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Earthquake Uptick; Safety Risk for Toyota; Mortgage Rescues Under Water; Missing Girl Found; New Jobs and Economic Recovery Update; California Students Go Dumpster Diving for Palin Contract; Returned Russian Child Tells of American Family Abuse; NASA Uncertainty

Aired April 14, 2010 - 09:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Jim and Kyra. You all have a great day.

Good morning, everyone. For the next couple of hours we'll be watching the situation in western China. Another devastating earthquake brings death, destruction, and injury. We'll have a live report in just a minute.

And here in the U.S., for every one home saved, 10 are lost. Is that the way the government's foreclosure rescue plan was supposed to work?

And five days alone in a swamp with alligators swimming around. It doesn't get more dangerous than that. Still, that 11-year-old girl managed to survive.

Our top story, an earthquake strike, the death toll climbs. It's a developing story we're following out of western China.

This morning's 6.9 magnitude quake was followed by a series of strong aftershocks. Nearly 400 people are feared dead and the death toll is expected to rise. At least 10,000 people are injured and many people are still buried under the rubble. More than 10,000 homes have reportedly collapsed as well.

Let's bring in meteorologist Jacqui Jeras. She's been taking a close look at the earthquakes there.

Haiti, Chile, Mexico, now China once again, Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. It feels like a lot, doesn't it, Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: It is a lot.

JERAS: But when we put it into perspective, we've had probably similar types of numbers of earthquakes throughout the last, you know, decade or so. So it's not that uncommon to have this many large quakes, but the death toll has been high and a lot of that has to do with these earthquakes occurring near populated areas.

You know, the earthquakes themselves don't kill people. It's the buildings and the rubble where people get killed. And so there you can see the big 6.9 and all aftershocks that we've had.

Now if we talk about the United States in general, however, there was an article yesterday from the "L.A. Times" talking about the unusually large number of earthquakes in California this year.

There have been 70 4.0 or greater, which is almost twice as many as what we had in 2009. So the number has been unusually high in California so far for 2010. However, a lot of that has to do with the earthquake that happened in Baja California the other week and all of the aftershocks.

So many of these were in the 4.0 area and, you know, that's not unusual to get this many aftershocks from an earthquake like that.

Now, yesterday, if you're on Twitter -- Fredricka, are you on Twitter?

WHITFIELD: No, sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

JERAS: OK.

WHITFIELD: But I know people who are.

JERAS: Yes, a lot of people are on Twitter and there were rumors going around yesterday that Cal Tech was sending home their faculty and their students and that they were predicting that there was a potential for an 8.4 earthquake in the next 48 hours.

That was a false rumor. A lot of people were buzzing about this yesterday. And so they spent a lot of time trying to make sure that people understand that that's not true. And, you know, it's really, really difficult to predict earthquakes.

We could put our predictions out there like, you know, there's a chance of a 7.0 earthquake or greater anytime in the next 50 years. But the problem with predicting is that you don't -- you really need to know what day that's going to happen.

WHITFIELD: Yes, precision.

JERAS: Exactly, in order to help people and really provide that predictability. And you just can't do it. You know The USGS has made this a priority. And there's all kinds of research going on trying to help figure out more accurately.

We know that they're going to happen but we just don't know exactly on what day and exactly how strong that's going to be.

If you want more information on this, this USGS.gov site is just fantastic in terms of talking about anything earthquakes, in particular earthquake prediction. But at this point they're saying they don't really know why we've had so many 4.0 in California or the other large ones across the world, of course, but these things happen. You know, those plates are shifting and moving. There are always going to be earthquakes out there. And unfortunately it's one of the huge deadly risks that we have out there across the world.

WHITFIELD: Right. OK, so once again, western China, 6.9 magnitude earthquake. Nearly 400 people who are dead and it's expected the death toll will climb as they get to this very remote location.

Our CNN crews are heading there, as well. Of course we'll continue our coverage throughout the morning.

Thanks so much, Jacqui.

