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Romney Projected as Winner in Washington Caucus; Black Voters Rethinking Obama
Aired March 03, 2012 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Tornado touchdown. Powerful storms slam through 11 states. The stories of survival, simply incredible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The air was blowing me back against the vehicle, hopped in it, pulled into the shell lot and immediately (INAUDIBLE) shell lot, it was about 100 yards out.
LEMON: Tick tock. Three days to super Tuesday. Four candidates, 10 states, who stays, who goes?
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Don't look at me, take a look at the mirror.
LEMON: But tonight, it's all about the Washington caucuses.
Tsunami on tape. Incredible new images out of Japan like you've never seen before. Why there could be thousands more like these to come. That and more right here, right now on CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Good evening, everyone. I'm Don Lemon.
Tonight, you're going to meet some of the people behind images of destruction that you won't soon shake. You'll hear amazing stories of survival from Americans who either through quick thinking, luck or perhaps divine intervention will live to see yet another day. So we will begin tonight in Henryville, Indiana. One of the hardest hit communities and if ever you're this close to a tornado, quite frankly run immediately to a safer place or it could be the last thing you see. Luckily, our i-reporter who shot this video did survive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to get in the house.
Look at that. My friend lives right over there, too. Oh, god! Come on, Nick. That is nuts!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Same town, same storm, but a different man who has to duck into a gas station for cover. A fearsome sight of a swirling mass close by tearing up the landscape. He says he was driving when the massive twister started bearing down. He barely got off the road in time and picked just the right place to hole up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE KAISER, TOOK COVER FROM TORNADO: The vehicles that was on 160 were being turned over in front of us. We saw the marathon station across the street completely leveled, nothing left of it. It then kept moving to the east and then you could tell it hit the school with all of the turbulence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, life in Henryville, Indiana may never be the same. And you can say that about so many communities in the path of these extreme storms. At least 37 people have died. 14 of them were in Indiana. And we've learned that the tornado that hit Henryville was an EF-4. That means sustained winds up to 200 miles per hour, we're talking NASCAR speeds here. That's what we're talking about. It cut a path 52 miles long and it was as wide as 1 1/2 football fields. The damage, of course, is catastrophic.
About 180 miles away from Henryville, another town is obliterated. West Liberty, Kentucky. An EF-3 tornado blew right through the heart of this small town. Winds were as high as 165 miles per hour. And it seems no building was spared. The roofs are peeled off some. Others were instantly blasted to the ground. Kentucky got some of the worst of it. 18 people died there. Let's meet some of the brave people of Henryville now. One police officer called the town complete destruction and there a twister not only took away a family's home, it also took a father, a dad.
CNN's Susan Candiotti has that story.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Don, here in Clark County, Indiana, in the town of Henryville, only one person didn't survive that killer tornado. He's 64-year-old Wayne Hunter.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): This is the hill top home Wayne Lenora Hunter built to raise their family more than 40 years ago. This is how it looks now. Flattened, blown to bits by a tornado. Those front steps once led to their front door. Now they lead to heartache.
RODNEY HUNTER, SON: You're OK. It's OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know.
RODNEY HUNTER: It's OK. It's all right.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): How would you like your dad to be remembered?
RODNEY HUNTER: You know, he was a really good guy. He loved nature. He loved the people. He loved his family. He loved this community.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): Hunter and his wife couldn't resist shooting some video of the twister heading their way and ran for cover inside.
PAMELA RAWLINGS, DAUGHTER: They were in safest spot in the house, the very middle of the house. There were no windows. They shut the doors and they covered up with a blanket.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): But not safe this time. They were found 30 feet apart. Wayne Hunter was dead. His beloved wife Leanora was still alive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They went into a backroom and just held into each other, covered each other up and you know, knowing them , they said a few prayers.
CANDIOTTI: Hunter was a former volunteer firefighter and recently retired emergency room nurse. Those who knew him say he really believed laughter was the best medicine.
RAWLINGS: He would put a smile on everybody's face right now with all the demolition going on here.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): What do you think he would make of all this?
RAWLINGS: He'd be taking pictures and posting them on Facebook.
