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Arrest in Alleged Bomb Plot; Private Craft on Historic Flight; Justice for an Afghani Girl Whose Husband Cut Off Her Ears & Nose; New Video of American POW; Magic Wallets; Ambulance Eyes; Democrats Fume Over Tax Deal; Crushing the Ice; Crash Paralyzes Man, Dog Saves Him
Aired December 08, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Don, thanks very much. Have a great afternoon.
As Don said, I'm Ali Velshi, with you for the next two hours.
Here's what I got on the rundown:
What goes up must come down. You are looking at the future of space exploration. The Dragon is prepping for reentry at this very moment. We will follow its progress.
Plus, we told you about this yesterday. A healthy 16-year-old boy dead on the impact of a baseball. How did it happen? Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us with critical information.
And how a chance meeting at a Starbucks may have kicked lawmakers into high gear. Ed Henry will have that in "The Stakeout."
But, breaking news first. We're getting word of an arrest in Maryland in a possible plot to blow up a military recruiting station.
Let's go straight to homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve, who has more on this in Washington.
What have you got, Jeanne?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Ali, this individual described as a 21-year-old Muslim convert was arrested this morning in Maryland. The allegation is that he wanted to blow up a military recruiting station in Catonsville, Maryland. But law enforcement was on to him. They provided him with an inert device. When he tried to detonate it this morning, he was taken into custody. He is expected to make a court appearance at 2:00 this afternoon.
Now, according to a law enforcement source, authorities became wise to this individual back in October when somebody alerted them to some suspicious Facebook postings. While he was being observed, according to this law enforcement source, he tried to recruit three other members of the public to his plot. They all rebuffed him. One, in fact, told him to drop this idea of waging jihad, or so the law enforcement source says.
In addition, we're told that an undercover FBI operative on several occasions offered this individual several chances to back out of this plot, and he refused to do so. The plot, we are told, was his idea. These are the allegations from the government.
Now, the Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was speaking to the press a short time ago. She refused to comment on the specifics of this case but did comment on the use of stings like this to catch terror suspects. Here is what she said: "Stings are part and parcel of the tool box law enforcement must have and must employ, particularly in this type of terrorist environment. And so, there are rules that govern them, and they're done very carefully. And the FBI abides by those rules. Law enforcement abides by those rules. But they are an important tool to have."
Law enforcement and the secretary clearly very sensitive to allegations that they may have engaged in some kind of entrapment here. They are pushing back very hard, saying, in this instance, that was not the case. The allegation is that this was this individual's idea and that he pursued it and refused to give it up.
Ali, back to you.
VELSHI: Right. And I guess the question behind that, Jeanne, is would these people have been able to go forward with what their ideas might be if -- without the involvement of law enforcement, without the involvement of the FBI?
MESERVE: Well, I did have one law enforcement source tell me this morning that this was a serious matter, that the feeling was that this individual had succeeded in recruiting others, that he may have achieved some success.
VELSHI: Sure.
MESERVE: That will be the argument that law enforcement is likely to make in court in an hour's time, Ali.
VELSHI: All right. You'll stay on top for it for us. Jeanne Meserve, thanks very much. Jeanne Meserve, our national security correspondent.
Well, it is called the DREAM -- the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, DREAM, if you will, to its supporters; outrage to enemies. It's a gateway to U.S. citizenship for young people who weren't born in the U.S. but have never known any other home. It would put to rest America's long and painful immigration debate, but it could have global impact if the supporters that you see here can sway lawmakers who cast do or die votes maybe as early as today.
Here's what you need to know. The measure covers illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before the age of 16, typically in the arms of their parents, and who lived in the U.S. for at least five years. To qualify for eventual citizenship, they'll have to graduate from high school or get a GED, an equivalency diploma, and go to the college -- I'm sorry, and go on to college or join the military. They'll also have to pass a criminal background check. Now, the Obama administration says DREAM would strengthen the military and strengthen the economy. That's their quote. Republican opponents call it mass amnesty. And the votes at this point could go either way. Whatever happens, you'll hear about it first right here on CNN.
OK. Our sound effect is an echo from late July when a bill to cover health care costs for 9/11 rescue and recovery workers came up short in the House. Now, today, that same measure faces a cloture vote in the Senate. Sixty votes needed to move to a final vote in the waning days of this 111th Congress.
It's called the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Bill, named for an NYPD detective who worked amid the ruins of the World Trade Center, then died of respiratory failure at the age of 34. Now, the House did approve the bill in September, but when a procedural move blocked it in July, one of its most passionate supporters could hardly contain his disgust.
We brought it to you then. I want you to hear once again, back in July, New York Democrat Anthony Weiner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: We see it in the United States' Senate every single day where members say, "We want amendments, we want debate, we want amendment, but we're still a no." And then we stand up and say, "Oh, if only we had a different process we'd vote yes."
