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No Survivors in Pakistan Crash; Homeownership Lowest in 11 Years; The Unseen Oil; $8.7 Billion Targeted to Rebuild Iraq Missing; Rare Tornado in Montana and Storms Across the Midwest and Southwest; Boston Gym's Fliers Tell Mel Gibson Exercise Reduces Anger and Stress; Portland Police Reopen Investigation into 2006 Sexual Assault Charges Against Al Gore; President to Meet Small Business Owners; The Perils of Porn; Possible Rangel Ethics Settlement; Red Flags at Arlington; Army Impersonation Scam Women
Aired July 28, 2010 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, guys. Thanks so much. Here is what we're working on for you this morning.
A horrific crash in Pakistan. A commercial flight goes down. At least two Americans on board.
Homeownership. Some fresh figures make you wonder is that dream dying? If you want to buy or you're trying to sell, you're going to need to hear this.
And scam artists using pictures of military man, dead or alive, to break your heart. CNN's Special Investigation Unit is on it. What they found out will shock you.
It's 9:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 6:00 a.m. out West. I'm Kyra Phillips. And you're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
And we begin with that developing story out of Pakistan. Two American citizens reportedly among the 152 people onboard a doomed passenger jet that slammed into the hills just outside of Islamabad.
Right now no reports of survivors but crews are working to try and recover as many bodies from the twisted metal scattered across the forest floor. It's grim news but for one father a twist of fate kept him alive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IRSHAD A. KASSIM, WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ON PLANE: It was raining very heavy. And Islamabad always have a problem when it rains. So I just decided that I don't want to take the flight today even though I was booked, I was confirmed.
I'm the father of three daughters. So first thing that I looked at my three daughters' picture, that was the first thing I did after I looked at the television. And I tell you, I'm still very shaken.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIPS: It happened this morning right outside the capital of Islamabad as we mentioned. That's where our Reza Sayah is tracking all the developments.
Now, Reza, you actually saw this plane airborne this morning as you were having your morning coffee?
REZA SAYAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I did. I was having coffee with a friend around 10:00 a.m. All of a sudden this friend said look behind you. I looked behind me and I saw a very low-flying large passenger plane.
What's unusual is that the airport here in Islamabad is the south of the city. But this plane was going north towards the Margalla hills. About 30 minutes later, we had reports of this crash -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Now you heard from this father, Reza, who decided because of the bad weather not to take that flight. I mean, my gosh. And he says he's still shaken about that. But he mentioned how bad of a day it was, how rainy it was.
Do we know why the plane went down? Is it due to bad weather?
SAYAH: At this point officials are warning us that it's too early to reach the conclusions about the weather. Weather has been extremely poor for the past 24, 48 hours. There were heavy downpours this morning. Torrential downpours.
But you've got have to remember, this airplane that crashed, an Airbus 8321, officials telling us it's a plane that's designed to go through much worse weather than we saw this morning.
But officials say they have recovered an item that looks like the black box and that's what's going to determine what caused this crash. It's -- initially government officials told us that there were some survivors in this crash. Unfortunately, they backtracked and they said that's not the case.
At this point, rescue crews are on the Margalla hills. And that's going to be one of the challenges, is getting to this crash site. This is a national park. Very few roads lead up to this crash site.
There are some nature trails and what's been remarkable is we've seen rescue crews even local residents here making their way to the crash scene on foot. And some of the most heart wrenching scenes have been at the airport and at the hospitals where you've seen family members, friends of the passengers, making that difficult wait.
Perhaps clinging to hope that there is some good news. Once again, officials say that there's no sign of survivors at this point -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Reza Sayah, live from Islamabad. Reza, thanks. Well, if you're looking to buy a home or sell your house, you know the painful truth that's no longer the safe investment to get used to. And that leaves us with this morning's headlines.
Ownership rates have plunged the lowest level in more than a decade.
CNN's Carter Evans live in New York to break down the numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau -- Carter?
CARTER EVANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra. So get this. Here is the number of Americans who own their homes. It's 66.9 percent right now. That is the lowest number since 1999.
