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Genesis Capsule Crashes In Utah
Aired September 08, 2004 - 14:00 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: I'm Miles O'Brien.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
O'BRIEN: Well, it fought the law, and the law won. It is Genesis, an unmanned capsule bringing particles of solar wind back to Earth. The law is gravity, and the results are the subject of a NASA news conference that will get off the ground about a half an hour from now out of Utah.
Recovery workers are create -- treating the quarter billion dollar Genesis as live ammunition since the mortar round that was supposed to deploy the chute never went off, apparently.
Let me show you exactly where it was supposed to come in as you look at this picture from our keyhole animation. Genesis was supposed to come in across the northeastern part -- excuse me -- northwestern part of the United States across Oregon and into Utah to a place there, which is the largest contiguous no-fly zone in the United States where they test all kinds of supersonic aircraft for the Air Force.
Well, instead of going just that way and arriving, as it should, which is to say with a parachute and then ultimately with the help of helicopters, it came down with a thud, crashing to Earth, those parachutes never opening.
Let me show you some animation to show you what was supposed to happen. It was supposed to streak in like a meteor. It did just that, coming in at about 25,000 miles an hour. A five-foot disk shaped like a frisbee was supposed to be spinning like a frisbee, would be spinning. Instead, it came down the real one was wobbling very much. And the chutes that you see here in the animation never deployed.
Helicopters were standing by, two of them, flown by Hollywood stunt pilots. They had 18 and a half-foot hooks hanging beneath them. And their mission was to go up to the top of that parachute, hook the spacecraft and bring it down to an ever so gentle landing because the contents, those wafers carrying pieces of the solar wind, were considered too fragile to land at the speed of a parachute fall, about eight miles an hour.
Once again, take a look at that tumble as it came down. And let's listen for a moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED NASA CONTROLLER: Copy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Unintelligible) be advised from our vantage point we do not see a drouge chute. Negative drouge.
UNIDENTIFIED NASA CONTROLLER: Copy. Copy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eagle Mach (ph), the track bears 2009 miles, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: The drouge chute was the first of two parachutes to deploy, the second one in parafoil.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eagle Mach (ph), it looks like we have a no chute, sir. Sector 200...
UNIDENTIFIED NASA CONTROLLER: Station manager...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... eight miles. Look for an impact.
UNIDENTIFIED NASA CONTROLLER: ... we see negative drouge, negative chute.
UNIDENTIFIED STATION MANAGER: Copy. We see the visual.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: All right. One hundred miles an hour, it struck the surface of the Salt Flats there. Very unclear right now what happened or whether there's any scientific payback that lies ahead for the scientists who have worked on this, in some cases, for two decades.
A news conference is scheduled for 30 minutes from now, 2:30 Eastern. You will see it live here on CNN -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Well, striking back in Cincinnati, John Kerry now an undisputed under dog in the contest for president launched a frontal assault on the "wrong choices" by President Bush on Iraq, the economy, healthcare and social security.
CNN's Ed Henry reports on the address and the addresses address.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The venue for John Kerry's speech, the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal was not picked by accident. This is the same spot where President Bush made his case for war in October of 2002.
And John Kerry charged that the president did not follow through on his promises made in that speech such as his vow to go to war only as a last resort, and then only go with key allies onboard.
Kerry was also trying to hit two broader themes amid Democratic rumbling that Kerry is not pushing back hard enough against the Republican ticket. He was trying to take the gloves off. Show a more aggressive, in-your-face style.
And also, even as he discussed Iraq, Kerry was trying to shift the focus of this campaign to the domestic agenda. He got a standing ovation when he talked about the cost of war.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: While we're spending that $200 billion in Iraq that's, to this date, it will go on, eight million Americans are looking for work here in America, two million more -- two million more -- than when George W. Bush took office. And we're told that we can't afford to invest in job creation and job training here at home.
HENRY: Even before Kerry delivered his speech, Bush campaign officials were firing back. They note that just two days after the president delivered his speech in this very same venue, John Kerry publicly announced his support for the Iraq war resolution in Congress.
Bush officials say that with this speech, John Kerry has flip- flopped yet again. They say that by their count, Kerry has taken eight different positions on the Iraq war.
Also, there was at least one factual mistake in the speech. John Kerry noted at one point that General Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, was fired for not providing the right answers that President Bush was looking for in terms of troop levels; but in fact Shinseki retired on his own.
Ed Henry, CNN, Cincinnati, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, here's why most hecklers work from the back of the room. A protester who spoke today on stage at the Kerry event was promptly put in a head lock by a Kerry supporter wearing a tee shirt from the metal workers union.
Authorities are investigating the heckler's claims that he was assaulted.
O'BRIEN: President Bush met with members of Congress talking about the recommendations of the 9/11 commission and how they will affect his plans to reform U.S. intelligence.
