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Spanish Investigators Sift Through Clues; Utah Mother Facing Unusual Murder Charge

Aired March 12, 2004 - 15:00   ET

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

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


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to the third hour of LIVE FROM. I'm Miles O'Brien. Kyra Phillips off today.
It is 9:00 p.m. in Spain, where the night belongs to mourning. Spaniards by the millions are standing and marching, singing and praying in the dark, in the rain, all in the name of democracy and freedom from fear. All the while, investigators are trying to piece together evidence, clues and public claims in the search for the perpetrators of the bloodiest act of terror in modern Spanish history.

We get the latest from reporter Bill Neely of Independent Television News in Madrid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL NEELY, ITV REPORTER (voice-over): Train 431 ripped open by bombs yesterday, taken apart today. And it wasn't easy, the pieces welded together by the force of explosives, the seats embedded in the metal, the seats where people read or slept and died.

The bloody blankets that covered them were removed, like the books they never finished. At least 70 people died on this train alone in four explosions in four of the six carriages.

(on camera): There's still a strong smell of burning here, but it's the sight inside that carriage and the others here that's really shocking, such a confined space, packed with so many people. It's hard to believe how anyone could have survived in there.

(voice-over): And something terrifying has come from this train, the voice of a passenger calling her mother recorded on an answer phone as she realized something was wrong, the bombs exploding in the background.

(EXPLOSIONS)

NEELY: The bombs you've just heard, two of the 10 that killed and injured 1,500 people. Train 305, where at least 40 died, blasted open by three bombs.

(on camera): The investigators here are sifting through the debris of this train and another one further up the tracks, looking for bomb fragments, the tiniest piece of debris, perhaps, that might help answer the central question, who did this.

(voice-over): And they found evidence that each bomb would have been heavy in its bag, 15 to 30 pounds of explosives, detonated by a mobile phone. All four bombed trains came from this town, where there was uproar today.

Students at the station sing and yell their defiance at the bombers, the young, like the old, united in revulsion.

(on camera): This is where dozens of the victims were from. There's defiance here. There's obviously shock. But there's also a growing sense of disbelief at the possibility that this place may be where the conspiracy to bomb these trains was hatched.

(voice-over): Outside the station in this van, police found seven detonators and a video with verses from the Koran. The police say the detonators and the way the bombs were built makes them think that someone other than ETA, the Basque terrorists, was behind the bombings. In the station car park today, flowers, candles, and dozens of cars still unclaimed, their owners dead or badly injured, and the death toll is rising.

DR. JOSE MARIA DE MIGUEL, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: Because some of them are under multi-organ failure and I think we may expect some of them will die within a few hours.

NEELY: Tens of thousands in Madrid left work at lunchtime today to stand in silence in protest of the worst atrocity Spain has witnessed since its civil war 70 years ago, among them, doctors and nurses overwhelmed by the casualties and by their own grief.

This is a country in deep shock, in deep confusion, because they have no real idea, no evidence who did this. The relatives of the dead have no comfort either. Only 50 of the bodies have been positively identified, one in four. The rest are too badly mutilated. Spaniards are desperate to show their solidarity. Flags hang from windows, many pinned with black ribbons. And tonight people are on the streets, and there are millions.

The passengers were back at Atocha station today, but nothing is really normal here anymore. They stood today at the site of what is now the worst terrorist atrocity since September the 11th, March the 11th in Madrid. They clapped out of respect for the dead and by tradition and to calm their nerves amid a fearful city.

Bill Neely, ITV News, Madrid.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And these are scenes which just came in fairly recently. The estimate is that more than a million demonstrators jammed the streets of just Madrid, huddling beneath umbrellas, protesting and commemorating the deaths of 199 now, injuries of more than 1,400 others, on that attack on Thursday morning.

But we have been showing you pictures of similar demonstrations and shows of solidarity with those who have passed away in Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, other cities all across Spain where similar scenes are being repeated. The attacks in Spain continue to reverberate all around the world as well. In this country, Amtrak has stepped up security today and so have a number of subway systems, including the one in New York.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve has the hard facts on some potentially soft targets.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Could this happen here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly it could.

