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Inside BP's Oil Leak Efforts; Suspicious Package Found, Federal Building Evacuated; Saints, Governor Visit Hard-Hit Parish; Oil Disaster Bigger Than BP; 12 States Hold Elections Today; The Hotel Dream Team of Marriott and Schrager; Big Ideas on How to Solve Cleaning Up the Oil

Aired June 08, 2010 - 13:30   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, Tony. We'll stay on top of this story all afternoon, as well, until we find out what's going on.

I'm Ali Velshi, as Tony said. I'm going to be with you for the next two hours today and every weekday, taking every important topic we cover a step further. I'm going to try and give you a level of detail that will help you put your world into context. Hopefully, you'll come away with something you didn't have before.

Let's get started. Here's what I've got on the rundown. In addition to this -- this bomb scare that we're looking at in Atlanta, it's day 50 of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. We are seeing more signs of progress toward containing the oil gusher. We will continue to cover it from every angle, including ideas to stop this oil from flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

We're also looking for solutions every day. CNN introducing at least five innovative ideas to solve this disaster once and for all. BP hasn't tried them yet. Maybe it should.

Plus, an alleged confession from Joran Van Der Sloot. It's a case that gets more twisted by the hour. We're live in Peru.

But first, let me tell you about what's going on in the oil spill. Day 50, as I mentioned, in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil continues to flood from that well at the bottom of the ocean. But there are some developments that we want to tell you about.

One vent on that top hat has been closed. It's -- it's that system that has gone on top of the risers that's leaking to try to siphon oil up to the top. There are a lot of vents there. They've got those vents to avoid pressure building up and shooting the top hat off. One vent is closed. It's still not enough, but it is increasingly effective.

According to the Coast Guard, 42,514 barrels have been collected so far since it was installed on Thursday. It's siphoning more and more oil each day.

Now NOAA has confirmed that there are three plumes of oil under the water. Only one has definitively been tied to the oil leak, because they have to take what they call fingerprints of these things to determine whether or not they're connected. Only one has been connected, suspicions are all three are tied to it.

And more oiled birds are showing up in Ft. Jackson in Louisiana. The Ft. Jackson Wildlife Rescue Center has taken in a record 86 oil- covered waterfowl just yesterday.

Now, also yesterday, late yesterday, Brian Todd, our reporter, got access, very rare access, to BP's incident command center in Houston. He took a look at how this is being attacked. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the moment we meet BP senior vice president Kent Wells, the clock is ticking.

KENT WELLS, BP SVP: How are you?

TODD (on camera): Good to meet you. Thanks for having us.

(voice-over) First stop is the briefing room, the communications hub.

WELLS: This is all about who's working on it right now. And this gets updated every 12 hours, because we've got different people working morning and night, right. That's about the people.

Then we got about resources. What about ships? What about planes? Do we have everything we need to make it happen?

Then there's the situation. So -- and this kind of shows where's the oil offshore? Here's the well we're talking about.

TODD (on camera): How recent is this map?

WELLS: Updated every day. This morning 0800.

TODD (voice-over): Technical and environmental specialists each wear different color vests. I get a quick question to Jeff Hohle.

(on camera) You're the incident commander right now. What's your biggest crisis that this very moment?

JEFF HOHLE, INCIDENT COMMANDER: Well, this whole response in totality is the crisis we're managing. Today some of the big priorities are actually the flowback, which you'll see some information about that on the Enterprise. Making sure we're integrated in that activity.

TODD: This may be the most critical room of all, the ROV operations center. Kent Wells tells us that everything that is planned in these other rooms is executed by the ROVs in here. Very sensitive. We can't talk too much; we can't interfere too much. But we're going to head in. WELLS: It actually weighs about 10,000 pounds. It's about ten feet long, seven feet high, six feet wide. And it's got manipulative arms. We've actually got 16 out there. I think you heard Neil say most we sort of had down there is 10, 12 at any one time.

TODD (voice-over): Two engineers in the front row are talking to ROV pilots on surface vessels.

WELLS: We need to follow (ph) very specific procedures over all crew through the MMS, all the different agencies. Then it comes in here for execution. He'll go through step by step, tell the lead. The lead will tell the pilot, and then the pilot executes. We will have a pilot where it flies, and we have someone operate the manipulators.

TODD: When we are inside this room, they're working on lowering a basket with an electronic arm.

WELLS: We're ejecting the dispersant. We disperse it immediately. And it's far more effective to use dispersant when you get it right down. You lose a lot less dispersant and get better impact. But that's why you get that billowing. We've actually got two wands that the ROVs are holding, and they're sticking it right into the bottom to try to get it to disperse it immediately.