You vote yes if you believe yes. You vote in favor of something if you believe it's the right thing. If you believe it's the wrong thing, you vote no.
We are following a procedure --
REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: Will the gentleman yield?
WEINER: I will not yield to the gentleman and the gentleman will observe regular order. The gentleman will observe regular order.
The gentleman speaks to you and gets up and yells, thinking he's going to intimidate people into believing he's right. He is wrong! The gentleman is wrong! The gentleman is providing cover for his colleagues, rather than doing the right thing!
It's Republicans wrapping their arms around Republicans, rather than doing the right thing on behalf of the heroes. It is a shame! A shame!
If you believe this is a bad idea, to provide health care, then vote no. But don't give me the cowardly view that, "Oh, if it was a different procedure" -- the gentleman will observe regular order and sit down!
(END VIDEO CLIP) VELSHI: And that was New York Representative Anthony Weiner. The gentleman he was referring to was Republican Peter King, also from New York, who actually supported the bill but had a number of colleagues in the Republican caucus who didn't.
This bill is expected to cost around $7 billion over 10 years. Its prospects in the Senate are cloudy at best. We will keep you posted on the vote.
OK. Now, we're going outside the Beltway, way outside the Beltway actually. As we speak, a capsule named Dragon is 185 miles above the Earth, delivered by a rocket named Falcon. It is preparing for reentry less than an hour from now when it will splash down in the Pacific. It will make a very big splash indeed. That's today's two at the top.
CNN's John Zarrella is at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This capsule, this rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, but you're at Kennedy Space Center. Tell us about this. This is a fascinating piece of history today, John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you used the right word, Ali. Absolutely, this is a historic event. Commercial company SpaceX launching their Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon capsule on top. The plan is to have that Dragon capsule orbit the earth two times.
And in about an hour from now, if all goes well, it will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, about 500 miles off of Mexico. You know, I've got to tell you, they actually sent some photos out. I think we have one of them taken out the window.
Now, there's no people on this.
VELSHI: Right.
ZARRELLA: It's just a capsule being autonomously, you know, controlled from the ground. They sent out a picture that was taken out the window of this Dragon as it circled the Earth.
And, you know, Ali, as you're well aware, this is historic because a commercial company has never, ever successfully launched a space capsule and returned it safely to Earth. Only five nations in the world have ever done that before. And this is the precursor to companies like SpaceX taking cargo and eventually taking humans to the International Space Station into low earth orbit, doing that so that NASA can move on, taking the funds that would have been tied up doing that stuff --
VELSHI: Right.
ZARRELLA: -- taking that money and eventually getting us out to the asteroids and onto Mars -- Ali.
VELSHI: So in other words, John, it's the idea that we're going to commercialize the transport business, the transport into space business, and NASA can get back into bigger exploration.
ZARRELLA: Yes. What NASA does best and has always done best, whether it was Apollo or even flying shuttles, this remarkable lifting body that did tremendous things, and because all of the people -- when I interviewed Elon Musk, who's the CEO of SpaceX, he said, look -- he said, it's the same thing that happened in aviation, and it's time now for the commercial companies, for our company, for orbital sciences, other companies, for Branson out in New Mexico who wants to fly tourist in a year up on short two-hour flights to weightlessness, it's time for us to start doing those things, he said, so that NASA can get on with doing what it does best.
And he said to me, he said, look, if I was in this to make a lot of money, I wouldn't be doing space flights because, you know, it's still a very risky proposition to see how many customers are ultimately going to be out there --
VELSHI: Sure.
ZARRELLA: -- whether it's for Branson, you know, at $200,000 a flight, or whether it's for SpaceX, you know, taking supplies and putting satellites into orbit, those kinds of things.
VELSHI: All right. We'll check in with you in less than an hour. We're expecting this capsule into the mid-Pacific, hopefully in good shape. We'll check in.
John Zarrella on the story for us.
The latest twist in the WikiLeaks' Julian Assange drama: a group of Internet activists says it's operation payback time. The group is expanding its cyber campaign against companies and individuals seen as anti-Assange. It comes as the WikiLeaks founder cools his heels in British custody, arrested on a Swedish warrant.
Anyway, after hitting PayPal, a Swedish bank, and Swedish prosecutors, these pro-Assange hackers say they've targeted MasterCard because it severed its ties with WikiLeaks. They've had its corporate Web site down for hours. This is the corporate, the company's Web site, not the transaction site of MasterCard.
The company issued this statement, quote, "MasterCard is experiencing heavy traffic on its external corporate Web site, MasterCard.com. We are working to restore normal speed of service." This is called a denial of service attack, which means they use computers to get to a Web site, just keep on going to that Web site, overwhelming its servers.
