Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Recover Mode Starts Now; Perfect Storm For Wildfires; A Beautiful Story and a Lie; FAA Touring Air Traffic Towers; Stocks Take A Plunge; Wall Street's Fear Factor; President's Deficit Push; Federal Emergency Officials Heading to North Carolina; Shocking Social Trend in India; Remote Controlled Robots Inspecting Japan's Nuclear Reactors

Aired April 18, 2011 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: We're starting this hour with hell on earth. Strong winds and dry heat fuel hundreds of wildfires in Texas while North Carolina struggles to move beyond shock and into recovery after a savage outbreak of tornadoes.

I want to go straight to our severe weather expert, Chad Myers, who watching both these states, and a lot of territory in between.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Sure.

KAYE: So, where are we going to see the next area that gets hit?

MYERS: It's tomorrow and it's tomorrow night. What's wrong with the word night? It's dark, people don't see the storms. You go to bed, you don't watch the TV all night long. This is the only thing that can save your life. It will wake you up. Believe me, the alarm on this will wake you up.

KAYE: The weather radio.

MYERS: You need to program it for your county. The old ones went off all the time, and by the time your county was affected, it was out the window. Not the same anymore. You program your county, when the alarm goes off for your county, when the tornado warning is in your county, this thing will wake you up, you get downstairs, get into the basement.

People have had plenty of warning with these tornadoes. In fact, 20 to 30 minutes and people still died, 40 people lost their lives. So, you do what you can do even though it still might not be enough.

And then, back out here, there are going to be warnings for fire warnings in towns today as winds are going to blow 30, 40, even 50 miles per hour from the northwest. That's a dry wind, relatively humidity like 5 percent and no help for firefighters at all.

KAYE: So, no relief for Texas?

MYERS: Texas is overwhelmed. They don't have enough people on the ground to fight the fires.

KAYE: And I read -- I think -- I think you had said this as well, and just getting back to the storms in North Carolina.

MYERS: Sure, yes.

KAYE: They had as many storms -- as many tornadoes on Saturday as they normally do in a year in North Carolina?

MYERS: Oh, I would say more, I would say more. Every little red dot you see is a tornado report from the last three days. Two hundred and sixty reports so far. Not -- some storms are the same storm looked at from two different angles.

If you say three north of Bergen but 17 north of Manhattan, well that's probably the same storm, it just depends on where you look at it. Right? So, yes, look at the number of tornadoes. At least I would say 50 separate tornadoes. We know of at least eight and some of them as high as 160 miles per hour.

KAYE: Boy, did they get hit.

MYERS: They did.

KAYE: All right, Chad, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

KAYE: Let's get the latest from North Carolina now and CNN's David Mattingly. He's in the hardest hit county in the hardest hit state.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These are the sights and sounds of a rural North Carolina county trying to put the pieces back to the after one of the most severe storms they've ever seen. We're seeing neighbors helping neighbors. We're seeing chain saws cutting up trees. We're seeing people picking up debris, and there's a lot of it to be handled here.

Take a look at this house right over here. This house was caught directly in the path of this tornado. You see the side is splattered with mud. The roof completely ripped off, and that's not the only thing. Around here on the side, the windows have been blown out. The siding peeled off and broken. And around in front, you see even more damage. Trees ripped out of the ground. People saying they've never, ever seen a tornado like this in this part of the country.

Now, something we rarely get to see is what a house looks like inside after a tornado's hit, and this is what we've got right here. This house in the direct path. You see it was knocked off of its foundation, pushed back more than a foot away from where it used to be standing. Walking into the living room here, everything has been ruined. Every bit of furniture soaked by rain, covered with debris, the windows blown out, water damage all over the place.

Fortunately, the people who live here were not at home at the time. The husband tells me that his wife became ill. He took her to the emergency room and that's where they were when the storm hit. Otherwise, they would have been signature on this couch watching TV and with a much more terrible story to tell today if they had stayed here.

I talked to officials who say there's no way they could have prepared for this and looking at what residents did they say there was very little in some cases that many residents could have done to protect themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID WELDON, NORTH CAROLINA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Any storm this magnitude's hard to prepare for whether it is a hurricane or a tornado. In both, in the hurricane planning, we do plan for tornadoes that are spawned out of hurricanes, so the preparation has taken place, but a storm of this magnitude being out of a thunderstorm, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: When this storm hit people all over the county found themselves at a terrible disadvantage in trying to protect themselves, that's because they are close to sea level here. Almost no one has a base many or a storm shelter. They weren't able to seek refuge underground. They had to ride this storm out in their houses, and you can see how well they held up -- Randi.