MESERVE: The signs at the Amtrak counter say I.D.s are required to buy a ticket. But no one checked mine just hours after the attack in Spain. As for my bag, there was no screening of any type. In many places, there is easy access to rail tracks and often to rail cars, which then travel past major population centers and critical infrastructure.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: There really is no American train security.

MESERVE: The rail industry says the sheer numbers makes screening of passengers and baggage impractical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To put it in perspective, every day, two million Americans use the airline system, and 32 million times a day Americans use our public transit systems. So 16 times more.

MESERVE: Since 9/11, rail systems have deployed more bomb- sniffing dogs. There are more cameras, more police. The industry also has a 24-hour information sharing and analysis center, or ISAC, which receives and shares information on terrorist threats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then it's a sift and sort process to try to determine what of that information that's out there about the incident has taken place would be valuable.

MESERVE: The federal government says one of its accomplishments is sharing timely threat information with the rail industry. But this morning, the ISAC analysts found out about the Madrid train bombing from local news radio.

(on camera): The industry faults government for not making rail security a priority. Since 9/11, rail systems around the country have received grant money worth about $100 million. Aviation, in contrast, has received $11. 8 billion.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: News across America now. Ready to resign? Muslim Chaplain James Yee has signed a proposed agreement to resign from the Army if it will stop its military prosecution. Yee is accused of mishandling classified information at the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon has not signed off on the deal. Yee was recently transferred to Fort Meade, Maryland.

In South Carolina, a fatal bus crash involving U.S. military personnel, three soldiers killed when two buses crashed on U.S. 17. The buses were carrying about 100 Navy personnel to a memorial service in Beaufort.

In Utah, a mother faces a murder charge for allegedly refusing to have a C-section. One of her twin babies was stillborn.

Sandy Riesgraf with CNN affiliate KSTU Salt Lake City has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA ANN ROWLAND, CHARGED WITH MURDER: Pretty scared. I don't feel that I did anything wrong.

SANDY RIESGRAF, KSTU REPORTER (voice-over): Melissa Ann Rowland can't believe she's being charged with murder. By phone from jail, she denied doing anything to harm her twin. But could she have saved the one who died by having a C-section two days before she gave birth?

ROWLAND: I don't have any comment on that right now.

RIESGRAF: Prosecutor Kent Morgan says his office has never filed murder charges in a case like this. But, he says, Melissa Rowland knew one baby could die if she didn't have a C-section. Morgan says she also ignored other vital medical prenatal care.

KENT MORGAN, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Doctor after doctor, hospital after hospital, nurse after nurse told her, this is the only way you're going to save this child. This is what you have to do.

RIESGRAF: The charging document says Rowland told one doctor, a C-section would -- quote -- ruin her life. That she would rather lose one of the babies than be cut like that.

Did she say it?

ROWLAND: No, I did not. I deny that.

MORGAN: What is happening here is balancing the procedure necessary to save the life that she alone could do against her interest in vanity. She allowed vanity to win out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Our thanks to Sandy Riesgraf with our CNN affiliate KSTU in Salt Lake City. Rowland remains in jail on $250,000 bail. We'll switch gears next, the joy of sin stocks. Things like alcohol, and cigarettes may be bad for your body. You might have a problem with the whole industries. But, as it turns out, they are great for your stock portfolio.

And "Sex and the City" for sale -- the clothes, that is.

And later, the envy of third-graders everywhere, the classic lunch box. I wish I had saved my Batman one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER UPDATE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(FINANCIAL UPDATE)

O'BRIEN: Well, it's not a sin, but it's certainly a guilty pleasure. We're talking about "Sex and the City," women rushing to grab the wardrobe leftovers from the hit show.

Also ahead, a blast from your lunch box past. And we'll tell you how to invest in vice. It can really pay off.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: OK, if you're like me, you had a favorite metal lunch box when you were growing up. Depending on your era, might have been "Star Wars," back to the Beatles, I'm kind of in the middle with Batman. But plastic is king these days when it comes to lunch boxes. That just doesn't quite cut it, does it?

Take a look at the Lunch box Memories exhibit the National Heritage Museum in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts there. Dozens of them are on display. And it -- let's see, what have we got there? I can't really read them very well. But, anyway, God, I wish I had saved all these things. I used to get one every year.

