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Tracking Tropical Storm Lee; Strauss-Kahn Back to France

Aired September 03, 2011 - 16:00   ET

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

ALINA CHO, CNN ANCHOR: We will have many more inside looks at the runway shows with my backstage pass, a story on J. Crew behind the scenes and also a story about men's wear. It's not just a story about women. The designers, the fashions and the trends that you wouldn't see anywhere else, all on my half hour special, "Fashion Week, Backstage Pass" airing September 17th, 2:30 P.M. Eastern right here on CNN.

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CHO: I want to take you live to New York now where Dominique Strauss- Kahn is leaving his home presumably to go back to France. He is with his wife, we're told, Anne Sinclaire. Remember, this is the former IMF chief, who was accused of sexual assault against a former housekeeper, a maid at a New York hotel. Those charges came in May, and the case was just dismissed earlier this week on Tuesday after the prosecutor said they were not persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed.

Now earlier this week, Dominique Strauss-Kahn did go to Washington, D.C. to meet with his former co-workers at the IMF. We're told he did apologize to them and now presumably, he is headed back to his home country of France, and there you see his wife, Anne Sinclaire peeking out there, obviously a story that all of us have been watching very closely. You see the paparazzi. You see all of the media out there.

But, again, the headline being Dominique Strauss-Kahn apparently - apparently headed back to France. We have some indication that he will be on an Air France flight tonight and arriving in Paris tomorrow morning. We are watching this story very, very closely and we will bring you more as more details come in.

Meanwhile, as President Obama prepares to lay out his job creation plan, we thought we'd take a look at one of the proposals that's being considered.

As CNN's Athena Jones show us schools could reach big benefits.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATHENA JONES, CNN GENERAL ASSIGNMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With unemployment stuck above nine percent and no jobs added in August, President Obama is under pressure to come up with a plan to jump start hiring. He's long argued that infrastructure spending creates jobs and it's among the proposals being considered. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We could be rebuilding roads and bridges and schools and parks all across America right now. And put hundreds of thousands of folks to work right now.

JONES: America's schools could benefit. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave public school facilities a D in their most recent report. Baltimore is one city that could gain.

Here at Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Elementary School, an 84-year-old school downtown, the boiler and windows need to be replaced. Many of the air conditioners and electric sockets don't work and the water fountains have been sealed to prevent possible lead poisoning from old pipes. Problems persists city wide, even though the state spends millions to update schools each year.

DR. ANDRES ALONSO, CEO, BALTIMORE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: We have a school system that has a $2 billion plus repair backlog due to tremendous neglect over the decades. We're trying to give our kids great science labs, great media labs, but the basics, which is their ability to feel that they're in a setting which is conducive to learning is something that we're constantly struggling to address.

JONES: This fourth grade teacher see students struggle with a lack of AC.

WANDA ADKINS, TEACHER: It's hard to keep them focussed. You know, sometimes you see them and they're just starting to slump on their desk because they're - they're hot.

JONES (voice-over): But while the need may be clear, there's debate over whether this kind of spending creates jobs.

The Economic Policy Institute wants to see a $50 billion federal program to repair schools which they say would create half a million jobs.

ROSS EISENBREY, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE: The repair costs are tremendous. So getting an infusion of money from the federal government could put people to work.

JONES: But critics say federal spending on infrastructure has a minimal affect on job creation.

LINDSEY BURKE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: I think if the federal government could create jobs we wouldn't see this new jobs report that just came out showing zero jobs were created in August.

JONES: With congressional approval needed for any boost in infrastructure spending, it's a debate that's unlikely to go away.

Athena Jones, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, 4:00 on the East Coast, you're in the "CNN Newsroom." Hi, everybody, thanks for joining us. I'm Alina Cho, Fredericka Whitfield has the weekend off.

The U.S. storm season got off to a late start but now it's making up for lost time. Take a look at these pictures one week after Hurricane Irene slammed the East Coast, it's now the Gulf Coast's turn. Right now, tropical storm Lee is lashing the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi. Power is out to thousands in both states.

Louisiana's Jefferson Parish ordered a mandatory evacuation and while we watch Lee, we are still keeping a close eye on what's happening with Hurricane Katia, still pretty far out in the Atlantic.

Vermont is one of the state still cleaning up from Hurricane Irene. Nearly 700 Vermont homes and businesses were still without power as of this morning. Thirty five ground searchers along with six canine teams continue to look for a Vermont man missing since Sunday. He's believed to have been swept away by raging floodwaters.