The quote continues from MasterCard, "There is no impact whatsoever on our cardholders' ability to use their cards for secure transactions."
And a Tennessee Christian college has managed to tick of students, faculty, and at least one major donor. It all started last week when the Belmont University women's soccer team learned its coach could be leaving. The administration says it was a mutual decision, but players say it was resign or be fired -- after the coach told the team that she and her female partner were going to be new moms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERICA CARTER, BELMONT SOCCER PLAYER: She basically explained that they told her word for word, because of her morals and values and her decision, it conflicted with Belmont's morals and values. And so, she could no longer be an employee at Belmont University.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: According to the chairman of the school's board of trustees, quote, "We do adhere to our values as a Christ-centered, and we don't want to take apologies for that," end quote.
And South Carolina's infamous, now outgoing governor, has a pretty interesting take on his final year and a half in office. Mark Sanford says the sex scandal that made him a political pariah actually made him a better governor. He thinks his spectacular crash-and-burn led Republican rivals to stop taking pot shots at him and focus on real issues. Term limits mean Sanford's last day in office is January the 14th.
Well, he was captured by the Taliban 18 months ago. Now, a new video shows U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl looking gaunt and tired. A live report from the Afghan capital Kabul right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Now to the war in Afghanistan. A new video has surfaced of American prisoner of war, Bowe Bergdahl. You will recall the Army specialist was captured in June of last year after disappearing from his combat outpost in southeastern Paktika province.
We don't know when this new video was shot. It was released by a group associated with the Taliban. A family spokesman says Bergdahl's parents confirmed the young man in the video is their son. The Taliban previously released a video of Bergdahl back in April.
CNN's Nic Robertson joins us from Kabul for more on this developing story.
Nic, what do we know about this?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ali, it's very few seconds of video, so it's very difficult to tell exactly when it was shot or even where it was shot. Bowe Bergdahl is seen looking very thin, looking tired. His hair is cut quite short. He's clean shaven. There's almost a cut on the side of his face, as if he's been hit or just roughly shave.
The last pictures were released of (ph) him by (ph) the Taliban were in April earlier this year. His hair was longer. He had a beard at that time. So his appearance has changed. What's different here as well, for the first time, we see him outside in this sort of wooded, mountain like terrain. And that's a clue here as to when this video may have been short because he's wearing local clothing, summery local clothing. It's cold in the mountains right now, so it seems unlikely this picture would have been taken recently. But again, that's hard to tell.
The other question, where was it taken? He's been believed to be taken by people belonging to the Hikani (ph) network, part of the Taliban structure. Some people believe he may have been taken across the border into Pakistan. Certainly the other pictures on the videotape seem to support the fact that he could be close to the border.
What it actually says on the tape about him is very, very little. It says he is alive with the Islamic emirate and he has all Islamic rights. So what that tells us is the Taliban, the Islamic emirate, say that he is alive and with them and that he's been treating to their kind of justice, Ali.
VELSHI: All right. And is there some meaning behind why they would be releasing this tape? What's the context behind why they would be doing that?
ROBERTSON: This tape is more of a sort of a suicide martyrs tape that these Taliban groups put out routinely because they have so many martyrs, so many young brainwashed kids coming from madrasas (ph), often in Pakistan, other parts of the world, and then blowing themselves up in Afghanistan. They make a tribute video in all of them. And this is another one of those tribute video.
Why have they put Bowe Bergdahl in it? Well, it's come from a group that's believed to have him. The senior Hikani commander that's seen there with him is a known senior Taliban operator. Perhaps he just wants to be seen flaunting his wares, what he's got. Bowe Bergdahl, if you will, is a high prized get for the Taliban. So it's really not clear why he's in this tape at all, Ali.
VELSHI: All right. Well, if you get any more information, you'll share it with us.
Nic Robertson, our senior international correspondent in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Are you looking for a way to keep more money in your pocket? Well the answer to this might be a magic wallet. I'm not kidding about this. You've got to see it. I'll show it to you in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. So everybody wants more money. There are a couple of ways you can do this. You can either control your spending or you can lock your wallet, which has your credit cards and your money in it. An MIT designer has created a series of wallets to help you control your spending. Christine Romans, my co-host of "Your Money," joins me in New York.
It's nice, Christine, to not have some high level, big faluting (ph) political discussion to -- political economic discussion to have. This one's quite simple -- new wallets. CHRISTINE ROMANS, CO-HOST, "YOUR MONEY": It's come to this, Ali. It has come to this. You need a wallet that squeezes closed if you don't have any money in it. Or you need a wallet that buzzes you very loudly when you're spending an awful lot of money to remind you, oh, yes, by the way, there might not be enough money in the bank.
