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How Can Oil Leak be Stopped?; Who Bankrolled Times Square Plot?; New Fears of Instability in Europe; Atlantis to Make Final Trip to Final Frontier

Aired May 14, 2010 - 13:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Fredricka Whitfield. The NEWSROOM continues right now with Don Lemon.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Fred, thank you very much. Always good to see you.

I'm Don Lemon in for Ali Velshi today. I'm going to be with you for the next two hours, taking every important topic we cover just a little bit further for you. I'll try to give you a level of detail that will help put your world into context. So let's get started.

All right. So here's what's on the rundown for you. We're entering a new and even more devastating chapter in that oil-spill saga. Forget what you have heard over the past month. That oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could be worse than we thought. Much, much worse. The president himself speaking at it minutes ago, and we'll show you what he said in just a little bit.

Plus, it is supposed to be the big social networking phenomenon. Right? But why are some people now suddenly turning shy over Facebook? You might be one of them. Going to talk to you about that.

And the final countdown for one of the last shuttle missions. We're watching it live with you as Atlantis blasts off soon. So here we go.

So from bad to worse, since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, well, the oil rig there, oil has been really pouring in, pouring out from that line underwater.

Now, a new independent estimate says that as many as 70,000 barrels a day are leaking. That's nearly 3 million gallons per day. BP says 5,000 barrels -- that's about 210,000 gallons a day. So let's go to that 3 million gallon a day estimate. Right?

Over a week, that amounts to a spill nearly twice the size of the "Exxon Valdez" spill. Twice the size of that. BP stands by their earlier estimate, but they say they're not focusing on that measurement. They just want to stop that leak.

And so does the president. President Barack Obama spoke just moments ago. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The most important order of business is to stop the leak. I know there have been varying reports over the last few days about how large the leak is. But since no one can get down there in person, we know there's a level of uncertainty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So that big dome -- they call it the top hat. And then there's the junk shot. We keep hearing all of these contraptions, all of these concepts that BP is using to supposedly stop that leak. None of them have worked so far.

So here's the million dollar question. What is really going to stop this thing?

We turn now to CNN's David Mattingly. He joins us from New Orleans. So what is BP doing right now, David, to stop this? We've heard about all of these terms. We just want to know the truth. What's being done to stop it?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, here's a new term for you. It's called an insertion tube. And that's what BP is going with right now. They're trying to insert a tube inside that leak. (AUDIO GAP) oil under the Gulf of Mexico. That's what they decided to go with first. They're going to try to see if that tube will work, if they can seal that pipe off that way and then siphon all of this leaking oil up to the surface to a containment vessel.

If that doesn't work, then we're going to go back to that small containment dome that they created (AUDIO GAP) top hat. That's on the ocean floor. That's ready to go in case this tube doesn't work. But that's what they're going with right now. And they think, if they're going to see some success from it, they will know sometime tonight.

LEMON: So, David, listen, Thad Allen came out just a short time ago and gave some information. It appears that some of his information was not updated. Is there some problem with him get that information? Is there an issue here?

MATTINGLY: We're trying to get to the bottom of that. The admiral came out and said that right now that BP was actually going forward with the top hat solution to this problem, which information was about 24 hours old because BP had been telling us for almost 24 hours, even yesterday, that they were going with this tube insertion for us.

So it raised questions: is the admiral getting good information from BP? And if so, did he just get it wrong at the press conference? We're continuing to dig down to see if we can get to the source of that miscommunication.

But his PR people with the Coast Guard saying really the only thing he got wrong was just the sequence of events, that all of these things are in place simultaneously, and so they're trying to minimize that gaffe that he put out there. LEMON: David Mattingly. David, thank you for keeping us updated on that. We really appreciate it.

And that leak is so deep under water that human hands really can't get to it. And on top of all of that, it is spewing immeasurable amounts of crude, as we have been telling you. We really don't know just how to stop it, and we don't know, you know, the long- term consequences, the effects of having so much oil floating around in the Gulf of Mexico and possibly going into other areas, as well.

So joining me now is CNN contributor and retired Army General Russel Honore. First, what is the latest that you're hearing about the military getting involved in this leak, General?

GEN. RUSSEL HONORE (RET.), CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Don, the military is directly supportive of the United States Coast Guard, which is the oil incident commander. To date, the Department of Defense has approved 1,100 -- up to 6,000 National Guardsmen for each state. The state of Louisiana right now have 1,100 guardsmen out, deployed along the coast, trying to shore up the shoreline and support the effort of getting the booming up.

There have been 27 requests to the Department of Defense from the Coast Guard. Most of that, Don, is flying boom in, using our heavy airlift aircraft. Much of that boom was flown from California. Now they're flying long-range missions from Alaska.

