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Libya Rebels Plead for Help; First Lady's Plane had Close Call; Gulf Oil Disaster -- One Year Later
Aired April 20, 2011 - 09:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: 10:00 on the East Coast, 7:00 a.m. in the West. I'm Carol Costello sitting in for Kyra Phillips.
More ferocious weather firing up today and the Midwest and the south are under the gun again. Over the last week, strong storms and tornados have killed at least 46 people and many of those areas are in the path of today's violent weather.
President Obama is on the road to sell his plans to whittle down the national debt. Today he's asking will you be his friend on Facebook? Lots of people are saying no. Only about 32,000 have RSVP'ed to participate in his online town hall meeting.
Well, there is a chilling image. Americans and some enclaves forced to pay almost $5 a gallon for premium gas. That's way above the national average. But experts say we may all be heading there and beyond. And those prices are way up, despite the fact that some oil companies are back in the Gulf of Mexico in the deep waters and drilling.
The fatal blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig happened one year ago today. 11 workers lost their lives and the environmental disaster that followed essentially stopped production of oil in the gulf. Some say that's part of the reason gas prices are so high today. Even one of the widows of an oil rig worker says it's important to keep the oil industry going in the gulf.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHELLEY ANDERSON, HUSBAND KILLED IN DEEPWATER HORIZON BLAST: When we spoke to the president, we told him that we needed the oil industry, that it was so vital to our economy and we will still fight for the oil industry every day because that's what our husband would want to do and that's what we do to honor them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a six-month deep water drilling moratorium. The month after the explosion, it was lifted on October 12 and just four months later, the government said drillers had met new safety standards so it issued its first permit. Now 11 permits to drill have been issued. Six companies are now drilling.
CNN Money's Poppy Harlow took a chopper 150 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. She spent a day on one of Shell's biggest deepwater oil platforms to check out the state of the industry. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POPPY HARLOW, CNN MONEY (on camera): We are on the platform. Just take a look. We are about 150 miles out from the coast of New Orleans. Below us, there are 24 different wells drilling thousands and thousands of feet down into the gulf. So oil production here goes on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It never stops.
Overall, what would you say the drill here in the gulf a year ago has cost Shell in terms of having idle production?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's a difficult thing to say exactly. I can tell you it's at least hundreds of millions of dollars. I can put it in production terms. When I look at now my business in the Gulf of Mexico for 2011, we'll produce an average of about 50,000 barrels a day less than we would have without the moratorium.
HARLOW: So what is this showing us?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is showing us how many barrels we're pumping to town. How many barrels of oil we're pumping to town (INAUDIBLE)
HARLOW: How many barrels a day go out of this rig?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out of Mars as a whole, about 90,000 barrels.
HARLOW (voice-over): Shell monitors its deep water drilling in the gulf around the clock from this operation center in New Orleans and said it can help prevent disasters like the gulf oil spill.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We basically have one station operating right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Monitoring drilling in the gulf.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, because right now, this is the only drilling rig that we have active in the gulf, drilling an injector is the Mars platform. We don't have any other active drilling rigs.
HARLOW (on camera): It took months to plug the hole after the BP spill. Do you have to prove now that you have the technology to plug that hole pretty quickly if that were to happen on one of your rigs?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to prove that we have the capability to cap the well. Hopefully cap and contain it as it is and we also have to prove that we have the ability to respond to it in the very unlikely attempt that it was to occur again.
HARLOW: What's the biggest misconception about deep water drilling?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the thing that I worry about most, it relates back to the spill because that's, I think, where the most of people' perceptions come from now. And I think there was a perception that built up during part of the response to that spill that said does the industry actually have the technology to do this?
HARLOW: Does it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Should we be down there? And the answer is yes, we do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Poppy Harlow now joins us from New York. You're back from the oil platform in the gulf. And Poppy, a question for you -
HARLOW: Sure.
COSTELLO: Do you get a sense that most Americans want more drilling in the gulf?
HARLOW: Not only do I get that sense, but that's what the numbers are showing us, Carol. I want to pull up a recent CNN poll, and it's pretty astounding how much sort of the support for deep water drilling has increased in the last year. Right now, 69 percent of Americans say we need more deep water oil drilling in this country for more domestic oil. That's up from 49 percent in June of last year which is while oil was still gushing from that BP disaster.
