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Keeping Oil off the Gulf Coast; Countdown for Shuttle Programs; Peanut Allergies Soar; Expelled in 1960, Diplomas in 2010; Hearse Stolen With Body Inside

Aired May 14, 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: Well, Mohammed Jamjoom is going to join us in just a second here. But we wanted to point out that we spoke with the Department of Defense. The Defense Department says that it takes public health issues very seriously and it's aware of the report of a rise in birth defects in Fallujah. But it says that it can't draw any conclusions without scientific studies into the coincidence and causes of birth deformities in Fallujah.

OK. So, Mohammed, no answers, just devastated parents right now. Given the state that Iraq is in these days, is anybody even going to investigate this further?

MOHAMMED JAMJOON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, that's the big question. A few weeks ago we learned, as we have mentioned, that the World Health organization is trying to conduct a study that they've reached out to Iraq's Ministry of Health and they want to find answers but nobody knows when that will happen, how it will happen or how long it will take.

And all the doctors and the parents that we spoke with were so devastated by this they are begging for an organization to come in, to help with this, to give them answers as to why it's happening. What's really compounding frustration is most of them feel that the Iraqi government has not done nearly enough to deal with this.

You know, we spoke with an Iraqi health ministry official when we were investigating this piece, and we asked, how many incidents of birth defects are there? We were told last year only 22 incidents of birth defects in Fallujah. That's a number that's almost too incredible to believe, when you see the anecdotal evidence in front of your eyes when you walk through the halls of the pediatric ward of Fallujah General Hospital as we did. Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Mohammed, appreciate it.

We want to get straight to a briefing now on the oil gusher there in the gulf. Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen speaking now to reporters.

Let's listen in.

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ADMIRAL THAD ALLEN, COMMANDANT, U.S. COAST GUARD: -- commander for this oil spill response. I want to give you an update of what's been going on the last 24 hours. Kind of what we've been doing and what we're concerned about. And I'll be glad to answer any questions at that time.

I came down yesterday to New Orleans and got on a helicopter and I flew out to the drill rig DD2. That is the second drill rig that is being put in place to start drilling the relief well, below the well, to relieve the pressure so they can actually cap this well.

That's the second drill operation that's being put in place and that's a risk mitigator in case there's a problem with the first one, and I think that's a prudent step. While I was out there I talked to the men and women that are working this problem on the drill rigs. I got an opportunity to look at the blowout preventer that's currently on DD2. When we get the chance or the opportunity to have the blowout preventer on the existing well that will be the one that will be used. So I had a chance actually to take a look at it out on the water, which is a very rare occurrence and we got to look at all the technology associated with that.

I actually, from the rig, did the national response team conference call yesterday and gave them an operational update and a report on conditions on scene. Yesterday, the winds are up 18 knots, two to four foot seas and that was precluding some waters (INAUDIBLE) burning that we like to do whenever we can. There were some dispersants applied by air. It looks like it's going to weight down a bit today. It might give us an opportunity to do mechanical skimming and institute burning if we get the opportunity, we will do that.

As you know, we are putting what the BP folks are calling the top hat in place today. That's a big inverted funnel, a little smaller than the big containment device that was tried a week or so ago. Subject to getting the pipe inserted into that to bring the pipe to the surface, we may be at a point later on today to actually be able to see whether or not that solution may work. I would caution everybody that this is a leak mitigation effort. It's not intended to completely capture all the oil that's leaking out of there, but it should substantially reduce it if it's successful but we need to see how all that goes.

In the meantime, British Petroleum is proceeding with three lines of operation to permanently stop the leak, pending the relief well. One is the top kill or the junk kill option where there will be foreign object forced into the blowout preventer to clog it and therefore make it easy to fill the blow out preventer with mud and seal it.

There are two other options being considered as well. One will be to cut the marine riser pipe, just above the blowout preventer and actually insert a valve. That may be possible because they've been able to take pressure readings at the top of the stack and the pressure is significantly lower and that might afford them an opportunity to do that.

The other option would be to separate the lower marine riser pipe from the stack and actually just replace it with that second blowout preventer that I talked about earlier. This sounds confusing, it is highly technical, but basically there are three things happening in combination.