The Department of Defense has also deployed salvage experts from the United States Navy, working in support of the United States Coast Guard. And the United States Air Force have deployed the great organization called the civil patrol. And they're patrolling those waters trying -- using advanced cameras to provide information back to the government on what they're seeing and how that oil is being dispersed.

In addition, the military's deployed at Roberts, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; and now at St. Petersburg, joint information headquarters that are designed to support the Coast Guard.

LEMON: And General, I have to ask you this. I see what the military is doing. But here's my question about the government. Should the government be doing anything differently, or are they doing what they should be doing at this point?

HONORE: I think it's time for the government to step up. I think we're going to have to take control of this. And we're going to have to put a command and control system on top of that well, put the right people out there, and they don't come off of that well until it's fixed. That's what I think the government need to be doing right now.

LEMON: All right. So the government more, and that's what they should be doing.

Now, what about the response from the government? You said, you know, they should be getting involved in the fix. Did they get involved in your estimation -- you were down for Katrina -- soon enough in this situation?

HONORE: I think the public opinion is out on that because the information wasn't accurate coming from BP. The Coast Guard, when they arrived on the scene, their No. 1 task is to save lives. And they were dependent on information coming from those ROVs. And now we are seeing that information may have not been as accurate as it should be.

But I think it's time now for the government to put that Admiral Allen in charge of this and to start directing actions, as opposed to waiting for BP to figure out what's next.

LEMON: All right. General, thank you. Don't go anywhere, because we're going to talk to you a little bit longer, General. We're going to talk to you about the long-term effects of this oil leak next hour.

So I want the general to stick around. I want the audience to stick around as well, for that. General Russel Honore joining us.

Three terror suspects, three terror raids just within the last 24 hours. Just yesterday. We're going to tell you what this has to do with money. They're trying to find out who may have, who they have given the money to this suspect in Times Square and are they three completely different men? Are they innocent Middle Eastern men? We're going to talk about that, as well.

And also, since Ali is off today, I'm going to take over his "XYZ." We spent the last few minutes talking all about the facts and the figures surrounding the Gulf oil spill. I want to give you a personal take on it as someone who grew up on the Gulf Coast. Don't miss my "XYZ," coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back, everyone. We're learning more about yesterday's coordinated multi-state terror raids. The FBI's focus right now: who bankrolled the bomb plot targeting Times Square?

So let's turn now to the person who has been covering this for us since the very beginning, CNN's Susan Candiotti.

Susan, exactly what's going on? It seems like there's another development with this story, not every day but every hour, every minute.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It seems that way, doesn't it? And you know, Don, we've talked about this before. It really appears it probably didn't cost that much to put this plot together, when you consider everything that's involved. Maybe about $7,000, including the cost of the plane ticket, the car, the explosives, and other things.

But that's why it's very important for authorities to follow the money trail to see where it leads.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Following the accused would be bomber's money trail took investigators to Massachusetts, where two Pakistani men were taken into custody near Boston while most people were sleeping.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard a man who said, "FBI. Hold your hands up. Get your hands up."

CANDIOTTI: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say the men are charged with over-staying their visas. But do they know more about possibly funneling money from overseas to accused Times Square plotter Faisal Shahzad? A homeless search for clues that sources say may involve couriers called pabaladiras (ph). There's usually no paper trail, and couriers seldom know what the money is for.

Following more leads, agents also hit a gas station outside Boston and searched a car there. Another team focused on two homes on Long Island, New York, but no arrests there. The tentacles also touched southern New Jersey, where the FBI raided a print shop in Camden and the home of a man who owns it in Cherry Hill. Two brothers were questioned but not taken into custody.

MUHAMMAD FIAEZ, CHERRY HILL RESIDENT: Just talked about me and my brother, that's the nature. Maybe some common name show up as -- that's why they come to come to me, just ask me the questions.

CANDIOTTI: A federal law enforcement source says agents are tracing who Shahzad talked to, met with, where he went. Every step he allegedly took to build a car bomb is being documented. Prosecutors say some of the information is provided by Shahzad himself, and the accused terrorist hasn't clammed up yet.

PREET BHARARA, U.S. ATTORNEY: Faisal Shahzad is still cooperating. He's being interviewed and questioned by agents and has been since the day he was taken into custody.

