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Live From...
New Orleans Runoff; Army Corps of Engineers: New Orleans Levees Won't be Ready for Beginning of Hurricane Season; How to Rob a Bank; Art History and "The Da Vinci Code"
Aired May 19, 2006 - 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: Well, the world got to know Ray Nagin after Hurricane Katrina. Will we be seeing more of him in the future? It depends on what happens tomorrow. We'll explain.
The second hour of LIVE FROM starts right now.
And we begin this hour with the uprising over suicide attempts at Gitmo. Prisoners, we don't know how many, reportedly attacked U.S. troops who were trying to keep another prisoner from hanging himself. The detainees lashed out with everything from sticks, to fans and light fixtures. Word is no one is hurt.
Almost 500 terror suspects are being held at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there since right after 9/11.
It's a volatile debate, but immigration control is more than just talk in San Ysidro, California. The world's busiest border crossing is also the scene of a deadly shooting by U.S. Border Patrol agents.
They opened fired last night on a driver of an SUV who was suspected of picking up illegal immigrants. It turns out he was and -- or refusing, rather, the officers' commands to get out of that car.
Well, common and unifying language is often alien to Capitol Hill, but it's turned up in a Senate amendment which passed making English the common and unifying language of the United States. Hispanic groups objected to the term "national language". In its immigration reform debate today, the Senate has approved this deal with the border of Mexico.
We'll have much more on this to come.
One country, one language. That's the mantra of an English-only crowd. People who say immigrants from any other country need to learn and use English.
Here's a "Fact Check".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Twenty-seven states now have some form of English-only legislation. A spearhead of the movement is the Washington-based group U.S. English Incorporated. Founded in 1983, the group says it's the nation's oldest organization dedicated, in its words, to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States.
Immigrant and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a member of the U.S. English advisory board. Other celebrities on the board are actor Charlton Heston and golfer Arnold Palmer, and former defense secretary James Schelisinger.
U.S. English isn't limiting its efforts just at the state level. It's mounted a campaign on Capitol Hill to pass a law making English the official language of the United States. U.S. English and a similar group called Pro English argue that, English, as official language laws, will help immigrants learn English and thus succeed in this country. The American Civil Liberties Union and other critics say English-only laws do nothing more than discriminate against and punish those who have not learned English.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Nine months after Katrina, a key decision looms for New Orleans. Tomorrow's mayoral runoff election will decide whether incumbent Ray Nagin or challenger Mitch Landrieu will guide the city's rebirth.
CNN's Gulf Coast correspondent, Susan Roesgen, joins me with a tight race for possibly the toughest job in politics right now.
SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN GULF COAST CORRESPONDENT: I'm sure it is, Kyra. There is so much at stake in this election. Neighborhoods that still need to be rebuilt in New Orleans, so much trash that needs to be hauled away. And some people here are starting to worry about their safety. Crime has come back after Katrina.
So when the voter goes to the polls tomorrow, Kyra, they're going to be looking for the man they believe is the best person to move New Orleans forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only edge I would give to Landrieu is that he's going to have more money to be able to spend on advertising this last week, and the critical "get out the vote" effort, because you need to have a lot of money to get your vote out on election day. And I think Landrieu is going to have a little bit more than Nagin. So that's why maybe I would give him a slight edge, but certainly not a comfortable one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROESGEN: Kyra, they are expecting this to be a very close race. I think I heard Mayor Nagin give the best speech of his political campaign yesterday. He was on fire. But most political analysts say that although he has gained some momentum in the past couple of weeks, they do think that Mitch Landrieu may pull ahead.
PHILLIPS: So is it true that President Bush is backing Nagin?
ROESGEN: You know, that's what some political analysts say. The president has been down here almost a dozen times, he seems to have bonded with the mayor while he's here. And if not that, Kyra, you know, there's not a lot of love lost between President Bush and Mitch Landrieu's sister, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, who has voted against the president's initiatives probably one too many times.
PHILLIPS: Yes. Well, the turnout was pretty low in the primary election. What do you think -- was it low for the runoff?
ROESGEN: It was low for the primary. It was. And they do think it's going to be low for the runoff as well.
Between 34 percent and 36 percent, Kyra, which sounds pretty bad. But you have to remember that that represents about 110,000 people. And there are only 180,000 people, roughly, living in this city now today.
PHILLIPS: Now, you were telling me that the election has created at least one collector's item. What is that?
ROESGEN: There is indeed, Kyra. And I have it right here.
It's called "Da (ph) Mayor in your pocket." And it's actually got a little picture of Mayor Nagin. And what it is, it's a tape cassette recording. It has audio excerpts of the mayor's rant to a local radio station in the height of the mess of Katrina.
Some of the buttons I might push, Kyra, would not give you a PG answer. But this is actually the mayor here. The mayor himself had one of these. He wouldn't tell anybody where he found it. He said he didn't know where he got it, but our crack CNN research team found this in the French Quarter.
Kyra, let me just press a couple of the top buttons. See if you can hear it.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN (D), NEW ORLEANS: You've got to be kidding me.
ROESGEN: Did you hear that one, Kyra? Here's another one.
PHILLIPS: Yes.
NAGIN: This is a national disaster.
ROESGEN: There you go, he says, "This is a national disaster."
NAGIN: This is a national disaster.
ROESGEN: So anyway, we're going to try to get the mayor to sign this. Whatever happens, this is certainly a collector's item from this mayoral race.
PHILLIPS: Come on, one of the most famous lines, "chocolate city". That's not on there?
ROESGEN: No, that is not on there, Kyra. He has been asked about that so many times. You know, that was the remark that he made back in January, on Martin Luther King Day.
He got whipped up, he says, in the heat of the moment. And what he said was that god wanted New Orleans to be a majority African- American city. And that is apparently what caused many white voters to desert him.
He only got six percent of the white vote in the primary. He's got to get more in the white vote now to win this election. But Kyra, it's not just a black or white thing.
I've talked to so many white voters who have told me recently that they will not vote for the white candidate, Mitch Landrieu, because the believe he's too liberal. They say that in spite of whatever failures the mayor might have had in Hurricane Katrina, they believe he's the more conservative candidate, the pro-business candidate, and they want him to help bring businesses back to New Orleans.
PHILLIPS: And Susan, it's been a long time since there was a white mayor in New Orleans. I was trying to go back in my head as you were talking to remember. I mean, it goes back a number of years, right?