HUNTER: And making a lot of jokes.
RAWLINGS: Making a lot of jokes.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Now the hard part, trying to save pieces of their home, of their life, and trying to understand why.
PERRY HUNTER: The whole randomness of a tornado is amazing. They hit. One house is destroyed and one isn't. One person dies, and one doesn't. I don't think you can understand that.
CANDIOTTI: Yet for family and friends of Wayne Hunter just because they avoided this twister's path doesn't mean they weren't touched by what it took away.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI: Mrs. Hunter is expected to make a full recovery. Her family credits neighbors for saving her life. Don?
LEMON: All right. Susan, thank you very much. And each time there is a disaster of this nature, there's always at least one survival story that grips us. And this time is no different.
A 20-month-old girl was found in a field near Henryville, miles from her family's home. She's now in critical condition at a children's hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. A hospital spokeswoman said her parents, a two-month-old sister, and a three-year-old brother, were all killed in the storm. It's not known how the little girl wound up alone in the field. Her extended family is now with her at the hospital. The storms killed 18 people in Kentucky, where the governor has declared a state of emergency. But with the storm racing towards them, some of the people of West Liberty, Kentucky looked to a higher power for help.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, god, that's going to be big.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take it away from us, lord. Take it, lord, take it, lord, take it away from us, Jesus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: This woman was praying and speaking in tongues and her prayers were answered. Her mom, her home, I should say was spared, but much of the town wasn't as lucky.
CNN's Jim Spellman is surveying the damage in West Liberty for us. Jim?
JIM SPELLMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, take a look at some of the destruction this storm brought with it when it rolled through West Liberty, Kentucky, on Friday. Right up the street here where you can see these vehicles going, this is the main part of town, it's on lockdown right now.
Earlier today, I took a first hand look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SPELLMAN: This is West Liberty, Kentucky, hit hard by Friday night's tornadoes. This is the mobile command center that they've set up here. This town is on lockdown right now as they focus on search and rescue.
Here's why they need that command center. This until last night, Friday night was the police department. This right here is a police car that was flipped on its side. You can just see here this destruction, as this tornado tore through here. It was Friday night around dusk, around 7:00 when this tornado came through. Some buildings like this one completely leveled and you could just see piles of bricks.
You can see her the spray paint here from agencies that have been searching, establishing that there's nobody trapped in here. That's really the focus right now is search and rescue here. It's pain staking work to go from building to building and dig through all the crevices and voids.
The police tell us that with communications down, cell phone towers down, very hard to establish connections or internet connection. It's really hard to know exactly who may still be stuck here. So they have to do these house by house, building by building searches. Some of these buildings made it a little bit better. You can see here windows blown out, others destroyed like we showed you. And over here on the other side of the street, you'll see the courthouse. This was the town center right here on Main Street. It's just really devastating that this tornado went right through the heart of this small town here in Kentucky. Really the worst possible path for such a destructive storm.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SPELLMAN: Now, Don, we received word that the search and rescue part of the operation is over. They found no people trapped inside any of the buildings in West Liberty. That's really good news. The next part is cleanup. They got to remove all of this debris from throughout the town. Then they've got to get new electricity run in here before they can start rebuilding and get some of these people back into their homes. Don?
LEMON: Jim Spellman, thank you for your reporting. And to find out more on how you can help find those affected by the severe weather, go to cnn.com/impact.
Up next, just three days before super Tuesday, Washington holds its Republican presidential caucuses. Who gains momentum going into Tuesday? A live report from Seattle next.
Plus, President Obama and the black vote. Is it still a sure thing this time around? That's straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: CNN projects a new win for Mitt Romney in today's Washington state caucuses, just three days before the all-important super Tuesday contest. With more than 60 percent of the votes counted, Romney has 37 percent to Congressman Ron Paul and Rick Santorum's 24 percent. It's a big boost for Romney who has been battling to boost his lead in the delegate count.