KAYE: Thank you, David.

And here's how big the wildfire problem is in Texas. The state has 254 counties, 252 of them are affected by fire. CNN's Ed Lavandera is making his way toward Graham, Texas, that's just west of Dallas, Fort Worth, and I've got him on the phone with us. Ed, what is it like out there?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, you know, the fires here in Texas kind of are low-rolling, staying very close to the ground so it's hard to see the flames. But what is unmistakable is the amount of smoke you see in the sky and the haze that all of that creates as wind gusts continue to blow that across the state as well.

At any given time, there are dozens if not close to hundreds of fires blowing and burning across the state on this day.

We're near one of the biggest ones that is only about 25 percent contained, and that's near, as you mentioned, just west of the Dallas, Fort Worth area near a lake called Possum Kingdom Lake. This fire has been burning for several days, it's burned more than 50,000 acres so far.

And right now, firefighters are essentially in a defensive mode. We're trying to get to the town of Graham where the firefighters are on the outskirts of that town, essentially in defensive mode trying to keep the fire from getting to that town. Several other towns have already been evacuated.

KAYE: And what kind of damage, Ed, have we seen there so far?

LAVANDERA: Well, there have been -- in this particular fire, there have been about 31 homes that have been destroyed so far, but there's about another 500 homes almost that are threatened by this fire as well. That's why these -- firefighters say it is just too difficult to fight these fires on the front lines, at this point, given the intensity of the heat and just how quickly these fires are moving and spreading.

So, they're really kind of in that defensive posture trying to protect the homes and other establishments and other buildings that are in -- perhaps in the way of the fire. So, a lot of protection going on, at this point, to try to minimize the damage.

KAYE: Ed Lavandera for us watching the wildfires in Texas. Ed, thank you.

Our "Sound Effect" today would make a decent novel. Adventure turns humanitarian writes about his adventures in Afghanistan and Pakistan, educates millions about the needs for Afghan schools, especially girls schools, raises millions of dollars, sells millions of books and years later is accused of writing lies.

This is the book in question, "Three Cups Of Tea," one man's mission to fight terrorism and build nations one school at a time. The author is Greg Mortenson who's defending his work against a "60 Minutes" investigation that claims, among other things, Mortenson made up his tale of being kidnapped by the Taliban in 1996.

CNN tracked down one of the alleged kidnappers who runs a Pakistani think tank. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Greg Mortenson says that you kidnapped him, did you?

MANSUR KHAN MAHSUD, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, FATA RESEARCH CENTRE: No, he's lying, he's lying. We didn't kidnap him, he was our guest, and we treated him as a guest. Not someone -- we have not -- we have not kidnapped him. He used to move around with us to different places in Waziristan. He was even a chief guest in a football tournament.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do you think he said this about you?

MAHSUD: Just to sell his book because people in 2005 or '06 wanted to know about Waziristan and the Taliban, so he thought that it's good to make this story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you saw Greg Mortenson now, what would you say?

MAHSUD: I just say that why do you defame me, my family and my tribe? We treated you well. We housed you in our homes. So, why the hell you have made all these lies about us? I intend to sue him, because he has defamed me, my family, my tribe.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KAYE: Mortenson insists he was detained for eight days. In the statement on the Web site of his charity he writes, it was against my will and my passport and money were taken from me. I was not mistreated or harmed but I was also not allowed to leave. A blanket was put over my head any time I was moved by vehicle.

In an e-mail to supporters, Mortenson says the 60-minute story quote, "Paints a distorted picture using inaccurate information, innuendo...and a few points in the book that occurred almost 18 years ago.

CNN hasn't been able to reach Mortenson directly, but his charity says he is due to undergo heart surgery this week, and once he recovers, he will comment in person, we're told.

Top leaders from the FAA and a controller's union are beginning a tour of air traffic control towers across the country. Their first stop right here in Atlanta today. The tour kicks off after another air traffic controller, the seventh this year, was caught sleeping on the job.