Let me tell you what those MIT scientists have come up with, Ali. And I'll tell you, it's called Tangible Interface for Financial Awareness. That's the highfaluting socioeconomic talk that they use. Because apparently, you know, because money is digital, we all can't feel it and see it any more so we need --
VELSHI: Sure.
ROMANS: Something that's called haptic (ph) awareness to make us know when we're running out of money.
VELSHI: Haptic awareness. OK.
ROMANS: So let's start with the buzzing. The bumblebee wallet. It is a wallet that uses blue tooth technology, talks to your banks and can see all these transactions. It's in your pocket. It literally buzzes a little big if you go to Starbucks and charge something. It buzzes a lot if you make a big mortgage payment with your credit card or use it to buy something bigger. And so that is the bumblebee that lets you know when you're spending money so you can actually stop for a second and think about your financial situation.
VELSHI: OK. That's -- that's all right.
ROMANS: Then there's one that's hard to open.
Yes, it makes sense. A cattle prod is what some people need or maybe a 10,000 volt shock.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: But then there's the mother bear. This one puts its arms around your money to protect it. That's what they say, the wallet protects the money within it, making it difficult to open so that you -- when you need to be thrifty. So the mother bear has some kind of a hinge that keeps it closed. It's hard to get it open to pry out the credit cards.
And then there's the peacock. This one, the peacock actually, Ali, gets bigger when there's more money in it and smaller when there's not a lot of money in it so that you can feel the representation of what your financial scenario is.
VELSHI: That's the old -- right, that's the old fashioned way of doing it, right? You had a lot of money in your wallet or in your pocket, there was that bulge. And when there wasn't, the wallet was quite slim. So, something for everybody in there.
ROMANS: There's something for everyone in there. And this proverbial wallet, as the MIT researchers say, is, of course, just a concept. But the whole idea is giving people an artificial financial common sense, because we can't see the money, we can't feel the money and there's all this stuff coming in and out. Everything is digital. And, there you go, so the wallet actually telling you where you stand.
VELSHI: Which one would you pick?
ROMANS: Buzzing you, getting bigger or smaller or not opening.
VELSHI: Which one would you like?
ROMANS: I like the buzz.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: But I think, you know, people don't realize, you'd be buzzing all the time because you have automatic bill pay --
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: You have all this stuff going on, right? You'd be just buzzing all the time. But I think that that's a good reminder of how much money is coming out of your wallet, quite literally, when you're buzzed every time something is coming out of your bank account.
VELSHI: It is empty.
ROMANS: I think -- look, I think it's -- I never knew what haptic -- I never knew what haptic feedback -- haptic feedback is what it is. I didn't know what that was before, but now I do. There you go.
VELSHI: Well, I also think this may be an interesting idea for parents trying to teach their kids who don't live in a world where paper money is as important about spending. I don't know. Interesting idea.
Christine, good to see you, as always. Good to have a fun topic to discuss with you once in a while.
ROMANS: Which kind would you -- which kind would you have, Ali? Which kind would you have?
VELSHI: I would also take the buzzer. I like the buzzer. I think that one works well. I like the constant sensory overload of information.
ROMANS: All right. We both like the buzz.
VELSHI: All right, Christine, good to see you.
You can watch Christine and me on Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Sundays at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. We have a particularly full show for you this weekend on "Your Money." Christine is also the author of "Smart Is The New Rich" on bookshelves now with some remarkable, remarkable ideas to take advantage of the economic situation that we have right now and make yourself more prosperous.
OK. Let me bring you up to speed with some of the latest developments at CNN. A Baltimore man is set to appear in court next hour on charges of plotting to bomb a military recruiting station. Federal authorities arrested the 21-year-old suspect hours ago. He's described as someone who converted to Islam and is upset that the military continues to kill Muslims. CNN will have a crew at the courthouse and we'll keep you updated.
A critical vote is set for tonight in the Senate on "don't ask, don't tell." Democrats hope to repeal the Pentagon policy that bans gays from serving openly in the military. It's one of the major pieces of legislation that they are pushing for in the final days of this lame duck Congress, but the measure is unlikely to pass.
CNN learned a short time ago that a private and a funeral service will be a private -- a private funeral service will be held this Saturday in Raleigh, North Carolina, for Elizabeth Edwards. The wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards died yesterday after a prolonged battle with cancer. She'll be buried next to her son, Wade, who died in a car accident as a teen. Elizabeth Edwards was 61 years old.
President Obama picks up his pen today to give billions to black farmers. How did a chance encounter at a Starbucks get the ball rolling? Our Ed Henry is standing by to explain in the stakeout.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Emergency room doctors may soon be able to virtually hitch a ride in an ambulance and bring critical care to patients even before they reach the hospital. Gary Tuchman has this potentially lifesaving story in this week's "Edge of Discovery."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Headed for Cincinnati's Children's Hospital is an ambulance loaded with high def video conference technology so that what you see here inside the vehicle is what doctors see in the hospital's critical care unit, like in this practice run. Part of a pilot program, this technology is currently being used in the transport of premature infant ins incubators.
