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Sisters Freed From Mississippi Prison; New Technology Unveiled at CES in Vegas; Lawyer Sues Spammers; House Republicans Vote to Repeal Health Care Law; Investigation Continues in Death of John Wheeler; New Virtual Training Tools Help Prepare Troops For the Battlefield
Aired January 08, 2011 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: It is a good morning for the sisters freed from prison so one could Steve a life-saving transplant from the other. Overnight they were reunited with their mother and other relatives, and CNN was there every step of the way.
And a mystery that stretches from the Pentagon to Delaware, how did a respected military official end up disoriented at a parking garage, then dead in a landfill? We'll lay out the time line and review the evidence with a forensics expert.
From CNN Center this is CNN Saturday morning. It's January 8th. Good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye.
Also ahead our tech expert Mario Armstrong is back with more must haves from the security electronics show, including a gadget practically guaranteed to make your family's next road trip a very peaceful one.
If you hate finding spam in your e-mails, you'll love our guest. He quit his job to fight back and became a millionaire in the process.
And surviving Afghanistan, before U.S. troops touchdown in a warzone, more and more get a virtual reality workout that gives them a fighting chance against the Taliban. Reynolds Wolf tells us all about it.
Two sisters sentenced to life in prison for an armed robbery that netted as little as $11 are back in the arms of loved ones this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMIE SCOTT, SERVED 16 YEARS FOR ARMED ROBBERY: It's over, mama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: That is Jamie Scott hugging her mom in Pensacola, Florida. CNN was there to capture the reunion six and a half hours ago. Jamie and Gladys Scott had their sentences suspended by the governor of Mississippi on one condition, that Gladys give her diabetic sister a kidney. Gladys and her daughter say they have a whole lot to talk about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GLADYS SCOTT, RELEASED FROM LIFE SENTENCE: I had faith in the back of my mind, but going through the process of your appeals getting denied every time, you get denied. So I really never thought this day would come.
OLIVIA, GLADYS SCOTT'S DAUGHTER: It was a day come true, an experience like none other. I was happy she was on the way home to us and her grandkids. We have so much to do, everything, a lot of catch- up time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: And CNN's Soledad O'Brien sat down with the two sisters after their release and has this exclusive interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GLADYS SCOTT: We're free!
JAMIE SCOTT: We're free!
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS CORRESPONDENT: So how does it feel to be free?
JAMIE SCOTT: Oh, it's great, because I don't have to worry about a wake-up call, I don't have to ask to go to the bathroom. It feels great.
O'BRIEN: How do you feel? You look tired.
GLADYS SCOTT: I am tired. I feel great. Like I say, it's just a dream come true, you know. How you dream for so long, and then when it finally comes, you're scared to wake up because you're scared it's not real. This is just wonderful.
O'BRIEN: When did you first get sick?
JAMIE SCOTT: Well, they told me January of 2009.
O'BRIEN: So you thought you might die in prison?
JAMIE SCOTT: Yes. I thought I was going to die in prison. So they came -- went and got my sister, because she talked some sense into me. She came into the room and she was crying and she said we're going to beat this. She said, you can have one of my kidneys. That's not a problem. She said I'm healthy. You can have one of mine.
GLADYS SCOTT: I told her, I can't live without you. I said I want you to know -- I want up to see your grandkids raised. I said, Jamie we're going to walk out of this door. She was like I don't want to go into dialysis. I was crying. She said you're going to give me your kidney? I said yes, we'll have one kidney walking out of prison.
O'BRIEN: Part of the condition of release is you give your kidney to your sister. What happens if your kidney is not acceptable?
GLADYS SCOTT: From my understanding I don't think nothing is supposed to happen. We have other people lined up that's willing to donate if I'm not a match.
O'BRIEN: Plan B?
GLADYS SCOTT: Plan B.
O'BRIEN: Some people said to make the donation of your kidney to your sister as a condition of release is barbaric, is unfair. Do you think that's true?
GLADYS SCOTT: Yes.
O'BRIEN: You do? Even though you're willing to give the kidney anyway?
GLADYS: Yes.
JAMIE SCOTT: I think that a lot of people looking at it as an organ for your freedom.
O'BRIEN: Is it?
