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Child Gives Money for Tsunami Relief; Charity 101; Year-End Book Juggling at Pentagon
Aired December 31, 2004 - 14:27 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: "Now in the News," the U.S. stepping up its aid efforts to areas hit by the Asian tsunamis. President Bush announcing today the U.S. increasing its $35 million aid package by 10 to $350 million.
At the top of the hour Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will talk about relief efforts in the region. This after their meeting. We'll have it for you live.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych says he is resigning his post. He's still refusing to concede victory in the presidential race to his rival, Viktor Yushchenko. Yanukovych admits, though, he doesn't really have much hope of any positive results.
Locked doors at a Buenos Aires nightclub may have kept many people from escaping a massive fire that killed at least 175 concert- goers. Survivors and Argentine officials say a flare sparked the blaze that sent thousands of people stampeding for the exits. Hundreds were injured.
Now more on the story that continues to hold the world's attention: Sunday's tsunami disaster. Just about everywhere, people are digging deep for relief donations. Reporter Denelle Balfour of Canada's CTV says that includes one little girl who has been saving for something special for a long time until she decided her money was needed elsewhere.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DENELLE BALFOUR, CTV REPORTER (voice-over): Carolyn McGill is only 7, but she understands that something terrible has happened to thousands of children and the people they love.
CAROLYN MCGILL, DONOR: I was watching TV, and I saw all of the kids got swept into the ocean, and I didn't -- and I didn't care about a puppy then.
BALFOUR: Instead of buying a puppy, she's giving $400 in saved chore money to the victims of south Asia's tsunami.
MCGILL: I want to give them fresh food, fresh water.
BALFOUR: She's not alone. Canadians are digging deep into their pockets and giving from the heart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's always remarkable when you see the type of individual sacrifice, the efforts that are being made by individuals and organizations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning. Red Cross.
BALFOUR: Red Cross call centers are getting a donation every two minutes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But it's wonderful.
BALFOUR: In just two days, a record $7.4 million and rising.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just think seeing all the suffering is the difficult thing.
BALFOUR: Money is flowing to other aid organizations as well, including Oxfam and World Vision.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The response in Canada yesterday was the highest in the history of World Vision.
BALFOUR: From big corporations to small families. 11-year-old Sam Arnold has started a school challenge to raise money.
SAM ARNOLD, DONOR: Well it made me feel really sad watching the news and seeing pictures in the newspaper of people who have lost loved ones.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe we can split up.
BALFOUR: People in Toronto have opened their doors and wallets to Sri Lankan students canvassing on foot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I spoke to some of the people in the houses. I mean, they're in tears. And they're just giving.
BALFOUR: Giving time and supplies as well. Canada's Global Medic has dispatched a container full of water and medical equipment to Sri Lanka.
CAROLYN: I said it was really scary.
BALFOUR: Carolyn is giving her money to the Red Cross.
CAROLYN: I just want to wish they're safe.
BALFOUR: As one aide worker put it, it's the Canadian way. Danielle Balfour, CTV News, Toronto.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Now the philanthropic spirit has taken hold of many other youngsters as well. A nine-year old girl, Nicole Evans Dale - excuse me, nine-year Nicholas Evans Dale, he's a boy, and he's probably pretty mad at me right now. He counted out the entire contents of his piggy bank to help tsunami victims after seeing newspaper and television coverage of the disaster. He brought his allowance to a fund-raising site in Portland, Oregon, saying he wanted the money go to the people who lost their homes.
The grand total, $90.25. Good job, Nicholas.
Now a little charity 101 for the adults out there who want to donate online. CNN's Ali Velshi with some pointers on how to make sure your money gets to where you want it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Most charitable donations are being made online today. That's partly because of the speed and convenience of it. Partly because today is the deadline for making a qualified donation if you want to be able to claim that deduction on your 2004 tax return.
Major emergency relief organizations are accepting online and over the phone donations. One of the biggest, the American Red Cross, is taking payments through Amazon.com.
Now so far, more than 100,000 people have used that option, donating more than $7.5 million.
It does pay to find out how efficient the charity you're donating to is, and where the money's going. The American Red Cross has six options for directing your funds. None of them specifically name the Asian tsunami relief effort, however. The Red Cross' disaster relief fund, that's where your money goes if you donate through Amazon.com, all goes toward any of the disasters that the American Red Cross is working on.
Paypal users can donate easily to UNICEF. Other international agencies do let you target your donation. Oxfam, for instance, has a tsunami relief and rehabilitation fund. The U.N. World Food Program has a tsunami disaster appeal. And donors to Save the Children can choose its tsunami relief fund. These are just a few of the many organizations that are working to help victims.
Now you should use Web sites like the Better Business Bureau's give.org to check the percentage that a relief agency spends on its own administration and how much it sends to the destination. Other sites to check include charitynavigator.org, which uses a star rating system and charitywatch.org which uses a letter grade.
Also visit guidestar.org. Now when you do make a donation online, get to the organization's Web site yourself. Not through an e-mail link that's been sent to you. Human tragedies tend to bring out the worst in scam artists. So for your own security, make your payments by credit card or check, never by cash. Check to see whether the donations you're making are going through a secure Web site, one where the address on the payment page starts with https, not just http. And finally, print out a copy of your donation receipt.
Ali Velshi, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Ali.
We've been telling you about the increased aid from the United States. Today, we expect to hear more about it when Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.N.'s Kofi Annan hold a news conference. That's coming up about 25 minutes from now, 3:00 p.m. Eastern time.
First, did you know people living in the United States will be able to vote in Iraq's elections next month? We'll tell about that.