One is to clog the blowout preventer so we can stop the leak. The second one is to sever the pipe and to put a valve in to close it and third is to replace the blowout preventer itself or put a second one on. Those three things are going in parallel, could be ready for execution as early as the 18th. So what we have is a series of steps made to mitigate the leakage in advance of stopping the leak and then ultimately capping the well with a long-term relief well that's being drilled.

The other issue we're working today is a final decision on the use of sub-sea dispersants. That will be a decision made later on today through the national response team and ultimately I'll be discussing this with Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the EPA, my partner for the national response team.

If we get approval to move ahead with that we will then consider continuous application of dispersants at the sub sea level again to further mitigate the leak in advance of securing the leak through the three lines of operations that I mentioned earlier.

I'm here on Dauphin Island to take a look at operations here and later on today I'll be in Mississippi. If you notice behind me there are cleanup crews on the beach and what they are doing is they are removing debris that's on the beach, wood and other foreign objects where oil might stick to if oil did come ashore and this is a risk mitigation measure in the event there was a spill here. There would be less oily debris to have to contend with.

There is no projected oil slick targeting this part of Dauphin Island. We've had reports of some tar balls which can be manually picked up, but at this time the majority of the oil is fairly far offshore. I'd like to make one other comment and then I'll go to questions.

I believe that this spill is kind of changing in its character. I don't believe any longer we have a large model spill. You can see the perimeter and the trajectories, but I think based when the oil comes up, and the wind and the current at the time, it's separating the different patches of oil of which you have open water in between.

And there's good and bad news with that. It's very widely dispersed and it's hard to kind of manage the perimeter of that, but on the other hand, if there are shore impacts, come ashore in smaller quantities that are basically smaller sub sets of what might have been a larger spill.

I guess, I would tell you it's kind of changing in character over the life cycle of the event and that's not necessarily a bad thing. So with that I would be glad to take any questions that you might have for me.

QUESTION: I know that there's a lot of (INAUDIBLE) when this is actually going to be mitigated (INAUDIBLE) do you - has BP given you an idea of when we can either see a top hat, the injector tube? When can we start seeing some possible results?

ALLEN: The effort on the top hat is today. So hopefully later today, we'll know when that succeed or failed, but again, I would advise you this is a risk mitigation factor against the leak and they've tried to address some of the problems they had in the early containment device which was the creation of ice crystals. They're doing that by a combination of heating the pipe with surface water and also injection of methanol at the bottom, almost the equivalent of gas line anti-freeze. We want to make it a simple way to understand it. These are all going on and will continue to go on. In addition to the three other lines and everything's being done in parallel.

QUESTION: Can you say if it's with the top hat? Are those two separate mitigation efforts or is that combined separation?

ALLEN: The top hat is a device over the leak that will collect oil and take it to the surface. BP has also looked at another opportunity where they would be able to tap into the pipe and put a pipe in there as the risk mitigator, but the main effort today is the top hat and trying to get the oil through the surface through a pipe and then evacuate it.

QUESTION: Admiral, there are some conflicting reports on the amount of oil that is coming out at the scene after looking at that BP video yesterday. There are some university experts that are saying that there is no way in the world that can just be 5,000 barrels a day. It has to be much high are than that. Are you still standing by your estimates? Or are you seeing a fluctuation -

ALLEN: Well, I'm glad you asked the question. Let's talk about estimates. We first thought it was 1,000 barrels and then we thought it was 5,000 barrels. Frankly, whether it was one or five or 10 or 15, our mobilization of resources are for something far beyond that because we're always prepared for a catastrophic event.

So we've not been constrained in our planning, or our resources or our tactics by the flow estimates and I would urge us all to remember we're operating in an environment where there is no human access. The only parameters we have are a two-dimensional video presentation and remote sensing we can do down there. So while all of that goes on and ultimately we're going to have to know the extent of the spill for national resource damage assessments and other things.

But as far as a current response, we're on top of everything on the surface and doing a great deal to break this slick up and deal with it off shore so you don't have the impacts here. I think that needs to continue but as far as how we're actually conducting the response, that can run its course. We're attacking this as it was a much larger spill anyway.

QUESTION: Would it surprise you if it was more?

ALLEN: You know, I'm not sure. Like I said, we don't know because we don't have access down there. One of the really challenging things about this entire response and I've been doing this for over 30 years is that there's no human access to the point of discharge and that's something that's very, very different and anomalous about this event.

