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Security Threats Aboard Two Flights; The River Keeps Rising; Muslims and Christians Clash; Some Concerned Over Americans Celebrating Death of bin Laden; Hikers Imprisoned in Iran Return to Court; L.A. Lakers Blown Away by Dallas; Steeler's Mendenhall In Trouble Over Bin Laden Tweets; Online Initiative Helps Mature Mothers

Aired May 08, 2011 - 18:00   ET

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

HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: We are following two separate security threats aboard airliners. A passenger was trying to open an exit door in the middle of one flight and that leads to security fears. That just hours after a threatening note was found aboard another plane. We'll bring you the latest on that.

And you are looking live at the swollen Mississippi River in Memphis where the water is rising and more residents are being told to evacuate. We have new information about when and where the river will crest.

And this --

(VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: Deadly and very frightening violence in the streets of Cairo. Just two months after protests led to a new government, Muslims and Christians clash, and a church goes up in flames.

I'm Hala Gorani. I'm in for Don Lemon today. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Well, breaking news out of St. Louis this Mother's Day. An unruly passenger aboard a Continental flight is blamed for causing the plane to divert to St. Louis. It had taken off from Houston. It was originally headed to Chicago.

According to airport officials in St. Louis, the passenger tried to open the forward exit while the plane was in the air. The passenger was restrained and the plane eventually landed safely. At this time, all we know is that a male passenger was taken off the plane and other passengers resumed their flight.

And a second airliner also had to be diverted today. A note found aboard a Delta flight triggered a security scare. Flight 1706 was en route from Detroit to San Diego when a flight attendant discovered a suspicious note in the restroom.

The plane then landed in Albuquerque. It spent several hours in a remote area of the airport while the luggage was screened. The passengers were interviewed.

The TSA says the security sweep of the plane found nothing and the plane was cleared to fly out to San Diego.

Well, now to our top story this weekend, of course, the peek into Osama bin Laden's life in hiding. We've seen these videos newly released about 24 hours ago. Five different videos seized during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden have been released by U.S. intelligence officials.

Now, each of them had the sound removed, presumably to avoid spreading bin Laden's words. That might be one of the explanations.

Now, President Barack Obama believes that it's possible that bin Laden got help from inside Pakistan to avoid being discovered. Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad is less than 40 miles from the capital. You see it there on the map, very close to the Pakistani military academy.

Here's what President Obama said on CBS' "60 Minutes."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don't know who or what that support network was. We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government. And that's something that we have to investigate and more importantly the Pakistani government has to investigate. And we've already communicated to them, and they have indicated they have a profound interest in finding out what kinds of support networks bin Laden might have had.

But these are questions that we're not going to be able to answer three our or four days after the event. It's going to take some time for us to be able to exploit the intelligence that we were able to gather on site.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: The president there said there has been some sort of support network to keep Osama bin Laden in hiding. Now, the United States did not tell Pakistan, an ally, that it was going to conduct a raid in Pakistan and that this raid on bin Laden was coming.

The national security adviser tells CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" that Special Forces pulled enough information from e hideout to fill a small college library.

The trails of bin Laden started when intelligence officials identified and tracked one of his trusted couriers.

Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA, tells CNN's Fareed Zakaria the agency first told the Bush administration about the courier a few years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FMR. DIRECTOR, CIA: I think it was about four years ago, in 2007. We had built up sufficient lead information on the name of the courier that we thought it was ready for presidential primetime. So, we briefed it to the president, not as something eminent, but as our most promising lead to track down bin Laden because, frankly, Fareed, the trail had been cold for a long period of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: Hayden says that an important lead in the hunt for that courier came from detainee interrogations at so-called "black sites," secret CIA prisons located outside of the United States.

All right. Let's turn our attention to Memphis now. And officials there are warning residents to brace for a large-scale disaster as the Mississippi River continues to rise. This is as live view from downtown Memphis with the Interstate 40 bridge in the background. A lot of the park you see in the shot is now underwater.

As you can see from this map, no fewer than eight Midwestern and Southern states have been dealing with the rampaging river. Let's go to Cairo, Egypt, in a second. This is Cairo, Illinois -- a town saved for the moment by a controversial move this week by the Army Corps of Engineers.

CNN's Ted Rowlands is there with more on that.

