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Massive Mudslides; President Bush Arrives in Slovakia; Hero's Welcome
Aired February 23, 2005 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT TROLE, HOMEOWNER: We got out OK. And that's -- you know, obviously, people say that's the important thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: He made it unscathed, his home did not. Record rains bring massive mudslides and devastating losses for people in southern California.
Prescription drugs just a mouse click away, but a family says online convenience meant death for their son.
Flu fears. Growing concern that Asian Bird Flu could turn into a global virus outbreak. We're going to talk with a doctor about what you need to know.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. Miles is on assignment. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
When will it end? That's the big question in southern California. After seven straight days of wild, wet weather, this rainy season is now the third wettest in the history of Los Angeles. And the evidence is everywhere.
In Malibu, a boulder that's eroded from a hillside is teetering just above the Pacific Coast Highway. As many as 30 homes in Highland Park have been red-tagged or deemed uninhabitable because of the threat of landslides. So far, six people have died in the storms. The rain has subsided for now, but forecasters predict another big storm will hit next week.
Many homeowners in southern California are on edge. While the rain is tapering off, the danger to their homes is not. It's left them with very difficult choices. Our Ted Rowlands says that residents are just salvaging whatever they can.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD GOODPASTURE, HOMEOWNER, HIGHLAND PARK, CA.: I was frightened. I mean, that was the first thing that came is fear and panic.
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Richard Goodpasture owns one of the Highland Park homes that's in danger of sliding. In the middle of the night, Richard says he heard what he thought was his backyard fence rattling.
GOODPASTURE: We just came out here and looked, and saw the fence missing, and decided that it's probably a good idea to pack up some stuff and get, you know, get away from it.
ROWLANDS: A red tag is now on Richard's home of 28 years. The red tag means the city of Los Angeles has deemed his home uninhabitable.
He, his wife and 15-year-old son are staying with relatives. The family piano is one of the few valuables they pulled out. Richard's home is one of four in this close-knit neighborhood that was red- tagged after the slide.
TROLE: Sorry. My family is fine. We got out OK. And that's -- you know, obviously, people say that's the important thing.
PATRICIA TROLE, HOMEOWNER: It sounded like a -- between an earthquake and thunder. And there was a very strong smell of wet earth.
ROWLANDS: Patricia and Robert Trole live around the corner from Richard.
P. TROLE: It was a horrible, horrible sound. And -- and I looked out over the deck and -- to see if we lost anymore land, and we realized we lost all the land.
R. TROLE: Just one day, you know, people say, if you have 20 minutes to get out, what would you take? And now I know what you take. You take your pets, and you take your family, you take your kids, you take some photographs off the wall. And you just get out.
ROWLANDS: The Lacanilao family, Mark, Geena (ph) and 6-year old Marina (ph), were escorted into their homes to get clothes and photos. Their backyard deck came crashing down with the slide.
MARK LACANILAO, HOMEOWNER: I just pray to god that nothing affects the house. Right now we have cracks all along the backside on the slab, cement slab.
ROWLANDS: Richard says he's well aware that living on a hillside is a risk. It is one that he was willing to take almost 30 years ago when he moved in.
GOODPASTURE: You're always thinking about it. I don't think there's nobody around here that's not thinking of it. We don't expect it to happen. But when it does, it does. You try to deal with it. We're lucky we're alive.
ROWLANDS (on camera): As rain continues to fall off and on around southern California, not only this hillside, but hillsides around the region become more saturated. Forecasters say they do expect a much needed break in the weather by Thursday.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: News "Across America" now.
Terrifying video caught on surveillance camera at a pizza parlor in Akron, Ohio. It shows a customer getting punched several times after he complained that a woman had jumped the line at the counter. He suffered a broken nose, a broken eye socket, concussion and chipped tooth. The man carrying out the beating was sentenced to four years in prison.
A 37-year-old Texas man is charged with capital murder in death of a pregnant Ft. Worth woman and her 7-year-old son. A detective says that Stephen Barbee confessed to the murders of Lisa Underwood and her son Jayden at their home. The detective describes Barbee as the alleged father of Underwood's unborn child.
A sad ending to efforts to identify victims of the World Trade Center attacks. The New York Medical Examiner's Office says it's ending forensic investigations at ground zero, leaving more than 1,100 victims unidentified. More than 2,700 people died at the trade center in the 9/11 attacks.
