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Giant Slick Nears Coast; Dems Propose Immigration Reform Plan; Steady Growth for GDP; Terror Suspects Arrested; Four Deadly Habits Add Years
Aired April 30, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. I'm Ali Velshi. I'm going to be with you for the next two hours, today and every weekday, although these are the last two hours for me in this studio. I'm going to take every important topic that we cover and break it down for you, give you a level of detail that will help you make important decisions about your environment, your health, your travel, your entire world.
Let's get started. Here's what I've got on the rundown.
It started with an explosion on an oil rig. Now it has turned into a potential catastrophe. More of the Gulf Coast oil -- Gulf Coast is on alert because that growing oil spill approaches fast. We're going to look at the ecological, economic and political impact of this oil spill as it reaches shore.
Plus, a mega merger reportedly in the works that could change the face of the airline industry and change the way you fly. I'll break it down and talk to the experts about what this could mean for you.
And, I am going to introduce you to a fascinating woman who is going to make your heart race. She is a runner but so much more. She overcame some major hurdles, and now she's helping other people leap over theirs.
When a United States senator uses the word "panic" in public, we all pay attention, and millions of us are to this: oil, light sweet crude oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from a ruptured well, spreading like a tumor toward the fragile wetlands of the Mississippi Delta.
The worst of the slick has yet to reach land. But southeast winds mean it almost surely will, despite the best efforts of the Coast Guard, BP and the state of Louisiana.
The senator I'm speaking of is Bill Nelson. He's a Democrat of Florida. He's long been a critic of offshore oil drilling. Here's what he said this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: We panicked because we've got a lot riding on this right here. This is our economy. We've got a lot riding on the bays and estuaries that spawn so much of our marine life. We have a lot riding on the United States military having an unfettered testing and training range.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: OK. Bill Nelson spoke in Pensacola. It's a Navy town that's now serving as a staging area for shoreline protection. He is demanding that President Obama stand down on his plans to eventually open up more of the gulf and other coastal waters in the United States to oil exploration.
Here's what the president says.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've ordered Secretary Salazar to conduct a thorough review of this incident and report back to me in 30 days on what, if any, additional precautions and technologies should be required to prevent accidents like this from happening again.
We're going to make sure that any leases going forward have those safeguards. We've also dispatched teams to the gulf to inspect all deep water rigs and platforms to address safety concerns.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: OK. We've got extensive live coverage over the next two hours, but before we head to Louisiana, I want to share some numbers with you.
More than 217,000 feet of boom is now floating between the slick and the shore. Basically, you can see it there. It's the line that tries to separate the oil from moving along. Even more booms still waiting to be set out. But strong winds and high waves can push oil over those barriers, those booms.
At last word, crews had recovered more than 20,000 barrels of an oil and water mix. That effort continues.
Seventy-five boats are on the job, including skimmers, tugs, barges and recovery vessels. BP, the company that was leasing the oil rig, is asking for more and offering compensation to people who -- who help out.
And the northern Gulf Coast is holding its breast right now. We're going to be there live in just a moment, but first let's check in with our Chad Myers. He's been watching the spill since the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up ten days ago.
Chad, what's the situation and particularly with the weather? Is that going to help or hurt the chances of this thing getting to shore quickly?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's going to help the people of southern Louisiana, and it will hurt the people of, let's say, Bay St. Lui all the way over to Dauphin Island. Because that's the way the wind now is blowing, from the due south on up into the coastal region. There you see Bay St. Lui, Biloxi and then Pensacola and Mobile Bay and all the over there, probably even toward Destin.
And the oil is still a long way offshore from there. We're still talking about 100 miles or so. And if the wind blows in 20 miles per hour, as we expected, you can't say that oil is going to move that fast. The oil only kind of limps along at two or three knots. So a good couple of days before it gets there. But, you know, so what? We do believe that it will get there. There's not some turnaround eventually going to happen in the Gulf of Mexico that will eventually bring these, that very thick slick.
And you can see the middle, how it's milky white. It's kind of just an interpretation of how the sheen happened and how the reflectivity happened on the satellite picture from NASA. It's actually almost a reddish brown sludge.
But we do have sheen now in the Mississippi Delta. Not places where people really live. That whole bottom that you see there where under the word, the top word "sheen," under that, that's the delta. That's literally the estuary. That's a brackish area. All the birds, plankton, mammals, river otters, they all live there. And they are all in trouble as this water with oil mixed in is moving their way still for today.
VELSHI: And we have heard from Fish and Wildlife that they have started to -- at least they've got one bird they've had to start cleaning up. We're actually going to talk about that on this show a little later on, Chad. You and I have got so much experience with birds and maybe you'll join me for that.