There's the Roy Rogers Chow Wagon. That's a beaut. Hopalong Cassidy, the first character to appear on the side of a box. That was in 1950. You can bet that would go for a pretty penny on eBay. Now, Aladdin Industries made the boost sales. Obviously, they were off to the races on that. More than 150 million metal lunch boxes were sold in the '50s and '60s. And like I say, you should save your toys. Save your toys. You never know how they might pay later.

Now to the wages of sin. If you said death, you may need to recheck your Standard & Poor's. Nowadays, there are healthy returns to be made by ordinary investors from such debatably sinful pursuits as smoking, gambling and drinking.

Financial writer Caroline Waxler tells all in her new book, "Stocking Up On Sin." She joins us in our New York bureau today, delivering us some temptation, I guess.

Caroline, good to have you with us.

CAROLINE WAXLER, AUTHOR, "STOCKING UP ON SIN": Thank you so much for having me on.

O'BRIEN: Oh, it's a pleasure.

How did you get, first of all, the idea for this notion? Is this something that reflects your personal investing style or did you just see all these segments and things written about investing in a politically correct way that you decided it was time to write a book on the other side of things?

WAXLER: Well, basically, the economy's been so bad lately, everyone I know has been drinking, smoking, gambling to relieve it, and I thought, there must be a way to make some money from it.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: So the truth is that, when the economy is down, most vices do at least as well, if not better?

WAXLER: Yes, absolutely. There's been historical records that through depressions, the vice stocks have done terrifically.

And they're also very basic safety stocks that do well in good times or bad. So even when things are tough, people are drinking, smoking. They still continue to do that when they're celebrating when things go well.

O'BRIEN: There you go.

All right, let's take a look at some of the vice sectors, if you will, gambling, first of all.

WAXLER: OK.

O'BRIEN: The five-year return on gambling we're told is 145 percent and change.

WAXLER: Not too shabby.

O'BRIEN: The S&P, meanwhile, 500 went down 14 percent. Is gambling always a good play?

WAXLER: Gambling has held up.

Now, consider that Vegas is a tourist destination. So sometimes it has its lulls. But traditionally people gamble, and now gambling is everywhere. There's riverboat gambling. Argosy Gaming is one of my favorite companies. People go gamble near their house. They can go to Vegas. They can go to the Indian casino tribes. It's a great play. And you should really look at gambling.

O'BRIEN: All right, while you're at the casino, you're apt to be served up some adult beverages, maybe a beer or two. If you gamble enough, they just keep coming for free, don't they? (CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: And, once again, beer -- we'll use that Standard & Poor's benchmark of down 14 percent over the past five years. Beer, meanwhile, not as strong as gambling, but still doing very well. And I guess when I say beer, this is the whole alcohol sector, up 46 percent. Once again, let me ask you this. Is it always true that in bad times do people drink more and thus the stocks do better?

WAXLER: Absolutely. What's the first thing somebody does when he or she gets laid off from a job? Hit the bar.

O'BRIEN: A twelve pack, yes.

WAXLER: Twelve pack, if they're lucky.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

WAXLER: Yes, a lot of times people just go out and drink when they're mad. They drink when they're celebrating. So beer stocks have done great. I love Anheuser-Busch. I love Constellation brands. Fortune Brands, which owns Jim Beam, is another favorite of mine. Beer stocks are terrific. And alcohol stocks in general I love. And they're going to continue to do well.

O'BRIEN: All right. And perhaps the most, well, debatable lightning rod stock sector in all this would be cigarettes. They are up 56 percent and change over this same five-year period, once again, against that Standard & Poor's 14.5, 14 percent down. Not too long ago, when they were facing all those lawsuits, I bet this wouldn't have been something you'd recommend.

WAXLER: I'd always recommend cigarette stocks even when facing the lawsuits. You can buy them when they're undervalued. I also like overseas stocks.

A lot of the British cigarette stocks, the Irish ones, they're terrific. Asia has a lot of smokers. So even though we may be embattled here in the U.S., internationally, they're great. And in the book, I list a ton of cigarette companies. A great portfolio manager, Carter Crum (ph) out in Menlo Park with Smith Barney, put together a big list of cigarette stocks. They're something you should really consider.

O'BRIEN: All right, quick thought. We're out of time. Just tell us, do you have any moral compunction, any problems with this at all?

