Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Fighter Jets Scrambled to Escort Flight; Edwards Jurors Ask for a Second Look at Evidence; Moms Protest Toxic Chemicals; Opening The Creative Process; Cameroonian-French Citizen Causes Scare on Flight; Island of Garbage; Cable Companies Agree to Share Wi-Fi Access
Aired May 22, 2012 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. We're following breaking news. A passenger aircraft diverted on its way overseas from Paris to Charlotte and never getting to Charlotte. Diverted, instead, to the runway that you're looking at right now. That is a Boeing 767. It was diverted to Bangor, Maine, where it sits with about 179 passengers, nine crew members on board.
Apparently the original word came into us from US Airways that there was a security issue. That was it. Somewhere over the Atlantic, something went wrong and they diverted that plane to where you see it, a security issue was it. But then later, the TSA gave us a little further detail saying not just a security issue, this was a passenger behaving suspiciously. Not only was that plane brought to where it was, but it was brought there by escorts. I'm talking the F-15 kind.
Let me bring in Lizzie O'Leary, our aviation and regulation correspondent who's based in Washington. This is very serious. They're not telling us where these jets were scrambled from but you know it is serious when they scramble two aircraft to bring in a passenger jet -- a civilian passenger jet.
LIZZIE O'LEARY, AVIATION AND REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The those aircraft were scrambled, the two F-15s around 11:40 a.m., that's about 20 minutes before this plane landed in Bangor, Maine. We don't know which Airforce base they were scrambled out of. There are a couple in the nearby area, nearby states that could do that, but Norad confirmed they did use those two F-15s to accompany this plane, which is a Boeing 767. U.S. Airways Flight 787 onto the ground in Bangor, Maine. You see it there with those buses that look like they could be there for deplaning those 179 passengers. You mentioned the TSA did say that they had reports of a passenger exhibiting suspicious behavior on the flight. Out of an abundance of caution, it was diverted. We know from local law enforcement that the FBI is the lead agency on this issue right now. And -- as we still don't know what happened on board the plane. There are a couple obviously different scenarios, but I should point out that if this is, in any way, interfering with the flight crew, that is a federal crime and would be certainly something that could be anyone on board the plane who interfered with the flight crew could be charged with, Ashleigh. It looks like -- you know, we're watching those buses to see if anyone is coming off that flight right now.
BANFIELD: Yes. And also watching for law enforcement vehicles, too, because that's something else the TSA confirmed to us is that this passenger -- this plane was met by law enforcement. Clearly, that would be obvious given the fact that F-15s had to bring it in.
Let me bring in Chad Myers. Chad, I am always concerned when I hear about a Transatlantic flight --
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes.
BANFIELD: -- that gets far enough into the flight that it has to complete its pond hopping. And that's the case with this particular flight. It did not go back to Paris, it continued on.
MYERS: Yes, it completed over 3,000 miles of its journey all the way from Charles De Gaulle. And you would expect they it would drive right all the way -- fly all the way Charlotte, but that's not the way planes fly across the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, from Charles De Gaulle, they would make a very nice little, it's called the great arc, part of the great circle, and it would come right through here -- here's France, who's in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, mid-Atlantic ridge, up here, Greenland, and it would fly right over the Bay of Fundi. And when it got to the Bay of Fundi, that's when the diversion took place. It did not continue all the way to Charlotte. It turned to the right, made a slight angled diversion, that's probably when we assume the F-15s caught up. Earlier, we didn't know anything about the F-15s. Now, this seems slightly more sinister in this -- in the base, rather. They just wouldn't take with this out for some person that had too much to drink in first class. That -- there's a little bit --
BANFIELD: Right, no.
MYERS: -- there's a little bit more going on here now.
BANFIELD: There's more to it. And you and I were talking a while ago about the fact it would have flown I think over Gander, Newfoundland, which is also a place where often times in a crisis a lot of flights will land. In 911, that place was packed. There were so many international flights that landed in Gander, Newfoundland. But that would tell me, and I'm trying to squint at your map just to see if that would have been in the flight path or if this diversion or whatever became a -- made them aware that there was a problem happened almost over landmass.
MYERS: Yes, probably did. It seems to me like -- you know, your point of no return would be somewhere here over the mid-Atlantic ridge, about that far from Greenland where you would turn and come back. And you just -- you're getting -- you're talking about fuel at this point in time. How much fuel do we have? How much fuel can we turn and go back from? Because we only have enough fuel to get to Charlotte and maybe another hour of flight time in case there's something going on in Charlotte. So, as it came down through here, it -- the diversion did take place right over Newfoundland. It did not take place earlier than that, at least the route change did not take place earlier than that. We don't know where the -- anything happened. We're going to get some, obviously, information from the TSA, from U.S. Air, and from the passengers that were on board. We'll have a whole more for you as the hours go by.
