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Live From...
Missing in Aruba; Landslide Damage; Lebanon in Mourning
Aired June 03, 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A plane sends out a hijack signal. The S.W.A.T. team moves in. But it turns out to be a false alarm. What happened?
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Mysterious disappearance. A young woman vanishes on a high school trip. Her family pleads for help.
PHILLIPS: Michael Jackson spent the night at the hospital and the day in court. A jury gets set to decide his fate.
HARRIS: From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Tony Harris, in for Miles O'Brien.
PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
The signal was unmistakable, but apparently was sent by mistake. Code 7500, hijack, it was sent by the transponder on board Virgin Atlantic Flight 45 sometime after it took off from London to JFK. The captain quickly told controllers there was no emergency, "Everything is A-OK." Still, a detour was ordered and Canadian warplanes scrambled but stood down after the airliner's routine landing in Halifax.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONSTABLE JOE TAPLIN, RCMP: The emergency situation that came in, it was two CF-18s escorted the plane in. And once the plane landed safely, they went back to the valley.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Halifax was picked because the Airbus was headed into Canadian airspace anyway, and Halifax was the nearest big enough airport. That flight is expected to continue on to New York sometime this afternoon.
CNN, as always, offers the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN day and night.
HARRIS: A high school graduate's dream is an Alabama's family's nightmare this week as hour after hour, day after day passed with no sign of Natalee Holloway. Holloway and dozens of her fellow grads were partying in Aruba when she left a bar with three locals early Tuesday morning and disappeared. Her home is the Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook, and reporter Cynthia Gould of CNN affiliate WBRC is following the story from there -- Cynthia. CYNTHIA GOULD, REPORTER, WBRC: Well, Tony, it is day five of the search for Natalee Holloway. And today the FBI is reporting no new leads in the case.
Of course, those searches on the island are going on daily, looking for any sign of her. But again, so far no concrete leads.
Her parents, though, recently have announced they are offering a $10,000 reward in the case for anyone who can bring Natalee to either a police station or to a hospital. They are desperate for answers in this case.
Now, today, here in the Birmingham metro area, two more prayer vigils for Natalee. One of them here at the Mountain Brook Community Church, which is just breaking up. They're getting about 100 students, family and friends coming out here daily.
It's not clear how long those vigils are going to continue. There was also another one at an Anglican church right in the Mountain Brook area.
Now, some folks tell us they are not happy with the way Natalee is being portrayed in the national media. They say this is a straight A student, an honor society, very active in community service organizations and also on the marching band dance team. This was a girl, straight A, a great girl they all loved in this community.
Now, earlier, we talked with a pastor at one of the local churches. She says, while things are not looking too good at this point, they are still very hopeful that prayer will be the answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. JEAN MADDEN, LOCAL PASTOR: Natalee's part of our community, and our hearts are burdened for her and for her family. And we know that god answers prayer, and we're here to pray for her, lift her up, and do all that we can to help bring her home safely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOULD: And the folks that have gathered here, they say they hope Natalee's family takes some comfort in knowing that so many people in this local community are coming out and praying for her safe return.
Reporting live in Birmingham, Cynthia Gould, CNN News.
HARRIS: OK. Cynthia, we appreciate it. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Well, they've watched, waited, listened, taken piles of notes, and soon they'll get down to business. Jurors in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial are expected to start deliberating as soon as one hour from now after some final points from the lawyers and guidance from the judge. Jackson appeared in court on time today despite a late-night visit to the hospital for reasons unknown.
Let's get a live update from Santa Maria at the bottom of this hour.
HARRIS: More news "Across America" now.
Back to court today for the woman who says she found a finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Her lawyer wants to see more police documents. Anna Ayala is charged with conspiracy, attempted grand theft and grand theft. Wendy's says it lost millions of dollars in sales because of negative publicity about the incident.
A strange pursuit in Arizona. Police say a 14-year-old boy stole an earth mover from a construction site and led them on a 15-mile chase through Tucson last night. They say he ignored orders to stop, ran red lights, and knocked down utility poles.
There he is in the land mover there. Officers shot the teen when he hit a dead end. They shot him when he hit a dead end, reversed, and began driving in their direction. The boy is hospitalized in critical condition.
