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Iraqi Expats Register to Vote; Conditions in Refugee Camps Could Lead to Health Problems; Man Survives Nail Embedded in Skull
Aired January 17, 2005 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush administration is taking aim today at a published report that says the U.S. government intends to attack Iran. The report in the current "New Yorker" says planning is underway to eliminate targets related to Iran's weapons programs. The author of the story is Seymour Hersh, he spoke on AMERICAN MORNING.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEYMOUR HERSH, "THE NEW YORKER": The fact is that we are operating, right now, in and out of Iran. We are collecting intelligence. Why we working so hard at it? Because the last thing this administration wants to do is hit some targets, and bomb some targets in Iran, which will cause an enormous furor, and not be right.
We want to make sure we're not going have another second, second WMD mistake, as we did in Iraq.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Hersh says his reporting is based on inside sources whose aim is to force the Bush administration to reconsider its thinking.
The White House and Pentagon both are taking issue with Hersh's purported facts and his conclusions, but neither is denying the story outright.
Here's a former general, CNN's military analyst, Don Shepperd.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: There are portions of it that are true. There's lots of information in that article, and the fact that the United States is developing plans to attack the nuclear infrastructure of Iraq -- of Iran, I'm sorry, is clearly true.
We are developing target options. We are looking at overhead. We're getting coordinates. We're doing all the things you would do in what we call deliberate planning to take place to hit targets in case of war. You don't wait until war breaks out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: General Shepard says the Bush administration wants to keep Iran guessing. BETTY NGUYEN, CO-HOST: The election in Iraq is less than two weeks away, and today many Iraqis who live in this country have appointments with democracy. They are flocking by the hundreds to five locations where Iraqi exiles can register to vote.
We have a report on how it's going from New Carrolton, Maryland, outside the nation's capital. It's from Sarah Lee of CNN affiliate WJLA.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARAH LEE, WJLA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once the clock struck 8, it didn't take long for voters to arrive. These people aren't just registering to vote. They're writing history.
NAZAR HAIDAR, IRAQI VOTER: This is the fairest state to change Iraq to -- back, yes. To grow the democratic -- democracy in Iraq.
LEE: As many as 24,000 Iraqi expatriates are expected to make the trip to this New Carrolton Ramada Inn. They'll travel from all over the northeast, not just this week but again at the end of the month.
Yussif Saleh drove 5 1/2 hours to register and will return when absentee balloting begins on January 28.
YUSSIF SALEH, IRAQI VOTER: We are very, very happy. Both to our new government and new country and new everything.
LEE: The U.S. is just one of 14 nations holding out of country elections that will help fill the 275-member transitional national assembly.
Voters will choose from 111 political entities that appear on the ballot, but they are undaunted. After living under a dictator, so many choices are a welcome change.
ROGER BRYANT, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION: Many of us here take elections for granted. Often, we can't be bothered to turn out, but the right to elect and to be elected is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
LEE: Rights that have been decades overdue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: And that report was from reporter Sarah Lee with CNN affiliate WJLA.
Moving on, will a wave of disease follow in the wake of the tsunami disaster? CNN's Atika Shubert is in Indonesia with a closer look at health concerns for the survivors there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flimsy tents with mud floors, living off of donated food, water and clothes, these are the homes of more than 600,000 tsunami survivors left homeless in Aceh.
(on camera) This is the largest camp in Banda Aceh. Thousands of people living in squalid conditions. And this is actually one of the biggest threats to survivors' health, because it's the perfect environment for disease to spread quickly.
(voice-over) Asnidad (ph) knows all too well. All three of her children suffer from fits of coughing and diarrhea.
"I saved my children from the water. I will not let them die here," she says. She is determined, but angry, at camp conditions. "This is something I don't understand. We have already suffered so much. Why are we suffering even more?"
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tent is good but not good for...
SHUBERT: Mufid (ph) is the camp's makeshift coordinator, an Acehnese (ph) graduate student struggling to run it with student volunteers. Today he is trying to secure ground sheets for tents. The start of the rainy season has turned the camp into a swamp.
This is actually one of the better camps. It has toilets, a luxury in other places, though only a handful to service more than 4,000. Still, it's better than what Mufid (ph) found when he first got here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For one and until two weeks, you know, they just flying toilets, you know that? So when they have this one, this plastic, they throw out. They're flying out.
