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'Newsweek' Backs off Quran Story; Iraqi Police Open Investigations Unit; Experts Predict Busy Hurricane Season
Aired May 16, 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, CO-HOST: Is "I'm sorry" enough to cover errors in a "Newsweek" story that may have led to deadly riots in Afghanistan? We're live from the -- with reaction, rather, from the White House.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Here we go again. NOAA has released for the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, and the news is not pretty. We'll have all the details coming up.
PHILLIPS: Splash landing. An eyewitness described what happened when this plane missed the runway and ended up in the bay.
Attention wine lovers. You might want to raise a glass and toast the United States Supreme Court today.
From CNN center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN KLAIDMAN, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: This was an honest mistake. We are obviously not very happy about it, and trying to deal with it as openly as we can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Regrets, but no formal retractions in the latest flap involving big time media and a less than reliable source.
This time, it's a brief report in the May 9 issue of "Newsweek" saying military investigators had found interrogators at Gitmo had desecrated copies of the Muslim holy book the Quran.
Well, it didn't take long for infuriated Muslims in Afghanistan to launch venomous, in some cases, violent demonstrations, some of which continue today. Several Afghans have been killed. The U.S.- backed regime is further strained, and today both governments are appalled at "Newsweek's" admission that its source may have misspoken.
CNN's Dana Bash is following the fallout from the White House -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, the White House strategy is to very carefully but certainly very deliberately try to get "Newsweek" to do more than just simply apologize.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said, quote, "It's puzzling that while 'Newsweek' now acknowledges they got it wrong, they refuse to retract the story." He went on to say there is a certain journalistic standard that should be met but was not met in this case. So there you see the White House is trying to really focus on the journalistic standards here.
The president was in central Virginia today. He was asked about this, did not answer it. But what Scott McClellan is telling CNN and other reporters is that he is "puzzled." You saw that word. He used is it several times, that "Newsweek" has not retracted the story, noting that it was an anonymous source, apparently, that was used to substantiate the story.
Now, Kyra, what you're seeing with this is part of a Bush administration damage control effort, a massive one that really started last week when this story first caused what you're seeing on the screen now. Apparently riots, lives lost in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
And that is something that Bush officials today are saying, obviously, is the biggest problem here. That this particular story, where "Newsweek" is apparently saying it was erroneous did cost lives. And they're also saying that it certainly caused substantial damage to the U.S. image abroad.
As one senior official said, "It's a genie that is probably already out of the bottle and you're not -- they're not able to get it back.
But it is also interesting, or really important, to note some of the things that we're hearing from Democrats on Capitol Hill. That while this particular incident might have questions about it, serious questions about it now, there were other -- there have been other allegations in Guantanamo Bay of some questionable -- questionable conduct there. And that's why they're saying there should be an investigation.
Also, quickly, important to note, Kyra, that the Pentagon is still investigating this. It is still an open question as to what happened as far as the Pentagon is concerned.
PHILLIPS: Dana Bash, live from the White House. Thank you so much.
And it's not just the magazine's reputation on the line here. It's life and death and global politics. We're going to talk more about all of this in the next hour of LIVE FROM with Mideast analyst Fawaz Gerges (ph). That's at 2:15 Eastern Time.
Now, at the bottom of this hour, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defends -- rather, defends his plan to shut down or scale back dozens of U.S. military bases.
Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers will appear before the base realignment and base closure commission, BRAC, which will analyze, scrutinize, prioritize the Pentagon proposals then send a final plan to the president, who will send it on to Congress, if he accepts it.
In four previous realignments, neither the president nor Congress is allowed to add or delete any names.
Now, among the major installations targeted for closure are the submarine base at New London, Connecticut, Fort -- or forts Monmouth, Monroe and McPherson, Ellsworth and Cannon air force bases, and naval station Pascagoula, Mississippi.
And we'll join today's hearings when things get rolling.
Now 25 bodies in Baghdad, 100 in Ramadi, 30 odd others elsewhere, all of them men, all shot to death, seemingly executed, all discovered Saturday and Sunday, in some cases, while Condoleezza Rice was paying her first visit to Iraq as secretary of state.
Rice says that the new Iraqi government should be saluted, not criticized, for getting up and running in three months, though the Bush administration hopes that there's no delay in drafting a constitution.
CNN's Jane Arraf joins us now from the capitol with a state of the violence and Democratic process. Jane, let's start with the bodies that have been found. You have told me time and time again, there is no easy answer to why this is happening. You say it's a number of different crimes that are taking place in Iraq?