ROESGEN: Yes, 20-some years, Kyra. In fact, the last white mayor was Mitch Landrieu's father, Moon Landrieu, in the 1970s.
He was mayor of this city, the last white mayor. And then he went on to become, I believe, a HUD secretary under President Jimmy Carter.
And after Moon Landrieu, we've had three more black mayors. But this time you don't know which way the city will go.
We know that in absentee voting and in early voting, we've had about 24,000 votes come in. Most of those votes, three-quarters of the votes, have been from African-American voters. So we'll see which way the race goes.
PHILLIPS: Yes, we'll be watching the runoff, no doubt, this weekend.
Susan Roesgen, thanks so much.
Well, as we mentioned, hurricane season is now less than two weeks away. And despite what they promised, the Army Corps of Engineers says the New Orleans levees won't be ready.
CNN's Sean Callebs filed this report for "THE SITUATION ROOM".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS (voice-over): He's gutting his house, but Brian Bonura has no plans to move back in, at least not this year. Especially, he says, now that the Army Corps of Engineers admits construction on floodgates and levees will not be finished when the hurricane season starts June 1st. BRIAN BONURA, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: I don't feel safe come back to this area right now. And I would rather be somewhere else and come here and work on it. And hopefully in the future, you know, it will be safe to come back and live here again.
CALLEBS: Colonel Lewis Setliff is in charge of the federal project to repair the levee system dubbed Task Force Guardian.
COL. LEWIS SETLIFF, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: We're going to be very anxious. But I'll tell you, if these are -- if these systems are never tested, I'll be very happy.
CALLEBS: It will be at least a month until repairs are done. But local residents like Bonura and his business partner Mike Palmisano say they, like others, will sweat out the entire hurricane season.
MIKE PALMISANO, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: They don't feel safe. I mean, just think about it, you're not going to go pour new money into an area when you know that there is a potential problem for this levee to go ahead and break again.
CALLEBS: And despite months of work here, the "what if" factor has the corps concerned.
SETLIFF: We don't know the frequency, the dynamics involved, is there another Hurricane Katrina coming. But I do know that the system we're building will prevent catastrophic failure.
CALLEBS (on camera): The Army Corps of Engineers say this city will be safer on June 1st than it was before Katrina last year. But for the legions of residents who endured the wrath after the storm, that is little comfort. And with some 350 miles of levees in and around this area, it's safe to say it will be an anxious hurricane season.
Sean Callebs, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And you can watch "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer. Tune in this afternoon at 4:00 Eastern. The live primetime edition airs at 7:00.
Take it back. That's what BellSouth is saying to "USA Today". The telecom giant says that the newspaper was wrong to report that BellSouth provided phone call records to the National Security Agency. BellSouth wants a retraction. The paper says it's thinking about it.
"USA Today" reported last week that the NSA was getting phone call records from BellSouth, Verizon and AT&T. So far, BellSouth and Verizon have denied it. AT&T says it wouldn't share that kind of information without legal authorization.
More now on wiretaps, warrants and what Americans think about one without the other. In a CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, 39 percent say it's very likely that government wiretaps have been conducted without court order on U.S. citizens not suspected of terrorism. Twenty-four percent say it's somewhat likely, only 29 percent say it's not likely at all?
But is it right? Forty-four percent say yes, while 50 percent say it's wrong. That's a pretty even split, given the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percent.
You want money fast? Why go for payday or go for a loan when you can always rob a bank? And you don't even need a gun to cash in on this caper. How a little personal information can go a long way illegally when LIVE FROM returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, it's a get rich quick scheme that you won't see on late-night infomercials. But on "CNN PRESENTS" this weekend, "How to Rob a Bank". It will scare you just how easily you can get entangled in this scam.
CNN's Drew Griffin joins me with a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Oyono Kachikem (ph), Charles Osamor, looked like the classic immigrant. After coming from Nigeria to Houston as a 17-year-old student, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1987 from Texas Southern.
(on camera): Osamor then opened a succession of businesses: a frozen yogurt shop, a physical therapy clinic, and at one point a clothing boutique in this trendy mall. But getting rich in America was apparently taking too long. So Osamor took a shortcut.
(voice-over): Step one: The fraud begins with stolen corporate checks. Checks that make their way to Osamor.
This check was written by the El Paso Corporation, paid to the order of BJ Services, $132,000. But what good is a stolen check if you don't have a way to cash it?
Step two: Create a phony address. This commercial maildrop is one of several that Osamor used. The application says the mailbox is for Scott Weinbrant, who supposedly works at BJ Services and lives in Houston.
SCOTT WEINBRANT, IDENTITY THEFT VICTIM: I've been to Houston once in my life.
GRIFFIN: Weinbrant's identity was used to effectively move BJ Services from this $4 million building with nearly two acres of floor space to this 5-inch postal box that rents for $10 a month.
WEINBRANT: It was putting me in the hot seat for something I had no association with.
GRIFFIN: The phony address for BJ Services made the next step possible.
Step three: Open a brokerage account by mail or Internet.
This is one of Osamor's applications for an account in the name of BJ Services. That would be the BJ Services at the 5-inch postal box. The accounts's authorized person complete with his real Social Security number is Scott Weinbrant.
WEINBRANT: I had never heard of BJ Services company.
GRIFFIN: Never mind trivial details. The application was notarized.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had his own notary stamp that he used to notarize all his documents.
GRIFFIN (on camera): We got a seal ourselves. I want to show you this seal. It's kind of funny.
(voice-over): Ours is in the name I.D. Thief.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: OK. I was not expecting that. Sorry.
Didn't know my mic was on until I saw it. That's amazing.
GRIFFIN: Fraudulent ending.
PHILLIPS: Yes, exactly. That was -- so it shows how easy it can be done.
GRIFFIN: Oh, you know, we make the economy so easy to move around in. The financial system is all electronic. But there's little things. Like in the state of Texas, you can just buy a notary public stamp in the name of I.D. Thief, Mary O'Brien, Kyra Phillips.
PHILLIPS: And nobody -- nobody caught that at all? Nobody asked any questions about that?
GRIFFIN: No. In our special, I show that to the secretary of state of Texas. He had a little different response than laughter.
PHILLIPS: I can just imagine. He wasn't very happy, was he? Holding people accountable.
So, all right, the obvious question, can anything be done to stop these thieves?
GRIFFIN: You know, I don't know what. These thieves are so smart and they're so quick. It's almost like a virus that just mutates. And so it's a game of catch-up in our society where everybody wants -- Kyra, we want that money to move quick.