So clearly people are asking for that. And I think, Carol, a lot of this comes with the perception that if we drill more in the Gulf of Mexico, have more domestic crude, oil prices are going to go down and most experts would argue that's really a misconception, Carol. We get about 1.6 million barrels of crude from the gulf, we produce 88 million barrels worldwide.
So it's still a small portion. And right now, we have an over supply of oil even in America right now. The issue with gas prices so high, oil prices above $100, it's not a supply issue. This is about speculation, this is about concerns about the Middle East and tension there and what that might do to future supply, but there is big concern that prices could go higher because of what could happen in the future.
Right now, Carol, we have an oversupply of crude. At the same time, what Shell told me is, "look, if we could get the permits from Washington, if it wasn't so difficult right now, we would build three more of these giant platforms that employ about 200 people on each one. We would build three more of these and start pumping more in the gulf." That means American jobs. These are very good paying jobs and that means more domestic oil, Carol.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO: Very interesting perspective. And I think it's fair to point out that the government is going slowly on this because it was such a big environmental disaster. They want to make sure, you know, all the Is are dotted and all the Ts are crossed when it comes to safety and capping, you know, let's say another huge spill like that happens again, they want to make sure that these safety measures are in place so that they can cap the thing like right now.
HARLOW: And just quickly, one thing that has happened is that four big oil companies after the spill last year got together, including Shell, spent $1 billion to create a containment cap that they had to prove to the government would work to cap the well. It's amazing to me that we didn't have this in the industry beforehand. But clearly, we didn't and it took months to plug that hole. So what the industry is saying is we have proven to the government that we can do this and now we need to start getting these permits a little more quickly.
I asked them what their relationship with Washington is, Carol, and the word they use is "frequent." So a lot of lobbying in Washington trying to get more permission.
COSTELLO: Poppy Harlow, live in New York, thank you.
We want to business news correspondent Stephanie Elam now about how some Americans are dealing with this freakishly high gas prices. Ironically enough, $5 a gallon for gas is driving people to drive more?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, you know, say you live right on the border and say you live in Rhode Island and your gas prices are really high, then you might just take a trip over to Massachusetts where gas maybe a little bit cheaper and that starts making a difference when you start talking about $5 a gallon, right Carol?
So we're seeing people do that. In fact, even here in New York City, people will leave New York to go to Jersey to get some of that cheap Jersey gas as one of my friends likes to call it. But it's true. It is 29 days in a row now that we have seen gas creeping up here. Taking a look at where we start now over that streak, that's up about 29 cents, and just looking at it today, $3.83, that's the average price. A month ago, it was at $3.54.
So this shows you we're going up about a penny a day. That is very fast. So the highest on record and I know we keep saying this but it's $4.11, that was in July of 2008 when the sky originally started to fall, so people are thinking back to that summer and thinking about what they're going to do.
Memorial day, still more than a month away. The official beginning to the summer driving season, Carol. And that has people really upset. Some saying "Sure, we may say $5 - think about it, we already have several states like California where the average is above $4. New York state, as well, is another one, just to give you an example.
So just keeping that in mind, that's forcing people to change the way they're driving and that could affect the way they're spending and you know the economy is still getting back on its feet.
COSTELLO: We know that well. Stephanie Elam, thanks very much.
Now we want to share a couple of stories on air travel, ones that may have you questioning the safety of on our skies yet again. The other intended to make the flying experience, rather, a bit more tolerable. Today the feds are rolling out a new bill of rights to better protect your sanity and your wallet. It will guarantee that your baggage fee is refunded if your suitcase gets lost. If you are involuntarily bumped from a flight, the airlines will have to pay you more. And there will be a limit on how long passengers on international flights can be stuck on the tarmac, limits are already in place for domestic flights. Thanks to the on-going initiative to make the skies a bit more friendly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAY LAHOOD, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: We're trying to look out after passengers who in some instances have been treated pretty shabbily.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: The new consumer friendly rules are to go into effect by the end of August.
Now let's turn to the latest air scare, this mistake isn't likely to make you feel any better. It involves the first lady. Despite all the safeguards afforded her, Michelle Obama's plane was forced to abort a landing because a military cargo jet was flying too close to her plane.
CNN's Tom Foreman walks us through the chain of events.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): What we understand from all of our reporting and from "The Washington Post" at this point is that the first lady left New York City. She was headed down to Andrews Air Force Base, just south of Washington, D.C. here. And as she came into the base, coming in from the north to land, she was supposed to be about five miles, at least, behind the plane in front of her, this big cargo plane.