SHUBERT: Aid organizations have also donated clean water, but it always seems to run short. And then there's the garbage.
(on camera) So where's the garbage now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see that?
SHUBERT: It's everywhere.
(voice-over) Mufid (ph) does the best he can as Asnidar (ph) struggles to keep her children healthy. Aid workers worry that conditions like this, it may only be a matter of time before disease strikes.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: A Colorado man is recovering after doctors removed a four-inch nail from his head, a wound he didn't even know he had. How, you might ask?
Gina Kim with CNN affiliate KUSA has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what drugs are you allergic to?
PATRICK LAWLER, NAIL GUN ACCIDENT VICTIM: None.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
GINA KIM, KUSA REPORTER (voice-over): Patrick Lawler remembers it clearly. A week ago, he accidentally hit his face with what he thought was the back of his nail gun. His lips bled a little bit, but that was it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any dental work that's removable?
LAWLER: No.
KIM: When he got a toothache and blurry vision in his right eye, doctors prescribed ibuprofen and ice packs.
LAWLER: Six days we were icing it and taking Advil. I thought I just got hit real hard, like a punch. Way off!
KIM: When his wife finally convinced him to take an X-ray at her dental office...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow.
KIM: ... they couldn't believe what they saw.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm like, "What did you do with the machine? Are you making a joke?" And they were like, "No, no, no. It's really a nail there." And he was like, "That's impossible. It's impossible."
LAWLER: You just got a nail in your brain. It's pretty shocking.
KIM: The nail entered through his lip and lodged itself millimeters away from his right eye. It stopped just within his brain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the second one we've actually seen at this hospital where the person was injured by the nail gun and didn't actually realize the nail had been embedded in their skull.
LAWLER: Later, uncles, aunts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See you in a little bit.
KIM: Last night, Lawler went in for a risky six-hour surgery. This morning, he was back to his old self-again, minus the nail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here I come. Here it is.
LAWLER: Yes, I always considered myself lucky, you know. You don't shoot yourself in the face every day with a nail and have it not do anything. And it definitely makes one think about a profession change. You know?
KIM: Lawler plans to display the nail in his living room. He'll probably go back to his construction job.
LAWLER: I'm tired and I'm sore.
KIM: But he plans to use a hammer from now on.
Gina Kim, 9 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: That is one lucky man.
Well, a court ruling rips apart a Florida family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can they do this to a little boy?
GENE SCOTT, ADOPTIVE FATHER: Because they're evil.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can they do this to him?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: A birth mother sues for custody after giving up her son for adoption three years ago. The case raises some tricky legal questions. We will go in depth just ahead.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT)
(commercial break)
NGUYEN: Want it take you to Atlanta Beach, Florida, and the story of an adoption fiasco that would strain the wisdom of Solomon.
CNN's Carol Lin with more on the story of Evan Scott and the legal battle, plus the emotional battle over parental rights.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Gene Scott was silent as he packed his son Evan's belongings into the car, preparing him for a trip Evan thinks is only a visit. No matter what the Scotts tell him, Gene says the 3-year-old does not understand he's never coming back.
But the pain was etched in the faces and screams of his adoptive parents, who handed Evan to his biological mother, Amanda Hopkins, and her new husband. Emotional friends and neighbors shouted at them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is that the husband (UNINTELLIGIBLE) when you take him from her?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm very upset about this because this poor child -- I've been here since 9 a.m. this morning watching this child be traumatized by this situation. And nobody cares about how he feels.
LIN: The custody battle has been raging for three years.
Evan wasn't even born when his mother agreed the Scotts could adopt him. They watched his birth and took him two days later.
But then the boy's biological father came forward to challenge the adoption. Steven White says he was never consulted and wanted custody. That's when Amanda Hopkins filed, as well, a move the Scotts say was done only to spite her ex-boyfriend.
Last month a judge ruled that Evan leave the only parents he's ever known and be returned to Hopkins. The biological father gets visitation rights.
G. SCOTT: They're absolutely evil. It's more about Evan. It's more than about him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How could they...
G. SCOTT: It's more than about Evan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can they do this to a little boy?
G. SCOTT: Because they're evil.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How could they do this to him?
G. SCOTT: Because they're evil.
LIN: Dawn and Gene Scott's grief was overwhelming.