They also discussed his support now for a strong, national intelligence director. And then he headed to Florida to tour areas that are devastated by those recent hurricanes.
Elaine Quijano reports for us now from the White House -- Elaine?
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Miles.
Well, until now President Bush had indicated that he supports limited budgetary authority for a new national intelligence director. And that would have been a departure from what the September 11 commission had recommended, commissioners saying that they felt in order for a new NID to be effective, that he or she would need full budget powers.
Well today, at the opening of his meeting here at the White House with top congressional leaders, President Bush voiced his full support for the commission's proposal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will be submitting a plan to the Congress that strengthens intelligence reform, strengthens intelligence services. We believe that there ought to be a national intelligence director, who has full budgetary authority.
We'll talk to the members of Congress about how to implement that. We look forward to working with the members to get a bill to my desk as quickly as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, Democrats on Capitol Hill are reserving judgment saying they will wait to see specifics before commenting. Meantime, President Bush now in Florida. There to survey the damage done by Hurricane Frances.
He was met there in Florida by his brother, Florida governor, Jeb Bush, and the first stop Fort Pierce to see relief efforts under way there. Then the president moves on to the National Hurricane Center in Miami where he will thank workers and also get an update on Hurricane Ivan which could, at some point, threaten the United States -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Elaine Quijano at the White House, thank you very much -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Other news across America now, more turbulence for Delta, the nation's third largest air carrier is cutting up to 7,000 jobs, that's 10 percent of its workforce. The struggling airline also plans to drop Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas as a hub.
Lionel Tate back in jail, the Florida teen who was sentenced to live in prison for killing a playmate when he was 12, then freed was arrested again in Florida yesterday. Tate, who is 17 now, is accused of violating his probation by carrying a pocketknife and giving police a false name.
Another ruling against the ban on a form of late-term abortion, a federal judge in Nebraska ruled the law is unconstitutional because it fails to take the woman's health into consideration. Judges in New York and California have also struck down that ban. O'BRIEN: Now to Russia, the aftermath of last weeks school nightmare. The government is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the capture of two Chechen rebel leaders. But that is not helping the grief stricken people of Beslan.
CNN's Matthew Chance with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the period of official mourning has now come to an end. But obviously the people of Beslan still very much crushed with grief, continuing to come out here to school number one and pay their respects to the many children, the many teachers, the many of their brothers and sisters who were lost in this place.
People are coming to lay floral tributes. They are also laying bottles of water at makeshift shrines that have been set up in the classrooms and in the playgrounds of this school -- bottles of water because many of the children were suffering because they were denied water inside when they were hostages for a period of about 50 hours.
And some of the survivors are talking about the inhumane conditions of those people in captivity. Very chilling images, as well, have emerged of actually the situation inside the hostage siege itself.
It seems that the hostage takers filmed this videotape in order to show the Russian hostage negotiators that they were serious, that they had explosives there, to show how many people they were holding inside the gymnasium, which is the building here right behind me, which has been devastated, of course, in the fire fight and in the explosions that finally brought this siege to an end in such violent fashion.
But those images very chilling, indeed. The people here, the survivors, saying that this is as close to pure evil as anyone can ever imagine being. The people, they are saying, who committed this worse than animals.
Certainly a great deal of anger here, that obviously their children have died and so many people have died, but also anger with the Russian government, as well, that the way this hostage crisis was handled. Many people here angry that the authorities didn't do more to save their children inside the school.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Beslan in Southern Russia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: An insurance nightmare unfolds in Florida as waters rise and mud slides in North Carolina. Frances' furry keeps rolling along. This storm just won't go away. The latest next. And this...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then the next thing I know, there's bees in my hair, bees on -- all over us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: You won't believe the size of the hive they pull out of this ceiling; a Texas family lives a nightmare.
Later on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: President Bush has signed a $2 billion boost to federal recovery efforts in Florida. What is left of Frances is pushing its way northward now, bringing flooding to sections of North Carolina.
Hundreds of people have been forced out of their homes. Meanwhile, people in the Caribbean and Florida are keeping an eye on Ivan, targeting Jamaica after three deaths in Grenada.
Now when the damage is totaled up from Hurricane Frances, the number will be in the billions of dollars. And those dollars are added up one loss at a time, one family at a time in Florida.
CNN's Jonathan Freed reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And this is their retirement home. Good retirement, huh?
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Betty McCowan and her husband moved to Florida from Virginia about 10 years ago. Hurricane Frances did this to their home two days ago.
MRS. MCCOWAN, 10-YEAR FLORIDA RETIREE: Every room in the house has a hole in the roof except one bedroom in the back.
FREED: So, you discovered this today for the first time?
MR. MCCOWAN: Yes.
FREED: You had no idea the extent of the damage?
MR. MCCOWAN: No, I had no idea, and I'm still flabbergasted.