WAXLER: Absolutely not. I wouldn't be investing in a company that has child labor, for example. But people often get skittish about investing in Playboy and some other companies. Don't.

If you're worried, you can go use your proceeds and give it to charity. They'd love it. And you shouldn't have any moral compunction about making money from these kind of investments.

O'BRIEN: Caroline Waxler, thanks very much. Appreciate it.

(CROSSTALK)

WAXLER: Thank you for having me.

O'BRIEN: All right, back with more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Well, "Sex" is for sale in New York City. That's probably not a news flash to you. And we're not talking about the illegal stuff here. Fans of "Sex and the City" can now buy designer duds from the defunct show.

CNN's Jeanne Moos takes us to a consignment shop filled with sexy stuff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you said good bye to "Sex and the City," Now say...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello lover.

MOOS: To shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aren't they fabulous.

MOOS: Tops. You name it. Cast away from the cast of "Sex and the City." The line outside a second-hand consignment shop wound around the block.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're armed with our heel and our credit cards we are ready to go.

MOOS: The first one rushing the door was a law student, she ended up with a striped dress, pink sandals and bra.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know who were it, but it's pink, and it pretty and was cheap.

MOOS: Every once in a while someone let out a scream -- when they recognized a piece of clothing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wore this when they had sex for the first time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The boots. I remember when these were on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anyone want Miranda's skinny jeans?

MOOS: Even the owner of Ina (ph) kept a little something.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got this little necklace. MOOS: Prices range from 10 bucks to $5,000.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Carrie wore this hat in the episode where her and Charlotte are sitting and rating the guys in New York City on who they would sleep with or not. So there you go.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, ACTRESS: Men who are too good looking they are never good in bed because they never had to be.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I dated plenty of the men here, and they were definitely not so good.

MOOS: That probably went over the head of the youngest shopper, Ricardo (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He watched the last episode, and he loved it.

MOOS: Now, Ricardo can cuddle up and watch reruns using Carrie's bath robe as a blankie.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: That's all the time we have today for LIVE FROM. I'm Miles O'Brien.

Up next, "JUDY WOODRUFF'S INSIDE POLITICS."

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Facing Unusual Murder Charge>


Aired March 12, 2004 - 15:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to the third hour of LIVE FROM. I'm Miles O'Brien. Kyra Phillips off today.
It is 9:00 p.m. in Spain, where the night belongs to mourning. Spaniards by the millions are standing and marching, singing and praying in the dark, in the rain, all in the name of democracy and freedom from fear. All the while, investigators are trying to piece together evidence, clues and public claims in the search for the perpetrators of the bloodiest act of terror in modern Spanish history.

We get the latest from reporter Bill Neely of Independent Television News in Madrid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL NEELY, ITV REPORTER (voice-over): Train 431 ripped open by bombs yesterday, taken apart today. And it wasn't easy, the pieces welded together by the force of explosives, the seats embedded in the metal, the seats where people read or slept and died.

The bloody blankets that covered them were removed, like the books they never finished. At least 70 people died on this train alone in four explosions in four of the six carriages.

(on camera): There's still a strong smell of burning here, but it's the sight inside that carriage and the others here that's really shocking, such a confined space, packed with so many people. It's hard to believe how anyone could have survived in there.

(voice-over): And something terrifying has come from this train, the voice of a passenger calling her mother recorded on an answer phone as she realized something was wrong, the bombs exploding in the background.

(EXPLOSIONS)

NEELY: The bombs you've just heard, two of the 10 that killed and injured 1,500 people. Train 305, where at least 40 died, blasted open by three bombs.

(on camera): The investigators here are sifting through the debris of this train and another one further up the tracks, looking for bomb fragments, the tiniest piece of debris, perhaps, that might help answer the central question, who did this.

(voice-over): And they found evidence that each bomb would have been heavy in its bag, 15 to 30 pounds of explosives, detonated by a mobile phone. All four bombed trains came from this town, where there was uproar today.

Students at the station sing and yell their defiance at the bombers, the young, like the old, united in revulsion.

(on camera): This is where dozens of the victims were from. There's defiance here. There's obviously shock. But there's also a growing sense of disbelief at the possibility that this place may be where the conspiracy to bomb these trains was hatched.