Now the peak was 69.2 percent in 2004. Doesn't sound like a big difference percentagewise but that is millions and millions of homes. But that was the housing boom back in 2004. Remember that? Money was cheap and it's easy to get.
Now everybody is unemployed. They can't pay their bills. Homes are getting foreclosed on. And they are flooding the market. Nearly 19 million homes were vacant in the second quarter.
And this counts homes for sale and foreclosures. Many people are coping right now by moving in with family or renting. The expiration of first-time homebuyer tax credit is also hurting demand.
For example, new home sales right now, we just found out they're at their second lowest pace on record. Home prices are back where they were in 2003. The bottom line right now is that homeownership is not guaranteed investment it once was.
During the housing boom, you know, many people were looking at their home primarily as an investment. Not a place that they were going to live for 30 years or more. I think that perspective, Kyra, is starting to change again.
I'm trying to sell a place in Los Angeles right now. I got to tell you, it is not easy. It's been on the market for three months. We had one bite. That first-time homebuyer tax credit expiration really hurt things.
PHILLIPS: Yes, I'm in the same position. I'm totally feeling the pain on this one. Well, OK, you've mentioned California. Here in Georgia I'm having a hard time selling my home as well.
If you were to break it down state by state, is there good news anywhere where people seem to be able to purchase homes easier?
EVANS: Yes. Yes. The Midwest has the highest percentage of homeownership right now. Just about 71 percent. The south is next at 69 percent. But the big gap is over in the northeast. Here in the northeast where I am.
Homeownership right now is 64.2 percent. And out in the west, where I'm trying to sell a place, 61.4 percent right now. So why the huge gap? Home prices. They're cheapest in the Midwest and in the south. The average price home in the Midwest right now, $155,000. Out west, the average price for a home, $221,000.
Also the housing bubble burst in the west. And that was huge. That was huge. That's where the most numbers of foreclosures are right now. They're highest in Nevada and Arizona.
And those people are definitely hurting. Home values out there have plunged and they're still not recovering like the rest of the country right now. We just got some information on home prices yesterday that does show a slight increase month-to-month. But some of those areas I mentioned like Nevada and Arizona are still hurting -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Carter Evans, we'll see you closer to the closing bell.
President Obama is going to talk about the economy when he stops in this afternoon at the Tastee Sub Shop at Edison, New Jersey. CNN will bring you that lunchtime business chat. It's at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.
It's SB 1070E, Arizona's tough new immigration law supposed to take effect tomorrow. But first a federal judge must decide if it should be enforced. We should get that decision today.
The Justice Department says that the law violates the U.S. Constitution that immigration policy is Washington's job. Governor Jan Brewer said that that's the problem. Uncle Sam hasn't done the job.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JAN BREWER (R), ARIZONA: We are being invaded by illegal immigration in the state of Arizona. And this is another tool. And we are just helping the feds do their job because they won't do it. The bottom line is that people of Arizona are frustrated.
We shouldn't have to do it. The federal government should be doing it. If they won't, well, the legislature and the people of Arizona overwhelmingly believe that we need to enforce it and help them do their job. And now we're a nation of -- of laws and we hope that those laws will be enforced.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Governor Brewer also stressed that anyone who discriminates while enforcing the law would be punished. Among other things, SB 1070 requires police to question the residency status of people that they stop. Critics fear it will just lead to racial profiling.
Nebraska's immigration law is on hold. It bans people from hiring or renting to illegal immigrants. The city council suspended the law it was supposed to kick in tomorrow. Two civil rights groups are suing the city. They claim the law discriminates. The council wants more time to size up the legal challenges and make sure the city has the money to defend itself in a lawsuit.
A milestone of misery. Day 100 of the Gulf oil disaster. The underwater gusher is stopped but the extent of the damage is still being tallied.
At least three million barrels of oil have spewed into the Gulf. Across the region, thousands of workers have lost their jobs. Tourism has virtually disappeared and wetlands have been damaged.