QUESTION: Admiral, are you satisfied with the response of BP and the rate that they're moving in. At this point, it's been almost four weeks now and there's been a lot of failures and learning what we learned about some of the things that went wrong leading up to the explosion? Do you trust them to move in a timely fashion? Are we moving in a timely fashion?

ALLEN: Well, in my view, BP's been relentless and we've relentless in our oversight Because we all understand these mistakes here. There have been different tactics that have been tried sequentially and we've learned from those and BP is rolling those back in to new tactics. This has never been done before. This is an anomalous, unprecedented event. There's been an aggregation of scientific support in the Houston area at the British Petroleum headquarters. I think it's been unprecedented.

It's also included the Department of Energy, Secretary Salazar and Secretary Chu were down there the other day and one of the great breakthroughs in this entire event was the provision of a gamma ray radiography, a piece of equipment that's provided by energy that actually allowed a scan of the blowout preventer, to actually get the position of the valves, whether they were closed or not and allowed us to actually get diagnostics on the blowout preventer.

So BP is the responsible party. The United States Coast Guard through the federal (INAUDIBLE) coordinator, (INAUDIBLE) are the accountable party and everybody should be relentless on everybody here and that's where we're at.

QUESTION: Admiral -

QUESTION: Do you know when we could possibly see this chapter mitigated?

ALLEN: The long-term solution is the relief well and capping the well permanently and that would have to be done when they're able to drill down from the ocean floor, 16,000 to 18,000 feet and intersect that well. That is the long-term solution. From the start of drilling, they're estimating at a minimum of 90 days.

QUESTION: Admiral, I would like to follow up on the flow right. You know, the scientists are saying if they could see more of the video of how it's coming out they could possibly get more accurate results. Are you all considering asking BP to release more video and are your scientists looking at the video trying to come up with the revised estimate?

ALLEN: I'm not (INAUDIBLE) request for more video but I can certainly take that back and look at it. But I would caution everybody we're looking at a two-dimensional depiction of what is a three dimensional event going on down there. And we're happy to do whatever we can and we'll look into it. I have not been involved in that this morning though.

QUESTION: You mentioned that you were treating this as a catastrophic event. Do you consider this a catastrophic event at this point?

ALLEN: Well, I think it has the potential to be catastrophic and we need to plan that way. As I said, the character of the slick has changed somewhat. It is disaggregating in the smaller patches of oil. You can fly over the area there and you can see really heavy concentrations of oil that are suitable for skimming and institute burning and then you'll see miles of just open water. So it's not a monolithic spill, we're dealing with oil where it's at.

That is challenging because it goes across a wide area that could be to our benefit because if it doesn't shore, it's not the whole thing, it's that portion that came ashore --

QUESTION: - not catastrophic yet?

ALLEN: I am going to act as if it is until this thing is done and we all should.

QUESTION: Can you explain the subsea accrual you're trying to get? I thought you're in some subsea dispersants.

ALLEN: Yes. We have done three tests of sub-sea dispersants where we've applied dispersants at 5,000 feet, something that's never been done either. What we're trying to make sure we understand, I had several conversations with Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, what are the long-term effects of using dispersants at that level? What are the effects of dispersants in the oil if it never gets to the surface? Will it might persists in some other level? What are the potential impacts on the environment.

Now, the obvious tradeoffs are the toxicity of the oil versus the toxicity of the dispersants. And when you make a decision to use the dispersants, you made the decision to accept the impact on the water column because you don't want to have the impact on land.

I think what we need to understand moving forward if we go to dispersant use in the sub-sea level to have protocols in place so we can test and understand the implications for future use because we are doing this for the first time and we expect it to be at a decision point, hopefully, later on today, on the protocols and the tests, the information, that's available to make an informed decision.

QUESTION: Admiral, there are some reports these morning that some of the workers that have been brought to the island here to work in this area are being shifted now and maybe have left the island because oil hasn't arrived. Are you aware of shifting of manpower away from this area to a different area?

ALLEN: Well, I'm looking at everything from the national level. I'd have to talk to Captain Poole (ph) and he's up at the mobile command post, but it makes every sense in the world to deploy resources where they're needed. And once we've done everything they can here, removing debris and make sure you're ready to respond if you need to, you need to go where the oil's coming ashore, and these resources are going to have to be managed dynamically over the life cycle of this event. It's not like you're engaged in a war and you got an enemy. This one happens to be oil and you need to know where the enemies at and you go take them on there where they're not and you need to reserve your forces and you can't commit everything because if there's a shift in the wind or something catastrophic happens, you need to be prepared to deal with that. So we're looking at doing risk mitigation resource management over the top of the region.