FREED: That's Helen Buckley, the McCowan's insurance agent. She's helping them grab what they can and move them into an apartment while the roof and everything under it is repaired. It's going to take six months and cost about $30,000.
MRS. MCCOWAN: I don't know if I'll ever be happy here again because we tried so hard, and it was such a pretty place.
FREED: In Florida, as a result of the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, hurricane claims come with a hefty deductible. For houses worth more than $100,000, it's anywhere from 2 to 5 percent of the insured value of your home.
For the McCowan's that will mean $2,200 out of their pocket. They are not worried because they planned for this possibility, but their agent says not every client does.
HELEN BUCKLEY, STATE FARM INSURANCE AGENCY: We try to guide them as best we can, but we can only do so much. A client is going to decide what they want, themselves.
FREED: A typical Florida homeowner's premium is steep, too. Insurance companies insist the premiums and deductibles are justified.
LYNNE MCCHRISTIAN, USAA INSURANCE: It has given the industry the financial stability to handle not just one storm but two storms and three storms that might come back-to-back.
FREED: The McCowans say it's all worth it because without insurance in this case...
MRS. MCCOWAN: I would have had a heart attack because that's our whole life right there on that one little plot of ground.
FREED: Despite the storm, it's a plot of ground they refuse to abandon.
Jonathan Freed, CNN, Indian Harbor Beach, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And here's Jacqui Jeras with the latest forecast.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Kyra. Well, Frances continues to cause a little bit of damage. The tropical depression continues to move northward. It's starting to pick up a little bit of forward speed, but still going to have some significant problems with flooding especially in the Eastern parts of Ohio, across West Virginia and into western Pennsylvania.
The flooding rains coming to an end across the Carolinas, but the tornado threat remains across central and eastern parts of the states and also extending on up into Virginia at this hour.
Next, eyes all on Ivan now, still a hurricane. The 2:00 advisory in. Still having it as a powerful, category for hurricane packing winds of 140 miles per hour.
It's moving up to the north of Bonaire, so that's good news. Should not make a direct hit here for the ABC Island.
What happens after that? It's still a little bit of question because we're talking a good five days away before this would have an impact on the United States. But right now we're looking at the potential of this moving right across Jamaica and then heading across Cuba into the Gulf or east of Florida.
So, all eyes from Texas to the Carolinas need to pay attention to Ivan. That's a look at the latest on the tropics.
CNN LIVE FROM continues right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right. Recapping our top story for you, it's about two hours 15 minutes ago. That the Genesis capsule, NASA's genesis capsule, came back to Earth not in the way that mission scientists had hoped.
It had been in space for approaching three years, a good part of that time collecting pieces of the solar wind, hoping to allow planetary scientists and astrobiologists unlock some of the real riddles of why the solar system exists as it does.
Instead this happened. No parachutes deployed, apparently. It hit the ground in the Utah Salt Flats there in an Air Force testing range at about 100 miles an hour breaking apart and putting into question what kind of scientific payoff there might be.
Larry Warren is with our affiliate KTVX-TV. He was on the scene there. He has spoken to some of the scientists in the wake of this disaster and has a sense for us of what may lie ahead.
Larry, what are you hearing from scientists there?
LARRY WARREN, KTVX-TV CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, Miles, just the crushing disappointment of seeing all these years of work end like this in pieces in the desert. But they are hopeful that some science can still come out of this, some really groundbreaking science.
The idea was to snatch this capsule out of the air under a parachute with this helicopter back here. There were actually two of them that had cargo hooks that were going to snatch it so that they could lower this gently to the Earth because it was critical for the science here that the collector panels not break apart and hit hard.
And of course, that's exactly what happened. It hit at 120 miles an hour and no doubt has broken apart. But still the particles inside should be in the neighborhood. There is a risk, though, of contamination, of things spilling out of the satellite, and the capsule and dirt from Earth penetrating into the capsule.
And that's going to make it much more difficult for scientists to extract what they are looking for because what they are looking for are atoms, atoms of the sun that fly in the solar wind. And they say the total volume of the cargo in this capsule amounts to just a few grains of salt.
So, they are going to have a real Easter egg hunt now to pick up all the pieces and find the atomic material that's embedded in the collector panels which are now shattered and on the desert floor.
O'BRIEN: Larry, I'm not a scientist, and I don't think that you are, probably, but I have a question for you, and if anybody has posed this question there.
This capsule was traveling at 25,000 miles an hour, approaching 25,000 miles an hour as it entered the sphere. By the time it got to the surface, it was going a little over 100 miles an hour.
Is it possible that a chute or maybe both chutes opened, slowing it somewhat and then they somehow failed thereafter? Do we know?