DAWN SCOTT, ADOPTIVE MOTHER: Nobody will listen to me.
LIN: When Evan left she fell to her knees and cried.
D. SCOTT: That little boy has been traumatized and hurt and nobody cares.
LIN: The Scotts are claiming his biological parents have abused the child and exposed him to drug use. They are appealing to get Evan back.
G. SCOTT: We're devastated. We have an appeal. We still have hope. If they really loved him they wouldn't have done this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's taken a toll on my entire family.
We're still fighting. I guarantee we'll die fighting.
LIN: Carol Lin, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: Now although Evan's story is a relatively rare adoption outcome, it is a painful reminder of the disconnect that exists in many states between the law and what may or may not be in the best interest of the child.
Now we're joined by John Mayoue, an family attorney here in Atlanta, to talk about this.
Three years after this child has been placed with this family -- they took him when he was just two days old -- the mother gets custody. Now is there some kind of a statute of limitations that could prevent this?
JOHN MAYOUE, FAMILY ATTORNEY: There should be, I suppose. But what happened in this case, the biological father did what he was supposed to do under Florida law, that is, if he objected to the adoption, he was to come forward and say, "I object."
Unfortunately, and the terrible tragedy is, that this child has been raised by the Scotts for some 3 1/2 years while this legal fight has been going on. But the father did the right thing.
NGUYEN: All right. The father did the right thing, but there is some question, as well, because once the father filed, then the mother filed and said, "I want custody." And she ended up getting the custody.
In these cases, does it typically go to the biological parents when you've got an adoptive parent up against a biological parent?
MAYOUE: In the old days it always went in favor of the biological parent, that is, the family with blood ties.
In today's environment we're looking more towards something that's called a psychological parent model. That is we want to know the nature and quality of the relationship of parents with children, whether biologically related or not. And that's what seems to be missing here.
NGUYEN: And back to the father filing. He did the right thing, and these adoptive parents knew that there was a clause like that, correct?
MAYOUE: They knew that they had risk from the time the child was born, that the adoption may not go through. What's particularly odd about this case is it appeared that the natural mother was OK with the adoption until we got to the point where it looked like the natural father might win. That's when her position changed.
NGUYEN: So can the courts take that into account, because it appears it's a fight between the biological mother and the biological father, and it really has less to do about the boy than it does about them two and their conflict?
MAYOUE: It's an unspeakable situation for the Scotts, the adoptive parents. It's like a death in the family. They're losing the child they've been raising for 3 1/2 years.
But I think more importantly, here's this poor little boy, who doesn't know who his parents are, doesn't know where he belongs, doesn't know where he's going to be looking for nourishment and comfort after 3 1/2 years. And that's really the tragedy of this case to me.
NGUYEN: Well, which brings into play what's in the best interest for the child? In this case, they still -- the judge still went with the biological mother.
MAYOUE: He did, but you have to question this. The biological father objected very early on in the procedure. The child is born in May. The father came forward in July. And in this country we're more and more attuned today to parental rights for fathers than we ever were.
The contrast, the hard part of this case, is that: are his rights superior to the rights of the child himself, who's been in this beautiful, apparently nice home environment for 3 1/2 years?
NGUYEN: So what are the chances of these adoptive parents, which you saw there in that story just so upset about this, getting Evan back?
MAYOUE: I think they're relatively slim, given that the father apparently correctly objected to their adoption. And the adoption never went through. That's what I think we're missing here. The adoption started, but it was never finished.
And he had the right to come forward and say, "This is my child. I do not want my child adopted by other persons."
NGUYEN: So legally, everything has been done correctly by the biological father. He appears to have won in the instance?
MAYOUE: Except the appeal is going to be interesting, because what the parents are going to say, "OK, father you may have technically filed this the correct way, but I want the appellate courts to say what's really in the best interest of this child."
NGUYEN: This child.
MAYOUE: That's where they're going to come down.
NGUYEN: And let's talk about that just briefly, because what does this do to the child caught in the middle?
MAYOUE: I can't imagine that a child psychologist could even fix the trauma that's being vested upon this child. At 3 1/2 years of age, to be taken out of your home, to be taken away from the only people you've ever known as Mommy and Daddy, as the people that sort of set the rules in life, it's unimaginable.