CANDIOTTI: And one more bonus. When President Obama met Thursday with New York police investigators, an official photo was taken. If you zoom past the president, we get our first look at the suspect's presumed get-away car that he couldn't use. Here's its key that sources say the forgetful suspect left behind in his smoking-bomb SUV in Times Square. And the VIN number from that SUV that helped track him down in 53 hours.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: And the chief prosecutor says every day they continue to talk with Shahzad. They say that they read him his rights, and he continues to speak with them without a lawyer present. Once they say he's done talking with what he has to say, or they think he isn't being useful anymore, that's when he is expected to make his first appearance in court -- Don.

LEMON: All right. Susan Candiotti, keep on top of this. Thank you very much. We're going to talk about another story that people are really following, especially when it comes to Friday. Stocks are sliding once again. Look at that: down 165 points. We're going to go into details about that with our Christine Romans, because there's new fears over that trillion-dollar plan to bailout Europe and those fears are spreading across the globe. Our Christine Romans, as I said, tracking the numbers when we come back, keeping a close eye on the big board there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Yes, let's talk about your dollars, your money right now. And just before the break, the Dow was down, like, 164 points. Now it's down 177 and keeps going down. We have been watching these numbers here forever on CNN, really, especially the past couple of weeks because we all know what happened, what, a week ago when it just went tumbling.

Christine Romans, you see here there in New York City.

Christine, what do you make of what's happening right now? Does this have anything to do with Europe?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. It was a week ago Thursday at 2:45, in case you were wondering.

LEMON: Yes, emblazoned in your memory, right?

ROMANS: And since that moment, Don -- since that moment, it has been wild. And we're seeing that -- that behavior again this afternoon, to close out the trading week. This is all about Europe. The euro, the European currency, fell to an 18-month low. This is all about risk and safety. You have investors around the world flooding into the safety of gold, the U.S. dollar, and government debt, and flooding out of things they think could be -- things that could worsen if there were, God forbid, a resumption of another recession in Europe. And that is the euro and worldwide stocks. So you're seeing some nervousness here.

And Don, I'm going to tell you that a lot of people have told me over the past few days expect this volatility to continue for the next weeks and months. We have a lot of big-picture debt issues to work out throughout the rest of the world. And this might be kind of the new normal here.

They also point out that stocks in this country had an incredible run-up, and they were pricing in basically the best kind of recovery scenario there is. And now there's some doubts about whether that perfect recovery scenario could happen.

LEMON: OK, listen, I want to talk about another story that's affecting a lot of people, because this is supposed to be the new way we socialize, you know, getting onto Facebook. But it now looks like some people, you know, are becoming, what is it, anti-social when it comes to Facebook. Why are so many people deleting their accounts? ROMANS: Well, it's this interesting Facebook backlash that you're seeing, this wave of people trying to delete or deactivate their accounts and saying, "Look, I've had enough of this. I don't like some of the privacy issues that there are. I don't like the fact that Facebook and some other people are kind of sharing information about me. I don't know that it's so hard to go on there and figure out how to -- how to set all of my security perimeters." And so you're having people start to talk about this more and more.

Now, Facebook in the meantime is beefing up security. A big meeting with all of its -- all of its employees this week about what to do. They're going to -- they're going to register devices that are usually used to log in. So if someone else is trying to log in as you you're going to get an alert. You're going to get e-mail and text alerts when it looks like there's something suspicious going on, and they're going to block suspicious logins.

All this has to do, of course, with another part of the privacy problem. And that is that that you have so much information on there, Don, that somebody could phish around and maybe try to use identity theft, find out more about you, find out things about you don't want them to find out.

Among the popular phishing -- phishing targets, and by phishing, we mean those people who are sneaking around out there trying to find all of your information online, Facebook is right up there. Facebook, 6 percent of phishing targets is Facebook. Look at Paypal. Paypal is the biggest one, because it's got all your financial information.

LEMON: Wow.

ROMANS: But people are just starting to say, "Four hundred million people. And I'm still not sure that I can protect all my information on there. And I certainly don't like it that I have to opt out to make sure that, you know, different Web sites aren't sharing my information." This is an interesting Facebook back -- backlash that we're watching here.

LEMON: Yes, it's interesting because you do have to, in order to become a member of those sites, you have to put up so much of your personal information, as you said. So it's sort of a catch-22. If you want the convenience, then you have to give away a little bit maybe more than you want to give away.

ROMANS: It's true. It's true.

LEMON: So we'll keep watching it.

And I'm going to tell you, don't go anywhere, please. Because if something happens on the stock market, I'm going to be turning to this monitor, to you.

ROMANS: Don, you know what? I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere until it closes at 4 p.m. Eastern Time and I can go home for the weekend and know that nothing else is going to happen.

LEMON: What are the numbers? Do we know what the numbers are right now? Down 200 since we've been talking.

ROMANS: Down 200.

LEMON: Now it's down 200. All right. Christine, appreciate it. We'll check back with you, OK? See you in a bit.