There is encouraging signs of progress, though. The slicks of oil that once stretched across the Gulf and on to shore have all but disappeared. The amount of skimmers that had once collected 25,000 barrels of oil a day barely managed to collect a single barrel on Monday.
We did a little math, by the way, and the numbers are pretty shocking. It actually averages out to less than a cup of oil recovered by each of the 800 skimmers taking part in that cleanup.
Much of the oil is out of sight just beneath the ocean's surface now. And that threat is obviously still there. It's still on the beaches as well. Even though that may look perceived and unblemished during the day, CNN's Rob Marciano shows us the hidden danger.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICK KIRBY, GEOLOGIST: You can see the sand looks pretty clean to the naked eye.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST (on camera): Yes. But after sunset, things look different. It lights up pretty good.
KIRBY: It does. And as you see, it's pretty much anywhere and everywhere.
MARCIANO (voice-over): Coast geologist Rick Kirby can see the oil at night using an ultraviolet flashlight. Oil particles glow. On the sand and in the water.
KIRBY: Leaves a little line of oily sand right there at the end of the wave runoff and when this dries, in the morning, the wind will pick it up and it will move it.
MARCIANO: Across the beach and everything that lives there.
(On camera): So this is a ghost crab hole, right?
KIRBY: Ghost crab hole. Right.
MARCIANO: And particles of orange oil has ended up all the way down this crab hole just because he was digging his home.
KIRBY: Right.
MARCIANO: So now his home has oil.
(Voice-over): Even at over 100 feet from the water, Rick thinks there might be a lower layer of oil. So we dig a little deeper.
(On camera): This is amazing. It's just like you said. Like stratified layers in the Grand Canyon. It is so distinct. Can you see that on camera? I hope you can because in the naked eye, it is unbelievable. Truly remarkable. That right there is oil underneath the surface of the sand.
(Voice-over): It glows in the dark but just how toxic is this sand?
KIRBY: Is it a problem for us to be in contact this petroleum product that's now mixed with the sand? And the answer to that question is, I don't know.
MARCIANO (on camera): Why hasn't somebody tested that?
KIRBY: Same question I have been asking for about six weeks.
MARCIANO: So we decided to get it tested with the help of the scientists from the University of West Florida.
(Voice-over): Getting a good average requires taking samples in different spots. At different depths.
(On camera): All right. Let's take it back to the lab.
(Voice-over): There Dr. Fred Hileman use as solution to extract the sand. Concentrated and analyze it as a liquid.
FRED HILEMAN, UNIVERSITY OF WEST FLORIDA: You can just take a look at these samples and you can begin to see the difference in them as far as that -- the oil content.
MARCIANO (on camera): It's plain as day.
HILEMAN: Yes.
MARCIANO: Clear water, clear sand. Dirty water, dirty sand.
HILEMAN: Yes. Or contaminated.
MARCIANO (voice-over): Further analysis puts an exact number on that contamination.
HILEMAN: 2.6 parts per million of oil in that sand sample that was given to us.
MARCIANO (on camera): 2.6 parts per million. That number -- what does it mean to people watching at home?
HILEMAN: A, it says the oil was there. B, the oil is there at low levels.
MARCIANO: Possibly healthy or safe levels.
HILEMAN: Not necessarily hazardous levels.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Rob joins us now from Ft. Pickens, Florida. It's hard to believe how much oil is there that you can't even see, Rob.
MARCIANO: Yes. And considering, you know, most of the heavy tarring that we saw a couple of weeks ago has come and gone. You know, that number, 2.6, those scientists think that's -- you know, that's relatively low but the oil certainly is there.
We called it -- the calls into Escambia County, the Health Department, those calls went unreturned. So I can't really put it into context. But safe to say, Kyra, is that the oil that we did find at night and during the day was not here two months ago. And it will take some time before nature's processes get rid of it.
PHILLIPS: Rob Marciano. Thanks.
Money that's supposed to rebuild roads and infrastructure in a war torn country. We're talking about $8.7 billion worth of construction. So where's the cash? Missing. That story next.
