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Pope Returns to Hospital; FAA to Make Changes to Flight Data Recorders; Bush Meets with Russian President Putin; Photos in Smashed Camera Returned to Tsunami Victims' Family; Task Force Works to Reduce Gang Violence

Aired February 24, 2005 - 13:00   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Back in the hospital -- Pope John Paul II suffering breathing problems. We're live from Rome with the latest on his condition.
Securing the skies. The FAA announces changes for recording what happens in the cockpit.

The pressure to perform. A Texas newspaper investigates steroid use by high school students. You'll be amazed at what it uncovered.

And photo no-no. This high school senior says her photograph was left out of the yearbook because of what she wore and because she's gay.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. Miles is on assignment. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Once more to Gemelli. For the second time this month, Pope John Paul II is in the Rome hospital that many call the third Vatican, reportedly gripped by the same flu-linked breathing problems he had appeared to overcome. Only yesterday, the pope was see in public for half an hour, looking, for him, fairly strong.

We get the latest now from CNN senior international correspondent, Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The papal watch has resumed outside Rome's Gemelli Hospital. Pope John Paul II was brought here for the second time this month with what is described as a relapse, a recurrence of the flu, which put him in the same hospital for 10 days earlier in February.

Vatican officials said the symptoms were similar: congestion, difficulty breathing and a recurring fever.

CNN's Vatican analyst John Allen, having spoken with Vatican officials, said that this relapse was perhaps predictable. As you know, his holiness is said to suffer from Parkinson's Disease and in older patients, this kind of flu relapse and recurrence, is said to occur about 70 percent of the time.

Still, anytime you have an 84-year-old man with a history of serious infirmities brought to a hospital for the second time in the same month, it's causing more than a little alarm.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And we're going to talk more about the pope's condition and that of the church he leads in the next half hour of LIVE FROM, with journalist and author and CNN Vatican analyst John Allen.

Sounds yes, sights, no. The FAA is green lighting better voice and data recorders on U.S. commercial airliner, but don't look for cameras in cockpits anytime soon.

CNN's Kathleen Koch checks in with that.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, what the FAA is looking for here is more clues, more clues to help solve the mystery of what has caused a plane crash.

So today it announced that it's proposing numerous improvements to the so-called black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder, and the flight data recorder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARION BLAKELY, FAA ADMINISTRATOR: We are going to have a much longer period of time in which we will actually know what was said, what transpired in the cockpit. That's critically important.

And we'll know it from the point the pilots begin their check list, right through the very end of the flight itself. This is an important change.

In addition, the flight data recorder, having better, more frequent data, more frequent sampling, means that for all of those technical parameters, all of a sudden, you're going to know a lot more about what took place with the aircraft.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: So the details are that instead of recording just 15 to 30 minutes, cockpit voice recorders will retain at least two hours of audio. Ten minutes of backup power will be required so that voice recorders can continue to collect extra data even when the main power fails.

Flight data recorders will have to hold 25 hours of data instead of just eight and then, as administrator Blakey mentioned, the flight data recorders will start taking measurements much more frequently. Instead of measuring the movement of, say, parts of the aircrafts like the rudder just every quarter or half second or pilot-controlled movements once a second, those types of measurements will be taken every sixteenth of a second.

And what that does is it will give investigators much more information to help them find out why an aircraft went down.

And these proposed changes will cost 20 -- $256 million. They won't go into effect until 2008 at the earliest.

But one change that they are not proposing is cameras in the cockpit. They say they're still studying the issue, but they're facing a lot of stiff opposition from pilot who have legal and privacy issues with being watched by cameras 24/7 -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Kathleen Koch. All right, Kathleen Koch, thank you so much.

Don't forget that CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. So stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.

And speaking of tapes, the one time minister and friend of the Bush family who secretly recorded phone conversations with the current president, then Texas governor, in the late 1990s says, and we quote, "History can wait."

Earlier this week, Doug Wead publicized a book that he wrote with tapes in which the future president implied that he experimented with drugs as a younger man. Bush tells Wead he wouldn't answer questions on drug use, because, again quoting, "I don't want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago."