And from battlefield to football field, meet the U.S. Marine revving up for Texas A&M's big game this New Year's weekend.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TIME STAMP: 1436:00
O'BRIEN: Live pictures of the CNN Center atrium. In some parts of the world, they've already begun ringing in the New Year. But as the tsunami disaster continues to dominate global headlines, much of the usual celebrating being toned down.
Although the fireworks went off as usual in Sydney Harbor, the event began with a moment of silence for all those who perished or who are missing. About 1,000 Australians remain unaccounted for.
In Hong Kong where residents often mark public holidays with anti-government events, political parties across the spectrum have postponed a New Year's Day protest march and say they'll raise funds for tsunami victims instead.
In the Vatican, Pope John Paul II delivered his annual New Year's message. He asked for world peace and for the prayers of the Virgin Mary. Later, the 84-year-old pontiff plans New Year's midnight mass in his private chapel for the tsunami victims.
And even amid wartime, U.S. troops stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan didn't let the New Year pass unmarked. They set up their own ball that dropped. There you see it. 2005 ringing in just a few moments ago there in Kabul.
It's part of the annual New Year's tradition to spend some time looking back at the year that's ending. CNN's Anderson Cooper hitting the rewind button on 2004, which saw some memorable events.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The battle for Falluja started before it officially started. And I remember thinking this is what the end of the world sounds like, crashing all around us. And it continued for days and days. I never thought that anything could be so loud. I never thought that anything could be so violent and still leave anything standing.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATE: We're very upbeat, thank you. JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Former President Bush was in the White House. He kept awake and kept staying up. And we're going to go give a speech. We have a speech. Are we going to go give a speech? The president at one point went down found him glued to the TV watching the results. He said, "Damn it, dad, go to bed."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just Mother Nature at her worst.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The feeling of standing in hurricane force winds is unlike anything else we experience in broadcast journalism.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This hurricane season was one that a lot of folks, especially folks in Florida, are not going to forget. And I certainly won't forget.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're here at the Riyadh camp outside El Genina, the capital of western Darfur.
It was imperative for us at CNN as journalists to report from Darfur. And it is meaning to what we do as journalists. Our duty is to go there and tell those stories and try and try and try to make sure that these things either get put right or hopefully don't happen again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: CNN rings in the New Year live from Times Square tonight at 11:00 p.m. You'll see celebrations from coast to coast and around the world. Secretary of State Colin Powell will be part of the event and many musical groups will take the stage.
Join Anderson Cooper for a New Year's Eve tradition live from Times Square beginning at 11:00 p.m. Eastern time.
Thousands of Iraqis are eagerly awaiting their chance to cast a vote in the upcoming election. And many of them will be doing just that from their American homes.
Reporter Deidre Wilson from WZTV in Nashville talked with just a few of the many members of the Iraqi electorate in her city.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEIDRE WILSON, WZTV NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They work here. They pray here. And now close to 8,000 Iraqi citizens living in Nashville will vote here. But not for an American government. Nashville will be one of five cities in the U.S. that will hold Iraqi elections next month, which is great news for Lokman Rashid, who fled from Iraq 12 years ago, escaping Saddam Hussein's regime.
LOKMAN RASHID, KURDISH AMERICAN: So we had only follow what was coming from Saddam and his regime.
WILSON: Rashid now a realtor is ready for change and hopes the election will make the difference. RASHID: We are very hopeful that we're going to see an elected government coming to Iraq and treat the people, Shi'ia, Sunni, Kurds, all the other ethnic groups equally.
KAREN HIRSCHFIELD, NASHVILLE OUT OF COUNTRY ELECTIONS: They will be voting for a national assembly, much like our Senate and House and representatives.
WILSON: Karen Hirschfield, the head of Nashville Out of Country Elections, says the whole process will be very fast.
HIRSCHFIELD: The registration period will be from the 17th to the 23rd of January. And then we'll have five-day display period where the list will be publicly shown at the registration sites and then three days of voting from the 28th to the 30th of January to coincide with the Iraqi elections.
WILSON: The election is less than a month away. And local members of the Kurdish community are welcoming the opportunity to have a say in the future of their homeland, but are a little skeptical.
TAHIR HUSSAIN, KURDISH AMERICAN: It is a wonderful opportunity. However, it is, even though it's a new experience, it's not going to be very effective. It's very late, especially the planning for the Iraqi relief outside of the country.
HIRSCHFIELD: And it's just now that the amendments have gotten through, and that the machinery has started up in all these countries to enable the people to vote. And then they had to identify the cities with the major Iraqi populations.
WILSON (on camera): Although the election is still a month away and the process is still undecided, one thing's for sure. Iraqis here in Nashville will be lined up to cast their ballots.
(voice-over): In Nashville, Deidre Wilson, News Center.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: And we thank Deidre and WZTV for that.
Texas A&M faces off against the Tennessee Volunteers in the Cotton Bowl tomorrow. By the way, it's the SBC Cotton Bowl we found out. When the Aggies enter the stadium, they'll bring with them one player who traded his military fatigues for the team's maroon and white uniform after getting wounded in battle.
Larry Smith introduces us to a veteran player inspiring a team.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY SMITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Football players often refer to past injuries as battle scars. For Texas A&M's Josh Amstutz, analogy is reality.
JOSH AMSTUTZ, TEXAS A&M FOOTBALL PLAYER: It hit right above my right knee and came over on the side. So it kind of missed the bone and arteries and came out the side. And my staff sergeant actually saw it in a pool of blood.
SMITH: In April of 2003 while his Marine unit was on patrol in suburban Baghdad, Amstutz took a sniper's bullet in the right leg.