(voice-over): Outside the station in this van, police found seven detonators and a video with verses from the Koran. The police say the detonators and the way the bombs were built makes them think that someone other than ETA, the Basque terrorists, was behind the bombings. In the station car park today, flowers, candles, and dozens of cars still unclaimed, their owners dead or badly injured, and the death toll is rising.

DR. JOSE MARIA DE MIGUEL, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: Because some of them are under multi-organ failure and I think we may expect some of them will die within a few hours.

NEELY: Tens of thousands in Madrid left work at lunchtime today to stand in silence in protest of the worst atrocity Spain has witnessed since its civil war 70 years ago, among them, doctors and nurses overwhelmed by the casualties and by their own grief.

This is a country in deep shock, in deep confusion, because they have no real idea, no evidence who did this. The relatives of the dead have no comfort either. Only 50 of the bodies have been positively identified, one in four. The rest are too badly mutilated. Spaniards are desperate to show their solidarity. Flags hang from windows, many pinned with black ribbons. And tonight people are on the streets, and there are millions.

The passengers were back at Atocha station today, but nothing is really normal here anymore. They stood today at the site of what is now the worst terrorist atrocity since September the 11th, March the 11th in Madrid. They clapped out of respect for the dead and by tradition and to calm their nerves amid a fearful city.

Bill Neely, ITV News, Madrid.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And these are scenes which just came in fairly recently. The estimate is that more than a million demonstrators jammed the streets of just Madrid, huddling beneath umbrellas, protesting and commemorating the deaths of 199 now, injuries of more than 1,400 others, on that attack on Thursday morning.

But we have been showing you pictures of similar demonstrations and shows of solidarity with those who have passed away in Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, other cities all across Spain where similar scenes are being repeated. The attacks in Spain continue to reverberate all around the world as well. In this country, Amtrak has stepped up security today and so have a number of subway systems, including the one in New York.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve has the hard facts on some potentially soft targets.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Could this happen here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly it could.

MESERVE: The signs at the Amtrak counter say I.D.s are required to buy a ticket. But no one checked mine just hours after the attack in Spain. As for my bag, there was no screening of any type. In many places, there is easy access to rail tracks and often to rail cars, which then travel past major population centers and critical infrastructure.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: There really is no American train security.

MESERVE: The rail industry says the sheer numbers makes screening of passengers and baggage impractical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To put it in perspective, every day, two million Americans use the airline system, and 32 million times a day Americans use our public transit systems. So 16 times more.

MESERVE: Since 9/11, rail systems have deployed more bomb- sniffing dogs. There are more cameras, more police. The industry also has a 24-hour information sharing and analysis center, or ISAC, which receives and shares information on terrorist threats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then it's a sift and sort process to try to determine what of that information that's out there about the incident has taken place would be valuable.

MESERVE: The federal government says one of its accomplishments is sharing timely threat information with the rail industry. But this morning, the ISAC analysts found out about the Madrid train bombing from local news radio.

(on camera): The industry faults government for not making rail security a priority. Since 9/11, rail systems around the country have received grant money worth about $100 million. Aviation, in contrast, has received $11. 8 billion.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: News across America now. Ready to resign? Muslim Chaplain James Yee has signed a proposed agreement to resign from the Army if it will stop its military prosecution. Yee is accused of mishandling classified information at the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon has not signed off on the deal. Yee was recently transferred to Fort Meade, Maryland.

In South Carolina, a fatal bus crash involving U.S. military personnel, three soldiers killed when two buses crashed on U.S. 17. The buses were carrying about 100 Navy personnel to a memorial service in Beaufort.

In Utah, a mother faces a murder charge for allegedly refusing to have a C-section. One of her twin babies was stillborn.

Sandy Riesgraf with CNN affiliate KSTU Salt Lake City has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA ANN ROWLAND, CHARGED WITH MURDER: Pretty scared. I don't feel that I did anything wrong.

SANDY RIESGRAF, KSTU REPORTER (voice-over): Melissa Ann Rowland can't believe she's being charged with murder. By phone from jail, she denied doing anything to harm her twin. But could she have saved the one who died by having a C-section two days before she gave birth?

ROWLAND: I don't have any comment on that right now.