And take a look at this map, the green lines there show Vermont roads that are now open, pretty good, but many of the roads and bridges marked in red were simply washed away. And the dots indicate power outages.

Another story we're watching developing this hour is Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaving his New York apartment with his wife Ann Sinclair. We showed you the pictures just a moment ago. There you see them, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is obviously the IMF chief accused in May of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York. Those charges were dropped just this week after the prosecutor said he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had occurred.

We are now expecting that Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his family will be heading back to his home country of France. We are monitoring this story very closely and bring you more details as they come into our newsroom.

We want to head to the Gulf Coast now where tropical storm Lee is threatening Louisiana and Mississippi. CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. So Ed, we're hearing about some breaks in the storm but the mayor of New Orleans just held a news briefing warning people not to be fooled about this. So you know, what kind of rain are you expecting there? What you hearing? What are you seeing?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is, I think the mayor described it as unpredictable and it is, you know, acting rather bizarre. A lot of the storm is still offshore, a lot of the heavy rains. There are severe weather warnings and tornado warnings in place for much of Louisiana and Mississippi until 10:00 tonight Central Time. So there's still a lot to come, but it's also kind of hard to figure out. We came to Bay St. Louis because we have been hearing a lot of reports of flooding. In fact (INAUDIBLE) this morning there was thigh-high water here. But look at how quickly it's already moved away and washed away already.

So this is great news actually because this just kind of tells you that in these areas, this water comes in, these flash floods. Water rises and then it completely moved out. But if this storm continues to sit over this area, a lot of this ground becomes saturated and that leaves to other further potential worsening flooding. So we'll continue to monitor that, but the rain has really eased up and the winds are minimal here in Bay St. Louis, but it kind of depends on where you go and where the bands are at any given moment. It kind of tells you where the worst of the storm is at any given moment.

CHO: We're looking at some of the pictures now, Ed and I don't think you can see them of a boat just being tossed around there in Mississippi. You know, I have to ask you, I know the rain has subsided since we last talked. That's good news for you, that's good news for residents, but clearly the worst of it has not passed. So what are residents doing there to prepare for the storm?

LAVANDERA: I think they have gone through what they basically do for this level of storm. You know, wherever you go here, you know this area was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. So I think it's hard to get people overly excited about what kind of effects this storm would have. Where we're understanding is under 30 feet of water, almost exactly six years ago. So you know, people around here probably consider that just a simple puddle, if you will, but they kind of do what they normally do kind of get ready for these types of things.

But as we have driven around town here this morning, you really see people kind of going about their business, and restaurants are open, gas stations are open, the grocery stores, that sort of thing and just a lot of activity. It is, the water and we're very close to the Gulf of Mexico, about 10 miles away, driving out here we passed by one of the bays, but the water is extremely choppy, and I was amazed to see that there were two guys on the wave runners riding around in some of the gulf water when we came out here. I was blown away by actually seeing that because that looked incredibly dangerous. (INAUDIBLE) how much these storms churned up waters.

So around here, it might look relatively calm and peaceful, but out there on the water, it's definitely churned up very strongly.

CHO: All right. Ed Lavandera live for us in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Ed, thank you very much.

Obviously we're tracking this storm very closely, tropical storm Lee. Jacqui Jeras in the severe weather center for us. So Jacqui, you were saying, they can get a lot of rain, but they just need to spread it out over a long period of time.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right.

CHO: This storm is moving pretty slowly. So do you think that's what's going to happen?

JERAS: Well, hopefully that's going to be the case. It depends on how they get in on some of these heavier bands as they push on through, but I think flooding is going to be a major issue across much of the lower Mississippi River Valley and the worst of it has been over here in the southern parts of Mississippi, into Alabama and over towards Mobile. That's also where we have those outer bands rolling and the threat of tornadoes, which we do have one warning for Jackson County, which includes Pascagoula in Mississippi.

So you guys need to get under shelter. It's 60 miles per hour. It's stationary which basically we don't have a (INAUDIBLE). There's nothing to pick this thing up and move it along. We're waiting for a cold front which is way up into the midwest today to start to steer this thing to the north and east. It's lingering just off the coast, right in this area. It's only about 40 miles away from the shore at best. So we are expecting it to move in, landfall is even possible later today, but landfall not as important here as the lingering effect which is just going to bring in that heavy rain, and you can see the forecast really keeping it in the area through the weekend into Monday before it starts to pick up a little bit of forward speed.