MYERS: At least penguins.
VELSHI: Penguins, right. We're going to see a hawk, but we're going to talk about what happens when these birds that go into the water to get their food end up getting oil on them, how they have to clean them.
All right, Chad. Stick with us.
If all this sounds pretty serious and you think that the military needs to be involved, you're right. CNN's Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence, joins me now with that angle. The Air Force is supplying some airplanes that are heading into this fight.
Chris, good to see you. Tell us about this.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ali, the secretary of defense has now authorized two C-130s to that area to start -- to help with the clean-up effort.
These are equipped with a certain modular aerial spray system. Think of the missions that the military has done over some of the wildfires when they drop the foam on the fire. Sort of like that but a little bit different. These have side nozzles that spray in a more focused pattern. But again, what that will do is drop that chemical on there to try to disperse some of the oil on the surface of the water. These planes can cover about 250 acres, you know, per flight, and they're expecting that each plane will run about three flights a day. The secretary of defense also has a request on his desk from the Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal, to pay for about 6,000 troops to be mobilized, just in case they need them if this oil starts to reach the shore. We're told that he is considering that request right now.
VELSHI: All right, Chris. And there's no decision on that just yet. There's no decision on -- the state of Louisiana has issued a state of emergency. But does the federal government have to issue one or is that -- this is just a request from the governor for the National Guard?
LAWRENCE: No, Governor Jindal is the governor. He controls the National Guard there. He can authorize the National Guard any time he wants. He could have done it today; he could have done it yesterday. This is really about who's going to pay for it.
VELSHI: Pay for it.
LAWRENCE: It's the ultimate -- it's the money question, Ali.
VELSHI: Yes.
LAWRENCE: Is it going to be the state of Louisiana picking up the bill or they put in a request to the federal government to see if the feds will pay for it instead.
VELSHI: All right. Who's going to pay for this remains a big question. All right, Chris. Good to see you. Thanks very much. At the Pentagon, Chris Lawrence.
Democratic senators have put together a plan to overhaul immigration laws. Boy, we've been talking a lot about immigration, thanks to that bill in Arizona. This law would give a lot of illegal immigrants the chance to get legalized. But a few things need to happen first. I'm going to break that plan down for you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. If you're like me, the developments in this immigration law that was passed in Arizona are faster than you need to understand. I want to slow this down for a second and discuss what's happening.
Part of the problem here is that Arizonians have said that they would like a federal policy. And if there were a federal policy in place, they wouldn't have to do this in the state.
So let me tell you a bit about what's happening on a federal level. Yesterday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat, and some other Democratic leaders unveiled an outline, a draft of immigration legislation that they're saying they want to take forward.
Let me tell you what's in this. First of all, there's a lot of politics behind it. Republican leaders immediately dismissed this plan, calling it a political ploy with little chance of passage.
What is in this draft? It's 26 pages long. We've gone through it. It's got some concrete benchmarks to secure the border, and then once that is done, grant immigration -- immigrants opportunities to gain legal status in this country.
Now, let me tell you about what's in it. It's going to increase the number of Border Patrol officers and U.S. immigration and customs enforcement officials. So this is the enforcement part of things along the Mexican border, which is that red line that you see going across about the middle of your screen. It's going to increase the number of personnel available to inspect for drugs and contraband. It's also going to improve the technology used to assist immigration and customs enforcement agents.
Let's talk about what some of that technology is. High-tech ground sensors are going to be installed across the Mexican border. Obviously, on the -- toward the U.S. side of the border. That's a little -- little further south. We're obviously not going to be installing things inside of Mexico.
Officers are going to be equipped with, according to the draft, technological capability to respond to activation of ground sensors in areas that they are patrolling.
Now I want to talk about another change. That's the enforcement part. Here's another thing. Apparently, the use of fraudulent and forged Social Security cards are an issue. So this draft proposes a fraud-resistant, tamper-resistant Social Security card which would be biometric. We're going to get to that in a second. That's important. Every worker in America would carry one of these cards. This would happen over the course of the next six years.
And this one is a sticking point. Why? Because biometrics are things that have to do specifically with you. For instance, a fingerprint. The information would be stored within a microprocessing chip on the card, so you may not be able to see the fingerprint when you actually look at the card, but there will be a chip, and you could scan it.
Now, this is coming under fire from places like the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, because aside from the expense of doing this, they say it would require every American worker to be fingerprinted. Some of you out there may not have had your fingerprint taken and may not be on record somewhere, and some people certainly do not like the idea of fingerprints.