JAMIE SCOTT: You can look at it like that, because that was a condition of her release. But I think that I'm not agreeing with that, because I'm not agreeing within my mind because she was going to do it regardless.
O'BRIEN: Many people focus on the fact of the condition about the donation of the kidney, and not even what you guys talk a lot about, which is you say you didn't do it. Is that frustrating?
JAMIE SCOTT: I don't too much focus on that, because everybody played their role and it amounted to one thing. We're sitting in front of you today.
O'BRIEN: Why do you think now? You have filed for petitions for release before, so why now?
JAMIE SCOTT: I think there's a time and purpose for everything.
GLADYS SCOTT: I believe it was our season. God said let them go.
JAMIE SCOTT: Yes, I believe that wholeheartedly. No matter how much we do, I believe there's a time and season for everything.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: And this just in to CNN. A virus outbreak aboard a Royal Caribbean ship. The radiance of the sea docked in Tampa this morning. Or affiliate WFTS reports passengers suffering from a virus causing vomiting and diarrhea. Crews are sanitizing the ship ahead of this evening sailing time. Twitter is being ordered to hand over information involving WikiLeaks and founder Julian Assange according to documents posted online. The order is for things like subscriber names and screen names and some subscriber addresses. It's part of the investigation into the leak of thousands of sensitive government cables and documents, and the involvement of Private Bradley Manning. Manning is accused of leaking the information to WikiLeaks.
A mail facility in the nation's capital, a package addressed to Janet Napolitano ignited yesterday at the postal sorting facility. No one was hurt. The package was similar to two packages that ignited at state offices in Maryland just the day before.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF CATHY L. LANIER, WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN POLICE: The package was described as popping, smoking, and with a brief flash of fire. Then it went out -- extinguished itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Resist and disturb the United States. That's what radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada al Sadr told a gathering of thousands of his supporters. It marked his return to the spotlight after three years of self-imposed exile in Iran. The powerful Shiite cleric told supporters to resist the occupier by all means necessary.
A boat tour of the Louisiana coastline highlights this ugly fact. There are still areas covered in oil from the BP in the Gulf of Mexico leak eight months ago and a lot of people expressing concerns over claims the cleanup job is just about complete. Take a listen to this hot exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILLY NUNGESSER, PLAQUEMINES PARISH PRESIDENT: I put a girl that works with the parish on the boat, because we were called on Sunday to have some out there that Monday morning. Don't song and dance, because if you want to get ugly, don't throw (expletive) back at me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not throwing anything at you, sir.
NUNGESSER: You give me the money and put the plan together and then blame me, but don't tell me I have a voice that you put that crappy document that ain't worth the paper it's written off. Don't piss me off. That's bull (expletive). I kept off TV hoping you'd do what you should have done, and you haven't done it so kiss my (expletive).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: How many times has someone told you there's an app for that? That's why "app" has been chosen as the word of the year by a group of linguists. App beat out 32 other words during debate at the annual meeting of the American dialect society. That must have been thrilling. We can only imagine. It beat out "nom" in the final vote. "Nom" apparently has something to do with the pleasure of eating.
Is your inbox overflowing with e-mails from people you don't even know? I'll talk to a man going after those spammers. Find out how. And Reynolds Wolf is tracking some severe weather.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: Welcome back. It's 11 minutes past the hour.
(WEATHER BREAK)
KAYE: Are you a gadget freak, have to have the latest, new electronic toy? We're headed to Las Vegas next to check out all those shiny new things.
And what's happening here? We're checking out extreme video. This is CNN Saturday morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: Don't you wish you were in Vegas right now? If you're a techie you probably are. The Consumer Electronics Show is happening there. Companies showing of new technologies that can help you cook, upgrade your TV experience, and even help you take care of your kids.
Our digital lifestyle expert Mario Armstrong has some pretty cool toys for us. Mario, good to see you. Many of our viewers probably cooking breakfast right now. What do you have to make their lives easier?
MARIO ARMSTRONG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Hopefully they're better than me because I can burn toast. I'm that bad in the kitchen. Here's what I found that I hope helps me and many of the viewers. It's called the iGrill. It has received a heck of a lot attention.
Basically you take this probe, place that into your meat of your food, and it will read the temperature of that. Here's what's different. It will then broadcast that temperature out to your iPhone or your iPad, so you can go back out and mingle with family and friends. You don't have to watch over the oven or over the grill out in the backyard.
