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1987 Kidnap Suspect in Custody; Search for Missing 4 Year Old; Crowds, Police Clash in Algeria; High-Tech Fun on Cruise Ships; Bouncing Back from Setbacks; Pres. Obama Gearing Up for State of the Union; Study: Calorie Counts Don't Matter
Aired January 23, 2011 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: A woman suspected of stealing a baby 23 years ago is in custody. Federal authorities say Ann Pettway turned herself in after being spotted in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Our Susan Candiotti was the first to report that news. What's going on right now in Bridgeport, Susan?
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fred.
Right now we're outside an office building in Bridgeport, Connecticut that also houses the FBI's office here. And it is the FBI who, in fact, confirmed to us that Ann Pettway turned herself in late this morning. She surrendered to authorities there. A law enforcement source told us that she contacted someone with the Bridgeport Police Department via Facebook and then surrendered to the FBI.
Now, our producer saw a woman who appeared to be Ms. Pettway leaving this building a short time ago, in a car, driven away by the FBI. The person had a hood pulled up over her face. It is - it appeared that it was Ms. Pettway who might have been leaving the building. We're working to confirm that, of course.
It would seem that, remember - reminding our audience that Ms. Pettway is suspected of being a baby snatcher from a case that dates back to 1987, when a baby was kidnapped from Harlem Hospital. And only in the last week or so we learned that the - the baby, who is now grown up - her name is Carlina White. She's now 23 years old - 22 years old and is a mother herself - that she found out or suspected that she had been kidnapped and, in fact, traced down, tracked down her birth mother, and there was a reunion in this past week.
That led the FBI to become involved in the case and also assist local authorities in searching for Ms. Pettway. She is the one who raised this little baby, who now had grown up.
A major development could have happened yesterday. Here's what occurred. In Bridgeport, there's a pawnshop, and authorities told us that a woman had gone in that pawnshop yesterday, trying to sell some jewelry. She didn't like the price that was offered to her and she left.
But we asked authorities how they confirmed that it was her. Here is part of what they said.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DETECTIVE KEITH BRYANT, BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT POLICE DEPARTMENT: Our detectives also responded to that location and they were able to obtain some - a video surveillance from the - from the store, and they - based on what they observed and what the photographs that we had of her, they confirmed the fact that it was her, without question.
CANDIOTTI: And she came in by herself?
BRYANT: She came in by herself, yes. And she turned around and she left, you know, on foot. The clerk advised the detectives that he didn't observe her get into a car. You know, he immediately jumped on the telephone and - and called the police department, made them aware of his sightings.
CANDIOTTI: Are you surprised that she would be in this area?
BRYANT: Without a doubt, yes, I am surprised, you know, seeing - reading from what I've obtained from the news media of her being down in North Carolina, you know, and then so quickly being sighted here in the city of Bridgeport, it surprised all of us. We believe that she probably was staying in the southern states in - in that location.
Bridgeport being, you know, I believe more of a comfort zone, you know, for her. This is where she was raised at, went to the local schools here, and she still has family here in the city. So this was her comfort zone, where she felt more secure in.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI: Now, so far, CNN has not been able to reach any of her relatives in this area to get their reaction to this development.
It is important to point out, Fred, that Ms. Pettway has not been charged with kidnapping. In fact, she is in custody at this time for violating a parole violation back in North Carolina. Police there have said they were looking for her and issued an arrest warrant for her because of this parole/probation violation on embezzlement charges.
So, at this time, she remains in FBI custody. The FBI says that this investigation is naturally continuing. We don't know whether she is cooperating, whether she has representation at this time, but certainly one of the next steps would be an extradition hearing for her since she is wanted on that warrant out of North Carolina.
Back to you, Fred.
WHITFIELD: All right, Susan Candiotti, thanks so much, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Onto California now, where police are still looking for a 4-year-old boy and the man who allegedly took him. Juliani Cardenas has been missing since Tuesday, when his grandmother says he was snatched from her arms. The suspect, the ex-boyfriend of the boy's mother.
A witness reported seeing a car matching the suspect's car drive into a canal near the town of Patterson. Divers spent the past three days searching that canal, and that is now on hold.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF ADAM CHRISTIANSON, STANISLAUS COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: This is getting frustrating. It's like riding a roller coaster. You think you're going to be able to bring closure to this case and then suddenly, you know, once again, we've recovered probably another stolen vehicle.
So, as always, we remain hopeful that we're going to be able to find Julian alive and bring him home. That's our goal. It's - that's always been our goal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: The sheriff says the search of the canal has been suspended until at least tomorrow afternoon.
All right, pull out your parkas, your heavy hats and mittens and all that, maybe a little mitten warmers, glove warmers, because Jacqui Jeras says -
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I love those things.
WHITFIELD: It's cold now and it's going to get even colder. Get used to it, people.
JERAS: Yes. It is - it's a little -
WHITFIELD: I know. I love those, too.