Do you like the idea of strong border protection and enforcement of immigration rules more than you like the idea that you're going to be fingerprinted? The reason behind these cards is it would -- the government says, the Democrats say prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants.
Take a look at the fines for hiring any illegal immigrant. They would be increased by 300 percent. If you hire somebody who is not eligible for employment. And repeat offenders, meaning people who hire people who are not eligible for employment, could face time in prison. That's a big deal.
What are we talking about here? Josh Levs was up here yesterday, telling us about the numbers of illegal immigrants in this country. Best estimate is about 10.8 million illegal immigrants. But it's kind of like the number of people not covered by health care. Lots of people, depending on what side of the issue they're, will give you different numbers.
The draft states that all illegal immigrants living in the United States would be required to come forward and register, be screened. Then, if they're eligible, complete other requirements to earn legal status. And by the way, that includes paying taxes.
And once all of that is done, once they have been cleared by federal authorities, once the biometrics have been done, once they've got all this information, then they would be able to petition for permanent resident status eight years after the current visa backlogs have been cleared.
That is what we know about the proposed legislation. We will, of course, continue to cover this in great detail for you.
Well, the government is reportedly taking its investigation of Goldman Sachs a step further. The economy is growing, by the way, in light of all of this that's going on. It's growing very, very slowly, however. Christine Romans breaks it all down after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We promised you continuing coverage of this oil slick that is heading toward the -- heading toward land in the Gulf of Mexico. Let's go to Richard Lui, who is at -- I believe he's in Dauphin Island, Alabama.
Richard, what's the situation out there?
RICHARD LUI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Ali.
You know, we're here in a situation in Dauphin Island, a small community of about 900 people. But this is certainly a place that is used to adversity. You were reporting down here during some of the major hurricanes. They've gone through Katrina, Ivan, Gustav, you name it.
But you know, this time around, although they're very hardy folks with a lot of resilience, it's a little bit different this time around, because they believe it's possible that things could change for a long period of time.
I spoke with Bob Abruscato, long-time fisherman, been here for 30, 40 years. He takes people out for tours. He fishes himself. This is what he told me earlier when I asked him what he thought might happen in the next couple of weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BOB ABRUSCATO, FISHERMAN: I never took any fish that I ever caught for granted, or I tried not to. But these last couple of days, you know, just -- just have to enjoy every one of them now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LUI: And then what Bob did is he got on his boat. He went out for what he thought was going to be his last fishing trip, right around the cove to my right here. I asked him what is he going to be thinking at as he went through that alley. And he was saying, you know, "I'm scared. I don't know what my future is going to be."
And so that sort of dynamic. Very resilient people but having to face the potentiality that they're not sure of.
VELSHI: Hey, Richard, and that's -- that's part of the story we don't want to get -- don't want to lose. There are people who make their livings off of this. And whether or not they can get out there, some of the fish that they're out there to catch, the shrimp, the oysters, we don't know what the impact is going to be on them just yet.
Resilient, and they get -- they get blown around a lot by the environment and by weather, and here they are have to face this, as well.
Richard, thanks very much. We'll check in with you again. OK? Richard Lui.
One of the other stories we're following right now, we have a few things going on the -- on the money front. Christine Romans is joining me now.
Boy, where do you want to go, Christine? There's -- well, hold on. Now I don't see her at all. There, now we see me, but I hear Christine. Are you there? There we go. OK. All is better.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm here. I'm here. I really am.
VELSHI: Take your pick. We've got new numbers on GDP, which is how we measure growth in this country. We've got potentially new investments -- OK, let's start with GDP.
ROMANS: OK, GDP. Why do we care about GDP? Three letters of the alphabet, right? Well, this is how you measure the output of the American economy. We now know for three quarters in a row the American economy has been growing. Growing. A year ago, we weren't so sure. Now you've got three quarters in a row of growth.
That growth, however, for the first three months of this year, Ali, as you know, is weaker than it was at the last three months of last year: 3.2 percent. See those three green bars? That shows you an economy that is crawling out of, God, an abysmal -- an abysmal four quarters. Three point two percent.
So some people say, "Oh, well, it's not as strong as it was at the end of the year." That's true, but economists, Ali, are telling me this morning and the afternoon that it's more balanced growth.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: And that's what they would like to see, more balanced growth. Put in three quarters in a row together, growth.
VELSHI: Right. I think we'd all like -- we'd all like even, good, solid growth.
All right. Goldman Sachs. Let's clear this up. Because Goldman Sachs has a charge from the Securities and Exchange Commission. We've been reporting on that.