We don't want to be slowed down. We want to go into Target and zap our little express card and get out of there. PHILLIPS: Right.
GRIFFIN: It's very hard to catch up with them. And it's all about catch-up. These people don't know they're ripped off until after it happens.
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's talk about who's the bigger losers. We were talking about this.
The banks have to cover fraud. They've got to -- for the clients, I've seen people in the banking industry, and it's such a hassle. It takes forever to get their money back. And they're dealing with -- I mean, their name, their credit, their whole identity. It's a nightmare.
GRIFFIN: Number one, somebody gets in your identity and starts using your identity to steal somebody else, it's icky. It's like somebody moving into your house when you're on vacation.
Maybe nothing's gone, but, oh, you know, gross. So these people spend hours and hours, 30, 40 hours on average, trying to get their name back, trying to get their money back.
Eventually the money comes back into their account. The banks and the credit card companies pay it, $50 billion a year -- $50 billion. But for the average consumer, this is a huge hassle.
PHILLIPS: Well, we talk about identity theft all the time. And if the banks are paying that much money, there should be a much bigger effort going into preventing this from even happening.
GRIFFIN: Well, the banks are paying this money, but they're also making a whole lot of money. And they make money in a system that -- where the money moves very quickly, where credit is easily accepted, easily moved, easily transferred. So there is a kind of balancing game here between an economy you want to move extremely fast and security for that economy.
The banks say they're cracking down. We'll see.
PHILLIPS: All right. Drew Griffin, thanks so much.
Well, you can -- here's the program reminder. "CNN PRESENTS: How to Rob a Bank" premieres tomorrow, 8:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN. You can also see the encore presentation of Drew's special report Sunday night at 8:00 Eastern.
Well, cracking the code. Da Vinci's secret society is revealed not in a book, not in a movie, but right here on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: All this week CNN is looking into the future, your future. And this month we take a look at the workplace.
CNN's Miles O'Brien has our report. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TIM: They're here to make money. That's the American way. That's why I do what I do. I just do it legally.
When I'm out trying to make a living doing it the honest way, and someone else is short cutting the rules, then it makes it very difficult for me as a business owner. It's going to be a challenge as an employer to verify that the paperwork is true and accurate. The more illegals we have, the tougher it will become as a legitimate business owner to run a business.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Many employers in businesses like landscaping, construction, food service struggle to stay legit in arenas flooded with illegal workers. How can employers protect themselves and stay afloat?
TAMAR JACOBY, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: We have 12 million people in this country whose names we don't even know.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Just one reason why Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute says immigration reform is vital for employers, as well as immigrants.
JACOBY: Why are we forcing them to be in the black market when we could have them on the right side of the law, enhancing our security, enhancing our rule of law and actually enhancing workplace relationships?
O'BRIEN: Right now, employers can use a government Web site to ensure job seekers are legal. But of 5.5 million employers in the country, a mere 5,000 are enrolled in the program.
JACOBY: The databases aren't as accurate as they should be. So right now it's an experiment on the way to the program that we need.
O'BRIEN: If current reform bills become law, the verification system would include biometric I.D. cards to prevent fraud and would make it mandatory for all U.S. employers to screen their workers from mega corporations to families with household help.
JACOBY: Once you make sure that you can't get a job if you're illegal, that's how you're going to control who comes and who doesn't come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Marines on a mission. Fifteen Iraqi civilians killed, a criminal investigation ordered. A prominent congressman and retired Marine says he believes the killings in Haditha were carried out in cold blood by war-wary troops.
More now from Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was questions first raised by "TIME" magazine, including this video from an Iraqi human rights group, that set off a criminal investigation into whether U.S. Marines indiscriminately killed 15 Iraqi civilians last November. The Marines first claimed the deaths were from a roadside bomb and then suggested the victims may have been caught in a firefight.
While the investigation is not complete, a prominent U.S. congressman who is also a vocal critic of the Iraq war says he's been told where the evidence is leading.
REP. JOHN MURTHA (R), PENNSYLVANIA: There was no firefight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them. And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.
MCINTYRE: In response, the Marine Corps has issued a statement saying, "There is an ongoing investigation, therefore any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process."
The civilians were killed after Marines from the 3rd Battalion 1st Marines went looking for the bombers who planted an IED that killed one member of their unit. Last month, three of their superior officers, including the battalion commander and two of his company commanders, were fired for lack of competence and assigned staff jobs at Camp Pendleton.
Murtha, a retired Marine colonel, insists his information comes from U.S. commanders who "know what they're talking about." And he says the death toll may be more than just 15.
MURTHA: They actually went into the houses and killed women and children. And there was -- there was about twice as many as originally reported by "TIME".
MCINTYRE (on camera): Sources close to the investigation say it's too soon to say if anyone will face criminal charges, but that some key aspects of the Marines' initial account have not checked out. Another source added, "When all the facts are out, this is not going to be a good news story."
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And we're learning of another investigation. We just heard from Duncan Hunter, Republican in California from the House Armed Services Committee. This is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), ARMED SERVICES CHAIRMAN: It's not finished. I've heard rumors to the effect that somehow there's a report that's been finished and they're not -- they're holding it. That's not true.
I talked to General Carelli (ph) a few minutes ago. It's not true. And as soon as he gets it, he's going to -- he's going to work it up. And it's being done, once again, outside of the Marine chain of command.
It's being done by what -- by what I would call an independent investigator. And I think that's a mark of integrity for the Marine Corps, because they recommended that and wholeheartedly agreed with that -- that decision. That was -- a lot of Marine officers thought that was very important to maintain the integrity of the Corps, because this is an investigation of the operations within the chain of command, not simply the incident that happened on that day in Haditha.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: We'll stay on top of that story, and, of course, all the investigations involving the case.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the world got to know Ray Nagin after Hurricane Katrina. Will we be seeing more of him in the future? It depends on what happens tomorrow. We'll explain.
The second hour of LIVE FROM starts right now.
And we begin this hour with the uprising over suicide attempts at Gitmo. Prisoners, we don't know how many, reportedly attacked U.S. troops who were trying to keep another prisoner from hanging himself. The detainees lashed out with everything from sticks, to fans and light fixtures. Word is no one is hurt.
Almost 500 terror suspects are being held at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there since right after 9/11.
It's a volatile debate, but immigration control is more than just talk in San Ysidro, California. The world's busiest border crossing is also the scene of a deadly shooting by U.S. Border Patrol agents.