Hi there, Ted.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Hala.

They actually pronounced it Cairo here, a little different. Let's look at, first of all, how much water we are dealing with. This is water from the Mississippi River. But it's not the Mississippi River. You see way off in the distance that building -- that is about a half mile or quarter mile away from the banks of the Mississippi River. All of this water into this spillway came from the Mississippi, so far away, and it came all the way up the levee here. This is the Mississippi levee protecting the city.

They've got two problems here. You see the wall on the backside of this little V and that red barge in the back. That's the Ohio River. And that comes right up against that retaining wall, that brick wall. And the good news is, is the levels of both of these bodies of water, both of these rivers, have dropped over the last few days.

People who have been evacuated for the last week-plus are now coming back into their homes. The authorities are telling them they should leave in the evening hours because, specifically, the Ohio River has a lot of pressure on it. And if this levee gives way, of course, this entire city would be flooded within a few hours.

So, people are being asked to leave in the evening hours, but a huge sigh of relief. A lot of worried folks thought they were going to lose their homes. One of the things that they believe helped save their home was the decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to blow up a levee on this side of the Mississippi River. The problem with that is it did flood farmland in neighboring Missouri. There are a lot of farmers who have lost their homes and had their flooded -- their farmlands flooded. They are not happy at all. In fact, they are going to court to try to get some relief.

But the folks here in Cairo are happy and, for the most part, home.

GORANI: All right. Ted Rowlands in Cairo, Illinois, not Cairo, Illinois -- thanks very much. We look forward to more of your reporting at 10:00 p.m., a little bit later, with some of your exclusive reporting. Thanks, Ted.

Cities and towns downstream from Memphis will begin feeling the impact of the rising waters in the coming days. New Orleans already has a plan in place.

Jacqui Jeras has more on that at the CNN weather center.

What is this -- what is this plan? What are people bracing themselves for in this part of the U.S.?

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, they are trying to avoid, basically, a catastrophe in New Orleans, because if they don't open some of these levees, kind of similar to what they did in Cairo, but they don't have to explode it. They already have a spillway system in place where they can just move gates and do a variety of things to help to protect that city.

All right. Let's talk a little bit about this and talk about how long we still have to go and where some of these crests are going to be. Memphis, we are looking at Tuesday for a crest, 14 feet above flood stage. Then we'll be watching Vicksburg, Notches (ph), Red River Landing and Baton Rouge on the 23rd. And after that, it will be New Orleans.

Now, right now, the official forecast for New Orleans showing the river already rising, expected to be flooding out of its banks potentially by Tuesday and then cresting into next week. But it's expected to crest just below the levee, by about a half of a foot. And the reason why it's going to stay below is because they have this system in place, all right?

The river is cresting right now up here into the boot heel of Missouri. It's got hundreds of miles to go. So, ahead of it before that wall of water gets here, what they are going to do is they're going to open the gates at the Bonnet Carre Spillway. And what that is, is basically just a channel where they're going to open up an area between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain to allow that water to flow through here. It's going to release some pressure and it's going to divert some of that water.

They've done this before, nine times before, in fact. And most recently happened back in 2008. It was a successful mission. That's the good news.

Now, the second thing that might happen, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer has requested to open a second one in Morganza, Louisiana. This is just north of the Baton Rouge area. That will also relieve some of that pressure and divert that water down through an area here that's kind of swampland. But, unfortunately, there's also a lot of people who live here and a lot of farm fields in this area.

Now, they've asked for it, but it hasn't been approved just yet, Hala. So, we'll have to wait and see what happens in the days ahead. But there could be another kind of controversial thing happening when they more -- may release some more of that water.

GORANI: All right. Thanks very much, Jacqui. And we'll catch up with you a little bit later with more on that.

Many Southern states still reeling after deadly tornadoes ripped apart entire communities and took hundreds of lives.

Also ahead, now, some moms are counting their blessings on this particular Mother's Day.

First, though, tensions flare between Muslims and Christians in Egypt. At least a dozen are dead, hundreds more are injured. We'll tell you what happened in Cairo and why some people say they are starting to become very concerned with what's going on in Egypt today.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: And there you see recent video from Cairo, Egypt. Coptic Christians are demanding protection after a night of violence that killed at least 12 people and injured more than 230 others. Witnesses say an armed group of Muslims, Salafists, the extremist Muslims, attacked a Cairo church Saturday, angered by rumors that a woman who had converted to Islam was being held inside against her will. Around the same time, a nearby church caught fire. A blaze apparently set by the same group of attackers.