WARREN: No, neither -- NASA had some very long-range cameras which were able to capture it as it was re-entering. As it was re- entering over Oregon a drouge chute was supposed to pull out first and slow the craft down. And then as it approached the Utah landing zone, a parafoil, much like you see a recreationist flying around in, a parafoil was going to deploy and let it glide to Earth, or close to Earth, where these helicopters would snatch it with that hook.
But neither of them were ever visible. It's possible the drouge deployed but then tore away up in the atmosphere where nobody saw it. But the parafoil that was supposed to sail this in -- and they've have been practicing this maneuver for years out here, the mid-air snatch.
And that did not happen. The parafoil never came out, so it hit. It hit at terminal velocity. Things can only fall so fast. So, it hit at that 120 mile an hour mark. Remarkably, it is still fairly intact.
O'BRIEN: All right, Larry Warren, thank you very much. I appreciate your insights there.
About 10 minutes away, actually a little less than that, we're going to get a briefing from that particular location from some of the experts on the scientific and engineering team, hopefully giving us an update on where things stand as far as the accident investigation as well as the possibility of deriving any science out of the $264 million mission.
Groundbreaking for sure, whether there will be any groundbreaking science another matter entirely -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: There's been some scary talk on the campaign trail. Now our guests tackle the issue, your vote and its impact on terrorism.
On the lighter side, yes, yes, yes. We know. You're supposed to look at the clothes. But there's something about fashion week that has us thinking Spring.
LIVE FROM contemplates Spring 2005 a little later. And of course our own fashionist of Wall Street, Rhonda Schaffler.
RHONDA SCHAFFLER, CNN SR. BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.
Fed chief, Alan Greenspan, says the economy is back on track. You guessed it. That means another interest rate hike could be right around the corner.
I'll bring in the latest "greenspeak" right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: A former high-flying -- are you with us?
O'BRIEN: I'm sorry.
PHILLIPS: It's OK. Do you want to check e-mail? I can talk to Rhonda.
O'BRIEN: I'm a little preoccupied. I've got some things going on. I apologize.
PHILLIPS: Well, we're talking about a former high-flying Wall Street, kind of power player, I guess you could say, going to jail.
O'BRIEN: By the way, are you bringing back the Nero (ph) suit? I'm just curious?
PHILLIPS: After seeing June Lockhart last week...
O'BRIEN: Oh, yes.
PHILLIPS: I've been inspired to go space, kind of, you know.
O'BRIEN: Very sleek.
PHILLIPS: It's all about fashionists of 2005.
O'BRIEN: I'm may try Nero (ph), myself.
PHILLIPS: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: We should try it.
All right, Rhonda Schlaffler, it's fashion week. What are you doing at the New York Stock Exchange? Why aren't you beside a runway?
SCHLAFFLER: Yes, I'm doing that right after this. You're going to join me, I hope.
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes.
PHILLIPS: You and Bill Hemmer in the front row of the...
SCHLAFFLER: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Remember that?
SCHLAFFLER: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Bring back that old video.
SCHLAFFLER: It would be fun.
O'BRIEN: What were we talking about? We weren't talking about that.
PHILLIPS: No, we were talking about a big guy going to jail.
SCHLAFFLER: We've got to talk about pinstripes, actually.
O'BRIEN: Oh.
SCHLAFFLER: Frank Quattrone, a star investment banker during the ".com" stock boom he made hundreds of millions of dollars while working for Credit Suisse First Boston, is, at this moment, awaiting court sentencing for his role in blocking a federal investigation into how his firm dolled out hot stokes back during the tech craze of the late 1990s. Any minute now we should learn about the sentencing.
Earlier this year, Quattrone was convicted of obstruction of justice and witness tampering. He's expected to serve his time at a minimum-security prison camp close to his home in California.
Quattrone is known for taking dozens of countries public, among them Amazon.com in 1997. He would be the highest-ranking Wall Streeter to be sentenced to jail since junk bond pioneer Michael Milken in 1991 -- Miles, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Fed chief, Alan Greenspan, he is talking, everyone's listening.
O'BRIEN: We're listening.
SCHLAFFER: Everyone is...
O'BRIEN: We don't understand, but we're listening.
SCHLAFFLER: Yes, you understand it. The economy is doing better. That's what the fed chief says. We hit what he'd like to call a soft patch.
Earlier this summer, he did offer some testimony before members of the house panel and said the expansion has regained some traction. That implies the fed will raise interest rates again when it meets in about two weeks.
This is expected, by the way, here on Wall Street, which is why you're not seeing too much reaction to those comments. Look at the Dow, barely budging.
We should mention, too, that the fed beige book shows a slow down in economic growth in July and August. None of this, though, really moving the market right now.
Nasdaq is slightly higher.
That's the very latest from Wall Street.
