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Air Travel Restricted; Iceland's Volcano; Presidential Memo

Aired April 16, 2010 - 10:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: So have you ever heard of the chaos theory? It asks the question does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? Well, it may be hard to imagine more chaos than this. A volcano erupts in Iceland and strands, rather, air travelers on six different continents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just wait. We are pawns. We are nature's pawns and nothing anyone can do.

I just hope that they don't get angry with everyone and everyone accepts that this is an act of god and there's nothing we can do about it. We should just sit back and relax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: From England to India, about 17,000 flights are now cancelled and some of Europe's busiest hubs shut down including airports in Paris, London and Amsterdam. Why such extreme measures? The ash from that volcano in Iceland can cause jet engines to shut down. Geophysicists say it's impossible to predict how long those eruptions will continue and there's no way of knowing how long the airports will have to remain closed.

Our Tom Foreman has been looking at the ash cloud and how it affects air travel. He's also got a warning for us, there's another volcano that could spell even more trouble for travelers.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, Iceland is only about the size of Virginia, but this volcano from the land of ice and fire is affecting a good portion of the world right now. These are some of the pictures of the eruption. You can see these classic images of lava spewing out there, but this is the big issue right now.

A cloud of ash that's taken up the airspace from about 20,000 to 35,000 feet right where jetliners usually fly and this is drifting east and a little south and that's playing havoc with Europe, grounding planes, closing airports all over the place. Why is that?

Well, first, it's because this can look like normal dust up in the air or normal clouds so it's impossible to fly into by mistake, but this is nothing like normal dust. This is so fine that it can clog up nozzles and joints on airplanes and more importantly, it can be sucked into jet engines where it undergoes a dangerous change. Here's the model of a jet engine. It takes in air here, these blades compress that air and mixes with fuel and ignites and fires out of the back and that makes it go forward, but this process is so hot, it will melt volcanic dust. Here's a particle of volcanic dust right there and when it does, this turns into a sort of molten glass which then comes out of the back of this engine and there it starts cooling and choking the engine.

The dust is also very abrasive so it can do damage simply by flying through it. The bottom line though is once all that happens the plane can simply lose control and be unable to safely land and do much of anything. We've never lost a plane this way, but there have been planes that have flown into volcanic dust and had very severe problems.

Now, when will all this be over? That's a very good question. We don't really know. What we do know is back in 1980 Mount St. Helens erupted here in the United States and much bigger blast. And that put about 540 million tons of dust into the air. That shut down hospitals and power plants and roads for quite some time over quite a huge area. This is not that big at the moment, but not far from this volcano there is another one in Iceland which has been known to erupt in tandem with this. So that's what researchers are watching very closely and aviators, too. Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Tom Foreman, thanks so much.

And more than half of all trans-Atlantic flights are canceled today. One place where the backlog is stacking up already, New York's JFK Airport. CNN's Richard Roth is there. So Richard, what are they telling passengers right now and what are passengers telling you?

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is an interesting situation. Usually when you come to the airport on a story like this, everyone's affected, but here you have planes going to Asia, Kansas City. So you really can't tell if there's big distress here but it is a lot quieter with the British Air terminal, a major hub for flights going to the United Kingdom and the board will tell you cancel, cancel, cancel for London and whatever.

Now passengers, some of them are upset that British Air is not giving them enough information but this is mother nature that seems to be controlling things so people are in a big time holding pattern. We talked to several passengers who are upset and also taking it in stride the fact that they were in a holding pattern in the airport terminal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here since 5:00 in the morning and we're watching the plane. I don't know if it's tomorrow or after tomorrow or Monday, Tuesday. I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got the volcano to cope with, so hopefully we'll get home. We've got family and children at home and we were in New York and had a great time and it's been our 25th wedding anniversary. So we've enjoyed ourselves, but it does take the edge off the holiday.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We didn't find out until we came here this morning. There seemed to be so little on American news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: It seems if you're going to Italy or Spain, you'll be OK so far. It's north of that that the problems present themselves by British Air doctrine, we're not allowed to bring our cameras really back into the terminal and now I've been asked to leave the terminal area and stop talking to passengers about their plight.