BANFIELD: Yes, it's a good thing we have an aviation and regulation correspondent, that's Lizzie O'Leary, who's standing by and watching all of these breaking details for us and getting a lot of them. So, you have something new about the air traffic control.
O'LEARY: Well, we do monitor air traffic control and there are, you know, a lot of ways to do that. But one thing I do want to point out to our viewers is that as this plane was approaching its landing in Bangor, communication between the plane and the tower was normal. There was nothing out of the ordinary. They weren't asking for, as far as we can hear, emergency assistance either from law enforcement or from the airport. So, that's just sort of another detail to note here. Yes, we had an F-15 escort, two fighter jets, but at the same time, the air traffic communications between the plane and the tower were, you know, not anything particularly out of the ordinary -- Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: Just watching that picture to the right of you, as well, on the right of your screen where we had seen just a short time ago a number of buses that had been brought in presumably for the passengers who were on board, as Lizzie has been reporting, 179 passengers, nine crew members on board, and at least one of them causing enough problems to scramble two F-15 fighter aircraft as Norad has confirmed to CNN, to bring that plane to Bangor, Maine, instead of Charlotte, where it was destined. So, we'll continue to watch this as we continue to bring in detail there. Few and far between. This is a tricky one. We do know law enforcement officials met that plane. As soon as we know why and who they were there to get, we'll bring it to you.
In the meantime, another story from the law books. In North Carolina, jurors in the John Edwards trial looking for a second shot at some of that evidence. They wanted to see some of the evidence a second time, this on their third day of deliberations in the federal corruption trial. That former presidential candidate walking into the courtroom is charged with illegally using almost a million bucks in campaign donations to cover up an affair. But were they campaign donations or were they just gifts?
Our legal contributor, Paul Callan, is here with me. Again, tea leaf reading when the jury is doing its work and we're all on verdict watch. It can be fun, it can be telling, and it can tell us nothing at all. But at least we know what they wanted to see. What was it?
PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, for the last of couple days, they've been focused on the Bunny Mellon counts in the indictment. And that is she's the heiress, I think she's 101 years old now, who contributed $725,000 to the Edwards campaign.
BANFIELD: It's the bulk of the money in question.
CALLAN: Yes. And much of that money -- some of that money was used to support Rielle Hunter. Of course, the Edwards defense attorney say a lot of it was diverted to Andrew Young, and he used it illegally and John Edwards knew nothing about it. So, they are focused on that money and they are focused on whether that's personal money or whether that money was intended to be a campaign contribution that was misused by the Edwards' campaign.
BANFIELD: They had actually like copies of checks and that sort of thing. I mean, will they be wanting to see the actual copies of checks to see if she had signed them or she wrote notes on them, that kind of thing?
CALLAN: That would be not at all unusual to ask to see that. But frankly, I don't think there's much dispute about the fact that she actually made the contributions. The harder question for this jury is was it intended to be a personal gift to John Edwards or was it intended to help his presidential campaign. One of the notes that they asked for was a note about John Edwards famous $400 haircut. She, basically, had -- when she started contributing, she expressed concern about the fact that John Edwards had been criticized for getting a $400 haircut. And she said, if the press is going to criticize him, I'll pay for the haircut. Now, is that a campaign contribution or is that personal? This is what this jury is actually trying to decide. And you know, it could mean prison for John Edwards if they decide it's not personal.
BANFIELD: You know, there's a big difference between someone who really has a crush on a person or a candidate and wants to do nice things for that candidate and somebody who wants to go through the official channel for giving campaign contributions. They are very different, aren't they?
CALLAN: Well, they are different. But you know what's interesting about this case is that no one really has been prosecuted criminally for misuse of campaigns like this. Ad this doctrine has never been tested before.
BANFIELD: I find that shocking though.
CALLAN: Well --
BANFIELD: Just when you say that, I find that part of it all shocking.
CALLAN: And actually, believe it or not, it goes back to the -- it reminds me of Richard Nixon and the famous checker speech. I don't know if you remember that speech.
BANFIELD: You're going back to Richard Nixon? You're going to do this?