TODD: The sub-sea containment room is clearly the busiest.

(on camera) Who are these four gentleman and what's their field of expertise?

RICHARD LYNCH, SUB-SEA CONTAINMENT COORDINATOR: These guys are our sub-sea engineers, and they're working on the Q-4000 alternatives right now. This is all about getting the layout made and the connection points so we actually use this for a vessel to collect and ultimately control and burn the crude and gas.

TODD: So the Q-4000 is used for the surface burning essentially?

LYNCH: It will be (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

TODD (voice-over): The successes of these operations, like the insertion tool and the biggest failures, all planned in this room.

(on camera) Since the explosion, what was the worst moment? What was the most frustrating moment? Was it the top kill failing? Was it the first containment dome not working?

WELLS: Yes. I think, clearly, when we think about the top kill, one of the things we always need to remember is, as leaders of these, when times are the toughest that's when you need to be the strongest. So the top kill was a disappointment, but at that point it was about how do we move forward with the next plan. It was very much about, OK, we're now into sub-sea containment and relief wells and we quickly moved onto that.

TODD: In here is the Sim-Ops room. They call this the air traffic control of this operation on the seas. You can see that, in the big circle on the top, that's where the well head is leaking and all the vessels there are on top of it. John Scherer (ph), my photo journalists, is going to shift over and show you that -- that screen there.

Down on the lower right are the relief wells that are being drilled. And this is a key operation to make sure that the ships don't run into each other and that nothing calamitous happens on the surface.

(voice-over) I asked the coordinator of this operation, Neil Cramond, how dangerous this is.

NEIL CRAMOND, SIM-OPS COORDINATOR: I wouldn't use the term dangerous. I think it's -- again, it's taken a lot of careful planning and a lot of careful coordination. Having that many vessels all doing different support activities in such a small area is not normal.

TODD: Kent Wells is optimistic that 11,000 barrels a day are being funneled through the containment cap.

(on camera) That's still only about half of what's coming out. Am I right?

WELLS: Right. I know we're all focused on what the flow rate is. What we're focused on is capturing everything we can.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: OK. Great discussion. In a moment, Brian Todd is going to join me on the phone. He's back in Louisiana now, having left Houston. He's with a very frustrated governor of Louisiana and some very determined Saints. We're going to talk about that in a minute.

I want to show you some pictures that you saw here just a few minutes ago. This is another story we're following. This is in Atlanta, courtesy of our affiliate, WSB. This is a federal building nearby to CNN in Atlanta that has been evacuated because of a suspicious package.

Now, it says on the screen there a possible grenade found. We just spoke to the Atlanta police department who cannot confirm it was a grenade. That was the initial -- the initial supposition.

Apparently, something went through the X-ray machine in the mail room and was determined suspicious. So there are canine units, bomb units, federal agents, homeland security, FBI agents on the scene. And our own Brooke Baldwin is probably arriving there right now, trying to get a sense of what the situation is.

But the building has been evacuated. This is a building on the 700 block of West Peachtree Street, a federal building in Atlanta. Parts of Ivan Allen Boulevard in downtown Atlanta have been evacuated. Something was detected on an X-ray in -- in the mailroom. We'll continue to cover that story for you, as well. And I'll talk to Brian Todd in just a moment about what's going on in Louisiana. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. Let me bring you back up to speed on what's going on. You're looking at live pictures of a federal building on the 700 block of West Peachtree Street in Atlanta, very close to where we are. This building has been evacuated, because something was detected in the mailroom as it went through the X-ray machine. Something that was initially reported as a grenade, now being called a suspicious package by the Atlanta Police Department.

In this building is the Social Security office, the Peachtree Summit Child Care Center, an IRS office. Nothing has been detonated. They are trying to determine what that package is. There are canine units on the scene. There are -- there's a bomb squad on the scene. There are federal agents on the scene. Homeland security is on the scene.

These are pictures from our affiliate WSB about a building that has been evacuated. Parts of Ivan Allen Boulevard in downtown Atlanta have been closed down. This is very close to where we are.

Again, we have been told that it is -- a package was detected -- something was detected as it went through the X-ray machine in the mailroom of that building. Police are on the case.

Brooke Baldwin is there, as well. We will check in with her very shortly to find out what's going on.

Let's go back to Louisiana for a moment. We just saw this great story by Brian Todd, who had really unusual access to the incident command center in Houston, BP's incident command center in Houston, getting a sense of what it is they are doing every day in terms of trying to solve this oil spill.