NGUYEN: Is there anything being done within the courts, within the system, within the law, to change this so that this doesn't happen to other families?
MAYOUE: Every state is trying to refine their adoption procedures to prevent this kind of thing happening.
But one of the really interesting and I think really tragic parts of this case, it may wind up that the very parents that have raised this child for 3 1/2 years will not even be allowed to visit with him again, because they may be legal strangers to this child once all these proceedings end.
NGUYEN: So they could be cut off completely from this child?
MAYOUE: Totally.
NGUYEN: All right. John Mayoue, family law attorney, we appreciate you breaking it down for us, helping us understand what's happening in this case and many other cases, perhaps, out there, as well. Thank you.
MAYOUE: Thanks, Betty.
HARRIS: Just days before his inauguration President Bush finds himself in hot water with some conservatives over his comments on gay marriage. Judy Woodruff has the story on "INSIDE POLITICS."
And next on LIVE FROM, holy horsepower. The pope gets a hot new set of wheels.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: OK, here we go, a LIVE FROM bonus story.
We've always known the pope had some pretty hot wheels, but check this out: a flame red Ferrari. Pity Betty, it's only a model.
The Formula One world championship team gave it to the pope. Gave it to him today. In the words of the Ferrari's president, the pope is in the poll position of humanity.
More LIVE FROM after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: The Golden State, California, where mudslides, flash floods and record rainfall were a harsh reality this month.
NGUYEN: But the sun is shining again in Southern California, and optimism rules, as CNN's Peter Viles discovered in Santa Monica.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Why would anyone want to live in Southern California? On a weekend like this one in January, do you really have to ask?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where else could you be surfing in the middle of January?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: California has everything there is about -- good about life and sunshine, happy people, great days.
VILES: Even two weeks of heavy rain didn't dampen that L.A. spirit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's always a brighter day ahead. I mean, just like everything else, one day shall pass. And here we are, another nice day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've lived here all my life, and this is just a fluke. So it's over. It's done. And now we're back to California life.
VILES: California life, that means beach volleyball year round. It means ideal weather for skateboarding, although kids out here don't say ideal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pretty awesome, I must say.
VILES: In fact, Southern Californians has their own language to describe life out here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fun and awesome and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And sweet!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The weather's absolutely divine out here. You can't beat it.
VILES (on camera): Absolutely divine?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely divine, yes.
VILES (voice-over): Even that infamous traffic, Californians insist it's not really all that bad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of people meditate in their cars. That's what I do. And it makes me -- I'm like, all right, I'm blissful. I'm just driving, you know?
VILES: And the weather? Sorry, folks, the forecast for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, sunny every single day, highs in the 60s and 70s.
Peter Viles, CNN, Santa Monica, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: I'm going to have to try that meditating in that awful traffic.
HARRIS: You should. You should. You're not going anywhere.
NGUYEN: Might as well use your time wisely.
HARRIS: Absolutely.
NGUYEN: That wraps up this Monday edition of LIVE FROM.
HARRIS: And now to take us through the next hour of political headlines is Judy Woodruff's "INSIDE POLITICS."
Hi, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF, HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Hi, Tony. Thanks to you and Betty.
Well, President Bush is set to speak in 30 minutes on the legacy of the late Martin Luther King Jr. We'll bring you his remarks live.
Plus, can the president learn a thing or two from other inaugural speeches? Our Bruce Morton looks at words from presidents' past and if they might help our current president in his vision for a new America.
"INSIDE POLITICS" begins in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Good evening. I'm Betty Nguyen here at the CNN Center. "INSIDE POLITICS" is next after a look at the stories now in the news.
The Pentagon says a report suggesting the U.S. is cooking up plans to attack certain sites in Iran is, quote, "riddled with errors of fundamental fact." The article, written by journalist Seymour Hersh, talks of secret intelligence gathering missions in Iran. More reaction ahead on CNN's "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS." That's at 5 Eastern.
In the meantime, clemency decades later. Louisiana's governor signed a pardon on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday for Betty Claiborne. The civil rights pioneer was arrested in 1963 while trying to integrate a public swimming pool. Claiborne now works as a prison chaplain.
Time now for "JUDY WOODRUFF'S INSIDE POLITICS."