And spanking is now a no-no in Brookline, Massachusetts. People there have passed a resolution requesting parents not to use corporal punishment. It's non-binding, and the vote was close, 89-90.
PHILLIPS: Many of the hundreds of evacuees in Laguna Beach, California, are being allowed to return home. Their homes are now considered safe from landslides that damaged or threatened dozens of houses. But as CNN's Sean Callebs reports, some people are locked out, possibly forever.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Controlled chaos in the narrow streets of Bluebird Canyon in Laguna Beach. And for 74- year-old Albert Trevino, concern that the saying could be true, that you can't go home again.
ALBERT TREVINO, RESIDENT: I have asthma for my wife and diabetes and heart medicine in my home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Where's...
TREVINO: 1015 Madison Place.
CALLEBS: But just as Trevino fears, his neighborhood was hit hardest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Madison, nobody's allowed on Madison at all, whether it be for medication or not.
CALLEBS: We went with Trevino as close as he could get to his home, a neighbor's deck. Trevnino's home is the one with the fireplace hanging on the edge of the cliff.
It all happened early Wednesday, as this landscape developer was answering e-mails. TREVINO: And then I heard this shake, and the house cracking. And looked around, walked to the corner, looked down, and the earth just opened up in front of me.
CALLEBS: On paper, Trevino was a millionaire yesterday before the slide. His home was worth at least $1.8 million. But Trevino says, like all other homeowners here, he cannot get insurance for devastating earth slides caused by nature.
(on camera): So is this a total loss?
TREVINO: Yes, for -- it's a total loss. And that's why you place your hopes that maybe five years, 10 years from now, there'll be some ingenious way to rebuild all of that land that has sloughed off.
CALLEBS (voice-over): Trevino built the first home in these hills more than 40 years ago, paying $750 down for the land. That's right, $750 for this view. And you guessed it, he wants to rebuild.
TREVINO: We don't have any -- you know, any great amounts of money. So I have to -- I can't afford to pay, you know, a couple million for a house.
CALLEBS: For the time being, Trevino, and his wife, Delores, gaze at their home on the front page of the newspaper and try to stay focused, at times doing little things, like buying a cell phone charge so they can talk with their 11 children. This is the family a couple of months ago in happier times, at their 50th wedding anniversary. Right now, it's the personal treasures they dearly want to recover, photos, birth certificates, and mementos from Trevino's service in both the Nixon and George W. Bush administrations, working for HUD.
Even though he risks losing everything, Trevino calls himself a lucky man.
(on camera): You know, how can you be so upbeat?
TREVINO: It's not being upbeat. It's just the realities are -- look at that view. I mean, look at this climate.
CALLEBS: An overwhelming number of the thousand or so residents forced to evacuate began streaming back home Thursday evening. But for the families like the Trevinos, whose homes were damaged or destroyed, it could be weeks or months before they go back home. Or, worst case scenario, never.
Sean Callebs, CNN, Laguna Beach, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Friday night, Friday night. You know what your teenagers are going to be up to?
PHILLIPS: I'm just worried what you're going to be up to. Well, chances are it involves cell phones, text messaging, two-way radios.
HARRIS: Yes, same here. Yes. Yes.
PHILLIPS: Just like you, right?
HARRIS: Right.
PHILLIPS: We're going to take you into the high-tech world of just hanging out.
HARRIS: And later on LIVE FROM, "Cinderella Man" Russell Crowe sits down with CNN to talk about what he had to do with his ears in order to play a boxing legend.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: News around the world now.
International human trafficking is being called modern-day slavery. Eight new countries on a State Department list of nations not cracking down on the problem. Four of them: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. They're key U.S. allies in the Middle East.
A warning to Americans. The U.S. embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, says extremists there want to bomb the lobbies of hotels popular with westerners. The country's police chief also says fresh violence is likely. Indonesia has been hit by three major attacks by al Qaeda- linked militants since 2002.
Terror threats are also a concern thousands of miles away. The U.S. and Israeli embassies in Uzbekistan are ordering nonessential personnel to leave. A senior State Department official says there's been an uptick in threats to U.S. interests there in recent weeks.
