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Live From...
Mental Health Team Helps Soldiers Through Horrors; Trial Delay Expected for Kobe Bryant; Tips on Diagnosing, Treating Postpartum Depression
Aired April 28, 2004 - 13:30 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, ANCHOR: Checking headlines at the half hour.
A terror suspect now reportedly linked to both the Madrid train bombing and the 9/11 attack. The Associated Press reports a judge in Spain has indicted Amer Azizi on charges of helping organize a 9/11 planning meeting in July of 2001.
The Moroccan fugitive is already charged with belonging to a terrorist organization.
China reports another suspected case in the latest outbreak of SARS. Beijing says it is now looking into six possible cases. The latest patient, a woman who was treated in the same room as a nurse who was diagnosed with SARS.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry talks jobs with supporters in Toledo, Ohio. He's wrapping up a three-day bus tour through the Buckeye State. President Bush will campaign in Ohio next week. Ohio went to Bush in 2000 by less than four percentage points. Pivotal state.
Sounds of warfare are heard in the Iraqi flashpoint of Fallujah.
U.S. Marines called in air reinforcements to help their effort to seize a train station. Insurgents had turned the depot into an attack post. The reinforcements included a Cobra attack helicopter and a Huey gunship.
Military officials say coalition forces are only responding defensively, however, holding out hopes for a political solution to Fallujah's uprising. Sunni sheikhs are expected to join in negotiations tomorrow.
Battlefield breakdowns were once considered cowardly. Not any more. The U.S. military now sends experts to help the troops deal with the horrors of war.
CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reports on the Army's 115th Combat Stress Unit, back from a year in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAPT. BILL BOWERS, PSYCHIATRIC NURSE: Seeing your buddy get blow up, that's -- that's a pretty big pill to swallow if you're 19 years old. LT. COL. DAN LONNQUIST, PSYCHOLOGIST: Being under the constant stress of not knowing what's going to happen.
LT. COL. EARNEST PROUD, SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST: It is quite traumatic what they have to see.
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are psychologists, counselors, and psychiatric nurses, reservists with the Army's 113th Stress Combat Unit, who took their civilian expertise right to the battlefield in Iraq.
(voice-over) It was the first time a mental health team like this, made up of some 70 professionals, had been mobilized for combat.
They returned after 14 long months away from home, after counseling some 20,000 soldiers.
Captain Bill Bowers is an adolescent psychiatric nurse in Los Angeles. In Iraq, his three-member team counseled 80 soldiers a week.
BOWERS: It is a lot of work. If somebody's not mission-capable and they're losing their marbles, you don't want them out with the other soldiers, basically. Because it's not good for the unit.
GUTIERREZ: Or the soldier. The mission of the 113th was to provide immediate counseling to those in combat to try to prevent posttraumatic stress syndrome.
Lieutenant Colonel Earnest Proud is a school psychologist, back in the gym after a year in Iraq.
Of the hundreds of stories he heard, there's one soldier he says he'll never forget.
PROUD: Some 14-year-old kid ran over and picked up an AK-47 and pointed it at him, and he had to kill him. Well, he came to me and he said, "Listen, I'm having nightmares. And I had to kill him and he's the age of my kids, and I feel so badly about it."
GUTIERREZ: It's this kind of deep wound that Major Proud hopes he was able to heal.
Lieutenant Colonel Dan Lonnquist, a psychologist, says the 113th also helped soldiers cope with hardships on the home front, like money problems and a loved one's infidelity.
But it's not knowing when they'll go home that's the biggest moral-buster.
LONNQUIST: In Iraq, we were there for six months or longer, before we had an idea that it would be a year before we would be coming back.
GUTIERREZ: Captain Bowers says the war took a year of his life, but he knows he made a difference.
BOWERS: For me, to be able to go through that with someone, that process, that is -- it's big stuff.
GUTIERREZ: Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: News around the world now.
A bloody day in southern Thailand. Police say teenage militants wielding machetes stormed police stations and security posts today to steal weapons. More than 100 killed. Most were militants.
A major attack thwarted in Gaza. Israeli forces fired on a Jeep disguised as an Israeli vehicle as it sped toward a Jewish settlement. The gunfire set off a small explosion, killing a suspected suicide bomber and wounding four Israeli soldiers.