DR. HAMILTON SCHWARTZ, CINCINNATI CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: For the first time, physicians can see what they need to see with their own eyes and trust their own judgment that the care that they're directing is right for that patient.
TUCHMAN: A transport AV computer is mounted onto the patient's stretcher.
SCHWARTZ: It has two cameras attached to it. It has a camera that sort of hovers over above on a swing arm, and that is a high definition rotating 360 degree camera that has tremendous zoom capabilities. And the other camera is on a retractable pen light.
TUCHMAN: A digital stethoscope on board, along with noise canceling headphones, allows the hospital staff to hear breath and heart sounds clearly. SCHWARTZ: Myself and my team believes that this transport AV system will save lives with its ability to speed up critical care that we're able to provide for those patients.
TUCHMAN: Gary Tuchman, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: All right, let's take it to the White House. The stakeout with our senior White House correspondent Ed Henry. He's got some interesting stuff for us.
But, first, I want to see if there's more fallout from yesterday's decision -- not yesterday's decision, but yesterday's press conference about the deal between the White House and congressional Republicans about tax cuts and unemployment benefits.
You know, yesterday, Ed, we were talking about some sort of ground swell movement among rank and file Democrats who feel that they weren't consulted, they weren't included, and the president rolled and gave the House away.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely. And I thought that was the most fascinating part of the news conference yesterday, was when the president sort of fired back, not at the Republicans, but at some of his own fellow Democrats and was saying, look, calm down. You know, like, I can't get everything done in a day here. And that -- it seemed to be more than just lobbying them on tax cuts. It seemed to be frustration that had built up for months and months coming out. And I'm not just putting them on the couch there and reading into his mind. He opened his mind for all of us.by saying, this is like the public option debate in health care all over again.
That was pretty interesting insight from the president that he feels that it was just like when liberals were pounding him about taking the public option out of health care reform. He said, look, I still covered 30 million more or so people with health insurance, and yet I was still getting pounded for not doing more. Thirty million was a pretty good step forward. Saying the same thing here about the tax cuts. You're getting the middle class tax cuts. Sure, we're not happy, that's his view, about the tax cuts for the rich, but I'm going to continue to fight to stop that.
I thought that was really fascinating.
VELSHI: Yes. He was very passionate about it.
HENRY: There's a lot of layers to this relationship between the president and Democrats. Almost as many layers as that outfit you have on, you know, with the jacket, the vest, the tie, the shirt.
VELSHI: I wear this because I know you like it. You said with the different color vest. You liked the different color vest.
HENRY: Most people, they think it's stylish to have the vest and the jacket that match. I like that you go out a little further there on a limb, and you've got the solid colored vest and then the Velcro jacket and all that. It's good.
VELSHI: I like mixing it up. I like those mittens you have, too.
Let's talk about this. The president is signing a bill today that gives money to black farmers. Tell us a bit about that bill. You've had some kind of interesting history with this.
HENRY: Tiny little bit on it. What's interesting is that you're always asking me let's on the stakeout talk about how we get our stories. This was an example it wasn't just something the White House wanted on their agenda, it was something we decided let's get this on the agenda. Let's talk about this story.
I was on the Starbucks at 17th Street here, just down the street, where everyone from the White House goes. And I bumped into a guy named John Boyd. And we've got video of him. He's the chief advocate and lobbyist for the Black Farmers Alliance, talking about for decades there were black farmers who did not get loans from the Department of Agriculture simply because of their race. He stopped me at Starbucks and said, look, I know you're never going to do a story on this. You've got all these other things on tax cuts and health care and everything else. If you'd just listen to me for five minutes, I think it's a good story.
I listened to John. And then my producer Chandra Shephard (ph) went down to his farm in rural Virginia. We've got video of that. We came back, we did the story. What he was frustrated with is that President Obama as a senator was really in favor of doing something about the black farmers and their settlement, about $1.2 billion (ph) that they believe they're owed. And that there was a settlement on it but they never got the money from Congress.
And President Obama as president, though had not really moved forward on it. We did a story, we're (INAUDIBLE), the White House wasn't exactly thrilled with this story. But here we are a few months later and the president is signing it into law this afternoon.
John Boyd is going to be here and we're going to do another interview with him this afternoon. I think the signing is 5:30 Eastern Time. It's interesting because sometimes you get a chance encounter that turns into kind of an interesting story, one that we weren't expecting to do. Maybe it made a tiny bit of difference.