President Bush arrived about 30 minutes ago in Slovakia, the third and final stop on his fence-mending tour through Europe. The president's desire to repair relations with Europe hit a high note today during talks with one of his harshest critics.
CNN White House correspondent John King is traveling with the president.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Germany, for the first time since a bitter feud over the Iraq war, a joint promise to focus more on areas of agreement and a concerted effort by the president to allay European worries that Iran will be the next military target.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Diplomacy is just beginning. Iran is not Iraq.
KING: Mr. Bush also made clear he will not immediately push for new sanctions on Syria, saying he wants to wait and see if Damascus pulls its troops and secret police from Lebanon before May elections.
BUSH: We will see how they respond before there's any further discussions about going back to the United Nations.
KING: Just being here was significant. Back in 2003, Mr. Bush would not speak to Chancellor Schroeder for seven months because of his vocal opposition to the Iraq war. Both men now speak of a new chapter.
CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER (through translator): W have agreed that we are not going to constantly emphasize where we're not agreeing. KING: Still, differences were clear, just as they were at Mr. Bush's earlier stop in Brussels. Mr. Schroeder and others in Europe want to offer Iran financial and diplomatic incentives in exchange for a promise not to develop nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush doesn't hide his contempt for Iran's leaders, but tried to play down tactical differences with the European negotiators.
BUSH: It's vital that the Iranians hear the world speak with one voice that they shouldn't have a nuclear weapon.
KING: China is the latest sort of transatlantic tensions. Mr. Bush is urging Europeans to keep a ban on major military sales to Beijing in place. Mr. Schroeder says the embargo will be lifted. Before leaving Germany, this visit with U.S. troops and a spirited defense of the Iraq war.
BUSH: You have acted in the great liberating tradition of our nation.
KING: Opposition to the war is the driving force behind anti-Bush sentiment here and across much of Europe. Mr. Bush attributes the divide to different views of the significance of September 11.
(on camera): The president told a roundtable here that those who view the attacks on the United States as a horrible but isolated incident, and those who like him view them as a wake-up call to the global terror threat, often talk past each other. To which he quickly added, "I plead guilty at times."
John King, CNN, Mainz, Germany.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: A new study on mother's milk -- or breast milk normally considered beneficial for babies is raising concerns that it may be toxic. Scientists say that virtually all the samples they tested contain perchlorate, the component of rocket fuel. It's used by defense industry plants and can cause neurological defects in children.
Researchers say it can impair thyroid development, lowering the I.Q., and causing learning disabilities in children. Trace amounts of perchlorate can be found in drinking water. Levels found in that study were five times higher than what's found in cow's milk.
Well, has the Internet replaced the back-alley deals?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was just as easy to get Xanax as it is to get a Beanie Baby on eBay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Black market prescription drugs and online sales, the combination leads to dire consequences. That story ahead on LIVE FROM. And soldiers' homecoming. The kisses and tears and one town's tribute to the men and women who did their duty.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: News "Around the World" now.
Say this three times: a right, royal rumpus. Buckingham Palace says Queen Elizabeth II will not attend the civil marriage ceremony for her son, Prince Charles, and Camilla Parker Bowles. But the monarch will attend a religious service for the couple afterwards. The official reason is that the couple wants to keep the ceremony low key.
Tokyo's finest get a dressing drown. Japanese's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, urges police to toughen up. That's after this television news report showed police officers fleeing from a man from brandishing what appears to be a baseball bat. The police did, however, get their man in the end.
In Iran, heavy rains and snow are threatening rescue efforts after Monday's magnitude 6.4 earthquake in the southeast. So far, the death toll stands at 420, but that figure is expected to go up considerably. A U.N. official says that rescue efforts have reached a critical phase and it's getting harder and harder to find survivors.
A new offensive in Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi operations in the city of Mosul have netted 11 suspected insurgents. The U.S. military says that troops carried out four separate operations and arrested suspects in different parts of the city.
Now to a hero's welcome in America's heartland. An entire town put out the welcome mat, celebrating the long-awaited homecoming of an Illinois Army National Guard unit. That unit lost five members in Iraq. Tough challenges there left many of them changed by the war.
CNN's Aaron Brown brings us the story from eastern Illinois.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They came home marching literally up Main Street to the applause and to the sirens and especially to the tears of loved ones. But these soldiers know that war changes everyone, to those who fight, even those who stay behind.