CALLAN: Well, we're talking history here, because this is what led to all of these laws. You know, Nixon had a group of supports who set up a little fund for him because he didn't have a lot of money. And it was a big problem in the Eisenhower administration and he went on and he gave a speech and he said, I'm going to give all the money back but some of the money was used to buy a dog names Checkers. And my kids love that dog, we're not going to give that dog back. And the public so liked Nixon, as a result of that, he was elected Vice President of the United States. Fast forward now to the present where we're a lot more sophisticated about money. If you use a campaign contribution for a haircut, to buy a wardrobe, to buy a nice car because you should be driving around in a Mercedes if you're running for president or maybe in this day in age an electric powered car. Is that a campaign contribution or is it personal? It's -- I think it's pretty hard to decide.
BANFIELD: It's going to be tricky.
CALLAN: And should you send somebody to jail if they make a mistake?
BANFIELD: And you know what? Let's remind everybody watching that those jurors are average people like you and me. They're not expert lawyers, they're not politicians, they just have that stuff in front of them and they have to rely on their memories because they couldn't get the transcripts when they wanted them.
CALLAN: Eight men, four women, and the other big question is how are the women going to react in the case?
BANFIELD: Day three, day three of deliberations in a four-week trial. Paul Callan, thank you.
CALLAN: Nice being with you.
BANFIELD: (INAUDIBLE) bringing up Nixon. Look at you.
CALLAN: I knew you'd like that.
BANFIELD: I love it. I love it
Here are a couple of other things we're working on for you at this hour. They are moms and they are steaming mad. A small army of mothers storming Capitol Hill and bringing their strollers with them.
Also, an it's an island of garbage. Yes, garbage and it is said to be bigger than the state of Texas. It's floating out in the middle of nowhere and it's not the only one either. The Pacific Ocean poisoned by plastic and guess what? The tsunami has not made things any better. More on that coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: They call themselves the stroller brigade and they descended upon Capitol Hill today to protest the use of toxic chemicals that are used in everyday products.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are the people!
CROWD: We are the people!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mighty, mighty people!
CROWD: The mighty, mighty people! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fighting for children!
CROWD: Fighting for children!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So, this is a group that's made up mostly of moms but also a couple of dads. They're calling for more information and some tighter regulations on chemicals.
Dana Bash has been talking to the demonstrators. She joins us live now. So, the story here as I get it is that there is legislation but that it is woefully outdated. And what do they want to see happen?
DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right. The last time there was legislation on this, Ashleigh, was 1976. And what they want to see happen is they want, they say, information, really basic information on the chemicals that are out there in everything that we use, particularly chemicals that are in products that affect children and pregnant women. What -- if it is for this particular demonstration was a "Chicago Tribune" investigation showing that flame retardant chemicals in particular put in by the tobacco industry actually hurts people, babies and mothers and so forth because of the chemicals. Listen to what the senator from Illinois, the number-two Democrat, said about this issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: It happens every time you sit down on the couch. You know what happens? That couch has two pounds of flame-retardant chemicals packed into those cushions. And when you sit down, you release this fine spray of toxic chemicals right in the face of your baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not right.
DURBIN: That isn't right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Now, there were mom who came in from all over the country. Some certainly are activists locally in their home. But one who I talked to said she just wrote a letter as a concerned mom to a local paper and that's how the larger industry group found her. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE NIENSTEDT, MOM FROM BOISE, IDAHO: You can't read a label on this pillow and know anything other than it's supposed to confer with, you know, rules for fire retardants. That makes you feel like you're doing something safe for your family. It just turns out we've learned the exact opposite may be happening. So until the labels mean something, we are powerless -- we're powerless to make good choices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: That particular woman, Ashleigh, is heading to see her senator in about an hour. Her senator is Mike Crapo. She came from Idaho.
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: So, Dana, I mean a lot of us hear fire retardant. We think that is a good word, like she just mentioned.
BASH: Exactly.
BANFIELD: So if there's an issue with the fire retardant, and it's not safe, and yet not having fire retardant is not safe, how likely is it that this legislation will get through?
BASH: It's unclear at this point. Right now there are just Democrats who are on board, which means that it is not likely at this point.
Let me show you the gist of what this legislation would do, Ashleigh. First of all, it would require basic information on health hazards about all chemicals. It would also immediately -- action against bad chemicals. So it would have to be action against taking them out. And also make the industry responsible for demonstrating the chemical safety.
What's interesting and what's fascinating to me, as I learn this, is that everybody knows, for example, in the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA has to make sure that they are safe before they enter the marketplace. The EPA has control over chemicals, but there's no such process for chemicals at all. So this is trying to impose some kind of process similar to what we have on pharmaceuticals.