Now Wead says "Contrary to a statement I made to 'The New York Times,' I have come to realize that personal relationships are more important than history." Wead says he'll give his book profits to charity and the tapes to President Bush.

Straight ahead, the long arm of the law came armed with a nightstick. Check this out. Ouch. That's got to hurt. Find out why this bank robber suspect fought the law and the law won, later on LIVE FROM.

A 425-pound tiger on the loose in California, Simi Valley, finally tracked down. So who does it belong to? Why did trackers kill it? We'll talk with a wildlife official all about it.

Images of the tsunami never before seen until a chance discovery on a beach. We'll tell you about it just ahead.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Straight talk in Slovakia. As you may have seen live here on CNN, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin found common ground today and room for disagreement in the Slovak capital of Bratislava. Geographically, Mr. Bush met Mr. Putin way more than half way. Politically, diplomatically, strategically, maybe not.

Mr. Bush is already headed home after five days in three countries.

CNN's Jill Dougherty is still in Bratislava with the highlights. What did you observe, Jill?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, you know, the atmospherics on this one were very important, because a lot of people expected that George Bush was going to go in there and make a point. And say, "I don't think your democracy, Vladimir Putin, is up to the standards of ours or western democracy."

And he didn't do that. It was actually quite astute, you'd have to say, of George Bush. He did not insult Vladimir Putin. In fact, the first words out of his mouth were, "my friend, Vladimir." And throughout, he called him "Vladimir."

He said, "We had open and frank discussions." But he said, "This is a man who, when he says yes, he means yes, and when he says no, he means no."

Now, Vlad -- Mr. Putin, for his point, was probably the person who made the most news. He put himself on the record as saying that Russia has made the decision not to go backwards, that Russia is democratic.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy. Fourteen years ago, independently, without any pressure from outside, it made that decision in the interest of itself and in the interests of its people, of its citizens.

This is our final choice, and we have no way back. There can be no return to what we used to have before. And the guarantee for this is the choice of the Russian people themselves.

No, guarantees from outside cannot be provided. This is impossible. It would be impossible for Russia today. Any kind of turn towards totalitarianism for Russia would be impossible, due to the condition of the Russian society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOUGHERTY: Now, there were other things that the two men talked about. In fact, a lot of it dealing with security: security against terrorism, nuclear security, et cetera. Mr. Bush saying that they have agreed to up the controls that already exist on nuclear weapons, the stored ones in Russia.

They also had an agreement on MANPADs. Those are the shoulder- fired missiles that can bring down helicopters and planes.

And then they also have come up with an agreement that's kind of a new one and that would be on forming a type of parallel or joint approach, which would be an emergency reaction to any type of terrorist who would use weapons of mass destruction, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jill, another subject matter brought up, freedom of the press. And it went on for quite awhile. What did you make of that? Do you think that there is freedom of the press? And have you ever had a problem reporting in the area?

DOUGHERTY: Well, we actually haven't had that much of a problem. Where this comes across the most in Russia is actually control of their own media. You would still have to say that when it comes to television, it's almost entirely government controlled. There are -- there is at least one or maybe two stations that aren't completely government controlled. But that's where you see the most, let's say, tightly held message.

There is, however, criticism in newspapers. And at least in one radio station. So it's not a completely black and white picture.

But President Putin was making it clear. Don't forget, he said freedom is not anarchy. And so he has a different approach. He believes that democracy's essentially the same around the world, but that each countries that its own reality, and he would still argue that Russia has some of the realistic aspects that are different from other countries.

PHILLIPS: Jill Dougherty, thanks so much.

Well, back here in the states, in California, truly a winter of discontent as nature winds up its latest round of mud slinging. It's all hands and shovels on deck. Nearly 300 mudslides to scrape up, dozens of homes and scores of roads to be dug out.

In Los Angeles County alone, estimated damage from this latest storm is $10 million. Since January 1, the tab tops more than $50 million.