JERAS: Aren't they nice?
WHITFIELD: Yes.
JERAS: And they last for hours and hours.
WHITFIELD: I know. They're perfect.
JERAS: Go get some for tomorrow, if you have to, like, wait outside for the bus or something, right?
WHITFIELD: Yes.
JERAS: They're pretty cheap too, by the way, like a couple of bucks.
Anyway, yes. The coldest air of the season. I mean, really bitter cold and temperatures are going to be a good 20 degrees below average in the northeast. It looks gorgeous, though, doesn't it? Isn't it a beautiful shot of New York City?
Twenty-three degrees is your temperature. Not bad. WHITFIELD: It is pretty (ph).
JERAS: Get in those winds, it feels more like 11. Not great.
Overnight tonight, sun goes down, temperatures drop, and we're talking like a wind chill index about seven degree below zero.
So, yes, dangerously cold wind chill. You don't want to have exposed skin. If you're going to be out there for any length of time, it's going to be real easy to get frostbite and hypothermia if you're out for lengthy periods of time. So really dress for the weather's here, just for a head's up, if you have to do that and have to be outdoors.
Wind chill advisories and warnings are in place in advance of this arctic air mass, which is starting to spill in. This thing started in the Upper Midwest. It's been moving across the Great Lakes and now it's invading you across the northeast.
Now, the best thing I can tell you is that it's going to be kind of a quick hit, coming in and out. Here, you can see what the air feels like out there at this hour. It feels like minus eight in Buffalo, minus 10 in Syracuse, 11 in Albany. You're still above, though. There you can see 12 above right now in the Philadelphia area.
Let's go ahead and show you what you can expect as we head into tomorrow in terms of the high temperatures. You're going to get into the double digits, but the winds are going to be strong. So still going to be feeling colder than that, not terrible across that southern tier of the country.
The next thing that we're going to be watching is a system in the nation's midsection right now, bringing just relatively light snow and rain showers but enough to cause some snow-covered roadways and make things rather slick. That's the same story as the rain starts to move now, a little bit heavier into the Little Rock, Arkansas area.
That area of low pressure, we're going to get one developing kind of on the tail end of the Gulf of Mexico, and that's going to bring a lot of rain into the southeast. We've been talking about this for a couple of days because it looks like a monster of the storm. But, Frederica, the models can't make up their mind. Is it going to be cold? Is it going to be warm? Is it going to be raining? Is there going to be snow?
WHITFIELD: Oh, boy.
JERAS: It looks like rain for the southeast, riding up the coast for the middle to latter part of the weekend. This could be a monster storm, so people need to start thinking about that and start planning for it.
WHITFIELD: We'll be ready for all of it. Yes. Ready for all of that.
JERAS: We'll keep you posted.
WHITFIELD: All right. Jacqui, appreciate it. Thank you.
JERAS: OK.
WHITFIELD: All right, this is Algeria, the capital, Algier (sic) - Algiers, rather. Take a look, angry crowds in the streets and in the face of riot police. A similar protest movement ended a presidency right next door in Tunisia this month, and it started just like this.
Let's talk a little bit more about what this means, potentially. Joining me right now from Washington, Professor Andrew Pierre from the school of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Professor, good to see you.
PROFESSOR ANDREW PIERRE, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE: Nice to be here.
WHITFIELD: So, as we are watching this so-called Tunisian wind blow into some other North African countries and other Middle Eastern countries, some predicted this might happen with Tunisia, would then follow Saudi Arabia, perhaps, even Algeria.
So we're seeing Algeria right now. Are people who have been - the people who've been protesting in the streets, are they encouraged or was this movement spawned by what happened in Tunisia?
PIERRE: Well, this is a potentially very big deal.
WHITFIELD: Why?
PIERRE: The Tunisian uprising sort of came from the street. There's no opposition party in Tunisia. But we're now in the age of the Internet and, you know, (INAUDIBLE) and all that, and it's having an impact in the streets also of Egypt, of Libya - very interesting - and potentially Algeria. And in those three countries, you've got leaders who are very anxious about what could happen to them.
WHITFIELD: So - because in Tunisia we saw that that president left. He sought refuge in Saudi Arabia. Would the Algerian president do the same? Is this movement about that same sentiment?
PIERRE: Well, each country is separate and has its own domestic and economic problems. In the case of Tunisia, he tried to get to France, and the French wouldn't let him in, so the Saudis would.
In Algeria, the same thing could happen but I wouldn't necessarily say that, you know, it's all going to be parallel anywhere.
They - the two important countries to watch are, in my judgment, Egypt, where you have 85 million people. Tunisia only has 10 million people. Mubarak has been in power for decades, and a great deal of underlying protests and dissent about a lack of democracy.
And the other country is Libya, where Gadhafi has been in power for decades also. He was a very close friend of Ben Ali, and he has been blaming the United States for this, in part because -
WHITFIELD: Oh, he's blaming the United States for this, you're saying?