ROMANS: Right.
VELSHI: That is a civil charge, which means nobody goes to jail. It's a fine, if they were to be found guilty of that. Something has developed on that front.
ROMANS: Something has developed on that front and that is this. Numerous reports that the SEC has referred this case now to the Justice Department. So for a criminal investigation, which takes it up a notch, right?
A criminal investigation, it's a probe. It's early; it is not charges. It's not guaranteed that it will be charges. But just to let you know that that's where this thing has developed.
And this is what Goldman says about it. They say, of course, given the recent focus on the firm, they're frankly not surprised by the report of an inquiry. And they are going to fully cooperate with any requests for information.
As you know, we've been covering it extensively. The SEC fraud charge against Goldman Sachs, it has to do with a billionaire investor, a hedge-fund investor named Henry Paulson -- oh, sorry.
VELSHI: John Paulson.
ROMANS: I've said this three times a day. John Paulson, not Henry. John Paulson.
VELSHI: No relationship between them two.
ROMANS: And -- I know. John -- and he -- and he is accused of -- or Goldman is accused of letting him handpick some mortgage-backed securities for an investment that was sold to other people, and it wasn't revealed to them.
VELSHI: You know, it's not only that they have no relationship, but it's tricky, because Henry Paulson, who was the treasury secretary, was the boss at Goldman.
ROMANS: Right.
VELSHI: And yet, they've got nothing to do with each other. It would have been simpler if people had different names.
ROMANS: Yes. And I've said Henry and Paulson together so many times over the past two years.
VELSHI: Right. Now it's just in your head.
ROMANS: Sometimes your brain...
VELSHI: I hear you. Christine, great to see you. I'll see you tomorrow.
Christine and I are together on television seven days a week. We never stop. You can watch us on "YOUR $$$$$" Saturday at 1 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern. And we're going to get into much more of this stuff that you might be interested in, in terms of money.
We have another one of our colleagues standing by. We've got some breaking news out of New York having to do with terrorism or people allegedly accused of it. Allan Chernoff is standing by.
Allan, what is this story?
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Ali, we now have word from the U.S. attorney here in Manhattan that two U.S. citizens are being charged with providing material support to al Qaeda: Wesam El- Hanafi, age 33, and Sabirhan Hasanoff, age 34. This is material support that they are alleged to have provided including computer assistance.
One of them allegedly, El-Hanafi, allegedly traveled to Yemen, pledged his support to al Qaeda, and then went to work here in the United States, apparently trying to set up material assistance, computer programs.
They also mentioned that he acquired seven Casio digital watches to apparently give some assistance to al Qaeda.
In any event, the two are to be presented before a federal magistrate judge in Virginia in an hour and a half. And Ali, that's what we have on this story right now. But again, two U.S. citizens being charged with providing assistance to al Qaeda.
VELSHI: All right. You'll stay on that story. We'll check back in with you to find out as that develops. Allan Chernoff in New York.
All right. Here's something you want to pay attention to: four things that can make you 12 years older. Not in a bad way. That actually means that you could actually live 12 years longer if you just do these four things that we're going to tell you about when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. Breaking news. We're continuing to follow this oil slick that heads toward the coast of Louisiana. We are now hearing the Associated Press reporting that the Louisiana National Guard has been mobilized now. We did have a discussion a few moments ago with Chris Lawrence about who's going to pay to have that out.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, in declaring a state of emergency yesterday, has also asked the federal government, Department of Defense, to pay for the deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops in Louisiana. At this point I don't think that decision has been made, according to Chris Lawrence.
But the decision to deploy the National Guard in Louisiana to fight the oil spill and to protect, in their words, the fragile ecosystem, has been made. According to the Associated Press, the Louisiana National Guard has been deployed. We will bring you that information in more detail as soon as we have it.
All right. It seems that everybody out there has got some kind of tip about how to live a longer life and how to make yourself younger and how to make yourself more fit. But believe this, there are some thanks you can do or don't do that will prevent you from enjoying a few more years on this earth.
Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here to tell us about the combined effect of four particular habits.
And I -- I don't know if this is going to be true, but this always happens when you talk about this stuff. I seem to be involved in some of those habits.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And that explains the lack of hair.
VELSHI: I'm actually 26 years old, and that's why I look like I'm 50. Tell me what I have to not do.
COHEN: All right. Let's go over the four things that you shouldn't do, not just because, like, your mother or me or Sanjay Gupta or someone tells you not to do them, but because they actually did a study...
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: ... where they looked at how this really has -- takes a huge toll on your life.