JIM COOPER, 1544 ILLINOIS NATIONAL GUARD: It was very nerve- wracking, very nerve-wracking, because you're feeling good about everything, and all of a sudden you get a call from somebody, and they're worried. And the next thing you know, you're just worried, too.
BROWN: For the past year, while his son Matthew and the rest of the unit was in Iraq, Jim Cooper, an electrician by trade, has had one of the most difficult jobs a civilian can have. He's been the one who had to tell the families about the injuries or the deaths.
It changes you. It changes even the way you hear the phone ring.
COOPER: And you didn't know whether it was your own son, you didn't know whether it was one of the kids that you knew like a son around you. It was just -- and when I got to the armory and they told me what happened, I just broke down.
I mean, that was our first one. Not that it got any easier over the time, but it just -- all of a sudden everything had come to reality.
BROWN: Reality for the family of specialist Charles Lam (ph) of nearby Martinsville, the first member of the company to die in Iraq. And later for the family of Sergeant Shawna Morrison (ph) of Paris, the first woman ever to die in combat from Edgar County, Illinois.
Three others from the 1544 were also killed in combat. Fifteen were injured. A hundred and sixty went to war a year ago, 140 came back unharmed, though not unchanged.
COOPER: As far as the war ending, you can talk about any of these families. As far as we're concerned, the war's not ever yet, and it won't be over until all the terrorist people are stopped.
BROWN: The parade was about emotions unleashed, a time for mothers to exhale, like Tammy Johns, whose daughter Shelly enlisted in the Guard while a high school student of 17 and turned 20 in Baghdad.
TAMMY JOHNS, MOTHER OF SOLDIER: We'll have her birthday party when she gets here. We're going to have Christmas when she gets here. Got our Christmas tree still up, Christmas decorations, the whole bit. I told her we'll have a party for every single holiday she missed, even St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, the whole thing.
BROWN: Paris is a town that mostly backed the war. Ned Jenison publishes the local paper, "The Paris Beacon News," has lived here all his life.
NED JENISON, PUBLISHER, "PARIS BEACON NEWS": We've had a few letters saying that, you know, we shouldn't be there, that we should bring them home and everything. But for our people that were there, there's never any question but what, you know, the community was behind them.
BROWN: Never any question either that the town would empty out its schools and its businesses to welcome their soldiers back home.
The speeches were short. The homecomings and hugs lingered. Shelly Johns got roses and hugs. Matt Cooper got a huge embrace from his mom. And Jim Cooper, well, Jim Cooper finally had something good to preside over, something very good.
COOPER: As a parent, it just brings a tear to your eye, I'll tell you. It's just unbelievable. I knew there'd be a big crowd. This town won't let something like this go on without just everybody showing up. I just expected it. They've always been this way. They love these guys, and they're here to show it. (END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: So, have you ever heard of something called bird flu? Well, most humans who have gotten it have died, and world health officials fear it could spread. What you need to know about it just ahead.
And we'll go over Martha Stewart's current to-do list: teach yoga class, buy flower seeds and get out of jail.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. Are you financially ready for retirement? A new study says most of us are not. I'll have details coming up on LIVE FROM, so stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Fading are the back alleys and shady rendezvous. A new type of drug dealer is taking advantage of cyberspace, putting black- market drugs just a mouse click away. Our Gary Tuchman talks with one family who learned this tough lesson the hard way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 15 years, Linda Surks has worked for a New Jersey organization that seeks to prevent substance abuse. That's why what happened to her son is such a horrifying irony.
LINDA SURKS, MOTHER OF VICTIM: As soon as we walked into the emergency room and they referred to us as "the parents," we knew something was wrong.
TUCHMAN: The son of Linda and Mark Surks died of a drug overdose. The parents didn't know, but Jason Surks was buying prescription drugs over the Internet. Test results showed the 19-year-old college student overdosed on Xanax, Vicodin and Oxycontin.
MARK SURKS, FATHER OF VICTIM: I think he just looked at them as totally safe. Safe and approved by our government.
TUCHMAN: And here is what one can find: no prescription, no problem, no waiting rooms, no appointments. Drugs that Americans need prescriptions for are readily available without prescriptions.
STEVEN LIGA, COUNCIL OF ALCOHOL & DRUG DEPENDENCE: I'm very concerned because it's something we haven't seen before. It's a new type of drug dealer that provides friendly customer service, door-to- door delivery with a credit card, no middleman, no risk of getting arrested.