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 17, 2005 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush administration is taking aim today at a published report that says the U.S. government intends to attack Iran. The report in the current "New Yorker" says planning is underway to eliminate targets related to Iran's weapons programs. The author of the story is Seymour Hersh, he spoke on AMERICAN MORNING.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEYMOUR HERSH, "THE NEW YORKER": The fact is that we are operating, right now, in and out of Iran. We are collecting intelligence. Why we working so hard at it? Because the last thing this administration wants to do is hit some targets, and bomb some targets in Iran, which will cause an enormous furor, and not be right.
We want to make sure we're not going have another second, second WMD mistake, as we did in Iraq.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Hersh says his reporting is based on inside sources whose aim is to force the Bush administration to reconsider its thinking.
The White House and Pentagon both are taking issue with Hersh's purported facts and his conclusions, but neither is denying the story outright.
Here's a former general, CNN's military analyst, Don Shepperd.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: There are portions of it that are true. There's lots of information in that article, and the fact that the United States is developing plans to attack the nuclear infrastructure of Iraq -- of Iran, I'm sorry, is clearly true.
We are developing target options. We are looking at overhead. We're getting coordinates. We're doing all the things you would do in what we call deliberate planning to take place to hit targets in case of war. You don't wait until war breaks out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: General Shepard says the Bush administration wants to keep Iran guessing. BETTY NGUYEN, CO-HOST: The election in Iraq is less than two weeks away, and today many Iraqis who live in this country have appointments with democracy. They are flocking by the hundreds to five locations where Iraqi exiles can register to vote.
We have a report on how it's going from New Carrolton, Maryland, outside the nation's capital. It's from Sarah Lee of CNN affiliate WJLA.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARAH LEE, WJLA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once the clock struck 8, it didn't take long for voters to arrive. These people aren't just registering to vote. They're writing history.
NAZAR HAIDAR, IRAQI VOTER: This is the fairest state to change Iraq to -- back, yes. To grow the democratic -- democracy in Iraq.
LEE: As many as 24,000 Iraqi expatriates are expected to make the trip to this New Carrolton Ramada Inn. They'll travel from all over the northeast, not just this week but again at the end of the month.
Yussif Saleh drove 5 1/2 hours to register and will return when absentee balloting begins on January 28.
YUSSIF SALEH, IRAQI VOTER: We are very, very happy. Both to our new government and new country and new everything.
LEE: The U.S. is just one of 14 nations holding out of country elections that will help fill the 275-member transitional national assembly.
Voters will choose from 111 political entities that appear on the ballot, but they are undaunted. After living under a dictator, so many choices are a welcome change.
ROGER BRYANT, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION: Many of us here take elections for granted. Often, we can't be bothered to turn out, but the right to elect and to be elected is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
LEE: Rights that have been decades overdue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: And that report was from reporter Sarah Lee with CNN affiliate WJLA.
Moving on, will a wave of disease follow in the wake of the tsunami disaster? CNN's Atika Shubert is in Indonesia with a closer look at health concerns for the survivors there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flimsy tents with mud floors, living off of donated food, water and clothes, these are the homes of more than 600,000 tsunami survivors left homeless in Aceh.
(on camera) This is the largest camp in Banda Aceh. Thousands of people living in squalid conditions. And this is actually one of the biggest threats to survivors' health, because it's the perfect environment for disease to spread quickly.
(voice-over) Asnidad (ph) knows all too well. All three of her children suffer from fits of coughing and diarrhea.
"I saved my children from the water. I will not let them die here," she says. She is determined, but angry, at camp conditions. "This is something I don't understand. We have already suffered so much. Why are we suffering even more?"
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tent is good but not good for...
SHUBERT: Mufid (ph) is the camp's makeshift coordinator, an Acehnese (ph) graduate student struggling to run it with student volunteers. Today he is trying to secure ground sheets for tents. The start of the rainy season has turned the camp into a swamp.
This is actually one of the better camps. It has toilets, a luxury in other places, though only a handful to service more than 4,000. Still, it's better than what Mufid (ph) found when he first got here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For one and until two weeks, you know, they just flying toilets, you know that? So when they have this one, this plastic, they throw out. They're flying out.
SHUBERT: Aid organizations have also donated clean water, but it always seems to run short. And then there's the garbage.