And if you want it to have different -- maybe you want your chicken or steak immediate rare or someone else wants it medium well, you can have more than one probe and still monitor all of that information from one device and be alerted.
So it's really giving you more time back, and it has connections to recipes and all the other things that you need as it relates to cooking. It's $99, that's what we're talking about here. And you can find out more information at igrillinc.com. And if you're a great cook, it's a useful product.
KAYE: If it gets me out of the kitchen, I'm sold.
(LAUGHTER) Let me ask you about this gadget that will actually convert your HD TV to an internet TV?
ARMSTRONG: Yes, because smart televisions are the big thing now, because we want to get internet content, web-driven website content onto our televisions. That normally means you have to buy internet connectivity television sets, but this new LG box that's now out, the upgrade, enables you to basically connect this box through an HDMI port to your existing standard high-definition television, and it will then turn that into enabling you to get internet content on your standard TV.
It's a good way to save money without having to buy a brand-new television just to get that internet content.
KAYE: And what about this? I know an iPhone can do about anything, but from what I understand, you found a way to turn it into a baby monitor?
ARMSTRONG: Yes, we did find that. This is amazing -- Wi-Things came out with a couple of products. One is this brand-new baby monitor. What this baby monitor can do is three things. It will enable you to see the child. You can also talk to the child. But you can also play music from your iPhone to the baby as well.
And it's pretty lightweight and portable, so it's easy to carry with you around the house, or you can take it to the grandmother's house or the sitter's house and go through the internet to be able to see your baby.
So a really, really exciting product. We don't have a price on this yet. It will be available first quarter, but we don't have any pricing just yet on this.
KAYE: If it could diaper your baby, it would be in good shape.
(LAUGHTER)
What's this about --
ARMSTRONG: Right, right.
KAYE: What's this about universal 3D glasses?
ARMSTRONG: Reporter: Oh, yes. That's right. Because 3D is big, everyone is pushing for 3D televisions, you see all the major companies, Sony, and Samsung, Panasonic, all of them, but here's the issue. When you buy a 3d television, you have to buy the glasses with that TV.
What if you go to your friend's house or lose a pair? What monster came out with it the Monster Vision 3D -- max 3D is the name of it. These are universal, so you can use them on any 3d television except Vizio models. Any other model you can use these glasses on.
KAYE: As we say good-bye to you, put them on. Looking cool, Mario. Love it. It's all you. Have a great time in Vegas. Great to see you this weekend.
ARMSTRONG: Will do.
KAYE: You can see him every Saturday morning around 8:20 a.m. with all the latest tech stuff.
"We're going to need a bigger boat." Remember that line? It was scary moment in the move spree "Jaws" but it's much more frightening in real life. I'll tell you happened when this massive great white shark took a bite from a fisherman's boat in Australia.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: Welcome back. Good to have you with us this morning. It's time now to take a look at some of the cool stuff we saw this week. We like to call them the extremes of the week, the best video and stories that really caught our eye.
Let's start with a Navy ship sinking off the coast of the Cayman Islands. This was planned. You can see the USS Kittywake flooding with water to go down. The ship was sunk to make an artificial reef, a haven for scuba divers and of course fish. It was commissioned in 1945 as a submarine rescue ship out of service in the '90s.
Speaking of fish check out this video from Australia. Some guys were out fishing when jaws swam up to take a closer look, you might say. It is a 15-foot great white shark, but this predator did more than look. After circling for a while it tried to eat boat's propeller knocking the guys into the water. Luckily that did not happen.
Stay inside and hide your livestock, that was the order in one town in the Netherlands after this chemical fire broke out. It burned for 30 hours before firefighter got it under control. It's unclear what caused the fire at the chemical plant or how toxic that smoke was, but Radio Netherlands reports people there are told not to let children play outside and they shouldn't eat vegetables from their gardens.
The mysterious death of John Wheeler, a former Pentagon official found dead in a Delaware landfill. We're trying to piece together the clues with a former FBI agent.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: It is just about half past the hour. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye. Thanks for staying with us.