TUCHMAN (on camera): What did you find when you went into your son's commuter after he passed away?
M. SURKS: I found that he was visiting a variety of drug-related Web sites.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): And that he was being billed monthly by a drug Web site.
M. SURKS: It was just as easily to get Xanax as it is to get a Beanie Baby on eBay.
TUCHMAN: But that's not the only way black-market drugs are finding their way into the marketplace. University of San Francisco professor Rick Roberts was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. He got very sick a few years ago and was prescribed the drug serostin (ph).
RICK ROBERTS, COUNTERFEIT DRUG VICTIM: I had been injecting it every day for months. And then in November of 2000, I started noticing stinging at the injection sites.
TUCHMAN: Robert says his pharmacy had been duped by a counterfeit supplier.
ROBERTS: So this is real. And this is fake.
TUCHMAN: Rick Roberts had been unwittingly injecting a female pregnancy hormone.
REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D), NEW YORK: These counterfeit pharmaceuticals have become the medical equivalent of a $3 bill, but far more dangerous.
TUCHMAN: Arrests in black-market cases are rare, but this Alabama pharmacist was arrested in one recent case and pleaded guilty to illegally dispensing more than 76,000 hydrocodone pills.
ALICE MARTIN, U.S. ATTORNEY, N. DISTRICT OF ALABAMA: Money's money. They're being paid to prescribed, they're being paid to send this medication out, and they're doing it in large quantities.
TUCHMAN: Mark and Linda Surks have one other child, 16-year-old Meryl (ph), who they hope they are lovingly protecting. But they believed they were doing the same for their son.
L. SURKS: And that's the scary part. Because of my background, because I where I work and what I know, and -- we do programs to teach parents how to talk to their kids and how to see those kinds of things. And I didn't really have a clue.
TUCHMAN: The clues, it turned out, came too late.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, South Brunswick, New Jersey.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: So are you financially ready for retirement? If you answered no, you've got lots of company. New numbers show that most Americans are not prepared to take the next step. Let's find out why. Susan Lisovicz live from the New York Stock Exchange.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 23, 2005 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT TROLE, HOMEOWNER: We got out OK. And that's -- you know, obviously, people say that's the important thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: He made it unscathed, his home did not. Record rains bring massive mudslides and devastating losses for people in southern California.
Prescription drugs just a mouse click away, but a family says online convenience meant death for their son.
Flu fears. Growing concern that Asian Bird Flu could turn into a global virus outbreak. We're going to talk with a doctor about what you need to know.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. Miles is on assignment. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
When will it end? That's the big question in southern California. After seven straight days of wild, wet weather, this rainy season is now the third wettest in the history of Los Angeles. And the evidence is everywhere.
In Malibu, a boulder that's eroded from a hillside is teetering just above the Pacific Coast Highway. As many as 30 homes in Highland Park have been red-tagged or deemed uninhabitable because of the threat of landslides. So far, six people have died in the storms. The rain has subsided for now, but forecasters predict another big storm will hit next week.
Many homeowners in southern California are on edge. While the rain is tapering off, the danger to their homes is not. It's left them with very difficult choices. Our Ted Rowlands says that residents are just salvaging whatever they can.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD GOODPASTURE, HOMEOWNER, HIGHLAND PARK, CA.: I was frightened. I mean, that was the first thing that came is fear and panic.
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Richard Goodpasture owns one of the Highland Park homes that's in danger of sliding. In the middle of the night, Richard says he heard what he thought was his backyard fence rattling.
GOODPASTURE: We just came out here and looked, and saw the fence missing, and decided that it's probably a good idea to pack up some stuff and get, you know, get away from it.
ROWLANDS: A red tag is now on Richard's home of 28 years. The red tag means the city of Los Angeles has deemed his home uninhabitable.
He, his wife and 15-year-old son are staying with relatives. The family piano is one of the few valuables they pulled out. Richard's home is one of four in this close-knit neighborhood that was red- tagged after the slide.
TROLE: Sorry. My family is fine. We got out OK. And that's -- you know, obviously, people say that's the important thing.
PATRICIA TROLE, HOMEOWNER: It sounded like a -- between an earthquake and thunder. And there was a very strong smell of wet earth.
