of that snow melting and then a tremendous amount of rain that fell on top of that snow over the weekend and the winds. So you've got a saturated ground, big old trees getting blown around by winds, and a lot of them just came down.
Boy, we saw so many people without power and still without power, a lot of them probably will be without power for quite some time.
(WEATHER REPORT)
PHILLIPS: We'll keep tracking of it. Thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: All right. You bet.
PHILLIPS: Friday would have been his 84th birthday but today the family of iconic film and television actor Peter Graves is making his final arrangements. A look back at a career one might have called "Mission: Impossible."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Sad news from the entertainment world with the death of actor Peter Graves, best known for his starring role in the TV show "Mission: Impossible." Graves collapsed yesterday. His agent believes it was a heart attack. He was 83 years old.
Actor Charlie Sheen has a court date late today in Aspen, Colorado. The case stems from Sheen's Christmas day on domestic violence charges. His wife says he threatened her with a knife while the couple was vacationing. Sheen denies that accusation. The 2010 U.S. census coming to a mailbox near you. Today the Census Bureau began sending out its questionnaire forms. We're told this year's form is one of the shortest in history with only 10 questions to answer. You're supposed to mail it back by April 1st.
Think of it as "No Child Left Behind," the new beginning. President Obama sending one of President Bush's marquee acts in for a face-lift. What's the new version going to look like for your child?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: College students in Georgia basically telling lawmakers, you want to slash education funds, well, tell it to our faces. Students from several public universities in the state plan to march on the capital in Atlanta within an hour to protest budget cuts to education.
Lawmakers have been talking about cutting up to $600 million to the university system.
An all new "No Child Left Behind," President Obama wants to change how we evaluate the performance of our public schools and that means the No Child Left Behind act is in for an overhaul.
Earlier on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING" Education Secretary Arne Duncan talked about why the White House thinks it's time to rework the law.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARNE DUNCAN, EDUCATION SECRETARY: The previous law was too punitive, it was too prescriptive and led to a lowering or dummying down the standards that led to a narrowing of the curriculum.
We have to reverse all that. We have to have a high bar, college and career standards for every single child. We have to reward success, reward growth. We have to make sure that (INAUDIBLE) educators have the flexibility they need to do a great job educating.
We have to raise the bar for every single child. We have to make sure we have a well-rounded curriculum and most importantly we have an unprecedented investment in education as part of the president's plans.
We're going to put schools in a couple of different categories. Those high-performing schools and district and states, we want to give them more flexibility. We want to give them room to move. We have so much that we can learn from them and there wasn't nearly enough done on the No Child Left Behind to recognize success.
We want to recognize and reward excellence and growth. There's another set of schools in the middle of the country that may not be world class yet but improving every single year. And we want to help them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Later today the White House will send new set of guidelines to Congress.
You've heard the 911 tapes a panicked driver says the accelerator on his Toyota Prius is stuck and the car is raging out of control. Today new questions whether that ordeal was really just a hoax.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Live in the CNN NEWSROOM, Kyra Phillips.
PHILLIPS: The NASDAQ and S&P 500 starting the day at the highest levels in 18 months.
We'll look at whether that momentum can continue. Let's ask Stephanie Elam, shall we?
What do you think, Steph?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I love it when you set me up for a negative answer, Kyra.
(LAUGHTER)
ELAM: Yes -- no, we're looking for a lower opening today. But I can tell you this, the losses won't be as big. See? I try to make it rosy somehow.
Investors may be waiting on Federal Reserve policymakers. They were -- are set to meet tomorrow. In the meantime, some individual stocks are getting a boost.
Let's start off with Phillips-Van Heusen. They're buying Tommy Hilfiger for $3 billion. This is going to create one of the largest clothing companies. Phillips-Van Heusen already owned brands like Calvin Klein and Izod. And they're shares are up nearly 4 percent going into today.
Pepsi shares are rising as well. The soft drink maker plans to buy back up to $15 billion of its common stock. Pepsi is also boosting its dividends.
And Facebook is expanding into Asia opening an operations office in India since its creation six years ago. The number of Facebook users has skyrocketed to more than 400 million and most of them are outside of the United States. I know that because all my Facebook friends, a lot of them, are actually international.