ROMANS: Bye.

LEMON; Christine is part of the best financial team on television. You can also catch her and our very own Ali Velshi, who is usually right here. Catch them on "YOUR $$$$$." It's at Saturday, 1 p.m. Eastern and an encore presentation Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.

Want to check your top stories right now.

President Barack Obama says he is tired of oil executives pointing fingers. He says he want -- he won't rest until the leak is plugged and the spill is cleared up in the Gulf of Mexico. BP is trying again to cap the gushing well today, this time by putting in a tube designed to carry the oil to the surface.

In Thailand the violence is getting worse in the streets of Bangkok. Troops are locked in a violent standoff with anti-government protesters. More deaths and injuries are reported in clashes just today. And yesterday, a sniper bullet critically wounded a key protest leader.

And in London, an attacker stabbed a member of parliament. Stephen Timms was rushed to the hospital, where his wounds are being described as not life-threatening. Police arrested a 21-year-old woman, but it is still not clear exactly what happened. Timms is a member of a Labour Party, which was recently ousted from power.

And just in an hour, the space shuttle is going to launch. We're watching that launch. And guess what? It's one of the last shuttle missions, at least this shuttle; it is the last mission for this shuttle. So, you're going to get to watch it live right here on CNN. I'd like to say it's history in the making, because it's the last time this particular shuttle is going to launch. So you want to stand by to watch it live here, right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right. Let's take some -- we'll talk some weather now. But you're looking now at live pictures at Kennedy in Florida. And you know what? We're going to be watching the weather there very closely, because a live launch is going to happen at any moment here. What is it, 2:20...

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: 2:20.

LEMON: ... that it's scheduled? And so we're going to be watching. Again, history in the making. So we're keeping a close eye on this. What's the weather? Is it going to be good, bad? MYERS: I don't think that this will be the last shuttle launch. I think they might have to extend this -- this drop-dead period. I don't know. You know, they have to service that facility.

LEMON: It's the last one for Atlantis.

MYERS: I know.

LEMON: So you think Atlantis is going to go back up?

MYERS: I don't know. I think -- I think they might have to. They're not ready with anything else. What if they need to get up there to the space station? I don't know. We'll see.

But anyway, it looks great for today. The chance of launch is well over 70 percent. We always look around 30 miles out for a rain shower. Nothing at all. Not even a dot on radar. And the winds are out of the southeast at nine miles per how. That's OK.

I did have a gust last hour in Melbourne out of the east. And that was 18. That's kind of right at the threshold. But it was -- it was just one gust. So we'll have to see.

Another thing that I kind of wanted to take your attention to here is the potential for some severe weather. And this is Trenton. This is Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. Ft. Campbell had two-inch hail an hour ago. Two inches. Not the size of a tennis ball, but pretty big. And then from Trenton up toward Elkton. This cell is still rotating, and there's still a tornado warning on it. So there is a potential. If you are in Kentucky, Tennessee, you have storms coming near you. They could be strong.

Back to you, Don.

LEMON: All right, Chad Myers. Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate it.

We're going to keep talking about what's going on with this Space Shuttle Atlantis, because this is a big deal. The Atlantis' final, right, it's finally scheduled to take off. It's supposed to be the Atlantis' last one and pretty close to the end for, you know, we talk about the space shuttle mission.

So I want to bring in now Bobby Braun, NASA's chief technology -- technologist, I should say, from Kennedy Space Center.

Hello, sir. Good to see you. We're having a little fun with your name, like Bobby Braun, like Bobby Brown, in the NEWSROOM.

BOBBY BRAUN, NASA'S CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST: There you go.

LEMON: I'm told that you know everything about this. So we're saying this is the last one for Atlantis. You heard what our Chad Myers is saying. He's not so sure because how are they going to get back up in space if they need to at the moment? They have nothing ready. Is that so? BRAUN: Yes, so this is actually not the last flight of the shuttle. This is the last flight of Atlantis.

LEMON: Atlantis.

BRAUN: There are two flights planned after this. There are two flights planned in the fall after Atlantis.

LEMON: Yes. So we've gotten that much straight. So, listen, even though this is the last one, you said, for Atlantis and then the two flights in the fall, is it onward to bigger and better things when it comes to space exploration that's a little bit more targeted and that goes a little bit further than the space station? We go a little bit further out into space?

BRAUN: Well, that's the plan. So the goal of our space program has always been and is still to advance human flight, human presence beyond lower Earth orbit.

And the ways that we need to do that involve some new technology, some new approaches, some new spacecraft and systems to carry us beyond lower Earth orbit, beyond Earth, out into deep space, where there's some amazing scientific -- scientific and discovery kind of challenges awaiting.