Washington is a disappointment for Ron Paul, who focused a lot of time and energy on the state and may have little to show for it. CNN political reporter Shannon Travis is in Seattle tonight where Paul had planned what he hoped would be a victory rally. But listen, 24 percent, that's not so bad. He came in dead even with Rick Santorum. He didn't win. It's not a bad showing though, Shannon. Is this a missed opportunity though for Ron Paul?
SHANNON TRAVIS, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: I mean it is a missed opportunity. You're exactly right what you just said, Don. 24 percent is not a bad showing but it's not the showing that the Ron Paul campaign wants to get. They want to win in one of these contests. Dr. Paul has said publicly himself, you heard him, "You know what? We're focusing our strategy on caucus states." There's not a lot of money that you have to spend in advertising. It's neighbor and neighbor and husband and wife and families getting together, all supporting.
And arguably Dr. Paul has the most, as I've been following him for the past month - the most, the biggest crowd sizes. The problem for him is that he hasn't been able to translate all of the hundreds of people coming out in mass to his events into actual votes. It's something that I have talked to him a lot about, the campaign is frustrated by it. But yet, again, Dr. Paul says "You know what? We're still winning, because we're winning on delegates." Take a listen to what he said about that tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're in a good second place. But - the good news is we're doing very well in getting delegates!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRAVIS: So Don, it's true, they are racking up delegates. But it's their trailing versus Mitt Romney and the others and the question is, if you rack up those delegates, what do you do with them if you don't actually win the nomination? It's something that Ron Paul and his campaign advisers have to figure out.
LEMON: Let's look ahead to super Tuesday, Shannon. Tell us what's at stake and why it's such a big deal? Nothing is decided yet, everybody is still in limbo here.
TRAVIS: That's right. It's a huge deal. Normally you know typically super Tuesday the nominee is kind of decided by then. Not so much in this case. 419 delegates at stake. About 37 percent of the total delegates that you need to win the actual nomination.
So it's a big deal, 10 states holding their contest, primaries, caucuses, whatever, which is why you see Rick Santorum barn storming across Ohio. That's going to be a crown jewel for (INAUDIBLE) there. Romney obviously there too. So it's a pretty big deal because there's just so many delegates at stake. Again, super Tuesday historically is almost kind of an afterthought. But this year, this time, it's huge.
LEMON: Digging the glasses there, Shannon Travis. Going to have to borrow them. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
CNN is the only place to be on super Tuesday. Starting with a special edition of "John King USA" at 6:00 Eastern here on CNN. A complete coverage of all 10 state contests at 7:00 Eastern right here on CNN.
Will African-Americans turn out in large numbers in November for President Obama like they did in 2008? Is it a sure thing this time around? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Black voters turned out in historic numbers to vote for President Obama in 2008. Many going to the polls for the first time. With African-Americans hit hard by the economy, can the Obama campaign energize these voters again? Here's CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donnell Scott has a framed news story on his wall about President Obama when he won the 2008 election.
DONNELL SCOTT: I wanted to capture this for my family, because again it was so historical.
MALVEAUX: But this year he's not sure he wants to vote for Obama again.
SCOTT: These next few month are going to be the telltale sign of me making that decision.
MALVEAUX: African-Americans have been hit hard by the economy, with black unemployment at 13.6 percent, almost double the rate of whites.
SCOTT: At times I've held almost three or four different jobs at one time. When you have a family that you're trying to support, you'll do whatever you takes, no matter the odds.
MALVEAUX: In 2008, African-Americans went to the polls in record numbers. 96 percent of African-Americans who voted, voted for President Obama. But some people in the black community feeling a sense of disappointment now, the question is, can the president hold on to the black vote?
Former Obama policy adviser and now DNC head Patrick Gaspard believes he can.
PATRICK GASPARD, DNC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: African-Americans have been disproportionately affected by the recession. Over the course of the last 23 months, we've of course seen 3.7 million jobs grown in the private sector alone and there is a sense we're beginning to turn this around.
MALVEAUX: Representative Maxine Waters has been one of the president's toughest critics for not doing enough for black unemployment, even so, she says Republican attacks on President Obama will energize blacks to vote.