AMSTUTZ: And I started thinking about Blackhawk Down and different things like that, a guy, who bled out through his leg because an artery had been hit. So I was like this could be a quick two minutes. I mean, this could be it.
SMITH: The injury was not as serious as Amstutz feared. Medics on the scene tended to the wound. And he recovered in a Kuwait hospital. Amstutz was transferred back to the U.S. and reunited with his wife, Jessica. In 2001, Jessica had taken Josh to College Station to watch her alma mater play football. Now three years later, Josh decided he wanted to return as a walk-on player.
AMSTUTZ: We had try-outs on a Monday morning.
JESSICA AMSTUTZ, JOSH'S WIFE: I really didn't see him making it. I thought, well he's going to try out and he's not going to make it and then we're going to move on to whatsoever is next.
JOSH AMSTUTZ: I went up to a list and I looked down. I was like - didn't really - thought I saw my name because I wasn't really expecting to make the team and walked away. And was like, wait a minute, I think I saw my name up there. And I turned back around and sure enough, it said Amstutz.
JESSICA AMSTUTZ: Sure enough he calls and he said, "Jess, I made the A&M football team."
JOSH AMSTUTZ: I think it was one of the biggest moments in my life.
SMITH: AA walk-on's primarily responsibility is to help the starting team prepare for the upcoming game. But Amstutz's teammate are also benefiting from the fact that before he donned Aggie maroon, he was adorned with a purple heart.
DENNIS FRANCHIONE, TEXAS A&M HEAD COACH: He's been through some real life experiences. Most of our guys have not been through anything like that. And he's been somewhat of an educational tool for them.
JAXSON APPEL, TEXAS A&M DEFENSIVE BACK: When it's 170 degrees out there during two days, and you're feeling sorry for yourselves, and you think about what he went through. And it was 130 degrees and he was getting shot at and having to shoot people, you know, it really puts it into perspective that hey, this is football practice. You know, we're blessed to be here.
SMITH: Amstutz couldn't agree more.
JOSH AMSTUTZ: I've already passed all my expectations. So I mean, whatever's next. I mean, it's whatever God has for me. SMITH: Larry Smith, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Well, it's going to be a slightly less rockin' New Year's Eve without Dick Clark to emcee the ball drop in Times Square. Can they really do without him?
And prison life may be taking its toll on Martha Stewart who lost out, you are not going to believe. Well we'll tell you in just a moment. She lost out in a very important contest.
Sibila Vargas joins us now from L.A. with all of that in our entertainment report.
Hello, Sibila.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Miles, that's right. After 32 years of helping us bring in the New Year, this time Dick Clark will be watching the ball drop from a hospital bed.
The 75-year-old suffered a mild stroke and has been in the hospital for nearly a month now. His spokesman said Clark is undergoing rehab and his doctors are thrilled with Clark's progress.
Now Clark says as he does every year he plans on kissing his wife Carrie at midnight and wishing her a happy New Year. And Happy New Year to you, Mr. Clark -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes, we wish him well. The timeless one. We hope he's doing OK.
All right, Martha Stewart lost a contest. Folks are going to be a little surprised which contest she lost.
VARGAS: That's right. Martha Stewart has made a fortune on home decorating tips. But in prison, well, she's just not cutting it.
It looks like the domestic diva came up short in a prison decorating contest. That's right. Stewart and a team of it inmates were given $25 worth of glitter, construction paper and ribbons to build a display based on the theme peace on earth.
But apparently Stewart's crafted paper cranes were no match for the competing team's nativity scene.
OK, so Stewart lost a contest, but how about losing millions of dollars? That's how the New Year is shaping up for Anna Nicole Smith. A federal appeals court has thrown out a lower court judge's ruling that awarded the former Playmate $88.5 million of her late husband's fortune. Now Smith claimed that she was entitled to the money because her 90-year old husband promised to take care of her before he passed away. Smith's lawyer says he'll appeal the ruling.
And finally, this year we said good-bye to a lot of entertainers. And one of the greatest was Artie Shaw. The jazz musician ranked up there with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller as the band leaders who made music swing. Some of his hits included "Dancing in the Dark," "Stardust," "Moonglow" and "Accentuate the Positive."
Mr. Shaw was 94-years old when he passed away. And we are certainly going to miss him. His legacy will definitely live on.
O'BRIEN: That's a great one. All right, Sibila Vargas, thank you very much. Happy New Year to you.
VARGAS: Thank you. Happy New Year to you and to our viewers.
O'BRIEN: All right. Do you have a travel complaint? Who doesn't? The government's just set up a new hotline to handle the Christmas airline snafu. Some sort of call center in Bangalore, probably. No, just a call center.
Later, we tip our hat to the man helping dress President Bush for inauguration. It's a 10-gallon job if you catch my drift.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: News across America now. Got a gripe about your holiday flight? The U.S. Department of Transportation has opened a hotline for complaints. Hope they have a lot of lines. The government wants input from those stranded after U.S. Airways and Comair grounded more than 1,000 flights last Saturday. You can call the number on your screen. There it is. Or you may e-mail the inspector general's Web site. I'd do the latter.
Crippling snowstorms accompanied by savage winds continue their week long assault on western states. Forecasters predict up to 8 feet of snow carried by 70-mile-an-hour winds, blanketing peaks near Lake Tahoe tonight. If you can get there or if you are there, what great skiing there will be.
Storms are blowing through Arizona, Nevada and Colorado, and into North Dakota. Winter weary residents can expect more of the same over the next few days.