Honoring a fallen hero. A sports card company has found a new jersey -- jersey, I should say, worn by Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals safety who was killed last week in Afghanistan, not in Iraq as we reported at the top of the hour. Sorry about that.
Instead of selling it or making what could amount to millions of dollars in profit, the Donruss Company has decide to donate it to Tillman's family.
Well, first comes the newborn and for some women, a bout with depression. Still ahead, we'll tell you how to deal with the baby blues associated with childbirth.
Also, the multibillion-dollar bid for Mickey Mouse and friends. We've got the latest in our business update.
And making headlines the world over, Shrek the sheep finally gets a buzz cut. Details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: And now the Kobe Bryant case. At issue in Eagle, Colorado today, a blood stained T-shirt and Kobe Bryant's comments to police investigating a rape report.
CNN's Adrian Baschuk tells us all about that. He joins us live -- Adrian.
ADRIAN BASCHUK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just 24 hours after the alleged rape by Kobe Bryant took place, police showed up to interview him for about 90 minutes. They secretly tape-recorded that conversation. And that tape is being played all morning long.
We know that because, while these hearings are closed to both the public and the media, court officials had to come out at one point into the hallway and tell reporters to quiet down because the judge was listening to that tape being played.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BASCHUK (voice-over): Kobe Bryant's defense team and the prosecution arrived this morning in agreement for the first time. Both seek a trial date set today.
But Judge Terry Ruckriegle's court is not quite there yet.
KAREN SALAZ, EAGLE COUNTY COURT: A date for the trial? We do not anticipate a date for the trial being set.
BASCHUK: This round of pretrial hearings, which interrupts Kobe Bryant's playoff run, was the last scheduled. Late Tuesday, the court announced more hearings are needed in mid-May.
LARRY POZNER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: If we're still doing motions in May, there isn't going to be a trial in June. There may be a trial in August.
BASCHUK: The May hearings once again promise to wrap up the rape shield debate.
The defense argues Bryant's accuser had sex with multiple partners in the days before and in the 15 hours after allegedly being raped by Bryant. Her attorney vehemently denies she had sex with another man after the alleged incident.
Today, both sides are expected to enter closing arguments on the defense motion to suppress statements Bryant made to police outside the Cordillera Resort. His lawyers claim police did not advise him of his Miranda rights.
CRAIG SILVERMAN, FORMER PROSECUTOR: We know this about Kobe Bryant's statement. It's something he said that was embarrassing and he now regrets.
BASCHUK: Later today, the court will open its doors, and the public will heard the status of DNA testing.
SALAZ: We'll find out whether or not that testing was completed, which is a big step for us.
BASCHUK: Still, legal experts say even more motions could be filed to debate result.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASCHUK: Yesterday's proceedings wrapped up at 6 p.m. Mountain Time. If the same schedule persists today, Kobe Bryant may not make his 7 p.m. Pacific tip off against the Rockets at home.
He does have an option that he can ask the judge to be excused a bit early. However, the court tells us the judge, Terry Ruckriegle, is not a basketball fan. Living in Colorado, he is obviously a ski enthusiast -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Adrian Baschuk, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Now after that new bundle of joy, many women have the baby blues. But when are the tears too much?
In our special new series on newborns, CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at the baby blues, postpartum depression, and how to tell them apart.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Your bundle of joy has finally arrived. And you've just joined the new moms club. Well, get ready. You may be joining yet another. The baby blues club.
HEIDI MURKOFF, AUTHOR, "WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING": With baby blues, you're weepy; you're sad; you're hormonal; you're feeling a little overwhelmed. And who can blame you?
But you know, with a little TLC and a little extra rest, most blue moms start to feel relatively in the pink within a couple of weeks or so.
SANDRA, POSTPARTUM MOM: Say it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go!
SANDRA: Go!
BUPTA: But in 10 percent to 15 percent of new moms, the blues don't go away. They didn't for this mom.
SANDRA: A lot of anxiety, panic attacks, just feeling like I couldn't leave home, feeling like I was a little bit worthless. Because here I had this beautiful new baby, had a wonderful 3-year- old, and things in my eyes were just terrible.