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is, Kyra. It's as you've seen and I've seen over the past few weeks and months and the past couple of years, it is multilayered.
It's an insurgency that has grown and made connections with criminal groups, foreign fighters, local insurgents. And there really is no reason why, when a body turns up in a garbage dump or anywhere else whether that is a criminal act or whether this was a targeted assassination or what exactly was responsible for it.
Nor is it possible to tell the exact details or even exact numbers. We have to remember, this is a city and a country that runs on rumors. What we do know is that the violence continues, and a lot of Iraqis are continuing to die -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And, Jane, something that Iraq has not dealt with for decades. That is, an investigations department. An actual homicide detectives, and certain types of police officers, set out to look into each one of these cases.
In the past, that never happened. It didn't happen under Saddam Hussein. So I can just imagine this department is overwhelmed?
ARRAF: Absolutely overwhelmed, and that's really one of the challenges, Kyra, building up a police force that not only is out there in the streets, as you all can hear behind us with the siren, but has a criminal investigations, a detective department, where they can methodically track down clues, use information, gather evidence and try and solve some of these crimes. Right now they're really just trying to combat this wave of violence. Now, they are solving some of the crimes with information that comes walking in, or gets relayed through hotlines on the telephone, but it is still very much in the beginning stages, crime- solving here in Iraq -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And, of course, we report on these deaths, it seems, almost on a daily basis. And I even asked you the question today, Jane, is there anything positive that you can tell us today. You said, actually, going to lunch, going out into the city, was huge deal for you today.
ARRAF: It was. It was a huge deal just to see what's happened to the neighborhoods. I've spent most of my time lately outside of Baghdad in other cities and towns in the south and the north.
And here in Baghdad, which is where I've lived for years, I haven't really been out lately. But what I saw was a bit encouraging and a bit typical.
Some of the roads were closed because there had been a suicide bomb this morning. And that was part of the reality of the capitol. But on other streets, there were people who were sitting in outdoor restaurants. There were people sweeping the streets. And in fact, my Iraqi friends tell me that, actually, there are new restaurants opening. Life here continues -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Jane Arraf, and you continue to do incredible reporting for us. Live from Baghdad, thank you so much.
Well, can soybeans help make U.S. fuel prices a little easier to swallow? President Bush thinks so. Today he toured a biodiesel refinery in Virginia, a place that not only makes fuel from a renewable source, in this case soybeans. The end, result is cleaner, by far, than ordinary diesel made from crude. Also, it's more expensive, and the president acknowledges there's just no easy fix.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I could wave a magic wand at the pump, I'd do that. That's not how it works. You see, the high prices we face today have been decades in the making.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: Now Mr. Bush's energy platform is finally getting traction in Congress, but it's still not clear it will reach his desk by August, as he'd like.
Many people in the Senate are devoting their energies to achieving or averting the filibuster buster. As you may have heard, Republicans who have been seething over judicial nominations that Democrats have managed to block are threatening to outlaw the favorite weapon of the minority party: the filibuster.
Now, despite weeks of public and private give and take between the majority and minority leaders, a showdown could be imminent, as Republicans scheduled four votes for two of the most contentious nominees, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. Knowledgeable sources say a compromise may still emerge.
Republicans have been telling Democrats to put up or shut up about the president's attempts to remake Social Security. Now one Democrat is putting up. He's Bob Wexler of Florida, by his own count, answerable to more Social Security recipients than any member of Congress.
Wexler proposes tax increases that the White House has flatly ruled out and still, that's the first Democratic alternative to the White House proposal for private investment accounts, which Democrats overall oppose.
Well, get ready for another active hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting almost a repeat of the fierce season than we saw last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIG. GEN. DAVID L. JOHNSON, NOAA: Here we go again. With last year's devastating hurricanes still fresh in our minds, your hurricane team is preparing again for a very busy season.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, NOAA predicts 12 to 15 named tropical storms will develop in the Atlantic this year, with seven to nine of the storms becoming hurricanes. Of those, three could become major hurricanes.
Jacqui Jeras is standing by live in the weather center to tell us about it -- Jacqui.
JERAS: Hey, Kyra. Yes, they're attributing a lot this to the sea surface temperatures. The warm waters in the Atlantic and the Caribbean and already the water temperatures are warmer right now than they were this time last year.