And the Justice Department has drafted new guidelines for the Bush administration to follow when interrogating suspected terrorists. The memo says torture cannot be used for a "good reason." And it says several physical - severe, I should say, physical suffering may constitute torture, even if it does not involve severe pain.
This is a time when a lot of people take stock of how they've spent their money. They make resolutions to make changes in the New Year.
CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie Mcintyre says it's no different at the Pentagon. It's just that the numbers on the spreadsheet have a lot more zeroes behind them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With a sticker price that has soared from $35 million to a whopping $260 million a plane, the F-22 Raptor is now in the crosshairs of Pentagon budget cutters. Even as the Air Force insists the most expensive fighter plane ever is a must have.
GEN. JOHN JUMPER, AIR FORCE CHIEF OF STAFF: We're going to have to make sure that the surface to air missiles and the fighters that are again being delivered today are swept clean so that our troops can operate. This is the airplane to do that.
MCINTYRE: Sources say the Pentagon is under the gun to trim $10 billion from next year's budget and as much as $60 billion in defense spending over the next six years. One option being considered, cutting back the planned buy of 277 F-22s by about 100 planes to save roughly $15 billion.
Even with the cuts, Defense officials say that the Pentagon budget would still grow next year, although the planned reductions would effectively end the three-year defense build-up that followed the September 11th attacks.
Sources say the White House is pushing for deep cuts to reign in rising federal deficits, which are fueled in part by the combined $5 billion a month cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
STEVEN KOSIAK, STRATEGIC BUDGETARY ASSESSMENT: It's probably necessary that they make some cuts. The Pentagon has a very ambitious modernization plan, a very ambitious force structure plan. It's probably not affordable over the long term given the concerns about the deficit.
MCINTYRE: Among the proposed cuts, retiring and not replacing the fossil fueled aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy. That would reduce the aircraft carrier fleet from 12 to 11, building fewer of the Navy's next generation DDX destroyers and delaying development of the Army's high-tech future combat system.
(on camera): Pentagon officials say the budget cuts are not final and part of a long-term strategy to jettison Cold War concepts. But Congress may have the last word. And some critics, including some members of the president's own party, fear the Pentagon may be mortgaging its future simply to pay the mounting bill for the war in Iraq.
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Well, the stock market is open today. David Haffenreffer is working, but not many other traders are. Nevertheless, a report, please, David.
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: A full hour of trading left on this final trading day of 2004. It's been a very quiet volume day here today, Miles. And the stock market basically not moving with too much conviction in either direction.
Although, we do have the Dow industrials winding its way toward some better gains here as we get closer to the closing bell for the day and the year. Dow industrials up by 21 points, 10,822, while the Nasdaq composite index is adding a quarter of one percent. That is a quick check on your business headlines.
Miles, back to you.
O'BRIEN: All right, we'll check in with you next hour. Thank you, David.
We're standing by for a news conference on tsunami aid at the United Nations. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan scheduled to speak. We're going to have it for you live. There you see the camera. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Well, if President Bush walks a little taller at his upcoming inauguration, it's not necessarily due to second-term pride. It's because the head of state will be topped off by a cowboy hat.
Though Mr. Bush was born in Connecticut, he spent enough time as a Texan to earn the right to a custom made chapeau. They call them that in Texas?
Anyway, a Greeley, Colorado hatmaker has earned the right to make it for him. Reporter Gary Wolf of CNN's Denver affiliate KUSA meets the first milliner.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRENT JOHNSON, GREELEY HATWORKS: My name's Trent Johnson. I custom make hats at Greeley Hatworks. And today, we're building a hat for the leader of the free world.
To build a hat like this for the president takes more than just the average hat. Normally, we have six to eight hours. And what - this one will have nearly 20.
Then what we're going to do is press the brim. I got to build a hat for the president in 2002. It was given to him by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association when he came to speak at their annual convention in Denver.
Then we're going to slide it back here into this.
To see the leader of the free world wear a hat built by little old me in Greeley, Colorado, I mean, beyond description. And after that, I got to meet the president. He shook my hand and thanked me for the hat, got my picture taken with him.
And then about three weeks later, he sent a handwritten thank you card. I know he really appreciated it because he told me he did. Well, I thought it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. And so, you know, I really, really raised the bar on that first hat. I had to make it just super unique, one of a kind, the best thing I've ever built.
Well, then, I get asked to build a second one. So now it's a twice in a lifetime opportunity. And once again, the bar has been raised higher. So I had to step up and come up with some new, cool stuff to make the president the best hat ever.
So to come together, we're going to have the George W. Bush liner in the hat and his George W. Bush matching sweat band. This will all get sewed in.
We combined works with my custom silversmith. The gentleman that makes my custom hat carriers, a leather craftsman, everybody -- I had to bring everybody together to try to make all the pieces one of a kind unique, that would be -- top off the president's hat.
At times the competition has accused us of setting the hat industry back 100 years just because we still do everything by hand. And it's kind of a one at a time type of game here at Greeley Hatworks. We're OK with that because we like doing them one at a time, the old-fashioned way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Now in the news, the old-fashioned way. Any minute now, we expect Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to brief us on efforts to help tsunami survivors. A short time ago, the United States increased its pledge ten-fold, from $35 million to $350 million.
A somber start to the New Year in South Asia. Candlelight vigils for the dead and the missing have replaced the usual fireworks. In the words of one tourist who survived the tsunamis, "no one is in the mood for celebrating." There's an understatement.
Quitting, but not conceding. Viktor Yunokovich has resigned his post as Ukraine's prime minister, but he says he'll continue to challenge the results from Sunday's election. That election gave the presidency to his rival, Viktor Yuschenko.