PIERRE: Well, for an interesting reason.
WHITFIELD: Why?
PIERRE: Wikipedia. Our ambassador in - in that country, in Libya, reported that there's a great deal of unrest in that country, and things could change and that has been picked up by Gadhafi as showing that - indicating, in his judgment, that the United States is out to overthrow his government.
WHITFIELD: So what -
PIERRE: I don't think it's going to happen.
WHITFIELD: OK. Then what's interesting here, too, is Saudi Arabia, Egypt - great U.S. allies. Libya, maybe not so much.
But, you know, when you talk about Egypt and Mubarak potentially being in jeopardy as a result of what we're seeing, this kind of sentiment unfolding in Tunisia and then now Algeria, what is at stake for the U.S. beyond the U.S. foreign relations with these countries?
PIERRE: Well, we have economic interests in each of these countries, including in the gas and oil fields of Algeria. But I would say the big issue is the governance in these countries, their role in the entire Islamic and Arab world, and the U.S. relations with the Middle East and Islamic world, including relations with Israel.
So, that's why I say there's potentially - not yet, but potentially a very big deal.
WHITFIELD: Professor Andrew Pierre, Georgetown University, from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, thanks so much for your time and expertise. Appreciate it.
PIERRE: You're welcome.
WHITFIELD: High-tech hits on the high seas. Just wait until you see what cruises are offering these days, after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Vacation cruises aren't just about surf, sun and those huge buffets anymore. They're also offering passengers a whole host of high-tech activities.
Earlier today, I talked via Skype with syndicated technology writer, Marc Saltzman, and Marc and his family were actually invited on a media junket aboard a Disney cruise ship called "The Dream." And here's what he observed while there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARC SALTZMAN, SYNDICATED TECHNOLOGY WRITER: There are a number of amazing pieces of high-tech on board, including - we'll start with the magical port holes. If you have a state room, an interior state room, so your cabin does not have a balcony, you have a magical port hole. It looks like a window to the sea, but, in fact it is a real time HD view, a high definition view from one of the four cameras that is on the ship. And not only is that impressive in and of itself because it looks so real, but you also have animated Disney characters floating in like the house from "Up" carried by balloons or Mickey Mouse -
WHITFIELD: Oh, there it is. That's cute.
SALTZMAN: -- stopping by to say hello. And then when it's time to go to bed, you just turn it off. That's a great piece of technology.
WHITFIELD: Oh, I was just going to say, how do you get your kids to go to bed? They're going to watch that all night.
SALTZMAN: Well, that's Disney exactly. They don't want to go to sleep.
WHITFIELD: Oh, that's true.
SALTZMAN: It's the happiest place on earth, right?
WHITFIELD: Oh, right. And then, of course, there was the kids' club on board where, you know what, these kids are tech savvy, so the 3- year-olds, your 6-year-olds, 12-year-olds, they too want to get involved in all this technology and it's right there -
SALTZMAN: Right.
WHITFIELD: -- on the ship for them.
SALTZMAN: Along with animation stations where you can learn how to animate and computers with Disney games, they had this huge interactive dance floor with 16 different games and activities kids can play using their body. So kids would line the outside of this dance floor and partake in a game such as one based on the movie "Tron" or on based on "Princess and the Frog," and using your feet or your hands, you compete against the other kids and play games while getting physical at the same time. So my kids really enjoyed that.
WHITFIELD: I bet. This is looking like sensory overload, too, but if that's what it's like when you go to Disney World, isn't it? So there's also -
SALTZMAN: Indeed.
WHITFIELD: -- I guess when you're walking down the hallways or any of other rooms, there's high-tech artwork as well. What was that like?
SALTZMAN: Yes.
WHITFIELD: Are we talking beyond like the HD screens that you showed earlier? Oh.
SALTZMAN: Oh, yes. Sort of. So Disney calls this enchanted - enchanted artwork. Basically, they look like still paintings, if you walked by it, you wouldn't even look twice at it. However, if you stand in front of these paintings and some of the staircases, you'll see the images come to life. They begin to animate before your eyes.
And in fact, there's also a game kids can partake in a sort of a detective game, where you hold up a card with a barcode on it and you solve a mystery, you have to go through the different decks on the ship and there's 12 to go through. And, you know, it's just really amazing how, you know, in case you don't want to spend time outdoors, there's lots of stuff to do even in between the floors.
WHITFIELD: OK. And, of course, you're out at sea which means, you know, an occasional sighting of Nemo or something like that. Tell me how that worked at dinner time.
SALTZMAN: This was my favorite. So, in the animators' palette, which is one of the three dining lounges on the ship, they had these huge TV screens all throughout the restaurant on the walls. So while you're eating, you'll have a - it looks like when there's no characters on screen, it looks like an underwater screensaver, but then maybe Crush from "Finding Nemo" the turtle with the California surfer accent will come over and he will interact with guests in an unscripted environment.