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And I'm CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras. Coming up in the NEWSROOM, we'll have pictures of a tornado in Montana earlier this week. Find out just how rare that actually is.
Plus, where the greatest severe weather threat is today. That's coming up after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: $8.7 billion targeted to help rebuild Iraq is now missing. The money is nowhere to be found. A US audit blames, quote, "weakness in the Defense Department's financial and management controls." CNN's Arwa Damon live in Baghdad.
Arwa, how did they lose the money?
ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, I think that's the question that everyone really wants to try to find the answer for. Now, according to this report, $9.1 billion were placed in this fund. This is actually Iraqi money. It's oil revenue, it's surplus leftover from the Oil for Food program.
Now, this fund was initially created by the US in 2003. It managed it with the OK of the UN. But then, in 2004, it handed it over to the Iraqi interim government. At this stage, the Iraqi finance ministry turned to the US for help to manage its money, so that it ended up in the right hands going towards the right projects. Specifically to prevent what we are seeing happening now from taking place. According to this report, $8.7 billion have not been properly accounted for, meaning that the banking was all wrong or the paperwork trail just didn't make sense. Of that, $2.6 billion, there's absolutely no paperwork to substantiate where that money went. Here we have a case where the Iraqis placed their trust in the US, and the US has failed them. And, naturally, that has angered many here and also raised a lot of questions, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Is there any way to track the money at all, Arwa?
DAMON: Well, Kyra, to be honest, I'm really not an expert in that, but presumably that is right now what is being investigated, both by the US and by the Iraqis. But remember, this took place back in 2004 to 2007, with most of the convictions happening in the earlier part of the war. And that was the time when it was really complete chaos here. People were walking around with suitcases full of money, trying to get things done. And billions and billions of dollars went missing. Billions of US dollars went missing back then as well. So it would be very hard to re-create what happened, especially given the chaotic and difficult circumstances here. It does certainly appear that the money is just gone.
PHILLIPS: Arwa Damon. We'll try and track the money trail as you stay on the story. Thanks so much.
Hot and stormy in the Midwest. Not a good combination, Jacqui Jeras.
JERAS: Not so much. Unfortunately that's been kind of the rule, hasn't it? Rather than the exception. There's a storm system which is on the move across the Midwest today. Earlier this week, that same system spawned this tornado in Montana. Take a look at those pictures caught by storm chasers. This was just an incredible tornado, and really rare to happen in this part of the country.
It was an EF-3 tornado with estimated winds around 150 miles per hour. It's one of only three EF-3s ever recorded in the state of Montana, and the deadliest tornadoes since 1923. It did kill two people and damaged several homes across northeastern Montana. It was in a very rural area, by the way.
Now we've had storms this morning across the Midwest. There you can see them rumbling on through. And this line has really fallen apart over the last couple of hours. I know you're so happy about it, because you're so rain-weary here. However, we do expect those thunderstorms to intensify a bit later on this afternoon and into this evening. And some of them could become severe, from Chicago to Indy, to Detroit, up towards Cleveland and even into Buffalo.
Out west, we have a secondary area here of severe weather expected. Some of those thunderstorms that develop could be those dry-type thunderstorms that can spark fires in the area. We do have some moisture, though, across parts of the southwest as that monsoonal flow continues in this area.
And, of course, we're monitoring fire conditions out there across parts of California, where thousands of people have been evacuated and several homes destroyed. We'll have more on the fire coming up in the next hour in THE NEWSROOM. And also, Kyra, something I want to tease, is that some of the best and worst beaches in the country the NRDC, or the National Resources Defense Council has released. We're going to have that coming up in the 10:00 hour. You don't want to miss it.
PHILLIPS: OK, Jacqui, thanks.
It's no secret that exercise can help cut out stress and anger. Wonder if Mel Gibson has heard of that. One sports club is actually looking to bank his infamous rants. Would it motivate you to hit the gym?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the air, the spill appears massive.
WOLF (on camera): Yes, you can definitely see it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those are skimmers and booms trying to recover oil.