We're checking top stories. Just in, a virus outbreak aboard a Royal Caribbean ship. The Radiance of the Sea docked in the port of Tampa this morning. WFTS reports passengers suffering from a virus causing vomiting and diarrhea. Crews are sanitizing the ship ahead of this evening's sailing time.
Twitter is being ordered to hand over information involving WikiLeaks and founder Julian Assange. It's all part of the investigation into the recent leak of thousands of sensitive government documents.
Another winter storm hitting the northeast. Almost 400 flights were canceled yesterday at New York's major airports because of snow, not to mention numerous flight delays up and down the whole east coast.
The Republican-controlled House is expected to vote next week on repealing President Obama's health care legislation. It's unlikely the repeal will make it through the Democratic-majority Senate, though. The Republicans began lashing out at the law this week.
CNN's Dana Bash has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For newly elected Republicans, an early chance to keep a campaign promise.
REP. VICKY HARTZLER, (R) MISSOURI: We have got to repeal this so that we can create more jobs. I'm a small business owner myself, and I can tell you since this has passed that the health insurance premium have skyrocketed.
REP. NAN HAYWORTH, (R) NEW YORK: The bill is no way merely symbolic. It represents the true will of the American people the majority of whom have stated time after time to this day that they reject this law.
BASH: Democrats accused Republicans of trying to take away new health benefits for the young and old and staging political theater.
REP. PETER WELCH, (D) VERMONT: You beat us good and ran on the agenda of defeating health care and repealing it. Now you're doing it. Own it. Admit what it is you are doing. This is not a campaign. We're playing with fire. We're taking away health care benefits that make a real difference to our families.
REP. JOHN GARAMENDI, (D) CALIFORNIA: The repeal of it is actually a killer of human beings. Some 40,000 Americans die every year for lack of health insurance. That's the reality. Repeal this bill, and you'll find more Americans dying.
BASH: During the campaign many Democratic lawmakers were reluctant to defend the law. Now top Democrats are relishing a fight, sending out talking points and fundraising e-mails.
Not all Democrats agree. Oklahoma's Dan Borne voted no on health care last year and plans to vote yes on repeal, even though he calls it an exercise in futility.
REP. DAN BOREN, (D) OKLAHOMA: I think it won't go anywhere.
BASH (on camera): Why vote for it?
BOREN: I want my constituents to know if I voted against it, why don't you vote for the repeal? They need to know where I stand, and I stand with my constituents. The reason why we lost so many seats is because people didn't listen to the people back home.
BASH (voice-over): Not all House Democrats who voted against the health care law agree, and 13 of them won reelection and are still in the House and most say despite opposing their own party's signature legislation and campaigning against it, repealing health care now is the wrong way to go.
Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: Delaware police seem to be baffled by the bizarre murder of former Pentagon official John Wheeler found in a landfill in Newark, Delaware. It's been ruled a homicide, but police aren't saying exactly how he died. They also don't know how he was actually killed, only where he ended up.
One of the only things they have to go on is this surveillance tape supposedly taken two days before his death. He seems disoriented and only wearing one shoe. Among the last people to see him alive was a neighbor who dropped him off at the Wilmington, Delaware train station several days before his disappearance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROB DILL, WHEELER'S NEIGHBOR: I remember one time his wife said, you know, if Jack didn't have a GPS, he'd get lost in the driveway.
PHOEBE DILL, WHEELER'S NEIGHBOR: We've never seen him inebriated? Was he when he wondered around like. I don't know that he would ever take drugs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Lots of questions and very few answers. Joining me to lead us through some possible scenarios here is Harold Copus, a former FBI agent and current private investigator.
Let's go straight to the video take where he's walking around in the parking garage looking very disoriented. He's carrying one shoe, he has one shoe on. He's confused about which parking garage his car is in. What would you be looking for on this video? What strikes you?
HAROLD COPUS, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: I'm really concerned about what's up happening with this man. He's obviously disoriented. And I had a situation like this about four or five years ago in Atlanta with a gentleman at Atlanta airport, very similar circumstance. It turns out he had an injury to his head.
We know from another interview that someone has come up. He came to our drugstore and allegedly said that he had been mugged. It makes me think that he may have suffered a head injury, which could have caused actions like this. KAYE: You think it could have been that simple as a mugging?