REP. MAXINE WATER (D), CALIFORNIA: Since the Republican candidates have taken to the air with these debates, they have tried to undermine the president in so many ways. They have strengthened the resolve of African-Americans to re-elect this president.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've got to decide what kind of country we want to be.
MALVEAUX: Last month the Obama campaign launched African-Americans for Obama to generate support in black communities.
At a barbershop in Atlanta, opinions were mixed on whether or not to vote for the president in November.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's going to have to become very convincing to minorities right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Other than that, it's going to sound like the same story again. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they're still waiting on change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he's done a ton with the cards that he was dealt. I think four more years would do him and do us and do the country well.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: CNN's Suzanne Malveaux reporting.
And coming up next - the Syrian military goes after civilians, but it's not just civilians. Army soldiers also turn their guns on some of their own. Back right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: News now overseas. A new twist in the horror occurring every day in Syria to report to you. Soldiers returning their guns - or turning their guns on some of their fellow soldiers.
(VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: As the relentless shelling continues in the city of Homs, the Syrian army commander got word of soldiers who plan to defect in (INAUDIBLE). 47 were immediately executed, their bodies dumped in a lake. Opposition activists Sami Ibrahim says one neighborhood of Homs is facing its own massacre.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAMI IBRAHIM, ACTIVIST (ON THE PHONE): The government is now inside Baba Amr preparing to something no one knows what's going on. The situation is very bad because Baba Amr now military zone area, no one can exit. No one can go out. We are speaking about between 6,000 to 10,000 persons inside. Why do they prevent the Red Cross from coming in? They are preparing a massacre. They are arresting hundreds of people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Snipers are a constant danger in Homs and the humanitarian crisis worsens every day, as food, electricity and medical supplies dwindle. Two victims of the violence in Syria began their slow and final trips home today. The Red Crescent handed over the bodies of American reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik to diplomats in Damascus. Both died during the shelling in Homs. Doctors at Al Assad University Hospital positively identified them.
Russian voters are casting ballots this weekend and are expected to make Prime Minister Vladimir Putin president once again. If he wins the election, he'll serve an unprecedented third term. His rivals are hoping to get enough votes to force a runoff. Putin formally served as Russian president from 2000 to 2008.
Iran's government says more than 64 percent of voters took part in Friday's parliamentary election. An official newspaper called the vote "a great slap in the dirty and hateful face of the west." The main reformist party boycotted the election to protest the repression they say they've faced since 2009. That year the government cracked down on the opposition after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Next, the first of three funerals for victims of Monday's high school shooting rampage in Ohio. That and more of your top stories straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Checking your top stories now. Watch this incredible crash out of Arizona. This helicopter was following a speeding car while filming a TV show. The man who filmed this footage says he turned the camera off right after the crash. He didn't want to film dead pilots, he says. But the pilots survived. And in fact unbelievably, they climbed out of the wreckage and walked away from the crash.
The grief in Chardon, Ohio, overwhelmed that small community again today, this time at the first of three funerals for the victims of Monday's high school shooting rampage. Family and friends buried 16- year-old Daniel Parmertor. More than 1,000 people turned out for his funeral mass.
BP is paying dearly for this. For weeks on end, we watched oil gushing into the Gulf after the BP oil rig disaster. Nearly two years later, BP has settles, agreeing to pay nearly $8 billion to businesses and individuals damaged by the spill. That's not the end of it. The government still has claims for violating clean water and oil pollution laws. BP has already paid out $22 billion, most of it to cover the cleanup.
The manhunt for a killer is intensifying tonight. Pittsburgh police say an armored car, the driver allegedly murdered his partner then took off with $2 million in cash. Police recovered the truck with the body inside yesterday. Investigators called 22-year-old Kenneth Konias armed and dangerous. The armored car company is offering a reward of up to $100,000.
A gunman opened fire on a crowd of people outside a nightclub in Tempe, Arizona, late last night. The patrons were waiting to see a rap concert. Fourteen, people were wounded, two seriously. Police arrested a suspect today and are still looking for two others. They say the shooting appears to be gang related.
At least 37 people were killed in those storms that ripped through the Midwest and South and, man, it was -- it tore a lot of places apart just hours ago. And it will take weeks and months, maybe even years for communities to be put back together.