WOLF (on camera): Even from this height, there's plenty to see. At the surface, there's a little bit of a rainbow-like sheen. And much of that is going to be burned away by the sun's rays. But there's also a thicker layer of crude oil in places. And all of that's going to have to be skimmed away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Checking top stories. No survivors in a plane crash near Islamabad, Pakistan. The US embassy says that two Americans are among the 152 people on board. The plane was trying to land in a heavy rainstorm.
How do you lose $8.7 billion? That money was supposed to help rebuild Iraq, but it's now missing. A US audit blames, quote, "weakness in the Defense Department's financial and management controls."
A milestone that no one's celebrating. Day 100 of the Gulf oil disaster. The gusher's stopped, but the damage is still being tallied. And get this. All those skimmers that had been taking in 25,000 barrel of oil a day? They barely managed to collect a single barrel on Monday.
Hardcore pornography. Millions of graphic images on the internet and just a mouse click away. That may be reshaping hour our men view sex and women. Our AM Extra, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Let's go cross-country now. A pair of wildfires on the move in southern California. This home among the dozens swallowed by flames, forcing hundreds of evacuations. The other wildfire is tearing across Sequoia National Forest. It prompted governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to actually declare a state of emergency.
To Chicago, where jurors will star deliberating the fate of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. He's accused of trying to trade or sell a Senate seat. Final argument from Blago's defense attorney possibly will come today. The ex-governor may not be the, quote, "sharper knife in the drawer but he's not corrupt."
And in Boston, a local gym has a message for Mel Gibson. Exercise reduces stress and anger. The Boston sports club is trying to cash in on the celebrity's mad rants. And the fliers have potential customers chuckling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, advertising exploits people's problems.
(laughter)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's pretty funny.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's great.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good to pick on Mel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: If Gibson does opt to hop on the treadmill, the club is offering him two months free membership.
Former vice president Al Gore facing new questions in a sexual assault case. The Portland Police Bureau interviewed Gore last week after reopening an investigation into claims that he tried to sexually assault a massage therapist. CNN affiliate KATU quotes a law enforcement source who says Gore sat down with investigators last week. Police aren't talking, and a Gore spokesperson had no comment. A massage therapist says that Gore repeatedly groped her and made sexual advances during a 2006 session. Police initially concluded there wasn't enough evidence to file charges, but reopened the case earlier this month.
After several days of gains, the Dow expected to dip lower today. Opening bell just minutes away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Dow Industrials coming off four straight days of gains, but that may be where the streak ends. Today, we're actually expecting a lower open. Investors are bit nervous because orders for durable goods fell last month. These are orders for big ticket items, everything from home appliances to airplanes. That drop shows people in companies aren't buying and that actually hurts the economy. Taking a look at the early numbers, well, we'll go to the big board. The bell just rang. We'll take a look at the Dow Industrials in just a second.
All right. President Obama will talk economy when he stops this afternoon at the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, New Jersey. The president is actually going to be meeting with a group of small business owners. He plans to discuss to have a small business legislation that the Senate is expected to vote on this week to help businesses like theirs grow and hire some more workers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Work, you stupid thing. I wonder who that could be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. I'm here to fix the TV.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come this way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: I promise there's nothing wrong with your TV. This is still CNN, not the adult pay-per-view channel. But we did want to get your attention. Hopefully it worked. You know, porn has changed a lot of things since those laughable cheesy skin flicks of a generation ago. As any analyst can tell you, hard-core porn is now just a mouse click away, and that is reshaping American society. One college professor has studied the impact of hard-core porn over the past 30 years. She says that there is a good chance, you know, at least one household that's now paying the price for it.
That's the focus of our "A.M. Extra." The professor shared her findings earlier on CNN's "American Morning." John Roberts joins us now with some of the startling claims on marriage, divorce, and changing the way men think about women.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Raising a whole new generation of young men, teenagers through -- into their 20s, that look at sex at a completely different way than previous generations have. Her name is Gail Dines. She's a professor at Wheelock University up there in Massachusetts. She's looked at the idea. We got 4.2 million pornographic websites, 420 million pornographic web pages, 68 million searches on the internet for porn every day. She says the new level and increasing level of brutality and cruelty is changing the way that men think about women and the both men and women think about themselves.