(on camera) So where's the garbage now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see that?
SHUBERT: It's everywhere.
(voice-over) Mufid (ph) does the best he can as Asnidar (ph) struggles to keep her children healthy. Aid workers worry that conditions like this, it may only be a matter of time before disease strikes.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: A Colorado man is recovering after doctors removed a four-inch nail from his head, a wound he didn't even know he had. How, you might ask?
Gina Kim with CNN affiliate KUSA has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what drugs are you allergic to?
PATRICK LAWLER, NAIL GUN ACCIDENT VICTIM: None.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
GINA KIM, KUSA REPORTER (voice-over): Patrick Lawler remembers it clearly. A week ago, he accidentally hit his face with what he thought was the back of his nail gun. His lips bled a little bit, but that was it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any dental work that's removable?
LAWLER: No.
KIM: When he got a toothache and blurry vision in his right eye, doctors prescribed ibuprofen and ice packs.
LAWLER: Six days we were icing it and taking Advil. I thought I just got hit real hard, like a punch. Way off!
KIM: When his wife finally convinced him to take an X-ray at her dental office...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow.
KIM: ... they couldn't believe what they saw.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm like, "What did you do with the machine? Are you making a joke?" And they were like, "No, no, no. It's really a nail there." And he was like, "That's impossible. It's impossible."
LAWLER: You just got a nail in your brain. It's pretty shocking.
KIM: The nail entered through his lip and lodged itself millimeters away from his right eye. It stopped just within his brain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the second one we've actually seen at this hospital where the person was injured by the nail gun and didn't actually realize the nail had been embedded in their skull.
LAWLER: Later, uncles, aunts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See you in a little bit.
KIM: Last night, Lawler went in for a risky six-hour surgery. This morning, he was back to his old self-again, minus the nail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here I come. Here it is.
LAWLER: Yes, I always considered myself lucky, you know. You don't shoot yourself in the face every day with a nail and have it not do anything. And it definitely makes one think about a profession change. You know?
KIM: Lawler plans to display the nail in his living room. He'll probably go back to his construction job.
LAWLER: I'm tired and I'm sore.
KIM: But he plans to use a hammer from now on.
Gina Kim, 9 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: That is one lucky man.
Well, a court ruling rips apart a Florida family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can they do this to a little boy?
GENE SCOTT, ADOPTIVE FATHER: Because they're evil.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can they do this to him?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: A birth mother sues for custody after giving up her son for adoption three years ago. The case raises some tricky legal questions. We will go in depth just ahead.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
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NGUYEN: Want it take you to Atlanta Beach, Florida, and the story of an adoption fiasco that would strain the wisdom of Solomon.
CNN's Carol Lin with more on the story of Evan Scott and the legal battle, plus the emotional battle over parental rights.
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CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Gene Scott was silent as he packed his son Evan's belongings into the car, preparing him for a trip Evan thinks is only a visit. No matter what the Scotts tell him, Gene says the 3-year-old does not understand he's never coming back.
But the pain was etched in the faces and screams of his adoptive parents, who handed Evan to his biological mother, Amanda Hopkins, and her new husband. Emotional friends and neighbors shouted at them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is that the husband (UNINTELLIGIBLE) when you take him from her?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm very upset about this because this poor child -- I've been here since 9 a.m. this morning watching this child be traumatized by this situation. And nobody cares about how he feels.
LIN: The custody battle has been raging for three years.
Evan wasn't even born when his mother agreed the Scotts could adopt him. They watched his birth and took him two days later.
But then the boy's biological father came forward to challenge the adoption. Steven White says he was never consulted and wanted custody. That's when Amanda Hopkins filed, as well, a move the Scotts say was done only to spite her ex-boyfriend.
Last month a judge ruled that Evan leave the only parents he's ever known and be returned to Hopkins. The biological father gets visitation rights.
G. SCOTT: They're absolutely evil. It's more about Evan. It's more than about him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How could they...
G. SCOTT: It's more than about Evan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can they do this to a little boy?
G. SCOTT: Because they're evil.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How could they do this to him?
G. SCOTT: Because they're evil.
LIN: Dawn and Gene Scott's grief was overwhelming.
DAWN SCOTT, ADOPTIVE MOTHER: Nobody will listen to me.