The FAA suspended an air traffic controller for catching some shut-eye at the Miami airport control center. It's the latest in a string of similar occurrences that is raising an alarm over the FAA's policy in management. The FAA's chief will hold a series of meetings about safety and professionalism after announcing a series of new rules to prevent controllers from falling asleep.

We have our eye on the DOW right now. The United States' ability to tackle its deficit is being called into question -- unnerving already skittish investors. The Standard and Poor's cut its outlet of debt from stable to negative, U.S. stocks plummeted at the opening this morning, and here's a look at markets right now. Not doing so well. In negative territory.

The market remains rocky after the S&P, the leading rating agency, said it was concerned about the ballooning U.S. deficit and lawmakers' inability to agree on a plan to reduce it. Investors are also on edge about the debt problems in Europe and corporate earnings.

With everything that's happening in the Middle East, we are watching these gas prices like hawks. But exactly how much crude oil do we get from countries in the Middle East? Well, we'll look at that list, which country do you think is number one? We'll reorganize that list and give you the correct answer right after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: We are all feeling the pain at the gas pump these days. It seems like every day the price of gas goes up. Right? Well, the founder and CEO of Citizens For Affordable Energy was on State of the Union yesterday talking about the possibility of $5.00 gas in the next couple of years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN HOFMEISTER, FOUNDER AND CEO, CITIZENS FOR AFFORDABLE ENERGY: In the short term, like this year, I think we'll see a little bit more upward movement depending upon what happens in the Middle East. I'm more worried about next year. If the U.S. doesn't pick up its contribution to that crude oil production, we'll be looking back at $5 in a couple of years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So, John Hofmeister just mentioned the Middle East. So, you're probably thinking that we get the majority of our crude oil supply from the Middle East. Right? Well, you would actually be wrong to think that, so let me break it down for you. Here are the top five countries that we get it from and we're going to start at the bottom, OK? Number five is actually Venezuela, number four is Nigeria, number three is actually Saudi Arabia, see, a lot of people would think that would be number one, number two is Mexico, and the number one is Canada.

So, there you have it. So, when we talk about gas prices, you always hear about crude oil prices as well, but how exactly do crude oil prices affect the price you pay at the pump? Let me break it down for you, too. These figures are all from the Energy Information Administration.

So, first, let's look at last year's average. OK. Sixty-eight percent of the cost of a gallon of gas went to actually purchase crude oil, 15 percent went to taxes, 10 percent to distribution and marketing and 7 percent went to refining the crude oil into gasoline. You see the numbers here. So that was 2010.

Now, look at the average for 2000 to 2009. Big difference. Look how much less we were paying for crude oil. Also check out you the refining cost. Yes, there it is. It was more than double what we pay for refining gas now. And look at the taxes. Percentage wise, we are actually taxed less today on each gallon of gas than in the last decade.

And just to give you an idea of how much we've paid for gasoline in the past. The national average for a gallon of regular gas hit $4.11 in the summer of 2008. Today we are only 28 cents away from that all-time high.

The U.S. credit score takes a hit. We'll go to the New York Stock Exchange to discuss what that means for you and your money.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: This morning, Wall Street's fear factor soared by 20 percent. This after Standard & Poor's lowered the long-term U.S. credit outlook from stable to negative. The issue, fighting in Washington over the U.S. debt crisis. CNN Money's Felicia Taylor joins us now from the New York Stock Exchange.

And, Felicia, how have the markets been reacting? FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN BUSINESS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, not very well, Randi, at all. And, frankly, the one thing about the market that it just can't tolerate is any kind of uncertainty. And as you well know, we've had just that in Washington about all of these budget discussions that haven't really come to any kind of resolution.

The markets tanked at the open and they've pretty much settled at around a loss of 1.66 percent across the board, whether it's the Nasdaq, the S&P or the Dow. That lowering of the outlook on the U.S. credit rating to negative is a concern for the marketplace. I mean basically it's a wake-up call to Washington to get things in line.

The thing, though, that is important to remember is that the U.S. credit rating is as high as it can get. Nothing has actually changed. But the S&P is certainly looking down the road and worried that Congress isn't going to be able to fix the budget before 2013 or even during the election. So this is what S&P is saying. Quote, "more than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer term fiscal pressures." In essence, that budget needs to get settled upon and done so sooner than later.

If the fiscal outlook doesn't improve, S&P warns it will cut the government's credit rating. The reason is because next to peer nations, other nations with a AAA credit rating, they aren't having the same kind of concerns. It's nowhere near some of the problems that we've heard in the sovereign debt issues with regards to Europe, but it is a concern to the S&P here.