But the folks at Andrews, when they picked her up on their radar said that simply was not the case. To the contrary, they said the distance was only about three miles. That was a concern because of possible turbulence coming off the back of this plane which could upset this one and because of runway space.
The first lady's plane was told to do some S turns like this, to try to eat up some time and lengthen this gap. But it didn't lengthen it enough. The concern was quite simply that if this plane landed and hers came in too closely behind it, it simply couldn't get off the runway in that time. So the first lady was told to go around.
(END VIDEOTAPE) COSTELLO: Turning now to Libya, as the fighting rages on between rebel forces and government troops, opposition leaders are due to meet with the French president today. Just this morning, France and Italy says it will send teams to Libya to help train and advise the rebels.
Britain made a similar announcement. All of this comes as the rebel leadership appeals for money and weapons. CNN's Zain Verjee is following this story from London. And Zain, I know you spoke to a source of yours with knowledge about what is going on in Libya as far as the rebels are concerned. What did he tell you?
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, I spoke to one western observer who said essentially the rebels really need money and weapons. They don't have the training and they don't have the experience. So for them to be effective, they need all of that.
The source I spoke to, Carol, also said that part of the thing that is really problematic with the rebels is that these generals, there are a couple of generals actually at the top that are fighting it out for the number one spot and that is really affecting the situation militarily on the ground.
The last thing he said that I thought was important is that the rebels, he said have really, really high expectations of NATO. And they feel that since Moammar Gadhafi has stepped up his attacks on the rebels, that NATO should have done the same. So they're hoping that that will happen but that's definitely something that they anticipate will go up and the rebels welcoming the French, the Brits, as well as the Italians to come -
COSTELLO: France and the U.K. going in.
VERJEE: Yes.
COSTELLO: I mean, what is the key here? And is the United States far behind?
VERJEE: You know, this is very interesting because what's happening is that some analysts are saying, "We're almost seeing this war go into another phase where we're going to hit a stalemate situation if the rebels aren't able to step up." So what you're seeing is these guys going in as military advisers to try and help sort out the command and control, the strategy, stop the infighting.
Because in order for the NATO strikes to be effective, they need to have an effective ground troop presence and the rebels aren't that effective. So they're hoping that at least trying to organize them, you know, trying to create an appropriate structure and hopefully things will get better as far as the rebels go. But they are really the key here.
COSTELLO: Zain Verjee, reporting live from London. Thanks as always.
President Obama takes this deficit cutting message to Facebook. It will be the first time for a sitting president to the social network's home base. It's being built as a town hall, but is it really? We'll have details about the event, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: If you've ever watched those White House press conferences, you look at the eager bright eyed reporters like our very own Ed Henry and thought, I wish I could do that, well, maybe this is your opportunity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's going to be live streamed and I'll answer questions from folks across the country. So I hope you'll take a break from either friending or defriending each other to RSVP at facebook.com/white house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Yes. Today, the president holds a town hall on Facebook. Why Facebook? Well, there are more than 500 million active users, half of them use the site every day. The average user has 130 friends. That's the social part of the social network. Users are connected to an average of 80 groups and organizations on Facebook.
Mark Milian of CNN.com's Tech Pro, he joins us now via Skype. Hi.
MARK MILIAN, CNN TECH REPORTER: Hi, Carol.
COSTELLO: Glad you're with us today. So a lot of people on Facebook. We checked the president's site. Only 32,000 signed up to participate in the president's Facebook town hall. Does that number mean it's a bust or will the numbers build closer to the town hall time, which is later this afternoon?
MILIAN: Well, I don't think they did a whole lot to market this thing in advance, so it's happened in the past where just these things start to get rolling and then people pass these links around on Twitter and, of course, on Facebook. So I think once this gets started, maybe people who are bored at work will start tuning in.
COSTELLO: Maybe so.
We are told though the head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, will be choosing the questions. So how exactly will that work? I'll put my question on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg will make the decision on whether to ask the president that question or not?
MILIAN: Maybe not Zuckerberg himself. But that's right this is actually going to be a little different from past town halls. The Obama administration has used a tool that was actually created by Google for previous town halls to crowd source questions that let's you - it let's users submit and vote on questions. But they're not doing that this time. They say they're going to take questions from Facebook and also from people in the audience. So there's maybe a little less transparency in how the questions are submitted and voted upon in this scenario. COSTELLO: Well, let's get into the reason the White House changed the tactics there. Because the last town hall type meeting that the White House conducted on Facebook, like hundreds of thousands of supporters to legalize marijuana flooded the site and essentially took over. Isn't that right?