He's now gone back to Louisiana, where he has been with the governor and the New Orleans Saints. They were at the Ft. Jackson Wildlife Rescue Center. Let's tap into Brian to see what he's up to now.

Brian, what's -- where are you now and what's going on?

TODD: Well, as you mentioned, Ali, I'm at the Ft. Jackson Wildlife Refuge Center, where Governor Jindal and members of the New Orleans Saints kind of got a tour of the facility here. They saw some of the wildlife experts cleaning off birds, feeding them and just kind of getting the lay of the land as far as the damage to wildlife.

Then they came out here. And you would this thought it was Mardi Gras in June, because the crowd just went nuts, seeing the governor and members of the world champion Saints.

This was really just kind of a morale-boosting event for the local parish. Plaquemines Parish has been devastated by this oil spill. This has really been kind of almost ground zero for, you know, the oil that's washed up onshore, the marshlands that have been killed off and destroyed by this. And the people here really needed a boost. The fishing industry is devastated. The -- the recreational fishing, the commercial fishing industries both really hit hard. They really needed this boost. The crowd went nuts when the governor and especially when the Saints got up on the stage.

VELSHI: Brian, what's the -- what's the general feeling there? Are people feeling that it's getting worse or getting better for them? Because while the containment of the oil spill might be improving, the reality is, in many of these places, the oil hasn't hit the shore yet, and it continues to come on in globs or in tar balls or whatever the case is. What's the general feeling amongst people? I don't know if you've had a chance to talk to anybody in Plaquemines Parish yet.

TODD: We certainly have, Ali, and the feeling is it's not really getting any better. You talk to people here, and as long as that oil is gushing out of that well head, they don't think it's getting any better. There is a lot of uncertainty about where their jobs are going.

I talked to a lady last hour whose -- both of her sons run commercial fishing charter boats, and both of them just can't get work right now. They have to work for BP in that Vessel of Opportunity program. They don't know how long that's going to last. So the uncertainty is killing people here and -- just the fact that the oil is still gushing. They just don't see an end to this, and that's the prevailing sentiment here. So they don't -- they do not give you a sense that this is getting any better at the moment.

VELSHI: And you mentioned the Vessel of Opportunity program. For our viewers who don't know, those are people who have their own fishing vessels, their own -- their own boats and are able to sort of charter them to -- to BP for help in the cleanup effort.

TODD: That's right. And, you know, that work is not too consistent either. This lady whose sons are doing this, she said, you know, they're standing by every day. They don't get a call every day to do it. The income that they're making from this isn't near what they would be making...

VELSHI: Yes.

TODD: ... in their commercial charter business, especially this time of year. You know, between June and September, this is really the big time of year for commercial fishing charters, and that money is not coming in. So the -- the little amount that they're making from BP is, as she says, keeping them alive but not really doing it for them, income-wise.

VELSHI: All right, Brian. Thanks very much. Great job from you and the whole team down there, particularly getting us inside that -- into the command center. Brian Todd in Buras (ph), Louisiana. We'll check in with him a little later. We're covering day 50 of the disaster in the Gulf from every angle. If you think this is limited to BP, think again. We're going to show you the other guys involved in this when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Sad milestone today. Day 50 of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. On every single one of those days we heard two initials being batted around. But as CNNMoney.com's Poppy Harlow shows us, this disaster is a lot bigger than BP -- Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are many more players here than just BP in this disaster. But let's start with BP.

They own 65 percent of the Macondo Oil Well. You know that company very well at this point.

But then there's a company you may not have heard of. Anadarko, they're a large independent oil and gas producer, they had a 25 percent stake in that well. And then there's a Japanese company named Mitsui. They had a 10 percent stake. And the key here, though, is that Anadrako and Mitsui were non-operating partners. They were just investors in all of this.

And one of the analysts we spoke with said, "Listen, in the end, it's always the operator, BP, that has the ultimate authority." However, Anadarko and Mitsui could face some of the costs down the road.

But this is really important. If there's gross negligence that is proven, there's room for Anadarko and Mitsui to sue BP for all of the revenue that they've lost as a result of this disaster or at least block them from asking these companies to join in, in footing the bill so far.

We know who's foot the entire bill. That's BP. They've paid about $1.25 billion so far in the wake of this disaster.

But these aren't the only players. There's three more, very important players that you should know about.

First, let's start with Transocean. They owned the rig. They're the world's largest offshore driller. And one of the analysts we spoke with made this analogy. They said Transocean is like a car rental company. If you rent a car and crash it, don't blame the car rental company.

Well, Transocean seems to agree. They filed a lawsuit in federal court, trying to invoke an 1851 maritime law that would limit their personal injury liability to less than $27 million. A judge will decide on that one.