Our Sandra Endo is one of those towns, West Liberty, Kentucky, for us. Sandra?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDRA ENDO, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): With daylight came reality -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The only thing of my place that's left is the back porch.
ENDO (voice-over): -- returning to the places where their homes once stood, still haunted by what they saw Friday. A fierce severe weather outbreak barreled across much of the United States, from Texas to Indiana, and to Kentucky and Georgia. Some 17 million people were in the deadly path.
DAVID WILSON, TORNADO SURVIVOR: You could hear people praying, just please let us get through this, God, please let us get through this.
ENDO (voice-over): In the hours after the terror came stories of survival.
DR. GLENN RIGGS, HENRYVILLE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL: I had about 40 students and staff. We were in the core of the building when the tornado hit, and everyone was safe. No one was injured.
ENDO (voice-over): Something to be thankful for, despite the devastation. Entire neighborhoods are flattened. Schools are in ruins. But spirits are strong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Got a lot of good friends. We still got our family. What more can we ask for?
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R) OHIO: The fact of the matter is, people that live here are resilient, God fearing. They're tough and we're knocked down but not we're knocked out.
ENDO (voice-over): In hard-hit Henryville, Indiana, crews spent much of the day combing debris in hopes to find survivors. In West Liberty, Kentucky, equipment is already in place to clear away what the storms knocked down. Just two examples of towns, small in population, but big in their determination to come back from this disaster.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Sandra Endo reporting, thank you, Sandra.
How do these tornado outbreaks form? Jacqui Jeras here to break it all down for us -- Jacqui.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's a really -- just a really ripe situation for tornadoes to develop and to occur and it's a little early in the season to see some of this. And we want to put this whole event in perspective for you here, Don. And this map really details what we saw this week in terms of how many states were affected and how widespread this was.
Those states that you see there, that's 14 states that have had tornado reports, including damage, including fatalities, and that including Wednesday, so it just wasn't yesterday, this includes Wednesday's event as well. All the red dots that you see on the map, those are preliminary reports with major damage -- meaning it was like EF-3 tornado -- or that there were fatalities included. And some of the big areas we ere talking about, Harveyville into Kansas, Harrisburg here in Illinois.
We had our Henryville, Indiana, tornado and our West Liberty one and then we also saw some major damage in Tennessee, Alabama and into Georgia.
Now, yesterday alone, there were more than 100 reports of tornadoes. And when we talk about those conditions that are right, what happens is we get cold, dry air coming in from the north; very warm, moist air coming in from the south and at different levels of the atmosphere our winds will move in different directions. And that's what helps provides the turning.
So all these ingredients just caused the atmosphere to explode throughout the day yesterday. And we got these long-lived super cells that stayed on the ground for a very long period of time.
And I've had a lot of questions today, because the last time we had such a big outbreak was really April of last year, right? So let's put this in perspective. How does yesterday compare with the outbreak in April of 2011, the 27th and 28th? Well, the number of tornadoes that we had yesterday, this is just preliminary, but it was about half of what they saw April 27th and 28th.
So this is a map from NOAA, the National Weather Service, showing about 303 tornado warnings just yesterday. The April tornado outbreak, 688. So that's about twice as many. Now what about how often we see tornadoes break out this frequently in the month of March? This is a map that shows you how many we see on average by month from the Storm Prediction Center.
And for March, there you can see the number, around 92. The preliminary reports from yesterday are 100. But that's going to change very likely as they continue to survey all of that damage.
But all said and done, I got a message from Gregg Carvin (ph) at the Storm Prediction Center there and he tells us, Don, that this outbreak, not just in March, but the number of tornadoes we've had since January 1, will likely put us in the top 10 percent to 20 percent of busiest starts to the severe weather season since records began.
So this certainly was a huge event that we've been dealing with. And like you said, months, years probably, before some of these people are going to be able to recover completely and rebuild.
LEMON: My goodness. And we're certainly thinking about them and we hope that they can get back to some degree of normalcy soon. Thank you, Jacqui, appreciate it.