HARRIS: Lebanon is mourning for the second time in four months. First, the assassination of a former prime minister in February, and now the death of a prominent journalist under similar circumstances.
CNN's Brent Sadler reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRENT SADLER, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A candlelit vigil in Beirut to honor a man of many hard-hitting words. Top Lebanese columnist Samir Kassir's pen, say his many admirers, was sharper than a sword, regularly drawn, claim Lebanese opposition leaders, to attack Syrian policy in Lebanon. The writer and political activist silenced in a Thursday blast, targeting his car, delivering instant death.
NASSIB LAHOUD, OPPOSITION MP: Samir Kassir is not just one of the top intellectuals in the Arab world, not one of the most important writers, he is one of the heroes of the independence movement.
SADLER: News of the assassination roared from printing presses of the leading Lebanese newspaper that published his biting articles, often critical of Syria. Absent, his Friday front-page column. "Murdered," says his publisher, before the deadline.
GEBRAN TUENI, PUBLISHER, AN NAHAR NEWSPAPER: Samir was revolutionary in some ways, saying loudly what people, you know, doesn't have the courage to say.
SADLER (on camera): He wrote his last article here in this office?
TUENI: In this office. This is Samir's office. Samir used to work here on his computer.
SADLER (voice-over): A computer used to fashion his last published column, hard on Syria, headlined "Mistake After Mistake." "Power brokers in Damascus," he wrote, "reject dialogue with their opponents in Syria." "Instead," he added, "they should adopt policies that would spare them a bigger defeat and initiate fundamental change to prevent a confrontation with their own people." Words, says his publisher and opposition ally, Gebran Tueni, that could have got him killed.
TUENI: When you kill a front-page writer of a newspaper, it is always to be wider. It's not the journalist that you kill. When you kill a journalist, you're killing a public opinion.
SADLER: And Syria, claims Tueni, fears freedom of expression and its affect on public opinion.
Syria strongly denies what it says are unfounded allegations of complicity in the assassination, blaming Lebanon's opposition for jumping to wrong conclusions, stoking tension.
TUENI: People who killed Samir Kassir wanted to kill the message, wanted to just shut down, you know, a message and break pen.
SADLER: A pen whose owner will be laid to rest a martyr, say colleagues, as much as a messenger.
Brent Sadler, CNN, Beirut.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, employers hit the brakes on hiring last month, and jobs growth dramatically slowed down.
HARRIS: Kathleen Hays has the full report live from the New York Stock Exchange.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: "Cinderella Man" could very well knock out its box office competition this weekend. The film is Ron Howard's latest and stars Russell Crowe as real life boxer Jim Braddock, a tenacious prize fighter who refuses to give up on his dreams.
CNN's Sibila Vargas joins us now from Los Angeles to tell us more, about the film, and Russell Crowe himself.
Sibila, good to see you.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: That's right. As you said, he reunites with Ron Howard on this one. Well, they first worked together on the Oscar-winning film "A Beautiful Mind."
Now, "Cinderella Man" tells the story about real-life boxer James Braddock, who entered the ring to feed his family during the great depression of the 1930s. Crowe told me that he loved immersing himself into the boxer's life, down to all the little details. He also told me that he's enjoying another role, as father.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VARGAS: Seeing this film and just looking at you, the transformation, how important is look for you?
RUSSELL CROWE, ACTOR: You know, I had footage of Braddock, and I knew that the style of boxer that he was. And so I wasn't -- you know, this -- the film and the way that I move in the film is as close as I could get to recreating him. I'm not doing a generic boxer. I'm specifically doing James Braddock.
Part of the fun for me is the detail. The ears, I don't know if you noticed. He's got cauliflower ears. And they also poke out.
So I had these bars stuck up behind my ears to make my ears go like that. And it was so funny. I showed Ron, "Here's a photo of Braddock, here's a photo of me." And he goes, "Oh, gee, I don't know, Russell, are you sure? You know, I mean, are you sure about the ears? You know?"
I mean, I'm a guy who's got ears like that. I'm not sure if that should be in a movie.
VARGAS: Do you ever feel like with your characters that they leave something with you?