GUPTA: Eventually, Sandra was diagnosed with postpartum depression, which is like any other major depression, except it usually starts some time after the baby is born, in the postpartum period.
SANDRA: I'd never been depressed before in my life. I didn't know what I was experiencing was depression, really.
DR. DIANA DELL, DUKE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: Easily half of women with postpartum depression have never been depressed before.
And those people are actually at a considerable disadvantage, because someone who has been depressed before may recognize the symptoms sooner than a new mom, who's having all these experiences that she can't explain.
GUPTA: Symptoms of which can include hopelessness, anxiety, lack of interest in your baby, feelings of guilt, of not being a good mother. And another important one, lack of sleep. SANDRA: Not being able to sleep compounds some of that feelings that you're getting of hopelessness. How am I going to get up and do this, because you're physically tired and you're mentally exhausted.
GUPTA: Sandra sought professional help.
DR. ZACHARY STOWE, EMORY UNIVERSITY: I think that just letting them know it can happen is the first step. And then if it does happen, letting them know that, in my opinion, it is one of the easiest things to treat that I have encountered in psychiatry.
GUPTA: Sandra went to therapy, got the advice and support from other moms, and got the anti-depression medication, which was safe, even though she was breastfeeding.
SANDRA: You're much better off if you are -- if you see somebody, get some help, whether it's medication or not medication, because then that allows you to be better for your family, get your depression under control.
GUPTA: Good advice for any new mom.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: As we continue our special series on newborns, tomorrow we focus on sleep training. Find out how to get your baby to sleep through the night. You might have to let him or her cry a little, Mom. It's tough.
And then on Friday, multiples. How to cope with more than one bundle of joy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right. In New Zealand, Shrek, the famous sheep, really made famous right here on LIVE FROM, I might add, has finally lost his woolly coat. He's shivering now.
He's been evading a haircut now for six years -- a lot of parents might relate to this one -- but was de-fleeced in front of a crowd of 200 locals. The event was broadcast live on the evening news in the land of Kiwi.
His huge fleece of pure Marino wool weighed an impressive 60 pounds. It has been donated to a children's cancer charity. And poor Shrek, as Chad Meyers said earlier this morning, looks a little like a poodle. It's a good thing they don't know how to do the mullet there.
Hollywood has turned to Japan in hopes of scoring a big hit on the big screen. We're not just talking about a new Godzilla series.
CNN's Atika Shubert takes us on the Tokyo set of the horror film "The Grudge."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESONDENT (voice-over): Looking for a good scare? Well, Hollywood has something for you. "Ju-on," a Japanese film so popular it launched three sequels, leading one Hollywood director to call it the scariest film he's ever seen.
(on camera) Hollywood loves Asian film, because movies that do well here are already audience tested and more likely to make it big back home.
For now, Hollywood is borrowing not just the film, but the talent.
(voice-over) Takashi Shimizu, director of "Ju-on," is the first Japanese director hand-picked to remake his own film for Hollywood, now called "The Grudge," starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.
TAKASHI SHIMIZU, DIRECTOR (through translator): I think it's because Hollywood doesn't have much original content any more. Hollywood sniffed out something in Japanese horror movies that would bring them business in America.
SHUBERT: But Hollywood, a la Tokyo, is a challenge for Shimizu's limited English. A translator shadows him on set, explaining directions to actors. But that doesn't stop Shimizu from cultivating a playful atmosphere on set.
SHIMIZU: Just between you and me, I hate Sarah Michelle Gellar!
SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR, ACTRESS: A lesser actress would cry right now, but being the secure actor that I am, I'm confident -- he was joking. Oh, my God!
SHIMIZU: Sarah!
JASON BEHR, ACTOR: I think Shimizu was very inventive and very unpredictable as a storyteller. As a director, he knows exactly what he wants. As a person, he has a wicked sense of humor, one that does not need translation.
SHUBERT: Humor may be just what Shimizu is hoping for.
SHIMIZU (through translator): Because I only make horror movies, everyone asks me, can I see ghosts? No, I do not. I am a normal human being. I can shoot comedies, too. I want to make a comedy.
SHUBERT: Japanese horror versus Japanese comedy? Well, it's all in the timing.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Tokyo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(STOCK REPORT)
O'BRIEN: Weeding out the troublemakers in Fallujah. Coming up next in our second hour of LIVE FROM, more from the front lines as U.S. troops battle insurgent forces in Iraq. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 28, 2004 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: Checking headlines at the half hour.