MILIAN: Yes. Using that Google tool, it's essentially opening up flood gates. So if an organized group gets together and they want to submit one question and have that gamed and voted up, then it's easier to do that when there's not a sort of moderation layer in between. So, you know, doing it this way through Facebook with the moderator could, you know, have to do with them wanting to avoid these types of questions, these legalization questions. Or it could have something to do with the fact that the tool that they used before was made by Google, which is the chief competitor to Facebook.
COSTELLO: Oh, yes, and they have lots of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, too, I hear. It kind of takes the spirit away from Facebook that you can post anything you want on and there's transparencies in the number of likes for a certain question. But we'll see how it works out.
Mark Milian, thanks for joining us this morning.
MILIAN: Thanks, Carol.
COSTELLO: In just a couple of minutes, we'll check on those wildfires sweeping across Texas. Nearly 200 homes are lost and weary crews are looking to the heavens for relief.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Checking news "Cross Country" now, in Tennessee, a reward in the case of a mission nursing student is up to $80,000. Holly Bobo disappeared a week ago today. Her brother said he saw a man wearing camouflage lead her into a wooded area near their home. Police are now going door to door in search of information.
In Texas, wildfires are churning across the landscape from border to border. One million acres now burned. 200 homes lost and only a bit of relief on the horizon.
And finally, in Long Island, New York, the stately mansion that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" will soon be history. Demolition begin on Monday. The house has been up for sale for $30 million but the owner says it was costing way too much to maintain it and now one bid on that price.
Charlie Sheen is talking about his custody battle. He's even making jokes. A.J. Hammer joins us from New York. I guess that's no surprise.
A.J. HAMMER, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" HOST: No, none at all, Carol. He was just one hour late, but Charlie Sheen won his epic sprint across the continent from an appearance in a California courtroom in the morning to make it on stage for a scheduled show in Washington, D.C. last night.
But I'm here to say that's about all the winning Charlie had on Tuesday. Sheen showed up for a custody hearing in California yesterday. He was seeking sole custody of his twin boys because he alleges his ex-wife Brooke Mueller had gone back into rehab. Well, the judge denied his request. The reporters are being allowed to witness the proceeding and granted Mueller's request for privacy, saying "publicity wouldn't be good for the boys." Certainly, understandable, results were revealed by the judge, but TMZ is reporting that Charlie ultimately failed in his attempt to win full legal and physical custody of two-year-old Bob and Max.
And with that bad news, Charlie jetted out of court to high tail it across the country so he could make his appearance at D.C.'s Constitution Hall. Now, the concert was scheduled for 8:00 p.m.. It was delayed until 9:00. And CNN was right there as Charlie arrived with a police escort and came over to talk to the fans. There were about 30 people who had gathered on the sidewalk. And he told us he couldn't talk about the custody case, but he still managed to slam his ex-wife while joking about reports that she had been seeing trying to sell her things for drug money. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE SHEEN, ACTOR: I just landed, yes. We had a police escort and we ran more red lights than Brooke Mueller heading into a pawnshop.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAMMER: Nice.
Let's move on now to some celebrity positivity this morning. The Black Eyed Peas are doing a great thing. They're opening a music school in New York City. The six-time Grammy Award winners announced on Tuesday that their Pea Pod Foundation is working with the Adobe Foundation and together they're opening up the Pea Pod Adobe Youth Voices and Music and Multi-Media Academy in lower Manhattan.
Now the piece say this is going to be a high tech music production studio. Student artists will spend their day after school on Saturdays and in the summer studying video music production using real professional quality equipment, this is scheduled to open in July. The two foundations already run three academies in California.
And finally this morning, "Dancing with the Stars" sent Petra packing last night. The lovely Petra, super model, became the fourth contestant booted from the dance floor. But I got to tell you, if anybody who has been a good sport about really perpetually losing on this season of the show, it's philanthropist and tsunami survivor, Petra. She smiled through the first week's score of 18, she giggled at criticism from the judges and had nothing but gratitude and kisses, (INAUDIBLE) on alternating cheeks to be exact for everybody at Tuesday night's results show that sends her and her partner, Dimitry, home.
I got to tell you, Carol, she was such a good sport, having spent a little time with Petra. She is really a lovely, lovely woman. Sorry to see her go. That's the way "Dancing with the Stars" program rolls.