So it's a warning. It's a reality check for the marketplace and certainly for Washington and the Obama administration.

Randi.

KAYE: And so just quickly, if the ramifications of a ratings cut is that big, I mean is it realistic that Congress would let things get that far?

TAYLOR: Probably not. It's never happened before that we've had a credit rating cut. The U.S. government does maintain this top-notch rating. It means that everything is very low-risk. But if that rating falls, naturally it would send ripple effects across the country. Bond markets, stock market, the value of the dollar, everything could get hit. But as I said, it's pretty unlikely that we would get to that place. Just one day of uncertainty. Hopefully it will just be a dip -- a blip in the marketplace and we'll get things sorted sooner than later.

KAYE: All right, Felicia, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Good to see you.

And be sure to join Christine Romans for "Your Bottom Line" each Saturday morning at 9:30 Eastern. And don't miss "Your Money" with Ali Velshi Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern and Sunday at 3:00.

Officials are monitoring a nuclear power plant in Virginia that was affected by a tornado over the weekend. Two of the Surry plant's units shut down automatically after losing off-site power. Workers have partially restored operations. Dominion Virginia Power says the units are safe and no radioactive material has been released.

Parts of the south are in recovery mode today, picking up the pieces after a wave of deadly tornadoes. Authorities say at least 45 people were killed. Almost half of them in North Carolina. Eleven of the deaths occurred in rural Bertie County.

In Texas, wildfires heavily damaged at least 10 homes in Austin overnight. One man has been arrested for accidentally started one of the hundreds of fires across the state. Conditions in Texas are the driest since 1917. Governor Rick Perry says his state can't handle wildfires on this scale. He's asking Washington for help.

Bumping up against the debt ceiling. President Obama is trying to raise the roof, but what does he have to give to get the votes? We'll ask our Ed Henry next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back.

So, President Obama wants to talk to you about the deficit. He's going on the road this week for a few town hall meetings talking about the budget battles and the spending plans. CNN's senior White House correspondent Ed Henry joins us at this time every day.

Ed, tell us, what's the president's big push all about?

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's trying to make friends, Randi, first of all starting out with a Facebook town hall meeting in San Francisco. So some virtual friends, I guess, but also some literal friends. He's think ahead to 2012. He's got to engage voters in some of these key states, but also engage the public on this message he's pushing now after last week's big speech about deficit reduction.

And so in addition to two stops in California, later this week he's going to be in Reno, Nevada. That's a key swing state. Then later today, even before he hits the road, he's also going to be doing some local market TV interviews. Local stations. Raleigh, North Carolina, Indianapolis, as well as Denver, Colorado. These, again, are all swing states that he wants to reach out to the voters in the short term, talk about this deficit reduction message, but in the long term he obviously also has to be thinking about 2012.

KAYE: Yes, I was going to say, sounds like it's a little bit of a 50/50 there.

HENRY: Yes, absolutely. I mean, look, he has to keep liberals onboard, first of all, and keep that base energized. There was a lot of frustration on the left that maybe the president was going to give in too much to Republicans on spending cuts in some of the earlier budget debates. I think last week's speech here in D.C. at George Washington University really seemed to reassure some on the left, organized labor and others, that the president's going to stand up for what they believe are some key principles, keep the left happy on some of that.

But he's got to still engage the public. One speech is not going to turn this debate around.

KAYE: Sure.

HENRY: They know that. That's why he's going to be hitting the road, but also why he's going to be hitting some of these local markets. And, oh, by the way, as you say, if it helps in 2010, great for them as well.

KAYE: Absolutely. So let's talk about this debt ceiling. Does the White House, does the president have enough support to get the debt ceiling raised? Something the president says has to be done, but he's certainly getting some push-back and may have to give a bit.

HENRY: It looks like he's going to get the votes, but with a big caveat, which is that the president all along has been saying he wants a clean vote, which means nothing else added to this. Just raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. doesn't default, et cetera. But Republicans have been pushing for that to be coupled with some more spending cuts. The White House has repeatedly rejected that until essentially this weekend when Treasury Secretary Geithner was out there on the Sunday talk shows acknowledging, yes, we're going to have to give a little bit to the Republicans here.