How much rain are we talking about? We have already seen some incredible numbers but on top of what you already have, we could be talking about 10 to 20 inches total. And you can see how that's focused just to the north of that storm. I want to show you some of the numbers we have been seeing already, Carolton in the New Orleans area has had almost nine inches of rain, Slidell City, almost eight inches here. The Lakefront at the airport there about five and a half. Three in Pascagoula so far but more is on the way.

We're also keeping our eye on Katia. It is a hurricane. We're still watching U.S. interests on this one, potentially the middle, latter part of the week, it's just too soon to say what kind of mess Katia could be. It could be rolling in here as we got the other storm heading up the shore. So -

CHO: No one is going to accuse you of being lazy around this time. You are a very busy woman. Jacqui Jeras, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Well, it's a big holiday weekend on the campaign trail as candidates court voters in key states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is working to shore up support in the granite state, traditionally the first state to hold a primary. Today, at a backyard house party in Manchester, the Texas governor attacked President Obama's economic policies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK PERRY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When it comes to economic growth, I know that the answer is not forcing government stimulus, poured through some massive bureaucracy to a handful of hand picked industries to create temporary jobs. I know that's not the answer. Mr. President, you cannot spend your way to prosperity. It doesn't work. It has never worked.

I'm tired of liberals who only care about jobs, just to staff up more government programs. We want to free it up so that families can have more income so that families can live free.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CHO: Well a potential Perry rival also went on the offense today. We're talking about Sarah Palin who took on President Obama and Republican presidential candidates during a Tea Party rally in Iowa.

CNN political reporter Peter Hamby is there. Peter, Palin has not announced her presidential bid but as I said earlier, you know, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, isn't it a duck?

PETER HAMBY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, not exactly in Sarah Palin's case She's the only Republican who can probably not actually be a candidate and still command this kind of attention. But as you mentioned, she went after Barack Obama hard today at this Tea Party rally out here in Iowa, the first caucus state of the presidential nominating process. And while without naming any potential GOP rivals, she made clear that she was criticizing Governor Rick Perry. She attacked crony capitalism and the permanent political class.

Now Perry, the Republican front-runner has long been criticized by his political foes for delivering plum jobs and government contracts to his political allies and donors. Palin knows that she needs to kind of carve out a space, a niche for herself in the Republican primary if she does run, so it's really no surprise you saw her try to draw a line between herself and some other potential GOP candidates today. Alina.

CHO: All right. Peter Hamby live for us in Iowa. Peter, thank you.

The United States and Libya at odds over pretty much everything, right? Not so fast. Once secret details about the Bush era and Gadhafi era relationship are emerging from Tripoli.

CNN correspondents are reading those documents right now and we're live from Tripoli, next.

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CHO: (INAUDIBLE) Tripoli is giving the world a look at one secretive way the Libyan government did business including those secret deals allegedly made with the United Kingdom and the United States. I'm talking about a treasure trove of documents that were left behind when Libyan officials were forced from Tripoli.

Our senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman has seen these papers. Ben, you read some of them, what did you find?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we found was in the basement of the Internal Security Agency, that's basically the Libyan CIA, we found hundreds and hundreds of documents detailing the emerging relationship between the intelligence agencies of Libya and the United States, the Unite Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada, many other countries.

This was at a time when in early 2004, Libya has announced that it would renounce it's program for the production of weapons of mass destruction, and that this cooperation began and developed quite rapidly. On the part of the United States, they were very interested in Libya's help in the war on terror. The Libyans were very interested in American help in getting information about opponents to the Gadhafi regime many of whom were members of radical Islam movements so this relationship developed quite rapidly. We saw from some of these correspondences, that communications began quite intimate. Everything was on a first-name basis.

For instance, in one of the correspondence, the head of Libyan intelligence received thanks from American counterparts for oranges he had sent. So really it's surprising given that year after year, the U.S. State Department was putting out reports about human rights abuses by the Libyan security services. At the same time, the CIA was developing a very warm relationship with those very same services.

CHO: Ben Wedeman, live from Tripoli. Ben, great reporting as always. Thank you very much.

Later, many of us love the taste of salt. I do. But eating too many salty foods can lead to serious illnesses and researchers now say that can include dementia. We'll have details on this latest link just ahead.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On behalf of the (INAUDIBLE) Rotary Club, we want to thank you for coming out tonight. Tonight we have the Sunshine String Band, all the way from Midland County.