COPUS: It certainly could be. It's pure speculation without the autopsy report and maybe some more of the investigation. But I think just looking at what we've seen and understanding some of the circumstances, I think that would be a fair assumption, that he may have been the victim of a mugging.
KAYE: Because he was certainly out of it. But as you mentioned, he went to this pharmacy to pick up medication, and then he asked the pharmacist to drive him five miles down the road. The pharmacist said we'll call you a cab, and then he disappeared. He seemed really out of it.
COPUS: Yes. And very similar to this gentleman at the Atlanta airport, he goes into the area, and he's there waiting on his aircraft. People later described him as being someone that didn't look like he was altogether. Possibly thought he had been drinking. He goes to the rest room and passes out.
And only later after a push on an autopsy do they realize that he had -- what had happened is he was out in the garage parking his rental car. The hood had come down the on the back of his head and caused an aneurysm and this produced this result.
KAYE: So what will investigators look for in this case? All they have to go on is this very strange tape and another tape taken which they haven't released of him in an office building a couple days before that.
COPUS: They have to piece all this together. If he was a victim of the mugging, someone stole his credit cards or money or whatever.
KAYE: They haven't said what was on him when they found him.
COPUS: And they won't. That is important information and they want to hold that back. So this case could go many different directions right now. The interesting thing is this other video that we're not told about right now.
KAYE: Why do you think they're not releasing that?
COPUS: I suspect they know that the man was a victim of a mugging or something, and they want to use that to locate the guy that did this.
KAYE: What do you make of all these odd conspiracy theories out there, being he's a former Pentagon employee, there's some talk that maybe whoever did this was after nuclear secrets? Do you ever buy into any of these conspiracy theories?
COPUS: Almost never. Let me tell you, I go back to the Washington sniper situation. And I remember being asked about that, and I'd laid out what was very simple as far as I'm concerned, probably some guy with a military background. And if you remember back in those days, people said it's people who have been watching these video games, and they're just taking them to real life. Every day we have a crime that remains a little bit unsolved, and there are 50 different conspiracy theories. I don't worry about it. I'm a simple, former FBI agent that says we have to make a case and keep moving.
KAYE: Very quickly. Monday morning you're at FBI headquarters and what do you say to these guys?
COPUS: Let's hit every informant we can and let's find the guy that did this.
KAYE: He even called that cab and didn't wait for the cab.
COPUS: I know. It makes you wonder that maybe he suffered a brain injury from this, and that's the reason for the way of his actions.
KAYE: Harold, love your insight. Thank you very much.
COPUS: Thank you.
KAYE: Good to see you this morning.
Doctors are getting some high tech help treating concussions on the football field. It's all in the helmet.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: It's 40 minutes past the hour, and you're probably wondering how the weather and the storms are going to affect you, maybe your airline travel and your visits.
(WEATHER BREAK)
KAYE: Let's take another look at some more wow moments in sports. Ray D'Alessio is here to tell us what made you go "Wow!"
RAY D'ALESSIO, CNN SPORTS: My favorite guy, Edison Pena, one of the Chilean miners is awesome. If I was a TV producer, Randi, I'd give him his own reality series. He's full of personality, a huge Elvis Presley fan. In fact, when he was in the mine he actually had an iPod sent down to him.
KAYE: That was the first thing he asked for.
D'ALESSIO: It had Elvis Presley music on there.
The folks at Graceland invited him to see his former home and last night he got his own Memphis Grizzlies jersey. You have to love the shirt, but not the jersey.
KAYE: It's a little busy for me.
D'ALESSIO: Look at the shoes, the blue suede shoes. KAYE: He's dancing right there.
D'ALESSIO: The guy has the entire package. He has personality and he's full of life and he's great, super guy. Congratulations to him.
KAYE: When I got to interview, it was a real honor. It was very nice. He couldn't have been more charming.
D'ALESSIO: On a serious note you have something that came out this week about concussions.
KAYE: Yes. Kudos to the folks at Battle Sports Science. Concussions are in the news lately. There's something like 100,000 concussions a year on the football field. The folks at Battle Sports Science have come up with a special chinstrap, and how it works, it measures the probability. It doesn't tell you whether or not the player has a concussion or not, it tells you the probability. It's a computer chip.