Then there's this company: Halliburton. You've probably heard of Halliburton. They cemented the well after exploration. But they say, "Listen, it was all done to code." So far Halliburton has denied any responsibility, and the CEO actually wrote this letter to Congress, saying, quote, "We do not share your assessment that Halliburton is among the companies that bears complete responsibility," talking about the disaster there.

And finally, there's this company, Cameron International. They built that blowout preventer we've all heard so much about, but it didn't work. And after the explosion, Cameron's CEO told investors the company has a $500 million insurance policy that would cover any claims that it may face.

But the bottom line here, folks, according to the experts we talked to, the buck stops with BP, but a lot of companies will try to deflect a lot of the blame. And these are the six companies that you really need to know about. Here's their stock price and the decline we've seen for all six companies since the April 20 explosion.

One thing very clear here: there's a long road ahead in all of this. It's going to be paved with many, many lawsuits, and these are the companies that you need to know about.

Back to you.

VELSHI: All right, Poppy. Thanks very much.

Listen, with all this oil stuff, we don't want you to forget about politics. Today is the biggest day for politics until November's midterm elections. We've got live reports ahead from the primaries in California and Arkansas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Politics never rest, particularly not here on CNN. Today is the biggest day on the 2010 election calendar until November. Twelve states are holding primary elections or elections of some sort. Ten of them are regular primary elections. One of them is holding a runoff primary. One of them is holding a special election runoff that will fill a House seat.

California Republicans are voting in two big races: one for governor and one for senator. Both of those races feature prominent women.

Let's bring in one of our most prominent women, Jessica Yellin, who is in Los Angeles.

Jessica, what's the story in L.A.?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ali.

Well, you've got two big races. The governor's race here, where the candidates have broken records and spent more than $100 million on the primary alone. And the front runner there is Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO, who became well known nationally for her work there. Made a billion dollars. And now wants to take on Jerry Brown to become this state's next governor.

In the Senate race you've got Carly Fiorina, who was the CEO of Hewlett Packard.

Both women are saying that their business experience gives them a unique ability to help turn around the state, which is basically on the verge of bankruptcy. They are running as political outsiders.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLY FIORINA (R), CALIFORNIA SENATE CANDIDATE: There's a lot of anti-incumbent sentiment, and I think it's because people are tired of professional politicians. They have figured out that people like Barb Boxer are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

MEG WHITMAN (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not a career politician. I've been in business. I've, you know, run eBay and many other businesses. And so I am never accused of being the inside candidate; that's for sure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YELLIN: Two very strong women.

Now, Ali, one thing that they don't want to talk about much but is also true: they happen to be frontrunners because they put a lot of their own money into their races. Meg Whitman has contributed a whopping $71 million...

VELSHI: Wow.

YELLIN: ... to her own primary battle. Carly Fiorina, $5.5 million. A lot of change.

VELSHI: Big expensive state, and a lot of financial problems, so two women with business experience obviously have some basis to run on. Jessica, we'll stay on touch -- in touch with you on this primary battle, one of the most important ones going on in the country.

Another big race is the race for Democrats and the Arkansas Senate runoff. This was already done this primary. But somebody didn't get 50 percent of the vote, so they had to do it again. Senator Blanche Lincoln is trying to hang onto her seat.

Dana Bash is in Little Rock to tell us a little more about this situation.

This is an unusual one, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is an unusual one. But actually, when you look at the landscape in this year so far, it's not very unusual in that what Blanche Lincoln is facing is anti-incumbent sentiment, big-time anti-Washington sentiment, big-time. And I want to...

VELSHI: Yes. BASH: You might hear some cheering going on, and that's because Blanche Lincoln just arrived here. I'm at a polling station. We'll probably see her come over here, maybe while we're talking, to actually cast a vote for herself.

But I actually was able to talk with her earlier about the fact that, you know, in her closing moments here in this runoff that she's got, with her challenger, Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, she has an ad running saying, "I heard you during the primary three weeks ago. I understand you."

And I asked what she meant by that ad. Listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BLANCHE LINCOLN (D), ARKANSAS: I think people are angry, and they're enormously frustrated with Washington. And I am, too. I think they're frustrated with, without a doubt, our lack of results. And that happens. I mean, we've seen a lot of polarization. Gosh knows we've seen a lot of polarization in my race but in Washington in general.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now what she has been trying to do in an intense way over the past three weeks since this runoff began is try to convince voters here in Arkansas that incumbency is not a dirty word, that her seniority really does help people in Arkansas, particularly her position as chairwoman of the agriculture committee.