Meanwhile, forget golf ball-sized hail, it's a house-sized boulder that still has a two-mile stretch of the PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, it's shut down. And crews say they'll inject the giant rock with a type of gel that will cause it to disintegrate from the inside out.

And of course, no disaster in recent memory can touch the loss and destruction caused by the summer tsunamis. A chance discovery amid the debris in Thailand offers heart-stopping images of nature's deadly force and heartbreaking proof of one family's loss.

Reporter Ted Chernecki of BCTV has the story from Vancouver, British Columbia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED CHERNECKI, BCTV REPORTER (voice-over): In all the carnage, in the debris fields, in places meters deep and extending inland for kilometers, what are the chances of finding one particular digital camera? CHRISTIAN PILET, FOUND THE KNILLS' CAMERA: "I found a camera," he said, "that's ridiculously smashed. I didn't know what to do with it."

And I said, "Well, you know, in my view, let's just junk it. We don't need it."

And he said, "Hold on." He pulls out the compact flash. He says, you never know, the little card might have recorded something.

CHERNECKI: It did. And when this Seattle resident recently returned from Thailand he knew that he possessed photos that were both incredible and disturbing.

PILET: You could see these large navy ships in the distance, right before the wave, dwarfed by the size of the wave. And then the wave came closer in the pictures and then closer, and then it blew us away. Because the very last picture showed a wall of water in front of the camera. And having now seen what the wave did, our only thought is that there's no way the person that took the picture could have survived.

CHERNECKI: There are hundreds of web sites for the missing. Yet amazingly, his wife spotted photos on one site that matched those in the camera. Christian headed to North Vancouver.

CHRISTIAN KNILL, COUPLE'S OLDEST SON: When they came that from Seattle in the morning and brought me pictures of what had been my parent's camera. So I'm thinking -- and there's picture of them and then pictures of their last moments. So...

PILET: We were glad to be able to give them this -- back to them. If anything, it's a gift in a sense from their parents. And it's something that hopefully they can treasure and use and decide what to do with.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, youth gang culture, deadly youth gang violence, both on the rise and in numbers so disturbing that the Justice Department has strongly bolstered efforts aimed at dismantling the largest and most criminally prone street gangs.

Part of that new push is before lawmakers. But most of it is on the street.

Justice correspondent Kelli Arena now reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's early evening in Northern Virginia. And these members of the gang task force are getting ready to head out into the streets.

Their targets are young, at times, as young as 7 or 8. And dangerous. Earlier in the week, an alleged gang member wielding a machete cut three fingers off his victim's left hand. And this night could bring similar violence.

TROOPER VEGA, NORTH VIRGINIA GANG TASK FORCE: Some hand signs for flesh. Hand signs to see whether they're friend or foe. And if they're foe, that's where your get assaults.

ARENA: Both men, who work undercover and wanted their faces hidden, give extra scrutiny to young Latinos. That's because they are primarily on the hunt for members of the Latin street gang known as MS13.

The ATF, which has been fighting gangs for decades, says the increased use of violence by MS13 and others is alarming.

MIKE BOUCHARD, ATF: They're arming themselves much better than before. In fact, in many cases they're arming themselves better than the police.

ARENA: The Justice Department estimates there are more than 21,000 gangs nationwide.

(on camera) And the FBI says juvenile gang murders have shot up 25 percent since 2000. CNN has learned, as a result, the FBI is preparing a new gang offensive.

(voice-over) Among the changes, to reclassify gangs as criminal organizations, just like traditional organized crime families.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are organized. They do keep notes in their meeting. They do collect dues. They do have bank accounts where they're pay in canteen funds for members that are locked up.

ARENA: Part of the gang offensive includes outreach. Many task force members work with organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. This Aberdeen, Maryland, chapter sponsored a roundtable discussion after an alleged gang related murder in the area.

JEFF HAIRSTON, BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB: When gangs present themselves before you, tell them, "I don't want to be a loser; I want to be a winner." Because a loser took my best friend's life.

ARENA: Some of the young people in this room have been asked to join gangs.