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Aired December 31, 2004 - 14:27 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: "Now in the News," the U.S. stepping up its aid efforts to areas hit by the Asian tsunamis. President Bush announcing today the U.S. increasing its $35 million aid package by 10 to $350 million.
At the top of the hour Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will talk about relief efforts in the region. This after their meeting. We'll have it for you live.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych says he is resigning his post. He's still refusing to concede victory in the presidential race to his rival, Viktor Yushchenko. Yanukovych admits, though, he doesn't really have much hope of any positive results.
Locked doors at a Buenos Aires nightclub may have kept many people from escaping a massive fire that killed at least 175 concert- goers. Survivors and Argentine officials say a flare sparked the blaze that sent thousands of people stampeding for the exits. Hundreds were injured.
Now more on the story that continues to hold the world's attention: Sunday's tsunami disaster. Just about everywhere, people are digging deep for relief donations. Reporter Denelle Balfour of Canada's CTV says that includes one little girl who has been saving for something special for a long time until she decided her money was needed elsewhere.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DENELLE BALFOUR, CTV REPORTER (voice-over): Carolyn McGill is only 7, but she understands that something terrible has happened to thousands of children and the people they love.
CAROLYN MCGILL, DONOR: I was watching TV, and I saw all of the kids got swept into the ocean, and I didn't -- and I didn't care about a puppy then.
BALFOUR: Instead of buying a puppy, she's giving $400 in saved chore money to the victims of south Asia's tsunami.
MCGILL: I want to give them fresh food, fresh water.
BALFOUR: She's not alone. Canadians are digging deep into their pockets and giving from the heart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's always remarkable when you see the type of individual sacrifice, the efforts that are being made by individuals and organizations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning. Red Cross.
BALFOUR: Red Cross call centers are getting a donation every two minutes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But it's wonderful.
BALFOUR: In just two days, a record $7.4 million and rising.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just think seeing all the suffering is the difficult thing.
BALFOUR: Money is flowing to other aid organizations as well, including Oxfam and World Vision.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The response in Canada yesterday was the highest in the history of World Vision.
BALFOUR: From big corporations to small families. 11-year-old Sam Arnold has started a school challenge to raise money.
SAM ARNOLD, DONOR: Well it made me feel really sad watching the news and seeing pictures in the newspaper of people who have lost loved ones.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe we can split up.
BALFOUR: People in Toronto have opened their doors and wallets to Sri Lankan students canvassing on foot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I spoke to some of the people in the houses. I mean, they're in tears. And they're just giving.
BALFOUR: Giving time and supplies as well. Canada's Global Medic has dispatched a container full of water and medical equipment to Sri Lanka.
CAROLYN: I said it was really scary.
BALFOUR: Carolyn is giving her money to the Red Cross.
CAROLYN: I just want to wish they're safe.
BALFOUR: As one aide worker put it, it's the Canadian way. Danielle Balfour, CTV News, Toronto.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Now the philanthropic spirit has taken hold of many other youngsters as well. A nine-year old girl, Nicole Evans Dale - excuse me, nine-year Nicholas Evans Dale, he's a boy, and he's probably pretty mad at me right now. He counted out the entire contents of his piggy bank to help tsunami victims after seeing newspaper and television coverage of the disaster. He brought his allowance to a fund-raising site in Portland, Oregon, saying he wanted the money go to the people who lost their homes.
The grand total, $90.25. Good job, Nicholas.
Now a little charity 101 for the adults out there who want to donate online. CNN's Ali Velshi with some pointers on how to make sure your money gets to where you want it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Most charitable donations are being made online today. That's partly because of the speed and convenience of it. Partly because today is the deadline for making a qualified donation if you want to be able to claim that deduction on your 2004 tax return.
Major emergency relief organizations are accepting online and over the phone donations. One of the biggest, the American Red Cross, is taking payments through Amazon.com.
Now so far, more than 100,000 people have used that option, donating more than $7.5 million.
It does pay to find out how efficient the charity you're donating to is, and where the money's going. The American Red Cross has six options for directing your funds. None of them specifically name the Asian tsunami relief effort, however. The Red Cross' disaster relief fund, that's where your money goes if you donate through Amazon.com, all goes toward any of the disasters that the American Red Cross is working on.
Paypal users can donate easily to UNICEF. Other international agencies do let you target your donation. Oxfam, for instance, has a tsunami relief and rehabilitation fund. The U.N. World Food Program has a tsunami disaster appeal. And donors to Save the Children can choose its tsunami relief fund. These are just a few of the many organizations that are working to help victims.
Now you should use Web sites like the Better Business Bureau's give.org to check the percentage that a relief agency spends on its own administration and how much it sends to the destination. Other sites to check include charitynavigator.org, which uses a star rating system and charitywatch.org which uses a letter grade.
Also visit guidestar.org. Now when you do make a donation online, get to the organization's Web site yourself. Not through an e-mail link that's been sent to you. Human tragedies tend to bring out the worst in scam artists. So for your own security, make your payments by credit card or check, never by cash. Check to see whether the donations you're making are going through a secure Web site, one where the address on the payment page starts with https, not just http. And finally, print out a copy of your donation receipt.
Ali Velshi, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Ali.
We've been telling you about the increased aid from the United States. Today, we expect to hear more about it when Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.N.'s Kofi Annan hold a news conference. That's coming up about 25 minutes from now, 3:00 p.m. Eastern time.
First, did you know people living in the United States will be able to vote in Iraq's elections next month? We'll tell about that.