Let's talk about this with Hisham Melhem. He's the Washington bureau chief for Al-Arabiya television.

Hisham, thanks for being with us.

This has got to be very worrying for people who thought and hoped that the post-revolutionary period in Egypt was going to usher in true positive change for the country.

HISHAM MELHEM, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, AL-ARABIYA TV: Absolutely. This is another indication that building a new political and social and cultural order in Egypt after decades of despotism is not going to be easy.

We have two things here. We have the long-established, engrained, entrenched societal and cultural intolerance and prejudice in the Egyptian society. Adding to that and due to the Mubarak regime, acts of violence against the Coptic minority either were viewed as ambivalent by the government, or worse, the government was complicit or dismissive. There were never any serious investigations or transparency when acts of violence were committed against cults as individuals or against Coptic institutions, that's churches and others.

GORANI: Here's what's caused for concern according to many today -- this was organized by the Muslim extremist wing, the Salafists. People were shot, firearms were used. This wasn't, you know, some sort of neighborhood spat gone wrong. It sounded a lot more organized.

MELHEM: Exactly. That's why, I think, the ruling -- the new military council should swiftly deal with this issue. There has to be some transparency. There has to be an open investigation -- not like when Mubarak was in charge.

GORANI: Yes.

MELHEM: And I think those who are organizing these acts of violence against the Cops should be punished. I mean, otherwise, you are not going to have the kind of new political order that people at Tahrir Square were hoping and fighting for a few months ago.

GORANI: All right. That's just one of the many challenges after the revolution in Egypt.

Let's talk about during the possible revolution in Syria now. We are hearing from Hillary Clinton during a trip to Rome over the last 24 hours, strong condemnation in terms of words against the Syrian regime. Will it have any kind of impact internally in Syria, do you think?

MELHEM: I don't think so. Unfortunately, also, Secretary Clinton keeps insisting that this regime can reform. She said that during an interview when she was in Italy on Friday.

GORANI: Yes.

MELHEM: I do believe that this Baath Assad dynasty is irredeemable.

GORANI: Really? Really? You don't think they're -- you don't think they will survive this, because why would they be fragile on any level when they still control the military, they still control the security forces, and they are cracking down hard on protesters, according to all eyewitness accounts we've been getting?

MELHEM: Hala, even if you win this so-called round, even if you do what his Iranian friends did in 2009 when they defeated the revolution in Iran, he is probably mortally wounded. The regime lost whatever it claims to legitimacy that it had. If he's isolated internationally, it is going to be very difficult for him to claim that he's a reformer, the way he used to claim before.

So, this is a wounded regime. And my fear is that if he doesn't reform, there would be deeper schisms within the Syrian society. And also, the regime is relying on sectarianism. He's trying to scare the people that after deluge of sectarianism and civil war, while in fact one could argue that the actions of the regime itself are pushing the country to the brink of the civil war.

He's playing a very dangerous game, and I think the international community should slap him with serious sanctions and also where the threat of criminal charges against the pillars of the regime. That's the only way he might stop violence.

GORANI: All right.

MELHEM: Even that, I doubt it, unfortunately.

GORANI: Hisham Melhem, thanks very much -- Washington bureau chief for Al-Arabiya television. Thanks for joining us on CNN.

MELHEM: Thanks.

GORANI: Well, the woman, you will remember this face -- she became the face, in fact, of the anti-Gadhafi movement in Libya for a while. This is the woman whose accusations of rape against the Gadhafi regime received worldwide attention. Well, she has managed to get out of Libya.

Eman al-Obeidy tells CNN she crossed into Tunisia on Thursday with help from a defecting military officer and his family. She left Tripoli in a military car wearing a head cover that obscured all but one eye as she passed through several checkpoints.

You may remember this dramatic scene from March when Eman al-Obeidy rushed into the Tripoli hotel where journalists were staying and accused Gadhafi loyalists of raping, beating her.

She says she now hopes she can obtain protection from a Western government.