LIN: When Evan left she fell to her knees and cried.
D. SCOTT: That little boy has been traumatized and hurt and nobody cares.
LIN: The Scotts are claiming his biological parents have abused the child and exposed him to drug use. They are appealing to get Evan back.
G. SCOTT: We're devastated. We have an appeal. We still have hope. If they really loved him they wouldn't have done this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's taken a toll on my entire family.
We're still fighting. I guarantee we'll die fighting.
LIN: Carol Lin, CNN, Atlanta.
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NGUYEN: Now although Evan's story is a relatively rare adoption outcome, it is a painful reminder of the disconnect that exists in many states between the law and what may or may not be in the best interest of the child.
Now we're joined by John Mayoue, an family attorney here in Atlanta, to talk about this.
Three years after this child has been placed with this family -- they took him when he was just two days old -- the mother gets custody. Now is there some kind of a statute of limitations that could prevent this?
JOHN MAYOUE, FAMILY ATTORNEY: There should be, I suppose. But what happened in this case, the biological father did what he was supposed to do under Florida law, that is, if he objected to the adoption, he was to come forward and say, "I object."
Unfortunately, and the terrible tragedy is, that this child has been raised by the Scotts for some 3 1/2 years while this legal fight has been going on. But the father did the right thing.
NGUYEN: All right. The father did the right thing, but there is some question, as well, because once the father filed, then the mother filed and said, "I want custody." And she ended up getting the custody.
In these cases, does it typically go to the biological parents when you've got an adoptive parent up against a biological parent?
MAYOUE: In the old days it always went in favor of the biological parent, that is, the family with blood ties.
In today's environment we're looking more towards something that's called a psychological parent model. That is we want to know the nature and quality of the relationship of parents with children, whether biologically related or not. And that's what seems to be missing here.
NGUYEN: And back to the father filing. He did the right thing, and these adoptive parents knew that there was a clause like that, correct?
MAYOUE: They knew that they had risk from the time the child was born, that the adoption may not go through. What's particularly odd about this case is it appeared that the natural mother was OK with the adoption until we got to the point where it looked like the natural father might win. That's when her position changed.
NGUYEN: So can the courts take that into account, because it appears it's a fight between the biological mother and the biological father, and it really has less to do about the boy than it does about them two and their conflict?
MAYOUE: It's an unspeakable situation for the Scotts, the adoptive parents. It's like a death in the family. They're losing the child they've been raising for 3 1/2 years.
But I think more importantly, here's this poor little boy, who doesn't know who his parents are, doesn't know where he belongs, doesn't know where he's going to be looking for nourishment and comfort after 3 1/2 years. And that's really the tragedy of this case to me.
NGUYEN: Well, which brings into play what's in the best interest for the child? In this case, they still -- the judge still went with the biological mother.
MAYOUE: He did, but you have to question this. The biological father objected very early on in the procedure. The child is born in May. The father came forward in July. And in this country we're more and more attuned today to parental rights for fathers than we ever were.
The contrast, the hard part of this case, is that: are his rights superior to the rights of the child himself, who's been in this beautiful, apparently nice home environment for 3 1/2 years?
NGUYEN: So what are the chances of these adoptive parents, which you saw there in that story just so upset about this, getting Evan back?
MAYOUE: I think they're relatively slim, given that the father apparently correctly objected to their adoption. And the adoption never went through. That's what I think we're missing here. The adoption started, but it was never finished.
And he had the right to come forward and say, "This is my child. I do not want my child adopted by other persons."
NGUYEN: So legally, everything has been done correctly by the biological father. He appears to have won in the instance?
MAYOUE: Except the appeal is going to be interesting, because what the parents are going to say, "OK, father you may have technically filed this the correct way, but I want the appellate courts to say what's really in the best interest of this child."
NGUYEN: This child.
MAYOUE: That's where they're going to come down.
NGUYEN: And let's talk about that just briefly, because what does this do to the child caught in the middle?
MAYOUE: I can't imagine that a child psychologist could even fix the trauma that's being vested upon this child. At 3 1/2 years of age, to be taken out of your home, to be taken away from the only people you've ever known as Mommy and Daddy, as the people that sort of set the rules in life, it's unimaginable.
NGUYEN: Is there anything being done within the courts, within the system, within the law, to change this so that this doesn't happen to other families?