And from battlefield to football field, meet the U.S. Marine revving up for Texas A&M's big game this New Year's weekend.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TIME STAMP: 1436:00
O'BRIEN: Live pictures of the CNN Center atrium. In some parts of the world, they've already begun ringing in the New Year. But as the tsunami disaster continues to dominate global headlines, much of the usual celebrating being toned down.
Although the fireworks went off as usual in Sydney Harbor, the event began with a moment of silence for all those who perished or who are missing. About 1,000 Australians remain unaccounted for.
In Hong Kong where residents often mark public holidays with anti-government events, political parties across the spectrum have postponed a New Year's Day protest march and say they'll raise funds for tsunami victims instead.
In the Vatican, Pope John Paul II delivered his annual New Year's message. He asked for world peace and for the prayers of the Virgin Mary. Later, the 84-year-old pontiff plans New Year's midnight mass in his private chapel for the tsunami victims.
And even amid wartime, U.S. troops stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan didn't let the New Year pass unmarked. They set up their own ball that dropped. There you see it. 2005 ringing in just a few moments ago there in Kabul.
It's part of the annual New Year's tradition to spend some time looking back at the year that's ending. CNN's Anderson Cooper hitting the rewind button on 2004, which saw some memorable events.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The battle for Falluja started before it officially started. And I remember thinking this is what the end of the world sounds like, crashing all around us. And it continued for days and days. I never thought that anything could be so loud. I never thought that anything could be so violent and still leave anything standing.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATE: We're very upbeat, thank you. JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Former President Bush was in the White House. He kept awake and kept staying up. And we're going to go give a speech. We have a speech. Are we going to go give a speech? The president at one point went down found him glued to the TV watching the results. He said, "Damn it, dad, go to bed."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just Mother Nature at her worst.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The feeling of standing in hurricane force winds is unlike anything else we experience in broadcast journalism.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This hurricane season was one that a lot of folks, especially folks in Florida, are not going to forget. And I certainly won't forget.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're here at the Riyadh camp outside El Genina, the capital of western Darfur.
It was imperative for us at CNN as journalists to report from Darfur. And it is meaning to what we do as journalists. Our duty is to go there and tell those stories and try and try and try to make sure that these things either get put right or hopefully don't happen again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: CNN rings in the New Year live from Times Square tonight at 11:00 p.m. You'll see celebrations from coast to coast and around the world. Secretary of State Colin Powell will be part of the event and many musical groups will take the stage.
Join Anderson Cooper for a New Year's Eve tradition live from Times Square beginning at 11:00 p.m. Eastern time.
Thousands of Iraqis are eagerly awaiting their chance to cast a vote in the upcoming election. And many of them will be doing just that from their American homes.
Reporter Deidre Wilson from WZTV in Nashville talked with just a few of the many members of the Iraqi electorate in her city.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEIDRE WILSON, WZTV NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They work here. They pray here. And now close to 8,000 Iraqi citizens living in Nashville will vote here. But not for an American government. Nashville will be one of five cities in the U.S. that will hold Iraqi elections next month, which is great news for Lokman Rashid, who fled from Iraq 12 years ago, escaping Saddam Hussein's regime.
LOKMAN RASHID, KURDISH AMERICAN: So we had only follow what was coming from Saddam and his regime.
WILSON: Rashid now a realtor is ready for change and hopes the election will make the difference. RASHID: We are very hopeful that we're going to see an elected government coming to Iraq and treat the people, Shi'ia, Sunni, Kurds, all the other ethnic groups equally.
KAREN HIRSCHFIELD, NASHVILLE OUT OF COUNTRY ELECTIONS: They will be voting for a national assembly, much like our Senate and House and representatives.
WILSON: Karen Hirschfield, the head of Nashville Out of Country Elections, says the whole process will be very fast.
HIRSCHFIELD: The registration period will be from the 17th to the 23rd of January. And then we'll have five-day display period where the list will be publicly shown at the registration sites and then three days of voting from the 28th to the 30th of January to coincide with the Iraqi elections.
WILSON: The election is less than a month away. And local members of the Kurdish community are welcoming the opportunity to have a say in the future of their homeland, but are a little skeptical.
TAHIR HUSSAIN, KURDISH AMERICAN: It is a wonderful opportunity. However, it is, even though it's a new experience, it's not going to be very effective. It's very late, especially the planning for the Iraqi relief outside of the country.
HIRSCHFIELD: And it's just now that the amendments have gotten through, and that the machinery has started up in all these countries to enable the people to vote. And then they had to identify the cities with the major Iraqi populations.
WILSON (on camera): Although the election is still a month away and the process is still undecided, one thing's for sure. Iraqis here in Nashville will be lined up to cast their ballots.
(voice-over): In Nashville, Deidre Wilson, News Center.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: And we thank Deidre and WZTV for that.
Texas A&M faces off against the Tennessee Volunteers in the Cotton Bowl tomorrow. By the way, it's the SBC Cotton Bowl we found out. When the Aggies enter the stadium, they'll bring with them one player who traded his military fatigues for the team's maroon and white uniform after getting wounded in battle.
Larry Smith introduces us to a veteran player inspiring a team.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY SMITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Football players often refer to past injuries as battle scars. For Texas A&M's Josh Amstutz, analogy is reality.
JOSH AMSTUTZ, TEXAS A&M FOOTBALL PLAYER: It hit right above my right knee and came over on the side. So it kind of missed the bone and arteries and came out the side. And my staff sergeant actually saw it in a pool of blood.
SMITH: In April of 2003 while his Marine unit was on patrol in suburban Baghdad, Amstutz took a sniper's bullet in the right leg.