Again, I think that is one of the reasons why liberals have been so nervous. It seems like every time Speaker Boehner comes over here to negotiate something on the budget, the White House is giving in more on spending cuts. But I think it's, frankly, just the political reality. For a long time, the White House has been negotiating, trying to negotiate out of strength and say, look, we just want to raise the debt ceiling. No spending cuts attached to that. But they realize the votes are just not there on The Hill for that unless they have some real serious deficit reduction attached to it, either in a separate vote, you know, that's right after or right before, whatever. But the Republicans have been pushing for that. I think the White House is finally bending to that political reality, Randi.

KAYE: And, Ed, just real quickly, I want to ask you about this very interesting appointment that the president has on his calendar today to hand out a trophy.

HENRY: Yes, in just a little while he's going to be doing the commander in chief trophy. Going to be giving it to the Air Force. You know, the Army, Navy, everybody always wants it. This time it's the Air Force. You can't keep everybody happy. The commander in chief sometimes has to pick sides here after they win the big football game. So it's part of being president.

KAYE: That's a good looking trophy. I see that there in that live picture. Very nice.

HENRY: They're going to be very proud, the Air Force, to take that home.

KAYE: I'm sure. All right, Ed Henry on the stakeout. Thank you, Ed.

Well, hold the concrete. Delays could temporarily stop construction at the World Trade Center. New Yorkers are asking why. Up next, we'll tell you exactly what is to blame.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Half past the hour now and it's time for stories you may have missed. Federal emergency management officials are headed to the hardest hit areas of North Carolina today as people start picking up pieces from deadly tornadoes. Over the weekend, waves of tornadoes hit 10 states and left 45 people dead, 22 of them in North Carolina. Eleven of those deaths happened in Bertie County.

Across the region, six people died in Virginia, seven in Arkansas, seven in Alabama, one in Mississippi and two in Oklahoma.

Strong winds, unseasonably warm temperatures, and low humidity in Texas are creating what some forestry officials call a perfect storm for hundreds of wildfires. One 60-acre fire burning near Austin Community College prompted evacuations. The Austin fire department says it was started by a man at a homeless campsite and a suspect has been arrested.

Governor Rick Perry has asked President Obama to declare Texas a disaster area. Perry says conditions this spring are the driest they've been in Texas since 1917. More than a million and a half acres have burned this wildfire season.

With radiation levels too high for humans, remote controlled robots have been sent in to inspect Japan's nuclear reactors. The robots are being used to determine conditions to help assess a shutdown strategy. Tokyo Electric says it may take until the end of the year to put the Fukushima nuclear plant in a cold shutdown. That happens with water cooling the reactor stays below the boiling point. In the meantime, Tokyo Electric plans to put heavy coverings over the damaged reactors to limit the amount of radiation from escaping.

Mansur Kan Mehsud (ph) called Greg Mortenson a friend and now he says Mortenson's book about being kidnapped by the Taliban in Pakistan is all a pack of lies.

After being featured in this photograph as a supposed kidnapper, Mehsud says images show villagers were neither Taliban nor kidnappers but instead they were hosts. Here you can even see Mortenson holding a weapon.

The advocate for educating girls in Afghanistan finds himself defending his best-selling book "Three Cups of Tea." In a CBS "60 Minutes" investigation, author Steve Kroft also alleges the book's stories are not true. That was actually be the author Jon Krakauer. Krakauer claims that Mortenson's non-profit misuses funds and fails to carry its mission to build schools in the region. Mortensen denies most of the allegations made against him.

Here you see visitors and onlookers observing construction over Ground Zero. But, as you can see, there's very little construction actually happening. That's due to concerns about how to finance the construction of the word "trade center." It has caused delays in construction and if not resolved this could eventually bring to a standstill any work on tower 4 at Ground Zero. Port Authority has said the financing must be in place by year end to avoid any construction delays.

Fired air traffic controller getting a bigger break, part of new rules put in place for your safety. We'll take a look at other schedule changes. That's coming your way next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Air traffic controllers napping on the job. We've seen seven suspended recently. The late night tower snoozing points to a problem. Now a solution from the bosses at the FAA.

CNN's Sandra Endo has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANDRA ENDO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When planes come in for a landing the communication shouldn't be like this -- of a pilot trying to get in touch with an air traffic controller.

TRACON: They're not answering the phone line either.

PILOT: We're going to need to land.

TRACON: Landing at your own risk.