Smoking, excessive alcohol use, not eating enough fruits and vegetables and not getting enough exercise. You can think of those as the four deadly habits, where if you keep that up over your lifetime, you are pretty sure -- not 100 percent -- but you're pretty sure to have a shorter lifetime than you would have if you hadn't done those things.
VELSHI: But it makes you older. It ages your body. It ages you to do these things. Right.
COHEN: It does age your body, exactly. So what these researchers figured out, using all these statistical models...
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: ... is that, if you do all four of these things...
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: ... you are aging your body by 12 years. So in other words, if you're only 40 and you do all those four things...
VELSHI: Your body will feel like...
COHEN: ... your body will feel like 52.
VELSHI: OK. So this is interesting. It doesn't really shorten your lifespan, but you're going to feel older than you are. So you could look 100, but you'll feel like you're 112.
COHEN: Right. Well, I think you probably would also shorten your lifespan.
VELSHI: Right. It's bad for you.
COHEN: I mean, this particular study didn't look at that. But it does -- those folks tend to get cancer more...
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: ... tend to get heart disease more, all of those things. So this particular study wasn't trying to look at exactly how much shorter you would live.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: They didn't follow people for that long.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: But they could tell that people's bodies were about 12 years older than they really should have been.
VELSHI: Can you -- I'm guilty of the two last ones of those, as you and I know. I don't exercise enough. I certainly don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. Can you -- can you reverse the effects of it?
COHEN: Yes, you can. You absolutely can. So it's never too late to start. It's never too late to quit smoking. It's never too late to change your diet. You will see beneficial effects, no matter when you do it.
VELSHI: All right. Very good. I started.
COHEN: So I'm going to be watching you.
VELSHI: I started. I have started exercising, although I was motivated mostly because I wear these vests, which is kind of like wearing a girdle. If you get too, you know -- start to get too big...
COHEN: It kind of contains you.
VELSHI: Yes, right. Like stuffing a sausage.
COHEN: So when you take the vest off, you just explode everywhere.
VELSHI: You explode at the end of the day. So -- so I'm trying to get a little bit more fit. I'm going to try and do that. I'm going to bring my -- my body's age in line with my real age.
Thank you for that. Always such great advice.
COHEN: OK. Thanks.
VELSHI: All right. We are continuing to follow this oil spill. Chad Myers is tracking it in our severe weather center, because this is very, very dependent upon the weather and the wind speed of the waves and the wind itself to see how damaging this oil slick is going to be as it approaches the wetlands and the coast of the Gulf Coast -- Chad.
MYERS: I just took -- looked at one of the buoys, the offshore buoys that is near the oil slick now. The waves are 4.9 feet. And you know how small those little booms are that are trying to contain it. The waves can actually take the oil and splash it right on top and over those booms and breach the booms altogether. We need the weather to calm down. We need the weather to stop blowing out of the Southeast because that's what's blowing it right into Louisiana right now.
Let me show you this map because this is where the source is. The source means that's where the leaking oil is coming out of. Yesterday and today, it has been approaching that southeastern coast of Louisiana. By tomorrow, the winds come more out of the south and not Southeast. So, it blows a little bit farther north on up into St. Bernard Parish and up towards Bay St. Louis.
Then the wind shifts out of the due south and for Pensacola and up into Mobile Bay and Dolphin Island. That's the area there that's under the gun for Sunday and Sunday night. And then out of the Southeast, by Monday, pushing it over maybe by Pensacola, maybe Destin and all of those beautiful, pristine, white, sandy white sugar beaches there.
This is how big the oil slick is right now. Only little bits -- literally very small bits of this is making its way into the Mississippi Delta region right now. Only as a light sheen --
VELSHI: The issue to marine life and to mammals isn't that it actually has to get to shore because a lot of these mammals are feeding in areas where's there's already there.
MYERS: Absolutely right. And the word shore in southern Louisiana is a gray term, because there really isn't any place -- even where you see it green there under the word sheen and above the word sheen, you can't walk there. There's no land there. There's marsh there. You would sink in about six feet as you were trying to walk through this stuff.
But that is -- that's the breeding ground, that's the nursery for all of this marine habitat that we get to see fly over us but we never see where it's born. That right you there is where all of this population of shrimp and all of these otters and river otters and all of the way down to plankton, all the way down the food chain, that's where we are right now.
VELSHI: And Chad, I've got this breaking news in. Hold on for a second with me.