All right, let's talk about automobiles. $50,000 for a safety risk. Toyota is taking a drastic step right now in the wake of a safety warning. Pulling a luxury Lexus off the lot. The move comes just one day after that warning was issued.

CNN's Kyung Lah has more.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More bad news for Toyota. The vehicle involved this time is the brand-new 2010 Lexus GX460. Toyota announced that it will temporarily suspend sales in the United States after a safety warning from the U.S. magazine "Consumer Report."

In the United States, this is the magazine that is widely considered the consumer magazine of record. Toyota did stop short of a recall, but "Consumer Reports" issued the very rare "don't buy safety risk" label on the $52,000 SUV, warning consumers that it does have the possibility of rolling over.

Here's what "Consumer Reports" told CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON LINKOV, "CONSUMER REPORTS" AUTO EDITOR: The vehicle loads the front because of momentum dropping and the rear end will naturally slide. In this case, the ESC, electronic stability control, didn't intervene quickly enough, whereas on the Toyota 4-runner, which is a similar platform, it did.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: In a statement announcing the suspension of sales, Toyota said, quote, "We are taking the situation with the GX460 very seriously and are determined to identify and correct the issue 'Consumer Reports' identified. Our engineering teams are vigorously testing the GX using 'Consumer Reports' specific parameters to identify how we can make the GX's performance even better."

Toyota did say that the suspension of sales will be limited to the United States, about 5,000 vehicles are sold there. It does sell a few hundred outside of the United States, namely the Middle East, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Russia. The sales will continue there even though we are talking about the same vehicle. But on the public relations front, this is certainly something that this automaker did not want to face, hoping that its safety problems were behind it.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Tokyo.

WHITFIELD: Lexus says they'll provide a loner car for any GX 460 owner who's concerned about their safety. For more on Toyota's troubles, be sure to log on to our Web site. Complete coverage of the recalls and this latest Lexus problem are all there at CNN.com.

Exploration and inspiration. That's what we look to the space program for. Well, tomorrow President Obama will be in Florida to talk about his vision for the final frontier.

A White House official tells CNN that vision includes $6 billion in new funding, new jobs, and sending men and women to Mars. But it won't save the shuttle program.

We've got much more on NASA's impact later this hour and we'll have even more coverage tomorrow for the president's planned speech.

The nation's foreclosure crisis. An alarming number of American mortgages are under water, and so is the program that was created to actually help them.

According to a new congressional report, for every one home saved from foreclosure, another 10 were actually lost.

CNN's Stephanie Elam joins us now from New York to break all this down for us.

This is not good news, not comforting at all.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: No, not at all, Fredricka. And it's still a really huge problem here in this country, no doubt about that. There's a lot of people out there who know that.

And this is coming from a congressional oversight panel report that's being released today. And they're saying that the Obama administration's plans to help out people who are dealing with foreclosure is just not going as far as they would have liked.

The plan, they say, will probably only help about one million people who are struggling with their foreclosure situation, whereas the Obama administration was originally targeting four million people to be helped by this.

And they're saying that the panel -- the panel is saying here that the Treasury programs are -- even when they're fully operational will not be able to help the overwhelming majority.

So as you said, 10 foreclosures for every one home saved. And they said as of February the long-term workout that has been able to help people is 168,708 there and that's just a slice of the six million people who are more than 60 days behind on paying their mortgages on time.

Now the panel says that they're concerned about these programs for a couple of reasons. They're concerned about the long-term sustainability of those programs.

They're concerned about their goals and they're also concerned about their costs and they're saying the fact that the Treasury unveiled these six or more programs to help deal with foreclosure led to confusion and has led to delays because people just didn't know which way to go, Fredricka.

And so because of that -- if you remember back to the time, though, it was a confusing time. They're just trying to do all they could to help out people. But now they're saying there's too many programs and maybe it just confused people and they don't know what to do.

WHITFIELD: So this is a terrible reflection on, of course, those programs. So what is the administration's response now?