But I've been talking to voters here, and for some, that has resonated but not everybody. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARGARET GARRETT, ARKANSAS VOTER: Some things do need to be changed, but I think that she has gotten the message. And I think that -- that she -- we still need some people who know how to do things. We still need some people who have been there before. We don't need to totally clean house.

BASH: Who did you vote for in the Senate runoff?

FRANK PIPKIN, ARKANSAS VOTER: Halter.

BASH: How come?

PIPKIN: Because I want the people who are in there out.

BASH: Why is that?

PIPKIN: Because I don't like the way the politics in our country are going. I don't like the way the national debt is going. I don't like the way our current politicians are arrogant, and I'm going to vote against the people that are in office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: White shirt?

BASH: Yes, white shirt.

Now Ali, I just wanted to close out on showing you these pictures. That is Blanche Lincoln just a few feet away from us. She is greeting some of her supporters before she comes in again to cast a vote for herself. This is a day that really could -- I mean, it maybe sounds cliche, but it is true -- make or break her Senate career, whether or not she will be the Democratic nominee for Senate in this state or whether or not she will be yet another casualty.

You see her there very -- looking very happy. But whether or not she will be yet another casualty of the intense anti-incumbent, anti- Washington sentiment that really is sweeping this nation, and we have seen and heard here in Arkansas.

VELSHI: And as she's walking by you, these are live pictures we're watching. Blanche Lincoln, her second attempt at winning this primary.

Dana, she has portrayed herself not only as having experience but as being more moderate than her -- than her opposition in this particular race for this primary seat.

BASH: Absolutely. And she is moderate. And she is, and she says this all the time. She is probably the most moderate in the Senate. She doesn't vote all the time with Democrats or Republicans.

And traditionally, in a primary race, somebody like that is attacked from the left by their opponent, but Blanche Lincoln actually is being attacked from her opponent, Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, from the outside.

There you see her walking in with her husband, Dr. Steve Lincoln. They're going in to vote, and she's going to vote for herself. You saw that live there.

But as I was saying, she, Ali, is being challenged really as -- from her opponent from the outside, he is really playing a classic, classic 2010 campaign just saying I'm an outsider, she's an insider, you can't change Washington without changing players.

But she is also facing intense, intense opposition from another force and that is unions, organized labor. They have come in here with millions and millions of dollars to make an example out of her as somebody who is a moderate who has not always voted on their issues. And they say, look, and they -- sources have told me in the union movement -- look, we want other democrats on a national level who don't vote with us to understand if they don't stick with us, the same thing is going to happen to them.

So Lincoln talks about that nonstop, but she insists that she's going to pull this off today. There's no really good polling to see. We'll have to wait until voters decide and -- VELSHI: The good thing is we don't have to wait too much because we'll have you there and our whole team, so thank you for that, Dana. Good perspective on this, an important race to follow. This is going to be one of the most important days before the midterm elections. Dana Bash in Little Rock, Arkansas.

All right, I'm going to shift gears a little bit to the hotel business. Not just any hotel, we're talking hotels with a buzz, the "in" place to stay and be seen. Coming up on our "Globe Trekking," the two-man dream team behind a new concept in boutique hotels. If you know anything about hotels, these are two men in the industry -- well, they're titans. I'll introduce you to them when I come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I want to take you to live pictures here. This is Atlanta, this is a federal building on the 700 block of West Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta. It's been evacuated. The all-clear has been issued for that building. There was a suspicious package initially thought to be a grenade. It went through the mailroom, it was X-rayed, bomb squads were called in, K-9 squads, homeland security teams, and our own reporters -- it's just down the road. It has now been given the all-clear. This building contained a Social Security office, a child care center and the IRS offices, but it does appears that everything has been cleared and people are going back into that building. Wanted to just keep you posted on that because we've been telling you about that.

All right, I want to change gears now to hotels. Hotels are often an indicator of how the economy is doing. If there are more hotels being built and room prices are going up, then it means things are going well. And hotels, like airplanes, have to be planned years and years in advance.

I want to introduce you to two men who are known as "The Dream Team of the Hotel Business." You will know these two names. One the left of your screen is Ian Schrager. He's been called the master of the ultra hip hotel. He got his start with the in crowd back in the '70s and '80s, a cofounder of Studio 54 and the Palladium nightclubs. He's got some groundbreaking concepts. In the '80s he created Morgans Hotel, sort of a boutique hotel; urban resorts like the Delano in Miami; cheap chic hotels like London St Martins Lane; and recently fixed up the Gramercy Park Hotel -- the famous Gramercy Park in New York. I mean, you'll know of Ian Schrager hotels all of the world.