They opened fired last night on a driver of an SUV who was suspected of picking up illegal immigrants. It turns out he was and -- or refusing, rather, the officers' commands to get out of that car.
Well, common and unifying language is often alien to Capitol Hill, but it's turned up in a Senate amendment which passed making English the common and unifying language of the United States. Hispanic groups objected to the term "national language". In its immigration reform debate today, the Senate has approved this deal with the border of Mexico.
We'll have much more on this to come. One country, one language. That's the mantra of an English-only crowd. People who say immigrants from any other country need to learn and use English.
Here's a "Fact Check".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Twenty-seven states now have some form of English-only legislation. A spearhead of the movement is the Washington-based group U.S. English Incorporated. Founded in 1983, the group says it's the nation's oldest organization dedicated, in its words, to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States.
Immigrant and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a member of the U.S. English advisory board. Other celebrities on the board are actor Charlton Heston and golfer Arnold Palmer, and former defense secretary James Schelisinger.
U.S. English isn't limiting its efforts just at the state level. It's mounted a campaign on Capitol Hill to pass a law making English the official language of the United States. U.S. English and a similar group called Pro English argue that, English, as official language laws, will help immigrants learn English and thus succeed in this country. The American Civil Liberties Union and other critics say English-only laws do nothing more than discriminate against and punish those who have not learned English.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Nine months after Katrina, a key decision looms for New Orleans. Tomorrow's mayoral runoff election will decide whether incumbent Ray Nagin or challenger Mitch Landrieu will guide the city's rebirth.
CNN's Gulf Coast correspondent, Susan Roesgen, joins me with a tight race for possibly the toughest job in politics right now.
SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN GULF COAST CORRESPONDENT: I'm sure it is, Kyra. There is so much at stake in this election. Neighborhoods that still need to be rebuilt in New Orleans, so much trash that needs to be hauled away. And some people here are starting to worry about their safety. Crime has come back after Katrina.
So when the voter goes to the polls tomorrow, Kyra, they're going to be looking for the man they believe is the best person to move New Orleans forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only edge I would give to Landrieu is that he's going to have more money to be able to spend on advertising this last week, and the critical "get out the vote" effort, because you need to have a lot of money to get your vote out on election day. And I think Landrieu is going to have a little bit more than Nagin. So that's why maybe I would give him a slight edge, but certainly not a comfortable one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROESGEN: Kyra, they are expecting this to be a very close race. I think I heard Mayor Nagin give the best speech of his political campaign yesterday. He was on fire. But most political analysts say that although he has gained some momentum in the past couple of weeks, they do think that Mitch Landrieu may pull ahead.
PHILLIPS: So is it true that President Bush is backing Nagin?
ROESGEN: You know, that's what some political analysts say. The president has been down here almost a dozen times, he seems to have bonded with the mayor while he's here. And if not that, Kyra, you know, there's not a lot of love lost between President Bush and Mitch Landrieu's sister, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, who has voted against the president's initiatives probably one too many times.
PHILLIPS: Yes. Well, the turnout was pretty low in the primary election. What do you think -- was it low for the runoff?
ROESGEN: It was low for the primary. It was. And they do think it's going to be low for the runoff as well.
Between 34 percent and 36 percent, Kyra, which sounds pretty bad. But you have to remember that represents about 110,000 people. And there are only 180,000 people, roughly, living in this city now today.
PHILLIPS: Now, you were telling me that the election has created at least one collector's item. What is that?
ROESGEN: There is indeed, Kyra. And I have it right here.
It's called "Da (ph) Mayor in your pocket." And it's actually got a little picture of Mayor Nagin. And what it is, it's a tape cassette recording. It has audio excerpts of the mayor's rant to a local radio station in the height of the mess of Katrina.
Some of the buttons I might push, Kyra, would not give you a PG answer. But this is actually the mayor here. The mayor himself had one of these. He wouldn't tell anybody where he found it. He said he didn't know where he got it, but our crack CNN research team found this in the French Quarter.
Kyra, let me just press a couple of the top buttons. See if you can hear it.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN (D), NEW ORLEANS: You've got to be kidding me.
ROESGEN: Did you hear that one, Kyra? Here's another one.
PHILLIPS: Yes.
NAGIN: This is a national disaster.
ROESGEN: There you go, he says, "This is a national disaster." NAGIN: This is a national disaster.
ROESGEN: So anyway, we're going to try to get the mayor to sign this. Whatever happens, this is certainly a collector's item from this mayoral race.
PHILLIPS: Come on, one of the most famous lines, "chocolate city". That's not on there?
ROESGEN: No, that is not on there, Kyra. He has been asked about that so many times. You know, that was the remark that he made back in January, on Martin Luther King Day.
He got whipped up, he says, in the heat of the moment. And what he said was that god wanted New Orleans to be a majority African- American city. And that is apparently what caused many white voters to desert him.
He only got six percent of the white vote in the primary. He's got to get more in the white vote now to win this election. But Kyra, it's not just a black or white thing.
I've talked to so many white voters who have told me recently that they will not vote for the white candidate, Mitch Landrieu, because the believe he's too liberal. They say that in spite of whatever failures the mayor might have had in Hurricane Katrina, they believe he's the more conservative candidate, the pro-business candidate, and they want him to help bring businesses back to New Orleans.
PHILLIPS: And Susan, it's been a long time since there was a white mayor in New Orleans. I was trying to go back in my head as you were talking to remember. I mean, it goes back a number of years, right?
ROESGEN: Yes, 20-some years, Kyra. In fact, the last white mayor was Mitch Landrieu's father, Moon Landrieu, in the 1970s.
He was mayor of this city, the last white mayor. And then he went on to become, I believe, a Hud secretary under President Jimmy Carter.
And after Moon Landrieu, we've had three more black mayors. But this time you don't know which way the city will go.
We know that in absentee voting and in early voting, we've had about 24,000 votes come in. Most of those votes, three-quarters of the votes, have been from African-American voters. So we'll see which way the race goes.
PHILLIPS: Yes, we'll be watching the runoff, no doubt, this weekend.
Susan Roesgen, thanks so much.
Well, as we mentioned, hurricane season is now less than two weeks away. And despite what they promised, the Army Corps of Engineers says the New Orleans levees won't be ready.
CNN's Sean Callebs filed this report for "THE SITUATION ROOM".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS (voice-over): He's gutting his house, but Brian Bonura has no plans to move back in, at least not this year. Especially, he says, now that the Army Corps of Engineers admits construction on floodgates and levees will not be finished when the hurricane season starts June 1st.