BANFIELD: All right, Dana Bash live for us on Capitol Hill. Thank you, my friend, for keeping an eye on that for us as well.
BASH: Thank you.
BANFIELD: As we continue to look at the breaking news of this plane that was diverted from Paris, there it is, sitting on a runway with a whole bunch of people on board who are probably not happy to be there. More details in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: We've been following breaking news in Bangor, Maine. And it shouldn't be in Bangor, Maine. That plane on your screen, a live picture of it on the runway in Bangor, Maine, should be in Charlotte, but it was diverted. And it took a couple of F-15 fighter jets to get it diverted to this airport as well. The plane was on its way from Paris, it took off from Charles De Gaulle Airport. But something happened midflight and it caused a problem.
In fact, the TSA tells us that there was a passenger who was behaving in a suspicious manner. US Airways told us it was a security issue, which was the reason for the diverted flight. We can tell you that the TSA told us that this plane was set to be met by law enforcement. We have seen on this runway so far a couple of buses that have approached this plane. We don't know if that's for the 179 passengers who were on board this Boeing 767 and nine crew members. That's almost a full flight, too, for that kind of an aircraft. That aircraft can hold about 200 people.
So obviously not a good day for the people on board that plane. We don't know yet just how severe this security issue was, this passenger behaving in a suspicious manner. But you can bet your bottom dollar when NORAD gets involved and scrambles two F-15s and then won't tell us where they scrambled them from, it is serious indeed. We're keeping an eye on that for you. But what we can tell you is it's safe on the ground at this point.
Switching gears now. It's time for what we like to call "Bookmarks." Our look at the big ideas, the bestsellers that are driving the national conversation. And think about this for a minute. Where do you think all of your greatest ideas have come from? Think about it. You might remember that they came out of nowhere when you weren't even thinking about it. Boom, light bulb went on. Apparently not thinking too hard about something is one factor in trying to nurture the creative process. And Jonah Lehrer has written a book about that process. It's a new book called "Imagine: How Creativity Works." He's a best-selling author and he's a contributing editor at "Wired" magazine. He joins me live from Los Angeles.
So, Jonah, this is marvelous news for a bunch of us who think that we're a bunch of left thumbs, we have no creativity whatsoever. And you're here to tell us that it's actually something we can work on? We all have the propensity to be creative, we just have to put our noses to the grindstone?
JONAH LEHRER, AUTHOR, "IMAGINE: HOW CREATIVITY WORKS": Absolutely. Creativity is a universal facet of human nature. It doesn't mean we're all equally good at it, but it does mean we can all learn to get better at it.
BANFIELD: So what are some of the things that I need to do to, you know, perk up my creative juices?
LEHRER: Well, so let's say you need a moment of insight. Let's say you need one of those epiphanies that's going to be a big breakthrough. What the science suggests is that, of course you have to put in the work. You've got to put your nose to the grindstone. But then, at some point, you're probably going to hit the wall. You're going to feel stuck and stumped. The problem's going to feel impossible. That's your brain telling you, you need a moment of insight.
And what the science suggests is that when you need one of those moments of insights, when you need one of those big breakthrough, then what you need so do is to find a way to relax yourself, to go on vacation, to take a long shower, take a bubble bath, have a beer on the couch, do whatever it is you need to do to stop searching for the answer, because only then will the answer arrive.
There's this wonderful quote from Einstein that creativity is the residue of wasted time. When you need a moment of insight, you need to make time to waste time.
BANFIELD: That's great residue because I think we've all been in that predict. You know, I seem to recall back in high school working on a paper and getting writer's block and then going down to the fridge or having a joke with my siblings and then, boom, all of a sudden the paper was finished in a nanosecond.
LEHRER: Yes.
BANFIELD: So is that sort of what you're saying, you have to get stumped to get to that level, that challenge in your brain, and then release it with some easy behavior?
LEHRER: Absolutely. And I think this is a little counterintuitive. I think most people assume that what you need to do when you are stuck and stumped, when your boss gives you a very tough problem, is to drink even more coffee, to stay late at the office, to chain yourself to your desk and focus, focus, focus. But this research suggests that when you need a big breakthrough, that's the exact wrong thing to do. It's not an accident that companies like Google have ping-pong tables in the lobby. You've got to give people a chance to relax as well because that's when they're going to have their best ideas.
BANFIELD: Yes, it looks like some of those folks out in Silicon Valley have been doing that for a while, getting those really fun sort of activities at work, even bars. They're serving drinks to their workers in some of those places.
One of the things I read though I wasn't sure I understood. And maybe you can enlighten me. Channel your inner seven-year-old. What does that mean?