All right. Let's go ahead and take a look at the early numbers here. The Dow on the downside, as I said, off 11 points, 10,612, and Nasdaq down about five points of 2,362 as we start off the day, but Kyra, before I let you go here, today is a very important anniversary. It's the beginning of it all. There would probably be no kyraphillips.com if it weren't for a day like today.
The anniversary of the first dot-com domain name. It was exactly 25 years ago that symbolic dot-com appeared on the internet. It was slow going at first taking two years for the first 100 sites to appear online, but since then, the internet has grown to more than 80 million dot-com names, and we did check symbolic dot-com is still around, and their website probably points out the fact that they are the first dot-com to ever be listed.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Wow. We should have --
ELAM: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Imagine if we would have come up with that idea. We wouldn't be working.
ELAM: We probably would have very different lives right now, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Yes, we would.
ELAM: Yes.
PHILLIPS: We'd be dot-coming all over the world, wouldn't we?
ELAM: We'd be docking our private yacht somewhere off, you know, Greek Isles or something.
PHILLIPS: Thanks, Steph.
ELAM: Sure.
PHILLIPS: It's not just the nation's health care system facing reform. Later today, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd is expected to release a draft bill out winding an overhaul of the nation's financial system. Dodd says that besides laying down more stringent rules for institutions and greater protections for consumers, the bill's biggest aim is to prevent firms from getting so big that their failure would threaten the entire financial system. We'll take a closer look at that bill in our next hour.
So, have you ever found yourself staring into the face of skeptical mechanic as you try to explain the latest mystery affliction to your car? Of course, that problem always disappears once you're at the garage, right? That's the latest chapter in the runaway Prius drama. Both Toyota and government technicians couldn't duplicate the alleged case of a sudden acceleration. The latest now from CNN's Susan Candiotti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A draft congressional memo seems to take some steam out of Jim Sikes' self- described wild ride in his 2008 Prius. It even had 911 and the California highway patrol running to his rescue.
JIM SIKES, PRIUS OWNER: The gas pedal felt kind of weird, and it just went all the way to fast.
CANDIOTTI: Sikes relived it for our Ted Rowlands.
SIKES: I was in the 80s somewhere, and I kept hitting the brakes, kept hitting the brakes, and it wasn't slowing down at all. It was just accelerating.
CANDIOTTI: Yet after two hours of trying to duplicate what happened on Sikes' own car and another exact model, Federal investigators and Toyota came up short. A draft memo says every time the technician placed the gas pedal to the floor and the brake pedal to the floor, the engine shut off, and the car immediately started to slow down. Experts say that's a key safety feature of the car. So, if Sikes says the accelerator was stuck and he was pressing hard on the brake, why didn't his car slow down?
PETER VALDES-DAPENA, SENIOR WRITER, CNNMONEY.COM: Maybe what was happening was not that his engine was overpowering the brakes, but his brakes were incapable at that point of overpowering anything.
CANDIOTTI: The same memo says his brakes were worn out. It doesn't say whether they were that way before or after the incident. A Toyota investigator told congressional staff, it does not appear to be feasibly possible both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor, and he was slamming on the brake at the same time. What does this mean for Jim Sikes?
VALDES-DAPENA: It is possible that he's a liar. It is also possible he simply misunderstood what was happening with his car.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (on-camera): Sikes says he's sticking to his story and adds that his lawyer will have more to say about this later today. Susan Candiotti, CNN, New York.
PHILLIPS: So what does Toyota have to say? The carmaker has scheduled a news conference today, 3:30 PM eastern. We will carry it live. And for all the latest news on Toyota's problems, the investigation and the carmaker's recovery efforts, go to our special website, the address, cnn.com/toyota.
One of the world's most popular soccer stars won't be on the pitch at the sports show place. We're going to tell you why David Beckham's out of the world cup.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Hey, mom, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Little Austin Engler of Rochester, Minnesota, might have been saying that, kicking in the womb. His parents were on the way to the hospital to welcome him into the world, but wouldn't you know, they got stuck in traffic, and Austin couldn't wait. He was ready to be born gridlock or not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLE ENGLER, MOTHER: You certainly had an interesting way of coming into the world. Obviously, we never would have predicted something like this to happen, but the fact that it had such a happy ending is something really fun that we feel like we can share with him for years to come. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: And everybody is doing great, by the way, not that it matters, but Austin was born in a Mazda 6.