CROWE: Oh, I think, you know, I put so much effort into it and stuff, I always take something away with the characters and take, you know, life stuff with me. You know?
I mean, my dad occasionally jokes that I only became a man when I started making movies because of all the various skills I've had to learn. You know? And if only I'd just shut up and listened a little bit more when I was younger, I would have been ahead of the game.
VARGAS: Did you learn anything as a family man now? I mean, you've celebrated your second-year anniversary, and you've got this little guy who I hear is an incorrigible flirt.
CROWE: Absolutely.
VARGAS: Does he take after his dad or his mom? CROWE: I'm just trying to think if I'm going to get in trouble answering. If you go into having a kid like the way that we have, in that, you know, we waited a long time, you know, we got married first, you know, and then we said, you know, as soon as the baby comes, the baby comes, and then honeymoon, pregnancy.
It was just like boom, wow. All right, maybe this was a little quicker than we were expecting. But once you've made the decision with an open heart that you want to have a child, then it doesn't matter what happens after that, you know, because the priorities are in place, and that's that this little baby comes first. You know?
So, you know, I have a great relationship with my boy, and I just really looking forward to it unfolding over the years, you know, because it's just so special now. I can't imagine how much fun it's going to be when we can have a chat.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VARGAS: And Russell Crowe does an exceptional job in "Cinderella Man." In fact, there's already Oscar buzz building on this film out here in Hollywood.
It also stars Paul Giamatti, who some may remember from "Sideways," an incredible actor. Tony, this one scores a knockout.
HARRIS: Wow. You like it, huh?
VARGAS: I love it. You have to see it this weekend.
HARRIS: OK. Will do. Will do.
Hey, before you get out of here, there's a bit of Dave Chappelle news?
VARGAS: That's right. According to "Daily Variety," Chappelle returned stateside and felt like he wanted to perform, so he headed to two popular L.A. comedy clubs. So it looks like the man's back in business doing what he does best, making people laugh.
HARRIS: OK. Yes, he does do that well. That's for sure.
VARGAS: He does.
HARRIS: Sibila, good to see you. Have a great weekend.
VARGAS: You too.
Aired June 3, 2005 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A plane sends out a hijack signal. The S.W.A.T. team moves in. But it turns out to be a false alarm. What happened?
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Mysterious disappearance. A young woman vanishes on a high school trip. Her family pleads for help.
PHILLIPS: Michael Jackson spent the night at the hospital and the day in court. A jury gets set to decide his fate.
HARRIS: From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Tony Harris, in for Miles O'Brien.
PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
The signal was unmistakable, but apparently was sent by mistake. Code 7500, hijack, it was sent by the transponder on board Virgin Atlantic Flight 45 sometime after it took off from London to JFK. The captain quickly told controllers there was no emergency, "Everything is A-OK." Still, a detour was ordered and Canadian warplanes scrambled but stood down after the airliner's routine landing in Halifax.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONSTABLE JOE TAPLIN, RCMP: The emergency situation that came in, it was two CF-18s escorted the plane in. And once the plane landed safely, they went back to the valley.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Halifax was picked because the Airbus was headed into Canadian airspace anyway, and Halifax was the nearest big enough airport. That flight is expected to continue on to New York sometime this afternoon.
CNN, as always, offers the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN day and night.
HARRIS: A high school graduate's dream is an Alabama's family's nightmare this week as hour after hour, day after day passed with no sign of Natalee Holloway. Holloway and dozens of her fellow grads were partying in Aruba when she left a bar with three locals early Tuesday morning and disappeared. Her home is the Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook, and reporter Cynthia Gould of CNN affiliate WBRC is following the story from there -- Cynthia. CYNTHIA GOULD, REPORTER, WBRC: Well, Tony, it is day five of the search for Natalee Holloway. And today the FBI is reporting no new leads in the case.
Of course, those searches on the island are going on daily, looking for any sign of her. But again, so far no concrete leads.
Her parents, though, recently have announced they are offering a $10,000 reward in the case for anyone who can bring Natalee to either a police station or to a hospital. They are desperate for answers in this case.