ELAM: Yes, well, the administration is saying, sure, definitely there's no doubt about it. The foreclosure rate is way too high. We're also expecting to hear today that they're saying that as of the end of March the 230,000 homeowners have been able to get permanent help.

We did hear from this panel that they're saying it's a good thing that they're moving from these trial workouts to more permanent workouts for these people with foreclosure, that that's one positive thing there.

But the Treasury agrees that while not everyone will be helped out they're saying it was never designed to help out all of the people who were dealing with foreclosures. But still the numbers are still way lower than they expected them to be -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Yes, well, I'm sure they planned on more than 1 out of 10 actually being saved or helped.

ELAM: Sure.

WHITFIELD: Stephanie --

ELAM: For sure.

WHITFIELD: Yes. Stephanie Elam, thanks so much. We'll check back with you throughout the day. Thanks so much from New York.

All right. This is an extraordinary story you've got to see. An 11-year-old girl vanishes near an alligator-infested swamp and there are a few clues, fading hopes. Then something happened that even the 911 operator couldn't believe. Remarkable story right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: In central Florida, an 11-year-old girl woke up in her own bed this morning and that's reason to celebrate. That's because she had actually vanished into an alligator-infested swamp area on Friday, only to be found yesterday, alive and well. It's an incredible story.

Our David Mattingly is here.

She's lucky.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. You just don't hear stories turning out like this -- this way very often because this little girl was gone for almost four days. No food, no water, and after four days, the odds of finding someone in good health or relatively good health or even alive start to fall off very quickly.

But this little girl had a very big stroke of luck thanks to one particular rescuer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Her tiny hand waving from the stretcher was Nadia Bloom's way of telling everyone she was OK. It was an amazing end to a 3 1/2-day search in which the 11-year-old seemed to vanish without a trace, until a remarkable 911 call from her rescuer's phone.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, 911 CALL)

NADIA BLOOM, RESCUED FROM SWAMP: Hi. This is Nadia. I'm the girl who got lost.

911 OPERATOR: OK, Nadia, are you OK? You're not hurt in any way?

(END AUDIO CLIP, 911 CALL)

MATTINGLY: This mildly autistic Nadia was dehydrated, hungry, barefooted and covered with insect bites. Volunteer James King says he was calling on his faith when he found her.

JAMES KING, FOUND MISSING GIRL: Speaking scriptures and yelling Nadia! And then I heard what? And I said that way, right there.

MATTINGLY: It was in one of the densest, muddiest parts of a swamp near Nadia's central Florida home. At first, the 911 operator couldn't believe it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, 911 CALL)

KING: I'm almost right in the middle of the swamp.

911 OPERATOR: Sir, you are in contact with her?

KING: I'm holding her right now, yes. She's OK. She's got bites all over her. She's got some scratches.

(END AUDIO CLIP, 911 CALL) MATTINGLY: Working alone, King was able to do what scores of trained officers, divers, and a specially equipped helicopter could not.

After spending four nights in the snake-infested thicket, Nadia told the 911 operator she was doing some praying of her own.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, 911 CALL)

BLOOM: I kept saying over and over (INAUDIBLE), God would probably lead me home.

(END AUDIO CLIP, 911 CALL)

MATTINGLY: King and Nadia's family once attended the same church. Tuesday night, that church and the community around it celebrated what some are calling a miracle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: You can't help but use the words like divine intervention here because the --

MATTINGLY: Yes. Yes.

WHITFIELD: The forces that brought these two together pretty extraordinary.

Now tell me, this little girl which was out for a walk, that kind of thing? Is this something she would do all the time and this happened to be the time that she would just get very lost?

MATTINGLY: According to the police chief she was reading this book about a little girl who would go out on nature walk, and that's what she was doing. She went out on a nature walk. She just got lost, ended up going deep into this thicket.

She ended up being in the very spot, the very last place that rescuers thought she would be, so they hadn't looked in there yet. And it wasn't until James King walked in there on his own that they were able to find her.

WHITFIELD: Just a volunteer.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

WHITFIELD: Just a guy --

MATTINGLY: Absolutely.