LEHRER: Yes. So this is a very clever study that basically had people pretend they were seven years old. So they had them write a short essay from the perspective of themselves as a seven-year-old. Then they gave these same people a bunch of various creative tasks. And what they found is that people who imagined themselves to be seven years old scored much higher on just about every single creative task you give them. And that's because we really can recover the creativity we've lost with time. There's a wonderful quote from Pablo Picasso that every child is born an artist. The problems begin when we start to grow up. And that is true from the perspective of your brain. You can become more creative if you simply pretend you're a little kid. Pretend you're a seven-year-old.
BANFIELD: It is called "Imagine: How Creativity Works." Jonah Lehrer, it's good -- I feel more creative just for having spoke to you. How about that?
LEHRER: Thank you very much.
BANFIELD: Thanks for joining us today. Good luck with the book.
I want to keep you updated on what's going on with this flight, because every so often we get a little nugget of information, but not a lot. And that might actually be the story here. They're being pretty tightlipped as to what exactly a passenger was up to on board that flight right there, that Boeing 767 that was diverted to Bangor, Maine. We're waiting to find out. We're going to give it to you just in a moment. A quick break. Back right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: We have some remarkable new details in our breaking news that we've been following about this Boeing 767, US Airways flight number 787. It was bound to Charlotte from Paris but was diverted to Bangor, Maine, and now sits on a runway with most of those 179 passengers and nine crew on board. Our Lizzie O'Leary, who's CNN's aviation and regulation correspondent, joins me live with this new information.
What do you know?
LIZZIE O'LEARY, CNN AVIATION AND REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, a senior law enforcement official, Ashleigh, telling CNN that a woman on this flight indicated she represented some kind of threat, but it's unclear how specific that was and if there was any terrorism-related issue involved. The FBI joint terrorism task force is investigating, but that is, we should stress, something that happens as a matter of routine. There does not appear to be initially a -- or doesn't mean there was a terror-related component to this incident.
And then some other slightly more specific information coming out from a member of Congress, Peter King, who's the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and he's saying a French citizen on board handed a note to the flight attendant indicating she had some sort of surgically implanted device inside her. Doctors on the flight checked her out, found no evidence of any recent scars. Some indication that she may have been detained. She was traveling alone. This according to Peter King, that she was born in Cameroon and was visiting the U.S. for 10 days and had no checked baggage. It is important to find out this is being investigated by the FBI, but that is also something they do as a matter of routine when there is a situation like this and a flight has been diverted -- Ashleigh?
BANFIELD: Did you say she passed the flight attendant a note suggesting that this was her condition?
O'LEARY: That is according to a member of Congress, Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. That information coming from our team on Capitol Hill, yes.
BANFIELD: And that also he, suggesting that there were doctors on board this plane who were able to do a quick examination to find out if there was any scarring, that it could have been possible that she might have surgically implanted a device in her body?
O'LEARY: It sounds like there were doctors on board who checked her out to find out that had not happened. They didn't see evidence of recent scars, which would, of course, be something you would need to do that.
BANFIELD: Yes. But, Lizzie, this all comes on the heels of reports in the last few weeks that this is a strategy that terrorists are considering, surgically implanting undetectable plastic explosives in their body that can't be detected by the kind of detection equipment that we currently employ in -- at least in the United States and many ports around the world.
O'LEARY: Well, that's certainly something that we've known ever since there was a somewhat similar attempt on a member of the Saudi intelligence. This is something that has been considered and has been talked about in the broader law enforcement community.
It's important to put it into perspective, though, that this is on a practical level very, very hard to do. Explosives can be unstable and obviously the human body is very unstable. And doing that freshly after surgery would be a fairly difficult thing to do and, indeed, would be pretty apparent to anyone, certainly any doctor on an immediate examination. So that information, which came from Congressman Peter King, is that this woman handed a note to the flight attendant and doctors checked her out and found no evidence of that -- Ashleigh?
BANFIELD: Lizzie, just repeat for me, if you will, because of the gravity of this situation, the preliminary information that's coming from your law enforcement, the federal law enforcement source, that this is likely not something as serious as it sounds.
O'LEARY: Well, they are indicating -- a senior federal law enforcement official -- that they are investigating -- the Joint Terrorism Task Force, is investigating this as a matter of routine but this does not mean this was a terrorism-related incident. Preliminary indication basically says there was no such threat. This woman indicated she was some sort of a threat to the plane but not in a specific way and not in a way that they felt was potentially terrorism related -- Ashleigh?