VELSHI: You do a lot of business at that Starbucks. That's where you and I went.
HENRY: A ton of business there.
VELSHI: I have to say, it's going to be an interesting time because as long as you're out there for the winter, I'm going to have the edge on ties and things like that because I can just --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Ed, good to see you, as always. Thanks very much. Our senior White House correspondent here every day with the Stakeout. Hey, listen. This is a sad story. We covered it yesterday. One second he was playing baseball. The next, 16-year-old Thomas Adams was dead. Dr. Sanjay Gupta with the new developments on this, right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Thirty-five minutes after the hour. Here's what's happening right now. We are awaiting the court appearance of a man suspected of plotting to bomb a Military recruiting station. He was arrested today. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Baltimore at the top of the hour. We'll cover it.
The Senate is expected to vote today on the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. That spells DREAM. The bill would grant citizenship eligibility to young illegal immigrants if they go to college or serve in the Military.
And MasterCard's corporate web site is down, apparently hacked by angry WikiLeaks supporters after MasterCard cut ties with WikiLeaks. The company says its credit cards are still working just fine.
An update now on a story we told you about yesterday. A sad story. Sixteen-year-old Thomas Adams died last Friday after being hit in the chest with a baseball during a game. It happened during a high school practice in Garfield, New Jersey.
Here's what his father said about the accident.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THOMAS ADAMS, SON DIED OF CARDIAC ARREST: The heart and the ball hit at the wrong time, you know, and it just sent his heart into severe cardiac arrest, you know, so they couldn't get it back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Wow. Thomas' father said he was -- his son was wearing protective catcher's gear at the time that he was hit. He also says his son had no known medical condition.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta's been following the case. I asked him what might have happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ali, we know that a medical examiner report is still forthcoming. So we don't know for sure what happened to Thomas. Obviously, a tragic case right here.
But we also know that sometimes children, or young adults, as in the case of Thomas, may have some sort of underlying medical problem that has not yet been recognized. You heard from his father saying he was healthy, and that may very well be the case. But, sometimes the first time someone knows something is wrong with someone's heart is when something tragic like this happens. There's also a lot of talk about something known as Comotio Cortis. It's a mouthful. Basically, it's a very rare condition where, for some reason, when a blow to the chest can cause the heart to go into an abnormal rhythm. It can happen with a baseball, but also a hockey puck, a lacrosse ball.
If you think about the heart. One way to think about it is, you have four chambers to the heart like you see here. You have electricity sort of passing through the heart constantly. That's what allows the heart to pump. The atrium up here. The pumping chambers, known as the ventricles, down here. What happens sometimes is that as a result of the electrical charge going through and resetting itself for a brief millisecond, if a blow occurs at that time, it can cause the heart to go into this unusual rhythm.
Again, ventricular fibrillation. The heart is not able to pump blood effectively through the rest of the body. We also know that it happened to a lacrosse player at Cornell, back in 2004. We talked about that at CNN. It was confirmed to be Comotio Cortis after the fact. Again, any sort of blow really can occur and cause this sort of thing. Rare, about 188 cases over the last 15 years.
A lot of questions about protective gear. Protective gear obviously important. You want to try to prevent a direct blow to any part of the chest or the heart, the area surrounding the heart. But in this case, it's more distribution of force that causes the problem. A defibrillator, for example, would be good gear to have around in situations like this. Restore the heart back to a normal rhythm. For every minute that goes by when someone's in an abnormal rhythm like this, the likelihood of survival decreases by 10 percent. So having a defibrillator and having it close by really seems to make a difference.
But again, medical examiner report expected over the next few days. If we get details on that, we'll bring them to you, Ali.
Back to you for now.
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VELSHI: Thanks, Sanjay. We will follow up on that. Because if that's the kind of thing that might have to happen, it might be worth thinking about for your kids who play baseball. This guy wasn't engaged in anything that you would consider dangerous.
All right. A prison riot has triggered what's being called the worst such fire in one country's history. I'll take you there next, in Globe Trekking.
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VELSHI: Time for Globe Trekking. First stop, Chile. At a fire in an overcrowded prison in the Chilean capital Santiago, has left at least 83 inmates dead. Chile's president told us that the fire erupted after a prisoner riot. Other reports say the fight involved rival gangs who set mattresses on fire. Hundreds of inmates were evacuated, some 14, are said to have life-threatening injuries. Nearly 2,000 inmates were housed in the San Miguel prison, which was built to hold only 1,000. Frantic relatives gathered outside prison walls, screaming for information on their loved ones. Some threw rocks and glass bottles and scuffled with police. One woman told reporters, quote, "It is exasperating not to know if they are alive or dead."