They're also attributing a lot of this to what we call multivolcano patterns that we see every 20 to 30 years. We'll see above normal and below normal seasons, and they said that this pattern began in 1995. So we're only part way into this. We may be looking at another 10 to 20 years of very active hurricane seasons.
So there it is, your official forecast from NOAA: 12 to 15 named storms, seven to nine becoming hurricanes, three to five of those becoming major hurricanes. A little lower in the number of major hurricanes. Of course, we can keep that intensity down, then we certainly want to do that.
It also concurs pretty well with what Dr. William Gray is saying. Dr. Gray from Colorado State University, a very well-known hurricane expert, predicting 13 named storms, seven hurricanes and three of those becoming major hurricanes. And you can usually see about 10 named storms, about six hurricanes and about two to three major hurricanes.
So this is definitely above average. This is Hurricane Preparedness Week. Now is the time to start thinking about what you're going to do when and if a hurricane comes in close to your house, and a quick look at the names for this hurricane season, starting from Arlene going all the way down to Wilma. No Kyra, Katrina, sorry.
PHILLIPS: And no Jacqui! It's the closest "J." I can't see it. It's behind you.
JERAS: There it is. Jose!
PHILLIPS: All right. Close, but no cigar. Thanks, Jacqui.
Well, for a map tracing the 2004 hurricane season, information on how storms form and what you can do in a hurricane, logon to CNN.com/hurricanes.
Comments made by Mexico's president angers some civil rights leaders in the United States. The president's office say that his remarks about Mexican immigrants and African-Americans have been misinterpreted. We're going to sort it out later on LIVE FROM.
And this plane you're about to be see misses the runway and takes a plunge. An eyewitness tells is what he saw, straight ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER TRUMAN, STUDENT PILOT: The pilot of the plane is not well. We have to go back to Laconia. Please help me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Dramatic moments in the air when a passenger is forced to become the pilot. That's coming up for a landing, right after a quick break.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: A hate crime. That's what Reverend Jesse Jackson is calling that massive shooting in Compton. Los Angeles sheriffs' deputies pummeled 120 rounds at a driver at the end of a chase last week. The driver, Winston Hayes, was struck four times. Jackson had this to say after meeting with Hayes last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. JESSE JACKSON, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: This was not a high- speed chase. This was a high-bullet chase. And most hits were in the back, back of his ankle or in his shoulder or in his neck. He said it was like firecrackers exploding. He just got down in the truck, and they just kept shooting. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Jackson is asking the FBI to investigate.
We have some pretty remarkable pictures of a small jet crash in Atlantic City. An amateur photographer captured these images of the twin engine jet as it ran off of the airport runway. It plunged into the bay. The four people aboard suffered minor injuries. Once witness described the crash for CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN YASENCHOCK, WITNESS: Then out of the corner of my eye, my son was in the van. He said, "Dad, the plane's trying to land."
The plane came across this runway straight down behind us. OK? At a very high rate of speed. Couldn't stop. At the end of the runway there was this little mound of dirt they used for probably stopping the planes. He hit that, bounced up into the air, and went into the creek.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Investigators are now looking into possible brake failure. They're hoping to tow that jet out of the water today.
Imagine being 4,000 miles off the ground and realizing you have no pilot. Well, one woman found herself in that exact predicament after her pilot, who was also her father, suffered a stroke.
CNN's Dan Lothian talked with her and the air traffic controller who helped save her life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEN HOPF, FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: You can just leave it open there.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ken Hopf is a veteran pilot and flight instructor who has plenty of experience keeping his students calm and focused. And those skills came in handy last August at his day job as an FAA air traffic controller in New Hampshire when a distress call came in.
TRUMAN: And the pilot of the plane is not well. We have to go back to Laconia. Please help me.
HOPF: They came out of this Laconia airport.
LOTHIAN: The six-seater plane was flying more than 4,000 feet above New Hampshire, 15 miles from the airport. The woman's father had suddenly became incapacitated on their way to Utica, New York, and she was forced to take the controls.
TRUMAN: I've never flown a Malibu.
HOPF: Do you know where the gear selector knob is? TRUMAN: Gear selector knob? No.
HOPF: We're going to do the best we can to help you right now.
LOTHIAN: Now for the first time, Jennifer Truman talks publicly about that frightening day.
TRUMAN: My only thought was get this plane on the ground.
LOTHIAN (on camera): Truman had taken flying lessons but was not a licensed pilot. She did know how to turn the plane to the right heading and make a gradual descent. Everything seemed OK, but that was about to change.