Unfortunately, the shuttle is not the vehicle to do that. While the shuttle is an amazing technological marvel and while I am amazed as I walk around here at the Kennedy Space Center at the engineering talent that has put the shuttle together and gets it ready for these flights, the shuttle vehicle was never designed to go beyond lower orbit, like our program -- like our program goals are hoping to do.

LEMON: So you know, it's the end of an era and we're sad to see anything go. But just as we get cars that are more advanced, that are faster and have smaller engines, what are we looking at? What type of, I don't know, I guess ship or vehicle will take us into further into space, into the next era, so to speak?

BRAUN: Yes. So in a speech, actually, right here at the Kennedy Space Center on April 15, the president outlined his vision, his approach for human exploration in the future. And I think that approach is very exciting.

It includes early test flights of our new spacecraft, our new human exploration spacecraft in the early part of the next decade. It includes flights to a near asteroid, a destination well beyond the earth's gravitational boundaries, certainly outside the earth's system, if you will, in the 2025 time frame. And then a flight to Mars, to go into orbit about Mars and to return safely in 2025 with an eventual landing on Mars to follow. That's a set of destinations.

LEMON: Bobby.

BRAUN: Yes, sir.

LEMON: We have a bit of delay. That's why I just said your name, so that you can, you know -- because I didn't want to step on you.

What I'm asking, I think what most people want to know at home is that we started with a little pod back in the day. You remember the guys would get out of the pod. We start with the big rocket. And then they'd get out of the pod when they returned in the ocean. Then we had the space shuttle.

What type of vehicle are we looking at? What might it look like this next thing to take us into space?

BRAUN: OK. Well, what we need is a vehicle with more volume, frankly. And we need a propulsion system to get us to some of these destinations more efficiently.

So what it might look like is a system that's packaged very tightly and inflates or deploys in space to create basically much more house, if you will, for the same volume when we start off here on the ground at Earth.

A system that contains radiation protection, radiation shielding, to protect our astronauts as they venture beyond the Van Allen belts out into deep space, a system with maybe a low thrust or a more advanced high thrust propulsion system so that we can travel more effectively. These destinations are pretty far away. They're pretty hard to get to.

LEMON: I got to tell you, it's going to be interesting to see what's next, you know, this high tech when it came to the shuttle. So -- and they're about to go away and into a museum.

So thank you so much. We appreciate you joining us. It's going to be great to see that. Bobby Braun with NASA there. It's going to be great to see. You're going to see it live right here on CNN. Scheduled to launch 2:20 p.m. Eastern time. We're going to have it for you.

Bobby, good to see you. Talk to you in a little bit.

Also, we're going to have this for you. He was an American kid who spent his childhood on Long Island. But his path twisted, somehow -- how did it twist -- along the way. And it has led him right to al Qaeda. Why did he embrace one of his country's greatest enemies? We'll talk about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: This is really a chilling case of homegrown terror and it starts here in Medford, New York. This is the hometown of Bryant Neal Vinas, who was born in America in 1982, to South American immigrants. By all accounts, it was a normal childhood in the Long Island suburbs. Visit -- Venus (sic) loved to play baseball and even served as an altar boy.

I want to show you, that was the first point I showed you where he grew up. He grew up in Medford, New York, right? The second point. Here's what I want to show you here. He also went here as we talked about to Lahore. Just to show you around the world here. There he is. He traveled here in 2007 to meet militant contacts. At least that's what they are saying. That's what investigators are saying. So, I want to take you now to an "AC 360" special investigation done by our very own Nic Robertson, who spent a year working on a profile of Bryant Neal Vinas. Check out his report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He joins the militants on a mission to attack U.S. bases in Afghanistan. In his interrogation, Bryant describes hauling weapons to a mountain top. Then aborting the mission as U.S. aircraft closed in.

MITCH SILBER, NYPD DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS: His trajectory -- he has shown his ability to sort of surprise us in terms of his -- really his desire and eagerness to get into a fight overseas.

ROBERTSON: According to what Bryant later tells investigators, he is soon asked to become a suicide bomber, and he accepts.

SILBER: He may have viewed it as potentially some type of test to vet him as to whether he was really serious about this.

PHIL MUDD, FORMER DEPUTY, FBI NATIONAL SECURITY BRANCH: You're going to go through multiple paths, multiple doors, if you will, before someone says, okay, we think -- we kind of sort of maybe trust this person.

ROBERTSON (on camera): But when Taliban militants here in Pakistan don't provide Bryant with a training in action he wants, his impatience gets the better of him. And he begins a series of unsuccessful attempts to draw in Osama bin Laden's followers.