On the right -- wow, another hotel legend -- Bill Marriott Jr. the chairman of Marriott Hotels. He has created a broad portfolio of lodging brands. You'll know Marriott, obviously, you'll know the J.W. Marriott, more upscale, Ritz Carlton, the Renaissance brand, Courtyard, others like that. There are more than 3,000 Marriott hotels around the world.

Now four years ago, these two guys who make up hotel dream team formed a partnership and they're going to create a hundred new hotels. They want to take the industry to a new level. They call it really unique lifestyle hotels with great service. The first of these two hotels are opening this year in Hawaii and Istanbul, but they're breaking ground on others in Asia, in Europe, in South America and the United States.

And these two gentlemen are joining me now because I want to tap into them to find out what they know that we don't know as we continue to complain about this economy what they know about the future.

Gentlemen, thank you for being with us.

Bill Marriott, great to see you again. Let me start with you.

J.W. MARRIOTT JR., CHAIRMAN & CEO, MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL: Thank you, Ali.

VELSHI: I always like to ask you where you think the economy is going because you know with 3,000 hotel out there you have your finger on the pulse of the world. Tell me what's going on?

MARRIOTT: Well, we had a great May. Business was up all across the board around the world. A few soft spots in the Middle East and Central America but business has come back. It's not back far enough. We're concerned, of course, about the problems with unemployment being so high and also some of the debt crisis in Europe.

But by and large the business is back, it's coming back strong. It's back in the big cities and back particularly in Asia, and so we're bullish and feel good about the future.

VELSHI: And as you and I have discussed in the past, like airlines hotels can't plan for next quarter or next year. You have got to make plans for the next five, 10, 15, 20, 25 years. So you are embarking on this arrangement with Ian Schrager. You guys started this four years ago, are you still on track? Is it still looking that bullish for you and tourism around the world?

MARRIOTT: Yes, we're excited. Ian brings a real dimension of new thought and new thinking to the business and the Addition Hotels that we're going to be building -- and most of them are outside of the United States. In addition to the two you've mentioned, we're also building one in Bangkok, one in Barcelona and also Mexico City. So we're going to really exotic cities and exciting places and Ian has got this all figured out and has understood a new lifestyle brand hotel that he's developing for us called Addition.

VELSHI: Ian, good to see you again. The Addition is the name of this brand. Most of your hotels, I mean, I'm fans of them, but they're made for people who are skinnier and more stylish than I am. But you are one of these guys who thinks you can bring that kind of style to people who don't otherwise think that they deserve it or can otherwise afford it. You have made this sort of thing assessable.

IAN SCHRAGER, ENTREPRENEUR & HOTEL DESIGNER: Well, it's a huge market and I think everyone has underrated the market for quite some time until Bill realized how big it is. And so it's not only for skinny people, it's for people of all ages, of all dispositions. People on a vacation, business people who want a heightened experience, something unique, something special, something original and I think that just about appeals to everybody.

VELSHI: All right, I want to take a quick break and I want to come back to you and ask you what you put into that design, how you know what's going to work a few years down the road and how you plug that into the economy that you think is going to be playing out while that's happening.

Two titans of the hotel industry, Ian Schrager and Bill Marriott, standing by. We're covering a whole lot of news for you today. Stay with us, you're watching NEWSROOM right here on CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I'm here with the dream team of hotels, Ian Schrager and Bill Marriott. Both of these two gentlemen have been in the hotel business for so long.

I'm going to start with you, Ian. Currencies go up and down, hotel rates go up and down, economies go up and down and trends come and go. So how does a guy like you who has attached his name to hotels that are trendy, how do you know what the trend is going to be? You started four years ago, you're building these hotels, it will be a few years before the hotels are built. How do you know what people want to stay in and what they're prepared to pay for down the road?

SCHRAGER: I like to think that the hotels are really not trendy. I like to think that they are really so original and so provocative and so unlike anything else anybody has ever seen that people will respond to them for those reasons.

And you know, it's something that I feel. I listen to the sounds and see the things that maybe not everybody sees and that goes in my system and it sort of comes out and I try to do something that I myself personally like. And I've been lucky enough my entire life that there are other people out there, lots of other people out there that also like it.

So for me it's a question of executing it well, having original idea, having it be authentic and people respond to that. And I think what's going on now is not so much a certain look but it is sort of a response to a narrow of overdesign and design on steroids as I like to call it. So what I think is very important about design right now is that it's not so rarified and it's not so self-conscious. And I think there's a universal language in having something stylish and that's exactly the kind of vocabulary that Bill and I are trying to accomplish.