A terror suspect now reportedly linked to both the Madrid train bombing and the 9/11 attack. The Associated Press reports a judge in Spain has indicted Amer Azizi on charges of helping organize a 9/11 planning meeting in July of 2001.
The Moroccan fugitive is already charged with belonging to a terrorist organization.
China reports another suspected case in the latest outbreak of SARS. Beijing says it is now looking into six possible cases. The latest patient, a woman who was treated in the same room as a nurse who was diagnosed with SARS.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry talks jobs with supporters in Toledo, Ohio. He's wrapping up a three-day bus tour through the Buckeye State. President Bush will campaign in Ohio next week. Ohio went to Bush in 2000 by less than four percentage points. Pivotal state.
Sounds of warfare are heard in the Iraqi flashpoint of Fallujah.
U.S. Marines called in air reinforcements to help their effort to seize a train station. Insurgents had turned the depot into an attack post. The reinforcements included a Cobra attack helicopter and a Huey gunship.
Military officials say coalition forces are only responding defensively, however, holding out hopes for a political solution to Fallujah's uprising. Sunni sheikhs are expected to join in negotiations tomorrow.
Battlefield breakdowns were once considered cowardly. Not any more. The U.S. military now sends experts to help the troops deal with the horrors of war.
CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reports on the Army's 115th Combat Stress Unit, back from a year in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAPT. BILL BOWERS, PSYCHIATRIC NURSE: Seeing your buddy get blow up, that's -- that's a pretty big pill to swallow if you're 19 years old. LT. COL. DAN LONNQUIST, PSYCHOLOGIST: Being under the constant stress of not knowing what's going to happen.
LT. COL. EARNEST PROUD, SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST: It is quite traumatic what they have to see.
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are psychologists, counselors, and psychiatric nurses, reservists with the Army's 113th Stress Combat Unit, who took their civilian expertise right to the battlefield in Iraq.
(voice-over) It was the first time a mental health team like this, made up of some 70 professionals, had been mobilized for combat.
They returned after 14 long months away from home, after counseling some 20,000 soldiers.
Captain Bill Bowers is an adolescent psychiatric nurse in Los Angeles. In Iraq, his three-member team counseled 80 soldiers a week.
BOWERS: It is a lot of work. If somebody's not mission-capable and they're losing their marbles, you don't want them out with the other soldiers, basically. Because it's not good for the unit.
GUTIERREZ: Or the soldier. The mission of the 113th was to provide immediate counseling to those in combat to try to prevent posttraumatic stress syndrome.
Lieutenant Colonel Earnest Proud is a school psychologist, back in the gym after a year in Iraq.
Of the hundreds of stories he heard, there's one soldier he says he'll never forget.
PROUD: Some 14-year-old kid ran over and picked up an AK-47 and pointed it at him, and he had to kill him. Well, he came to me and he said, "Listen, I'm having nightmares. And I had to kill him and he's the age of my kids, and I feel so badly about it."
GUTIERREZ: It's this kind of deep wound that Major Proud hopes he was able to heal.
Lieutenant Colonel Dan Lonnquist, a psychologist, says the 113th also helped soldiers cope with hardships on the home front, like money problems and a loved one's infidelity.
But it's not knowing when they'll go home that's the biggest moral-buster.
LONNQUIST: In Iraq, we were there for six months or longer, before we had an idea that it would be a year before we would be coming back.
GUTIERREZ: Captain Bowers says the war took a year of his life, but he knows he made a difference.
BOWERS: For me, to be able to go through that with someone, that process, that is -- it's big stuff.
GUTIERREZ: Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: News around the world now.
A bloody day in southern Thailand. Police say teenage militants wielding machetes stormed police stations and security posts today to steal weapons. More than 100 killed. Most were militants.
A major attack thwarted in Gaza. Israeli forces fired on a Jeep disguised as an Israeli vehicle as it sped toward a Jewish settlement. The gunfire set off a small explosion, killing a suspected suicide bomber and wounding four Israeli soldiers.