QUESTION: Admiral, in the event that the three options are thrown out there and they don't succeed, is there a planned CRD and again, I guess what I'm trying to ask again, when can we possibly see either the top hat. When will we know that things are mitigated in your best estimate?

ALLEN: Well, they hope to have the top hat option working today and we should know right away. In the case of the other containment, we knew right away there was a formation of hydrates and ice crystals because the thing became buoyant and started to move. I think they should know fairly quickly and we are just awaiting word for the folks and see how that's doing.

Of course, we're very, very concerned and interested in it and we're waiting for the word. The other lines of operation are continuing and that's the top killer, the jump shot and whatever you call it and the potential actually to sever the pipe above the blowout preventer and put a valve in those types of things.

PHILLIPS: All right. There's some good news and some not so good news.

Here's the good news as we watch the commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. He said no longer does he see this as a "large monolithic spill." All right. That's good news.

He said with regard to the shore impact there were a lot of thoughts out there that it was going to be much bigger than it has been. He says that the shore impact has actually been small quantities, which is good news. He also said though that this is a constantly changing life cycle of events which the bad news means they still don't have a cap on that leak and they're still trying to figure out how the heck to do it.

David Mattingly has been covering the story for us in New Orleans all morning. He's been listening to that live event as well. Oh, David, still not anything definitive, but a little bit of good news saying that they don't think it's going to be as bad as they thought it could have been.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's only good news when you consider that we don't have that one monolithic spill (INAUDIBLE) coming ashore and just completely decimating a shoreline. We don't have that, but we still have these remnants that are (INAUDIBLE) -

PHILLIPS: OK. David, if you can hear me we're having an issue with your mike. We just lost your mike and it started the crackling a bit. So if you could work on that we would love to bring you back. Appreciate it.

Meanwhile, on the pad, and ready to go, space shuttle "Atlantis" counting down to the one final launch. We're going to follow along as one shuttle veteran walks down memory lane.

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PHILLIPS: Just a couple of missions left. The space shuttle program now counting down to the end of an era. "Atlantis" is up next on the pad. Ready for a final flight.

CNN's John Zarrella is there at Kennedy Space Center this morning in Florida, preparing for that launch. Hi, John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. You know, you're absolutely right. You know, I talked to some people at NASA a little while ago and they were saying that over at the Visitors' Center right now, 9,000 people bought tickets to come and watch this shuttle launch. Everybody wants to be here now as they're counting down to these last shuttle flights and "Atlantis" is sitting on a pad, ready to go, A 12-day mission and six astronauts will be on board.

They should b out of the pad within the hour and as you mentioned, this is very likely to be the last time the shuttle "Atlantis" will ever fly and last month when "Discovery" flew, we had astronaut Cady Coleman with us, who was our guest and we'd been following Katie for a year as she prepares to fly next December on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station where she'll spend six months and she had a chance while she was here to bring her family with her and they actually got to play tourist.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (on camera): Oh, there you are.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): For astronaut Cady Coleman, it's kind of appropriate when the stars line up just right.

(on camera): It's so great to have you live with us, Cady.

(VOICE-OVER): A break in training came just at the right time, at the same time the shuttle "Discovery" was set to launch. Katie was our guest astronaut, but far more importantly, just off camera stood husband Josh and nine-year-old son, Jamie.

CADY COLEMAN, ASTRONAUT: I did my two launches before he was born and we talk about what it was like, but I think there's nothing like the enormity of a shuttle launch. I mean, in person -

ZARRELLA: Yes, that's about right, Jamie. For Cady and family with time together becoming more infrequent, they squeeze in and soak up as much as every precious second allows. After launch, this Saturn 5 Center to see an old moon rocket.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the final stage.

CADY COLEMAN: You know what? I think our Soyuz is smaller.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jump, jump a little. OK. Shout, straightforward. Can you hear it coming back at you?

ZARRELLA: Then a trip over to launch complex 34. Most people don't get to see this place. It's not on the tourist tour. It probably should be.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were breathing pure oxygen and it was a lot easier to have a fire.