VELSHI: I like that. I like that -- not so rarified, not so stylish. So a guy like me who is not overly skinny can feel comfortable there.

Bill Marriott, let's talk about this. You have a large portfolio of hotels at every level that appeal to people. And they're not -- you can stay at a Ritz, you can stay at a J.W. Marriott, it's more upscale, but generally speaking, the appeal of the Marriott brand has been very broad to people all over the world. So where does something like this -- something like this joint venture with Ian Schrager who is known for hipper hotels, how does that fit into your portfolio over the long term?

MARRIOTT: It's great because it's a brand new niche. It's a niche we're not in today, we've never really designed or built lifestyle hotels like Ian is designing for us. And so therefore we're going to pick up a new bunch of customers that have not stayed in our products before. And any time you can take a brand and put it with your other brands and it detracts a whole new group of customers, I think you have a winning proposition.

VELSHI: Bill, later on in the show I'm talking to Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary. He was worried about a double-dip recession because of Europe, "The Economist" was writing about that the other day. You -- again, you have your finger on the pulse. What are you worried about in terms of this recovery and about Europe in particular?

MARRIOTT: We're worried certainly about the unemployment in the United States, and we're worried about the financial stability of big institutions in Europe and the sovereign debt.

However, as far as businesses is concerned, with the euro being so weak, there are going to be an awful lot more Americans traveling to Paris this year and to London and to overseas markets than we've had before and that's good for us. We get a lot of more eastbound into Europe than we do coming this way from Europe. So we're looking for a good strong summer.

VELSHI: All right, gents, good to talk to you. You're legends in the hotel industry. We're looking forward to seeing what you guys do you when you come together on that.

Ian Schrager the chairman and CEO of the Ian Schrager Company and Bill Marriott the chairman and CEO of the Marriott International. Gentlemen, good to see you both.

SCHRAGER: Thank you.

MARRIOTT: Thank you.

Coming up next, latest in this remarkable story of Joran Van Der Sloot. He's allegedly confessed to cops. We'll tell you what he said when we come back.

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VELSHI: Let me get you caught up on the headlines.

It's day 50 of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities say the daily amount of oil being sucked up to the surface has climbed steadily since they put that containment cap over the gushing well. BP says it's collected 1.8 million gallons of oil over the past four days. In Peru, authorities say Joran Van Der Sloot has confessed to killing a 21-year-old woman last week in a hotel room. They say he told them he got enraged when Stephany Flores found some information on his laptop, information that allegedly tied him to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway five years ago. We're going to take you live to Lima, Peru in just a few minutes to try and clear this all up.

In Washington, cautious optimism from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke -- and boy, I mean cautious. At a forum yesterday, Bernanke said he expects the economy to keep recovering but, quote, "it won't feel terrific." He also says the jobless rate will stay high, quote, "for a while." And asked if the economy will slide back into recession Bernanke said nobody knows with any certainty.

We're going to talk about that in a little more detail with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich who thinks that we could slip into a double-dip recession.

All right, we're all about big solutions to big problems. Right now you can't get much bigger than the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in terms of problems. Every day CNN is showcasing innovative ideas to get rid of that oil or stop it from flowing. BP, we hope you're listening. We're coming back with ideas.

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VELSHI: OK. We can't just sit around. It's day 50 of this oil disaster. We can't just sit around and watch. So one of the things CNN is trying to do is trying to solicit those ideas that make sense either to stop that well or clean up the oil, whatever it is. We're going to bring you several of these every day. In fact, we're doing it in place of our "Big 'I'" just to try to bring you as many ideas as we can.

We've got Kraig Shook here, he's with a company called Earthbound and he's got an idea. He joins me from Davey, Florida.

Kraig, welcome to the show. What do you have set up there?

KRAIG SHOOK, EARTHBOUND: Ali, I've got a product called Earthbound Green and it's a component of two natural elements, one that resembles sand, and the other is a food additive called calcium stearate. And you eat the calcium stearate, I could eat it now. I will, actually. And it's a food additive that they use in kosher foods, a lot of foods that we have all over.

And you can see it's on my hands and if I stick it in the water, my hands still come out dry. It's a hydrophobic material, meaning that it hates water but loves hydrocarbons or oils.

Both of these systems float on the water themselves -- right? -- individually, but when they're blended together, they become even more empowered to collect oil. And so as the calcium stearate would absorb the oil, it becomes heavier, and the vermiculite acts as a flotation device, as a lifesaver for it, and then it can be collected through any means.