ED "CROSSCUT" LARSON, MUSICIAN: (INAUDIBLE) when I came home from Korea, and buddy sat on it, we were out drinking and playing and so I saved the neck out of it and then I rebuilt the body for it. Well, that was back 45 years ago. I built a body and rebuilt it and rebuilt it and rebuilt. It's one of the best instruments I have ever had. I'm 83. I play mandolin, guitar, banjo, harmonica, organ. Whatever's left over, I tried to play.

This is a very dangerous instrument, it's cut off three legs already.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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CHO: A hidden danger of too much sodium in our diets can lead to a number of health problems including heart disease and high blood pressure. Well, now there's new search that suggests a link between high salt intake and dementia. That's the subject of our look this week at how to get and stay healthy.

Dr. Bill Lloyd, our healthy living expert joins us now from San Francisco with more on this. So Dr. Bill, what exactly are they saying about the link between salt and dementia, how serious is this and at what age do you really need to pay attention to this? DR. BILL LLOYD, HEALTHY LIVING EXPERT: Well, Alina, this study comes out of Canada, a large number of adults age 64 and older, they followed them for many years. They tracked many of their lifestyle choices, including diet, their weight and their overall health condition. At the end of the study they discovered that those adults who ate the most salt and exercised the least had the greatest trouble with early dementia.

The point being if you back down on your salt young in life, you not only will high blood pressure and heart problems, but late in life, you may have less problems with your cognitive powers, your brain power.

CHO: So obviously the goal is to eat more salt, our bodies need a little bit of salt, but having said that, how much is too much? I heard recently a teaspoon is too much. Is that true?

LLOYD: You're exactly right. And here's that teaspoon right here. This is one day's worth of salt that you want to bring into your body. Alina, we get 80 percent of our daily salt from food that we eat outside of the house. So often you can't control that. The more often you cook at home and prepare your own meals and eat fresh foods, the less often you eat processed foods or convenience foods. The word convenience actually means added salt, you're going to be healthier.

CHO: so how do you - how do you do that. I mean I know one thing that I do personally is I read the labels and I look at the sodium in the ingredients section and I always want it to be low. So what are some other tips, what are some things that people can do that are easy that will help reduce their salt intake?

LLOYD: Sure, I'm just going to touch on that quick point you made about reading the labels. This is a popular brand of stewed tomatoes. If you ate this, you'll go over your daily allotment for that salt. So instead you want to opt for fresh foods, instead pick your own tomatoes and remember you can always eat some foods with things other than salt. There are plenty of spices around. Tune into one of those cable food networks and find out what people are throwing into their food and modify recipes you own, those from friends and family and especially recipes that you get out of a pan or out of a cookbook and wherever it calls for salt, try just using half of what is recommended. You won't notice the difference.

Most people put salt into food to make it less bitter. You won't recognize it as being salty food if you just cut the amount in half and improve your health while you're doing that.

CHO: All right. Dr. Bill, I'm going to try that. I love salt, and now I eat hard boiled eggs and I pour my salt on the hard boiled eggs. But I'm going to cut back a little bit.

Thank you very much with that report. It's great seeing you. Thank you so much.

Ahead, a slow moving tropical storm Lee is inching toward the Gulf Coast, but some folks are already feeling the effects. We'll have the very latest on the track next.

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CHO: Our top story this hour, tropical storm Lee is lashing the Gulf Coast, high winds have knocked out power to thousands in the southern parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. Heavy rains are flooding roads, there are reports of water reaching some homes. A mandatory evacuation has been ordered for parts of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish.

Vermont is one of the states still cleaning up from Irene. Nearly 700 Vermont homes and businesses were still without power as of this morning. Thirty five ground searchers along with its canine teams continue to look for a Vermont man missing since Sunday. He's believed to have been swept away by raging floodwaters.

After spending months in New York City fighting a sexual assault charge, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief is believed to be heading back home to France. This is new video of him just leaving his apartment in New York a short time ago. Strauss-Kahn was arrested back in March for allegedly assaulting a hotel maid. The charges were dropped last week.

And there's a travel alert from Washington one week before the anniversary of the September 11th attacks. The State Department officials warns U.S. citizens traveling or living abroad to be aware of the continuing threat posed by Al Qaeda. Right now there are no specific threats, officials just want people to be aware.

That will do it for me. I'm Alina Cho. See you back here tomorrow. "Showbiz Tonight's" TV secrets and surprises is next.

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