Let's go to Afghanistan now and an act of justice. You will recall the story of Bebe Aisha, seen here in these pictures. How could you possibly forget it? In a stunning act of brutality, her husband cut off her nose and ears earlier this year. It happened in an area controlled by the Taliban after she was accused of bringing shame to her family. Police now have arrested her father in law. They said, he held Aisha at gunpoint and ordered five others, including her husband, to cut her.
Aisha was a child bride. Her case became widely known when our sister publication "Time" magazine used a picture of her on its cover. With support from aid groups and the U.S. embassy in Kabul, and the charity of the hospital in San Francisco, Aisha had successful reconstructive surgery in the United States. She's now 20 years old, living in New York, getting treatment for emotional problems from her ordeal.
Our last stop, Iran. The government has what it considers a serious problem. It's got nothing to do with its nuclear program. We're talking about a soaring divorce rate. Leading the charge, Iranian women. The government is so worried that, in fact, it's renamed the traditional Marriage Day to No Divorce Day. The "New York Times" reports that over this decade the number of divorces has tripled to just over 150,000 this year from around 50,000 back in 2000.
The big news here is that Iranian women are finding unique ways to use the country's legal system to escape unwanted marriages. Not only are divorces rising, but the "Times" says marriages are also failing earlier with 30 percent of divorces happening in the first year of marriage and 50 percent in the first five years.
What if we could stop worrying about icy power lines and de-icing planes? There really are plans in the work to make ice accumulation a thing of the past. It might seem trivial, but it is today's Big I.
I'll have that next.
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VELSHI: In today's "Big I," we are breaking the ice before the ice even forms. Engineers from Harvard University have designed materials that actually repel water before it has the chance to freeze.
Let me show you. This say slow motion video of a water droplet hitting a cold surface in icy conditions. Take a look at that. In a matter of seconds, it freezes. That's what we expect to happen.
Now, video, slow motion of a water droplet hitting a cold surface created to prevent ice formation. Look at that water, just bounces right off, no ice is formed. This type of technology could change the way we have to deal with icy weather conditions.
Joining me now, Joanna Alzenberg, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University.
Joanna, thank you so much for being with us. The implications of material that just won't let the water settle on it is pretty remarkable. We mentioned de-icing planes. Tell me what this could be used for.
PROF. JOANNA ALZENBERG, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: this is a very interesting technology. We hope that it can be broadly used in a whole range of technologies, in particular, in aircraft engineering and in construction. Anywhere where ice formation starts with impact of water on the surfaces.
VELSHI: Tell me about whether this is -- does this depend on materials that you're creating, or is it a coating that can go on existing materials?
ALZENBERG: It could be either way. It could be a coating that would go on existing materials, or it could be a part of production manufacturing of the original structure. And in this way, one can think about it as applying it as a Scotch tape, as simple as that, or easy ways to apply the technologies on these surfaces.
VELSHI: Without -- I mean, you are a professor of this and I'm not, so without getting too complicated in terms of the science, this seems very obvious, but it obviously isn't that obvious otherwise we would have had it for decades already.
ALZENBERG: Well, it's not exactly obvious, although one could think about it earlier because what we do in my group, and anybody else could do it before that, is to look to nature, to turn to nature for inspiration.
Nature knows how to deal with ice. Nature knows how to deal with water. And the approach is, instead of fighting ice when it forms, instead of that, just repelling water so no ice can form.
VELSHI: Now, I would have thought that an airplane wing, for instance, being of a material, made of materials that do not absorb water, that sort of was already the case. But clearly is the issue that water drops onto these things, is not repelled fast enough and ice can form.
So is this -- what is the technological advance in this material or this coating?
ALZENBERG: The approach that we take is to insure that the droplet that spreads on the surface and then contracts on the surface does it in such a fast way that ice doesn't have time to nucleate.
It always takes some time for water to freeze. So if we design the surfaces, let's call it friction free, then water that is impacting the surface would leave, would be pretty much we can fend of these water droplets before ice takes place. So the surface will stay continuously ice free down to temperatures of minus 30 degrees C.
VELSHI: And what are the broader implications of this? Does this at some point make its way, not just for major industrial applications, into daily applications? Do I have some use in my life for a life for material that repels water?
ALZENBERG: I would think so. I would love to have my glasses, for example, repel water and not making a coating that disrupts my vision. I would like to have these coatings on shingles on the houses, on windows, you name it. Aircraft engineering is, of course, an ultimate goal, but there are so many areas in our everyday life.
VELSHI: What a great idea. We look forward to following this with great interest.
Thank you, Joanna Alzenberg from Harvard University.
For more information in this interesting technology, go to my blog, CNN.com/Ali, there is a link to Harvard study on the blog.
Updating the latest developments on our top stories, we're awaiting the court appearance of a man suspected of plotting to bomb a recruiting station in Maryland. He was arrested today and is scheduled to appear in U.S. district court in Baltimore in the next few minutes. We'll cover that for you.