(voice-over): One time he disguises himself as a woman. dresses in a burqa to hide hysterectomy Hispanic-American identity, and sets off alone to find an al Qaeda camp. He fails, but he won't give up, and nearly loses his life because of his persistence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Let's go now to Lahore. We're joined by CNN's Nic Robertson. He joins us by phone. I want to ask you, is Bryant Neal Vinas, is his case unusual, Nic?

ROBERTSON (via phone): It's becoming more and more typical of people that are turning to radicalism in the United States, be they Pakistanis who got American nationality, Afghans who got American nationality, or Americans born, brought up all-American kid like Bryant Neal Vinas, who are turning to this radical version of Islam. It's becoming more and more common. And the steps that he took to get to Pakistan and to get radicalized are very, very typical steps. He was quite a normal child. Don?

LEMON: Talk more about this, because, you know, people say more like him. That's a question you mentioned a little bit. Are there more like him?

ROBERTS: When we set out to report on this documentary, we were under the impression from intelligence officials that there were more people like him around the country. And now we've actually seen some of them come out into the open. There have been arrested. Najibullah Zazi. The latest, the alleged Times Square bomber, another person. Mr. Hadley in Chicago, another person allegedly involved in terror plots.

People who led apparently normal lives living in the United States turning to extreme radical Islam getting radicalized on the Internet, getting radicalized with small groups of friends, listening to an extremist message, listening to rebel rousing rhetoric from a small handful of radical on the streets of New York and other places. And then pursuing this idea of attacking U.S. troops or civilians in the United States by coming to Pakistan and getting training in camps. Don?

LEMON: Nic Robertson, thank you so much for that. We want to tell our viewers, "American al Qaeda," a CNN special investigation, airs this weekend. You can catch it tomorrow, which is Saturday, or Sunday, 8:00 p.m. Eastern only here on CNN.

In the meantime, a 4-year-old boy abused and killed. The suspects, his mom and stepdad. Could this have been prevented? "Crime and Consequence, next."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Now it's time for "Crime and Consequence" where we dig deeper into a case, explore all facets of an investigation, and giving a face to the victims.

Today, the heartbreaking story of Ethan Stacy, a little boy allegedly beaten, locked up, murdered, and dumped. And the suspects, the boy's mom and stepdad. Pay close attention to this story.

Stephanie and Nathaniel Sloop are due in court in Davis County, Utah momentarily where they're expected to be formally charged. At a news conference just minutes ago, county officials say both are being held without bond. This comes just days after the four-year-old boy's body was discovered in a canyon, disfigured, wrapped in plastic and buried.

Now, police documents and divorce papers are details Ethan's last days when things went very wrong very quickly. Take a look at this. On April 28th, Ethan's mother and father were officially divorced. During a custody petition, his father wrote the mother "has abandoned the child and I'm afraid the mother will come and take him and I'll never see him again." Though a judge says, she never read that letter.

On May 1st, Ethan arrived in Utah to spend the summer with his mother. Beginning on the 4th, police say the boy's mother started noticing signs of abuse and documenting Ethan's injuries with her cell phone camera. She reportedly told investigators she thought Ethan need medical attention but did not seek out a doctor for fear of her soon-to-be husband.

And then by may 6th, Ethan's mother remarried to Nathaniel Sloop. Police say Ethan was locked in his room, badly beaten while the couple drove ten miles away to the wedding ceremony.

On May 10th, Ethan was reported missing. And the very next day, his body was found.

That's the back story. Of course, the victim in this case is Ethan Stacy, the little boy, his life cut short at 4 years old. Police say he was beaten to death after enduring days of abuse. And the county prosecutor says there's probable cause to charge both Ethan's stepmother and his mother with aggravated murder. His stepfather and mother, I should say, with aggravated murder. That's in addition to possible charges of felony child abuse, obstruction of justice and desecration of a corpse.

We're going to turn now to our top stories making news here on CNN.

The Gulf Coast oil spill could be much, much larger than first estimated. Now BP is trying yet another strategy to reduce it by sliding a smaller pipe inside the one that's leaking and siphoning out as much crude as possible. President Barack Obama said a short time ago that the spill could be catastrophic, and the U.S. will not rest until it is stopped.

In Thailand today, more deaths and injuries are reported as booming explosions fill the capital of Bangkok. It is the latest eruption in the two-month standoff between ant anti-government protesters and Thai troops. The 10,000 protesters, called Red Shirts, are trying to oust the current prime minister.

Plus, have some gold. Well, now is a good time to sell. The price of gold has struck an all-time high today at 12,050 per ounce as Euro Zone's financial crisis - well, it just made headlines. People have lost faith in the euro. And are putting their money into other assets like gold.