Checking other top stories. Three rock climbers stuck on a Nevada mountain have been rescued. They were stranded in a little crevice Saturday night. Darkness and winds reaching 50 miles an hour made it too dangerous for rescue crews to actually reach them. The crew did help get them down yesterday, but it took six hours.
ESPN reporter Erin Andrews plans to address the court today as her stalker is sentenced. Forty-year-old Michael Barrett has pleaded guilty and agreed to a 27-month prison sentence. Andrews was not onboard with plea bargain and wants him to pay her around $335,000 in restitution.
Looks like soccer star David Beckham is out of the World Cup. Beckham tore his Achilles tendon in a match in Milan, Italy yesterday. He was seen on crutches heading out on a flight to Finland for surgery.
All right. Let's check out cnn.com in the news pulse page to see what you're clicking on to right now. The most popular story, take a look at this, welcome to the United States of Iceland. Number one most popular story right now on how cnn.com is saying pay attention to the financial sinkhole there in Iceland and how it's trying to get out of it, number one story. Interesting. We didn't see that one today in the rundown.
We are talking about actor Peter Graves. He died at the age of 83. Also, the doubt has been cast on the runaway Prius, not sure if that guy's story is true or not, but a lot of financial stories in the top ten today coming down.
Also, the boy at 12 years old charged with murder. We're on top of that, and D.C. handing out female condoms to fight HIV. Another one of those top stories in the top ten on cnn.com. Click on, see what you're going to there at the newspulse.cnn.com. Every 15 minutes that page is updated. We track it for you, too.
This is what one boy could be looking forward to -- growing up behind bars, growing old behind bars, and dying behind bars. One of the stories is on the top clicked on stories on cnn.com. A 12-year-old could become one of the youngest people ever to serve life in prison.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: A massive power failure in a country already reeling from an earthquake and its aftershocks. As much as 90% of Chile's population lost electricity yesterday when a transformer overheated and shut down. Crews have been restoring power ever since, and things should be back to normal today. The blackout comes two weeks after a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 500 people.
We also have an update on Haiti where more than 200,000 people died in a January earthquake. Next hour, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to actually thank the 1,800 state department employees who lent their expertise to the recovery efforts. Meanwhile, the United Nations top man is reassuring Haitians that the world is not forgetting their suffering.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAN KI-MOON, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL: We are looking to recovery and reconstruction, but the situation remains extremely difficult.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Haiti is suffering from a shortage of shelter and growing violence in teaming camps for the homeless. The end of the month, the U.N. will host a conference for the government's and relief agencies now helping Haiti.
Deja vu -- rain and snow melt in the upper Midwest leading to fears of repeat flooding on the Red River. The latest forecast predicts the river will crest 20 feet above flood stage by week's end in Fargo, North Dakota. One thing is different from last year's record flooding, though, people have more time to prepare. Volunteers have been filling sandbags for the last two weeks. Rob Marciano followed it for us. Hey, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Kyra. We're looking at -- this is supposed to crest. We're going to go to major flood stage near Fargo, today likely, and then crest as we get to Friday. So, that's going to be an ongoing issue, and it may very well rival what we saw last year, and again, mostly because we have some rains in the fall. This amount of rains in the fall, obviously this amount of snow at this winter, and all that snow needs to melt, and we're seeing the problems already.
We haven't really seen much rain on top of that snow. It's just been like this slow run-off so they've been seeing this coming several weeks now, if not, the last couple of months, and it's coming to a fruition. So, this week, tense times and along the Red River for sure, and they're going to continue to try to do what they can to make sure that if they don't see the damage they saw last year. All right, windy conditions across parts of the northeast today with this storm that doesn't seem to want to go away and as it does eventually later on today, we'll start to see some of these showers begin to dissipate.