AMSTUTZ: And I started thinking about Blackhawk Down and different things like that, a guy, who bled out through his leg because an artery had been hit. So I was like this could be a quick two minutes. I mean, this could be it.
SMITH: The injury was not as serious as Amstutz feared. Medics on the scene tended to the wound. And he recovered in a Kuwait hospital. Amstutz was transferred back to the U.S. and reunited with his wife, Jessica. In 2001, Jessica had taken Josh to College Station to watch her alma mater play football. Now three years later, Josh decided he wanted to return as a walk-on player.
AMSTUTZ: We had try-outs on a Monday morning.
JESSICA AMSTUTZ, JOSH'S WIFE: I really didn't see him making it. I thought, well he's going to try out and he's not going to make it and then we're going to move on to whatsoever is next.
JOSH AMSTUTZ: I went up to a list and I looked down. I was like - didn't really - thought I saw my name because I wasn't really expecting to make the team and walked away. And was like, wait a minute, I think I saw my name up there. And I turned back around and sure enough, it said Amstutz.
JESSICA AMSTUTZ: Sure enough he calls and he said, "Jess, I made the A&M football team."
JOSH AMSTUTZ: I think it was one of the biggest moments in my life.
SMITH: AA walk-on's primarily responsibility is to help the starting team prepare for the upcoming game. But Amstutz's teammate are also benefiting from the fact that before he donned Aggie maroon, he was adorned with a purple heart.
DENNIS FRANCHIONE, TEXAS A&M HEAD COACH: He's been through some real life experiences. Most of our guys have not been through anything like that. And he's been somewhat of an educational tool for them.
JAXSON APPEL, TEXAS A&M DEFENSIVE BACK: When it's 170 degrees out there during two days, and you're feeling sorry for yourselves, and you think about what he went through. And it was 130 degrees and he was getting shot at and having to shoot people, you know, it really puts it into perspective that hey, this is football practice. You know, we're blessed to be here.
SMITH: Amstutz couldn't agree more.
JOSH AMSTUTZ: I've already passed all my expectations. So I mean, whatever's next. I mean, it's whatever God has for me. SMITH: Larry Smith, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Well, it's going to be a slightly less rockin' New Year's Eve without Dick Clark to emcee the ball drop in Times Square. Can they really do without him?
And prison life may be taking its toll on Martha Stewart who lost out, you are not going to believe. Well we'll tell you in just a moment. She lost out in a very important contest.
Sibila Vargas joins us now from L.A. with all of that in our entertainment report.
Hello, Sibila.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Miles, that's right. After 32 years of helping us bring in the New Year, this time Dick Clark will be watching the ball drop from a hospital bed.
The 75-year-old suffered a mild stroke and has been in the hospital for nearly a month now. His spokesman said Clark is undergoing rehab and his doctors are thrilled with Clark's progress.
Now Clark says as he does every year he plans on kissing his wife Carrie at midnight and wishing her a happy New Year. And Happy New Year to you, Mr. Clark -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes, we wish him well. The timeless one. We hope he's doing OK.
All right, Martha Stewart lost a contest. Folks are going to be a little surprised which contest she lost.
VARGAS: That's right. Martha Stewart has made a fortune on home decorating tips. But in prison, well, she's just not cutting it.
It looks like the domestic diva came up short in a prison decorating contest. That's right. Stewart and a team of it inmates were given $25 worth of glitter, construction paper and ribbons to build a display based on the theme peace on earth.
But apparently Stewart's crafted paper cranes were no match for the competing team's nativity scene.
OK, so Stewart lost a contest, but how about losing millions of dollars? That's how the New Year is shaping up for Anna Nicole Smith. A federal appeals court has thrown out a lower court judge's ruling that awarded the former Playmate $88.5 million of her late husband's fortune. Now Smith claimed that she was entitled to the money because her 90-year old husband promised to take care of her before he passed away. Smith's lawyer says he'll appeal the ruling.
And finally, this year we said good-bye to a lot of entertainers. And one of the greatest was Artie Shaw. The jazz musician ranked up there with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller as the band leaders who made music swing. Some of his hits included "Dancing in the Dark," "Stardust," "Moonglow" and "Accentuate the Positive."
Mr. Shaw was 94-years old when he passed away. And we are certainly going to miss him. His legacy will definitely live on.
O'BRIEN: That's a great one. All right, Sibila Vargas, thank you very much. Happy New Year to you.
VARGAS: Thank you. Happy New Year to you and to our viewers.
O'BRIEN: All right. Do you have a travel complaint? Who doesn't? The government's just set up a new hotline to handle the Christmas airline snafu. Some sort of call center in Bangalore, probably. No, just a call center.
Later, we tip our hat to the man helping dress President Bush for inauguration. It's a 10-gallon job if you catch my drift.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: News across America now. Got a gripe about your holiday flight? The U.S. Department of Transportation has opened a hotline for complaints. Hope they have a lot of lines. The government wants input from those stranded after U.S. Airways and Comair grounded more than 1,000 flights last Saturday. You can call the number on your screen. There it is. Or you may e-mail the inspector general's Web site. I'd do the latter.
Crippling snowstorms accompanied by savage winds continue their week long assault on western states. Forecasters predict up to 8 feet of snow carried by 70-mile-an-hour winds, blanketing peaks near Lake Tahoe tonight. If you can get there or if you are there, what great skiing there will be.
Storms are blowing through Arizona, Nevada and Colorado, and into North Dakota. Winter weary residents can expect more of the same over the next few days.