So he might look at my son and say, yo, little dude, what's your name? And you can talk with Crush and he will swim around and talk to different tables and talk to them about where they're from and it's all unscripted, and my kids thought it was just magical.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Oh, and something tells me your kids will find that magical as well. Whoa! Syndicated technology writer, Marc Saltzman, with the ride of his life there on the Disney "Dream", and he is, by the way, a regular guest right here in the NEWSROOM.
All right. Shake it off. It's something we say to our children after a fall or maybe a disappointment, right? But can we bounce back from our setbacks? So, we'll tell you five ways to do that after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Have you had a significant setback? Well, we'll show you how to bounce back. But first, a look at today's top stories.
The recent flooding in Australia may prove to be one of the most costly disasters in the nation's history. More than three million people have been affected. The Federal Treasurer says the floods have devastated crops and tourism and that coal exports are likely to be one of the biggest casualties.
And protesters in Pakistan today demanded the U.S. stop unmanned drone attacks. Missile strikes believed from U.S. aircraft killed at least a dozen suspected militants, but Pakistanis say innocent civilians are also being killed.
And a woman suspected of stealing a baby 23 years ago is now in custody in Connecticut. FBI agents say Ann Pettway turned herself in after being spotted in Bridgeport. She was wanted for an allegedly violating her probation on an attempted embezzlement charge in North Carolina. Pettway is also suspected of snatching Carlina White from a hospital back in 1987 and then raising the child as her own.
In "Reclaim Your Career" this week, we're going to look at bouncing back from a significant setback, maybe you didn't get that promotion or maybe you just didn't get that job or maybe you lost your job. Well, the ability to do just that, bounce back, can be extremely valuable at home and at work. So, how do we do this? How do we become more resilient?
Here to tell us, Valorie Burton, life coach and author of "What's Really Holding You Back." This is good, because there are so many ways in which you can measure setbacks and, you know, sometimes you want to spend some time just kind of wallowing in that disappointment. But you say, come on, get up and move on.
VALORIE BURTON, LIFE COACH: At some point, you have to -
WHITFIELD: And in the end -
BURTON: -- you know what I think, especially in the last couple of years, people have experienced all sorts of setbacks, but we all experience setbacks at some point and it's all about how are you going to be a little bit more resilient?
And I think the first thing, it starts with is being able to be authentic. I think really authentic people are able to accept that life doesn't always go perfectly and failing doesn't mean you're a failure. I think that's really huge. It really is about how you think.
WHITFIELD: OK. And then you say you need to be a flexible thinker.
BURTON: Yes.
WHITFIELD: In what way?
BURTON: Well, a lot of time we think very negatively, when things don't go the way we plan for them to go. So it's really important to be aware of your thoughts, to be able to say you know what, yes, I had these negative thoughts, but in order to move forward, I have got to take control of how I think about my situation. Are there little changes that I can make?
So the most resilient people will say, you know what, this didn't work that well (ph) and they will kin of make course corrections as they go.
WHITFIELD: OK. But at the same time, you kind of want to learn from the mistakes, if something happened or a mistake was made, you can't dismiss it.
BURTON: That's right.
WHITFIELD: You didn't even learn from that, right?
BURTON: That's right. That goes back to the being authentic, being able to be humble, to say, you know what, maybe I did make a mistake, maybe my boss was right, as much as I hate to admit it what is the grain of truth I can take from that so that I can learn and get better in the future and get that promotion next time or get the job and do well in the interview next time?
WHITFIELD: And overall, you say be optimistic because it's easy for a very long time, whether it be days, hours, weeks or months to just be mad, you know, and be pessimistic about, you know, and focusing on what went wrong, why this didn't go my way. But you say complete opposite, be optimistic.
BURTON: You've got to be optimistic and it's important that if there are some risks involved that you take the right precautions. So, you know, if there are things that are coming up, and for some people, they've - they've got laid off in an industry where perhaps things really aren't going up, so you've got say, you know what, I'm not going to be optimistic but I'm going to, you know, have this great career in this industry, maybe I need to look at retraining myself, getting new skills, going into a new industry.
So optimism isn't just about positive thinking. Very often it's about being realistic in your thinking, but still saying, you know what, I can get through this.
WHITFIELD: And when you say reach out, what do you mean, like reach out for support, reach out for, you know, some guidance, better advice, what?
BURTON: Absolutely. When you are resilient, you reach out for help and that's hard for a lot of people. So whether it's a mentor or a colleague that can help you or maybe it's a former coworker they're has some contacts and you need to reach out and ask, it might feel, you know, a little bit uncomfortable but you have to bring yourself to be able to reach out and ask others for help.
WHITFIELD: And then you say use your strengths?
BURTON: That's right. That's right.
WHITFIELD: You do kind of - sometimes when there are defeats, you just kind of want to beat yourself up, you know, I'm not doing this right, but instead, you say you need to accentuate the positive, as they say.