WHITFIELD: And he used the most basic of techniques of simply calling out her name, and it worked.

MATTINGLY: Right. And he says he doesn't believe luck. He said he was guided by God. In fact, just an hour ago he was talking on "AMERICAN MORNING." He was talking about that conversation he was having with God.

And let's listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I knew he wanted me to go. I prayed and in some cases, when there's water in front, and there's water to the left and water to the right, and the trees and brush and bushes, and I said which way to go? And I looked up and he said go that way.

And I'm looking at water. I said, Lord, you sure? He said I gotcha. And as soon as I started walking, the ground under the water was solid, so again it's only about a foot and a half deep.

And he took care of me all the way there, leading me, directing, and told -- then he told me at one point to follow the sun. So I went east until I found her.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: God said "I Gotcha."

WHITFIELD: Gosh. That's extraordinary.

MATTINGLY: And he went right to her. Right to her.

WHITFIELD: I love -- I love her response even on the call, you know, hi, I'm Nadia, I'm the girl who was lost. So she kind of knew that people had been looking for her. At least --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

WHITFIELD: She sounded like it.

MATTINGLY: She sounded so calm.

WHITFIELD: She did.

MATTINGLY: So matter of fact and so pleasant and so friendly. I was listening to the entire 911 tape. At one point, Mr. King offers her some chocolate milk and she goes, yay.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: And then it was just like this -- not at all like you would think that this poor little girl who'd been out there with no food and water for almost four days was so pleasant and so ready to go home.

WHITFIELD: Wow. What a beautiful story. Nice to have a happy ending like this.

MATTINGLY: Absolutely, yes.

WHITFIELD: Dave Mattingly, thanks so much for bringing this to us. Appreciate it. All right. Take a look at what's cooking now in Iceland. A volcano near a glacier could be -- could be, rather, it's about to blow. It's been rumbling for days. And within the last few hours rivers in the area started rising and that could mean an eruption is already happening under the glacier. Authorities have evacuated about 800 people from that area just to be on the safe side.

Pretty frightening and beautiful at the same time. Those images.

So no volcanic glaciers, right? It really is beautiful stuff, Jacqui. But instead let's talk about what's taking place in the eastern part of the U.S.

(WEATHER REPORT)

WHITFIELD: OK. Not bad. I like what we have.

JERAS: Well, good.

WHITFIELD: I'm not complaining. Thanks so much.

All right. Potentially dangerous fumes forcing a transatlantic flight to make an emergency landing. And the crew was actually feeling the effects.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look at our top stories right now.

Coalmine safety will likely take center stage at a Capitol Hill hearing scheduled to start in about 10 minutes from now. The House Committee on Energy Independence will hear from the CEOs of the top two coal companies.

The hearing was supposed to focus more on clean energy, but the deaths of 29 miners in West Virginia last week is changing that. The CEO of Massey Energy Company, which runs that mine, is not at today's hearing.

A Portland, Oregon jury was awarded $1.4 million to a man who says he was molested in the Boy Scouts. They said that the Boy Scouts failed to protect him back in the 1980s. The assistant scoutmaster named in the lawsuit admitted to molesting several boys. The Boy Scouts could be liable for up to $25 million in punitive damages.

Sickening fumes caused an American Airlines plane to make an emergency landing in Iceland. Several crew members felt dizzy. The flight was headed from Paris to Dallas, Texas. Investigators in Iceland are taking a closer look at the plane. Passengers got a replacement plane to finish up their trip.

And it's a story of dumpster diving and Sarah Palin. Students say they couldn't get the university to say how much it was paying the GOP star to come speak at their school so they went looking for the evidence themselves. In the trash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: On the heels of President Obama's nuclear summit, there are two Capitol Hill hearings this morning that we want to tell you about.

First, the Senate Armed Services Committee is looking at U.S. policy towards Iran. At the summit, China agreed for the first time to consider sanctions against Iran. Russia is on board as well, but both say that's only as a last resort.