Honoring a fallen hero. A sports card company has found a new jersey -- jersey, I should say, worn by Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals safety who was killed last week in Afghanistan, not in Iraq as we reported at the top of the hour. Sorry about that.
Instead of selling it or making what could amount to millions of dollars in profit, the Donruss Company has decide to donate it to Tillman's family.
Well, first comes the newborn and for some women, a bout with depression. Still ahead, we'll tell you how to deal with the baby blues associated with childbirth.
Also, the multibillion-dollar bid for Mickey Mouse and friends. We've got the latest in our business update.
And making headlines the world over, Shrek the sheep finally gets a buzz cut. Details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: And now the Kobe Bryant case. At issue in Eagle, Colorado today, a blood stained T-shirt and Kobe Bryant's comments to police investigating a rape report.
CNN's Adrian Baschuk tells us all about that. He joins us live -- Adrian.
ADRIAN BASCHUK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just 24 hours after the alleged rape by Kobe Bryant took place, police showed up to interview him for about 90 minutes. They secretly tape-recorded that conversation. And that tape is being played all morning long.
We know that because, while these hearings are closed to both the public and the media, court officials had to come out at one point into the hallway and tell reporters to quiet down because the judge was listening to that tape being played.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BASCHUK (voice-over): Kobe Bryant's defense team and the prosecution arrived this morning in agreement for the first time. Both seek a trial date set today.
But Judge Terry Ruckriegle's court is not quite there yet.
KAREN SALAZ, EAGLE COUNTY COURT: A date for the trial? We do not anticipate a date for the trial being set.
BASCHUK: This round of pretrial hearings, which interrupts Kobe Bryant's playoff run, was the last scheduled. Late Tuesday, the court announced more hearings are needed in mid-May.
LARRY POZNER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: If we're still doing motions in May, there isn't going to be a trial in June. There may be a trial in August.
BASCHUK: The May hearings once again promise to wrap up the rape shield debate.
The defense argues Bryant's accuser had sex with multiple partners in the days before and in the 15 hours after allegedly being raped by Bryant. Her attorney vehemently denies she had sex with another man after the alleged incident.
Today, both sides are expected to enter closing arguments on the defense motion to suppress statements Bryant made to police outside the Cordillera Resort. His lawyers claim police did not advise him of his Miranda rights.
CRAIG SILVERMAN, FORMER PROSECUTOR: We know this about Kobe Bryant's statement. It's something he said that was embarrassing and he now regrets.
BASCHUK: Later today, the court will open its doors, and the public will heard the status of DNA testing.
SALAZ: We'll find out whether or not that testing was completed, which is a big step for us.
BASCHUK: Still, legal experts say even more motions could be filed to debate result.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASCHUK: Yesterday's proceedings wrapped up at 6 p.m. Mountain Time. If the same schedule persists today, Kobe Bryant may not make his 7 p.m. Pacific tip off against the Rockets at home.
He does have an option that he can ask the judge to be excused a bit early. However, the court tells us the judge, Terry Ruckriegle, is not a basketball fan. Living in Colorado, he is obviously a ski enthusiast -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Adrian Baschuk, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Now after that new bundle of joy, many women have the baby blues. But when are the tears too much?
In our special new series on newborns, CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at the baby blues, postpartum depression, and how to tell them apart.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Your bundle of joy has finally arrived. And you've just joined the new moms club. Well, get ready. You may be joining yet another. The baby blues club.
HEIDI MURKOFF, AUTHOR, "WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING": With baby blues, you're weepy; you're sad; you're hormonal; you're feeling a little overwhelmed. And who can blame you?
But you know, with a little TLC and a little extra rest, most blue moms start to feel relatively in the pink within a couple of weeks or so.
SANDRA, POSTPARTUM MOM: Say it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go!
SANDRA: Go!
BUPTA: But in 10 percent to 15 percent of new moms, the blues don't go away. They didn't for this mom.
SANDRA: A lot of anxiety, panic attacks, just feeling like I couldn't leave home, feeling like I was a little bit worthless. Because here I had this beautiful new baby, had a wonderful 3-year- old, and things in my eyes were just terrible.
GUPTA: Eventually, Sandra was diagnosed with postpartum depression, which is like any other major depression, except it usually starts some time after the baby is born, in the postpartum period.