A reminder for you. If you want to help out, here's where you go. Go to CNN.com/impact -- CNN.com/impact. All the organizations and tools are there for you to help. Up next, we'll talk law and punishment. Could the Rutgers University student accused of spying on his roommate be charged with a hate crime by prosecutors?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Well, let's talk law and justice now. Our first story from this dorm, former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi secretly streamed video of his roommate kissing another man. That roommate, Tyler Clemente, ended up killing himself shortly after finding out about the Web video in September of 2010.
On the right is Ravi, who is on trial, facing 15 counts in Clemente's death. On the left, the man who was with Clemente on the video, his identity is being kept secret. Earlier, I asked criminal defense attorney Holly Hughes if prosecutors have a real challenge charging this as a hate crime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLLY HUGHES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I don't think they're going to get there. When we charge a hate crime, basically we're asking the jury to look into the mind of the defendant and say he committed this particular crime because he has a bias against a group of people, in this particular case, against homosexuals.
LEMON: And I've been hearing in the questioning, did he say to you that he had a problem --
HUGHES: Right. Exactly.
LEMON: -- with Clemente? No, but that was my impression. So he did not (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
HUGHES: But we've heard a lot of testimony that he has other friends who are gay, and he said, you know, I'm just a little uncomfortable having a roommate who's gay. So it's not necessarily a bias against all gay people.
This isn't, you know what, where we see a lot of hate crime is when you talk about, say, a neo-Nazi and you can go back and there's literature in their room that says I hate this and they belong to a group that is absolutely out there in saying things like that.
LEMON: But what about his, he wasn't trying to, you know, videotape his straight friends. I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
HUGHES: Well, but here's --
LEMON: Doesn't that say anything?
HUGHES: OK, but here's the question then, Don. First of all, what he did was deplorable and he's also charged with invasion of privacy, and I think that's a slam dunk for the prosecution, as it should be. What happened to Tyler Clemente is a horrible tragedy, but when we're talking about in a court of law, bringing it up to that level, I'm not sure we're going to get there.
LEMON: Concrete, concrete, concrete.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: A mother in Missouri says that she was tired of a drug dealer trying to get her son hooked on heroin again, and she went to have a conversation with the guy and ended up clubbing him twice with a baseball bat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They came to my house, they came to my work looking for him, trying to get him to buy again when he was clean. It is the state prosecuting me for trying to protect my son.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have any regrets?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. No. He is -- my children are my life, and they're wanting to take his life away, and I can't let that happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So the state is prosecuting her. What's going on here?
HUGHES: What happened the drug dealer actually showed up at her house. They've been tracking her son down when they're trying to get him clean. And she had a baseball bat with her. The dealer reached into his car. She thought he was going for a gun. That's a reasonable assumption. So she whacked him with the baseball bat to basically defend herself.
LEMON: He's a drug dealer. Let's not forget that.
HUGHES: OK, but the drug dealer then runs off and calls the police. The police don't arrest her. The police just say, hey, you know what, you shouldn't assault this guy. The prosecutor then draws up an accusation and charges her with assault after this drug dealer shows up on her property and reaches for what she thinks is a weapon. But I think she's got a really, really strong self-defense case here.
LEMON: A lot of people watching this are going I'm on the mom's side, you know.
HUGHES: Oh, and I think the jury is going to be, too. If the state pushes this forward, there will be a defense attorney, who will put up a self-defense claim, which in the State of Missouri, the law says you get to defend yourself if you think you're in imminent harm. If it's reasonable force used against you, then you're allowed to do that.
And even if they don't buy the self-defense argument, guess what? It's what we call jury nullification. And the jury thinks maybe you did do it, but we happen to agree with you and we're not going to convict you, no matter what the facts say. LEMON: Interesting (inaudible) this time. (Inaudible). Thank you, Holly Hughes. All right. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: After creating a national stir, Rush Limbaugh is apologizing to this woman, Sandra Fluke. He called her a prostitute and a slut, among other insults, after her testimony last week at a Democratic hearing in support of insurance coverage for contraceptives.
In his apology today, Limbaugh said, he thought it was absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress, and went on to wonder where the line will be drawn, saying, "Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?"