MAYOUE: Every state is trying to refine their adoption procedures to prevent this kind of thing happening.
But one of the really interesting and I think really tragic parts of this case, it may wind up that the very parents that have raised this child for 3 1/2 years will not even be allowed to visit with him again, because they may be legal strangers to this child once all these proceedings end.
NGUYEN: So they could be cut off completely from this child?
MAYOUE: Totally.
NGUYEN: All right. John Mayoue, family law attorney, we appreciate you breaking it down for us, helping us understand what's happening in this case and many other cases, perhaps, out there, as well. Thank you.
MAYOUE: Thanks, Betty.
HARRIS: Just days before his inauguration President Bush finds himself in hot water with some conservatives over his comments on gay marriage. Judy Woodruff has the story on "INSIDE POLITICS."
And next on LIVE FROM, holy horsepower. The pope gets a hot new set of wheels.
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HARRIS: OK, here we go, a LIVE FROM bonus story.
We've always known the pope had some pretty hot wheels, but check this out: a flame red Ferrari. Pity Betty, it's only a model.
The Formula One world championship team gave it to the pope. Gave it to him today. In the words of the Ferrari's president, the pope is in the poll position of humanity.
More LIVE FROM after a quick break.
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HARRIS: The Golden State, California, where mudslides, flash floods and record rainfall were a harsh reality this month.
NGUYEN: But the sun is shining again in Southern California, and optimism rules, as CNN's Peter Viles discovered in Santa Monica.
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PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Why would anyone want to live in Southern California? On a weekend like this one in January, do you really have to ask?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where else could you be surfing in the middle of January?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: California has everything there is about -- good about life and sunshine, happy people, great days.
VILES: Even two weeks of heavy rain didn't dampen that L.A. spirit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's always a brighter day ahead. I mean, just like everything else, one day shall pass. And here we are, another nice day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've lived here all my life, and this is just a fluke. So it's over. It's done. And now we're back to California life.
VILES: California life, that means beach volleyball year round. It means ideal weather for skateboarding, although kids out here don't say ideal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pretty awesome, I must say.
VILES: In fact, Southern Californians has their own language to describe life out here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fun and awesome and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And sweet!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The weather's absolutely divine out here. You can't beat it.
VILES (on camera): Absolutely divine?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely divine, yes.
VILES (voice-over): Even that infamous traffic, Californians insist it's not really all that bad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of people meditate in their cars. That's what I do. And it makes me -- I'm like, all right, I'm blissful. I'm just driving, you know?
VILES: And the weather? Sorry, folks, the forecast for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, sunny every single day, highs in the 60s and 70s.
Peter Viles, CNN, Santa Monica, California.
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NGUYEN: I'm going to have to try that meditating in that awful traffic.
HARRIS: You should. You should. You're not going anywhere.
NGUYEN: Might as well use your time wisely.
HARRIS: Absolutely.
NGUYEN: That wraps up this Monday edition of LIVE FROM.
HARRIS: And now to take us through the next hour of political headlines is Judy Woodruff's "INSIDE POLITICS."
Hi, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF, HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Hi, Tony. Thanks to you and Betty.
Well, President Bush is set to speak in 30 minutes on the legacy of the late Martin Luther King Jr. We'll bring you his remarks live.
Plus, can the president learn a thing or two from other inaugural speeches? Our Bruce Morton looks at words from presidents' past and if they might help our current president in his vision for a new America.
"INSIDE POLITICS" begins in just a moment.
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NGUYEN: Good evening. I'm Betty Nguyen here at the CNN Center. "INSIDE POLITICS" is next after a look at the stories now in the news.
The Pentagon says a report suggesting the U.S. is cooking up plans to attack certain sites in Iran is, quote, "riddled with errors of fundamental fact." The article, written by journalist Seymour Hersh, talks of secret intelligence gathering missions in Iran. More reaction ahead on CNN's "WOLF BLITZER REPORTS." That's at 5 Eastern.
In the meantime, clemency decades later. Louisiana's governor signed a pardon on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday for Betty Claiborne. The civil rights pioneer was arrested in 1963 while trying to integrate a public swimming pool. Claiborne now works as a prison chaplain.
Time now for "JUDY WOODRUFF'S INSIDE POLITICS."
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