As we told you a moment ago, Louisiana National Guard, I'm getting more information on this. According to the Associated Press, the Louisiana National Guard is deploying. They are preparing to send communication equipment, boats, all-terrain vehicles and other equipment to fight the effects of this oil spill. It is -- they're sending resources to Orleans, Plackaman (ph) St. Bernard, Terrabon, Laforge and Jefferson Parishes.
They're going to work with local officials to determine what's needed. They're also planning to send in dump trucks and security vehicles to help deal with the oil spill. Chad, the dump trucks will be to pick up sand and material on the shore. One of the things we were talking about, the booms that are out there. But you're talking about waves, which means the oil can get over the boom.
MYERS: Correct. And the skimming operation doesn't go as well with four-foot seas because the swimming operation only wants to take the top four or five millimeters of water, which is on top of this oil, and they want to skim that off. Well, if the boat is bouncing, the skimming boat is bouncing, then it's grabbing more water underneath. So, the oil-to-water mixture is different than if it was a nice flat sea and the skimming boat could take the first couple of millimeters right off the water and do a much better job.
Plus, at this temperature and this wind, rather they can't light it on fire. I know lighting it on fire sounds like a big pollution maker, but it's less of a pollution problem in the air than it for these animals, birds and fish on the ground and in the water.
VELSHI: OK. Later on we'll show you what happens to these birds, how they're cleaned off and the effect that it has on them. Chad will be with us the whole time. Thanks, Chad.
Another story, not developed yet, but quite possibly going to be developing. Two major U.S. airlines are reportedly about to become one. If you fly, especially overseas, you're going to want to pay attention to this, but it will have an affect on you even here. A potentially huge impact on the routes you take and the prices you pay. I'm going to talk to some experts after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Well, any day now we could hear about a major shake-up in airline industry. United and Continental are reportedly talking about merging into the world's biggest airline. It could change a lot more than the logo on your boarding pass.
Both companies already have several hubs around the country. United has hubs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, and Washington-Dulles. Continental has hubs in Houston, Cleveland and Newark, New Jersey. It's also got a subsidiary called Continental Micronesia in Guam.
If the reported merger goes through, though, the new company would control 53 percent of air traffic across the Pacific, and 40 percent of air traffic across the Atlantic.
Rick Seaney is a friend of our show. He is CEO and cofounder of farecompare.com, joining me from Dallas. Rick, good to see you. First of all, a lot of betting on whether or not this is going to happen. They've done this dance before. Do you think we've got a merger coming?
RICK SEANEY, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, FARECOMPARE.COM: Gosh, I feel pretty -- 99 percent sure. I was just at a meeting with the U.S. Airways, and they were feeling pretty down about sort of getting aced out. I think they pretty much feel like this deal is going to go down. Probably in the next few days.
VELSHI: Okay. A lot of people have said in the past, with respect to airline mergers, that these two sort of make sense. Why is that?
SEANEY: Well, they don't have much overlap in domestic U.S., so really the only small overlap they have is in their hubs. It's not going affect the domestic route system.
It's going to give them sort of a juggernaut as far as international is concerned. With Continental with a really big presence in Latin America, South America, also to Europe. And then United with some more exposure over to Asia. It's going to put them on par and actually above, in this case, Delta as far as the number of international cities served. Delta will still continue to serve more countries.
VELSHI: Who gains from this? I understand why the airline industry has to do this sort of consolidation to make itself profitable and self sustaining. But in terms -- what does it mean to my viewers?
SEANEY: Everybody is worried about ticket prices. Will ticket prices go up? They can only go up -- we were off decade lows last time this same time last year. Prices are going to go up, but I don't expect to see any huge difference there.
You know, people that are loyal customers of United and loyal customers of Continental, they will merge their award programs. They're going to be merging all of that. There will be a lot of frustration about that and what's going on. Although Continental did just recently move into the Star Alliance.
VELSHI: What are they going to call the airline? Do you know?
SEANEY: I think they're pretty much set on calling it United and basing it in Chicago.
VELSHI: Interesting. For all of you out there, Rick does this for a living. Farecompare.com tracks fare prices. He's made the point many times in the last year that we have come off these historic lows on airline airfare prices.
So, merger or not, you're probably going to see air fares go up. Rick, good to see you.
SEANEY: You, too. Thank you.
VELSHI: Rick Seaney is CEO and cofounder of FareCompare.com, joining me from Dallas.
All right. Amy Palmiero Winters was a marathon runner who lost a portion of her leg in a motorcycle accident. That would have made most people give up. But not Amy. She is recently qualified -- get this -- as a member of the U.S. track and field team as an amputee. She is the first person to do that, and you are about to meet her.