ZARRELLA: Astronauts Grissom, White and Chafee died here. Apollo 1, 1967. There's a weathered wreath and a plaque. That's it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They gave their lives and service to their country.

ZARRELLA: A flash fire in the command module during a test.

COLEMAN: When you come out here to the Apollo 1 pad and you think of the comrades that we've lost and the lessons that we've learned and it puts it into perspective. There are risks attached that you know, I accept and my family accepts as well.

JOSH SIMPSON, CADY COLEMAN'S HUSBAND: It's the kind of thing when you can wake up in the middle of the night and worry about it, although if you go to that place, it doesn't - it's not a good place to be. It doesn't get you anywhere.

ZARRELLA: Of course, this old launch pad has some cool spots to explore.

COLEMAN: I don't think anybody could be here during launch.

ZARRELLA: And great climbing places for a kid. Astronaut moms think just like every mom.

COLEMAN: I don't think we should go for the top.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's pretty high and pretty slippery.

ZARRELLA: A large part of the focus for Cady and Josh is keeping Jamie's life constant, going to school, playing ball, doing chores.

SIMPSON: He does the dishes and clears the table.

ZARRELLA: It's about building a strong foundation so even when mom is flying, Jamie will stay well grounded.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA: So, you know, the funny part about it. I talked to Cady this morning, she's actually in Russia, Kyra, five weeks of training in Russia for that trip and she wanted to know if the story was going to be on today but she wasn't going to be able to see it over there but she was going to tell her husband and son to make sure they caught it and recorded it for her, so she can see it when she gets back. Kyra.

PHILLIPS: The beauty of TiVo. We're not just advanced in space, we're advanced in television show. She'll get to see it for sure. She's busy right now. John Zarrella, thanks.

ZARRELLA: Yes. You bet.

PHILLIPS: Well, here's a little history for you. "Atlantis" history rather, it became the fourth shuttle in the fleet, making its maiden voyage 25 years ago. That was the first of 31 missions and more than 100 million miles. "Atlantis" was the first shuttle to dock with the Russian Mir Space Station, also carrying Galileo and Magellan into space for their launch. Now, Magellan went to Venus and Galileo went to Jupiter.

Curious about the name? No, it's not named for the underwater city. It shares the name with an ocean research ship that sailed out of Massachusetts from 1930 to 1966. Top stories next, stay with us.

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PHILLIPS: Checking top stories now. Could a six-inch tube be the key to plugging that massive oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico? BP is trying to move the tube into the well's broken pipe and use it to siphon oil to the ship. The feds are following the money trail.

In the botched Times Square bombing case, three people were arrested yesterday. Investigators want to know how that plot was bankrolled. President Obama just spoke about that case.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And yesterday I had the privilege of visiting the NYPD real-time crime center and meeting Officer Rhatigan (ph) and other officers whose quick thinking and cooperation may have saved hundreds of lives. Like the folks behind me, they succeeded because they were well trained, they were vigilant and they were ready. So being a hero isn't always easy as Officer Ryan Jacobson, who is being honored here today said of his own experience. It's one of those things in your life you can never prepare for fully and that you hope never happens again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Now let's talk about that showdown in the streets of Bangkok. Thai troops intensifying their push to clear crowds of anti- government protesters. Let's go ahead and take a closer look at the crisis. Thailand is located, as you can see in Southeast Asia. Bangkok, its largest city, is where the unrest is actually going on right now. Now, let's go and take a look.

These are protestors known as the red shirts and they began camping in the capitol two months ago. They want the country's prime minister to step down claiming his coalition government come to power legitimately. Well, as you can see, they haven't backed down. Facing down troops in demonstrations that have gotten increasingly violent.

Now, that tension, as you can see, escalated yesterday after a popular general, this general, regarded as a military advisor to the red shirts was actually shot in the head possibly by a sniper, rather, and now we are told that he is in a coma and he could die at any moment.

Now today, take a look at those street clashes, this is what we've been seeing. It became even deadlier. Flipping through again. You can see the soldiers there, they fired live ammunition, bullets, tear gas shells and also here's a few of just the unforgettable images from that standoff.

Five people now have been killed. As you see the standoff with them and the dozens of troops, numbers and numbers of people have been wounded and it's actually the deadliest clash, we are being told now between the red shirts and troops since April 10th, 25 people were killed that day and more than 800 were injured.