DAYRON WINCHESTER, STUDENT: Still cuss at me, I mean, a little bit, flip me off, cuss, try to hurt my feelings, you know what I mean, because I didn't join them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm gang free.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm gang free.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm gang free.

ARENA: These kids are well aware of the problem. Often, their parents are not.

INVESTIGATOR SHURMA, NORTH VIRGINIA GANG TASK FORCE: A lot of these parents have no idea. Or they say they have no idea that their child is involved in that stuff. And that's what shocks me.

ARENA: Both gang task force members are parents, too, fathers of young children, making their battle a very personal one.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Martha Stewart will be eating well when she gets out of prison next month. She'll be confined to five months of house arrest at her estate in Bedford, New York.

"The New York Post" reports that she's hired the temporarily out of work chef of The Cirque, a fancy New York French restaurant, to help whip up some kitchen magic. We're told that chef Pierre Schaedelin will be cooking for Stewart and working on recipes, some of which she reportedly will share with the rest of us on her upcoming television shows.

Well, though Martha Stewart has been staying busy in prison, reading books and teaching yoga, she's likely to be much busier once she gets out next week.

Susan Lisovicz joins us from the New York Stock Exchange for some after-prison planning.

Hi, Susan.

(STOCK REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: In the news this hour, count Canada out. Ending the years of yes or no maybe on the subject of North American missile defense, Canada's prime minister today announced an emphatic no and will not sign onto the American plan for an all-continent missile defense system. A spokesman for Prime Minister Paul Martin says that Ottawa will not support the so-called weaponization of space.

A court decision on the fate of Terri Schiavo delayed yet again. A Florida judge yesterday extended a stay on the order to remove her feeding tube until tomorrow. At issue now, whether Schiavo's husband is a fit guardian. Michael Schiavo and his brain-damaged wife's parents have long struggled over Terri's right to continue life support.

And teenage drivers getting high marks today from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. According to a new study, fatal crashes with teens behind the wheel dropped more than 25 percent since 1993. Getting some credit is the practice of graduated licensing. That is allowing increased privileges over time, such as night driving or without licensed adults in the car.

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 24, 2005 - 13:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Back in the hospital -- Pope John Paul II suffering breathing problems. We're live from Rome with the latest on his condition.
Securing the skies. The FAA announces changes for recording what happens in the cockpit.

The pressure to perform. A Texas newspaper investigates steroid use by high school students. You'll be amazed at what it uncovered.

And photo no-no. This high school senior says her photograph was left out of the yearbook because of what she wore and because she's gay.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. Miles is on assignment. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Once more to Gemelli. For the second time this month, Pope John Paul II is in the Rome hospital that many call the third Vatican, reportedly gripped by the same flu-linked breathing problems he had appeared to overcome. Only yesterday, the pope was see in public for half an hour, looking, for him, fairly strong.

We get the latest now from CNN senior international correspondent, Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The papal watch has resumed outside Rome's Gemelli Hospital. Pope John Paul II was brought here for the second time this month with what is described as a relapse, a recurrence of the flu, which put him in the same hospital for 10 days earlier in February.

Vatican officials said the symptoms were similar: congestion, difficulty breathing and a recurring fever.

CNN's Vatican analyst John Allen, having spoken with Vatican officials, said that this relapse was perhaps predictable. As you know, his holiness is said to suffer from Parkinson's Disease and in older patients, this kind of flu relapse and recurrence, is said to occur about 70 percent of the time.

Still, anytime you have an 84-year-old man with a history of serious infirmities brought to a hospital for the second time in the same month, it's causing more than a little alarm.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And we're going to talk more about the pope's condition and that of the church he leads in the next half hour of LIVE FROM, with journalist and author and CNN Vatican analyst John Allen.

Sounds yes, sights, no. The FAA is green lighting better voice and data recorders on U.S. commercial airliner, but don't look for cameras in cockpits anytime soon.

CNN's Kathleen Koch checks in with that.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, what the FAA is looking for here is more clues, more clues to help solve the mystery of what has caused a plane crash.