And with the average age of a person's first exposure to pornography being 11 years old, she says that young people are taking away an indelible and twisted image of what sex is really like. Here's what she says it's like to these people now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PROF. GAIL DINES, SOCIOLOGY & WOMEN STUDIES, WHEELOCK UNIVERSITY: Sex is something you do to women, and it's something you do as way to debase them and to humanize them. Sex is completely stripped of any intimacy, of any connection, of any relationship, and basically, it's just an act. It's instrumentally orientated. And most importantly, as I say, there's no connection or intimacy. ROBERTS: Right. So, that prevents them or gives them more difficulty as they grow up in their 20s and 30s of forming intimate relationships with a single partner?
DINES: There's no question. This is what the studies are finding now. That the more men view pornography, the more difficult it is to actually have sex with a human being. The more difficult it is to have intimate relationships. And I've interviewed men who tell me that they actually prefer to have -- to use pornography than they do to have sex with another person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: All right. So, all of that is pretty surprising. As is this statistic comes from a study from the Matrimonial Lawyers Association, 52 percent of divorces cite one partner's excessive use of internet porn as a reason why they can't stay together, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: So, what's the porn industry saying about all of this? Because the -- the survey that she did or the findings that she put together definitely not positive at all.
ROBERTS: No. The porn industry is looking to make money, but the problem that she talks to producers and purveyors of pornography, some of whom have gotten out of the business because they don't want to talk when they're still in the business, but they say, they don't know where to go next. That the demands are increasing for extreme hard-core pornography and to go even further down that road. So, it was opposed to things getting better, you can imagine it is only going to get worse. And with pornography being such a lucrative business on the internet, it's expected that it's only going to expand.
So, what's the solution, she says? You got to treat this like a public health issue. That there has to be counter education to say to young people today what you see on the internet is not representative of what human sexuality is supposed to be all about. And this is not the way to treat women.
PHILLIPS: Yes. It's the last thing you want young men believing and, you know, taking their inspiration from, so to speak. John, thanks.
Scammers pretending to be U.S. servicemen deployed overseas looking for love and money. CNN's special investigation coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This should be the peak of the oyster season, but when I went to Stan Wright's oyster processing business, I found out these are the last of the oysters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you look at -- it'll probably the last product until this all starts to get cleaned up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long is that going to be?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. It could be weeks, months, or years. I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Checking top stories. A milestone that no one celebrating. Day 100 of the Gulf oil disaster. The gusher has stopped, but the damage is still being tallied. And get this, all those skimmers that had been taking in 25,000 barrels of oil a day, they barely managed to collect a single barrel on Monday.
If you're looking to buy a home or sell your house, you know the painful truth. It's no longer the safe investment it used to be. According to the Census Bureau of Ownership, rates have plunged to the lowest level in 11 years.
It's SB-1070 eve. The Arizona's tough new immigration law supposed to take effect tomorrow, but first, a federal judge must decide if it should be forced. We should get that decision today.
Soul singer, Al Goodman, who sang on such hits as "Love on a Two Way Street" and "Special Lady" has died. Fellow musician tells CNN that Goodman died Monday at the age of 63. He was a member of the R&B group the moments which formed in the 1960s. Why don't we go ahead and take you back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): In the late 1970s, the group changed its name to Ray Goodman and Brown. Details on Goodman's cause of death have not been released, but his funeral is planned for Monday in Englewood, New Jersey.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Veteran House Democrat, Charlie Rangel, confirms that his lawyers are discussing a possible settlement in his ethics scandal. The deal would avoid a public hearing this week. There are no details on the negotiations, but House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, says that it's up to Rangel to decide whether to resign. Rangel is accused of failing to disclose personal income and other ethics violations.
Queen of Soul and the former Secretary of State making beautiful music together to raise funds for charity. Condoleezza Rice is a classically trained pianist. She was at the Keyboards in Philadelphia last night as Aretha Franklin belted out some of her most soulful tunes. They were performing to raise money for urban children and to raise awareness about the importance of the arts. Let's listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: The diva and the diplomat. What a duet. No word on how much money they raised, but we'll follow up.