ENDO: But it reportedly happened at least seven times at airports across the country since the start of the year, because of controllers falling asleep on the job. But now the FAA and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood are making immediate changes to the schedules for controllers.

RAY LAHOOD, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: We will not allow controllers to sleep on the job. We simply will not.

ENDO: Under the new guidelines controllers will now have a minimum of nine hours off between shifts instead of eight. They'll no longer be able to swap shifts unless they get nine hours off in between. Controllers will not be able to work an unscheduled midnight shift following a day off. And there will be more FAA manners covering the early morning and late night hours.

The problem of fatigue has been around for years. Back in 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended the schedules of air traffic controllers be revised to address the issue which begs the question, why wasn't more done sooner?

LAHOOD: I was not the secretary in 2007. I'm secretary today. As soon as I learned about this, these controllers were suspended.

ENDO: Congress holds the purse strings for funding the FAA and a key lawmaker says the issue is not the number of controllers employed, but how they're used.

REP. JOHN MICA (R), FLORIDA: Air traffic controllers make on average $163,000 a piece. They're professionals. But even the best professional need some recurrent training and with changes in technology and procedures, and we think it is important that we revisit that.

ENDO (on camera): What do you say to the flying public? Should they have confidence in this system?

LAHOOD: Absolutely. I believe that the airline industry in America is the safest in the world. But we can do better. And we will do better.

ENDO: FAA officials and the Air Traffic Controllers Union are starting a nationwide tour in Atlanta to talk to controllers to hear their concerns, but to also hammer home the issue of safety.

Sandra Endo, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: A short time ago Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood met with controllers at a regional radar facility just outside Atlanta, talking to them about those new rules. It's part after nationwide tour by LaHood and the head of the FAA to personally deliver their safety message.

Earlier Suzanne Malveaux asked Secretary LaHood about the added hour of rest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: How much of a difference do we think this is really going to make?

LAHOOD: Well, we got that recommendation, really, from a fatigue study that we just are releasing and that study says that pilots should actually have nine hours and we thought that controllers should, too.

But look, it that's not enough hours -- and that's really one of the reasons that the administrator and the president of the Controllers Union are traveling the country starting in your bailiwick today, in Atlanta, talking to controllers about workplace rules, about more rest. And if it needs to be more, then obviously we'll take that into conversation.

We think nine hours is probably the right amount of rest. But if it's not, we'll do better.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KAYE: We'll have much more on LaHood's visit and the new rules for controllers at the top of the hour with CNN homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve. That's coming up.

Why is it against the law in India to determine the sex of your baby before it's born? I'll explain next in Globe Trekking. It has to do with one of the most shocking social trends, not in India, but in all of south Asia. So, stick around to hear this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Today on Globe Tracking, let me start like what looked like some simple demographic statistics from India. In 2001, the gender ration was just 927 girls for every thousand boys born. And by the time the latest census data was released this year, the number had dropped even further to 914 girls for each thousand boys.

But these are far from simple stats. They tell a much more insidious story, the story of India's missing women. These are girls who are never born because women there are pressured into having an abortion if it is discovered they found out they're going to have a baby girl. The practice is so prevalent that tests to determine the sex of an unborn child is illegal in India, but hardly ever actually enforced.

As part of CNN's year-long Freedom Project, let's try explain why this has been happening for years.

Sara Sidner is CNN's correspondent for India, though today, she is joining me from San Francisco.

And Sara, I know there isn't one simple reason why this is going on. But how much of this is tied to the role of women as a whole in India?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we should talk about this first. When you talk about being pressured into having an abortion, for example, if it's discovered you're having a girl, the pressure isn't just coming from men, per se. The pressure is a social pressure that's also coming from women and the way that girls are considered.

And really what this is about when you get to the bottom of it is a socioeconomic issue. Because girls are considered more expensive, because oftentimes families are still paying a dowry, even though the government has outlawed dowries, which is when a woman gets married she's expected to give certain kinds of gifts to the boy's family, to the groom's family, and those gifts can range from anything from a house to a car to gold jewelry, and that's kind of an expected exchange that happened. It is very much a business proposition as much as it is anything else.