So, we'll continue to follow the story of Eman al-Obeidy and Arab uprisings across the region.

Well, tornados have ravaged Alabama, leaving thousands of people to pick up the pieces. Up next, meet a mom who says that despite the devastation, she still has a lot to be thankful for on this Mother's Day.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back.

In tornado-ravaged Alabama, comedian Bill Cosby toured the damage in Birmingham. He was there for graduation ceremonies at Miles College and to receive an honorary doctorate from that school. He encouraged graduates to help rebuild the community.

Across the South, the death toll from the tornado outbreak 11 days ago now stands at a staggering 318.

Across Alabama, many women are spending this Mother's Day in Red Cross shelters. That includes one mom who climbed over rubble and downed trees to make sure her newborn son was safe.

Our Reynolds Wolf talks to her and has the latest on recovery efforts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I'm coming to you from Pratt City, Alabama, where the cleanup continues. I'll step out of the way so you can see what these guys of Alabama Power have been doing, picking up a lot of the lines, the power lines, the community picking them up, sending them off, possibly recycling them -- many of them beyond repair. But it is an action (ph) that you're actually going to be seeing not just here in this place, but still in many communities around parts of central Alabama, trying to clean up after the storm.

You know, as far as you can see, this neighborhood in Pratt City, I mean, you got wreckage everywhere, you got houses that are ripped apart -- some of completely off the foundation. If you look off from the distance here, just every single house has had some kind of damage, nothing left untouched -- certainly, a tough thing to deal with especially on a day like today, which, of course, happens to be Mother's Day.

Speaking of Mother's Day, just yesterday in Tuscaloosa, we were able to meet a very interesting person. She's 20 years old. Her name is Leicia Fairchild. She's celebrating Mother's Day in a shelter. And she is a very interesting story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEICIA FAIRCHILD, TORNADO VICTIM: All I could think was my son. I got to get to my son. They pulled nails out of my feet from where I had to run through my house. We had to climbed over a huge tree that landed on our house that was blocking the door. And I had to climb over that tree. I was determined to get to my son.

WOLF: That's a pretty great Mother's Day present.

FAIRCHILD: Yes, it really is. He's a blessing. Yes. I get to tell him, hey, you know, you lived through a tornado when you were 9 weeks -- 8 weeks old.

WOLF: You're not in your home for Mother's Day. Is that -- how -- what is it like?

FAIRCHILD: It's kind of hard because I was picturing Mother's Day at home with his father and happy and everything. And it's not. It's far from happy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF: Now, Leicia has applied for federal assistance. When she gets the check, first thing she plans on doing is buying a car and buying a home.

From Pratt City, Reynolds Wolf, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Well, the bad news: gas prices have gone up again. The good news, though, is relief maybe on the way for you. We'll tell you about that.

Plus, people across the country celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden. But should we really rejoice when anyone dies? We'll talk with a professor of religion for his take.

Stay with CNN.

Before the break, this just as you saw in Reynolds Wolf's report, crews are still cleaning up from the deadly tornado outbreak that devastated the Southeast. In today's "Building Up America," we are looking at homes that are built to actually survive tornadoes.

Here's CNN's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thousands of homes damaged or destroyed, hundreds of lives taken. Officials in Alabama and other states are still adding up the losses from those killer tornadoes.

While far away in another part of the so-called "Tornado Alley," near Little Rock --

(on camera): It all looks perfectly normal.

JOHN HOUSE, KODIAK STEEL HOMES: Right.

FOREMAN (voice-over): John House's home is a model of new technology aimed at stopping such terrible destruction.

HOUSE: They would have no idea whatsoever unless they went up into the attic.

FOREMAN (on camera): Well, let's go up into the attic.

HOUSE: OK.

FOREMAN: So, up here, we can really see the difference.

HOUSE: Right, because we have bolted together structural steel.

FOREMAN (voice-over): The frame is not made of wood but of steel.

HOUSE: This is an I-beam.

FOREMAN: John is the president of Kodiak Steel Homes. And he says despite the economic downturn, despite the fact that these houses can cost up to 5 percent more than usual, folks like the Tucket (ph) family are snapping them up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You might be spending a little bit more now, but it's going to pay for it in the end. This home is not going anywhere.