So it's cold and windy where not many passengers really here. People are getting the word, getting it from the airline, reading the newspapers, reading the web and they've had to make alternate arrangements.

PHILLIPS: And they're watching you. Richard Roth, thanks so much.

There's no one better to bring you this story than CNN. We have mobilized our crews around the world to bring you the latest development on how this volcanic ash is affecting air travel.

They were partners for 17 years, raised four kids together, but when one lay dying in a Florida hospital room, the other was kept out. It's a case that prompted President Obama to change hospital visitation rules. Their story straight ahead.

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PHILLIPS: Hospitals will no longer be able to deny visitation rights to gay and lesbian partners and it's about time. President Obama has ordered the rule change for all hospitals that receive federal funds. The presidential memo also guarantees patients' advanced directives such as who should make health care decisions if the patient can't.

The Department of Health and Human Services has also been asked to check into other health care barriers. And no one knows just how painful those barriers can be than Janice Langbehn. Her partner Lisa died three years ago while the couple was vacationing in Florida. And even though the couple had been together for 17 years and raised four children, Langbehn was denied visitation rights almost the entire time her partner was hospitalized.

She described that emotional ordeal last night to CNN's Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Tell us a little bit about what happened to you. You and your kids were with your partner in Florida, you were there for a cruise, for a trip. Lisa collapsed and she was taken to the hospital. I mean, how did they say that you weren't allowed to see her? JANICE LANGBEHN, DENIED VISITATION RIGHTS: My partner collapsed and when she got to the hospital which was about 3:00, 3:30 Florida time, a social worker Garnet Frederick came out and told me, "you're in an anti-gay city and state and won't get to see your partner in whatever condition" and turned and walked away and I said "Wait a minute, I have a power of attorney." So he came back and gave me his fax number and within 20 minutes of him telling me that they had our legal documents.

COOPER: So wait a minute, you had the legal documents needed. You had advanced directives, you had power of attorney?

LANGBEHN: I did. Yes.

COOPER: And yet they still didn't let you see her.

LANGBEHN: Yes, because I have multiple sclerosis so we were planning for anything like this and it didn't matter to this hospital.

COOPER: They finally did let you see her briefly, but only when they were reading her her last rites, is that right?

LANGBEHN: Yes. A chaplain came to me and I said I need a priest immediately, and I didn't want the children to see her for the first time that way because I didn't know what I would see and so just I went back to do the last rites and she must have had some amount of consciousness because she was actually restrained to the bed at that point though not verbal or conscious, and then after the five-minute ceremony, brought me back out and I continued to wait with the kids another five hours and it wasn't until her sister showed up from Jacksonville that then I was allowed in to have access to my partner for 17 years.

COOPER: And I understand -

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Langbehn's case motivated President Obama to change the visitation rules and the President called her personally to tell her about the new directive and apologized for the way she was treated.

A tragic transformation. A family's home turned into a giant debris-filled crater. How did this happen?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Believe it or not, just 24 hours ago this pile of debris was a house. An explosion leveled the home in Calhoun, Georgia, yesterday. Officials said a natural gas leak inside the house actually triggered the blast. Thank goodness the family that lived there wasn't home at the time, but it scared the daylights out of their neighbors who were there. About a dozen homes were damaged.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Let's go ahead and go to outer space. Astronauts getting the Space Shuttle Discovery ready for the ride back home, Today, they actually tucked a cargo carrier back into the shuttle and checked the shipped out to make sure it's safe to fly. Discovery is set to leave the International Space Station on Saturday and land in Florida on Monday. The shuttle will make its final flight in September when it will transport a human-like robot to the space station.