Potentially dangerous peanut allergies is what we're going to talk about next. That's on the rise. We'll have the details just ahead.

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PHILLIPS: Peanut allergies soaring. A new study shows the number of children allergic to peanuts tripled between 1997 and 2008. More than 3 million Americans now have some kind of nut allergy. Researchers aren't sure why people are becoming allergic. Some theorize that we've become too clean. They say that sanitizers and medications may leave our immune systems understimulated and that can cause it to overreact to harmless proteins in certain foods and plants.

A sit-in in 1960, diplomas in 2010. You're going to meet some remarkable students who stood for a cause and were finally rewarded.

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PHILLIPS: Oh, what a difference 50 years and a civil rights movement can make. Let's go back in time just for a minute.

Montgomery, Alabama, 1960. These pictures were in black and white, and so was the culture. Whites and blacks segregated, not even allowed to eat in the same cafeteria. Old Jim Crowe alive and well. That didn't sit well with the nine college students we're about to talk about. On February 25th, 1960, they took a stand and staged a sit-in to protest. Their reward? Expulsion, kicked out of Alabama State University.

Now let's get back into the time machine and return to 2010, a much different time, thank god. The nine now have their honorary degrees and they can sit and eat wherever the heck they want. Two of those students here now, James McFadden and Joseph Peterson, plus the president of Alabama State University also here with us, William Harris was instrumental in making this event happen.

Gentlemen, it's great to see all three of you.

JAMES MCFADDEN, GOT DIPLOMA AFTER 50 YEARS: Thank you.

JOSEPH PETERSON, GOT DIPLOMA AFTER 50 YEARS: Thank you.

WILLIAM HARRIS, PRESIDENT, ALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: All right. James, let's start with you. You not only participated in this sit-in, but your activism goes back to the bus boycott. What inspired you to be so active in both?

MCFADDEN: What inspired me is in 1956, September of 1956, the bus boycott was about a year old when I arrived in Alabama State. And being raised by a family that had taught me that I had a responsibility in righting wrongs as I crossed their path, I was just right for the working that needed to be done at that time.

The bus boycott needed help in getting the word around to the various citizens in Montgomery that the bus boycott was something important to the citizens and in Montgomery and in particular the African-American community. And we as students who were active in that particular time served as communicators, meaning we delivered the message to the people in order to get them involved.

PHILLIPS: And, Joseph, you were an Army vet. You're still an Army vet, I should say. You know, and that's an environment where you're all one, you're all equal. You come in to this, that must have been frustrating.

PETERSON: Yes, it was.

I arrived at Alabama State basically as a sophomore. I had attended Myles College in Birmingham for a year, and Myles College at that time it's accreditation, and I decided to go to Alabama State. I had spent the summer St. Louis, Missouri, and returned back to school. And after returning to school, I pledged for our fraternity, went to a few football games and in the beginning of 1960, the sit-ins started. The sit-ins started first in North Carolina, and then it kind of spread throughout the south.

The students at Alabama State decided to sit-in at the county courthouse, and that day a lot of photographs were taken, pictures were sent back to the campus. And by the time we arrived back on the campus, the president of the college already knew what had happened because he was getting information back from then-Governor Paterson.

PHILLIPS: And, James, the injustice in Alabama at that time was just atrocious. Give us an idea of what you had to deal with. It wasn't just expulsion, but you were dealing with, you know, racism from the moment you came to that campus. MCFADDEN: Right. Racism from the time that I was born. Being born in Thomasville, Alabama, there until I completed by middle school training and then my family moved to Pritchard, Alabama in Mobile where I attended high school, graduated from Central High School in mobile, Alabama. There was racism in every aspect of our lives from education to economics to work, wherever and just really racism in every form.

Emmitt Till was assassinated just less than 100 miles from where I lived in that particular time and being about the same age, realizing that that could happen to me at any time. But nevertheless, with that fear I was breeded with courage to take responsibility when it was necessary.

And I was -- at this time I'm remained by something that Dr. Martin Luther King said, that it was the test of a person's character, the way you operate in stress and distressful situations. So it was during that period of time that I had that kind of courage and that kind of determination just to take a stand. If it was wrong, I believe I had a responsibility to make it right.

PHILLIPS: And that -- and that still continues in both your life, Joseph's life, and that's exactly what William Harris did.