BANFIELD: In the meantime, Lizzie, do we know anything more. As you and I are probably watching the same live picture, courtesy of our affiliate, WLBZ, in Bangor, Maine, about the passengers on that plane, how long they're going to be detained, if they can get off on those buses we saw originally circling in that tarmac area?
O'LEARY: No, that's not something we know right now. The airport has said told us do intend to try to release a statement soon. That should give us some better indication of what's going on with those passengers. As you've noted, 179 passengers on board that plane. Nine crew members on that Boeing 767. That's almost up to capacity. That's an almost full flight -- Ashleigh?
BANFIELD: All right, Lizzie O'Leary, keep an eye on that for us, especially if we hear about any kind of charges now that we know this woman has been arrested. And thank goodness that everything seems to be safe and calm, at least on that tarmac now in Bangor, Maine.
It is a massive floating island in the Pacific, and it is said to be the size of Texas. And it's made of nothing but toxic garbage. We'll talk with one journalist about an up-close-and-personal look at what is polluting our ocean and why you need to be concerned right here in the U.S.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: We've been telling you about a wave of debris from the Japanese tsunami a year ago that's already starting to hit the coast of the United States and Alaska. There's junk all over the shores and it's a problem, stuff that's not easy to clean up, you know, all sorts of material, building materials and Styrofoam, and it is causing a real problem. But did you know that researchers say there's already an island of garbage that's polluting the northern Pacific Ocean and it has been there for years? Talking about millions and millions of pieces of plastic, things that we throw away every day. And guess where it ends up? You're looking at it -- in our beautifully clean oceans. Well, once upon a time, anyway.
Thomas Morton is a contributing editor for "Vice" magazine and a video correspondent for "Vice TV" and has seen this garbage island.
Is it fair to call it garbage island first hand?
THOMAS MORTON, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, VICE MAGAZINE & VIDEO CORRESPONDENT, VICE TV: It's not very fair to call it an island, but, I mean, whatever gets the news out. I think the going term right now is the great eastern garbage patch.
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: Garbage patch.
MORTON: It's basically a big polluted section of ocean. It's not a contiguous landmass.
BANFIELD: In lay people's terms, give me the science as to why it is in this particular area, and why it stays there.
MORTON: Well, the currents in the north Pacific go in kind of a clockwise fashion. That's why traffic picks up in Alaska from Japan right now. It gets blown around that way. Slowly it circles. And there is a spot in the middle, called the north Pacific subtropical gyra (ph), that's where it all builds up. It's kind of the middle of the toil bowl you flush, but not bobbing down into a pipe. It just sits there. It's a still area. It's a natural accumulation point for waste. Up until the 20th century, that was fine, because waste was wood barrels.
(CROSSTALK)
MORTON: It would break down.
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: Yes, sure. Now it's plastic.
MORTON: Now it's choked with plastic. When you get there, you're a little disappointed not to see an actual island where we could go out and cook rats but -- (CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: But when you jump in the water, you know you're in it.
MORTON: Absolutely. It's like there's a confetti effect. It takes a long time for the trash to get there. A lot of it comes from land. The majority comes out of Japan, the United States, anywhere that borders the ocean. And just over the course of years, it slowly makes its way there and breaks down into little pieces, but never fully breaks down.
BANFIELD: These are the things you pulled out? You really reached overboard and pulled them out of the water?
MORTON: We do samples. You take a jar and run it under the water and what would come up in the most polluted areas looked like a snow globe of just like broken-down pieces of Coke bottles and --
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: It's that thick.
MORTON: Yes. Anytime we'd go into the water in, like, the patch proper, we'd come up, it would look like we were wearing body glitter. There's little pieces in our mouths, caked on our chests and stuff like that. It's --
BANFIELD: This is not small, Tom. This is -- well, some people say the size of Texas. Other people say it is impossible to know how big it is.
MORTON: Estimates vary. It's usually measured in either a Texas or two. So it's --
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: A Texas or two.
MORTON: We were seeing pollution -- we sailed there. It took three weeks from California to Hawaii. And starting like a few days into our trip, we started seeing the pollution. Where it's thickest, where you get the snow globe effect, is one of the farthest points from human contact. So it's basically in the middle of nowhere and completely saturated with our trash.
BANFIELD: A dear old friend of mine, Ian Coniker (ph), did a documentary on this as well, and what he did is he went swimming through this and did the same things you did, got the samples but also got some of the Marine life. Scientists cut open that Marine life only to find these tiny shards of plastic inside. I mean, literally this is breaking down into pieces so small but it's entering our food chain.