An honor student's honest mistake. She overslept one time and now she can't walk with her graduating class. Does that sound fair to you?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about you snooze, you lose. That is that cliche to a ridiculous extreme, by the way. Sam Pierce is an honor student at Wausaukee High School in Wisconsin. And back in February, she says her alarm didn't work. She overslept, but still went to school and told officials what happened. The reward for her honesty, an unexcused absence.

School rules say if seniors have one unexcused absence in their second semester they can't walk with their graduating class. That's zero tolerance for you. So Sam, the honor student, will have to sit while the others walk. Same as the slacker who slept in four times and watched "Jersey Shore" on the DVR.

That brings us to this morning's blog question for you. We want you to share some of your zero tolerance stories with us. Can it be too harsh, go to CNN.com/kyra. Post your thoughts and I'll read them in just the next few minutes.

Rescue workers racing against the clock desperately trying to find survivors of Wednesday's powerful earthquake. The death toll has climbed to at least 791 according to government figures. More than 11,000 are injured. The 6.9 magnitude quake hit western China in a mostly Tibetan region, wiping out homes and forcing more than 100,000 people to flee. Today they wait for food and other aid.

They were accused of trying to kidnap 33 Haitian children, after the devastating earthquake. Now charges have been dropped against nine of the 10 American missionaries. The nine had previously been released from jail and returned to the U.S.. The tenth missionary, group leader, Laura Silsby is still in jail. American said that they were trying to take the young quake survivors to a better life.

As much as your little leaguer wants to be like his heroes there's one thing a future Hall of Famer says you should never do on the mound.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know this game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel good when you go out there. It's like when you get a chick that you didn't think you could get and you got her. You're like - just get a hit, buddy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: There's some advice from Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad News Bears" remember that? Well, here's a the tip from a future Hall of Famer that little leaguers can really use, don't throw the curveball.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That's pitching great Tom Glavine, watching his son's Little League practice. You might be surprised at what he has to say.

TOM GLAVINE, 1995 WORLD SERIES MVP: You know, I'll never let a kid at 11 years old, throw a breaking ball. I never threw a breaking ball until I was in high school.

GUPTA: So why does he say that? Well, because the breaking ball, also called the curveball puts too much stress on pre-teen elbows.

GLAVINE: There you go. That's better.

DR. JOE CHANDLER, DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL SERVICES, ATLANTA BRAVES: Over time, we're seeing an epidemic of overuse injuries and youth baseball, an epidemic of shoulder and elbow injuries.

GUPTA: That often means surgery and pitching careers over before they've even started.

GLAVINE: I think at this young age, teach them how to throw a fast ball for strikes and teach them a change up and just teach them how to pitch and don't worry so much about the curveball. There's plenty of time for that.

GUPTA: The problem is young players are also getting injured because they're throwing too many pitches each outing or playing too many innings per game. It's hard when professional baseball is such a draw.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to be a professional baseball player.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my dream.

GUPTA: But many young players and coaches don't always get this message, play less to play longer.

CHANDLER: Those who are getting significant injuries at 19 or 20 years old, you can usually trace it back to overuse at 12 and 13 years old.

GLAVINE: A lot of these kids are playing one sport and playing it year round.

GUPTA: Growing up, Glavine took a break from baseball each season to play hockey. He gave his arm a rest and thinks that may have contributed to his long baseball career and he's hoping these little leaguers catch on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't throw curveballs. Don't throw it all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. That's not good.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: You can catch Sanjay's show, "Sanjay Gupta MD" right here, tomorrow morning at 7:30 Eastern. He's got the naked chef, Jamie Oliver and find out why Jamie says we're in one of the darkest moments in American health.

He was lonely, overweight, bullied and to add injury to insults, surgery left him with a plastic valve in his neck. So many obstacles for this teen, but he's rising above them all.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's singing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He opened his mouth to sing and all of the guys in class just went - huh!