It consists of series of lights it measures how hard the hit is. If the light turns yellow there's a 51 percent probability they have a concussion, blue is 70 percent probability, and red is 90 percent probability that the person has a concussion.
And what it does is enables the trainers and coaches to look at this person after a huge hit or something like that to say, OK, we might need to take this kid out of the game or take this guy out of the game because he has a concussion.
Right now they are testing it at the high school all-American game in San Antonio and hope to get approval for it to use it next year all across the country.
KAYE: That is great news. Parents are concerned about little ones on the field and professional players. That's a big day.
D'ALESSIO: Because back in the day, he might get a concussion during the day and give him smelling salt and send him back in the game. It progressively gets worse. Nowadays if they have this technology that says this person might have something more serious, keep him out of the game and get tested.
KAYE: Very cool. You made me say "wow." You accomplished it.
D'ALESSIO: That's my job.
KAYE: Good to see you, Ray.
Unsolicited and irritating, a lot don't think highly of companies that spam e-mail inboxes. One man has made it his mission in life to nail them. He's joining us from Los Angeles. That is next on "CNN WEEKEND."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAYE: Welcome back. Glad you're with us. Just about everyone with a PC, laptop or smart phone gets slammed of day with unsolicited e-mails, also known, of course, as spam. Dan Balsam went a lot further than hitting "delete." He actually quit his job, went to law school, and is now making spammers pay big-time. Dan, good to see you.
DAN BALSAM, ATTORNEY FIGHTING EMAIL SPAM: Thank you for having me on.
KAYE: Tell me, what kind of spam did you get? The same junk the rest of us get?
BALSAM: We all get the same junk. Everything from enlarging various body parts to take a survey, get a free laptop to adult dating websites full of fake profiles.
KAYE: That's the fun stuff. Let me get this straight. You quit your career and went to law school and sue people that send spam e- mail. How successful has that been for you?
BALSAM: I started to sue spammers before law school, and I went to law school to do it better. I've been very successful in small claims court and in superior court. There have been a number of settlements and one case has gone to trial in a California court. I was representing by my attorney, Timothy Walton, and we sued successfully for spamming. That's on appeal right now.
KAYE: It's going well?
BALSAM: Yes, it is.
KAYE: Would you say in your experience spamming gotten better or worse since you took up the cause eight or nine years ago or so?
BALSAM: Yes. I started in 2002. Unfortunately, spam has gotten worse. It's pretty much acknowledged that the federal spam act has been disaster. Spam has increased dramatically since that law was passed, and I believe it's because the federal law does not let the individual recipients do anything about it.
If you want to do something about the problem, let the people who are actually harmed go into court and do something about it. Maybe with enough lawsuits the spammers will stop. That's why I do what I do.
KAYE: As far as I understand it, when you unsubscribe, that's supposed to be the end of it. Obviously, that's not always the case. Tel me something and tell our viewers, what can the rest of us do when we want to put an end to some of this spam? Is there anything we can do besides quit our job, go to law school, and start suing these people?
BALSAM: I would encourage them to sue spammers without going to law school. But the common wisdom is you're not supposed to unsubscribe. If it's a merchant that you know, you signed up for in the past, someone reputable, it's probably OK.
But if you get random spam you never heard of in the first place and never opted in, the common wisdom and all attorneys general say don't unsubscribe. The reason is by doing so, you confirm to the person on the other end that there's a real person there who checks that e-mail address, who cares about it, and that's likely to get more spam from that spammer itself and when that spammer sells your e-mail address to your buddies. The short answer --
KAYE: Don't let them know you're there.
BALSAM: Right. It's often better to just not do -- to not unsubscribe, and if you want to set a filter, to block it, if you can, or report it to the federal trade commission, report it to your internet service provider, most of the e-mail services have ways to report spam to them to help them improve their filters. So I would recommend doing that.
KAYE: Dan, you are a hero to a lot of people using computers these days. I'm sure you've heard that before. Thanks for your tips and insight this morning.
BALSAM: Sure. Thank you.
KAYE: Time to head across country for stories attracting national attention. First stop Davidson County, North Carolina, where a horse owner is under arrest for attacking a news photographer. This video you're watching shows the man armed with a stick. The crew was shooting footage of several horses after a news tip complaining about the welfare of the animals. Wow, look at him go. The photographer was not seriously hurt. The horse owner is charged with two felonies.