(voice-over) As Hopf sat at radar station like this one, Truman issued one more distress call. Another passenger, her mother, was also in trouble.
TRUMAN: She's flopping over like a doll now.
HOPF: We all became very concerned that this was maybe carbon monoxide was leaking into the airplane.
LOTHIAN: The controller asked her to open vents, ordered a more direct route and quicker descent. Within minutes it was over.
TRUMAN: On the ground. There's the fire department. Thank you very much.
LOTHIAN: The emergency crews assisted Truman's parents, but they both would later die. Amazingly, each had suffered a stroke. A sad ending, but a potential air disaster averted with the help a controller with unique skills who answered the call.
TRUMAN: With Ken on the other end it just -- it was a calming voice.
LOTHIAN: Dan Lothian, Laconia, New Hampshire.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM, a racial insult, or lost in translation? Comments by Mexico's president about immigrants and African-Americans. Should Vicente Fox apologize?
Later on LIVE FROM...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said, well, we might be brothers. And you know, that just came as a shock to me. And I couldn't believe it.
PHILLIPS: Finding family ties on the front lines. Two long-lost brothers share their story.
Tomorrow on LIVE FROM, she jumped out of airplanes and swam with the stingrays. Now the sisters of a 9/11 victim want you to learn to live your life to a fullest. It's a new book called "You Can Do It!"
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: In medical news, excitement is building over a drug that's showing promise in fighting breast cancer, and as CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen explains, it could lead to big changes in just how doctors treat cancer.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She found the lump herself one morning.
ELIZABETH RUSSO, CANCER PATIENT: I was petrified.
COHEN: Then her doctor confirmed the worst.
RUSSO: I had only been married for about a year and a half, and I felt like my world was falling down around me. You know, the first question that goes through your head is, am I going to die? And that really was what I was thinking at the time. It was extremely frightening.
COHEN: At age 29, Elizabeth Russo had breast cancer, and there was more. Doctors told her she a particular kind that grew quickly and was more likely to come back. This happens to one out of every four patients.
But there was a twist. Because she had this particular type of tumor, she was a candidate for a study on a drug called Herceptin. Doctors knew it worked when the cancer had spread to other parts of the body, but they weren't sure if it could help women like Elizabeth who were at the early stages.
At first she wasn't sure what to do, because the drug, in a small number of women, had caused heart failure.
RUSSO: There was a little bit of fear there, but, obviously, in my situation, the chances absolutely outweighed the frighteningness of the whole situation. I mean, I had to take the risk, because there was still the chance that I could die.
COHEN: She took Herceptin, along with chemotherapy and radiation, and a year after finding that lump, she's cancer-free.
In the studies of the National Cancer Institute, when women did not take Herceptin, 30 percent of them had the cancer come back. When they did take Herceptin, only 15 percent had the cancer come back. It cut the recurrence rate in half, an extraordinary impact, experts say, meaning this drug is one of the most promising in a new generation of cancer treatments.
Unlike chemotherapy or radiation, which attack healthy and unhealthy tissue, medicines like Herceptin are designed only to attack the pacific protein that causes problems.
DR. DAVID JOHNSON, VANDERBILT CANCER INSTITUTE: Targeted therapies, which we've talked a lot about for the last couple of years, are really coming to fruition.
COHEN: Now Elizabeth Russo, once afraid she would die, is alive for the big moments, like her godson's christening last month. The cancer could come back, but now it seems that's less likely.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Getting word of a tornado in Texas. Jacqui Jeras is following all the details -- Jacqui.
JERAS: Hey, Kyra. The public's reporting a tornado on the ground in Aransas County, Texas, at the state park there, the public reporting it near Goose Island State Park.
There you can see the state of Texas. This is near the coastal area and it's a pretty isolated cell. This is the one of concern right here. It is moving to the south and to the west. So if you live in Rockport, if you live in Fulton, this storm is moving towards you. A dangerous situation.
The public reporting a tornado at the Goose Island State Park. Again, that's for northern Aransas County in Texas.
Any more severe weather, we'll bring it to you, Kyra. But again, I think this is a pretty isolated situation today.
PHILLIPS: All right. Keep us updated, Jacqui. Thank you so much.
And consumers beware. After trying for three months to raise fares in response to high fuel costs, it looks like the big carriers might finally make this one stick. Kathleen Hays has the details, live from the New York Stock Exchange.
Kathleen, it's going to be expensive to fly this summer?