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: And a voice like that with a tracheotomy. Amazing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

PHILLIPS: Well, chaos in Europe and it's not letting up. We've got the latest on the effects of that ash cloud coming out of a volcano in Iceland.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Ash from that volcano in Iceland is spreading and so, too, are the numbers of grounded air travelers. Hungary now joining several other European nations closing airspace. The cloud is also blocking the main flight path between the U.S. East Coast and Europe. The European Aviation official says nearly 30,000 flights are normal for today, but less than half that number are flying. And just in from our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, Medevac flights out of Afghanistan and Iraq are now being rerouted from those usual landings in Germany. Those flights instead are going directly to Andrews Air Force base near Washington.

The cloud from that volcano is drifting between 20,000 and 30,000 feet. Let's check in with CNN meteorologist, Rob Marciano, about the effects of that ash. He's been following it. So, Rob, do you know if you can actually feel that ash?

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, feel it, it's up at 20,000, 30,000 feet. The only way to feel it is if you were on the other side of that volcano pretty close where you would actually come out of the sky before it launched so high, but if you're flying through it, all the pilots can feel, it's pretty abrasive.

Tom Foreman went through this, it gets into the valve and joints and gets into the engines and shuts down the engines and it's never a good thing. What complicates things, I think, is the winds here at the upper levels where the jets fly 30,000 feet or so are really strong. We've got what we call a jet streak, meaning the winds are just cranking here well over 100 miles an hour and that's concentrated the plume.

What you're seeing here, this isn't the ash plume itself, but that's just high clouds that are a product of this jet streak. What we're seeing as far as the ash plume goes is here, this is infrared imagery. Here's the volcano and the ash plume is coming right down through here, through the south and east and at times making a bit more of a right turn.

So that has created some problems. We are seeing a little bit of a change in the wind field. Forecast models are predicting for that wind field to weaken and that will diffuse the plume a little bit and make it less concentrated and we're also seeing more of a westerly flow as opposed to seeing more of a northerly flow that brought it directly to Europe, either way, I think Scandinavia, Europe and the U.K., are going to be affected by this for several days to come.

Southern Europe may begin to be spared and they may begin to expand air travel there, but I think for several days especially northern Europe, Scandinavia and the U.K., this is going to be an ongoing issue. Kyra?

PHILLIPS: We'll be talking about it, no doubt, until we have better answers and when these flights can get going again. Rob, thanks.

Now, let's get the view from Iceland, the epicenter of that volcanic eruption. CNN's Gary Tuchman is joining us on the phone now with more. Gary, we're having a hard time connecting with you, so bring us up-to-date on what it's like there right now.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Hi, Kyra.

We are standing right next to the volcano. When we came here to Iceland we didn't expect to be able to get this close, but we are on the west side of the volcano, and you can see you were talking about the wind, on the ground we have sustained winds of 40 miles per hour right now and it is blowing east, that's where mainland Europe is.

The plume of ash is on the other side of the island from where we're standing right now. It's a relatively clear day, but when you walk up the mountain (INAUDIBLE) the volcano that is continuously erupting right now. (INAUDIBLE) going on around. A lot of people are talking about their monetary crisis to the country, and they owe a lot of money to the -- we have a little problem with the connection in my audio. I think you can still hear me.

PHILLIPS: Yes. Go ahead, Gary.

TUCHMAN: What I was talking about the monetary crisis. They owe a lot of money to the United Kingdom, and the joke is that all of the United Kingdom cash. Instead, they're sending them ash. So, that's kind of the joke right now. And they can joke because here in Iceland things are pretty good, relatively speaking.

You see on the ground here water. These are floodwaters because when the volcano erupted, it erupted underneath a glacier that is here. So, many of the farmlands are flooded. You can see the rubble and the rocks. People have been evacuated, but this is a sparsely populated area. Only hundreds of people have been forced to leave their homes. Some roads have collapsed, but no one's been killed and no one's been hurt, so the people here in Iceland have considered themselves relatively lucky.