Next stop, Boston, a skydiver who was rescued in October after parachuting into a tree is grateful but not so willing to pay 10,000 for it. That's how much the fire department is changing him for their time. It took 21 special lip trained rescuers four hours to get him down, and they say there is just no other way to cover the costs. So pay up, buddy.
Last stop, Minneapolis, paying for a funeral can be very expensive, but one Twin Cities woman is doing what she can to help. Helen Williams, helps raise funeral funds for families who simply can't afford it.
KAYE: Ahead in our next hour, Michael Jackson's final hours, what did his doctor do?
But first, life in the war zone. Our troops get a virtual reality workout that gives them a fighting chance again the Taliban. Reynolds will explain, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: That is so "Top Gun" isn't it? Whether it's on the battlefield or in the skies, making a mistake could be deadly. Now through new technologies troops can actually train in a dangerous warzone without leaving base. Reynolds Wolf traveled to Moody Air Force Base right here in Georgia, and you have this report for us. It looks cool.
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It was a lot of fun. It doesn't matter if you're in a band or part of a team in sports, the way you get better is by practicing. That's what you do. People at moody air force base, the men and women of armed forces, they practice also but take it to an entirely new level.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONNIE GALLANTER, U.S. AIR FORCE: All right, our mission is to conduct the humanitarian supply in the village Suna. Our dismounts should be in this area. We're supposed to meet up with the village leader, and he'll introduce us to the hospital administrator. We brought sufficient for stuff for the hospital and schools as well.
WOLF: Though it may look real and sound real, it isn't actual combat. It's reality-based training where airmen learn lessons without worrying about paying the ultimate price.
GALLANTER: Surviving first contact is pretty much everything. That first couple of seconds may be the difference whether you live or die that day or whether you guys all go home.
WOLF: To help them meet that objective, realism is key. This block of buildings in rural Georgia is modeled after an Iraqi village half a world away. The idea is to mirror what troops will see in the field.
GALLANTER: We try to get the conditions as close as we can get it to get in the heads of the troops of what we need to concentrate on.
WOLF: This firearms training center is a simulated war zone. Although the battlefield can change, the mission remains the same. To defeat a virtual enemy.
PETER PAZZANI, U.S. AIR FORCE: You don't know what expect over there.
WOLF (on camera): I know it's impossible to replicate it perfectly, but is this pretty close?
PAZZANI: It's pretty dang close. With the building setup, the hills, the mounds, it's pretty close, and with ours you can see here we don't have much to hide behind. In fact, that's reality.
WOLF (voice-over): This virtual training isn't limited to ground forces. With the flip of the switch, he's flying over Kandahar.
CAPT. RICK MITCHELL, U.S. AIR FORCE: We're going to find these tanks. The simulator is element exactly correct in the exact layout of the land the guys are fighting in right now.
WOLF (on camera): How valuable is this training, especially for someone who hasn't been in the theater?
MITCHELL: Incredibly valuable. When we're done with the simulator, we're able to evaluate if my threat reaction maneuver was enough to defeat it.
WOLF: At the end of the day, no two exercises are ever alike. So from the cockpit to the firing line and to the convoy on patrol, no equipment is damaged, no bullets fired, and no lives lost.
GALLANTER: These guys getting to back today and talk about what did we do good? What did we do bad today? Someone says I got shot in the leg in training. Guess what, it was in training, and that's bottom line right there. The training we do pays off on the battlefield tomorrow.
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WOLF: You know Randi, one of the amazing things about the story is these training techniques are not just for rookies but also for veterans. There are guys who have been deployed overseas that have been over for tours, several tours, and they always come back through these -- these exercises knowing that this gives them an opportunity to really hone their craft.
And that's what it is, I mean, it is a craft. I mean, it's a --
KAYE: And they need to do that on safe ground.
WOLF: Absolutely. No question about it.
(CROSSTALK)
KAYE: Really if they have the opportunity.
WOLF: But being able to operate in a -- in a sense where you hear the gunfire, you can smell the smoke, you feel the concussion you know it gives them --
KAYE: Yes.
WOLF: -- less stress when they enter a combat zone.
KAYE: All right, Reynolds, thank you.
WOLF: You bet.