Also this morning, the House Armed Services Committee is hearing testimony on the new U.S. nuclear weapons policy announced last week.

Forty-seven nations took part in President Obama's nuclear summit, and plans are already under way for another.

Here's Jimmy Fallon's take.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON": Some political news, President Obama announced that in 2012 he's going to hold his next nuclear security summit at a site in South Korea right near the North Korean border.

Seriously? That's like if you hold a biker chick rally right across the street from Jesse James' rehab facility.

(LAUGHTER)

FALLON: You're asking for trouble.

Speaking of North Korea, I just read about a state-run comedy show in North Korea where the audience is ordered to laugh. Yes. It's called funny or actually dying.

(LAUGHTER)

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. Thought you might need a little laugh this morning.

OK. Well, they have loaded the buses and they've rolled into dozens of cities. Today the Tea Party Express returns to its roots with a rally in Boston. And they're talking taxes and big government. And we're live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Live in the CNN NEWSROOM, Fredricka Whitfield.

WHITFIELD: All right. The Dow held above 11000 yesterday, and today it looks like another rally in store.

Felicia Taylor is in New York with details on this. Where is she? There you are. Hello, Felicia.

FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Fredricka. That's right. Earnings are the name of the game today and this week along with an upbeat retail sales report.

Corporate headways Intel and JPMorgan Chase are two of the first companies to report first quarter results and they are setting the bar really high.

JPMorgan made more than $3 billion last quarter thanks to strength in its investment banking unit. The bank is still battling losses on consumer loans.

There's the opening bell.

But in a sign of confidence, it plans to hire, get this, 9,000 workers. What great news for people out there looking for a job.

Intel's first-quarter results also topping estimates. The chip giant made nearly $2.5 billion. That was helped by higher selling prices and also some rising demand. That's almost four times what the company earned in the same period last year. So, some strong gains for Intel, as well. They also plan to hire up to 2,000 workers.

AIG is taking another step toward repaying its government bailout. One of its subsidiaries is selling 53 aircraft for $2 billion. JP Morgan Chase and Intel, up 3.5 percent. So far this morning, the Dow Industrials up 24 points right now, the Nasdaq Composite also up about two-thirds of 1 percent.

And finally, Fredricka, another food company is trying to get healthy. General Mills is cutting the amount of sodium in many of its cereals and snacks by 20 percent. That's the latest from here.

WHITFIELD: That is good. That's something we can all celebrate. All right. Felicia Taylor, thanks so much. Good to see you.

All right. Here's a question -- is the economy really improving? It's a question many of us have actually asked. And next hour, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will answer it when he testifies on Capitol Hill. And indications are that he'll give a bittersweet assessment. Bernanke has recently said the economy will continue to improve this year, but he adds that growth won't be strong enough to quickly reduce the unemployment rate.

Some dumpster diving as actually prompted a state investigation into a California university's foundation. At the center of this story, Sarah Palin. She's due to speak this summer at California State University, Stanislaus, and several students were upset that foundation officials wouldn't say how much Palin's visit would actually cost. She can get up to $100,000 per speech. So they raided -- I'm talking about the students. They say they raided a trash bin and found part of the contract. A state lawmaker says he's upset with the foundation's lack of cooperation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LELAND YEE, CALIFORNIA STATE SENATE: The administration, when we asked them based on the California Public Records Act, we asked them for documents that related to the Palin visit, they said they didn't have them. And then yet a couple days later, these students found those documents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: California's attorney general says he'll check if the foundation broke disclosure laws by keeping details of Palin's contract under wraps. The foundation board president says private money, not state money, will cover Palin's visit.

The dumpster documents show Palin requires first-class flights if she flies commercial, a hotel suite with two single rooms, and two water bottles with bendable straws for her speech.

Sarah Palin will be headlining a big Tea Party rally today in Boston. The group has staged many rallies across the country to protest taxes and government spending. But this one is being held in the city where the original Boston Tea Party occurred more than two centuries ago. CNN political producer Shannon Travis is in Boston.