So, it's really amazing, standing right next to the volcano. You can fly into Reykjavik, Iceland, the international airport. There's four airports here. They're all open. So, it's really weird standing here, knowing things are relatively normal, but in Europe, there's such chaos right now.

Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: Yes. Chaos, absolutely. Gary, thanks so much.

Straight ahead, a Chicago mobster, locked up in prison. He didn't snitch, but the audio tapes that turned up in his basement, they may not be so quiet. The story that has Chicago's mobsters sweating.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

PHILLIPS: Chicago's underworld. It's the stuff of legend and Hollywood. Al Capone, Scarface, probably the face of Chicago's mob. How many books and movies have been made about him? Remember 1986? Capone was back in the news? Geraldo Rivera actually thought he had found Capone's secret vault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GERALDO RIVERA, NEWS CORRESPONDENT: I'm Geraldo Rivera, and you're about to witness a live television event. A massive concrete vault has been discovered. Some think it belonged to none other than the notorious Al Capone. Well, tonight for the first time the vault is going to be opened live.

It seems at least up until now, that we've struck out with the vault. I'm disappointed about that as I'm sure you are.

(END VIDEO CLIp

PHILLIPS: Okay. So that was definitely a bust. Too bad Geraldo wasn't in mobster Frank Calabrese's basement in 2010. There really was a treasure trove in there. More like a bombshell. Loose diamonds, stacks of $1,000 bills printed in the 1940s. Loaded guns wrapped in towels, no fingerprints. And potential smoking guns.

This is the bombshell. Secret audio tapes that Calabrese made. They could shine a whole new and damning light on the Chicago mob. Mobsters are still out there, nervous about what's on those tapes. He's in jail, been there for years. The tapes and the booty were found recently behind a family picture at his house.

Steve Warmbir of "The Chicago Sun-Times" has been covering story, and he covers the mob. Steve, what do you think? What could be on those tapes? Have you heard them? What's your gut here?

STEVE WARMBIR, REPORTER, "THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES" : Well, nobody's heard them yet except for the FBI agents who discovered them, as you said, behind the family portrait there tucked into a wall. Apparently, Frank Calabrese was recording conversations with other mobsters. And it's definitely gotten a lot of people, the mobsters left on the street, really concerned about what could be on those tapes. Possibly discussions about mob hits, mob thefts. Who knows?

Frank Calabrese really was a guy who was involved in the upper echelon of the mob. He did a lot of the mob killings. He did a lot of mob thefts, he did loan sharking work. He was a man of many hats for the Chicago outfit.

PHILLIPS: So why were the feds -- why did the feds go back to search his home? what were they looking for, Steve?

WARMBIR: What they were looking for, they were looking for money, they were looking for jewels. They were looking for stuff they could seize that could go towards the more than $20 million that Frank Calabrese owes the government. That was the fine and the forfeiture that a judge put on him as well as other co-defendants in the family secrets case a few years back. That was the historic mob case in Chicago.

So, they were looking for property to seize to fulfill that obligation that Frank Calabrese still has to the federal government, and they talked to Frank's brother and they talked to Frank's son and they said hey, there's stuff in the house. There's cash in the house and there's jewelry in the house, and they were right. PHILLIPS: They also found a rosary that you told me. Do you have any idea the story behind that?

WARMBIR: Well, you know, Frank Calabrese, Sr. in recent years has turned to religion a lot and turned, you know, quoting the Bible as a lot of folks in prison do, especially folks like Frank Calabrese, Sr., who face life in prison. They have found God. So, maybe he was getting ready for that, who knows? It was only one rosary, and he had a lot of other valuables there as well.

PHILLIPS: All right. As they start to look through everything that they found, specifically listening to these tapes, Steve, is it possible that other big-time mobsters could be busted, could be linked to murders and other crimes?