(STOCK 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 May 16, 2005 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: Is "I'm sorry" enough to cover errors in a "Newsweek" story that may have led to deadly riots in Afghanistan? We're live from the -- with reaction, rather, from the White House.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Here we go again. NOAA has released for the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, and the news is not pretty. We'll have all the details coming up.
PHILLIPS: Splash landing. An eyewitness described what happened when this plane missed the runway and ended up in the bay.
Attention wine lovers. You might want to raise a glass and toast the United States Supreme Court today.
From CNN center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN KLAIDMAN, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: This was an honest mistake. We are obviously not very happy about it, and trying to deal with it as openly as we can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Regrets, but no formal retractions in the latest flap involving big time media and a less than reliable source.
This time, it's a brief report in the May 9 issue of "Newsweek" saying military investigators had found interrogators at Gitmo had desecrated copies of the Muslim holy book the Quran.
Well, it didn't take long for infuriated Muslims in Afghanistan to launch venomous, in some cases, violent demonstrations, some of which continue today. Several Afghans have been killed. The U.S.- backed regime is further strained, and today both governments are appalled at "Newsweek's" admission that its source may have misspoken.
CNN's Dana Bash is following the fallout from the White House -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, the White House strategy is to very carefully but certainly very deliberately try to get "Newsweek" to do more than just simply apologize.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said, quote, "It's puzzling that while 'Newsweek' now acknowledges they got it wrong, they refuse to retract the story." He went on to say there is a certain journalistic standard that should be met but was not met in this case. So there you see the White House is trying to really focus on the journalistic standards here.
The president was in central Virginia today. He was asked about this, did not answer it. But what Scott McClellan is telling CNN and other reporters is that he is "puzzled." You saw that word. He used is it several times, that "Newsweek" has not retracted the story, noting that it was an anonymous source, apparently, that was used to substantiate the story.
Now, Kyra, what you're seeing with this is part of a Bush administration damage control effort, a massive one that really started last week when this story first caused what you're seeing on the screen now. Apparently riots, lives lost in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
And that is something that Bush officials today are saying, obviously, is the biggest problem here. That this particular story, where "Newsweek" is apparently saying it was erroneous did cost lives. And they're also saying that it certainly caused substantial damage to the U.S. image abroad.
As one senior official said, "It's a genie that is probably already out of the bottle and you're not -- they're not able to get it back.
But it is also interesting, or really important, to note some of the things that we're hearing from Democrats on Capitol Hill. That while this particular incident might have questions about it, serious questions about it now, there were other -- there have been other allegations in Guantanamo Bay of some questionable -- questionable conduct there. And that's why they're saying there should be an investigation.
Also, quickly, important to note, Kyra, that the Pentagon is still investigating this. It is still an open question as to what happened as far as the Pentagon is concerned.
PHILLIPS: Dana Bash, live from the White House. Thank you so much.
And it's not just the magazine's reputation on the line here. It's life and death and global politics. We're going to talk more about all of this in the next hour of LIVE FROM with Mideast analyst Fawaz Gerges (ph). That's at 2:15 Eastern Time.
Now, at the bottom of this hour, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defends -- rather, defends his plan to shut down or scale back dozens of U.S. military bases.
Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers will appear before the base realignment and base closure commission, BRAC, which will analyze, scrutinize, prioritize the Pentagon proposals then send a final plan to the president, who will send it on to Congress, if he accepts it.
In four previous realignments, neither the president nor Congress is allowed to add or delete any names.
Now, among the major installations targeted for closure are the submarine base at New London, Connecticut, Fort -- or forts Monmouth, Monroe and McPherson, Ellsworth and Cannon air force bases, and naval station Pascagoula, Mississippi.
And we'll join today's hearings when things get rolling.
Now 25 bodies in Baghdad, 100 in Ramadi, 30 odd others elsewhere, all of them men, all shot to death, seemingly executed, all discovered Saturday and Sunday, in some cases, while Condoleezza Rice was paying her first visit to Iraq as secretary of state.
Rice says that the new Iraqi government should be saluted, not criticized, for getting up and running in three months, though the Bush administration hopes that there's no delay in drafting a constitution.
CNN's Jane Arraf joins us now from the capitol with a state of the violence and Democratic process. Jane, let's start with the bodies that have been found. You have told me time and time again, there is no easy answer to why this is happening. You say it's a number of different crimes that are taking place in Iraq?
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is, Kyra. It's as you've seen and I've seen over the past few weeks and months and the past couple of years, it is multilayered.