COSTELLO: Hey, she's knows what life is all about after what she's been through, so good for her.
HAMMER: Yes, absolutely. Great perspective.
COSTELLO: Thanks, A.J..
Want information on everything breaking in the entertainment world? A.J. has got it tonight on "Showbiz Tonight" at 5:00 p.m. Eastern and 11:00 p.m. on HLN.
The fatal blast of the Deepwater horizon rig happened one year ago today. Weeks later the world got to see up close what an oil spill looked like, weeks and weeks of non-stop gushing. You would think Congress would have learned some lessons here and passed some laws. You would be wrong. That story is next.
Also ahead, ballistic boxers heading to the war zone, protecting our troops everywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: One year to the day after the fatal explosion that set off the BP oil spill, many people who depend on the gulf for a living say they are still waiting for compensation. The president of the Plaquemines Parish told CNN he's still waiting for some leadership.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILLY NUNGESSER, PRES., PLAQUEMINES PARISH, LA: I can't look you in the eye and tell you who is in charge. You know, they've changed out so many BP and Coast Guard people, just when you think somebody you think you can trust and makes promises about cleaning up, taking care of the wildlife, or making the fishermen whole, they're gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Congress doesn't seem to be in charge. What have lawmakers done over the past year to make sure there isn't a sequel to the BP oil disaster, nothing. No new safety laws. No increase penalties for violations and no laws on how oil companies must respond to such a disaster. The Department of Interior and the oil industry have taken on all the responsibility.
CNN's Brianna Keilar went to Capitol Hill and asked why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're estimating 1,000 barrels per day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 5,000 barrels a day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 40,000 and 50,000 barrels a day.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As oil spill estimates ballooned, so did Americans' concerns. May 20th, one month after the disaster began.
(on camera): -- With this new video, what you see there on the right.
(voice-over): CNN started showing live pictures of the oil gushing into the Gulf. BP had finally answered Democrats' demands to show the public what they were seeing. And Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey put the so-called spill cam online.
(on camera): You put this on your committee Web site.
REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: That's right.
KEILAR: The Web site crashed, didn't it? So many people were looking at it.
MARKEY: This was like an overnight sensation. There ultimately were hundreds of thousands, millions of people who became obsessed with, fascinated by what they were seeing.
KEILAR (voice-over): Now one year later, what about making sure this never happens again?
(on camera): What has Congress done?
MARKEY: Congress has not passed any legislation yet to respond to the lessons which we have learned from that spill.
KEILAR (voice-over): Markey blames Republican senators who opposed a bill the House passed last Congress.
(on camera): It's not just Republicans, it's also Democrats who are running counter to what you say needs to be done.
MARKEY: Well, again, we had a majority of the votes in the Senate, but you need more than 51 in the Senate. You need 60 votes.
KEILAR: But you didn't even have all Democratic votes.
MARKEY: No, we didn't have all Democrats. But it's a very small minority of Democrats plus just about every Republican just to get the mix correct.
KEILAR (voice-over): And Markey lost another battle in February when the Obama administration once again allowed deep water drilling with the support of Republicans and some Gulf state Democrats who argued that drilling means jobs.
(on camera): What are you saying to the president?
MARKEY: It's important for the Obama administration to go only so far and not the be pushed into a situation where they once again are invoking the law of unintended consequences.
KEILAR: To play devil's advocate, that's pretty soft language for someone who looked at BP executives and demanded they apologize for lying. Isn't that being soft on the administration?
MARKEY: No. I am saying that they have to be very careful.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: Now in the now Republican-controlled House, just last week, committees moved bills to expedite drilling permits and open new offshore areas to drilling. Republicans say they are striking a balance between safety and the demand for oil. But Carol, Ed Markey says they're acting as if the spill never even happened.
COSTELLO: I'm just so shocked by that. Is there any chance that Congress will pass legislation on safety anytime soon?
KEILAR: Well, in the way that, say, Ed Markey wants to see it, he does have a bill right now that would incorporate some of the oil spill commission's recommendations. But it seems really unlikely that it will pass. Certainly even in the last Congress, he had a hard time getting things through the Senate. As you know right now, the big battles are over the economy, they're over jobs. We're going to see a fight over raising the debt ceilings, and this doesn't appear to be - as certainly as much of a priority for those other things, Carol.
COSTELLO: If my memory is serving me, didn't Ed Markey actually cry over this in Congress?