And the girls are the ones that have that burden often. And even though it's been outlawed, families are still expected to do it. The middle class, the upper class, they're still doing it. They're just not calling it dowries. So girls, number one, are thought of as more expensive. But the other thing that's happening here is that when a woman gets married she moves out of her family's house. And in India there is no, for example, Social Security. So as people get older, boys are thought of as a bit of a retirement, an investment. The boy stays in the home, brings his wife into the home and then thereby takes care of the family, the mother, the father, the joint families. They often live in joint families with the mother and father and sometimes grandparents. So that person is expected -- the son -- to take care of the family. And without that there is really no safety net.

So we're looking at a real issue here with socioeconomics but also there is a social issue here with women and how women are looked at in India as a whole, Randi.

KAYE: I just -- from reading more about it and you hear about these women who have had to have multiple abortions, and now the family is pushing them to get pregnant again to see if maybe they might have a son this time. You have you so ask what is being done about this, if anything. Because the law is the law, yet it is not really being followed.

SIDNER: That is one of the issues that happens in many, many things in India. You have these laws are in place -- there are thousands of very specific laws that just aren't enforced. This is also a very difficult thing to enforce because you cannot necessarily change people's beliefs just because a law is in place.

We should also talk about what's happening in India now. It is a developing country. It is developing quite quickly and you are seeing some people's salaries rise. Instead of people getting more education about women and about abortions, what's happening is they now have the money to pay for abortions. So, you are seeing this gap actually widen when most people thought when people got more money, were able to be more educated, that it would get smaller and it isn't. So, it is something that a lot of people are very concerned about, Randi.

KAYE: All right. Sara Sidner, thank you so much for your insight on that. Hopefully things will change for those women there. For much more on the CNN Freedom Project, you can check out our webpage, CNN.com/freedom.

From our planet to oceans to the human body to outer space, this next story has it all. Everyday on this show, we do a segment called "The Big I." It's all about big new ideas and (INAUDIBLE). The X- Prize Foundation pays millions of dollars for these big, new ideas. They are looking for big solutions to big problems. Ali Velshi joins us live from New York. And Ali, you attended this X-Prize brainstorm session this weekend. I bet you had a lot of fun. How'd it go?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I had to travel halfway across the country just to be able to get back on this show, Randi. Good to see you!

KAYE: We miss you!

VELSHI: I'm so glad this show is in good hands. Yes, I traveled out to Los Angeles. The X-Prize is something I've been involved in for some time. Many of you will remember the old X-Prize, the first one that came out, the Ensari X-Prize to get a spaceship into space. There was a prize of $10 million for the first team that could do it. Look, it takes way more to get a spaceship into space but what it did was get a whole lot of competitors into space, almost creating the industry of private spaceflight, now allowing NASA to go and do other things while commercial space travel will take over shuttling people to and from the international space station.

Let me bring in Francis Beland. He's with the X-Prize. We spent the weekend together in Los Angeles. Francis good to see you. I want you to help me explain to our viewers why this process of creating a prize, a monetary incentive, is so important and how it works. Walk us through the simple version of what you walked us through this weekend.

FRANCIS BELAND, VP OF PRIZE DEVELOPMENT, X-PRIZE FOUNDATION: Simply saying, there's a lot of grand challenges we are facing today, and most of them have a multitude of failures. And the prize allows human nature, the competitive aspect of human nature, to do its best work, come together and solve a problem. At the X-Prize Foundation, we ask questions and we let the people answer the questions for us. So, allow human nature to solve the grand challenges that we are facing today is what we're all about.

VELSHI: Give me an example, Francis, of one of the questions -- I had to ship back here because to be on TV this morning, so I didn't get to see that final session. Give me an example of a question that you allowed the group to come up with, then develop a prize which you are now going to move forward and try and create an X-Prize out of and solve a problem that humanity is facing.

BELAND: All right, I'll give you an example, Ali. I remember you and I were working on ocean issues. This comes out of a water session. As you know, the lack of drinking water is the number one killer today. And imagine, imagine if tomorrow you're able to give at the home scale level drinking water for an entire family. Now you will change the life of millions, hundreds of millions of people. These are the kind of solutions, these are the kind of breakthroughs we're talking about.

Another one that's even more exciting that came up as one of the top ideas over the weekend -- imagine an OnStar system for the body. You and I have cars, we have little red light, check engine light. Imagine if we had one for our body to detect, to prevent and to be reactive to health events that happens in our day to day life. Another breakthrough that came together this weekend at the X-Prize foundation visionary meeting.