And, Shannon, you have been to a number of these Tea Party movement rallies. How is this one different or similar from all the rest?

SHANNON TRAVIS, CNN POLITICAL PRODUCER: Well, I can tell you it's the same. It's similar in that the crowd is pumped. The crowd is pretty small right now. People are still filing in. They're waiting for Sarah Palin, who's like a darling of the movement. So, it's similar to all the other movement, the rallies that I've been to and that the people are pumped, they're anticipating, they're waiting for Sarah Palin to come.

It's different in that it's smaller right now. We would have expected -- a lot of people I spoke with said they would have expected a few larger -- few more people to show up at this time, but again, probably within the next hour or so when Sarah Palin is expected to speak, a lot of people will be filing in -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: So, you say it's smaller. Is anybody estimating just how many? We're looking at the shot, kind of panning the crowd. It looks like a pretty sizable crowd, but you tell me how it compares.

TRAVIS: Yes. That's actually the crowd in back of me in front of the stage. That's a much smaller crowd. Actually, off to the distance in the direction that I'm looking in, the crowd is a lot smaller. But again, that's no way of telling how many people will actually be here in the end. Typically, what happens is people start to file in -- mm-hmm?

WHITFIELD: All right. I'm wondering, you know, is the draw Sarah Palin or is it there something about this movement, this rally today, something that is being promised or a new direction that this movement is taking that, you know, speaks to the crowd? TRAVIS: Actually, this movement is all about staying on message, not changing direction too much. I mean, the movement is growing. They're attracting new members or at least that's what they say. But this movement is very much about staying on message. And one person that they feel really gets their message out, obviously, is Sarah Palin. The message of fighting -- stopping big government spending, what they see as big government spending, deficit and obviously their mantra which is honoring the constitution. They feel a lot of elected leaders are not doing that right now.

WHITFIELD: Is there a way to kind of give me the cosmetic makeup of the crowd? I'm just looking, you know, -- just peeking behind your shoulder, looks like a lot of guys there.

TRAVIS: Yes, typically at these events that I've been to over the past few weeks, it has been mostly skewered male. I think our latest CNN poll shows that there are about 60 percent males to about 40 percent females. Today, mostly are that a lot of them, truth be told, mostly are white, but the minorities that are in the crowd are very proud to be here typically.

I remember one of the rallies that I went to in Colorado, there's one of the Tea Party activists, his name is Lloyd Marcus (ph), he's an African-American, and he kind of sings and pumps up the crowd. And he gets on stage and he often says, "I'm not an African-American, but I'm an American," and that usually just syncs the crowd up and it erupts in applause.

WHITFIELD: All right. Shannon Travis, thanks so much. We'll check back with you throughout the day and peek in from time to time on this Tea Party movement taking place in Boston.

The Tea Party will wrap up its tour 47 to detour tomorrow, actually, in the nation's capital on tax day. And CNN will be there as well. Stay tuned right here for live coverage.

An Army ranger got a new life, thanks to a sniper's bullet. He's been adjusting to life in a wheelchair. One thing was getting in the way, though. His house. The whole house. He's getting a new one now. Thanks to some incredible people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Don't worry about your adoption plans. That's the message to thousands of American families who've waited years and spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to adopt Russian children. The U.S. ambassador to Russia is trying to ease those families' fears after a Tennessee woman's decision to return a Russian adoptee has actually impacted the system.

CNN's Ivan Watson has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Artyom Savelyev, he is turning 8 years old this week. His birthday will be anything but normal.

PAVEL ASTAKHOV, RUSSIAN CHILDREN'S' RIGHTS COMMISSIONER: He's very confused about all this --

WATSON: Pavel Astakhov is Russia's top children's welfare official. He says our children's adoptive American family lied to the boy last week before shipping him off on a solo transatlantic flight to Moscow. He shows us a copy of the signed letter from Artyom's adoptive mother, Torry Hansen, which the boy was carrying when he arrived in Russia.

"I'm sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends, and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child," she wrote. "As he is a Russian national, I'm returning him to your guardianship."