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VELSHI: Amy Palmiero-Winters. She is the first amputee to qualify for the U.S. national track and field team. She qualified by finishing first overall to the run to the future 24-hour race in Glendale, Arizona, covering 130.4 miles in a day's time. I'm not sure I could do that in three or four weeks.
Let's put that in perspective, by the way. That is the distance most swimmers swim when crossing the English Channel -- no. That's not. If you do that, it's 21 miles, multiply that by six. That's what she ran in a day.
She joins me from New York. Amy, good to see you. Thank you for being with me.
AMY PALMIERO-WINTERS, FIRST AMPUTEE TO QUALIFY FOR U.S. NAT'L TRACK AND FIELD TEAM: Thanks for having me.
VELSHI: All right. Amy, you and I have nothing in common. I wasn't athletic as a kid. If anything bad happened to me, I would have used that as an excuse to never be athletic again. You have been running since you were 8 years old, and then you got into this accident at 21. And you lost a leg. Pick up the story from there.
PALMIERO-WINTERS: I did. And just like you, you said you have -- we have nothing in common, but we all have goals, and that's pretty much what it is. We all have something that we love to do. And that's where my running came into play.
I started running when I was eight years old, and when I had my accident when I was 21 and lost my leg, running was something that got me through. And running was something that just kept me going. We all have two choices in life. You can give up or you can move on. Running helped me really move on in life.
VELSHI: Let's just speak about practicalities here. You were missing a leg. What did you have to do? You had a prosthetic. But is it easy for people with prosthetics to go from walking to running?
PALMIERO-WINTERS: It isn't. It's not -- it's not easy. But if you have the determination, and actually, I'm very fortunate. I do have a great company behind me, Step Ahead Prosthetics out in Long Island. When you have a good fitting sock, it does make all the world of difference. It was a tough transition.
VELSHI: You got some of the prosthetics. You can tell us about this. Hold on for a second because you've got them there. We're going to take a quick break. And we're going to continue this conversation. You're going to show me how these prosthetics allow you to run and what has driven you to the point that you're at.
Amy Palmiero-Winters. Stand by. We're going to have more of our conversation with her on the other side.
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VELSHI: All right. We're going to continue our conversation with Amy Palmiero-Winters. She's the first amputee to qualify for the U.S. national track and field team. Amy, by the way, on our show -- we're going to be exposing you to a lot more people like Amy, people who fight the odds because we're in an environment now, in a world now where it does feel like a lot of us are fighting some kind of odds. But we've got -- what did you say to me a few minutes ago, Amy? You've got two choices in life?
PALMIERO-WINTERS: Yes, you can either give up or move on.
VELSHI: All right. So, what you have done is not just an inspiration to people who may have lost a limb, but there are people who have lost their jobs or home. You've got to make that same choice.
You were going to tell me about your prosthetic devices. You have different ones for different things?
PALMIERO-WINTERS: I do. As you can see beside me, I obviously have one. This one right here is for wearing high heels. The next one that I have is for, you know, wearing flip-flops, anything. It has an adjustable ankle in it.
VELSHI: Right.
PALMIERO-WINTERS: The one next to it is primarily the one that I used all the time. I am a mother, single mother. I have two kids that I take care of. And I'm usually chasing them on a bicycle, behind them, soI'm usually using this one. My last one is my running leg. That's what I will use when I travel to France on the U.S. team and compete in the 24-hour World Championships.
VELSHI: What is the difference between the last two? I'm getting the sense from you that the last two are more practical.
PALMIERO-WINTERS: They are.
VELSHI: What makes the running one a running one?
PALMIERO-WINTERS: The running one is a running one because of the carbon fiber foot that is below it. When I run as a amputee, I don't have the lower part of (AUDIO GAP) that I have. So, the lower part of this running leg here actually acts somewhat as a shock absorber. That way, all the residual, all the pounding doesn't go straight up through he residual limb and it could cause a lot of damage to the end of my bone where my leg is amputated.
VELSHI: Which part of your --
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VELSHI: Sorry, finish your thought. I'm sorry about that.
PALMIERO-WINTERS: It's okay. And the next one is more so of a high-activity leg. And that's what I use predominantly every day.
VELSHI: And do you -- you end up talking to people about this. You give talks to adults and kids. Are these people who have lost limbs -- or what are these conversations that you have?
PALMIERO-WINTERS: The conversations that I have could be anybody facing any kind of obstacle in life. It's, you know, we all face something, whether it's the loss of a limb or it's, like you said, the loss of a job. Everybody faces something.