KEILAR: You know, I don't -- I remember Charlie Milansan who is from Louisiana, he certainly did cry. I don't know if that was Ed Markey.
COSTELLO: You're right, you're right. I was just wondering. I mean, it was such an emotional issue for so many lawmakers. So, I guess, after listening to your story, it's like, you're kidding. Nothing has been passed?
KEILAR: And, you know, I remember going down to Louisiana in October. It's sort of striking this balance for people in that area. This is their economy. This is their livelihood. This is also their coastline. And so when you talk to average Americans who this really affects them, not just in their livelihood, but they're trying to strike a balance, as well. And they actually had some issues with how Democrats approached the drilling moratorium. But they also do want to see some safety, so they're kind of demanding both things, Carol.
COSTELLO: Brianna Keilar, live from Capitol Hill - actually, live in our Washington bureau -- thanks so much.
Head over to CNN.com/oildisaster to see the effects the oil has had on the Gulf region one year later. Also, check out the iReport assignment where people are expressing themselves by messages in the sand. Checking our top stories now. Parts of seven states in the Midwest and the South have been under a tornado watch this morning. They include some of the areas hardest hit by the deadly storms last week.
House speaker John Boehner visited with U.S. troops in Afghanistan and spoke with the president, Hamid Karzai. The Afghan president urged Boehner and five other House members to scale back military operations, causing civilian casualties.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUCER: It's designer underwear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Yes, check that out. Next month, the Army is going to start sending ballistic boxers to soldiers in Afghanistan. They're heavy, silk shorts that provide troops better protection from debris kicked up by explosions.
Today, the president visits Facebook's headquarters to speak to the youth of America. Now, ostensibly, this is an economic chat, but some see this as a rally for the president's 2012 campaign. Remember, the youth vote played a huge role in getting President Obama elected. In 2008, young voters made up the largest percentage of the Democratic vote in at least 30 years.
And what is on their minds? Ket's ask an expert. Heather Smith is from Rock the Vote. Welcome, Heather.
HEATHER SMITH, ROCK THE VOTE: Thanks. Good to be here, Carol.
COSTELLO: Nice to be with you, too. First off, in your opinion, does President Obama still have the support of young voters?
SMITH: Well, if you look at the most recent surveys out there, statistically, about 55 percent approve of the president's job ratings. But young people increasingly are up for grabs. They are looking for a candidate or elected officials who are willing to take a stand and represent them on the issues they care most about.
COSTELLO: We know the unemployment rate among young people is enormously high, much higher than, what, the almost nine percent unemployment than we have in this cup. We know it takes enthusiasm for a candidate to get young people to the polls. What can the president possibility do to bring back that enthusiasm among young voters when they're looking for a job and can't find one?
SMITH: Yes, I mean, while the president might be running a re- election campaign or the Republican candidates out there doing the same, that's a year-and-a-half away. And right now, young people, they have double the unemployment of the national average. They are struggling to find jobs, the soaring cost of education, these real- life concerns. And they are looking for leadership and they are candidates. But actually the president, who they really helped to elect, to engage them in those issues, to have real conversation about how to make changes on those issues. And as we saw, even just here in Washington, D.C. over the weekend, there are 10,000 young people who came to D.C. to make their voice heard on issues around energy and climate change. Young people are willing to engage if the candidate and if the elected officials are willing to represent them and take a clear stand on, you know, the side of young people.
COSTELLO: On the issues they care about. The president is holing his town hall on Facebook. We checked out the RSVP'ed section on his Facebook page. Only 32,000 signed up. I mean, it may build through the day, but is that an ominous sign?
SMITH: You know, the important factor for the president and then the upcoming elections will be young people. And there are many, many ways to reach young people, and you have to start now. Facebook is one of them. It will be great if he can talk to 32,000 young people. But I'm sure that will grow, and it will start to spread.
If he makes the compelling message, if he lays out a vision on issues like unemployment, like education, like the environment. That will start to spread amongst the social networks to other young people. But, you know, of course he's doing a Facebook forum. It's an important constituency, and it's good to have him out here talking to the youth of America.
COSTELLO: And we'll be watching and listening. And Heather, thanks for joining us this morning. We appreciate it.
SMITH: Of course. Thank you.
COSTELLO: Toyota cars won't be rolling off the assembly line as fast as they used to. The automaker is cutting back making cars here -- and around the world. We'll tell you how that will impact jobs, just ahead.