The American family says the boy had serious behavioral problems, and they were deceived before the adoption by Russian officials, who said he was healthy.

ASTAKHOV: How can you imagine that 7-year-old boy can be a danger for the family or those people?

WATSON: Russian television broadcast footage of Astakhov meeting with little Artyom at a children's hospital. At one point, Artyom calls his adoptive mother bad and says she used to pull his hair.

ARTYOM SAVELYEV, ABANDONED KID: Bad.

WATSON: The abandonment of Artyom has left many Russians furious.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER (through translator): I would forbid sending our children to America. I believe that there are enough people who can adopt children in this country.

WATSON: Russia has no shortage of orphans. In 2008, more than 700,000 children were living without their parents in state institutions. In the last 16 year, American families adopted some 50,000 Russian children.

But now, after several high-profile cases of abuse of adopted Russian children in the U.S., officials in Moscow are calling for a temporary freeze in new American adoptions.

ASTAKHOV: In this situation, we have to freeze our connections and to ensure until we will build up a new agreement, a new bilateral treaty between Russia and the United States of America.

WATSON: Both Russian and American officials say a new agreement regulating adoption could be signed within a matter of months.

JOHN BEYRLE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: I would say to American families that are in the process of adoption not to worry too much. We're working on this, and we really don't think that this will have any long-term effect on the ability of American families to adopt here. WATSON: But that's little consolation to Artyom Savelyev, who has now lost two families before reaching the age of eight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And so Ivan Watson joining us now from Moscow.

So, Ivan, what do we know about the future of Artyom? What's next for him?

WATSON: Well, I asked that child welfare commissioner about that, and he said he hoped Artyom would not be sent back to the orphanage that he originally came from in a province of Tremoria (ph), it's seven hours time zone to the east of here on the Pacific Ocean. He said he hopes that Artyom will be adopted by another family. He said right now, Artyom needs love after being abandoned now twice, but he made clear that this would be a Russian family -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Oh. Well, what about the argument that he is officially an American citizen now because he was adopted in the U.S.?

WATSON: There does seem to be a bit of a dispute there. The child welfare official says that he is a Russian national. The U.S. ambassador says upon adoption, he also received American citizenship even though his adopted family did not provide him with a passport on this solo return trip to Russia. But according to American officials, he does have both American and Russian citizenship.

The U.S. ambassador said it'd probably be better after these traumatic experiences for the boy to be adopted here in Russia and other child welfare officials I've talked to from the United Nations, they also say it's better for Russia's orphans to be adopted here at home in their native culture.

WHITFIELD: All right. Sounds like he's back in limbo, at least for a while. Ivan Watson, thanks so much, from Moscow, appreciate that.

A look at our top stories right now.

President Obama is focusing on financial reform. Next hour, he's hosting a meeting with congressional bipartisan leaders. The talks come days ahead of the Senate taking up an overhaul of the nation's financial system. Republicans have said they'll fight proposed changes in regulations.

And in Los Angeles, men and women in blue honored a fallen police officer who died fighting in the war in Afghanistan. Forty-five-year- old Robert James Cottle, a Marine reservist had voluntarily returned to the frontlines after two previous tours. Yesterday, more than 2,500 people attended his funeral as a horse-drawn carriage carried his flag-draped coffin downtown to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels.

And when the sergeant first moved into his townhouse it was just fine, but a sniper's bullet in Iraq changed everything. Suddenly, the stairs, the counters, the bathroom, all of it, a problem. Thank goodness for good people.

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WHITFIELD: So you don't believe in climate change? Well, then you may not believe that a massive glacier could create a lake-based tsunami in the Peruvian mountains, but it has.

Jacqui Jeras in the CNN Severe Weather Center with some extraordinary video.

JERAS: Yes.

WHITFIELD: Boy, this has been an incredible day of calamities, of nature, natural forces.

JERAS: Yes.

WHITFIELD: Volcanoes, earthquakes, and now this.