When you can see somebody else out there overcoming these obstacles to do better things and to make a difference in the world, (AUDIO GAP) then it makes it, I think, easier for everybody else. I speak to children, adults, I go to hospitals. And it's all about giving back and making a difference because as an athlete, I do have a gift. And my gift is running. That's where I can help others see that maybe it's not so bad after all.
VELSHI: What a fantastic and inspirational story. We appreciate that you're giving back and that you're letting people know it doesn't have to be as serious as the loss you suffered to be able to make that choice to do something else.
Thanks so much for being with us. We wish you continued success.
PALMIERO-WINTERS: Thanks for having me.
VELSHI: Amy Palmiero-Winters joining me from New York. What a great story.
All right. Goldman Sachs often taking the brunt of the blame for the economic meltdown. But when it comes to investments, there are a whole lot of chefs in the kitchen. Allan Chernoff is going to show us a recipe for a recession after the break.
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VELSHI: You know, earlier this week I was in Washington for that grilling that Goldman Sachs' executives got from senators. And you would think from the discussion there that if there is someone to blame, it's the investment bankers in general and Goldman Sachs in particular.
But the reality is whether or not Goldman Sachs and investment banks had anything to do with making this recession worse than it was, there is a lot of blame to go around. Allan Chernoff is looking in to something so many of you have asked about, the credit rating agencies and what their role was in the recession. Look at this.
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Ali, the pain stretches from home buyers all the way to pensioners who are depending on their monthly checks. It's the result of the way that Wall Street sold mortgage investments. To do that, the Wall Street firms relied on endorsement from the credit rating agencies. Moody's, Standard and Poor's and Fitch. Our story begins with a homebuyer in the Bronx, New York.
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CHERNOFF (voice-over): Giselle James got a mortgage she couldn't afford.
CHERNOFF (on camera): Did you think you could afford this house?
GISELLE JAMES, HOME ON FORECLOSURE: No. No.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): But when James fell behind on her payment, the lender didn't have to worry. That lender, Alliance Mortgage, has already sold the mortgage to investment bank Morgan Stanley.
PROF. LAWRENCE WHITE, STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: The basic idea was let's take a bunch of mortgages --
CHERNOFF: Professor Lawrence White teaches Economics at New York University's Stern School of Business.
WHITE: Here's these hundred mortgages. They've been packaged up into what we're now going to call a security.
CHERNOFF: Securities consisting of anticipated mortgage payments that Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms then sold to investors. That's where the credit rating agencies come in.
There are three players, Standard and Poor's, Moody's and Fitch. It's their job to rate the credit worthiness of those mortgage investments, to tell investors what's the likelihood James and other homebuyers can make their monthly payments, which are supposed to flow to the investors.
CHERNOFF (on camera): The rating agencies said homeowners like James were likely to pay their mortgages, very likely. So they gave those mortgage securities their top marks, an effort, critics say, to generate more lucrative deals from Wall Street.
SYLVAIN RAYNES, FORMER MOODY'S ANALYST/ R&R CONSULTING: The rating agencies, if you want, betrayed the people by relaxing their standards, by having models that -- that did not recognize the objective risk conditions in the field.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): Giselle James was a poor credit risk. She fell into foreclosure, just like millions of other of homebuyers who also could not afford their mortgages.
WHITE: It turned out that, no, this wasn't so safe. These got -- the rating firms had been way over-optimistic.
CHERNOFF: Some analysts at the rating agencies knew it.
Based on AAA ratings, Ohio's pension funds bought 263 of the mortgage securities. When the housing bubble popped, the investments plummeted.
S&P, Moody's and Fitch quickly cut their ratings from super safe to junk, but it was too late. Ohio's pension plans lost $456 million.
RICHARD CORDRAY, OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL: Our investors and retirees were certainly victims of what the rating agencies did here.
It's very upsetting for our investors and retirees. Many of them know the systems have been hurt. They worry about getting their checks every day.
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CHERNOFF: Ohio is not alone. Connecticut and California also lost millions, and they along with Ohio are suing the rating agencies. The agencies say they intend to defend themselves. But they're getting heat in Congress, and the financial reform bill now before the Senate would create a new office at the Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee and require more transparency of the credit rating agencies. Ali?
VELSHI: OK, thanks, Allan. I hope that helps some of you. Please continue to send me messages on Facebook or Twitter about things that you don't understand that you want to have us clear up, and we'll make sure we get on it.
We're also keeping a very close eye on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the things we're talking about, by the way, is the effect on birds and wildlife. We've got a bird in the house. That's not him, though. That's Chad Myers. He's monitoring the winds and the waves. And we'll get an update after the break.
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