WARMBIR: That certainly is their fear because they are certainly on edge now, wondering what exactly Frank Calabrese was recording and why. He certainly didn't use those recordings to help buy himself time out of jail or out of prison. It looked like he was using the recordings as insurance against other mobsters while he was still a free man. That's the $64,000 question, or maybe the $20 million question in Chicago. What exactly are on those tapes? And a lot of top mobsters who were still out, the few remaining, are really sweating about it.

PHILLIPS: Well, that's right. You cover the mob. What is the inside word? You talk to a lot of these guys off the record. You say they're sweating about it. Can you go into a little more detail about kind of what the word has been within the mobster community?

WARMBIR: Well, within the organized crime community, right now they don't know what's on the tapes. There's pretty much only two sets of people who know. Frank Calabrese, Sr. who is in prison and under the highest restrictions possible. I mean, he's held as if he's a terrorist because he threatened to kill a prosecutor by the name of Marcus Funk. And the FBI agents, the very few FBI agents who have listened to the tapes.

The main concern, of course, is a series of mob murders that happened right before Calabrese went in and also after he went in as well. They're concerned about particularly one murder, one of the last mob murders, a man by the name of Ronald Jarrett, who was a very close friend of Frank Calabrese. Jarrett was gunned down outside his Bridgeport home, and that was one of the last mob murders in Chicago.

So, there's certainly concern about that --

PHILLIPS: Was that the one in 1999?

WARMBIR: It was the one in 1999, right. But they're concerned about what Calabrese might have been talking about before then.

PHILLIPS: Got it.

You know what's so ironic here? Wasn't Frank Calabrese known for being very careful and very secretive? You have to have the reputation that he didn't leave evidence behind.

WARMBIR: Oh, no, that's a great question. Exactly. That is the big irony to the whole case. He was known a guy who warned folks to not talk on the telephone. He was quite proud of the fact that he often talked in code while talking on the telephone or even talking one-on-one with other people because he was always concerned that he was going to be recorded. And in fact, at the end of the day, he was the guy making some of the secret recordings. And he's in prison for the rest of his life, but it certainly could turn out to be very bad for a lot of the mobsters out there that are still out there.

PHILLIPS: I'll tell you what. Steve, you do great work, and I love reading your stuff in "The Chicago Sun-Times." This was a great enterprise story for us. Keep us updated, will you?

WARMBIR: Will do, thanks.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Steve.

Top stories now.

The West Virginia mine where 29 were killed had a history of dangerous violations. That's what federal investigators are saying now, but the agency lacks the authority to permanently shut down the Upper Big Branch mine. The federal report is calling for new legislation. Massey Energy, the company that owns the mine, has also received citations at three of its other mines. It defends its safety record.

Mail your census form in today, or expect a knock at the door. The Census Bureau will send out more than 6,000 census takers, starting May 1st. If you haven't received your form yet, call information, 1-866-872-6868. And by the way, you guys in the upper Midwest have done the best job in getting your forms back in.

Putting the brakes on Mazdas, but not in the States. The car company is recalling nearly 90,000 Manda 3 vehicles - or Mazdas - rather, 3 vehicles in Japan and China. The company says there is a problem with the transmission. Mazdas says driving on rough roads for a long hours could cause damage to an oil hose in the transmission. I guess you should probably should go to the Web site to find out what models we're talking about.

The horrors of the Holocaust were counted by people who witnessed it firsthand. The World War II liberators.

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PHILLIPS: A proud salute to 120 World War II vets who helped liberate the Nazi concentration camps. General David Petraeus paid tribute to the liberators yesterday during the National Days of Remembrance ceremony at the U.S. Capitol. The war heroes include vets who arrived at the death camps first and soldiers who came later with aid and plenty of compassion.

They all have remarkable stories to tell of what they witnessed at those concentration camps and how that shocking experience changed their lives forever. Here's CNN Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Sixty-five years ago, Tech Sergeant Leon Bass was mad he could only serve in an all black segregated unit in World War II.