As far as what we're seeing across parts of the northeast, there it is. More rain across parts of Boston and New York and back through D.C. Scattered showers throughout the day where we could see anywhere from, you know, a half an inch to an inch and a half, maybe two inches of rainfall from this system as it continues to wind its way offshore. Winds to 50 miles an hour, certainly a possibility at least in the Eastern New England. We already saw winds 70, 75, even 78 miles an hour over the weekend, so damaging winds there. The winds shouldn't be as damaging today but certainly where there are spots that have seen saturated ground, Elizabeth, New Jersey, seven inches of rain, North Bergen, New Jersey, five inches, Central Park see four inches. There are wind gusts of 30 or 40 miles an hour and you can see more in the way of damage. Newark-Laguardia seeing two hour delays at last deck that is actually updated at 09:40, so this number is still. Two- hour and 45-minute delays at LGA. Philadelphia seeing an hour delay and Boston seeing 30-minute delays right now. So, that's one of the worries or one of the problems today as we're looking at travel delays. And we're also looking at some record high temperatures across parts of the upper Midwest. So, that's not helping the flooding situation there. We'll talk more about that in the next hour -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: All right.
PHILLIPS: Hey, you'd never put raw liver on your fiancee's finger, would you? So why would a dog scarf down a diamond? It's just not fair.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: I know we've heard stories like this before and we haven't gotten tired of them yet. Man's best friend eats girl's best friend. A golden retriever was with his owner in a jewelry store when a diamond dealer dropped a three-carat rock worth 20 grand. You can see where this is going, right?
Somehow the dog mistook the gem for a snausage (ph) or bacon. So the owner waited patiently for three days for the diamond to, you know, reappear.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was not that pleasant. And I followed him and I did pick up his stuff, I went through the things. I can understand what it was like in the old gold rush because I felt like I just hit pay dirt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: But it wasn't dirt. Talk about a diamond in the rough. The dog and the diamond, by the way, a ok.
Reforming America's health care, finance and big tobacco, just some of the stories we're working on for you next hour in the CNN NEWSROOM. Take it away, guys.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there. This is Kate Bolduan at the White House as the president gets ready to hit the road to pitch health care one more time. White House officials are making bold predictions for the week ahead. I'll have more of that at the top of the hour.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I'm Rob Marciano in the CNN Severe Weather Center. The Northeast picking up after hurricane force winds battered them over the weekend, that storm still spinning and after today our attention will focus on the Midwest where flooding is already occurring from the spring melt. That's at the top of the hour.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: More than a decade ago cigarette companies pledged to stop targeting under-aged smokers. Well, now some say they've broken that promise. I'll have more on that at the top of the hour.
PHILLIPS: And musician Stevie Wonder, special delivery for a Haitian earthquake victim. Talk about music to all of our ears.
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PHILLIPS: Well, put yourself in this man's place. Your fiance, eight months pregnant with your baby is shot to death. You'd probably want the suspect to go away for life. But in this case, the man is trying to keep the suspect from a life sentence because it's his 12-year-old son.
Jason Carroll now with the very troubling story from New York.
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DEBORAH HOUK, KENZIE'S MOTHER: He'd be about a year old right now.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One year ago Debbie Houk was looking forward to the arrival of a grandchild. Her daughter Kenzie was expecting a baby boy.
HOUK: Watch the mud.
CARROLL: Houk never imagined this would end up being the only place to visit them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It should have been her.
CARROLL: Last February, Kenzie Houk was shot to death. She was eight and a half months pregnant.
HOUK: You felt like in the winter like you want to take blankets and cover her because I know she's froze. But she's not there and I got to realize that.
CARROLL: As Kenzie's family struggles with her loss, Chris Brown says his world has also been shattered. He was Kenzie's fiance, the father of her expectant child. And one more thing Brown is also the father of the suspected killer, 12-year-old Jordan Brown.
CHRIS BROWN, JORDAN'S FATHER: I get up and go to work and come home and lose everything. Kenzie, the baby and now Jordan is facing potential life in prison without the possibility of parole as an adult.
CARROLL: Jordan was an 11-year-old 5th grader at the time of the killings. Now 12 he could be tried as an adult. If convicted its believed Jordan would be one of the youngest ever sentenced to life, a punishment Kenzie's family says he deserves. One his father says he does not.
BROWN: Anybody being put in my position would have to ask themselves what would you do? Would you turn your back on your own son because somebody else believes he's guilty? Not me.