Scammers pretending to be U.S. servicemen deployed overseas looking for love and money. A special investigation coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A BP training center in Houma, Louisiana, hastily converted into the headquarters of the massive effort to battle an environmental disaster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been a lot of amenities including (INAUDIBLE) people 24 hours a day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it's where Admiral Thad Allen spends a good part of his life nowadays.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This water is thick (INAUDIBLE) going on in this place. You will be astounded when you go here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is where all the government agencies involved in the oil disaster response come together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: It's not easy to serve our country. Two wars, climbing suicide rates, PTSD, careless VA hospitals, that have put lives in jeopardy, homelessness. The heart wrenching list goes on and on. But those are problems just for the living.
Yes. Even our fallen heroes can't catch a break. Urns dumped into piles of dirt, graves with the wrong remains, unmarked plots, tomb stones lying in the bottom of a stream. A paper cataloging system that worked great during the Civil War but is hopelessly dated some 150 years and 300,000 graves later.
All of this here at Arlington National Cemetery; probably the most sacred of the sacred burial grounds in our nation, a shameful disservice to our honored dead. Senators are looking into this now. But why is it taking so long?
One report says the problems were red-flagged five years ago but nothing was ever done. It also says that the Army has wasted millions of dollars trying to computerize Arlington's burial records so we know who's even buried there. That oversight from the military higher-ups was pretty much nonexistent.
Now a Senate panel wants to talk with Arlington's long-time superintendent and his number two guy. They retired just this month.
The question will be does the sloppy carelessness amount to fraud? Talk about the most unjust reward for sacrifice. There is much more ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM. Let's check in with our team of reporters to see what they're working on.
Let's begin with Jacqui Jeras.
JERAS: Hey Kyra, the big question people want to know today. How clean is your beach? A new detailed report tells us the best and the worst plus what kind of an impact the oil spill had on the Gulf Coast beaches. That's coming up in the next hour.
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: And get this, we met a guy that gets paid to smoke pot. We're not kidding. In the next hour we're going to introduce you to one of the first ever medical marijuana critics in the country.
That's straight ahead.
PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks, guys.
And here is a story that will have you talking. A Christian grad student told to get onboard with gay sensitivity training or get out.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not willing to and I know I can't change my biblical views.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: It's a Bill of Rights fight that's putting a counselor-in-training against her university. We're tackling this from all angles coming up in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.
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PHILLIPS: They used photos of soldiers stolen off the Web to create fake profiles of eligible bachelors on a host of different dating Web sites. The scammer's goal: to lure women into falling in love only to dupe them out of money in the end.
CNN has confirmed that it's happening to everyone from foot soldiers all of the way up to generals at the Pentagon.
Special investigations unit correspondent, Abbie Boudreau is here to tell us about how horrible of a scam this is. And that's heart breaking.
ABBIE BOUDREAU, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT: And most of these people don't even realize that their photos are being used. Many of them are stationed overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan and they just have no clue that their images are being used by imposters.
The U.S. military does know about the scam but so far nothing has been done to stop it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOUDREAU (voice-over): These are the faces of soldiers whose military photos have been stolen and posted on Internet dating sites.
This is Specialist Brian Browning. His picture was also stolen and his profile completely made up.
(on camera): We came to Astoria, Oregon to talk to his family because they had no idea that Brian's photograph was being used by some impostor.
PERRY BROWNING, BRIAN BROWNING'S FATHER: Some scumbag is using my son's good name and honor to pillage women.
BOUDREAU (voice-over): What's worst, the Brownings' son is not even around to defend himself. Brian Browning was killed in Iraq three years ago.
BROWNING: He was up in a guard tower. He just took a round and it killed him instantly, and -- can we stop for a minute?
BOUDREAU: Sure, yes.
STACEY CHAPMAN, SCAM VICTIM: Just seeing a photo of a man in uniform. I really think that was the only thing that kind of grabbed me.