LEON BASS, HOLOCAUST LIBERATOR: I was questioning my wisdom of joining the army telling me I wasn't good enough to serve with white soldiers.

STARR: But one day, everything changed.

BASS: This day in April, 1945, I had the shock of my life. I walked through the gates of a concentration camp.

STARR: In Germany, the living were barely alive. Bass and other veterans have gathered to renew an extraordinary bond, perhaps for the last time. These men helped liberate Nazi concentration camps.

BASS: They were skin and bone. Skeletal faces. Deep set eyes. Many of them were dressed in pajama type clothing. Some were naked. I could see the sores on their body.

STARR: Bass returned home still to face discrimination. He says he knew he had already seen the worst.

STARR: It was that day I realized I wasn't the same anymore. Something had happened to me.

STARR: Susumu Ito was in an all Japanese American unit. Now 90, he's here with Nelson Akagi, 87, friends since they served together. Tell me about the day you came across the camp.

SUSUMU ITO, HOLOCAUST LIBERATOR: I saw then quite a few still milling around inside. Others that were strong enough, they were starting to scream out. And they were still in their striped garb. Just skin and bone and barely moving around.

STARR: They show me photos of Larry, a Lithuanian Jew they rescued. Nelson recalls finding him years after the war.

NELSON AKAGI, HOLOCAUST LIBERATOR: I think we did more crying than talking when we first talked to each other.

STARR: Remarkably, they express no bitterness their own relatives were in relocation camps back home.

AKAGI: Kind of made us think, wow, one group in the United States that were in the camp liberating another group in Germany who were in camp.

STARR: Sergeant Arthur Mainzer was one of the first to document what happened in the hours after liberation. ARTHUR MAINZER, HOLOCAUST LIBERATOR: These are German civilians in the town right next to the camp.

STARR: Why were they marched through?

MAINZER: To show what had happened there. Some of them said, oh, I didn't know that was going on.

STARR: A terrible time. Now memories shared by elderly men, wanting the world to know what happened when they were young.

Barbara Starr, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And just getting word in here to CNN that former L.A.P.D police chief Darryl Gates has died. You'll remember he became quite a controversial figure during the city's deadly riots back in 1992. He had made a number of controversial statements and had become the flash point for controversy, though, long before the riots broke out when four white police officers were acquitted of most of the charges and the beating of black motorist Rodney King.

Gates his been responsible for a number of major successes within the department, but a lot of that was overlooked after he was forced into early retirement after the riots involving Rodney King. Apparently, the family said in February that the former chief had been hospitalized with bladder cancer. We are now getting word that Darryl Gates, former L.A.P.D. police chief, has died at the age of 83.

A lonely and bullied teen found refuge in food when his parents were serving in Iraq. Then he found refuge in music.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

PHILLIPS: Now, when you listen to his voice, it's hard to believe that he's had a tracheotomy. It's beautiful what comes out of that mouth, coming through a plastic valve. Get ready to be inspired.

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PHILLIPS: All right. Well, he's not YouTube's Susan Boyle, but Leshaun Ramsey has a bit of notoriety himself when it comes to singing. The Texas high school student was short, horribly obese, and he was being picked on, plus he has a hole in his throat.

But music is changing his life. Jim Douglas of affiliate WFAA has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

JIM DOUGLAS, WFAA-TV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Leshaun Ramsey sings "let the music never die in me," he smiles for a reason.

A few months ago, he couldn't sing at all or talk or even breathe on his own.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

DOUGLAS: Ramsey just might be the only singer you will ever hear with a tracheotomy. He refuses to be silenced by a hole in his throat and a plastic valve sticking out of his neck.

LESHAUN RAMSEY, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: The doctors, they were just astonished. They were, like, wow! How do you do that? You go through so much and you're singing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He opened his mouth to sing and all of the guys in class just went (GASPS).