VELSHI: Would I be right to say that it's kind of like a kitty litter kind of operation to collect the oil?

SHOOK: Correct. You'll see it encapsulates the oil. And we've done numerous processes. All the environmental agencies want to us have it in a boom contained.

VELSHI: Right.

SHOOK: Which will contain the oil and absorb the oil, but it's not as efficient, as cost effective as broadcasting and --

VELSHI: Tell me what would you do here, show me what would you do here.

SHOOK: OK. We'd put oil into the water --

VELSHI: Right.

SHOOK: -- as it's simulated. And this is oil I got last week from the Venice area --

VELSHI: OK.

SHOOK: -- off of Louisiana.

VELSHI: OK.

SHOOK: And when we have the system -- I'll get out of Lou's way here. This is Lou Dennis (ph), my associate.

VELSHI: All right. And he's pouring oil into these --

SHOOK: Yes. This is the oil that we collected last week --

VELSHI: OK.

SHOOK: -- from the system.

VELSHI: OK.

SHOOK: And the way that we're talking about doing it, and that we originally suggested was, as we would broadcast the system across the water. And you can see that it just solidifies. And I have the oil in my hand now, I can bounce it around. It's encapsulated, it can be refined again by BP or whoever wants it. And that we can do it that way. OK?

And then what we have is another means that we've done at the suggestion of BP, the EPA and different methods, is this just an Earthbound baton. And we just stick it in the water and it collects the oil.

VELSHI: Is that baton treated with anything or is it just -- SHOOK: That baton is just a normal everyday fabric that you can buy at any Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace, any garden center, it's really cheap. It's readily available. The problem that we're running into, if you haven't heard, is they can't make enough of the boon fast enough.

VELSHI: Right.

SHOOK: And this material we just noticed yesterday I could have made about seven miles of it --

VELSHI: Right.

SHOOK: -- in a very short amount of time. We have an awful lot of people out of work in America. The ability to make this is very cheap. We've sent pricing to BP, to the different secretaries.

VELSHI: Yes.

SHOOK: To different states, lobbyists. You can see as it's collected, there's no film anymore.

VELSHI: Yes.

SHOOK: And it stays on the system. And once we encapsulate it, I still prefer the broadcast method that I can collect the oil back.

VELSHI: Clump it up.

SHOOK: Yes. And it can be skimmed by the out-of-work shrimpers with modified nets. And so that's what we're looking at. Our main problem seems to be that we can't get any of the environmental commissioners, whether it be Secretary Hatch --

VELSHI: Yes.

SHOOK: -- Secretary Fisher, Secretary Soles (ph), the commissioners from Texas or Director Grumbles (ph) from Alabama to let any new products, whether it be mine or the 20 or 30 other gentlemen and women that I met.

VELSHI: Yes.

SHOOK: So, we're trying to do that.

VELSHI: That's why we're putting these ideas on TV, to see if they can look at them and see whether they work. Kraig, thank you for demonstrating that to us. It looks interesting. I hope that they can use it to clean up some of that oil.

Kraig Shook is with Earthbound joining me from Davey, Florida, part of the selection of ideas that we bring you on CNN to either try to solve the oil spill once it's in the water or clean it up.

The World Cup, only three days away. Let's have that ball. One soccer ball is just like another, right? No, not at all. The players have to have this new ball and contend with it, and some people are mad about it. Who thought a soccer ball could create that much controversy?

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VELSHI: Great balls of fire, this is the World Cup Finals soccer ball. Who would have thought that it would have created so much controversy?

Every few years Adidas makes a new ball. And boy, this is much more scientific than the ball I used to play with when I was a little kid, which was 32 patches of leather. Let me give you some sense of how the World Cup ball has changed this year.

First of all -- Dan (ph), I don't know if you can see this -- there are dimples on my ball that makes it easier to grip if a goaltender needs to get it. The dimples all over this thing.

It's not leather anymore, by the way. These are completely water resistant so they don't get waterlogged during the game.

Over there you can see on the top right there are eight thermal- bonded panel. I don't know what a thermal-bonded panel is. I guess they're heated together. They're not sewn, they're not switched. And there are not 32 of them, there are eight of them. And apparently there are these little grooves here which can reduce -- or reduce lower aerodynamic drag.

So apparently this ball is better for people who when the people kick, put some kind of spin on the ball, put some kind of tilt on the ball. If you just like to kick straight, this isn't great for you. It's causing some kind of controversy. My soccer skills never got anywhere close to understanding the dynamics of why one ball is better than the other. But as you are watching the World Cup, we're going to be bringing you lots of information on it, and this is one of those things that you are going to learn more about.