ROWLANDS: Patricia and Robert Trole live around the corner from Richard.
P. TROLE: It was a horrible, horrible sound. And -- and I looked out over the deck and -- to see if we lost anymore land, and we realized we lost all the land.
R. TROLE: Just one day, you know, people say, if you have 20 minutes to get out, what would you take? And now I know what you take. You take your pets, and you take your family, you take your kids, you take some photographs off the wall. And you just get out.
ROWLANDS: The Lacanilao family, Mark, Geena (ph) and 6-year old Marina (ph), were escorted into their homes to get clothes and photos. Their backyard deck came crashing down with the slide.
MARK LACANILAO, HOMEOWNER: I just pray to god that nothing affects the house. Right now we have cracks all along the backside on the slab, cement slab.
ROWLANDS: Richard says he's well aware that living on a hillside is a risk. It is one that he was willing to take almost 30 years ago when he moved in.
GOODPASTURE: You're always thinking about it. I don't think there's nobody around here that's not thinking of it. We don't expect it to happen. But when it does, it does. You try to deal with it. We're lucky we're alive.
ROWLANDS (on camera): As rain continues to fall off and on around southern California, not only this hillside, but hillsides around the region become more saturated. Forecasters say they do expect a much needed break in the weather by Thursday.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: News "Across America" now.
Terrifying video caught on surveillance camera at a pizza parlor in Akron, Ohio. It shows a customer getting punched several times after he complained that a woman had jumped the line at the counter. He suffered a broken nose, a broken eye socket, concussion and chipped tooth. The man carrying out the beating was sentenced to four years in prison.
A 37-year-old Texas man is charged with capital murder in death of a pregnant Ft. Worth woman and her 7-year-old son. A detective says that Stephen Barbee confessed to the murders of Lisa Underwood and her son Jayden at their home. The detective describes Barbee as the alleged father of Underwood's unborn child.
A sad ending to efforts to identify victims of the World Trade Center attacks. The New York Medical Examiner's Office says it's ending forensic investigations at ground zero, leaving more than 1,100 victims unidentified. More than 2,700 people died at the trade center in the 9/11 attacks.
President Bush arrived about 30 minutes ago in Slovakia, the third and final stop on his fence-mending tour through Europe. The president's desire to repair relations with Europe hit a high note today during talks with one of his harshest critics.
CNN White House correspondent John King is traveling with the president.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Germany, for the first time since a bitter feud over the Iraq war, a joint promise to focus more on areas of agreement and a concerted effort by the president to allay European worries that Iran will be the next military target.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Diplomacy is just beginning. Iran is not Iraq.
KING: Mr. Bush also made clear he will not immediately push for new sanctions on Syria, saying he wants to wait and see if Damascus pulls its troops and secret police from Lebanon before May elections.
BUSH: We will see how they respond before there's any further discussions about going back to the United Nations.
KING: Just being here was significant. Back in 2003, Mr. Bush would not speak to Chancellor Schroeder for seven months because of his vocal opposition to the Iraq war. Both men now speak of a new chapter.
CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER (through translator): W have agreed that we are not going to constantly emphasize where we're not agreeing. KING: Still, differences were clear, just as they were at Mr. Bush's earlier stop in Brussels. Mr. Schroeder and others in Europe want to offer Iran financial and diplomatic incentives in exchange for a promise not to develop nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush doesn't hide his contempt for Iran's leaders, but tried to play down tactical differences with the European negotiators.
BUSH: It's vital that the Iranians hear the world speak with one voice that they shouldn't have a nuclear weapon.
KING: China is the latest sort of transatlantic tensions. Mr. Bush is urging Europeans to keep a ban on major military sales to Beijing in place. Mr. Schroeder says the embargo will be lifted. Before leaving Germany, this visit with U.S. troops and a spirited defense of the Iraq war.
BUSH: You have acted in the great liberating tradition of our nation.
KING: Opposition to the war is the driving force behind anti-Bush sentiment here and across much of Europe. Mr. Bush attributes the divide to different views of the significance of September 11.
(on camera): The president told a roundtable here that those who view the attacks on the United States as a horrible but isolated incident, and those who like him view them as a wake-up call to the global terror threat, often talk past each other. To which he quickly added, "I plead guilty at times."