Still ahead, want fries with that? Some day they may not even have to ask. I tell you about what could be a drive through break through later this hour. CNN's LIVE FROM is rolling on right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Aired September 8, 2004 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
O'BRIEN: Well, it fought the law, and the law won. It is Genesis, an unmanned capsule bringing particles of solar wind back to Earth. The law is gravity, and the results are the subject of a NASA news conference that will get off the ground about a half an hour from now out of Utah.
Recovery workers are create -- treating the quarter billion dollar Genesis as live ammunition since the mortar round that was supposed to deploy the chute never went off, apparently.
Let me show you exactly where it was supposed to come in as you look at this picture from our keyhole animation. Genesis was supposed to come in across the northeastern part -- excuse me -- northwestern part of the United States across Oregon and into Utah to a place there, which is the largest contiguous no-fly zone in the United States where they test all kinds of supersonic aircraft for the Air Force.
Well, instead of going just that way and arriving, as it should, which is to say with a parachute and then ultimately with the help of helicopters, it came down with a thud, crashing to Earth, those parachutes never opening.
Let me show you some animation to show you what was supposed to happen. It was supposed to streak in like a meteor. It did just that, coming in at about 25,000 miles an hour. A five-foot disk shaped like a frisbee was supposed to be spinning like a frisbee, would be spinning. Instead, it came down the real one was wobbling very much. And the chutes that you see here in the animation never deployed.
Helicopters were standing by, two of them, flown by Hollywood stunt pilots. They had 18 and a half-foot hooks hanging beneath them. And their mission was to go up to the top of that parachute, hook the spacecraft and bring it down to an ever so gentle landing because the contents, those wafers carrying pieces of the solar wind, were considered too fragile to land at the speed of a parachute fall, about eight miles an hour.
Once again, take a look at that tumble as it came down. And let's listen for a moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED NASA CONTROLLER: Copy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Unintelligible) be advised from our vantage point we do not see a drouge chute. Negative drouge.
UNIDENTIFIED NASA CONTROLLER: Copy. Copy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eagle Mach (ph), the track bears 2009 miles, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: The drouge chute was the first of two parachutes to deploy, the second one in parafoil.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eagle Mach (ph), it looks like we have a no chute, sir. Sector 200...
UNIDENTIFIED NASA CONTROLLER: Station manager...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... eight miles. Look for an impact.
UNIDENTIFIED NASA CONTROLLER: ... we see negative drouge, negative chute.
UNIDENTIFIED STATION MANAGER: Copy. We see the visual.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: All right. One hundred miles an hour, it struck the surface of the Salt Flats there. Very unclear right now what happened or whether there's any scientific payback that lies ahead for the scientists who have worked on this, in some cases, for two decades.
A news conference is scheduled for 30 minutes from now, 2:30 Eastern. You will see it live here on CNN -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Well, striking back in Cincinnati, John Kerry now an undisputed under dog in the contest for president launched a frontal assault on the "wrong choices" by President Bush on Iraq, the economy, healthcare and social security.
CNN's Ed Henry reports on the address and the addresses address.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The venue for John Kerry's speech, the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal was not picked by accident. This is the same spot where President Bush made his case for war in October of 2002.
And John Kerry charged that the president did not follow through on his promises made in that speech such as his vow to go to war only as a last resort, and then only go with key allies onboard.
Kerry was also trying to hit two broader themes amid Democratic rumbling that Kerry is not pushing back hard enough against the Republican ticket. He was trying to take the gloves off. Show a more aggressive, in-your-face style.
And also, even as he discussed Iraq, Kerry was trying to shift the focus of this campaign to the domestic agenda. He got a standing ovation when he talked about the cost of war.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: While we're spending that $200 billion in Iraq that's, to this date, it will go on, eight million Americans are looking for work here in America, two million more -- two million more -- than when George W. Bush took office. And we're told that we can't afford to invest in job creation and job training here at home.
HENRY: Even before Kerry delivered his speech, Bush campaign officials were firing back. They note that just two days after the president delivered his speech in this very same venue, John Kerry publicly announced his support for the Iraq war resolution in Congress.
Bush officials say that with this speech, John Kerry has flip- flopped yet again. They say that by their count, Kerry has taken eight different positions on the Iraq war.
Also, there was at least one factual mistake in the speech. John Kerry noted at one point that General Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, was fired for not providing the right answers that President Bush was looking for in terms of troop levels; but in fact Shinseki retired on his own.
Ed Henry, CNN, Cincinnati, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, here's why most hecklers work from the back of the room. A protester who spoke today on stage at the Kerry event was promptly put in a head lock by a Kerry supporter wearing a tee shirt from the metal workers union.
Authorities are investigating the heckler's claims that he was assaulted.
O'BRIEN: President Bush met with members of Congress talking about the recommendations of the 9/11 commission and how they will affect his plans to reform U.S. intelligence.
They also discussed his support now for a strong, national intelligence director. And then he headed to Florida to tour areas that are devastated by those recent hurricanes.