BRIAN BONURA, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: I don't feel safe come back to this area right now. And I would rather be somewhere else and come here and work on it. And hopefully in the future, you know, it will be safe to come back and live here again.
CALLEBS: Colonel Lewis Setliff is in charge of the federal project to repair the levee system dubbed Task Force Guardian.
COL. LEWIS SETLIFF, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: We're going to be very anxious. But I'll tell you, if these are -- if these systems are never tested, I'll be very happy.
CALLEBS: It will be at least a month until repairs are done. But local residents like Bonura and his business partner Mike Palmisano say they, like others, will sweat out the entire hurricane season.
MIKE PALMISANO, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: They don't feel safe. I mean, just think about it, you're not going to go pour new money into an area when you know that there is a potential problem for this levee to go ahead and break again.
CALLEBS: And despite months of work here, the "what if" factor has the corps concerned.
SETLIFF: We don't know the frequency, the dynamics involved, is there another Hurricane Katrina coming. But I do know that the system we're building will prevent catastrophic failure.
CALLEBS (on camera): The Army Corps of Engineers say this city will be safer on June 1st than it was before Katrina last year. But for the legions of residents who endured the wrath after the storm, that is little comfort. And with some 350 miles of levees in and around this area, it's safe to say it will be an anxious hurricane season.
Sean Callebs, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And you can watch "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer. Tune in this afternoon at 4:00 Eastern. The live primetime edition airs at 7:00.
Take it back. That's what BellSouth is saying to "USA Today". The telecom giant says that the newspaper was wrong to report that BellSouth provided phone call records to the National Security Agency. BellSouth wants a retraction. The paper says it's thinking about it.
"USA Today" reported last week that the NSA was getting phone call records from BellSouth, Verizon and AT&T. So far, BellSouth and Verizon have denied it. AT&T says it wouldn't share that kind of information without legal authorization.
More now on wiretaps, warrants and what Americans think about one without the other. In a CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, 39 percent say it's very likely that government wiretaps have been conducted without court order on U.S. citizens not suspected of terrorism. Twenty-four percent say it's somewhat likely, only 29 percent say it's not likely at all?
But is it right? Forty-four percent say yes, while 50 percent say it's wrong. That's a pretty even split, given the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percent.
You want money fast? Why go for payday or go for a loan when you can always rob a bank? And you don't even need a gun to cash in on this caper. How a little personal information can go a long way illegally when LIVE FROM returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, it's a get rich quick scheme that you won't see on late-night infomercials. But on "CNN PRESENTS" this weekend, "How to Rob a Bank". It will scare you just how easily you can get entangled in this scam.
CNN's Drew Griffin joins me with a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Oyono Kachikem (ph), Charles Osamor, looked like the classic immigrant. After coming from Nigeria to Houston as a 17-year-old student, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1987 from Texas Southern.
(on camera): Osamor then opened a succession of businesses: a frozen yogurt shop, a physical therapy clinic, and at one point a clothing boutique in this trendy mall. But getting rich in America was apparently taking too long. So Osamor took a shortcut.
(voice-over): Step one: The fraud begins with stolen corporate checks. Checks that make their way to Osamor.
This check was written by the El Paso Corporation, paid to the order of BJ Services, $132,000. But what good is a stolen check if you don't have a way to cash it?
Step two: Create a phony address. This commercial maildrop is one of several that Osamor used. The application says the mailbox is for Scott Weinbrant, who supposedly works at BJ Services and lives in Houston. SCOTT WEINBRANT, IDENTITY THEFT VICTIM: I've been to Houston once in my life.
GRIFFIN: Weinbrant's identity was used to effectively move BJ Services from this $4 million building with nearly two acres of floor space to this 5-inch postal box that rents for $10 a month.
WEINBRANT: It was putting me in the hot seat for something I had no association with.
GRIFFIN: The phony address for BJ Services made the next step possible.
Step three: Open a brokerage account by mail or Internet.
This is one of Osamor's applications for an account in the name of BJ Services. That would be the BJ Services at the 5-inch postal box. The accounts's authorized person complete with his real Social Security number is Scott Weinbrant.
WEINBRANT: I had never heard of BJ Services company.
GRIFFIN: Never mind trivial details. The application was notarized.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had his own notary stamp that he used to notarize all his documents.
GRIFFIN (on camera): We got a seal ourselves. I want to show you this seal. It's kind of funny.
(voice-over): Ours is in the name I.D. Thief.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: OK. I was not expecting that. Sorry.
Didn't know my mic was on until I saw it. That's amazing.
GRIFFIN: Fraudulent ending.
PHILLIPS: Yes, exactly. That was -- so it shows how easy it can be done.
GRIFFIN: Oh, you know, we make the economy so easy to move around in. The financial system is all electronic. But there's little things. Like in the state of Texas, you can just buy a notary public stamp in the name of I.D. Thief, Mary O'Brien, Kyra Phillips.
PHILLIPS: And nobody -- nobody caught that at all? Nobody asked any questions about that?
GRIFFIN: No. In our special, I show that to the secretary of state of Texas. He had a little different response than laughter.
PHILLIPS: I can just imagine. He wasn't very happy, was he? Holding people accountable.
So, all right, the obvious question, can anything be done to stop these thieves?
GRIFFIN: You know, I don't know what. These thieves are so smart and they're so quick. It's almost like a virus that just mutates. And so it's a game of catch-up in our society where everybody wants -- Kyra, we want that money to move quick.
We don't want to be slowed down. We want to go into Target and zap our little express card and get out of there.
PHILLIPS: Right.
GRIFFIN: It's very hard to catch up with them. And it's all about catch-up. These people don't know they're ripped off until after it happens.
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's talk about who's the bigger losers. We were talking about this.
The banks have to cover fraud. They've got to -- for the clients, I've seen people in the banking industry, and it's such a hassle. It takes forever to get their money back. And they're dealing with -- I mean, their name, their credit, their whole identity. It's a nightmare.
GRIFFIN: Number one, somebody gets in your identity and starts using your identity to steal somebody else, it's icky. It's like somebody moving into your house when you're on vacation.
Maybe nothing's gone, but, oh, you know, gross. So these people spend hours and hours, 30, 40 hours on average, trying to get their name back, trying to get their money back.
Eventually the money comes back into their account. The banks and the credit card companies pay it, $50 billion a year -- $50 billion. But for the average consumer, this is a huge hassle.