Mr. President, what a fabulous way to honor these two, to honor the nine, to honor what they did in that part of history. You said come back, you are going to walk that stage, we're giving you honorary degrees. What gave you the idea?

HARRIS: We have always thought what happened in the 1960s to so many people was just wrong. People had a right and have a right to participate in civil society and that was denied to us in a way that was supported by the state. In fact, it wasn't just a bunch of hoodlums running around, unless you think the police officers themselves were, but they were the people who were carrying out this.

And people -- it took -- as Mr. McFadden said a few minutes ago, it took a lot of courage to go into a place that was so hostile, to take a stand or to take a seat in this case, and then to suffer the consequences. We thought that that needed to be recognized and in order to do that back in March, back in February, we had a 50th anniversary celebration of the affair -- of the event with the symposium.

And at that symposium, as I began to take my place, it occurred to me that we need to do everything we could to right this wrong. I had authority in my office to get rid of the expulsion. I didn't have the authority to grant the degree, but I was certain that given our trustees' interest in this same thing, we could get that done.

So that's where the idea came from. Why not just say that what happened to these nine people 50 years ago has no place in American society now and we need to try to undo it and that's what we did.

PHILLIPS: Amen. HARRIS: The event that led to the celebration on Saturday, last Saturday when they actually got their degrees was a remarkable explosion of enthusiasm on the part of people that were there.

PHILLIPS: Oh, you saw everybody there, you saw the graduates.

And, Joseph, I just want to wrap up by asking you, you know, when you stood on that campus 50 years ago you witnessed hatred, you witnessed segregation, you were expelled. When you stand on that campus now, what do you see, Joseph?

PETERSON: The place has completely changed. I'm proud to be on the Alabama State campus now. We spent some time in the Ralph D. Abernathy Building, and when I was a student at Alabama State, Ralph D. Abernathy was very active in the community. I think he was, at that time, president of the Montgomery Improvement Association.

PHILLIPS: Right, he's one of our heroes here, as you know.

PETERSON: I don't understand it.

PHILLIPS: He's one of our heroes here in Atlanta.

That's OK, Joseph. Wrap up your thoughts.

PETERSON: I didn't hear you.

PHILLIPS: That's OK. Finish your thought, my friend.

PETERSON: My thought about Alabama State now?

PHILLIPS: Yes.

PETERSON: And looking at the campus is completely different. I would like to spend some time down there, sometime in the future because I have not gone to Alabama State until last February since the 1960s.

PHILLIPS: Well --

PETERSON: And it would be very important for me to spend at least a couple of days touring the campus and talking to people and really getting a feel for Alabama State as it exists now.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's definitely a different world.

President William Harris, and a lot of that is due to you. I salute you and also Joseph Peterson and James McFadden. So glad that you participated in what was right 50 years ago. You finally got that degree and what an honor to have the three of you with me today.

Gentlemen, thank you so much.

HARRIS: Thank you, Kyra, and I would just like to say, if I could, that one of the things that need to be cleared up is that the struggle continues and there's lots of work to be done now. Alabama State has always been on the cutting edge of trying to right wrongs and really, I think, now is the state of Alabama's turn to really stand up and begin to move forward in the way of acknowledging wrongs that have happened and charting the future for a better state and a better country. The struggle continues.

PHILLIPS: Well, I'll tell you -- and those are struggles that we continue to cover and you can trust me. And I say this to all three of you, we're a network that is definitely committed to diversity and tackling issues like this, including that struggle that still exists.

Thanks, gentlemen.

Straight ahead, a U.S. Army captain critically wounded, even considered dead, but the call to duty was too strong for him to ignore. His story in four minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: So if you put on a uniform for your country it means you're ready to give your life for your country ask your comrades. President Lincoln called it the last full measure of devotion. Meet someone who did and came back to talk about it.

This is Army Captain Joshua A. Mantz of Pennsylvania. Captain Mantz was wounded in Baghdad, April 21, 2007. He was hit by a high- powered, armor-piercing bullet. Rushed to a medical facility, he died. He actually flat-lined for 15 minutes, beyond the time believed a person can survive, but the Army captain did recover and returned to duty.

He spoke with our John King about why he went back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: When you first went back you had to be afraid.