BURTON: It's very easy to focus on everything do you wrong.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
BURTON: But at some point, you have to say what am I good at, what are my strengths? How can I tap into those to help me move forward in the future?
WHITFIELD: All right. Valorie Burton, thanks so much. And, you know, I don't know if folks got a chance to see your shoes, they're popping off the screen, they're popping in front of me here. They're very cute, and that's one way to -
BURTON: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: -- you know, spring into 2011, right?
BURTON: That's right. It helps you bounce back when you like the shoes.
WHITFIELD: (INAUDIBLE). Right. Exactly. All right. Valorie Burton, thanks so much.
BURTON: Thanks, Fred.
WHITFIELD: All right. President Barack Obama dropping some hints about his State of the Union address Tuesday night. We'll reveal them after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday night, but he has already made it very clear what his focus will be.
Here's CNN's Kate Bolduan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: That is why jobs must be our number one focus in 2010 and that's -
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Similar to his first State of the Union address, with unemployment still hovering over nine percent, President Obama in his second address will focus largely on jobs. He offered a preview of the speech in a videotaped message to supporters.
OBAMA: My number one focus is going to be making sure that we are competitive, that we are growing and we are creating jobs, not just now, but well into the future.
BOLDUAN: The president's push for jobs will be joined by another reoccurring White House theme - American innovation and competitiveness.
OBAMA: We're going to have to out innovate, we're going to have to out build, we're going to have to out compete, we're going to have to out educate other countries. That's our challenge.
BOLDUAN: To do that, Mr. Obama will likely say requires a combination of tackling the federal deficit along with new investments in targeted areas as he suggested last week in upstate New York.
OBAMA: That means spurring innovation in growing industries like clean energy manufacturing, the kind of stuff that's being done right here at this plant. Ensuring our economy isn't held back by crumbling down roads and broken down infrastructure. It means educate and training our people.
BOLDUAN: But more government spending will be a tough sell as the president is facing a very different political landscape this time around. Republicans are in control of the House and have a stronger minority in Senate.
REP. ERIC CANTOR, HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Washington investment means more spending, and right now, more spending is anathema to where most American are right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: All right, Tuesday night, the president is expected to expand on the statement he made following the Tucson shootings, talking about the need for unity, civility and finding common ground to tackle the nation's problems.
And she is not able to talk or breathe without help, but Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is impressing doctors watching over her in Houston. We're told that she is sitting and standing and is able to smile and move her legs.
Giffords is still in intensive care, but doctors say they are surprised at her progress so far. Giffords' husband, Astronaut Mark Kelly, has been invited to attend Tuesday's "State Of The Union Address."
A senior White House official tells CNN that Kelly was invited to sit in first lady Michelle Obama's box. The official says Kelly is unlikely to attend because of his wife's ongoing rehabilitation and wanting to stay closer to her in Houston.
All right, the man charged with targeting and shooting Congresswoman Giffords two weeks ago makes another court appearance tomorrow in Phoenix. A federal grand jury has already indicted Jared Lee Loughner on attempted murder charges for shooting the congresswoman and two of her aides. Tomorrow is his federal arraignment.
All right, let's check in again with our Jacqui Jeras. Some pretty nasty weather everywhere.
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, just - you know, cold.
WHITFIELD: Very cold, yes.
JERAS: Everybody's whining this week.
WHITFIELD: Some like it, some really revel in the cold.
JERAS: Well, you know what? We want to start there.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
JERAS: Let's start with the fun, people reveling in the colds. Pull up the video, let's show it to you. You got it? There it is.
WHITFIELD: You love this. What do we call this?
JERAS: Scouching.
WHITFIELD: Scouching.
JERAS: Yes, this is called scouching. It is a sport for couch potatoes. How about that? College students came up with this, I guess.
WHITFIELD: Of course.
JERAS: A couple of years ago. It apparently is a tradition now in Utah. One was quoted as saying this is the best thing I have ever done.
WHITFIELD: Because skiing and snowboarding is just too boring, that is so yesterday?
JERAS: Well, you can use this as a group.
WHITFIELD: OK, as a group activity.
JERAS: Perhaps. The only problem I have with this, Fredricka, I did find out that whoever rides down has --
WHITFIELD: Has to push it back up.
JERAS: Yes, they're doing this at a golf course no ski lifts on that one, unfortunately. All right, those of you stuck at home and not loving the weather, well, unfortunately, it's just going to get colder for you tonight and tomorrow morning.
We're talking about the coldest air of the year in the northeast and of the season as well it is going to be so cold you could get frost bite in a matter of minutes. Make sure you bundle up, what the wind- chill index is or the temperature that your body feels due to the combined effects of the cold and wind, in the northeast.
It feels like eight in New York City minus 11 in Albany, minus 10 in Syracuse. The goose egg for you in Portland and it feels like eight in the Boston area. Now as temperatures go down tonight that's when we're going to start to see some of those dangerous levels and you can see that watches and warnings and advisories had been issued already in advance of this arctic air coming in.