MORTON: Right. There's a point which you stop seeing kind of pieces of particulate plastic of a certain size and that's because they can eaten by the floating feeders -- I'm sorry, filter feeders that kind of suck in whatever.
(CROSSTALK)
MORTON: Exactly. They don't think anything. They just eat it. What's scary about that, it doesn't just stay in them. They get eaten by fish. Those fish get eaten by bigger fish. It makes its way up the food chain and eventually we eat it. Like we're -- anybody who eats --
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: "Discovery" had a statistic that there is six times the shards of plastic than there is plankton.
MORTON: The ratio of plastic to like actual sea life there -- we saw in part where is our samples were coming up 1,000 to one. It's fully saturated. It completely dwarfs what sea life there should be there.
BANFIELD: It's remarkable that so many people don't know that this exists out there. And now we have this added issue of the debris from the tsunami that is already washing up on our shores. And we're told that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
MORTON: Well, that wouldn't be surprising. I mean, when we decided to go out there, we'd been reading for close to 20 years stories about this. It was kind of a mythical thing. That's where the island thing came from, too, that there was this landmass. But nobody, like -- it was surprising that it was something, A, supposedly that big and remarkable but also such a major event of pollution, like maybe one of the worst polluted areas on the planet had gone completely -- not only undetected but undocumented after its detection. And so hopefully -- I mean, this will lead to a little --
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: Last quick question. This thing is apparently, again, really hard to measure but by some estimates 100 feet deep. If it's out there and that is next to impossible to clean, how do we equate that with the garbage that's going to be washing up on the rugged shores of the remotest parts of Alaska in terms of the efforts to clean that up?
MORTON: I think what's showing up in Alaska is just going to be a symptom of what will end up in the middle of the sea itself. The problem with the whole patch is that it's kind of -- it really evades easy solutions. You can't go there and just, like, skim the ocean and get all this out. Ice a real issue. The solution is to do stuff based on land, to kind of have --
BANFIELD: Be more careful with our garbage.
MORTON: That, yes. Have better policies about throwing away stuff and not letting it end up out in the ocean.
BANFIELD: Thomas Morton, it's great of you to come. It's good of you to share your video with us, too. Enlightening a lot of people.
MORTON: Thank you very much.
BANFIELD: Thanks for coming in.
MORTON: Thank you.
BANFIELD: Nice to see you.
How do you like free Wi-Fi? Got the details for you on thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots that are coming to cities across the country. And guess what? You and your cable bill all play a part. I'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: If you're like a lot of people and get your Internet access through your cable company, I've got news for you. Your access is about to get a whole lot more mobile because the country's five biggest cable companies have decided they're going to agree to share access to Wi-Fi hotspots. How about that?
Alison Kosik is here to explain why.
Always good when you get a little bit more of it.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You have to still pay your cable bill, but this Wi-Fi idea is free, meaning wherever you are, if you are a customer of Comcast, Cablevision, Brighthouse, Cox or Time Warner Cable. They're all joining hands in this Kumbaya moment. They're teaming up. If you're a customer of those companies, your will be able to tap into each other's Wi-Fi hotspots for free. Say you're a Cox customer and you live in Cleveland but travel to Philadelphia. What that means is you can use Comcast Wi-Fi hotspot in Philly for free. Now, this is all going to roll out over the next few months. They're going to have 50,000 hotspots open up across the country in great places like parks, beaches, malls, sporting arenas, right where you want them -- Ashleigh?
BANFIELD: Does that mean -- I love carrying my iPad and Smartphone, but I'm freaked about my data limit because that's coming to an end, too. Does this help in that little quandary?
KOSIK: It does. That's what makes this so terrific because it gives you more flexibility. Instead of using the data plan you have, you can turn it off and tap into these hotspots instead for free.
For cable companies it's a great thing, too, because it's a way to continue attracting your business and keep your business, because you have to remember these cable companies are dealing with some tough competition. More and more people are watching TVs and movies on the Internet and renting movies through Netflix. A lot of people these days are seeing less of a need for keeping their cable services. What this is doing is boosting these cable companies, their Wi-Fi offerings, you know, to try to woo you in -- Ashleigh?
BANFIELD: You are just full of good news today. Better real estate markets, improved Wi-Fi. You can come back any time, Alison Kosik.
KOSIK: Thanks, Ashleigh.
(LAUGHTER)
BANFIELD: Nice to see you. Thank you, my friend.