JERAS: I know. A really amazing stuff, I'll go ahead and we'll check out the pictures. This is from Peru. And what happened here is that a big chunk of a glacier fell into a lake, and that all ran down the mountains into this village.

And at least two people are dead because of this. It created a 75-foot wave. And so you can see all that mud and all that water, which just flowed into the area. You know, there's literally no warning on something like this. It also decimated the water plant here, the water treatment plant that goes to 60,000 people. So not some good news there.

Let's show you on the Google Earth where this is to kind of help you understand a little bit better what happened. These are the Andes Mountains here, and there you can see the lake. Its Lake 513 is the name of the lake.

And there you can see the levee right here, and so what happened is part of this glacier fell off. It was about a quarter of a mile long, to give you an idea.

And that pushed all the water up over this levee. And there you can see where it would feed down the mountains right into this village. So not something terribly unusual.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

JERAS: You know, we know that glaciers do move. They're constantly moving very, very slowly, but that's a pretty sizable chunk. And the report tells us also in the last 35 years that Peru's glaciers have shrunk by about 22 percent. So they continue to go down.

Now, back here at home, our weather makers of the day, across the nation's midsection, we've got a cold front, which is pushing through here. And, you know, the main energy way up here into Canada, so we're not expecting any severe weather with this today. But we are going to see showers, a couple of thundershowers ahead of the front.

And because we're continuing to get this -- this return flow coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, it's going to continue to kind of moisten up the atmosphere here. And so we're expecting showers and thundershowers in this area over the next couple of days which could produce a little flooding; so, not great for the nation's midsection.

The East is loving it, though, with high pressure in place but that high blocks out that system, so Fredricka, a lot of people not loving the high pollen count, for example --

WHITFIELD: Yes.

JERAS: -- across the southeast and unfortunately no big cold front coming through to help clean out the air.

WHITFIELD: Oh, wow. So we're stuck with it for a while.

JERAS: For a while.

WHITFIELD: It means our cars and homes and everything -- got a little ting of green.

JERAS: Green and yellow, yes. A little patina.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, Jacqui. I appreciate it.

All right. Well, a defining day in history. It was on this day in 1828 that Noah Webster published his first edition of the American dictionary of the English language.

And in 1865, President Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater in D.C. He died the next day. The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was killed by police a few days later. Lincoln is buried in Springfield, Illinois.

And in 1910, President William Howard Taft started a tradition when he threw out the first pitch at a Washington Senators game.

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WHITFIELD: There is no place like a new home for the Holloways. Army Ranger Sergeant Steve Holloway came back from Iraq a changed man, paralyzed in a wheelchair after a sniper bullet got him in 2007. Suddenly his home wasn't his castle anymore. He had trouble getting around and needed more wheelchair-friendly place.

A group called Homes for Our Troops heard about the story and got busy. Right now those folks are building a barrier-free home for Holloway and his young family.

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STEVE HOLLOWAY, ARMY RANGER SERGEANT: We have a small townhouse now that's not designed at all to be wheelchair accessible.

It's going to be a lot of fun. And they're all looking forward to it a lot, too. You know it's -- they're going to have a lot more room to play around.

A more positive attitude that you can keep, I personally believe the faster your recovery goes.

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WHITFIELD: The new house could be ready in three months or less. Congratulations to them.

We've got a lot of stories that we're working on right now in the CNN NEWSROOM starting with Stephanie Elam in New York. What do you have?

ELAM: Hi, Fred. Yes, so Dow 11,000. We're there. What exactly does that mean for you? I'm going to explain it to you coming up in the next hour.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Elizabeth Cohen in Atlanta. A new gene discovered for Alzheimer's disease. Plus foods that you can eat right now to help you get your brain in shape.

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ed Henry at the White House where President Obama is getting ready to travel tomorrow to Kennedy Space Center to do some damage control. I'll tell you why some famous astronauts are furious with him.

WHITFIELD: Thank you, ladies and gent.

Iran, the U.S. State Department and the NBA: an eclectic mix and a first in Memphis, Tennessee. That's next hour right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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