A federal judge delayed the perjury trial of baseball great Roger Clemens until next July. This comes after his defense lawyers asked for more time to review the prosecution's evidence in the case. In August, Clemens entered a plea of not guilty to charges that he lied to Congress about illicit use of performance-enhancing drugs.
OK, will it put a promising end to his political career but Mark Sanford says his illicit affair actually made him a more effective governor of South Carolina. This is one you've got to hear, I'll tell you about it on the other side.
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VELSHI: Time now for a CNN Political Update.
Democrats hope to fill their dream of passing the Dream Act and it could happen today. Let's go right to Washington, our chief national correspondent John King on top of it for us.
Hello, John.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Ali.
This is one of those tests, how much can the Democrats get done off the wish list before the Congress goes home and before the Republicans take control of the House in January. You mentioned the Dream Act, they're trying to pass this today in both the House and Senate. The House seems to have the votes, the question is can they get the 60 votes in the Senate to go forward. Unlikely is how it looks at the moment. What is the Dream Act? It would create a path to citizenship for a subset of the illegal immigrant population, those people. To be covered by the Dream Act, you would have to have entered the United States before you were 16, so essentially brought in by parents or family members. You have to live in the United States for five years, get a high school diploma and either go on to college or military service. We'll watch that debate as it plays out today.
And you know, Ali, all the House races are now settled. The final House race was settled today. There's still one Senate race that has not been certified from the November elections, that is the Alaska Senate race and it will be in court today. Joe Miller is the Republican candidate. He's challenging the election of Lisa Murkowski. She's currently leading by 10,000 votes, but they're going into state court with arguments today.
Miller's campaign arguing if they didn't spell her name, remember Murkowski was the write-in candidate, if they didn't spell it exactly right, Joe Miller says it should not be counted. They expect a decision in the state court, Ali, within a few days and the Miller campaign signaling if it loses there, despite urging from Republicans to give it up, they might fight on all the way to the Supreme Court.
VELSHI: John, Mark Sanford, South Carolina. Very interesting -- this guy continues to surprise people, he always does. Now he's come out and said that the outing of his affair made him a better governor?
KING: That's what he says, Ali. You be the judge and I guess the people of South Carolina be the judge.
He just gave an interesting hour-long interview to South Carolina station WAIS, and he says said the affair helped him focus on being governor and it helped his opponents focus too because it took away his status as a rising star in the Republican Party as a guy who might run for president. He said once that was taken away, and listen to this, what became abundantly clear was the supposed stars on the rainbow weren't there and we were able to debate the issue. So he says it helped.
VELSHI: Very interesting way to look at it, I must say. All right, very interesting. John, as always, a pleasure to see you.
John King who you can see on "JOHN KING, USA " every night at 7:00 Eastern. Your next update from "The Best Political Team On Television" is just one hour away.
"Odds & Ends" is coming up next. We have got something for everyone -- one mushy story, one money story about a terrible sounding investment, 50,000 bucks that gets you ten bucks. I'll tell you how and more importantly why when I come back.
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VELSHI: Time now for some "Odds & Ends" although this first one may be more awesome than odd.
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VELSHI: Yes, Timmy, Lassie may have saved the money box, but a dog named Yogi saved something much more valuable.
Late October, Yogi was running alongside his dad's bike and like always they were on a familiar trail doing their thing, until one little slip jolted Paul Horton over the handlebars on to the concrete on his head. In an instant, he was paralyzed. For 45 minutes he lay there in the woods, Yogi next to him. Then all of a sudden, the dog took off like a rocket way up the trail where Paul's neighbors had just started their morning hike.
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BRUCE TATE, FOLLOWED YOGI TO ACCIDENT: Yogi is a quiet, happy dog. He's never noisy at all. But he was barking furiously to get our attention.
I don't think that we would have seen Paul without Yogi. I think Yogi saved his life.
PAUL HORTON, YOGI'S DAD: He's my hero. I mean, he's my hero.
It's possible that if he had not done what he did, they would have walked right on by and gone down the road and there's no telling when somebody else would have come by.
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VELSHI: Paul has done pretty well. He was in rehab. He's got movement in his arms, his head, his hands, his upper body, enough to pet the heck out of that dog.
All right, put your hankies away, cause we're moving to a story about cold hard cash. An unusual $10 bill is up for sale on eBay right now for $50,000. To be fair, it's not your average Hamilton. This one is from 1902 and was printed up by the government for Mesa County National Bank in Colorado. It's called a national currency note. They were in use from 1863 to 1929 when the Federal Reserve made it all one kind of money.
So, hey, if you need a last minute present for the person who's got everything, start bidding.