Brand-new guidelines for you. If you are thinking about getting one of those prostate tests, those screenings, find out why the experts are now saying maybe you should not. Surprising? We'll explain why.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: All right. Are you sitting down? You might not like what I have to say. Men should not get routinely tested for prostate cancer. You heard me right. This is a new recommendation from a government panel and, yes, it does sound like the opposite of what we've been told for years. So, that's why we call in the experts.
Alina Cho with some kind of explanation for this -- Alina?
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Ashleigh. This goes against something we know about it, cancer screening, which is basically get tested because early detection can save your life. Not so fast. The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends that men not get tested for prostate cancer.
The screening is commonly referred to as the PSA test, which is really a simple blood test. But the task force is saying, at best, PSA screening may help just one in 1,000 men avoid death from prostate cancer. And the test may actually do more harm than good because most prostate cancers, if you believe it, that are found by screening are slow growing. They're not life-threatening, and will not cause a man any harm during his lifetime.
Now, what can be harmful is the treatment. Most men who are, in the words of some doctors, over diagnosed, can suffer serious side effects from treatment. Side effects like impotence, incontinence and possibly even death.
Now, obviously, this is very controversial. Remember, this is the same panel that made waves when it recommended that women in their 40s should skip routine mammograms.
Now, as for the PSA test, well the American Cancer Society has not recommended that routine PSA screenings happen and go on since the late 1990s. The American Neurological Association condemned the findings saying, quote, "It is inappropriate and irresponsible to issue a blanket statement against PSA testing, particularly for at- risk populations." They go on to say that what could happen as a result is that many men will no longer get tested because they think they don't need to. They have now officially been told that, and that prostate cancer that a PSA test could have caught may go unnoticed until it's too late.
The bottom line, Ashleigh, is when in doubt, talk to your doctor -- Ashleigh?
BANFIELD: Alina Cho, boy, confusing, as always, but good information. Thank you for that.
Getting an education in Afghanistan, not been easy up till now, and now proving even more difficult.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED AFGHAN MALE: We didn't allow schools to be open here at the beginning of the school year because we wanted them to change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: We're going to take a look at how the Taliban are targeting the next generation of students in rural Afghan schools.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Now that NATO is preparing its exit from Afghanistan, it's power struggle is intensifying between the government there and the Taliban, and no one seems to be exempt, not even the kids there.
Our Nick Paton Walsh reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In parts of rural Afghanistan, the battlefield is everywhere, even in the schools. The next generation is hostage to a power struggle between the Taliban and government. Recently, the Taliban demanded the closure of some schools in two eastern provinces. In Gazni (ph) it was in retaliation for a government ban on motor bikes often used by the insurgents. We recently filmed an Afghan soldier disciplining a villager for breaking this rule.
But in neighboring Wodak (ph) Province, locals say the Taliban are more compromising. Our cameraman visited one school, in which we won't identify people for their safety, where the Taliban forced the school term to start late this year with one big condition. They had to have the Taliban oversee the syllabus, the schoolteacher says.
UNIDENTIFIED AFGHAN TEACHER (through translation): They tell us what to teach and what not to. If we don't know what they say, they have a representative checking things. They increased the number of hours we teach religious subjects and decrease other subjects like English. It would threaten teachers and very possible they would close the school down.
WALSH: A deputy education minister told CNN that in area whereas the Taliban had more control, sometimes the government let them influence the subjects taught to keep the schools open and even check student attendance. He said this wasn't a deal, just flexibility that kept schools running. Our cameraman met this man who said he was the Taliban school's representative. One of many across Afghanistan, he said, implementing instructions from Taliban leader, Omar.
UNIDENTIFIED AFGHAN MALE (through translation): We didn't allow to be open here at the beginning of the school year because we wanted them to change. And then we had a big meeting and, but it should be according to principal and Islamic principles. They have accepted that. We have only Islamic subjects. So even when a person become an engineer, he should have enough knowledge in Islam.
WALSH (on camera): Whatever exactly happened in Wodak (ph), it is symptomatic of broader fears of the Taliban getting back under the skin of daily life in Afghanistan. The Taliban representative did oppose girls' education, but the fact they let the school open at all, whereas before, they insisted on religious education, shows a curious kind of evolution in the Taliban. Sometimes they choose moderation. They didn't want to shut the school entirely because that would be unpopular with locals. They just wanted to remind everybody who's in control of it.
(voice-over): How long this moderation lasts and how far it extends is uncertain. But what is clear is, as NATO eyes the exits after a decade here, how far from its original promises so much of Afghanistan has fallen.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kabul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD: CNN NEWSROOM continues right now live with Brooke Baldwin.
Hi, Brooke.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Ashleigh. Thanks for much..