So today it announced that it's proposing numerous improvements to the so-called black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder, and the flight data recorder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARION BLAKELY, FAA ADMINISTRATOR: We are going to have a much longer period of time in which we will actually know what was said, what transpired in the cockpit. That's critically important.

And we'll know it from the point the pilots begin their check list, right through the very end of the flight itself. This is an important change.

In addition, the flight data recorder, having better, more frequent data, more frequent sampling, means that for all of those technical parameters, all of a sudden, you're going to know a lot more about what took place with the aircraft.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: So the details are that instead of recording just 15 to 30 minutes, cockpit voice recorders will retain at least two hours of audio. Ten minutes of backup power will be required so that voice recorders can continue to collect extra data even when the main power fails.

Flight data recorders will have to hold 25 hours of data instead of just eight and then, as administrator Blakey mentioned, the flight data recorders will start taking measurements much more frequently. Instead of measuring the movement of, say, parts of the aircrafts like the rudder just every quarter or half second or pilot-controlled movements once a second, those types of measurements will be taken every sixteenth of a second.

And what that does is it will give investigators much more information to help them find out why an aircraft went down.

And these proposed changes will cost 20 -- $256 million. They won't go into effect until 2008 at the earliest.

But one change that they are not proposing is cameras in the cockpit. They say they're still studying the issue, but they're facing a lot of stiff opposition from pilot who have legal and privacy issues with being watched by cameras 24/7 -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Kathleen Koch. All right, Kathleen Koch, thank you so much.

Don't forget that CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. So stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.

And speaking of tapes, the one time minister and friend of the Bush family who secretly recorded phone conversations with the current president, then Texas governor, in the late 1990s says, and we quote, "History can wait."

Earlier this week, Doug Wead publicized a book that he wrote with tapes in which the future president implied that he experimented with drugs as a younger man. Bush tells Wead he wouldn't answer questions on drug use, because, again quoting, "I don't want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago."

Now Wead says "Contrary to a statement I made to 'The New York Times,' I have come to realize that personal relationships are more important than history." Wead says he'll give his book profits to charity and the tapes to President Bush.

Straight ahead, the long arm of the law came armed with a nightstick. Check this out. Ouch. That's got to hurt. Find out why this bank robber suspect fought the law and the law won, later on LIVE FROM.

A 425-pound tiger on the loose in California, Simi Valley, finally tracked down. So who does it belong to? Why did trackers kill it? We'll talk with a wildlife official all about it.

Images of the tsunami never before seen until a chance discovery on a beach. We'll tell you about it just ahead.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Straight talk in Slovakia. As you may have seen live here on CNN, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin found common ground today and room for disagreement in the Slovak capital of Bratislava. Geographically, Mr. Bush met Mr. Putin way more than half way. Politically, diplomatically, strategically, maybe not.

Mr. Bush is already headed home after five days in three countries.

CNN's Jill Dougherty is still in Bratislava with the highlights. What did you observe, Jill?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, you know, the atmospherics on this one were very important, because a lot of people expected that George Bush was going to go in there and make a point. And say, "I don't think your democracy, Vladimir Putin, is up to the standards of ours or western democracy."

And he didn't do that. It was actually quite astute, you'd have to say, of George Bush. He did not insult Vladimir Putin. In fact, the first words out of his mouth were, "my friend, Vladimir." And throughout, he called him "Vladimir."

He said, "We had open and frank discussions." But he said, "This is a man who, when he says yes, he means yes, and when he says no, he means no."

Now, Vlad -- Mr. Putin, for his point, was probably the person who made the most news. He put himself on the record as saying that Russia has made the decision not to go backwards, that Russia is democratic.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy. Fourteen years ago, independently, without any pressure from outside, it made that decision in the interest of itself and in the interests of its people, of its citizens.

This is our final choice, and we have no way back. There can be no return to what we used to have before. And the guarantee for this is the choice of the Russian people themselves.