It's an insurgency that has grown and made connections with criminal groups, foreign fighters, local insurgents. And there really is no reason why, when a body turns up in a garbage dump or anywhere else whether that is a criminal act or whether this was a targeted assassination or what exactly was responsible for it.
Nor is it possible to tell the exact details or even exact numbers. We have to remember, this is a city and a country that runs on rumors. What we do know is that the violence continues, and a lot of Iraqis are continuing to die -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And, Jane, something that Iraq has not dealt with for decades. That is, an investigations department. An actual homicide detectives, and certain types of police officers, set out to look into each one of these cases.
In the past, that never happened. It didn't happen under Saddam Hussein. So I can just imagine this department is overwhelmed?
ARRAF: Absolutely overwhelmed, and that's really one of the challenges, Kyra, building up a police force that not only is out there in the streets, as you all can hear behind us with the siren, but has a criminal investigations, a detective department, where they can methodically track down clues, use information, gather evidence and try and solve some of these crimes. Right now they're really just trying to combat this wave of violence. Now, they are solving some of the crimes with information that comes walking in, or gets relayed through hotlines on the telephone, but it is still very much in the beginning stages, crime- solving here in Iraq -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And, of course, we report on these deaths, it seems, almost on a daily basis. And I even asked you the question today, Jane, is there anything positive that you can tell us today. You said, actually, going to lunch, going out into the city, was huge deal for you today.
ARRAF: It was. It was a huge deal just to see what's happened to the neighborhoods. I've spent most of my time lately outside of Baghdad in other cities and towns in the south and the north.
And here in Baghdad, which is where I've lived for years, I haven't really been out lately. But what I saw was a bit encouraging and a bit typical.
Some of the roads were closed because there had been a suicide bomb this morning. And that was part of the reality of the capitol. But on other streets, there were people who were sitting in outdoor restaurants. There were people sweeping the streets. And in fact, my Iraqi friends tell me that, actually, there are new restaurants opening. Life here continues -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Jane Arraf, and you continue to do incredible reporting for us. Live from Baghdad, thank you so much.
Well, can soybeans help make U.S. fuel prices a little easier to swallow? President Bush thinks so. Today he toured a biodiesel refinery in Virginia, a place that not only makes fuel from a renewable source, in this case soybeans. The end, result is cleaner, by far, than ordinary diesel made from crude. Also, it's more expensive, and the president acknowledges there's just no easy fix.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I could wave a magic wand at the pump, I'd do that. That's not how it works. You see, the high prices we face today have been decades in the making.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: Now Mr. Bush's energy platform is finally getting traction in Congress, but it's still not clear it will reach his desk by August, as he'd like.
Many people in the Senate are devoting their energies to achieving or averting the filibuster buster. As you may have heard, Republicans who have been seething over judicial nominations that Democrats have managed to block are threatening to outlaw the favorite weapon of the minority party: the filibuster.
Now, despite weeks of public and private give and take between the majority and minority leaders, a showdown could be imminent, as Republicans scheduled four votes for two of the most contentious nominees, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. Knowledgeable sources say a compromise may still emerge.
Republicans have been telling Democrats to put up or shut up about the president's attempts to remake Social Security. Now one Democrat is putting up. He's Bob Wexler of Florida, by his own count, answerable to more Social Security recipients than any member of Congress.
Wexler proposes tax increases that the White House has flatly ruled out and still, that's the first Democratic alternative to the White House proposal for private investment accounts, which Democrats overall oppose.
Well, get ready for another active hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting almost a repeat of the fierce season than we saw last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIG. GEN. DAVID L. JOHNSON, NOAA: Here we go again. With last year's devastating hurricanes still fresh in our minds, your hurricane team is preparing again for a very busy season.
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PHILLIPS: Well, NOAA predicts 12 to 15 named tropical storms will develop in the Atlantic this year, with seven to nine of the storms becoming hurricanes. Of those, three could become major hurricanes.
Jacqui Jeras is standing by live in the weather center to tell us about it -- Jacqui.
JERAS: Hey, Kyra. Yes, they're attributing a lot this to the sea surface temperatures. The warm waters in the Atlantic and the Caribbean and already the water temperatures are warmer right now than they were this time last year.
They're also attributing a lot of this to what we call multivolcano patterns that we see every 20 to 30 years. We'll see above normal and below normal seasons, and they said that this pattern began in 1995. So we're only part way into this. We may be looking at another 10 to 20 years of very active hurricane seasons.