RIESGRAF: Prosecutor Kent Morgan says his office has never filed murder charges in a case like this. But, he says, Melissa Rowland knew one baby could die if she didn't have a C-section. Morgan says she also ignored other vital medical prenatal care.

KENT MORGAN, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Doctor after doctor, hospital after hospital, nurse after nurse told her, this is the only way you're going to save this child. This is what you have to do.

RIESGRAF: The charging document says Rowland told one doctor, a C-section would -- quote -- ruin her life. That she would rather lose one of the babies than be cut like that.

Did she say it?

ROWLAND: No, I did not. I deny that.

MORGAN: What is happening here is balancing the procedure necessary to save the life that she alone could do against her interest in vanity. She allowed vanity to win out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Our thanks to Sandy Riesgraf with our CNN affiliate KSTU in Salt Lake City. Rowland remains in jail on $250,000 bail. We'll switch gears next, the joy of sin stocks. Things like alcohol, and cigarettes may be bad for your body. You might have a problem with the whole industries. But, as it turns out, they are great for your stock portfolio.

And "Sex and the City" for sale -- the clothes, that is.

And later, the envy of third-graders everywhere, the classic lunch box. I wish I had saved my Batman one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER UPDATE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(FINANCIAL UPDATE)

O'BRIEN: Well, it's not a sin, but it's certainly a guilty pleasure. We're talking about "Sex and the City," women rushing to grab the wardrobe leftovers from the hit show.

Also ahead, a blast from your lunch box past. And we'll tell you how to invest in vice. It can really pay off.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: OK, if you're like me, you had a favorite metal lunch box when you were growing up. Depending on your era, might have been "Star Wars," back to the Beatles, I'm kind of in the middle with Batman. But plastic is king these days when it comes to lunch boxes. That just doesn't quite cut it, does it?

Take a look at the Lunch box Memories exhibit the National Heritage Museum in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts there. Dozens of them are on display. And it -- let's see, what have we got there? I can't really read them very well. But, anyway, God, I wish I had saved all these things. I used to get one every year.

There's the Roy Rogers Chow Wagon. That's a beaut. Hopalong Cassidy, the first character to appear on the side of a box. That was in 1950. You can bet that would go for a pretty penny on eBay. Now, Aladdin Industries made the boost sales. Obviously, they were off to the races on that. More than 150 million metal lunch boxes were sold in the '50s and '60s. And like I say, you should save your toys. Save your toys. You never know how they might pay later.

Now to the wages of sin. If you said death, you may need to recheck your Standard & Poor's. Nowadays, there are healthy returns to be made by ordinary investors from such debatably sinful pursuits as smoking, gambling and drinking.

Financial writer Caroline Waxler tells all in her new book, "Stocking Up On Sin." She joins us in our New York bureau today, delivering us some temptation, I guess.

Caroline, good to have you with us.

CAROLINE WAXLER, AUTHOR, "STOCKING UP ON SIN": Thank you so much for having me on.

O'BRIEN: Oh, it's a pleasure.

How did you get, first of all, the idea for this notion? Is this something that reflects your personal investing style or did you just see all these segments and things written about investing in a politically correct way that you decided it was time to write a book on the other side of things?

WAXLER: Well, basically, the economy's been so bad lately, everyone I know has been drinking, smoking, gambling to relieve it, and I thought, there must be a way to make some money from it.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: So the truth is that, when the economy is down, most vices do at least as well, if not better?

WAXLER: Yes, absolutely. There's been historical records that through depressions, the vice stocks have done terrifically.

And they're also very basic safety stocks that do well in good times or bad. So even when things are tough, people are drinking, smoking. They still continue to do that when they're celebrating when things go well.

O'BRIEN: There you go.

All right, let's take a look at some of the vice sectors, if you will, gambling, first of all.

WAXLER: OK.

O'BRIEN: The five-year return on gambling we're told is 145 percent and change.

WAXLER: Not too shabby.

O'BRIEN: The S&P, meanwhile, 500 went down 14 percent. Is gambling always a good play?

WAXLER: Gambling has held up.

Now, consider that Vegas is a tourist destination. So sometimes it has its lulls. But traditionally people gamble, and now gambling is everywhere. There's riverboat gambling. Argosy Gaming is one of my favorite companies. People go gamble near their house. They can go to Vegas. They can go to the Indian casino tribes. It's a great play. And you should really look at gambling.