Elaine Quijano reports for us now from the White House -- Elaine?
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Miles.
Well, until now President Bush had indicated that he supports limited budgetary authority for a new national intelligence director. And that would have been a departure from what the September 11 commission had recommended, commissioners saying that they felt in order for a new NID to be effective, that he or she would need full budget powers.
Well today, at the opening of his meeting here at the White House with top congressional leaders, President Bush voiced his full support for the commission's proposal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will be submitting a plan to the Congress that strengthens intelligence reform, strengthens intelligence services. We believe that there ought to be a national intelligence director, who has full budgetary authority.
We'll talk to the members of Congress about how to implement that. We look forward to working with the members to get a bill to my desk as quickly as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, Democrats on Capitol Hill are reserving judgment saying they will wait to see specifics before commenting. Meantime, President Bush now in Florida. There to survey the damage done by Hurricane Frances.
He was met there in Florida by his brother, Florida governor, Jeb Bush, and the first stop Fort Pierce to see relief efforts under way there. Then the president moves on to the National Hurricane Center in Miami where he will thank workers and also get an update on Hurricane Ivan which could, at some point, threaten the United States -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Elaine Quijano at the White House, thank you very much -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Other news across America now, more turbulence for Delta, the nation's third largest air carrier is cutting up to 7,000 jobs, that's 10 percent of its workforce. The struggling airline also plans to drop Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas as a hub.
Lionel Tate back in jail, the Florida teen who was sentenced to live in prison for killing a playmate when he was 12, then freed was arrested again in Florida yesterday. Tate, who is 17 now, is accused of violating his probation by carrying a pocketknife and giving police a false name.
Another ruling against the ban on a form of late-term abortion, a federal judge in Nebraska ruled the law is unconstitutional because it fails to take the woman's health into consideration. Judges in New York and California have also struck down that ban. O'BRIEN: Now to Russia, the aftermath of last weeks school nightmare. The government is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the capture of two Chechen rebel leaders. But that is not helping the grief stricken people of Beslan.
CNN's Matthew Chance with more.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the period of official mourning has now come to an end. But obviously the people of Beslan still very much crushed with grief, continuing to come out here to school number one and pay their respects to the many children, the many teachers, the many of their brothers and sisters who were lost in this place.
People are coming to lay floral tributes. They are also laying bottles of water at makeshift shrines that have been set up in the classrooms and in the playgrounds of this school -- bottles of water because many of the children were suffering because they were denied water inside when they were hostages for a period of about 50 hours.
And some of the survivors are talking about the inhumane conditions of those people in captivity. Very chilling images, as well, have emerged of actually the situation inside the hostage siege itself.
It seems that the hostage takers filmed this videotape in order to show the Russian hostage negotiators that they were serious, that they had explosives there, to show how many people they were holding inside the gymnasium, which is the building here right behind me, which has been devastated, of course, in the fire fight and in the explosions that finally brought this siege to an end in such violent fashion.
But those images very chilling, indeed. The people here, the survivors, saying that this is as close to pure evil as anyone can ever imagine being. The people, they are saying, who committed this worse than animals.
Certainly a great deal of anger here, that obviously their children have died and so many people have died, but also anger with the Russian government, as well, that the way this hostage crisis was handled. Many people here angry that the authorities didn't do more to save their children inside the school.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Beslan in Southern Russia.
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O'BRIEN: An insurance nightmare unfolds in Florida as waters rise and mud slides in North Carolina. Frances' furry keeps rolling along. This storm just won't go away. The latest next. And this...
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then the next thing I know, there's bees in my hair, bees on -- all over us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: You won't believe the size of the hive they pull out of this ceiling; a Texas family lives a nightmare.
Later on LIVE FROM.
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PHILLIPS: President Bush has signed a $2 billion boost to federal recovery efforts in Florida. What is left of Frances is pushing its way northward now, bringing flooding to sections of North Carolina.
Hundreds of people have been forced out of their homes. Meanwhile, people in the Caribbean and Florida are keeping an eye on Ivan, targeting Jamaica after three deaths in Grenada.
Now when the damage is totaled up from Hurricane Frances, the number will be in the billions of dollars. And those dollars are added up one loss at a time, one family at a time in Florida.
CNN's Jonathan Freed reports.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And this is their retirement home. Good retirement, huh?
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Betty McCowan and her husband moved to Florida from Virginia about 10 years ago. Hurricane Frances did this to their home two days ago.
MRS. MCCOWAN, 10-YEAR FLORIDA RETIREE: Every room in the house has a hole in the roof except one bedroom in the back.
FREED: So, you discovered this today for the first time?
MR. MCCOWAN: Yes.
FREED: You had no idea the extent of the damage?
MR. MCCOWAN: No, I had no idea, and I'm still flabbergasted.