FOREMAN: Other companies make steel homes but not many. John is proud to say his can withstand 140-mile-an-hour winds for four hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I'll do it right away.

FOREMAN: Sales have declined a bit, but John says not nearly as much as for other builders because people want to be even more secure in their big investments now.

HOUSE: So, instead of making our homes cheaper in response to the recession, we've made our homes better.

FOREMAN (on camera): Would you have any doubt about being up in this attic during a tornado?

HOUSE: No, none whatsoever.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And that he hopes will not only keep building up his business, but also keep many families safer when the worst weather strikes.

Tom Foreman, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back. Let's check some of our top stories.

A Delta flight was given the all clear a short time ago after a suspicious note was found in the plane's bathroom. The flight 1706 was en route to San Diego from Detroit when it was diverted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, because of the note. After interviewing passengers and screening the luggage, no threat was found. It appears the note was a hoax.

It's a number we've been expecting yet trying to avoid. Now, it is official: $4 gas is here. The Lundberg Survey analysts say that is now the average price for a gallon of gas nationwide, just 11 cents shy of the all-time high. But Lundberg is also predicting a drop in gas by as much as a dime by Memorial Day after crude oil prices took a dive last week.

President Obama believes that it is possible that Osama bin Laden got help from inside Pakistan to avoid being discovered. He tells CBS that the slain al Qaeda leader must have had a support system. The real question is whether any of those people are in the Pakistani government, the military or the intelligence services. President Obama is demanding that the Pakistanis launch an investigation.

(VIDEO CLIP) GORANI: Well, these are scenes of celebration immediately after the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death. But since then, some have shown concern that these expressions of patriotism reflect poor moral judgment.

Check out this conversation one of the iReporters caught on the streets of New York City, the day the president went to Ground Zero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's wrong to celebrate the death of a human being. If you're saying that this is a piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED) and not a human being, then you're lying yourself. He is a human being.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go somewhere else. This is not your place here today.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you are doing wrong, you know. You are doing wrong, it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: All right, should the death of the man ever be celebrated? That's the question being asked. What image is projected around the world when these pictures, this video of Americans celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden are shown and beamed across the globe?

Emad Shahin joins me now. He's a professor of religion and peace building at the University of Notre Dame.

Now, what was your first thought when you saw these images of Americans celebrating after the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden?

EMAD SHAHIN, PROFESSOR OF RELIGION AND PEACE BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME: Well, for all religions, cultures and philosophies, death is a very solemn and sad moment that's often associated with a deep reflection and also a demonstration of respect. And the reason is very simple, because death usually accentuates and highlights the value of the human life, no matter how this human is evil or monstrous.

So I was a bit surprised, of course, to see the cheers, because the first thing that came to my mind was a sort of different image, the image of, let's just imagine this, a gathering at Ground Zero where you have a candle vigil, for example, that's trying to connect with the dead and the victims of 9/11. And also that tries to open a new chapter of peace and tranquility instead of cheering and partying over the death of a human being.

GORANI: Let me ask you this, Professor Shahin, some people will say to you in response, well, this is not celebrating the death of a man, it is celebrating the end of a painful chapter in American history that started on 9/11 and that ended with the death or the decapitation of this terrorist network that so wounded America. So what is wrong with celebrating that, some would ask you?

SHAHIN: This is absolutely true. No, most of the cheering crowd at the beginning were actually young people, young women and men, who grew up with the image of bin Laden as the monstrous terrorist who was, indeed, responsible for the death of many thousands. Also, the issue that justice has been delayed for about 10 years in search for bin Laden and hunting him down, and then, all of a sudden, justice was served as President Obama declared on that night. So Obama's -- or Osama's death has been seven days now, since his death. And we are we wiser and more prudent and we can reflect.

Of course, the initial response was a realistic response. And given, as you said, that people waited to see justice served. The question is, there is a difference between being realistic and also taking or charting the moral higher ground and taking more of an ethical course.

GORANI: All right. Thanks very much, Professor Emad Shahin of Notre Dame there, with your analysis of the last few days with Americans, definitely in the hours following the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death, celebrating in the streets.

Thanks very much for joining us on CNN.