SANDRA: I'd never been depressed before in my life. I didn't know what I was experiencing was depression, really.
DR. DIANA DELL, DUKE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: Easily half of women with postpartum depression have never been depressed before.
And those people are actually at a considerable disadvantage, because someone who has been depressed before may recognize the symptoms sooner than a new mom, who's having all these experiences that she can't explain.
GUPTA: Symptoms of which can include hopelessness, anxiety, lack of interest in your baby, feelings of guilt, of not being a good mother. And another important one, lack of sleep. SANDRA: Not being able to sleep compounds some of that feelings that you're getting of hopelessness. How am I going to get up and do this, because you're physically tired and you're mentally exhausted.
GUPTA: Sandra sought professional help.
DR. ZACHARY STOWE, EMORY UNIVERSITY: I think that just letting them know it can happen is the first step. And then if it does happen, letting them know that, in my opinion, it is one of the easiest things to treat that I have encountered in psychiatry.
GUPTA: Sandra went to therapy, got the advice and support from other moms, and got the anti-depression medication, which was safe, even though she was breastfeeding.
SANDRA: You're much better off if you are -- if you see somebody, get some help, whether it's medication or not medication, because then that allows you to be better for your family, get your depression under control.
GUPTA: Good advice for any new mom.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: As we continue our special series on newborns, tomorrow we focus on sleep training. Find out how to get your baby to sleep through the night. You might have to let him or her cry a little, Mom. It's tough.
And then on Friday, multiples. How to cope with more than one bundle of joy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right. In New Zealand, Shrek, the famous sheep, really made famous right here on LIVE FROM, I might add, has finally lost his woolly coat. He's shivering now.
He's been evading a haircut now for six years -- a lot of parents might relate to this one -- but was de-fleeced in front of a crowd of 200 locals. The event was broadcast live on the evening news in the land of Kiwi.
His huge fleece of pure Marino wool weighed an impressive 60 pounds. It has been donated to a children's cancer charity. And poor Shrek, as Chad Meyers said earlier this morning, looks a little like a poodle. It's a good thing they don't know how to do the mullet there.
Hollywood has turned to Japan in hopes of scoring a big hit on the big screen. We're not just talking about a new Godzilla series.
CNN's Atika Shubert takes us on the Tokyo set of the horror film "The Grudge."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESONDENT (voice-over): Looking for a good scare? Well, Hollywood has something for you. "Ju-on," a Japanese film so popular it launched three sequels, leading one Hollywood director to call it the scariest film he's ever seen.
(on camera) Hollywood loves Asian film, because movies that do well here are already audience tested and more likely to make it big back home.
For now, Hollywood is borrowing not just the film, but the talent.
(voice-over) Takashi Shimizu, director of "Ju-on," is the first Japanese director hand-picked to remake his own film for Hollywood, now called "The Grudge," starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.
TAKASHI SHIMIZU, DIRECTOR (through translator): I think it's because Hollywood doesn't have much original content any more. Hollywood sniffed out something in Japanese horror movies that would bring them business in America.
SHUBERT: But Hollywood, a la Tokyo, is a challenge for Shimizu's limited English. A translator shadows him on set, explaining directions to actors. But that doesn't stop Shimizu from cultivating a playful atmosphere on set.
SHIMIZU: Just between you and me, I hate Sarah Michelle Gellar!
SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR, ACTRESS: A lesser actress would cry right now, but being the secure actor that I am, I'm confident -- he was joking. Oh, my God!
SHIMIZU: Sarah!
JASON BEHR, ACTOR: I think Shimizu was very inventive and very unpredictable as a storyteller. As a director, he knows exactly what he wants. As a person, he has a wicked sense of humor, one that does not need translation.
SHUBERT: Humor may be just what Shimizu is hoping for.
SHIMIZU (through translator): Because I only make horror movies, everyone asks me, can I see ghosts? No, I do not. I am a normal human being. I can shoot comedies, too. I want to make a comedy.
SHUBERT: Japanese horror versus Japanese comedy? Well, it's all in the timing.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Tokyo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(STOCK REPORT)
O'BRIEN: Weeding out the troublemakers in Fallujah. Coming up next in our second hour of LIVE FROM, more from the front lines as U.S. troops battle insurgent forces in Iraq. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