No, guarantees from outside cannot be provided. This is impossible. It would be impossible for Russia today. Any kind of turn towards totalitarianism for Russia would be impossible, due to the condition of the Russian society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOUGHERTY: Now, there were other things that the two men talked about. In fact, a lot of it dealing with security: security against terrorism, nuclear security, et cetera. Mr. Bush saying that they have agreed to up the controls that already exist on nuclear weapons, the stored ones in Russia.

They also had an agreement on MANPADs. Those are the shoulder- fired missiles that can bring down helicopters and planes.

And then they also have come up with an agreement that's kind of a new one and that would be on forming a type of parallel or joint approach, which would be an emergency reaction to any type of terrorist who would use weapons of mass destruction, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jill, another subject matter brought up, freedom of the press. And it went on for quite awhile. What did you make of that? Do you think that there is freedom of the press? And have you ever had a problem reporting in the area?

DOUGHERTY: Well, we actually haven't had that much of a problem. Where this comes across the most in Russia is actually control of their own media. You would still have to say that when it comes to television, it's almost entirely government controlled. There are -- there is at least one or maybe two stations that aren't completely government controlled. But that's where you see the most, let's say, tightly held message.

There is, however, criticism in newspapers. And at least in one radio station. So it's not a completely black and white picture.

But President Putin was making it clear. Don't forget, he said freedom is not anarchy. And so he has a different approach. He believes that democracy's essentially the same around the world, but that each countries that its own reality, and he would still argue that Russia has some of the realistic aspects that are different from other countries.

PHILLIPS: Jill Dougherty, thanks so much.

Well, back here in the states, in California, truly a winter of discontent as nature winds up its latest round of mud slinging. It's all hands and shovels on deck. Nearly 300 mudslides to scrape up, dozens of homes and scores of roads to be dug out.

In Los Angeles County alone, estimated damage from this latest storm is $10 million. Since January 1, the tab tops more than $50 million.

Meanwhile, forget golf ball-sized hail, it's a house-sized boulder that still has a two-mile stretch of the PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, it's shut down. And crews say they'll inject the giant rock with a type of gel that will cause it to disintegrate from the inside out.

And of course, no disaster in recent memory can touch the loss and destruction caused by the summer tsunamis. A chance discovery amid the debris in Thailand offers heart-stopping images of nature's deadly force and heartbreaking proof of one family's loss.

Reporter Ted Chernecki of BCTV has the story from Vancouver, British Columbia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED CHERNECKI, BCTV REPORTER (voice-over): In all the carnage, in the debris fields, in places meters deep and extending inland for kilometers, what are the chances of finding one particular digital camera? CHRISTIAN PILET, FOUND THE KNILLS' CAMERA: "I found a camera," he said, "that's ridiculously smashed. I didn't know what to do with it."

And I said, "Well, you know, in my view, let's just junk it. We don't need it."

And he said, "Hold on." He pulls out the compact flash. He says, you never know, the little card might have recorded something.

CHERNECKI: It did. And when this Seattle resident recently returned from Thailand he knew that he possessed photos that were both incredible and disturbing.

PILET: You could see these large navy ships in the distance, right before the wave, dwarfed by the size of the wave. And then the wave came closer in the pictures and then closer, and then it blew us away. Because the very last picture showed a wall of water in front of the camera. And having now seen what the wave did, our only thought is that there's no way the person that took the picture could have survived.

CHERNECKI: There are hundreds of web sites for the missing. Yet amazingly, his wife spotted photos on one site that matched those in the camera. Christian headed to North Vancouver.

CHRISTIAN KNILL, COUPLE'S OLDEST SON: When they came that from Seattle in the morning and brought me pictures of what had been my parent's camera. So I'm thinking -- and there's picture of them and then pictures of their last moments. So...

PILET: We were glad to be able to give them this -- back to them. If anything, it's a gift in a sense from their parents. And it's something that hopefully they can treasure and use and decide what to do with.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, youth gang culture, deadly youth gang violence, both on the rise and in numbers so disturbing that the Justice Department has strongly bolstered efforts aimed at dismantling the largest and most criminally prone street gangs.