VELSHI: We were just looking at James Cameron. He's obviously passionate about oceans. Bottom line here, Francis, you will take these ideas, then you offer them out as a prize and you hope that teams then put money into competing to win that prize. Often, the prize money is less than a single team will invest in trying to find the solution, but the effect is you have a multiple of the prize money dedicated to try to find a solution that's going to help humanity.

BELAND: Absolutely. If you look at a $10 million purse, normally the leverage is immense. The amount of money that the team spent to solve that problem and to win that is often ten times bigger than the purse itself or even more. We have seen 200 times the size of the purse.

VELSHI: All right. Francis, good work. Thanks very much for joining us again today. X-Prize is a great idea.

And the best part of it, Randi, is there was a party on Saturday night, and Will.I.Am was spinning the tunes. He was the deejay for the night, and that was a little bit of a payoff for a weekend of intellectual endorphins.

KAYE: Yes. And you know how I knew that, Ali? I follow you on Twitter, and I know your every move. I knew exactly where you are at all times!

VELSHI: I was tweeting as he was doing that.

KAYE: I know you were!

VELSHI: Randi, I miss you! I don't know why we are never in the same city but I miss you and the team!

KAYE: I know, we are never in the same city. But it is nice to have you on between 1:00 and 3:00.

VELSHI: Thank you.

KAYE: All right, Al. See you soon. And for even more info on the X-Prize Foundation head to our blog, CNN.com/ali.

One possible GOP candidate unsure about the rivals, not ready to commit to the first debate. Your CNN political debate is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for CNN political update. And stocks are taking a tumble today on news of a negative outlook on the debt future. This just highlights the high stakes in the budget battle. CNN congressional correspondent Brianna Keilar joins me from Washington with more on this. Hi there, Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, Randi. We are looking at the congressional reaction to that news you are talking about. S&P announcing that the U.S.'s long-term credit rating has been downgraded from stable to negative. This is crossing paths now with the next big spending, big money battle that we're going to be seeing in Congress, and that is whether to increase the debt ceiling, that amount of money that the U.S. can legally borrow.

So, we heard from the number two Republican in the House, Eric Cantor. He said this is a wake-up call, but he also said this backs up something many Republicans want to do, which to add conditions to the increasing the debt ceiling, something the Obama administration does not want to see.

And then let's talk about 2012. Michele Bachmann, potential presidential candidate for the Republican nomination. She is in South Carolina, and if you are wondering if she is ready to be on the hot seat in a debate, CNN's Peter Hamby asked her that and she was really noncommittal about it. She said, that she has not announced for sure that she's running for president. It might be premature. And there is a debate coming up in May with lots of Republican possibilities who have already committed. She has not.

And the enemy of the iPad. Who are we talking about? It looks like Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois. He was on the House floor on Friday, just slamming it. He said that after buying an iPod, it occurred to him that it is killing jobs because you have bookstores like Borders and Barnes and Noble, he said, that are shutting their door because, you know, you can just buy an iPod, download your newspaper, download your books, and then you don't actually need to go to any of these bookstores.

So, Randi, I guess he doesn't like the iPad. He is not a fan, but he did buy one for himself.

KAYE: Hmm. He is anti-iPad. All right. Brianna, thank you very much.

Anti-scientific, unnecessary, unconstitutional. That is just some of to description of the science education bills being proposed in this country. But some people say that these anti evolution bills are very necessary. We will take you on a tour of the battleground states right after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: We want to take you straight now to Maryland. These are pictures coming in from WUSA. Apparently Montgomery County Fire and Rescue working a river rescue. You can take a look at the water there rushing on the water near Violet's Lock Road. Apparently a woman that you can see there in that video, hanging from that tree in the canal near this Violet's Lock Road. The woman was a kayaker, apparently, lost control of the boat, ended up grabbing a hold of the tree, and we're not sure how long she has been there or who is in the area to help. But we know they are on the scene and the county fire and rescue, and they say that the woman may be caught -- she may have with her skirt caught, which is under the water and caught in the tree.

So, we are continuing to watch this, this woman clinging to a tree for dear life, it seems, in Montgomery County, Maryland. Officials say she was kayaking, apparently lost control of her boat. There have been several rescues apparently in that section of the Potomac today as high waters created some very dangerous conditions there. We will continue to watch this woman and hopefully to be able to bring her rescue to you as well as soon as they can reach her.