Also, a mugshot contest in Maricopa County, Arizona, and the sheriff wants online voters to choose the winner, you know, their favorite mugshot. We'll explain more, next.
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COSTELLO: Stock market opening bell just rang about an hour ago. We were expecting a big rally, and we're kind of getting one. The Dow Jones Industrial average up 189 points.
Big slowdown, though, at making Toyota. The automaker announces drastic cuts in production. Let's get more on that from CNN's Stephanie Elam. She's in New York. What's up with this, Stephanie?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, Carol, this story is just a wave and wave of effects, the aftereffects of what's going on in Japan after the March 11 earthquake followed by the tsunami. So, at this point, Toyota did warn some of their production facilities in North America be prepared for slowdowns. And that's what's happened now
In North America, they are going to slow down their production, extending days that they already had online. So, now these cuts will affect the Toyota Motor engineering and manufacturing in North America. They actually have 13 North American plants. They have nine that are actually in the United States. There's two in Canada and one in Mexico. And what they're going to do, then, is suspend production on Mondays and Fridays between April 15th and April 25th. That's what they told us before.
Well, now they're going to continue that to June 3rd and then they're going to run at 50 percent on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Also, they're going to suspend Canadian production for the week of May 23, U.S. production for the week of May 30. This is scheduled to correspond with two major holidays, one in Canada and obviously, that one here for us, Memorial Day.
So at this point, we put in a call to Toyota to ask them and they said, basically the workers have three options. One, they can come to work and they will put their time to use doing other things within the plant. They can come in and work on improvements, training, all that kind of stuff. Or they can take vacation or they can take unpaid time off. Those are the three options.
But they do not plan on letting anybody go. They say they want to have people there so that when things ramp back up, they'll be able to get back full force. No decisions, though, have been made for what happened after June 3rd at this point.
COSTELLO: You got to like that, though. I was just going to say, how nice of Toyota not to lay people off, but to keep --
ELAM: And they're still offering to take time - yeah, and offering to pay for their vacation, as well, still, which, you know, in other cases that might not have happened. All in all, it does not look as bad as it sounded at first when you first read the headlines.
COSTELLO: Hopefully it will stay that way. Stephanie Elam, many thanks. Live from New York.
Thousands of people waited in line across the country. We told you about that. They were hoping to snag one of those McDonald's 50,000 jobs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we're having a lot of young folks who want to help out at home because their parents don't have a job and they don't want to sit around at home. They small siblings that they want to help out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It would just change my life. Take the stress off my husband, stress off my children. It would just make a difference.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm willing to take anything right about now because I haven't worked in a while, and I really need -- I'm in a financial rut. I really need the help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a rough economy out there these days. So this is a big chance in a way, you know?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Oh. But at a McDonald's in Cleveland things turned -- well, three people were hurt when they were hit by a car. Witnesses say a fight broke out between two women inside the car. The car somehow shifted into reverse and ran into the crowd. Two people were arrested.
Also ahead, picking the mugshot of the day. Why an Arizona sheriff wants the public to weigh in, next.
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COSTELLO: Checking news "Cross Country" now. A terrifying scene at an elementary school in Houston, Texas. A six-year-old boy brings a loaded gun to school. It fell onto the cafeteria floor, firing off a single shot. Three kindergarten students were wounded by bullet fragments. All are expected to be OK.
A Philadelphia duck boat resumes tours tomorrow, nine months after a deadly crash involving one of the vessels. Two people died last July in a collision between the duck boat and a barge. New safety measures have been put into place.
The Arizona sheriff known for dressing inmates in pink underwear is asking online voters to choose a mugshot of the day. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpiao is hoping the competition will drive web traffic to his department's online site.
Time now for our "Daily Dose" of medical news. This one involves a four-year-old boy in Washington state. He underwent surgery on his wandering eye, but the doctor operated on the wrong one. Not only that, his parents say the doctor realized the mistake but never corrected it. Instead, they say, she repeated the operation on the correct eye. Hospital officials are looking into what happened. The parents say they may sue for malpractice.
And here is a surgery that ended remarkably well. In California, a 26-year-old mother shows off her brand new hand for the first time. Doctors at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center performed that state's first successful hand transplant surgery on this woman seven weeks ago. Emily Fanelle is her name. She lost her right hand in a traffic accident.
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has been calling on President Obama to answer some questions about his birthplace. But now Bachmann seems to be conceding the issue. The story behind the turn around next in our Political Ticker.