Three American hikers accused of entering Iran illegally are supposed to go on trial this week. Well, two of them are. One was released. But one of them says she has no plans to show up. We'll tell you more about this story after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Now to the big stories in the week ahead. From politics to entertainment, our correspondents have got you covered. We begin tonight with the White House.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dan Lothian at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. This week, President Obama will turn his attention to immigration reform, what some Hispanic groups have argued has not gotten the kind of attention that it deserves. The president will fly to El Paso, Texas, where he'll deliver remarks on comprehensive immigration reform. Then on Wednesday, he'll attend a town hall meeting at the museum in Washington before delivering remarks on Thursday at the Hispanic prayer breakfast.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kate Baldwin on Capitol Hill. Monday, House Speaker John Boehner will be giving an economic speech in New York, where we could learn more about the Republican position in the ongoing negotiations over the debt limit. Vice President Biden, Tuesday, will be holding the second meeting of the bipartisan group trying to hammer out a deal over just this, raising the debt ceiling. Also this week, Dean Heller will be sworn in as the next Senator from Nevada, taking the seat vacated by John Ensign, who resigned in light of an ethics scandal. But another big topic this coming week is gas prices. House Republicans will be bringing a bill to the floor promoting more offshore drilling. Senate Democrats will be holding a hearing over ending tax breaks for oil and gas companies. Interestingly, oil and gas company executives have been called to testify.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I'm Paul Steinhauser at the CNN political desk. Donald Trump heads back to New Hampshire on Wednesday. The billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star makes his second trip in the past couple of weeks to the state that holds the first primary in the race for the White House. Trump says he'll decide by June if he'll run for president. And expect Newt Gingrich to make some news this week. A speaker for the former House speakers says, by the time Gingrich speaks at the Georgia GOP convention on Friday, he'll be a candidate for president.

POPPY HARLOW, HOST, CNN MONEY: I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. We have a busy week coming up on Wall Street with lots of economic news. We'll get a look at the latest retail sales numbers as well as two key inflation readings. We'll see the impact of rising food and energy prices in those numbers. And we'll get earnings from major corporations, including Cisco and Macy's. We'll see how the market responds to all of it, and we'll track it all for you on "CNN Money."

A.J. HAMMER, HOST, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT: I'm "Showbiz Tonight's" A.J. Hammer. Here's what we are watching this week. The Daytime Emmy nominations are out. It is going to be an emotional announcement after the shocking news that "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" are being canceled. Also, we are one-on-one with Kim Kardashian. "Showbiz Tonight" is TV's most provocative entertainment news show exclusively at 11:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on HLN.

GORANI: Now looking ahead to news that will grab headlines around the world. The focus is back on a hiker, once imprisoned in Iran. Sarah Shourd was the only one of three people who was allowed to leave. She is refusing, unsurprisingly, to return to Iran for her trial.

CNN international desk editor, Azadeh Ansari, is here with the full story now.

So we have her two male friends, one is her fiance now of Sarah Shourd, but the two gentlemen will be tried. Will she be tried?

AZADEH ANSARI, CNN INTERNATIONAL DESK EDITOR: She won't be tried. She came out this week --

GORANI: In absentia.

ANSARI: Well, she will be tried in absentia but she's not returning to Iran.

GORANI: Right.

ANSARI: And the reason being, she said, during this 14-month imprisonment, I suffered from depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome and I just can't do back. I just can't do it.

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: I'm not sure anyone blames her for that. The trial is Wednesday, the 11th of May. What happens?

ANSARI: Right. From there, what we can expect to see that this is, again, the second session of the trial. And the first session, which was held back in February, was a private session. So we don't know if this is going to be open to the public or not. And, again, the first session, Sean and Josh, the other two hikes, said, no, we are innocent. We are not guilty. We're innocent.

GORANI: What are the charges, remind us?

ANSARI: Well, they are charged with espionage, spying for the U.S. They are saying, no, we were just hiking. And they just happened to be hiking in Iraq's Kurdistan region, and so they crossed over -- allegedly, illegally crossed over into Iran.

GORANI: This is what Iranian authorities have said.

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: But the mothers of these hikers have gone on TV for the last several years saying, this is all a big misunderstanding, please release our children.

ANSARI: Absolutely. Absolutely, yes.

GORANI: What happens after Wednesday? What happens after the trial Wednesday? Do we know how long it will be? Is it a one day thing or a one-week thing?