John King, CNN, Mainz, Germany.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: A new study on mother's milk -- or breast milk normally considered beneficial for babies is raising concerns that it may be toxic. Scientists say that virtually all the samples they tested contain perchlorate, the component of rocket fuel. It's used by defense industry plants and can cause neurological defects in children.
Researchers say it can impair thyroid development, lowering the I.Q., and causing learning disabilities in children. Trace amounts of perchlorate can be found in drinking water. Levels found in that study were five times higher than what's found in cow's milk.
Well, has the Internet replaced the back-alley deals?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was just as easy to get Xanax as it is to get a Beanie Baby on eBay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Black market prescription drugs and online sales, the combination leads to dire consequences. That story ahead on LIVE FROM. And soldiers' homecoming. The kisses and tears and one town's tribute to the men and women who did their duty.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: News "Around the World" now.
Say this three times: a right, royal rumpus. Buckingham Palace says Queen Elizabeth II will not attend the civil marriage ceremony for her son, Prince Charles, and Camilla Parker Bowles. But the monarch will attend a religious service for the couple afterwards. The official reason is that the couple wants to keep the ceremony low key.
Tokyo's finest get a dressing drown. Japanese's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, urges police to toughen up. That's after this television news report showed police officers fleeing from a man from brandishing what appears to be a baseball bat. The police did, however, get their man in the end.
In Iran, heavy rains and snow are threatening rescue efforts after Monday's magnitude 6.4 earthquake in the southeast. So far, the death toll stands at 420, but that figure is expected to go up considerably. A U.N. official says that rescue efforts have reached a critical phase and it's getting harder and harder to find survivors.
A new offensive in Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi operations in the city of Mosul have netted 11 suspected insurgents. The U.S. military says that troops carried out four separate operations and arrested suspects in different parts of the city.
Now to a hero's welcome in America's heartland. An entire town put out the welcome mat, celebrating the long-awaited homecoming of an Illinois Army National Guard unit. That unit lost five members in Iraq. Tough challenges there left many of them changed by the war.
CNN's Aaron Brown brings us the story from eastern Illinois.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They came home marching literally up Main Street to the applause and to the sirens and especially to the tears of loved ones. But these soldiers know that war changes everyone, to those who fight, even those who stay behind.
JIM COOPER, 1544 ILLINOIS NATIONAL GUARD: It was very nerve- wracking, very nerve-wracking, because you're feeling good about everything, and all of a sudden you get a call from somebody, and they're worried. And the next thing you know, you're just worried, too.
BROWN: For the past year, while his son Matthew and the rest of the unit was in Iraq, Jim Cooper, an electrician by trade, has had one of the most difficult jobs a civilian can have. He's been the one who had to tell the families about the injuries or the deaths.
It changes you. It changes even the way you hear the phone ring.
COOPER: And you didn't know whether it was your own son, you didn't know whether it was one of the kids that you knew like a son around you. It was just -- and when I got to the armory and they told me what happened, I just broke down.
I mean, that was our first one. Not that it got any easier over the time, but it just -- all of a sudden everything had come to reality.
BROWN: Reality for the family of specialist Charles Lam (ph) of nearby Martinsville, the first member of the company to die in Iraq. And later for the family of Sergeant Shawna Morrison (ph) of Paris, the first woman ever to die in combat from Edgar County, Illinois.
Three others from the 1544 were also killed in combat. Fifteen were injured. A hundred and sixty went to war a year ago, 140 came back unharmed, though not unchanged.
COOPER: As far as the war ending, you can talk about any of these families. As far as we're concerned, the war's not ever yet, and it won't be over until all the terrorist people are stopped.
BROWN: The parade was about emotions unleashed, a time for mothers to exhale, like Tammy Johns, whose daughter Shelly enlisted in the Guard while a high school student of 17 and turned 20 in Baghdad.
TAMMY JOHNS, MOTHER OF SOLDIER: We'll have her birthday party when she gets here. We're going to have Christmas when she gets here. Got our Christmas tree still up, Christmas decorations, the whole bit. I told her we'll have a party for every single holiday she missed, even St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, the whole thing.
BROWN: Paris is a town that mostly backed the war. Ned Jenison publishes the local paper, "The Paris Beacon News," has lived here all his life.
NED JENISON, PUBLISHER, "PARIS BEACON NEWS": We've had a few letters saying that, you know, we shouldn't be there, that we should bring them home and everything. But for our people that were there, there's never any question but what, you know, the community was behind them.