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COSTELLO: Despite being fired on "Celebrity Apprentice," Gary Busey is still a fan of Donald Trump. That got Conan O'Brien thinking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "CONAN": Gary Busey said Donald Trump would make a great president!
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: Experts say now Trump just needs to focus on getting the endorsements of Randy Quaid and Charlie Sheen. With those three, you're set to go.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: I know what you're thinking. We are not going to talk about Donald Trump in our Political Ticker, but we do have news about three other potential White House candidates. CNN's political producer Shannon Travis is here to fill us in. Hi, Shannon!
SHANNON TRAVIS, CNN POLITICAL PRODUCER: Hey there, Carol. It's the million-dollar question. Will Sarah Palin run for president? She was recently on Fox News, and she told them that it's way too early to declare a candidacy. She even said it's way too early to even talk about an exploratory committee, you know, that first step in actually announcing a White House bid.
Now, Sarah Palin says if she does run for president, she'll launch an unconventional bid basically. She does have very high name recognition, obviously, but she's registering low in a lot of the polls that we've seen. And Sarah Palin hasn't done a whole lot of ground game in a lot of the early states. If she does run, it may be a bit of an uphill climb.
Another potential Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, congresswoman from Minnesota. She was on "Good Morning America" this morning. Now, recently she's been saying - questioning -- saying that President Obama needs to answer questions about whether or not he was born in the United States.
Well, it sounds like she's changing her tune. This morning, she told the host on "Good Morning America" that the fact that there is a certification of live birth should settle these questions about President Obama, whether or not he was born here. She says that the nation should, instead, focus on the debt crisis. Carol.
COSTELLO: Interesting. And you have news of one more potential presidential candidate.
TRAVIS: That's right. We're talking about John Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to China and the former Republican governor of Utah. Our deputy political director, Paul Steinhauser, has confirmed that he's hired a top Republican pollster. His name is Will Ayers (ph). And this guy says in a statement that he hopes that Huntsman will be, quote, "A new conservative voice in the potential Republican primary contest." Carol?
COSTELLO: Shannon Travis, thanks as always.
We'll have your next political update in one hour. And a reminder, for all the latest political news, go to our Web site, CNNpolitics.com.
This bit of news just into the CNN NEWSROOM. We were kind of expecting this. The National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB, says it is now launching an investigation into Monday's incident involving Michelle Obama's plane. As you know, an air traffic controller may have made a mistake and the plane in which -- on which Michelle Obama was flying came too close to a military aircraft, and that set off some alarms. Her landing actually had to be aborted. We'll have much more on this throughout the day here on CNN.
Time now for some NBA playoff highlights. Starting with the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics. Game one came down to the final seconds. So did game two last night. It went back and forth! Carmelo Anthony, as you saw, scored 42 points for New York. And that's Spike Lee there, not afraid to celebrate in the enemy's den. Just over a minute left. New York up by one. When in doubt, go with the superstars. Paul Pierce finds Kevin Garnett. The Knicks had a chance in the final seconds, but could not get a shot off. Boston wins and leads the series, two games to none.
The biggest, baddest big man in the NBA, Dwight Howard, trying to help the Orlando Magic even their series with the Atlanta Hawks. And there you see, he dunk. Superman was spectacular! Howard, 33 points, 19 boards, nice spin, Magic win. The series is tied.
In the news today, terror threat warnings get a makeover. Remember this old color-coded warning system about possible attacks in the United States? In the next hour, the Homeland Security Secretary is announcing a brand-new warning system. We will break it down and show you how the new system works.
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COSTELLO: Taking a look at stories making news later today.
At 12:15 Eastern, federal officials, including the FDA, will give an update on the safety of Gulf seafood. This comes one year after the massive BP oil spill in -- polluted the ocean.
In the next hour, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will announce the implementation of the national terrorism advisory system. It's designed to replace the old color-coded threat advisory program.
And at 4:45 Eastern, President Obama holds another town hall- style meeting. This one will be at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, and it will focus on bringing down the deficit with input from the administration and the private sector.
And now it's time to toss it over to Suzanne Malveaux. And I'll join you in about, oh, 10 minutes to talk about Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, I've spoken with him a couple times.
COSTELLO: Same here.
MALVEAUX: He's a controversial guy.
COSTELLO: Yes, he is. And he's brought up a brand new controversy that we'll get into.
MALVEAUX: Can hardly wait. Thanks, Carol.
COSTELLO: Sure.