FREED: That's Helen Buckley, the McCowan's insurance agent. She's helping them grab what they can and move them into an apartment while the roof and everything under it is repaired. It's going to take six months and cost about $30,000.
MRS. MCCOWAN: I don't know if I'll ever be happy here again because we tried so hard, and it was such a pretty place.
FREED: In Florida, as a result of the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, hurricane claims come with a hefty deductible. For houses worth more than $100,000, it's anywhere from 2 to 5 percent of the insured value of your home.
For the McCowan's that will mean $2,200 out of their pocket. They are not worried because they planned for this possibility, but their agent says not every client does.
HELEN BUCKLEY, STATE FARM INSURANCE AGENCY: We try to guide them as best we can, but we can only do so much. A client is going to decide what they want, themselves.
FREED: A typical Florida homeowner's premium is steep, too. Insurance companies insist the premiums and deductibles are justified.
LYNNE MCCHRISTIAN, USAA INSURANCE: It has given the industry the financial stability to handle not just one storm but two storms and three storms that might come back-to-back.
FREED: The McCowans say it's all worth it because without insurance in this case...
MRS. MCCOWAN: I would have had a heart attack because that's our whole life right there on that one little plot of ground.
FREED: Despite the storm, it's a plot of ground they refuse to abandon.
Jonathan Freed, CNN, Indian Harbor Beach, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And here's Jacqui Jeras with the latest forecast.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Kyra. Well, Frances continues to cause a little bit of damage. The tropical depression continues to move northward. It's starting to pick up a little bit of forward speed, but still going to have some significant problems with flooding especially in the Eastern parts of Ohio, across West Virginia and into western Pennsylvania.
The flooding rains coming to an end across the Carolinas, but the tornado threat remains across central and eastern parts of the states and also extending on up into Virginia at this hour.
Next, eyes all on Ivan now, still a hurricane. The 2:00 advisory in. Still having it as a powerful, category for hurricane packing winds of 140 miles per hour.
It's moving up to the north of Bonaire, so that's good news. Should not make a direct hit here for the ABC Island.
What happens after that? It's still a little bit of question because we're talking a good five days away before this would have an impact on the United States. But right now we're looking at the potential of this moving right across Jamaica and then heading across Cuba into the Gulf or east of Florida.
So, all eyes from Texas to the Carolinas need to pay attention to Ivan. That's a look at the latest on the tropics.
CNN LIVE FROM continues right after the break.
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O'BRIEN: All right. Recapping our top story for you, it's about two hours 15 minutes ago. That the Genesis capsule, NASA's genesis capsule, came back to Earth not in the way that mission scientists had hoped.
It had been in space for approaching three years, a good part of that time collecting pieces of the solar wind, hoping to allow planetary scientists and astrobiologists unlock some of the real riddles of why the solar system exists as it does.
Instead this happened. No parachutes deployed, apparently. It hit the ground in the Utah Salt Flats there in an Air Force testing range at about 100 miles an hour breaking apart and putting into question what kind of scientific payoff there might be.
Larry Warren is with our affiliate KTVX-TV. He was on the scene there. He has spoken to some of the scientists in the wake of this disaster and has a sense for us of what may lie ahead.
Larry, what are you hearing from scientists there?
LARRY WARREN, KTVX-TV CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, Miles, just the crushing disappointment of seeing all these years of work end like this in pieces in the desert. But they are hopeful that some science can still come out of this, some really groundbreaking science.
The idea was to snatch this capsule out of the air under a parachute with this helicopter back here. There were actually two of them that had cargo hooks that were going to snatch it so that they could lower this gently to the Earth because it was critical for the science here that the collector panels not break apart and hit hard.
And of course, that's exactly what happened. It hit at 120 miles an hour and no doubt has broken apart. But still the particles inside should be in the neighborhood. There is a risk, though, of contamination, of things spilling out of the satellite, and the capsule and dirt from Earth penetrating into the capsule.
And that's going to make it much more difficult for scientists to extract what they are looking for because what they are looking for are atoms, atoms of the sun that fly in the solar wind. And they say the total volume of the cargo in this capsule amounts to just a few grains of salt.
So, they are going to have a real Easter egg hunt now to pick up all the pieces and find the atomic material that's embedded in the collector panels which are now shattered and on the desert floor.
O'BRIEN: Larry, I'm not a scientist, and I don't think that you are, probably, but I have a question for you, and if anybody has posed this question there.
This capsule was traveling at 25,000 miles an hour, approaching 25,000 miles an hour as it entered the sphere. By the time it got to the surface, it was going a little over 100 miles an hour.
Is it possible that a chute or maybe both chutes opened, slowing it somewhat and then they somehow failed thereafter? Do we know?