The start of the Midwest moved through the great lakes and now is invading you into the northeast and it's going to be feeling like minus 5 to about minus 25 at times. High temperatures tomorrow, you are going to recover a little bit, at least it's going to look good, right? A little bit of sunshine out there for you.
And you'll reach 18 in New York, 12 in Boston, but it's still going to be feeling colder than that, kind of comfortable across the southern tier, a little cooler than where you should be this time of year, but we have got a system which is developing, which is going to change things quite a bit.
Right now, it's just bringing in some light snow and some light rain showers across parts of the plain states. Snow finally pulling out of St. Louis, but heavy at times and a couple of east burst across southern parts of Illinois so the streets are going to be icy so be aware of that if you have to go out for tonight.
And then you can see the rain showers on the southern end of this system and it's really not much more than a couple of sprinkles for you. We are going to be seeing low pressure developing on the south side of that storm and eventually making its way to the southeast and riding up the coast.
West coast, things are calm. We love to see this dry weather. It's been so rough in the west as of late, but that high pressure bringing in offshore flow and some really strong, gusty Santa Ana winds. We have gusts up to 76 miles per hour today, Frederica, that's hurricane force, yes, in Laguna peak. The good news is that will start to taper off this evening.
WHITFIELD: OK, we like that good news. So you started off with a little fun and you ended with some good news, too.
JERAS: Yes, I'm trying. It's the weekend.
WHITFIELD: All right, Jacqui. Thank you.
JERAS: Sure.
WHITFIELD: All right. Another wildcard, it could be added to the troubled mix in Haiti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD (voice-over): First, former dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier returned, now another exiled leader, former President Jean- Bertrand Aristide, is talking about doing the same thing.
Yesterday, I spoke with Susan Purcell of the University of Miami and I asked her what Duvalier's and possibly Aristide's return could mean. She started by addressing Duvalier's impact.
SUSAN PURCELL, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: He's just thrown a monkey wrench of sorts into the efforts to resolve a kind of standoff that came about from the first round of elections at the end of November. And the organization of American states is trying to sort out who's in the runoff, which two of the three top candidates and suddenly, he appears.
WHITFIELD (on camera): Do you see his presence as interrupting, intimidating, interfering with that process?
PURCELL: Well, it clearly interferes because although it seems strange to many of us, because he was a dictator who was quite abusive. There are people who didn't live under him, Haitians, who are now looking for order and an end to a certain amount of instability and chaos and he represents that to these people.
It also encouraged former President Aristide, who also did a lot of no good to come back -- not come back, but decide he might want to come back, too. So, you know, the return of --
WHITFIELD: Duvalier just kind of opened the door for that?
PURCELL: Yes, absolutely for anybody else and it sort of throws open the doors to anyone who wants to say, well, you know, I could do it, too.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: A former U.S. congressman is among a group of American lawyers trying to help Duvalier. I asked former Representative Bob Barr why Duvalier has returned to Haiti and why Bob Barr is assisting?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB BARR, FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN (via telephone): As the former president said yesterday, he was very well aware of the risk, personal risk that he faced in coming took to Haiti, but paled in comparison to the needs of his people in Haiti.
What he would like to do is to see funds made available to help in the relief he effort, which by any reasonable estimate here has not progressed well.
Just in the day and a half that we have been here it is very obvious that the resource, the relief efforts, and the resources are not reaching to people or not meeting the needs of the people.
And Mr. Duvalier is concerned about that certainly and wants to do something to help.
WHITFIELD: How is he promising to facilitate those things?
BARR: Well, that -- that will certainly remain to be seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Again, the voice of former U.S. Congressman Bob Barr, now a lawyer for former Haitian Dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
In the meantime, this just in, we understand that there has been a shooting that took place this afternoon at the Detroit Police Department, the Sixth District. We understand according to the reporting from our affiliate WDIV that two Detroit police officers were shot. The conditions of the officers still unknown. The gunman accused of opening fire inside the station was also shot. The condition of that person not known as well.
So again, new information in there was a shooting taking place at a Detroit police station. When we get more information about it, we will take that to you. Here are some of the new images as well, the investigation still under way. Again two police officers shot, their conditions unknown as well as the suspected gunman shot. When we learn about how that person is doing, we will bring that along to you.
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WHITFIELD: All right, the news of the day or week, for that matter, through the eyes of comedian George Wallace. You don't think he saw the video of the texting lady who fell in the fountain without making some funny out of it, do you?
Well, he was with me just a moment ago and let's check out his thoughts on that. All right, but first -
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEORGE WALLACE, COMEDIAN: You see this lady walking. She's texting. She falls right into the fountain, right?
WHITFIELD: Right.
WALLACE: Now she wants to sue. You can't do that. If I go to the Bellagio when I get back to Vegas and walk into the fountain and sue them. You know, I know -- it is called the Bellagio now, but this time next year, call you had the Georgio. You understand what I'm saying?