Now, today, here in the Birmingham metro area, two more prayer vigils for Natalee. One of them here at the Mountain Brook Community Church, which is just breaking up. They're getting about 100 students, family and friends coming out here daily.
It's not clear how long those vigils are going to continue. There was also another one at an Anglican church right in the Mountain Brook area.
Now, some folks tell us they are not happy with the way Natalee is being portrayed in the national media. They say this is a straight A student, an honor society, very active in community service organizations and also on the marching band dance team. This was a girl, straight A, a great girl they all loved in this community.
Now, earlier, we talked with a pastor at one of the local churches. She says, while things are not looking too good at this point, they are still very hopeful that prayer will be the answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. JEAN MADDEN, LOCAL PASTOR: Natalee's part of our community, and our hearts are burdened for her and for her family. And we know that god answers prayer, and we're here to pray for her, lift her up, and do all that we can to help bring her home safely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOULD: And the folks that have gathered here, they say they hope Natalee's family takes some comfort in knowing that so many people in this local community are coming out and praying for her safe return.
Reporting live in Birmingham, Cynthia Gould, CNN News.
HARRIS: OK. Cynthia, we appreciate it. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Well, they've watched, waited, listened, taken piles of notes, and soon they'll get down to business. Jurors in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial are expected to start deliberating as soon as one hour from now after some final points from the lawyers and guidance from the judge. Jackson appeared in court on time today despite a late-night visit to the hospital for reasons unknown.
Let's get a live update from Santa Maria at the bottom of this hour.
HARRIS: More news "Across America" now.
Back to court today for the woman who says she found a finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Her lawyer wants to see more police documents. Anna Ayala is charged with conspiracy, attempted grand theft and grand theft. Wendy's says it lost millions of dollars in sales because of negative publicity about the incident.
A strange pursuit in Arizona. Police say a 14-year-old boy stole an earth mover from a construction site and led them on a 15-mile chase through Tucson last night. They say he ignored orders to stop, ran red lights, and knocked down utility poles.
There he is in the land mover there. Officers shot the teen when he hit a dead end. They shot him when he hit a dead end, reversed, and began driving in their direction. The boy is hospitalized in critical condition.
And spanking is now a no-no in Brookline, Massachusetts. People there have passed a resolution requesting parents not to use corporal punishment. It's non-binding, and the vote was close, 89-90.
PHILLIPS: Many of the hundreds of evacuees in Laguna Beach, California, are being allowed to return home. Their homes are now considered safe from landslides that damaged or threatened dozens of houses. But as CNN's Sean Callebs reports, some people are locked out, possibly forever.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Controlled chaos in the narrow streets of Bluebird Canyon in Laguna Beach. And for 74- year-old Albert Trevino, concern that the saying could be true, that you can't go home again.
ALBERT TREVINO, RESIDENT: I have asthma for my wife and diabetes and heart medicine in my home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Where's...
TREVINO: 1015 Madison Place.
CALLEBS: But just as Trevino fears, his neighborhood was hit hardest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Madison, nobody's allowed on Madison at all, whether it be for medication or not.
CALLEBS: We went with Trevino as close as he could get to his home, a neighbor's deck. Trevnino's home is the one with the fireplace hanging on the edge of the cliff.
It all happened early Wednesday, as this landscape developer was answering e-mails. TREVINO: And then I heard this shake, and the house cracking. And looked around, walked to the corner, looked down, and the earth just opened up in front of me.
CALLEBS: On paper, Trevino was a millionaire yesterday before the slide. His home was worth at least $1.8 million. But Trevino says, like all other homeowners here, he cannot get insurance for devastating earth slides caused by nature.
(on camera): So is this a total loss?
TREVINO: Yes, for -- it's a total loss. And that's why you place your hopes that maybe five years, 10 years from now, there'll be some ingenious way to rebuild all of that land that has sloughed off.
CALLEBS (voice-over): Trevino built the first home in these hills more than 40 years ago, paying $750 down for the land. That's right, $750 for this view. And you guessed it, he wants to rebuild.
TREVINO: We don't have any -- you know, any great amounts of money. So I have to -- I can't afford to pay, you know, a couple million for a house.