WARREN: No, neither -- NASA had some very long-range cameras which were able to capture it as it was re-entering. As it was re- entering over Oregon a drouge chute was supposed to pull out first and slow the craft down. And then as it approached the Utah landing zone, a parafoil, much like you see a recreationist flying around in, a parafoil was going to deploy and let it glide to Earth, or close to Earth, where these helicopters would snatch it with that hook.
But neither of them were ever visible. It's possible the drouge deployed but then tore away up in the atmosphere where nobody saw it. But the parafoil that was supposed to sail this in -- and they've have been practicing this maneuver for years out here, the mid-air snatch.
And that did not happen. The parafoil never came out, so it hit. It hit at terminal velocity. Things can only fall so fast. So, it hit at that 120 mile an hour mark. Remarkably, it is still fairly intact.
O'BRIEN: All right, Larry Warren, thank you very much. I appreciate your insights there.
About 10 minutes away, actually a little less than that, we're going to get a briefing from that particular location from some of the experts on the scientific and engineering team, hopefully giving us an update on where things stand as far as the accident investigation as well as the possibility of deriving any science out of the $264 million mission.
Groundbreaking for sure, whether there will be any groundbreaking science another matter entirely -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: There's been some scary talk on the campaign trail. Now our guests tackle the issue, your vote and its impact on terrorism.
On the lighter side, yes, yes, yes. We know. You're supposed to look at the clothes. But there's something about fashion week that has us thinking Spring.
LIVE FROM contemplates Spring 2005 a little later. And of course our own fashionist of Wall Street, Rhonda Schaffler.
RHONDA SCHAFFLER, CNN SR. BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.
Fed chief, Alan Greenspan, says the economy is back on track. You guessed it. That means another interest rate hike could be right around the corner.
I'll bring in the latest "greenspeak" right after the break.
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PHILLIPS: A former high-flying -- are you with us?
O'BRIEN: I'm sorry.
PHILLIPS: It's OK. Do you want to check e-mail? I can talk to Rhonda.
O'BRIEN: I'm a little preoccupied. I've got some things going on. I apologize.
PHILLIPS: Well, we're talking about a former high-flying Wall Street, kind of power player, I guess you could say, going to jail.
O'BRIEN: By the way, are you bringing back the Nero (ph) suit? I'm just curious?
PHILLIPS: After seeing June Lockhart last week...
O'BRIEN: Oh, yes.
PHILLIPS: I've been inspired to go space, kind of, you know.
O'BRIEN: Very sleek.
PHILLIPS: It's all about fashionists of 2005.
O'BRIEN: I'm may try Nero (ph), myself.
PHILLIPS: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: We should try it.
All right, Rhonda Schlaffler, it's fashion week. What are you doing at the New York Stock Exchange? Why aren't you beside a runway?
SCHLAFFLER: Yes, I'm doing that right after this. You're going to join me, I hope.
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes.
PHILLIPS: You and Bill Hemmer in the front row of the...
SCHLAFFLER: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Remember that?
SCHLAFFLER: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Bring back that old video.
SCHLAFFLER: It would be fun.
O'BRIEN: What were we talking about? We weren't talking about that.
PHILLIPS: No, we were talking about a big guy going to jail.
SCHLAFFLER: We've got to talk about pinstripes, actually.
O'BRIEN: Oh.
SCHLAFFLER: Frank Quattrone, a star investment banker during the ".com" stock boom he made hundreds of millions of dollars while working for Credit Suisse First Boston, is, at this moment, awaiting court sentencing for his role in blocking a federal investigation into how his firm dolled out hot stokes back during the tech craze of the late 1990s. Any minute now we should learn about the sentencing.
Earlier this year, Quattrone was convicted of obstruction of justice and witness tampering. He's expected to serve his time at a minimum-security prison camp close to his home in California.
Quattrone is known for taking dozens of countries public, among them Amazon.com in 1997. He would be the highest-ranking Wall Streeter to be sentenced to jail since junk bond pioneer Michael Milken in 1991 -- Miles, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Fed chief, Alan Greenspan, he is talking, everyone's listening.
O'BRIEN: We're listening.
SCHLAFFER: Everyone is...
O'BRIEN: We don't understand, but we're listening.
SCHLAFFLER: Yes, you understand it. The economy is doing better. That's what the fed chief says. We hit what he'd like to call a soft patch.
Earlier this summer, he did offer some testimony before members of the house panel and said the expansion has regained some traction. That implies the fed will raise interest rates again when it meets in about two weeks.
This is expected, by the way, here on Wall Street, which is why you're not seeing too much reaction to those comments. Look at the Dow, barely budging.
We should mention, too, that the fed beige book shows a slow down in economic growth in July and August. None of this, though, really moving the market right now.
Nasdaq is slightly higher.
That's the very latest from Wall Street.
Still ahead, want fries with that? Some day they may not even have to ask. I tell you about what could be a drive through break through later this hour. CNN's LIVE FROM is rolling on right after this break.
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