Part of that new push is before lawmakers. But most of it is on the street.

Justice correspondent Kelli Arena now reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's early evening in Northern Virginia. And these members of the gang task force are getting ready to head out into the streets.

Their targets are young, at times, as young as 7 or 8. And dangerous. Earlier in the week, an alleged gang member wielding a machete cut three fingers off his victim's left hand. And this night could bring similar violence.

TROOPER VEGA, NORTH VIRGINIA GANG TASK FORCE: Some hand signs for flesh. Hand signs to see whether they're friend or foe. And if they're foe, that's where your get assaults.

ARENA: Both men, who work undercover and wanted their faces hidden, give extra scrutiny to young Latinos. That's because they are primarily on the hunt for members of the Latin street gang known as MS13.

The ATF, which has been fighting gangs for decades, says the increased use of violence by MS13 and others is alarming.

MIKE BOUCHARD, ATF: They're arming themselves much better than before. In fact, in many cases they're arming themselves better than the police.

ARENA: The Justice Department estimates there are more than 21,000 gangs nationwide.

(on camera) And the FBI says juvenile gang murders have shot up 25 percent since 2000. CNN has learned, as a result, the FBI is preparing a new gang offensive.

(voice-over) Among the changes, to reclassify gangs as criminal organizations, just like traditional organized crime families.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are organized. They do keep notes in their meeting. They do collect dues. They do have bank accounts where they're pay in canteen funds for members that are locked up.

ARENA: Part of the gang offensive includes outreach. Many task force members work with organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. This Aberdeen, Maryland, chapter sponsored a roundtable discussion after an alleged gang related murder in the area.

JEFF HAIRSTON, BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB: When gangs present themselves before you, tell them, "I don't want to be a loser; I want to be a winner." Because a loser took my best friend's life.

ARENA: Some of the young people in this room have been asked to join gangs.

DAYRON WINCHESTER, STUDENT: Still cuss at me, I mean, a little bit, flip me off, cuss, try to hurt my feelings, you know what I mean, because I didn't join them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm gang free.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm gang free.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm gang free.

ARENA: These kids are well aware of the problem. Often, their parents are not.

INVESTIGATOR SHURMA, NORTH VIRGINIA GANG TASK FORCE: A lot of these parents have no idea. Or they say they have no idea that their child is involved in that stuff. And that's what shocks me.

ARENA: Both gang task force members are parents, too, fathers of young children, making their battle a very personal one.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Martha Stewart will be eating well when she gets out of prison next month. She'll be confined to five months of house arrest at her estate in Bedford, New York.

"The New York Post" reports that she's hired the temporarily out of work chef of The Cirque, a fancy New York French restaurant, to help whip up some kitchen magic. We're told that chef Pierre Schaedelin will be cooking for Stewart and working on recipes, some of which she reportedly will share with the rest of us on her upcoming television shows.

Well, though Martha Stewart has been staying busy in prison, reading books and teaching yoga, she's likely to be much busier once she gets out next week.

Susan Lisovicz joins us from the New York Stock Exchange for some after-prison planning.

Hi, Susan.

(STOCK REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: In the news this hour, count Canada out. Ending the years of yes or no maybe on the subject of North American missile defense, Canada's prime minister today announced an emphatic no and will not sign onto the American plan for an all-continent missile defense system. A spokesman for Prime Minister Paul Martin says that Ottawa will not support the so-called weaponization of space.

A court decision on the fate of Terri Schiavo delayed yet again. A Florida judge yesterday extended a stay on the order to remove her feeding tube until tomorrow. At issue now, whether Schiavo's husband is a fit guardian. Michael Schiavo and his brain-damaged wife's parents have long struggled over Terri's right to continue life support.

And teenage drivers getting high marks today from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. According to a new study, fatal crashes with teens behind the wheel dropped more than 25 percent since 1993. Getting some credit is the practice of graduated licensing. That is allowing increased privileges over time, such as night driving or without licensed adults in the car.

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