BROWN: Never any question either that the town would empty out its schools and its businesses to welcome their soldiers back home.
The speeches were short. The homecomings and hugs lingered. Shelly Johns got roses and hugs. Matt Cooper got a huge embrace from his mom. And Jim Cooper, well, Jim Cooper finally had something good to preside over, something very good.
COOPER: As a parent, it just brings a tear to your eye, I'll tell you. It's just unbelievable. I knew there'd be a big crowd. This town won't let something like this go on without just everybody showing up. I just expected it. They've always been this way. They love these guys, and they're here to show it. (END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: So, have you ever heard of something called bird flu? Well, most humans who have gotten it have died, and world health officials fear it could spread. What you need to know about it just ahead.
And we'll go over Martha Stewart's current to-do list: teach yoga class, buy flower seeds and get out of jail.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. Are you financially ready for retirement? A new study says most of us are not. I'll have details coming up on LIVE FROM, so stay tuned.
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PHILLIPS: Fading are the back alleys and shady rendezvous. A new type of drug dealer is taking advantage of cyberspace, putting black- market drugs just a mouse click away. Our Gary Tuchman talks with one family who learned this tough lesson the hard way.
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GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 15 years, Linda Surks has worked for a New Jersey organization that seeks to prevent substance abuse. That's why what happened to her son is such a horrifying irony.
LINDA SURKS, MOTHER OF VICTIM: As soon as we walked into the emergency room and they referred to us as "the parents," we knew something was wrong.
TUCHMAN: The son of Linda and Mark Surks died of a drug overdose. The parents didn't know, but Jason Surks was buying prescription drugs over the Internet. Test results showed the 19-year-old college student overdosed on Xanax, Vicodin and Oxycontin.
MARK SURKS, FATHER OF VICTIM: I think he just looked at them as totally safe. Safe and approved by our government.
TUCHMAN: And here is what one can find: no prescription, no problem, no waiting rooms, no appointments. Drugs that Americans need prescriptions for are readily available without prescriptions.
STEVEN LIGA, COUNCIL OF ALCOHOL & DRUG DEPENDENCE: I'm very concerned because it's something we haven't seen before. It's a new type of drug dealer that provides friendly customer service, door-to- door delivery with a credit card, no middleman, no risk of getting arrested.
TUCHMAN (on camera): What did you find when you went into your son's commuter after he passed away?
M. SURKS: I found that he was visiting a variety of drug-related Web sites.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): And that he was being billed monthly by a drug Web site.
M. SURKS: It was just as easily to get Xanax as it is to get a Beanie Baby on eBay.
TUCHMAN: But that's not the only way black-market drugs are finding their way into the marketplace. University of San Francisco professor Rick Roberts was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. He got very sick a few years ago and was prescribed the drug serostin (ph).
RICK ROBERTS, COUNTERFEIT DRUG VICTIM: I had been injecting it every day for months. And then in November of 2000, I started noticing stinging at the injection sites.
TUCHMAN: Robert says his pharmacy had been duped by a counterfeit supplier.
ROBERTS: So this is real. And this is fake.
TUCHMAN: Rick Roberts had been unwittingly injecting a female pregnancy hormone.
REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D), NEW YORK: These counterfeit pharmaceuticals have become the medical equivalent of a $3 bill, but far more dangerous.
TUCHMAN: Arrests in black-market cases are rare, but this Alabama pharmacist was arrested in one recent case and pleaded guilty to illegally dispensing more than 76,000 hydrocodone pills.
ALICE MARTIN, U.S. ATTORNEY, N. DISTRICT OF ALABAMA: Money's money. They're being paid to prescribed, they're being paid to send this medication out, and they're doing it in large quantities.
TUCHMAN: Mark and Linda Surks have one other child, 16-year-old Meryl (ph), who they hope they are lovingly protecting. But they believed they were doing the same for their son.
L. SURKS: And that's the scary part. Because of my background, because I where I work and what I know, and -- we do programs to teach parents how to talk to their kids and how to see those kinds of things. And I didn't really have a clue.
TUCHMAN: The clues, it turned out, came too late.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, South Brunswick, New Jersey.
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PHILLIPS: So are you financially ready for retirement? If you answered no, you've got lots of company. New numbers show that most Americans are not prepared to take the next step. Let's find out why. Susan Lisovicz live from the New York Stock Exchange.
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