WHITFIELD: So you, too, might want someone to pay for your mistake?
WALLACE: You got that right. You can't do it. I think the lady is crazy. How you going to sue? Everybody wants to sue everybody now and it's not right.
You know, the lady wants sue McDonald's because her kid is fat. Why don't you fix your kids some good food yourself and down the have to go to McDonald's. If you are going to sue everybody, sue Hagen-Dazs ice cream, there should be a label, a label on Hagan -Daz.
This product may cause your butt to spread, you know, this product may cause your butt to spread and you having to buy a new sofa. You're going to sue people? Sue the Cleveland Browns for false advertisement. That is not professional football if you're going to sue everybody.
WHITFIELD: Cleveland is going to be mad at you now.
WALLACE: I don't care. I live in Cleveland. I took my talent down to South Beach.
WHITFIELD: Right now, you are in beautiful, sunny Los Angeles, but no matter where you were, anywhere across the country except for Florida you experienced some kind of tough, bad weather around the country. How did you handle all of that?
WALLACE: Well, I go to all these places. You know, up in Chicago right now it is so cold. You know, these kids are walking around with their pants hanging off their butt?
WHITFIELD: Yes, pants on the ground, pants on the ground.
WALLACE: No, they got them up today. They got them today. It's cold. They got that buttmonia out there. It is so cold. The man from Atlanta did that song "Pants on the Ground."
WHITFIELD: Pants on the ground.
WALLACE: Well, now he has a song "Pants up your Butt." Pants up your butt, pants up your butt. You're looking like a fool with your pants up your butt.
WHITFIELD: In California, a whole lot of talks in your circles about the man with the golden voice, Ted Williams and what his future may hold, especially as it pertains to, you know, all these offers he has received or whether his rehab might be getting in the way of that?
WALLACE: Thank God for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They gave him a job as an announcer. You heard about that, right?
WHITFIELD: Yes.
WALLACE: Well, he saw one Cavaliers game and he went straight to the liquor store. Have you seen them play?
WHITFIELD: That's not good. That's not good, George. I'm told that you have a hero who is engaged again and I'm wondering who is that?
WALLACE: Hugh Hefner.
WHITFIELD: That's your hero. OK.
WALLACE: He is 84. She is 24.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
WALLACE: He is 60 years older than she. Is that right?
WHITFIELD: Yes. He is the hero of a lot of men out there, I guess.
WALLACE: She said it was the happiest day of her life. Let me tell you something young lady if you can hang in there another 10, 20, 25 years, you going to see a happy day.
She's going to sing happy day, happy day. She'll be doing the soldier boy, dancing all over the city that is going to be her lottery ticket right there. Calls that pick 6 and scratches Hugh Hef number that's going to be her happy day.
She can do something like that crazy out here in California. I call it divorce, neighbor is going to come up, I call it the land of earthquakes, mud slides and divorce, three disasters in which a man can lose his house.
(END VIDEOTAPE) WHITFIELD: All right, now a look at the top stories at this hour, stories we continue to follow.
Amanda Knox, the American student convicted of killing her British roommate at their home in Italy is said to be cautiously optimistic about her appeal that after an Italian judge agreed to have two pieces of forensic evidence retested, including a knife. Knox is serving a 26-year sentence for murdering 21-year-old Meredith Curcher in 2007.
In California, police are still looking for a 4-year-old boy and the man who allegedly took him. Giuliani Cardenas has been missing since Tuesday when his grandmother says he was snatched from her arms. The suspect, the ex-boyfriend of the boy's mother, a three-day search of the canal near Patterson, California, was suspended for at least 48 hours yesterday to try to give divers some time to recover.
And five missing American boaters, four men and one woman, are safe and sound. Their sailboat, "The Pineapple" was found in Philippine waters. It set out from Guam two and a half weeks ago, but it ran into bad weather. Official says it lacked long-distance emergency distressing signaling equipment. Its rudder and radio were damaged.
Colin Powell's not ready to back President Obama in 2012 or anyone else just yet, for that matter. We will tell you why in our CNN Equals Politics update after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, time for a CNN Equals Politics and update now. Keeping an eye on all the latest headlines CNNPolitics.com desk. Here is what is crossing right now.
It will not be business as usual at the president's "State Of The Union" address Tuesday night. More than 20 Republican and Democratic lawmakers are sitting next to each other instead of only sitting with members of their own party. They decided to mix things up this year as a symbolic gesture of bipartisanship.
Right now, Retired General Colin Powell is not ready to endorse President Obama for the 2012 presidential race. The former secretary of state told CNN's "State of the Union," he will wait on making a decision about who to support until he knows exactly who the final candidates will be.
And even though the Senate is not expected to vote on repealing the health care reform law, it may make some changes. Democrats and Republicans appearing on this morning's Sunday talk shows predicted the Senate will tinker with the law most likely with amendments to other bills. Majority Leader Harry Reid still insists there will be no Senate vote on full repeal.