HOUK: If it means him going to prison for life, like I said, he's serving one life sentence. He took two lives.
CARROLL: A year ago, Jordan lived in this farmhouse in western Pennsylvania with his father. Kenzie also lived with there with her two daughters from a previous relationship.
Prosecutors say, February 20th last year before leaving for school Jordan got his youth model, 20-gauge shotgun, walked into Houk's bedroom and shot her in the back of the head while she slept.
(on camera): According to police after Jordan shot Kenzie, he took the spent shell casing and threw it out in the woods. Then they say he just walked out to the road and caught the school bus.
(voice-over): Prosecutors say his possible motive for the killing, Jordan was close to his father and may have been jealous of Kenzie -- an allegation his father strongly denies. Every day he visits Jordan at the Juvenile Detention Center where he's being held.
BROWN: He still asks about Kenzie. He sheds tears. He cries. He misses her. He misses the girls.
CARROLL: Under Pennsylvania law anyone over age 10 accused of criminal homicide is charged as an adult. The state has about 450 juveniles currently serving life sentences. According to juvenile justice experts we spoke with, nationally there are more than 2,500.
Jordan's fate will be decided any day now by a judge.
BROWN: He's never, never lied to me about anything. I have no reason to believe that he's lying right now.
CARROLL (on camera): Maybe he loves you so much he doesn't want to disappoint you?
BROWN: No. I have had private talks with Jordan. Had he had any knowledge of what happened that horrible day he would have told me.
CARROLL (voice-over): If Jordan is tried and convicted as a juvenile, he will be able to walk free at age 21, a sobering thought for Kenzie's family.
JENNIFER KRANER, KENZIE'S SISTER: To put him away as a child and him be out at 21 is absurd. But we're not the judge.
HOUK: I have lost my daughter and my grandson. Death is final. Nothing's going to bring her back -- or him and justice needs to be served.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Goodbye mommy. Goodbye baby. I love you mommy. I love you baby.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: And Kyra, Chris Brown is so committed to defending Jordan he's lost his job and has gone through all of his finances. Supporters have started a Web site to help him raise money. The Houks not pleased with all this. When they heard about it Kyra, they basically told me that the focus should be less on Jordan's age and more on the crimes that were committed -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Wow. So what's happening with the most current court proceeding?
CARROLL: Right. The last hearing was actually on Friday. Now, it's basically in the hands of a judge. The judge has 20 days to make some sort of a determination as to whether or not Jordan will be tried as an adult or juvenile.
As you can imagine, both families which are clearly divided on this issue waiting each and every day to see what that decision will be.
PHILLIPS: Got it. You're going to have a part two tomorrow for us, right?
CARROLL: That's correct. Tomorrow, Kyra, what we're going to be doing is taking a look at the Supreme Court because what has happened here in Pennsylvania points to a much larger issue. The Supreme Court will be actually looking at whether or not juveniles should be charged with life sentences, looking at whether or not that is cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court actually, Kyra, could reach a decision any day from now. So tomorrow we're going to be looking at a different case and exploring that issue along with the Supreme Court.
PHILLIPS: Got it. See you tomorrow Jason. Thanks so much.
Mexico's drug wars claim more victims. This time two of the victims are Americans married to each other along with a Mexican man were killed in Juarez when their cars were riddled with gunfire. All three had ties to the U.S. consulate there.
More results from Iraq's national elections expected today. Partial preliminary results show that Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's alliance leading in 7 of the country's 18 provinces. Iraqis voted for 325 parliamentary seats on March 7th.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says he won't let the rest of the world forget Haiti. He's making a second visit to the country after that January 12th earthquake. The secretary general visited a make- shift camp and met with American actor Sean Penn. Both talked about difficulties in helping Haitians.
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BAN KI-MOON, SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS: We are beginning the transition from emergency relief to early recovery and reconstruction. But the situation remains extremely difficult. SEAN PENN, ACTOR: What I can say is the people that we have worked with are directly at the United Nations, the secretary general who's been -- I believe, that their intention is passionate and hard- working. I think this is a very complicated situation here. There are so many voices and so many vested interests when it comes to aid that it's very difficult to break through the red tape of it.
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PHILLIPS: More than one million people are living in tent cities in Haiti.