PHILLIPS: Well, we talk about identity theft all the time. And if the banks are paying that much money, there should be a much bigger effort going into preventing this from even happening.
GRIFFIN: Well, the banks are paying this money, but they're also making a whole lot of money. And they make money in a system that -- where the money moves very quickly, where credit is easily accepted, easily moved, easily transferred. So there is a kind of balancing game here between an economy you want to move extremely fast and security for that economy.
The banks say they're cracking down. We'll see.
PHILLIPS: All right. Drew Griffin, thanks so much.
Well, you can -- here's the program reminder. "CNN PRESENTS: How to Rob a Bank" premieres tomorrow, 8:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN. You can also see the encore presentation of Drew's special report Sunday night at 8:00 Eastern.
Well, cracking the code. Da Vinci's secret society is revealed not in a book, not in a movie, but right here on LIVE FROM.
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PHILLIPS: All this week CNN is looking into the future, your future. And this month we take a look at the workplace.
CNN's Miles O'Brien has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TIM: They're here to make money. That's the American way. That's why I do what I do. I just do it legally.
When I'm out trying to make a living doing it the honest way, and someone else is short cutting the rules, then it makes it very difficult for me as a business owner. It's going to be a challenge as an employer to verify that the paperwork is true and accurate. The more illegals we have, the tougher it will become as a legitimate business owner to run a business.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Many employers in businesses like landscaping, construction, food service struggle to stay legit in arenas flooded with illegal workers. How can employers protect themselves and stay afloat?
TAMAR JACOBY, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: We have 12 million people in this country whose names we don't even know.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Just one reason why Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute says immigration reform is vital for employers, as well as immigrants.
JACOBY: Why are we forcing them to be in the black market when we could have them on the right side of the law, enhancing our security, enhancing our rule of law and actually enhancing workplace relationships?
O'BRIEN: Right now, employers can use a government Web site to ensure job seekers are legal. But of 5.5 million employers in the country, a mere 5,000 are enrolled in the program.
JACOBY: The databases aren't as accurate as they should be. So right now it's an experiment on the way to the program that we need.
O'BRIEN: If current reform bills become law, the verification system would include biometric I.D. cards to prevent fraud and would make it mandatory for all U.S. employers to screen their workers from mega corporations to families with household help.
JACOBY: Once you make sure that you can't get a job if you're illegal, that's how you're going to control who comes and who doesn't come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Marines on a mission. Fifteen Iraqi civilians killed, a criminal investigation ordered. A prominent congressman and retired Marine says he believes the killings in Haditha were carried out in cold blood by war-wary troops.
More now from Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was questions first raised by "TIME" magazine, including this video from an Iraqi human rights group, that set off a criminal investigation into whether U.S. Marines indiscriminately killed 15 Iraqi civilians last November. The Marines first claimed the deaths were from a roadside bomb and then suggested the victims may have been caught in a firefight.
While the investigation is not complete, a prominent U.S. congressman who is also a vocal critic of the Iraq war says he's been told where the evidence is leading.
REP. JOHN MURTHA (R), PENNSYLVANIA: There was no firefight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them. And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.
MCINTYRE: In response, the Marine Corps has issued a statement saying, "There is an ongoing investigation, therefore any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process."
The civilians were killed after Marines from the 3rd Battalion 1st Marines went looking for the bombers who planted an IED that killed one member of their unit. Last month, three of their superior officers, including the battalion commander and two of his company commanders, were fired for lack of competence and assigned staff jobs at Camp Pendleton.
Murtha, a retired Marine colonel, insists his information comes from U.S. commanders who "know what they're talking about." And he says the death toll may be more than just 15.
MURTHA: They actually went into the houses and killed women and children. And there was -- there was about twice as many as originally reported by "TIME".
MCINTYRE (on camera): Sources close to the investigation say it's too soon to say if anyone will face criminal charges, but that some key aspects of the Marines' initial account have not checked out. Another source added, "When all the facts are out, this is not going to be a good news story."
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon. (END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And we're learning of another investigation. We just heard from Duncan Hunter, Republican in California from the House Armed Services Committee. This is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), ARMED SERVICES CHAIRMAN: It's not finished. I've heard rumors to the effect that somehow there's a report that's been finished and they're not -- they're holding it. That's not true.
I talked to General Carelli (ph) a few minutes ago. It's not true. And as soon as he gets it, he's going to -- he's going to work it up. And it's being done, once again, outside of the Marine chain of command.
It's being done by what -- by what I would call an independent investigator. And I think that's a mark of integrity for the Marine Corps, because they recommended that and wholeheartedly agreed with that -- that decision. That was -- a lot of Marine officers thought that was very important to maintain the integrity of the Corps, because this is an investigation of the operations within the chain of command, not simply the incident that happened on that day in Haditha.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: We'll stay on top of that story, and, of course, all the investigations involving the case.
(BUSINESS REPORT)
PHILLIPS: Well, terror suspects take on the U.S. military. It happened at the prison compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, nicknamed "Gitmo." We expect more on the uprising next hour. Here's what we know right now. Prisoners, we don't know how many, reportedly attacked the troops, who were trying to keep another prison from hanging himself. The detainees lashed out with everything, from sticks to fans and light fixtures. Word is no one was hurt. Almost 500 terror suspects are being held at Gitmo. Some have been there since right after 9/11. CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is going to bring us the very latest at the top of the hour.
From the United Nations, new calls to shut down Gitmo. The U.N. Committee against Torture also calls for the U.S. to end cruel or inhuman interrogation techniques, and to close secret prisons. The U.S. government denies it mistreats prisoners at Gitmo, and insists it can hold enemy combatants there without charge for as long as the war on terror lasts.
History, heresy, fact, fiction, Da Vinci, da controversy. You know about the book, the movie, the pans at Cannes. Well, CNN's faith and values correspondent Delia Gallagher gets the real story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Witness the biggest cover-up in human history.
DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH AND VALUES CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "The Da Vinci Code" is, first and foremost, a mystery. But the enduring mystery seems stuck somewhere between fact and fiction, about the people and secrets that populate the novel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dear God.
GALLAGHER: The story begins with a murder. The victim, revealed to be the grandmaster of a secret society, the Priory of Sion, just one of the shadowy groups the characters encounter on their hunt for the Holy Grail.