ANSARI: See, that's a great question, because we don't know what's going to happen. We actually don't even know what they will be charged with or how they will be charged, because espionage, in and of itself, under Iranian law, can carry the death penalty. But as we know from American-Iranian journalists, Brooke Anasawbery (ph), she was convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years of prison and then she was freed.

GORANI: But that was a much shorter timeframe.

ANSARI: That was. That was.

GORANI: These young men have been in prison for a while now. How long has it been? Two years?

ANSARI: It's 21 months, so edging close to two years.

GORANI: Azadeh Ansari, thanks very much.

ANSARI: Sure, thank you.

GORANI: Well, two-time defending NBA champions, the Los Angeles Lakers, trying for a third title this afternoon, going head-to-head with the Dallas Mavericks. We'll tell you whether they kept their hopes alive or not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: Did he get the ball into the bank (ph)?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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GORANI: The Los Angeles Lakers, two-time defending NBA champions, blown out of the playoffs this afternoon with an embarrassing 122-86 loss in Dallas.

Let's talk about this. Jon Wertheim "Sports Illustrated," the cover of this week's issue there.

What happened to the Lakers? They needed this win.

JON WERTHEIM, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED: That's a great question. You said embarrassed, that was what it was. They were losing in the series, 3- 0. As you said before, this was a dynasty team, defending champions, and to see them go out like this. They needed to win today just to stay alive. Teams tend not to come back from 0-3. And I think after about a quarter of basketball, this is as close to a surrender as you'll see in a basketball game. Again, pretty striking result, especially for a team of this magnitude now that the NBA playoffs got interesting.

GORANI: Yes. It was a complete meltdown. Doesn't it seem as though they gave up in the second quarter? Just gave up.

WERTHEIM: It really seemed that way, yes. They lost the first two games at home, which is never a good sign. Lost game three. There was talk that Kobe Bryant very boldly said, we'll be the team that comes back from 0-3. After 10 minutes -- you hate to accuse someone of quitting, but that was not -- that was not a strong effort. Phil Jackson, their coach, probably the most successful coach, not just in basketball, any team sport, this very well may be his last game. So, again, pretty unceremonious exit for him. And a very surprising result, seeing the Lakers not just lose but get swept.

GORANI: All right. Let's talk now about the Osama bin Laden killing that has found its way into the sports headlines. Pittsburgh Steelers running back, Rashard Mendenhall, got in trouble for tweets about bin Laden's death.

Let's take a look. This was the first tweet, perhaps less controversial than the second one. This is the first one. "What kind of person celebrates death? It is amazing how people can hate a man they have never even heard speak. We have only heard one side." But the second one, "We'll never really know what happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition- style."

So the perils of social networking, everyone, if I have said it once, I've said it a thousand times, think before you tweet.

(LAUGHTER) WERTHEIM: You know, what's funny here is I think he did think. I mean, he sort of came out a few days late we are an explanation, not really an apology. One interesting twist is, we are in this quasi- lockout situation in football, so he didn't get in trouble. It's not as though the team can have much communication with him. At some level, this is -- as you said, this is the perils of social networking. But also, it's sort of the First Amendment to distill to his essence. He's free to tweet this. He's free to have these opinions that are offensive to many. The flip side to that are his endorsers are free to drop him, as some of them have, and fans are free to boo him, as they certainly will. It is an interesting context.

GORANI: What endorsement deals did he lose as a result of this?

WERTHEIM: Well, he lost a deal with Champion that -- as a direct result of this tweeting. It is pretty interesting. At some level, you can be a First Amendment absolutist, but you can't have a tweet like that, offensive to so many, and expect there not to be consequences. It will be interesting to see, if there's football this fall, I don't think this is not something fans, especially on opposing teams, will forget. It will be interesting to see how this plays out if there's a football season.

GORANI: So you think it will be that long lasting, that enduring, this tweeter-versy?

WERTHEIM: I think -- athletes have made stupid and silly tweets, but something that cuts to the core, questioning the veracity of 9/11 or a tweet that some people may interpret as being not sufficiently anti- Osama bin Laden, I think this will be brought up again. With sports talk radio, you can rest assured, when he goes into X market to play a game, this will be dredged up, even if it is September or October.