All right, many people are closely watching the progress of the recovery of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is making after the shooting rampage in Tucson. And among those people watching, our own Don Lemon up next with the NEWSROOM. You're going to have some interesting conversation about the kind of road ahead for her. DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: The road ahead for her is very interesting. I don't know if you remember. Well, you probably do, 18 years ago, it happened, a very similar event. At least when it comes to gunshot wounds happened to Mary Joe Buttafuco. Remember that, right?
WHITFIELD: That's right.
LEMON: She was shot at point blank range. Remember, her husband, Joey Buttafuco.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
LEMON: Well, although her brain was not hit by the bullet, Fredricka, the wound was still life threatening. Her survival was remarkable as we all remember and the recovery was incredibly difficult.
There you see pictures of her recovering in the hospital. The young woman who pulled the trigger back in 1992 was her then husband 17- year-old Amy Fisher who the media quickly named the Long Island Lolida. It's very interesting so Mary Joe Buttafuco is going to come on at about 6:10 tonight here in the NEWSROOM and talk about Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
She says I don't know the congresswoman, but I feel that I can relate to her and I knew her immediately when I found out that she survived in what she went through, but she says in her own injuries she said that she had been repeatedly shot. That she was shot at point blank range.
She had been repeatedly told by her doctor. She had been shot and they said she was responding, but she said it wasn't until sometime that she realized that it actually happened, what actually happened.
She said it was really awkward because I had a similar awakening in the future. Even though she was responding to doctors, she doesn't remember any of that up till there was one point where she starts to remember.
WHITFIELD: So I guess she's also going to talk about how long it took her before certain senses came back or motor skills came back.
LEMON: Years.
WHITFIELD: Years. She said it took her years. And again, remembers, hers wasn't a brain injury. She was shot point blank in the face. It was a head injury, but not a brain injury. She said she still has paralysis on the right side of her face. She also is deaf in her right ear and she says she has constant pain, Fred, which feels like an impacted tooth all the time.
Imagine going around with that and the interesting thing and again, this is just her recovery. We don't know what the --
WHITFIELD: It's different for everyone.
LEMON: Physical therapy is often the same. It's the same sort of therapy to get back, but she said she became addicted to the painkillers because it took away the pain obviously but also the emotional pain as well and she had to go to the Betty Ford clinic.
WHITFIELD: We look forward to that. That's going to be an extraordinary evening.
LEMON: Yes, 6:10.
WHITFIELD: OK, we look forward to seeing you.
LEMON: We saw each other last week.
WHITFIELD: OK, sorry about that. You know me. Sorry. All right, Don. Good to see you.
LEMON: First thing to go.
WHITFIELD: All right, we'll have much more in the NEWSROOM after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, say you're at a restaurant. You see an item you want and then you see how fattening it is because of the labels they put on the menu.
Well, does that influence in the end what you order? Earlier, I spoke with senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen about the results of a new study that just might surprise you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's what this one study says. So this one study looked to people who ate at a restaurant called "Taco Time," which I've never heard of, but it's out west in Seattle and the suburbs. That's an important distinction.
Because in Seattle you have to put how many calories on the menu, but in the suburbs you don't. So they looked at was there a difference between how people ordered and they found that there wasn't. There were a lot of things you might want to think twice about at this restaurant. For example, the 609-calorie beef natural soft taco or the 906-calorie beef big team Mexi-burrito. So 906, so that's about half the calorie some people supposed to get in one burrito. So apparently people didn't really care when they saw those numbers.
WHITFIELD: OK, so, of course a lot of advocates for this whole labeling were hoping that this is going to impact how people order food, et cetera, but it's not working or they're not very encouraged now.
COHEN: Well, I think it's important to remember this is one restaurant and so maybe the kind of people who go to taco time don't care so much about the calories. They want that 900-calorie burrito. That's what's important to them. Maybe it's the way it's labeled. Maybe there aren't so many attractive alternatives that are less than 600 calories so maybe that's the point. So I wouldn't take too much. It is interesting though that at this one restaurant that's what they found.
WHITFIELD: OK, so other restaurants that adhere to giving you information about your meals is there, I guess, a conclusion on those?
COHEN: Yes. They had a different experience. For example, Starbucks in New York City, they found that when they put the calories on there, people actually did order dishes that had fewer calories and actually ordered drinks that had fewer calories and also restaurant chains when they were forced to put the calories on there, they said, maybe we need to come up with --
WHITFIELD: Change the menu.
COHEN: Change the menu up little bit and come up with some healthier dishes so it really has had an impact. It is interesting that at least at this one restaurant with this particular clientele it didn't seem to matter?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: A little food for thought from senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Thanks for being with us this afternoon. I'll see you back here next weekend. Don Lemon up next with more of the NEWSROOM.
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