O'BRIEN: All right, while you're at the casino, you're apt to be served up some adult beverages, maybe a beer or two. If you gamble enough, they just keep coming for free, don't they? (CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: And, once again, beer -- we'll use that Standard & Poor's benchmark of down 14 percent over the past five years. Beer, meanwhile, not as strong as gambling, but still doing very well. And I guess when I say beer, this is the whole alcohol sector, up 46 percent. Once again, let me ask you this. Is it always true that in bad times do people drink more and thus the stocks do better?

WAXLER: Absolutely. What's the first thing somebody does when he or she gets laid off from a job? Hit the bar.

O'BRIEN: A twelve pack, yes.

WAXLER: Twelve pack, if they're lucky.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

WAXLER: Yes, a lot of times people just go out and drink when they're mad. They drink when they're celebrating. So beer stocks have done great. I love Anheuser-Busch. I love Constellation brands. Fortune Brands, which owns Jim Beam, is another favorite of mine. Beer stocks are terrific. And alcohol stocks in general I love. And they're going to continue to do well.

O'BRIEN: All right. And perhaps the most, well, debatable lightning rod stock sector in all this would be cigarettes. They are up 56 percent and change over this same five-year period, once again, against that Standard & Poor's 14.5, 14 percent down. Not too long ago, when they were facing all those lawsuits, I bet this wouldn't have been something you'd recommend.

WAXLER: I'd always recommend cigarette stocks even when facing the lawsuits. You can buy them when they're undervalued. I also like overseas stocks.

A lot of the British cigarette stocks, the Irish ones, they're terrific. Asia has a lot of smokers. So even though we may be embattled here in the U.S., internationally, they're great. And in the book, I list a ton of cigarette companies. A great portfolio manager, Carter Crum (ph) out in Menlo Park with Smith Barney, put together a big list of cigarette stocks. They're something you should really consider.

O'BRIEN: All right, quick thought. We're out of time. Just tell us, do you have any moral compunction, any problems with this at all?

WAXLER: Absolutely not. I wouldn't be investing in a company that has child labor, for example. But people often get skittish about investing in Playboy and some other companies. Don't.

If you're worried, you can go use your proceeds and give it to charity. They'd love it. And you shouldn't have any moral compunction about making money from these kind of investments.

O'BRIEN: Caroline Waxler, thanks very much. Appreciate it.

(CROSSTALK)

WAXLER: Thank you for having me.

O'BRIEN: All right, back with more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Well, "Sex" is for sale in New York City. That's probably not a news flash to you. And we're not talking about the illegal stuff here. Fans of "Sex and the City" can now buy designer duds from the defunct show.

CNN's Jeanne Moos takes us to a consignment shop filled with sexy stuff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you said good bye to "Sex and the City," Now say...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello lover.

MOOS: To shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aren't they fabulous.

MOOS: Tops. You name it. Cast away from the cast of "Sex and the City." The line outside a second-hand consignment shop wound around the block.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're armed with our heel and our credit cards we are ready to go.

MOOS: The first one rushing the door was a law student, she ended up with a striped dress, pink sandals and bra.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know who were it, but it's pink, and it pretty and was cheap.

MOOS: Every once in a while someone let out a scream -- when they recognized a piece of clothing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wore this when they had sex for the first time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The boots. I remember when these were on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anyone want Miranda's skinny jeans?

MOOS: Even the owner of Ina (ph) kept a little something.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got this little necklace. MOOS: Prices range from 10 bucks to $5,000.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Carrie wore this hat in the episode where her and Charlotte are sitting and rating the guys in New York City on who they would sleep with or not. So there you go.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, ACTRESS: Men who are too good looking they are never good in bed because they never had to be.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I dated plenty of the men here, and they were definitely not so good.

MOOS: That probably went over the head of the youngest shopper, Ricardo (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He watched the last episode, and he loved it.

MOOS: Now, Ricardo can cuddle up and watch reruns using Carrie's bath robe as a blankie.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: That's all the time we have today for LIVE FROM. I'm Miles O'Brien.

Up next, "JUDY WOODRUFF'S INSIDE POLITICS."

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





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