DOUGLAS: The choir director at Belton High School near Fort Hood has never seen or heard anything like it. And when it comes to Leshaun Ramsey's entire life song, you haven't heard anything yet.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

DOUGLAS: Starting with a very unhappy and morbidly obese child, teased to tears at home in Georgia.

RAMSEY: They say oh, you're fat, you're ugly, you're this, you're that.

DOUGLAS: His parents were both in the Army and deployed to Iraq. Ramsey believes he used food to help fill the void. At only 5'4, his weight ballooned to 370 pounds. Then, last August, during routine surgery, his weight nearly killed him.

RAMSEY: Just waiting for a simple tonsillectomy and everything went wrong.

DOUGLAS: Complete respiratory failure, three weeks in a hospital, three months homebound. Then his mom, who just got out of the Army brought him to Texas where Ramsey had no friends and already was far behind in school. Counselor Sally Lee was worried.

SALLY LEE, HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELOR: Then he begins to tell me all these things that he's overcome.

DOUGLAS: She knew it would be easy for the young stranger to become isolated. Then he started singing "Amazing Grace," right there in her office.

(SINGING)

LEE: So he sang and the tears started coming down my face.

DOUGLAS: She brought in another counselor to listen. Ramsey told him music is his ministry. They got him into choir class.

(on camera): Belton High is a pretty big school, about 2,400 studentS, but it took no time for Lashaun ramsey to find his place. Or maybe we should say, find his voice. UNIDENTIFIED MALEThat's the climax of the whole piece.

DOUGLAS (voice-over): Now teachers call Lashaun Ramsey an inspiration, and Ramsey calls this "his happy place." He's lost 100 pounds and vows to lose 100 more through lap-band surgery.

Reporter: He says he's found no bullying or teasing, just friendship and harmony, and a group where it doesn't matter if you're a football star or round as the moon.

(SINGING)

DOUGLAS: Lashaun Ramsey can't stop smiling. In Belton, Jim Douglas, Channel 8 news.

We've been asking this morning, do you have any zero-tolerance stories to share? Can some schools be just too harsh? We'll have your answers when we return.

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PHILLIPS: Oh, yes. The saying revenge is a dish best served cold. That was apparent in Atlantic City High School this week after a food fight made a mess at the school. The lunchroom staff retaliated. Cheese sandwiches for all. One mom called it prison food.

Lesson learned? You don't mess with those lunch ladies.

We told you earlier about a Wisconsin honor student who overslept one day during her senior year. Now, she might not be allowed to walk with the graduating class because of the school's zero-tolerance policy for unexcused absences for seniors.

Today's blog question. What are some of your zero-tolerance stories?

This is from Steve. He says, "I worked for a company who would punish their employees for attendance, even if the employee was removed from the workplace via an ambulance. I had two co-workers taken by ambulance, one for chest pains and the other had a mild stroke. They were punished for missing part of the day at work."

Michelle says she's angry because her son was punished for not stopping a friend for drinking and driving. She writes, "He was just as guilty as the one who was drunk. It cost him a football scholarship to college. Every athletic and academic achievement he had earned made him the perfect example to the rest of the student population. And as a parent, I'm now denied the pleasure of seeing him walk down the stairs and accept his diploma, taking pictures and everything associated with the graduation process."

We want to hear from you. Log on to CNN.com/kyra to share your comments. Tony, any zero tolerance issues for you growing up? TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: In my early days?

PHILLIPS: You know what? That was a loaded question.

HARRIS: How loaded is that question?

PHILLIPS: Yes, never mind. I remember - you know, cussing in grade school, no tolerance -

(LAUGHTER)

HARRIS: Oh, my!

PHILLIPS: Washing mouth out with soap. Yes, it didn't do anything for me.

HARRIS: Kyra, I'm just happy I'm here. Have a great, great weekend, Kyra. See you on Monday.

PHILLIPS: All right. See you, Tony.