So there it is, your official forecast from NOAA: 12 to 15 named storms, seven to nine becoming hurricanes, three to five of those becoming major hurricanes. A little lower in the number of major hurricanes. Of course, we can keep that intensity down, then we certainly want to do that.
It also concurs pretty well with what Dr. William Gray is saying. Dr. Gray from Colorado State University, a very well-known hurricane expert, predicting 13 named storms, seven hurricanes and three of those becoming major hurricanes. And you can usually see about 10 named storms, about six hurricanes and about two to three major hurricanes.
So this is definitely above average. This is Hurricane Preparedness Week. Now is the time to start thinking about what you're going to do when and if a hurricane comes in close to your house, and a quick look at the names for this hurricane season, starting from Arlene going all the way down to Wilma. No Kyra, Katrina, sorry.
PHILLIPS: And no Jacqui! It's the closest "J." I can't see it. It's behind you.
JERAS: There it is. Jose!
PHILLIPS: All right. Close, but no cigar. Thanks, Jacqui.
Well, for a map tracing the 2004 hurricane season, information on how storms form and what you can do in a hurricane, logon to CNN.com/hurricanes.
Comments made by Mexico's president angers some civil rights leaders in the United States. The president's office say that his remarks about Mexican immigrants and African-Americans have been misinterpreted. We're going to sort it out later on LIVE FROM.
And this plane you're about to be see misses the runway and takes a plunge. An eyewitness tells is what he saw, straight ahead.
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JENNIFER TRUMAN, STUDENT PILOT: The pilot of the plane is not well. We have to go back to Laconia. Please help me.
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PHILLIPS: Dramatic moments in the air when a passenger is forced to become the pilot. That's coming up for a landing, right after a quick break.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
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PHILLIPS: A hate crime. That's what Reverend Jesse Jackson is calling that massive shooting in Compton. Los Angeles sheriffs' deputies pummeled 120 rounds at a driver at the end of a chase last week. The driver, Winston Hayes, was struck four times. Jackson had this to say after meeting with Hayes last night.
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REV. JESSE JACKSON, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: This was not a high- speed chase. This was a high-bullet chase. And most hits were in the back, back of his ankle or in his shoulder or in his neck. He said it was like firecrackers exploding. He just got down in the truck, and they just kept shooting. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Jackson is asking the FBI to investigate.
We have some pretty remarkable pictures of a small jet crash in Atlantic City. An amateur photographer captured these images of the twin engine jet as it ran off of the airport runway. It plunged into the bay. The four people aboard suffered minor injuries. Once witness described the crash for CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."
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KEN YASENCHOCK, WITNESS: Then out of the corner of my eye, my son was in the van. He said, "Dad, the plane's trying to land."
The plane came across this runway straight down behind us. OK? At a very high rate of speed. Couldn't stop. At the end of the runway there was this little mound of dirt they used for probably stopping the planes. He hit that, bounced up into the air, and went into the creek.
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PHILLIPS: Investigators are now looking into possible brake failure. They're hoping to tow that jet out of the water today.
Imagine being 4,000 miles off the ground and realizing you have no pilot. Well, one woman found herself in that exact predicament after her pilot, who was also her father, suffered a stroke.
CNN's Dan Lothian talked with her and the air traffic controller who helped save her life.
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KEN HOPF, FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: You can just leave it open there.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ken Hopf is a veteran pilot and flight instructor who has plenty of experience keeping his students calm and focused. And those skills came in handy last August at his day job as an FAA air traffic controller in New Hampshire when a distress call came in.
TRUMAN: And the pilot of the plane is not well. We have to go back to Laconia. Please help me.
HOPF: They came out of this Laconia airport.
LOTHIAN: The six-seater plane was flying more than 4,000 feet above New Hampshire, 15 miles from the airport. The woman's father had suddenly became incapacitated on their way to Utica, New York, and she was forced to take the controls.
TRUMAN: I've never flown a Malibu.
HOPF: Do you know where the gear selector knob is? TRUMAN: Gear selector knob? No.
HOPF: We're going to do the best we can to help you right now.
LOTHIAN: Now for the first time, Jennifer Truman talks publicly about that frightening day.
TRUMAN: My only thought was get this plane on the ground.
LOTHIAN (on camera): Truman had taken flying lessons but was not a licensed pilot. She did know how to turn the plane to the right heading and make a gradual descent. Everything seemed OK, but that was about to change.