CPT. JOSHUA MANTZ, U.S. ARMY: Sir, I absolutely was, and I went back for two reasons. I redeployed to Iraq only five months after this injury, despite everyone telling me not to, but there are two very good reasons for that.

The first was for my men. They lost two other senior leaders in five seconds on one day. A month later, our platoon sergeant was struck by an IED and he was Medevaced out of theater. This left a group of junior staff sergeants to run a complex sector in a complex counterinsurgency environment. They did a great job, but they need leadership and they need a morale boost.

The second reason was more on the personal side. I needed to know for myself as an infantry officer that I would be mentally capable of continuing to perform my duties as an infantry officer. You can say you're fine all you want back here in the States, but the true test happens when you are sitting in that truck and you are ready to leave the FOB to go out on a mission again. And I thought I was fine up until the point that I left the wire at which point, my first patrol back I completely froze up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Once again. Captain Mantz preparing to return to Iraq, probably next year. We'll follow up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right. So a thief decides that he needs some wheels so he steals a vehicle. It happens all of the time, right? Well, this doesn't. One thief sped off in a fully-loaded hearse. Apparently he didn't realize the dearly depart is still in the backseat. But now listen to this twist. Here's the details from Jack Shea of WJW-TV in Cleveland.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACK SHEA, WJW-TV REPORTER (voice-over): Inside this non- descript building on Cleveland's east side is the Greenfield Crematory. Early Wednesday, police say a thief broke in and stole a hearse with a body inside.

ZACH NICOL, GREENFIELD CREMATORY: I don't know exactly when they realized that there was a body in the van, but they found the body and dumped it.

SHEA: Cleveland police found the stolen hearse blocking a driveway on East 55th Street and it turns out the suspect has a conscience.

NICOL: There was a note in the van from the thief and he left us a note telling us exactly where he dumped the body.

SHEA: Sure enough investigators found the body still on a gurney off Ashland Road. The assistant manager of the crematory says the deceased was brought to Greenfield late Tuesday and was scheduled to be cremated Wednesday.

NICOL: The van itself was locked up in our building so it was safe. It should have been safe, but --

SHEA (on camera): Is it customary to leave a body in there overnight?

NICHOL: It's kind of situational, but yes, sometimes it is.

SHEA (voice-over): The crematory is now offering an apology to the family of the deceased for any pain the incident may have caused them.

NICHOL: I mean, I'm very sorry that this had to happen. It's unfortunate, but, I mean, we were robbed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: All right, so you don't hear stories like that every day or year. No one's been arrested yet, but the suspect could have abuse of a corpse charges. That's not going to look really good on that old rap sheet. So you remember this guy?

(VIDEO CLIP, LIN YU-CHUN SINGING)

PHILLIPS: Yes. It was sort of hard to figure out. He had some serious talent, though. Now he's got a new gig, recording star.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TIM MCGRAW, AMERICAN RED CROSS: You think about Nashville, you think, well, it's all the rich and famous country music singers live there. But this town is made up of people who live paycheck to paycheck, who work hard, and those are the people who are suffering. Those are the people who have lost their homes and they've lost their livelihoods.

FAITH HILL, AMERICAN RED CROSS: They've lost everything.

MCGRAW: They've lost everything. And there's total devastation and it's like that all over the city.

I don't think that people should think that just because you saw it on TV one day and the water's gone, that it's going to gone away. There's going to be help needed for a long time, there's going to be funds that are going to be needed for a long time.

ANNOUNCER: Make a difference, CNN.com/impact.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(VIDEO CLIP, LIN YU-CHUN SINGING)

PHILLIPS: I know. You're thinking, is that Whitney Houston? No, as you can see, it's not. But that performance is still ringing in the ears of music industry executives looking to capitalize on this YouTube sensation.

We're talking about 24-year-old Lin Yu-chun. He belted out that Whitney Houston tune on Taiwan's "Avenue to Stardom" TV show. It's just like "American Idol." Sony has now signed him to a record deal. They're the same ones that put out Susan Boyle's CD. He's expected to have a record ready to go by July in both English and Chinese.

What do you think, Fredericka Whitfield?

FREDERICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: I like it.

PHILLIPS: I know.

WHITFIELD: I hope I could hit a high like that some point in my life.

PHILLIPS: You hit a high note every day, sister. Have a great day.

WHITFIELD: You're too sweet. OK, you too. Have a great one and a great weekend, too.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.