He ended finally by saying, "My choice of words was not the best and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for her -- for the insulting word choices."
The apology comes as a growing number of advertisers abandoned Limbaugh's show: Legal Zoom, Quicken Loans, Sleep Number Beds, Citrix and a backup software company, Carbonite, have all canceled or suspended their accounts.
Up next -- never-before-seen video. The tsunami that slammed through Japan, taking the lives of more than 15,000 people. And we'll tell you why more of these images may continue to show up from the disaster.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Remember it was one month -- one year ago this month when that horrible earthquake and tsunami hit Japanese and -- Japan. And Japan is one of the most wired nations in the world.
So what happens when something like that occurs? Thousands of people start to record as they're running for their lives. Again, it happened one year ago this month. And it was one of the biggest quakes in history, triggering a massive tsunami -- 15,000 people died. Kyung Lah with more on the survivors, through survivors' cameras.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KYUNG LAH, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): The very instant the tsunami struck Ishinomaki, a young man, trapped in the frigid rushing waters, clinging to a telephone wire. You're watching this entire neighborhood as it's ripped apart, from a victim trapped in the middle of it, capturing it all on his camera. More than 2 million people viewed this clip since it hit YouTube right after the disaster.
The teenager shooting the video, 16-year-old Mao Takahashi. From his balcony, Takahashi kept recording.
LAH: It was right here. When you were taping that, did you know you were recording history?
LAH (voice-over): I never thought about it, he says. I was simply panicking. Takahashi's video is just one of thousands on the Web, showing the tsunami as it happened, making it one of the most recorded disasters in history.
Japan is one of the most wired countries in the world. Mobile phone data shows that every single person has at least one mobile phone and, in some cases, two. So when the tsunami came roaring ashore, thousands upon thousands captured it on personal devices.
LAH: Is that the real power of the personal recording device in hand, being able to transmit that video around the world instantaneously?
STEVE NAGATA, TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANT: To be able to do this in near real-time, and to do it to audiences across the globe is unprecedented in how much power it's given the individuals. Because you know, you had all of this very real footage, it made the incident much more real in people's minds. They can't -- they no longer have to imagine what a tsunami is. They saw it live.
LAH (voice-over): Making Japan's disaster a shared worldwide experience. Nagata believes the amount of citizen video helped engage governments, aid groups and individuals help and showed humanity at its best in the face of disaster.
In Takahashi's case, what you can't see is the most important part of his story. His video ends suddenly. He stopped recording. The man clinging to the telephone wire? Takahashi waded out to him in the tsunami water and saved his life. Kyung Lah, CNN, Ishinomaki, Japan.
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LEMON: Incredible images. Well, let's take a look at what's coming up tomorrow in the CNN Newsroom with Fredericka Whitfield. Fred, what do you have?
FREDERICKA WHITFIELD, ANCHOR, CNN NEWSROOM: The Republican presidential field might be slimming down after Super Tuesday. One candidate that exited months ago, Michele Bachmann. Well, she's has been quiet about her endorsement. Is she ready to support one of the candidates?
Michele Bachmann joins me Sunday for an in-depth interview. We'll discuss politics and her position on Iran, as talks on that country begin in Washington. Join me Sunday afternoon starting at 2:30 Eastern right here in the CNN Newsroom.
LEMON: We'll be watching, Fredericka. Thank you very much. And coming up next, lots of concerns in the Florida Keys about the fragile coral reefs. But not because of storms. One expert diver shows us how he's restoring marine life. Meet our CNN Hero after the break.
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LEMON: Oh, look at that. This week's CNN Hero has watched the beauty of the sea disappear. Now he's working to bring life back to an underwater world in crisis. Meet Ken Nedimyer.
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KEN NEDIMYER, BEFRIENDING THE PLANET: I grew up diving in the Florida Keys, and it was just the most magical place. The coral reefs were so pretty, and I decided that's what I wanted to do for a living, is dive on coral reefs.
In an area where there's live coral, there's always more fish. Reefs provide protection for our coastal areas and recreational opportunities for millions of people.