The question is was the Priory of Sion real? According to the Author Dan Brown, it was. Founded in Europe in 1099, Leonardo Da Vinci, himself, was said to be one of the group's grandmasters. And according to the book, the priory had to be shrouded in secrecy because it was charged with protecting the Catholic Church's great secret, that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus and bore his children. A secret so big that if ever revealed, the very foundations on which the church was built would crumble.
But the weight of historical research is that the priory itself was a hoax, created by a man in France in the 1950s, the subject of a "60 Minutes" expose, a group with grand ideas, but little power.
Other groups that play a more or less prominent role in "The Da Vinci Code," most definitely do exist. Like the Free Masons, organized in 18th century England, now famous for their secret rituals, their secret handshake, and the air of mystery that surrounds their ceremony. But the Masons say there's nothing mysterious about them. They're simply out to take good men and make them better.
JOHN HAMMILL, UNITED GRAND LODGE OF ENGLAND: You learn a great deal, as you progress through, about yourself and as you start to study the ritual and the meaning behind the ritual. For a lot of people, it gives them confidence.
GALLAGHER: But perhaps the most mysterious and ancient society found in the pages of "The Da Vinci Code," is the Knights Templar, and there's no doubt they existed. Founded in the 12th century, the knights, both monks and military men, guarded pilgrims on their trips to the Holy Land. In the churches they built, guided the characters in the book on the trail of the Holy Grail.
Remember the clue, "in London lies a knight of pope interred?" More than a clue, it's also a fact. That knight was interred here in the temple church, built by the templars in the 12th and 13th centuries. It houses nine life-sized effigies of knights who died in battle. They were holy men, crusaders, accumulating enormous wealth along the way, making themselves indispensable to Europe's royalty.
ROBIN GRIFFITH-JONES, MASTER OF THE TEMPLE CHURCH: It became clear that they could look after their own resources, so before long, they were looking after other people's as well. Kings and popes used them as treasurers, as bankers, as credit agents all over Europe and in the Middle East.
GALLAGHER: They were respected and reviled. But in the end, it was their mastery of money, not their pursuit of the Holy Grail, that would prove their undoing. And on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, the knights were rounded up, their homes occupied, their possessions seized. And they were nearly all tortured and burned to death. But the legend they left behind, part of a very distant past, clearly still resonates today.
Delia Gallagher, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Leonardo Da Vinci was already one of history's famous artists, but after "The Da Vinci Code," he's one of the most controversial. Did the great Leonardo really sneak subversive secrets into his masterpieces? We're going to take a closer look with Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, a religious art historian at Georgetown University.
Diane, great to have you with us.
DIANE APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Well, we picked out four of the images, four of the pieces of art, rather, that you wanted to talk about. Let's start with "The Last Supper." And how do we take this? How do we read into this?
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Well, "The Last Supper," as Leonardo depicts it, is symbolically different in the sense that he is changing the theme from either the institution of Eucharist, which is the statement in the Scripture, "this is my body, this is my blood," or the identification of the traitor -- that is, the person who has his hands on the table, dippeth his hand in the dish, takes the bread sop -- to the moment that the announcement is made and there's great drama.
Now, the focus of Mr. Brown's text, and Professor Langdon's (ph) research is on the figure to the right of Jesus, to our left if we look at the painting. And he follows this clue, series of clues, suggesting that this is a female figure.
The problem is, from the perspective of looking at this from the history of Christian art or Christian iconography is that the clues about this figure are not clues at the time when it was painted. That is, we look at it and say it looks feminine. He looks soft, beardless, long hair. These are our characteristics, not those at the time of Leonardo.
PHILLIPS: So in the movie, what you're seeing is Mary Magdalene, right?
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: In the movie that's who you're led to believe you're seeing, yes.
PHILLIPS: Interesting.
All right, let's go to the second masterpiece that we've been talking about, and that's the Vitruvian Man.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Right.
PHILLIPS: Obviously, this is a famous piece. We've all seen this. And -- but you're saying the interpretation is quite different in the movie.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Well, in the book and in the scenes I've seen from the movie -- because I haven't seen the whole movie yet, Kyra -- what's left out is what's important. That is, Vitruvius was a Roman architect. He's very famous for having written a book called "On Architecture," and it was about proportions.
And the proportions are the relationship between the circle and the square and the placement of the body within the circle and square. And the square, as you can see, in the scene of the murder, the square is left out. So this is a very important point, the emphasis rather being on the alleged pentagram that's being made.
PHILLIPS: For those like you, a religious art historian, when you see these different interpretations, does it frustrate you or do you sit back and think I guess everybody sees art in a different way?
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: No. It's very frustrating because the reality is that the interpretation is in the eyes of whoever is looking. This is true. However, the work has to be placed into its context of the time it was made, the types of things that the artist would have been aware of in terms of theology, in terms of spirituality, and what his audience would have been looking for and would have known to read, and it's very different now for us to look at these things.
PHILLIPS: All right. So what's difficult for you when you look at the Mona Lisa when you know the real Mona Lisa in the Louvre -- I've been lucky to see it as well -- versus the book and the movie?
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Well, I mean, in the book and the movie you're talking about trying to suggest in some way that, first of all, a great person, a curator of the musee du Louvre, would put writing across one of the greatest masterpieces of western art. That's extraordinarily difficult for me to deal with.
PHILLIPS: Is it disrespectful do you think?
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Of course it is.
PHILLIPS: OK.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Of course it is. Are we all going to go around putting mustaches -- well, we do in commercials, but you know -- or give her the black -- isn't she the one that gets the olive without the pit?
PHILLIPS: There you go, it's the magazines that we scribble on ...
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Scribble on, right.
PHILLIPS: ... when we're sitting in the doctor's office, right?
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Yes.
PHILLIPS: So you just don't do that to the Mona Lisa.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: No.
PHILLIPS: And in the book -- in the -- I haven't seen the clip in the movie.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: There's a clip in the movie that I saw last night on the A&E program on "Movie Reel" in which there's the writing and, you know, Sophie has her little magic flashlight ...
PHILLIPS: That's right.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: ... and see can then see the writing both on the wall, the "Con of Man," and then the -- across the Mona Lisa.
PHILLIPS: All right, finally the Madonna on the Rocks. Fact from fiction. Uh-oh, this is one that must bother you.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Oh, it does.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: Tell me why.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Well, it bothers me for several reasons. First of all, there are historical facts that are wrong, the first of which is that it's referred to as being commissioned by a group of nuns known as the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. And the reality is, the historical reality is, that it was a group of laymen, not nuns, not religious at all, who commissioned this in terms of being ordained.