BOUDREAU: In what small town in Indiana, Stacey Chapman lived as a single mom. She says she was lonely and looking for love when she was approached online by a man who called himself Christian Browning. He used Brian Browning's military photo as his profile picture.
CHAPMAN: Soldiers have that ethic about them. They're all American. They have passion. And I thought, wow, I've got everything wrapped up in one package.
BOUDREAU: Instantly she fell for him. They talked on the phone, chatted on line and e-mailed constantly.
CHAPMAN: "I want to see you walk down that aisle and I want take your hand for the rest of my life." I found someone that wanted me and my children.
BOUDREAU (on camera): So she sent him more than $1,000 to try to give him enough money to come home to the States for Christmas. Of course, she had no idea at the time that that's not how the military works.
(voice-over): He never came home. It was all a fraud.
In fact, in the past year, the Army Criminal Investigation Command has received hundreds of complaints of such scams. But since U.S. soldiers are not the perpetrators, there's not much the Army can do.
(on camera): We had to come to this tiny town in central Texas to actually find somebody who is trying to do something to stop this scam. The military hasn't been able to do much to try to stop it and neither has the FBI so we're about to meet C.J. Grisham.
These are the soldiers whose pictures have essentially have been stolen.
C.J. GRISHAM, MILITARY BLOGGER: Right, yes and there's hundreds of them all over the place.
BOUDREAU: Grisham is a military blogger, a Master Sergeant in the Army who tracks these elusive impostors.
GRISHAM: They'll send these beautiful missives to the women and --
BOUDREAU: Make them feel special --
GRISHAM: -- make them feel special and there are even instances where the scammers will send flowers and chocolates to their house; shortly after, they start bring up the fact that they need money to be able to call them or to use the Internet or, you know, I just got shot and I need this or that.
There is no such person as Irwin Kelley in the military.
BOUDREAU (voice-over): Grisham says there may be thousands of victims and the imposters likely live in West Africa, based on some of the e-mails he's tracked.
Stacey Chapman was never able to find her online impostor and likely never will.
CHAPMAN: I really sunk a lot into this man. I let my kids get sucked in by him. I put everything I had into him.
BOUDREAU: What do you think about the woman who fell in love with your son's picture and profile? She wanted to marry him.
BROWNING: Well, she fell in love with a nice picture of a young man. He was worth falling in love with.
BOUDREAU: Who is the real Brian?
BROWNING: A loving son, caring, funny character. This is a room for Brian.
BOUDREAU: This is the photo. See how it has your last name right there, Browning. That's how they stole his identity.
BROWNING: That's the name tag. That is the name tag right there. So just know, scum bag out there, the Brownings are looking for you hard.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: So whatever happened to Brian's photo, and was it removed from the dating Web site?
BOUDREAU: Well, we think that it has been removed from certain dating Web sites but we just learned unfortunately that his military photo has popped up on Facebook using a fake profile. His family is so upset about this. They want their son to be able to rest in peace --
PHILLIPS: That's totally disrespectful.
BOUDREAU: -- just leave him alone.
PHILLIPS: It's completely disrespectful.
How do individuals know if they're actually talking to a real soldier or not?
BOUDREAU: Well, there are some warning signs that you can look for. A lot of these scammers have poor grammar and misspellings all over their e-mail. Some of them even have British accents. And if they're asking you to send them money to come back home or they've been hurt and they need to go to a better hospital or for Internet or phone service, just don't believe them. Just, you now, just don't believe.
Another test you can do is ask them to send you an e-mail from their military account and if they refuse to do that --
PHILLIPS: Then you know.
BOUDREAU: -- that's a big red flag because they're allowed to do that.
PHILLIPS: yes, it's a great point.
BOUDREAU: We have a ton of more information on our Web site, CNN.com. So hopefully people check it out if they have questions.
PHILLIPS: It was a sad but it was an incredibly informative story that needed to be told. Thanks Abbie.
BOUDREAU: Yes. Thanks.
PHILLIPS: All right.