(voice-over) As Hopf sat at radar station like this one, Truman issued one more distress call. Another passenger, her mother, was also in trouble.
TRUMAN: She's flopping over like a doll now.
HOPF: We all became very concerned that this was maybe carbon monoxide was leaking into the airplane.
LOTHIAN: The controller asked her to open vents, ordered a more direct route and quicker descent. Within minutes it was over.
TRUMAN: On the ground. There's the fire department. Thank you very much.
LOTHIAN: The emergency crews assisted Truman's parents, but they both would later die. Amazingly, each had suffered a stroke. A sad ending, but a potential air disaster averted with the help a controller with unique skills who answered the call.
TRUMAN: With Ken on the other end it just -- it was a calming voice.
LOTHIAN: Dan Lothian, Laconia, New Hampshire.
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PHILLIPS (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM, a racial insult, or lost in translation? Comments by Mexico's president about immigrants and African-Americans. Should Vicente Fox apologize?
Later on LIVE FROM...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said, well, we might be brothers. And you know, that just came as a shock to me. And I couldn't believe it.
PHILLIPS: Finding family ties on the front lines. Two long-lost brothers share their story.
Tomorrow on LIVE FROM, she jumped out of airplanes and swam with the stingrays. Now the sisters of a 9/11 victim want you to learn to live your life to a fullest. It's a new book called "You Can Do It!"
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PHILLIPS: In medical news, excitement is building over a drug that's showing promise in fighting breast cancer, and as CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen explains, it could lead to big changes in just how doctors treat cancer.
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ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She found the lump herself one morning.
ELIZABETH RUSSO, CANCER PATIENT: I was petrified.
COHEN: Then her doctor confirmed the worst.
RUSSO: I had only been married for about a year and a half, and I felt like my world was falling down around me. You know, the first question that goes through your head is, am I going to die? And that really was what I was thinking at the time. It was extremely frightening.
COHEN: At age 29, Elizabeth Russo had breast cancer, and there was more. Doctors told her she a particular kind that grew quickly and was more likely to come back. This happens to one out of every four patients.
But there was a twist. Because she had this particular type of tumor, she was a candidate for a study on a drug called Herceptin. Doctors knew it worked when the cancer had spread to other parts of the body, but they weren't sure if it could help women like Elizabeth who were at the early stages.
At first she wasn't sure what to do, because the drug, in a small number of women, had caused heart failure.
RUSSO: There was a little bit of fear there, but, obviously, in my situation, the chances absolutely outweighed the frighteningness of the whole situation. I mean, I had to take the risk, because there was still the chance that I could die.
COHEN: She took Herceptin, along with chemotherapy and radiation, and a year after finding that lump, she's cancer-free.
In the studies of the National Cancer Institute, when women did not take Herceptin, 30 percent of them had the cancer come back. When they did take Herceptin, only 15 percent had the cancer come back. It cut the recurrence rate in half, an extraordinary impact, experts say, meaning this drug is one of the most promising in a new generation of cancer treatments.
Unlike chemotherapy or radiation, which attack healthy and unhealthy tissue, medicines like Herceptin are designed only to attack the pacific protein that causes problems.
DR. DAVID JOHNSON, VANDERBILT CANCER INSTITUTE: Targeted therapies, which we've talked a lot about for the last couple of years, are really coming to fruition.
COHEN: Now Elizabeth Russo, once afraid she would die, is alive for the big moments, like her godson's christening last month. The cancer could come back, but now it seems that's less likely.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN reporting.
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PHILLIPS: Getting word of a tornado in Texas. Jacqui Jeras is following all the details -- Jacqui.
JERAS: Hey, Kyra. The public's reporting a tornado on the ground in Aransas County, Texas, at the state park there, the public reporting it near Goose Island State Park.
There you can see the state of Texas. This is near the coastal area and it's a pretty isolated cell. This is the one of concern right here. It is moving to the south and to the west. So if you live in Rockport, if you live in Fulton, this storm is moving towards you. A dangerous situation.
The public reporting a tornado at the Goose Island State Park. Again, that's for northern Aransas County in Texas.
Any more severe weather, we'll bring it to you, Kyra. But again, I think this is a pretty isolated situation today.
PHILLIPS: All right. Keep us updated, Jacqui. Thank you so much.
And consumers beware. After trying for three months to raise fares in response to high fuel costs, it looks like the big carriers might finally make this one stick. Kathleen Hays has the details, live from the New York Stock Exchange.
Kathleen, it's going to be expensive to fly this summer?
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