And the Justice Department has drafted new guidelines for the Bush administration to follow when interrogating suspected terrorists. The memo says torture cannot be used for a "good reason." And it says several physical - severe, I should say, physical suffering may constitute torture, even if it does not involve severe pain.
This is a time when a lot of people take stock of how they've spent their money. They make resolutions to make changes in the New Year.
CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie Mcintyre says it's no different at the Pentagon. It's just that the numbers on the spreadsheet have a lot more zeroes behind them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With a sticker price that has soared from $35 million to a whopping $260 million a plane, the F-22 Raptor is now in the crosshairs of Pentagon budget cutters. Even as the Air Force insists the most expensive fighter plane ever is a must have.
GEN. JOHN JUMPER, AIR FORCE CHIEF OF STAFF: We're going to have to make sure that the surface to air missiles and the fighters that are again being delivered today are swept clean so that our troops can operate. This is the airplane to do that.
MCINTYRE: Sources say the Pentagon is under the gun to trim $10 billion from next year's budget and as much as $60 billion in defense spending over the next six years. One option being considered, cutting back the planned buy of 277 F-22s by about 100 planes to save roughly $15 billion.
Even with the cuts, Defense officials say that the Pentagon budget would still grow next year, although the planned reductions would effectively end the three-year defense build-up that followed the September 11th attacks.
Sources say the White House is pushing for deep cuts to reign in rising federal deficits, which are fueled in part by the combined $5 billion a month cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
STEVEN KOSIAK, STRATEGIC BUDGETARY ASSESSMENT: It's probably necessary that they make some cuts. The Pentagon has a very ambitious modernization plan, a very ambitious force structure plan. It's probably not affordable over the long term given the concerns about the deficit.
MCINTYRE: Among the proposed cuts, retiring and not replacing the fossil fueled aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy. That would reduce the aircraft carrier fleet from 12 to 11, building fewer of the Navy's next generation DDX destroyers and delaying development of the Army's high-tech future combat system.
(on camera): Pentagon officials say the budget cuts are not final and part of a long-term strategy to jettison Cold War concepts. But Congress may have the last word. And some critics, including some members of the president's own party, fear the Pentagon may be mortgaging its future simply to pay the mounting bill for the war in Iraq.
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Well, the stock market is open today. David Haffenreffer is working, but not many other traders are. Nevertheless, a report, please, David.
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: A full hour of trading left on this final trading day of 2004. It's been a very quiet volume day here today, Miles. And the stock market basically not moving with too much conviction in either direction.
Although, we do have the Dow industrials winding its way toward some better gains here as we get closer to the closing bell for the day and the year. Dow industrials up by 21 points, 10,822, while the Nasdaq composite index is adding a quarter of one percent. That is a quick check on your business headlines.
Miles, back to you.
O'BRIEN: All right, we'll check in with you next hour. Thank you, David.
We're standing by for a news conference on tsunami aid at the United Nations. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan scheduled to speak. We're going to have it for you live. There you see the camera. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Well, if President Bush walks a little taller at his upcoming inauguration, it's not necessarily due to second-term pride. It's because the head of state will be topped off by a cowboy hat.
Though Mr. Bush was born in Connecticut, he spent enough time as a Texan to earn the right to a custom made chapeau. They call them that in Texas?
Anyway, a Greeley, Colorado hatmaker has earned the right to make it for him. Reporter Gary Wolf of CNN's Denver affiliate KUSA meets the first milliner.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRENT JOHNSON, GREELEY HATWORKS: My name's Trent Johnson. I custom make hats at Greeley Hatworks. And today, we're building a hat for the leader of the free world.
To build a hat like this for the president takes more than just the average hat. Normally, we have six to eight hours. And what - this one will have nearly 20.
Then what we're going to do is press the brim. I got to build a hat for the president in 2002. It was given to him by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association when he came to speak at their annual convention in Denver.
Then we're going to slide it back here into this.
To see the leader of the free world wear a hat built by little old me in Greeley, Colorado, I mean, beyond description. And after that, I got to meet the president. He shook my hand and thanked me for the hat, got my picture taken with him.
And then about three weeks later, he sent a handwritten thank you card. I know he really appreciated it because he told me he did. Well, I thought it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. And so, you know, I really, really raised the bar on that first hat. I had to make it just super unique, one of a kind, the best thing I've ever built.
Well, then, I get asked to build a second one. So now it's a twice in a lifetime opportunity. And once again, the bar has been raised higher. So I had to step up and come up with some new, cool stuff to make the president the best hat ever.
So to come together, we're going to have the George W. Bush liner in the hat and his George W. Bush matching sweat band. This will all get sewed in.
We combined works with my custom silversmith. The gentleman that makes my custom hat carriers, a leather craftsman, everybody -- I had to bring everybody together to try to make all the pieces one of a kind unique, that would be -- top off the president's hat.
At times the competition has accused us of setting the hat industry back 100 years just because we still do everything by hand. And it's kind of a one at a time type of game here at Greeley Hatworks. We're OK with that because we like doing them one at a time, the old-fashioned way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Now in the news, the old-fashioned way. Any minute now, we expect Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to brief us on efforts to help tsunami survivors. A short time ago, the United States increased its pledge ten-fold, from $35 million to $350 million.
A somber start to the New Year in South Asia. Candlelight vigils for the dead and the missing have replaced the usual fireworks. In the words of one tourist who survived the tsunamis, "no one is in the mood for celebrating." There's an understatement.
Quitting, but not conceding. Viktor Yunokovich has resigned his post as Ukraine's prime minister, but he says he'll continue to challenge the results from Sunday's election. That election gave the presidency to his rival, Viktor Yuschenko.
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