So, need someone to inspire you? We've got to tell you -- just this guy to do it, coming up. From homeless shelter -- from a homeless shelter he, you know, wants to go to Harvard. And our Dr. Sanjay Gupta will introduce him to us straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Need some inspiration? Well, wait until you hear this next story. He came up the hard way, living in a homeless shelter on Skid Row. But he wants to go to Harvard and he wants to be a doctor. And our very own Dr. Sanjay Gupta surprises this ambitious young man with a day on the job. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRSPONDENT (voice-over): What you're looking at is Skid Row, Los Angeles. The streets here are overflowing with mental illness, addiction, and desperation.

KENNETH CHANCEY, FORMER SKID ROW RESIDENT: It's no place to grow up.

GUPTA: Just last year, 18-year-old Kenneth Chancey lived here in a homeless shelter.

CHANCEY: My mom used drugs. My stepdad used to hit me.

GUPTA: As we'll learn, sometimes resilience can overpower even the darkest of situations. Because it was on Skid Row that Kenneth dared to dream about going to Harvard and becoming a neurosurgeon. I decided to surprise him with a day in the life.

CHANCEY: I'm real excited. Can't wait for the day to begin.

GUPTA (on camera): See, the thing is that Kenneth has really seen so much. Through all of that he still became the president of his class, he became this athletic star. I wanted to know how could that all happen.

Let's go meet him. Hey, man.

CHANCEY: Hi.

GUPTA: How are you doing? Sanjay Gupta.

CHANCEY: Kenneth Chancey.

GUPTA: I understand you want to be a neurosurgeon one day.

CHANCEY: Yes.

GUPTA: Get you into some scrubs?

CHANCEY: Yes!

GUPTA: I'm excited that you're here. Let's get you changed.

CHANCEY: Okay.

GUPTA: So, everyday, do you know where you're going to sleep that night?

CHANCEY: No. I would get a call from my dad saying, okay, the hotel room was due, and I didn't have the money to pay it. OK, I would have to find somewhere to go that night.

GUPTA: Was it more the images that you saw or was it things that happened to you personally?

CHANCEY: I think it was the images. Because things that happen personally, I can shake off. I can just --

GUPTA: Would most people be able to shake them off?

CHANCEY: I doubt it.

GUPTA: Like what?

CHANCEY: I don't think sleeping in a van a whole year someone would have just been able to just shake off.

GUPTA: You slept in a van a whole year?

CHANCEY: Yes. Whole year. It was hard.

And then going into class or restaurants just to wash up and brush your teeth and everything. And trying to do homework in a van.

Either you can remember it and let it bring you down for the rest of your life. Or you can forget and move on. The world is going to spin regardless.

GUPTA: Put this on top.

CHANCEY: Oh, it doesn't come out?

GUPTA: Yes. It doesn't come out. It also helps us get that (INAUDIBLE) that I was talking about, that curvature. So holds everybody in place nicely.

CHANCEY: This is a good learning experiments.

GUPTA: A lot of carpentry here.

Are you okay?

CHANCEY: Yes. Just hot.

GUPTA: You're not going to pass out, are you?

CHANCEY: I doubt it.

GUPTA: Okay.

(voice-over): Sometimes it's hard to remember, he's just 18 years old.

GUPTA: All right.

CHANCEY: That was interesting, doctor. It was interesting.

GUPTA: Glad you liked it.

(voice-over): For Kenneth, putting his past behind him means fulfilling that dream to become a neurosurgeon.

(on camera): So, we're talking about four years of college, four years of medical school, plus seven years of training.

CHANCEY: Seven-year --

GUPTA: Possibly a fellowship after that. We're talking between 15 and 20 years to get to your dream. That's a long road.

CHANCEY: But I'm ready for it.

GUPTA: You're ready for it?

CHANCEY: Yes. I have all of this energy. I have to do it somewhere.

GUPTA: 15 to 20 years from now when you think about your life, what does it look like?

CHANCEY: I see me walking, I don't know, walking into wherever I'm working with a smile. I just -- I see happiness.

GUPTA: So what is to there to learn from Kenneth Chancey? That resilience is intangible, that dreams are not lost, even to children in the most desperate of circumstances.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Very inspiring story, and you can catch Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "SANJAY GUPTA, M.D." every Saturday and Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN. It's a great, great show.