CALLEBS: For the time being, Trevino, and his wife, Delores, gaze at their home on the front page of the newspaper and try to stay focused, at times doing little things, like buying a cell phone charge so they can talk with their 11 children. This is the family a couple of months ago in happier times, at their 50th wedding anniversary. Right now, it's the personal treasures they dearly want to recover, photos, birth certificates, and mementos from Trevino's service in both the Nixon and George W. Bush administrations, working for HUD.
Even though he risks losing everything, Trevino calls himself a lucky man.
(on camera): You know, how can you be so upbeat?
TREVINO: It's not being upbeat. It's just the realities are -- look at that view. I mean, look at this climate.
CALLEBS: An overwhelming number of the thousand or so residents forced to evacuate began streaming back home Thursday evening. But for the families like the Trevinos, whose homes were damaged or destroyed, it could be weeks or months before they go back home. Or, worst case scenario, never.
Sean Callebs, CNN, Laguna Beach, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Friday night, Friday night. You know what your teenagers are going to be up to?
PHILLIPS: I'm just worried what you're going to be up to. Well, chances are it involves cell phones, text messaging, two-way radios.
HARRIS: Yes, same here. Yes. Yes.
PHILLIPS: Just like you, right?
HARRIS: Right.
PHILLIPS: We're going to take you into the high-tech world of just hanging out.
HARRIS: And later on LIVE FROM, "Cinderella Man" Russell Crowe sits down with CNN to talk about what he had to do with his ears in order to play a boxing legend.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: News around the world now.
International human trafficking is being called modern-day slavery. Eight new countries on a State Department list of nations not cracking down on the problem. Four of them: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. They're key U.S. allies in the Middle East.
A warning to Americans. The U.S. embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, says extremists there want to bomb the lobbies of hotels popular with westerners. The country's police chief also says fresh violence is likely. Indonesia has been hit by three major attacks by al Qaeda- linked militants since 2002.
Terror threats are also a concern thousands of miles away. The U.S. and Israeli embassies in Uzbekistan are ordering nonessential personnel to leave. A senior State Department official says there's been an uptick in threats to U.S. interests there in recent weeks.
HARRIS: Lebanon is mourning for the second time in four months. First, the assassination of a former prime minister in February, and now the death of a prominent journalist under similar circumstances.
CNN's Brent Sadler reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRENT SADLER, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A candlelit vigil in Beirut to honor a man of many hard-hitting words. Top Lebanese columnist Samir Kassir's pen, say his many admirers, was sharper than a sword, regularly drawn, claim Lebanese opposition leaders, to attack Syrian policy in Lebanon. The writer and political activist silenced in a Thursday blast, targeting his car, delivering instant death.
NASSIB LAHOUD, OPPOSITION MP: Samir Kassir is not just one of the top intellectuals in the Arab world, not one of the most important writers, he is one of the heroes of the independence movement.
SADLER: News of the assassination roared from printing presses of the leading Lebanese newspaper that published his biting articles, often critical of Syria. Absent, his Friday front-page column. "Murdered," says his publisher, before the deadline.
GEBRAN TUENI, PUBLISHER, AN NAHAR NEWSPAPER: Samir was revolutionary in some ways, saying loudly what people, you know, doesn't have the courage to say.
SADLER (on camera): He wrote his last article here in this office?
TUENI: In this office. This is Samir's office. Samir used to work here on his computer.
SADLER (voice-over): A computer used to fashion his last published column, hard on Syria, headlined "Mistake After Mistake." "Power brokers in Damascus," he wrote, "reject dialogue with their opponents in Syria." "Instead," he added, "they should adopt policies that would spare them a bigger defeat and initiate fundamental change to prevent a confrontation with their own people." Words, says his publisher and opposition ally, Gebran Tueni, that could have got him killed.
TUENI: When you kill a front-page writer of a newspaper, it is always to be wider. It's not the journalist that you kill. When you kill a journalist, you're killing a public opinion.
SADLER: And Syria, claims Tueni, fears freedom of expression and its affect on public opinion.
Syria strongly denies what it says are unfounded allegations of complicity in the assassination, blaming Lebanon's opposition for jumping to wrong conclusions, stoking tension.