GORANI: Jon Wertheim, of "Sports Illustrated."

Thanks very much, Jon.

WERTHEIM: Thank you.

GORANI: I'm sure you have heard this before, women are waiting later in life to have kids. You probably know many people who have waited until past 40. But did you know the number of first-time moms over 40 has gone up? On this Mother's Day, we take a look at a new online initiative that's helping mature mothers, mature.

(GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS)

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KELLI SUCHI, MOTHER: Then, when I finally did become a mother, strangers would sometimes mistake me for my daughter's grandmother. That comment still stings even today.

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GORANI: Well, these are women talking about the struggles of mature motherhood, having kids for the first time in their 40s. It may be difficult, but it's also happening more and more often. The CDC found that women, ages 40 to 44, were the only group to have a jump in birth rates. Women all other ages are having fewer babies.

So this Mother's Day, there's a new on-line initiative to support midlife moms. Angel la Liberte is spearheading it. She's the founder of flowerpowermom.com, a blog for moms over 40.

What is this initiative all about, for mom who's may have their -- who are having their first children over the age of 40?

ANGEL LA LIBERTE, FOUNDER, FLOWERPOWERMOM.COM: Well, as you probably have seen from the statistics lately, there's a 6 percent rise in women having children after the age of 40. In fact, they're the only age group of women showing a rise in birth rate. All other age groups are down, so we're having sort of a mini-baby boom.

But this age group is not very well understood in terms of the challenges they face and in terms of the gifts and benefits they bring to children. They can feel socially isolated from the mainstream population of mothers, so the initiative to have a child after 40 is all about empowering women on this journey through providing them peer-group support through an on-line community, through information and resources and through acknowledge and celebrating what they bring to motherhood as older women.

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: Yes. Was this the case for you? Was this the case for you? Did you have your first child over 40?

LA LIBERTE: I -- I -- you know, after I -- I did. I had two children after 40, and after I started researching this, did I find out how blessed I really am. I actually conceived both of my children naturally in the old-fashioned way.

(LAUGHTER)

GORANI: Uh-huh.

LA LIBERTE: I gave birth just before 42 the first time, and almost at 45 the second time. I truly understand what these -- this age group of mothers is going through and facing in terms of challenges. I think one of the things that we deal with and that comes as a bit of a surprise is there's a certain level of social discrimination based on our age.

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: What kind of discrimination? I have to say, I have a lot of friends in that age group who had children late, late 30s, early 40s. I mean, it's more and more common. LA LIBERTE: Well, you know, some women are having good experiences. And I have to say that public attitude is improving as the population of older mothers increases. But, you know, let me put it this way. There have been studies that have shown that women as old as in their 50s cope just as well as younger mothers in terms of parenting stress, and physically and emotionally there are no differences. But there's still a deep-seeded, I think, reaction in society that women old enough to be grandmothers should not be mothers. And one of the ways I think this is born out is by the old double standard. You have men having children in their 50s, 60s, even 70s. Look at people like Elton John, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, and they get a pat on the back and a cigar. Women have children older get called selfish and putting their own needs first before the child.

GORANI: All right, well, I think those attitudes are changing, so we'll see, as more and more older women decide to have children.

Angel la Liberte, the founder of flowerpowermom.com.

How old is your eldest?

LA LIBERTE: Sorry?

GORANI: How old is your eldest child?

LA LIBERTE: My son is 8. My daughter is 5. And I'm 50.

GORANI: Happy Mother's Day, Angel.

Your top stories are next after a break.

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GORANI: A quick check of some of our top stories.

An unruly passenger caused a security scare today aboard a Continental flight headed to Chicago from Houston. The plane landed in St. Louis and a man was removed. Airport officials say the passenger had to be restrained during the flight after he tried to open a forward exit door.

In Memphis, officials fear the Mississippi River could crest as high as 52 feet, well above flood stage. They don't expect it to go much above 48 feet, but they won't know for sure until at least Tuesday. In any case, residents are urged to evacuate from low-lying areas that could be engulfed by the historic flooding, which is on track to be the worst the city has seen in more than 70 years.

I'm Hala Gorani at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. We'll see you back here at 10:00 eastern.

A CNN special report, "Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Saving Gabby Giffords," begins right now.