He was the character that every, every business major can quote by heart for better or for worse. Now, Gordon Gekko is out of jail and his story couldn't be more timely. We're sitting down with the talent behind the "Wall Street" sequel at Cannes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

LEMON: It's really good music, huh? Do you remember Gordon Gekko? Do you know what I'm talking about, "Wall Street"? The last time we saw him, his motto, "greed is good" led him straight to prison. Since the original "Wall Street" came out, 23 years ago, by the way, some very real Gekkos helped push our economy to the brink.

Now, the famous Michael Douglas character is back in "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. You won't see on the movie poster, but our very own Ali Velshi has a role it in. CNN's Brooke Anderson sat down with director Oliver Stone and one of the stars ahead of tonight's premiere at Cannes. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Unscrupulous investment banks, Wall Street corruption, economic disaster -- those sound like stories from any leading newspaper. But here at Cannes, they're not headlines. They're plot points in the latest film to premiere here, Oliver Stone's "Wall Street: "Money Never Sleeps."

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, ACTOR, "WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS": And when I got out, who was waiting for me? Nobody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not about the money. This is about you and me.

ANDERSON: This is Stone's follow-up to his 1987 hit movie "Wall Street," which defined the excess of that earlier era and glamorized corporate raiders. Stone, whose father was a New York stock broker decades ago, is hoping the timeliness, the relevance of his new movie, resonates with filmgoers.

(on camera): You have said the first "Wall Street" was a morality tale.

OLIVER STONE, DIRECTOR: It was, but nobody listened. Nobody listened.

ANDERSON: I know! How would you describe this one?

STONE: It's a different movie. It's a bookend. It's not a sequel. It's more like Gekko, Shia LaBeouf has integrity. In the original, Charlie Sheen did not until he found it later.

ANDERSON: It's a very timely movie.

JOSH BROLIN, ACTOR: It's a very timely movie. Very.

I mean, look at what's happened, September of '08. And this was written actually before that, but then Oliver got a hold of it and he personalized the story and made it a very emotional story. You see Gordon Gekko in the beginning having been broken. That's a great place to springboard from, you know --

ANDERSON: It's great. It certainly is.

BROLIN: -- 23 years later.

ANDERSON: "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" hits theaters in September.

Brooke Anderson, CNN, Cannes, France.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Can't wait to see that, Brooke, can't wait to see Ali as well.

Let me ask you this. You lost your job, and you want to get behind the wheel. Big-rig drivers get schooled on the rules of the road. Their story in our "Jobs in Focus." Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right. So, look at that. That is a beautiful, live picture from the Kennedy Space Center down in Florida. The reason you're looking at that, it looks like a great day. We're going to check in with our Chad Myers just a little bit later, just to see if what we're seeing is actually going on with the weather.

But this is the last mission -- at least, the last slated mission for the space shuttle Atlantis, and getting pretty close to the end of an era for the space shuttles in general. There are two more after this, and then it's going to be over.

But the reason I'm showing you this. You see the 2:20 p.m. Eastern shuttle launch, scheduled for 2:20 p.m. Eastern? We'll show it to you live here on CNN, so don't go away. It's just a few minutes we'll be checking in with NASA to see if all is going well between now and then, so make sure you stick with us.

In the meantime, hitting the road to put food on the table. We're going to truck driving school right now. It's where a lot of unemployed people are finding their new careers. And photojournalist Bob Crowley has the story. It's part of our "Jobs in Focus" series.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're in tractor-trailer training, trains for class A and B CDL licenses.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks easy, but believe me, the first time I did it, it wasn't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch that left mirror.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got laid off from a job I had worked at for 12 years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was two-and-a-half years ago. I've been out of work since. Had the opportunity to come to school, get my CDL for Class A tractor driving, and this is where I'm at.

MARK GREENBERG, PRESIDENT NETTTS: We've been seeing people coming from a lot of different industries, and obviously making that big transition to something completely different as an adult is difficult.

BERNIE COST, TRUCK DRIVING STUDENT: Getting in a tractor-trailer for the first time was a little scary. You might have a little jump when you first take off.

I just had to be retrained on something else, because the market that I was in, they don't want older guys. It's all about the cones and alignment.

I've been out of work since November. I'm not collecting. I'm living off of my savings.

Am I in?

I feel pretty comfortable that I should be able to get a fairly decent job and support my family and my house, and not lose my house. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a job that's always going to be there. Everything that goes out on the road needs a truck to bring it to grocery stores, pick up from warehouses. It's all got to go on a truck.

The job I was working at for 12 years for me was a career job. I expected to stay there for my entire life, retire from the company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A little bit to the right.

You've got to do what you have to, especially in this economy, to be able to put the food on the table, keep the roof over the head.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Got to put food on the table.

And listen, I want you to watch tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. Eastern here on CNN, "Jobs in Focus: A Sign of the Times." It's a great series.