TUENI: People who killed Samir Kassir wanted to kill the message, wanted to just shut down, you know, a message and break pen.
SADLER: A pen whose owner will be laid to rest a martyr, say colleagues, as much as a messenger.
Brent Sadler, CNN, Beirut.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, employers hit the brakes on hiring last month, and jobs growth dramatically slowed down.
HARRIS: Kathleen Hays has the full report live from the New York Stock Exchange.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: "Cinderella Man" could very well knock out its box office competition this weekend. The film is Ron Howard's latest and stars Russell Crowe as real life boxer Jim Braddock, a tenacious prize fighter who refuses to give up on his dreams.
CNN's Sibila Vargas joins us now from Los Angeles to tell us more, about the film, and Russell Crowe himself.
Sibila, good to see you.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: That's right. As you said, he reunites with Ron Howard on this one. Well, they first worked together on the Oscar-winning film "A Beautiful Mind."
Now, "Cinderella Man" tells the story about real-life boxer James Braddock, who entered the ring to feed his family during the great depression of the 1930s. Crowe told me that he loved immersing himself into the boxer's life, down to all the little details. He also told me that he's enjoying another role, as father.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VARGAS: Seeing this film and just looking at you, the transformation, how important is look for you?
RUSSELL CROWE, ACTOR: You know, I had footage of Braddock, and I knew that the style of boxer that he was. And so I wasn't -- you know, this -- the film and the way that I move in the film is as close as I could get to recreating him. I'm not doing a generic boxer. I'm specifically doing James Braddock.
Part of the fun for me is the detail. The ears, I don't know if you noticed. He's got cauliflower ears. And they also poke out.
So I had these bars stuck up behind my ears to make my ears go like that. And it was so funny. I showed Ron, "Here's a photo of Braddock, here's a photo of me." And he goes, "Oh, gee, I don't know, Russell, are you sure? You know, I mean, are you sure about the ears? You know?"
I mean, I'm a guy who's got ears like that. I'm not sure if that should be in a movie.
VARGAS: Do you ever feel like with your characters that they leave something with you?
CROWE: Oh, I think, you know, I put so much effort into it and stuff, I always take something away with the characters and take, you know, life stuff with me. You know?
I mean, my dad occasionally jokes that I only became a man when I started making movies because of all the various skills I've had to learn. You know? And if only I'd just shut up and listened a little bit more when I was younger, I would have been ahead of the game.
VARGAS: Did you learn anything as a family man now? I mean, you've celebrated your second-year anniversary, and you've got this little guy who I hear is an incorrigible flirt.
CROWE: Absolutely.
VARGAS: Does he take after his dad or his mom? CROWE: I'm just trying to think if I'm going to get in trouble answering. If you go into having a kid like the way that we have, in that, you know, we waited a long time, you know, we got married first, you know, and then we said, you know, as soon as the baby comes, the baby comes, and then honeymoon, pregnancy.
It was just like boom, wow. All right, maybe this was a little quicker than we were expecting. But once you've made the decision with an open heart that you want to have a child, then it doesn't matter what happens after that, you know, because the priorities are in place, and that's that this little baby comes first. You know?
So, you know, I have a great relationship with my boy, and I just really looking forward to it unfolding over the years, you know, because it's just so special now. I can't imagine how much fun it's going to be when we can have a chat.
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VARGAS: And Russell Crowe does an exceptional job in "Cinderella Man." In fact, there's already Oscar buzz building on this film out here in Hollywood.
It also stars Paul Giamatti, who some may remember from "Sideways," an incredible actor. Tony, this one scores a knockout.
HARRIS: Wow. You like it, huh?
VARGAS: I love it. You have to see it this weekend.
HARRIS: OK. Will do. Will do.
Hey, before you get out of here, there's a bit of Dave Chappelle news?
VARGAS: That's right. According to "Daily Variety," Chappelle returned stateside and felt like he wanted to perform, so he headed to two popular L.A. comedy clubs. So it looks like the man's back in business doing what he does best, making people laugh.
HARRIS: OK. Yes, he does do that well. That's for sure.
VARGAS: He does.
HARRIS: Sibila, good to see you. Have a great weekend.
VARGAS: You too.