The interpretation is also quite extraordinary and at moments Professor Langdon has his rights and his lefts mixed up when he's looking at the figures, and he misidentified the two babies, which are Jesus and his cousin John the Baptist, who is only a few months older than he is.
And then he misidentifies other elements in this like the gesturing. The flower symbolism is enormously important. And Leonardo did re-understand or reconceive the meaning of this work, that is immaculate conception. It was a new teaching, came out in 1478.
It's not declared a doctrine of the Church of Roman until 1854. Leonardo is very interested in it for a variety of reasons, and he sees it as the opening scene of the Passion of the Christ as our pathway to salvation.
PHILLIPS: Interesting. Also many meanings behind the color red as well.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Oh, yes. Multiple means behind red. You want to do that or not?
PHILLIPS: Oh my God. We could keep going, no doubt. I think we're going to keep people wanting more. That's why they've got to ...
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: That's fine.
PHILLIPS: ... read your work. Religious art historian at Georgetown University, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA: Thank you. Thank you, Kyra. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Interesting angle.
Well, from the war on cancer, news we can usually only dream about, but a new vaccine that could save thousands of women from misery and death -- we've got the details on it. The news keeps coming. We're going to keep bringing it to you. You're watching LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Let's get straight to Carol Lin working a developing story for us. Hey, Carol.
LIN: Kyra, there was suspicious activity at Leonardtown High School this morning, and as a result, four schools were in lockdown. We're going to be hearing more about this situation in about 12 minutes at a news conference out of Leonardtown, Maryland, but I want to tell you, basically, what you're looking at right now.
These are pictures from earlier today where a whole cadre (ph) of police officers and what appear to be officers in riot gear entering one of those schools after a report of a student saying that the student thought the student saw someone putting what looked like a gun inside of a backpack. I'm quoting here from some of our local affiliate coverage.
So what we do know is that there were no shots were fired. These officers -- the response teams in there went room to room to search all the different classrooms. The school is being let out right now, so the kids are coming out of the school area.
And then what's going to happen is the officers, the investigators, are going to be looking inside the lockers. So this is far from over, but -- even though no shots have been fired and nobody has been hurt. And now they're, you know, from my vantage point after covering this for about five hours, there seems to be some casting doubt as to what that student may have seen going into that backpack -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. We'll keep our eyes on it. Thanks so much Carol.
A new vaccine against cancer supposedly 70 percent effective. It targets cervical cancer, and it could be on the market by late summer.
CNN's Christy Feig has more on what it is and what it is intended to do.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTY FEIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You may not have heard about a virus called human papilloma virus or HPV but chances are if you're sexually active you've had it. Most of the time our immune systems can get rid of it. But in about 10,000 women a year it develops into cervical cancer. That's what happened to Silvia Ford.
SILVIA FORD, CERVICAL CANCER SURVIVOR: I didn't know much about cervical cancer. I heard cancer. And I really was afraid that I was going to die.
FEIG: At age 34, she had a hysterectomy. Silvia's cancer was caught early with a pap smear. And for now that's the only way. But soon women may have another protection, a vaccine. It's called Gardisil, and it made by Merck and Company Incorporated. There are more than 70 different types of HPV. A doctor who led one of the clinical trials says this vaccine protects against four of them.
DR. KEVIN AULT, EMORY UNIV. SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: These are the four medically most important types. Two of the types, 16 and 18, are responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer. And then the other two types, 6 and 11, are responsible for about 90 percent of genital warts.
FEIG: Every year cervical cancer kills nearly 4,000 women in the U.S. Some doctors believe the vaccine could change that.
AULT: If everybody would get the vaccine and the vaccine would work as well as it has in the trials, you might get up to a 70 percent reduction in cervical cancer.
FEIG: The FDA will make the final decision on whether the vaccine is approved. The agency is not bound by the recommendations of the its advisory committee, but it usually follows them. The decision is expected by early June.
I am Christy Feig reporting from Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, we know her as the runaway bride. Find out why Jennifer Wilbanks is back in the news. LIVE FROM back after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, if she weren't the infamous runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks would be celebrating her first anniversary. Instead she's not but only not, she's newly available, guys. That's right. Jennifer Wilbanks has broken it off with her long-suffering fiance John Mason. Poor guy.
A Georgia couple spent time in the national spotlight a year ago when Wilbanks vanished just days before the lavish wedding. She turned up in New Mexico, claimed to be the victim of a kidnapping and sexual assault. Well, police debunked the story, and now she's serving two years of probation and 120 hours of community service. She is also working as a receptionist in an Atlanta pediatric office.
They don't mind the buzz. But the makers of "The Da Vinci Code" have endured a buzz saw from the critics in Cannes.
CNN's Brooke Anderson is there.
BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: "The Da Vinci Code" has finally arrived in theaters worldwide. Now this comes just two days after the movie had its premiere here at the Cannes Film Festival. Now that premier was met with really harsh criticism. I sat down with "Da Vinci" director Ron Howard. We walked about the early negative reviews, and he also told me if he thinks that will affect the film's performance at the box office.
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RON HOWARD, DIRECTOR, "THE DA VINCI CODE": Disappointing. Not surprising. You know, you talk to 10 different people, you get different 10 different reactions to the novel. And that's the way it has been with the movie. And I really expected that. There are some that are very unkind. There are some that are praising it. There's a lot that are landing in this middle, which is, I think, very much to be expected.
Would I love all glowing reviews? You know, of course. You know what I mean? And I've had that in my career, where they're 80, 90 percent positive, and that's a wonderful thing. You know, I never really felt like that's what we were inviting with this story and adapting, you know, the novel. It's a very, very unusual kind of film, and it entertains different people in different ways.
People seem to want to be a part of the discussion, you know, and I think that's one of the reasons they've sold so many books. And I really hope, you know, it's a reason a lot of people want to experience the movie.
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ANDERSON: Howard also has a suggestion for those who are offended by "The Da Vinci Code," for those who are upset by the story, disapprove of the depiction of Jesus Christ, he said don't go see the movie. He said to wait and then talk to people after they've seen it, discuss it and then make a decision. He said it's that simple.
"The Da Vinci Code" rolls out into more than 3,700 screens in the U.S. this weekend. Reporting from the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, I'm Brooke Anderson.
PHILLIPS: Straight head, Gitmo clashes. Detainees at Guantanamo Bay attacking U.S. guards. We're on the story. The third hour of LIVE FROM is straight ahead.
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