I was diving for 40 years, and over time I saw those coral reefs start to die. Coral reefs worldwide are in decline. If coral reefs die completely, coastal communities would be bankrupt, tourism would be virtually gone. A billion people in the world will be impacted. I started thinking, you know, how can we fix this problem?
My name is Ken Nedimyer, and I grow, protect and restore coral reefs.
We developed a system that's simple and it's something that we can train others to do.
We start with a piece of coral this big and we hang it on a tree. And after about a year or two, it becomes this big. And then we cut the branches off, and we do it again.
BILLY CAUSEY, SOUTHEAST REGIONAL DIRECTOR, NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARIES, NOAA: Ken's Coral Nursery is one of the largest in the wider Caribbean. It's 10 times larger than the others that are in existence.
NEDIMYER: In 2003, we originally planted six corals here, but now there's over 3,000 growing in this area alone.
Before, I felt helpless watching it die. Now I think there's hope. It's not too late, everybody can help. I see all those corals and all those fish. So it's like this whole reef is coming back to life, and making a difference is exciting.
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LEMON: Remember, CNN Heroes are all chosen from people you tell us about. To nominate someone who's making a difference in their community, go to cnnheroes.com. Your nomination could help them to help others.
More on the day's news right now. Gas prices have jumped again. The average price of a gallon of regular rose more than a penny and a half in the last 24 hours. It's now nearly $3.76 for a gallon, almost 30 cents more than last month. AAA says today's surge marks the 25th straight increase.
Players from the New Orleans Saints could be in trouble for a cash pool that paid players to injure opponents. An investigation by the NFL found that then defensive coordinator Gregg Williams ran that program.
He now says it was a mistake. As many as 27 players funded a pool that doled out $1,500 to knock out an opposing player. The payout was $1,000 when someone had to be carried off the field. The NFL says players involved could face suspensions.
As much as the country begins cleaning up from the string of deadly tornadoes, what's in store for us for the next few days? Our Jacqui Jeras is here. Jacqui, what does it look like?
JERAS: Well, a lot better actually, Don, but not without complications. The storm that produced all the severe weather is still producing a lot of rain across parts of Florida, Georgia and then on up into Carolinas. So you're going to deal with that at least into tomorrow. But no widespread organized severe weather expected, at least not for the next three days.
There is a clipper system that is going to be impacting the tornado zones, however, and I wanted to mention this, because this is going to be bringing in some rain late tomorrow and then change over likely to some snow by tomorrow night.
So folks that are dealing with cleanup here really need to act pretty quickly to try and salvage anything that's really important to them in the next few days.
And we do want to mention that some of this will be snowfall and this is one computer model forecast bringing it over some of those areas in Illinois, Indiana, as well as into Kentucky. So a weak system, Don, but certainly having an impact for those people that will be dealing with temperatures below freezing again.
LEMON: All right, Jacqui, thank you very much.
You know, in instant, this week's tornadoes destroyed homes and turned lives upside down. Here's what living through a tornado is like in survivors' own words.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everywhere you look, there's just a story like this. A bus into a building, a mobile home completely flattened. Just major damage everywhere in this area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything was beating around our heads. But thank God we made it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I looked up. And I was talking to my daughter across the street and I looked up and I just seen debris everywhere. And next thing I knew, I was like, I thought it was a dream.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's gas leaks, the houses are all completely demolished back there, completely, to the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The building shook. The lights went off. The noise was incredible. And it passed by right in front of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're getting (inaudible) golf ball-sized hail. I can't honestly tell you what's going on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just, like, you were on a weighing scale this way, and it just kept going like this. And the next thing I know, I'm pushing tables, refrigerators, freezers, whatever I had on me, off of me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it just seemed like they just -- that my house was just lifted up and then just dropped. And the roof fell in, and the glass was everyplace. But while I was under the table, I said, Lord, make this pass, and it did.
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LEMON: I'm Don Lemon at the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. I'll see you back here tomorrow night, 6:00, 7:00 and 10:00 pm Eastern. Our thoughts and prayers go to all the people affected by the tornadoes. Count your blessings. Good night.
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