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Chunks of Big Dig Tunnel Crush Car in Boston; New York City Beefing Up Security on Transit System
Aired July 11, 2006 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Train cars packed with rush hour commuters blown apart on the tracks. A developing story out of India right now. A string of explosions hit crowded commuter trains killing more than 130 people and wounding up to 300. The blasts left behind mangled wreckage and a number of body parts, and they put major cities across India on high alert. No claim of responsibility yet. But India has blamed some previous attacks on an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan. That nation has condemned today's bombings.
Let's get back to Betty Nguyen, working a U.S. angle on this story -- Betty.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Here's what we know: CNN has confirmed New York City is beefing up security on its transit system. And of course Kyra this is in response to what has happened in Mumbai, with the fact that so many people have been killed on the commuter train there. Here's what New York City is doing. They're going to increase the number of officers patrolling the subways, and they're also going to have more random bag searches. Now they're not going to tell us specifically when, and where and all that good stuff, of course, because they want it to be random. They want to make sure that the system is definitely secured, and they're saying that there has been no specific threat to New York City, that this is simply precautionary, but of course in today's day and times, you can never be too sure. And New York City is definitely taking measures to make sure the commuters on its transit system are safe. They will do that by increasing the number of officers patrolling the subway system and having more random bag searches.
Keep in mind, Kyra, the New York City subway system serves an average of four-and-half million people a day, so there's a lot to be concerned about. And New York City is taking the measures that it needs to make sure that the riders are safe -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, thanks, Betty.
Well, big trouble in Boston's Big Dig. Tons of concrete in the tunnel's ceiling crushed a car and killed a passenger last night. Now the city and the state want to know why.
Reporter Steve Copper of CNN affiliate WHDH has the latest.
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STEVE COOPER, WHDH REPORTER (voice-over): A stunning scene unfolding in Boston overnight, when several panels fall from a tunnel connected to the Massachusetts Turnpike. And this is a pretty rare sight, because this stretch of the highway, a busily travelled highway at this time of day, is all shut down while this investigation is just getting under way. This is the Mass Pike that connects the eastbound lanes to the Ted Williams Tunnel, and then on to Logan Airport. This happened around 11:00 last night. Turnpike officials telling us a 40- foot section of the ceiling fell to the roadway below, crushing a car.
Now it appeals a steel tie-back that hold the panels to the ceiling for some reason let go. The male driver crawling out of the car; the female passenger was pronounced dead. Federal Highway Administration officials have now been summoned to the scene here in Boston to assist in this investigation. And all the while, it appears that this stretch of the Mass Pike will be closed, at least through tomorrow, and it may go well beyond that, as this massive investigation is just getting under way.
(on camera): From Boston, Steve Cooper, for CNN.
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(NEWSBREAK)
PHILLIPS: He went to Afghanistan as a soldier, twice, and then he came home to find that his job as a teacher was taken away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just made me feel that the people that I was fighting for were the exact people that were taking my job away from me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: One soldier's battle to get back in the classroom, straight ahead on LIVE FROM.
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PHILLIPS: Well as the temperatures climb, so does the threat of violent weather. Now is the time to prepare and windows should be at the top of your list. Here's CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR (voice-over): High winds and heavy rain do the most damage to a house during a hurricane or major storm. But all it takes is a little bit of work to keep your home as safe as possible when wild weather strikes.
(on camera): Windows are a big vulnerability. How do I keep my family safe?
ROB DAVIS, FLASH.ORG: We like to see code-approved shutters. There's tons of options these days. That's the good news.
You can do metal corrugated shutters, clear plastic shutters. You can look out during the storm, satisfy some curious homeowners.
WILLIS: Wow.
DAVIS: Absolutely. It prevents you from cracking a door and letting in something that you don't want.
WILLIS: Absolutely.
DAVIS: Also, impact glass is a great way to go.
WILLIS (voice over): If shutters aren't in your budget, use plywood to prevent shattered windows during a storm.
(on camera): Now, I know you can cover this up with wood. Why wouldn't we just do that?
DAVIS: Wood, it's only good for temporary emergency board-up procedures. And there's a couple of things you need to remember with that.
You need to make sure you have the correct thickness -- five- eighths inch plywood is sufficient. And you need to fasten it, install it correctly to the side of the house. Otherwise...
WILLIS: Don't you need a pretty good margin around the edge of the window, too?
DAVIS: You absolutely do, because you have to remember that whatever protection you put up there is going to move, it's going to bow in and out with the wind. And if you have it too close, your window protection could actually break your window.
WILLIS (voice over): And be careful of the materials you pick to protect those glass windows and doors. Some will actually disintegrate when wet.
(on camera): This is not a great material for protecting your home during a hurricane.
DAVIS: No. No, that's right. When this gets wet it's going to turn to oatmeal and just dissolve.
WILLIS: So this is OSB.
DAVIS: That's OSB, short for oriented strand board. It's really just a lot of wood particles glued together.
WILLIS: But this is the plywood. This is what you want.
DAVIS: This is your five-eighths inch plywood, absolutely. That's what you want to look for, for window protection.
WILLIS (voice over): Leave a two-and-a-half inch margin around plywood used to board windows. That way, when the wind picks up, your window protection doesn't accidentally break your windows.
Gerri Willis, CNN, Miami Shores, Florida.
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PHILLIPS: All right, Jacqui Jeras keeping watch over the Tropics. What's the latest, Jacqui?
(WEATHER REPORT)
PHILLIPS: Let's get straight to Betty Nguyen working a developing story for us. Betty?
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. Yes, we're just learning that Representative William Jefferson's attorney has filed an appeal today for a stay. Now this is in reaction to a federal judge's ruling on Monday that the search of the representative's Capitol Hill office was constitutional.
And then that judge also ruled that the Justice Department can begin reviewing the materials found in that search. But William Jefferson's attorneys today have filed an appeal for a stay, basically holding off review of those materials until all of this can be appealed in a court. So that's the latest to and from in this case, in which both sides have batted back and forth, trying to deny, and on the other side, get access to these materials, which were seized from the representative's Capitol Hill office. So that's latest in this battle -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, thanks Betty. Straight ahead, a mom risks jail for her sick son.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was it a kidnapping in your opinion?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's my son.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Who knows best for baby? That story straight ahead on CNN's LIVE FROM.
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PHILLIPS: Well a shrinking pool and a second day of questions for prospective jurors in the murder trial of John Evander Couey. Most of the juror candidates say they've heard about Jessica Lunsford's disappearance and death last spring. But most say they don't know much about the defendant. Couey, a convicted sex offender, is charged with kidnaping, rape and murder. Jury selection was moved from Citrus County to Lake County, Florida, to try and reduce the impact of pretrial publicity. The judge has yet to decide whether to let that jury see photos of Jessica's body.
There may be a runaway witness in a gang rape case out of Fresno, California. As LIVE FROM reporter yesterday, as many as ten men, many of them college athletes are suspected of raping an 11-year-old girl. Fresno police now believe a 15-year-old girl could be a witness. They believe both girls ran away from a group home and wound up at an apartment complex where the alleged attack happened. Two men have been arrested. Police call eight others persons of interest. Most are football player from two local colleges.
Maternal instincts on one side, medical science and the law on the other. In the middle this toddler with potentially deadly kidney problem. CNN's Dan Simon worked the story for "AC 360."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Riley Rogers was born ten months ago with kidney problems. Doctors say he needs dialysis to survive and might need a transplant within a few years. Riley's mother is suspicious of doctors and hospitals, but not for religious reasons. She just believes in alternative, natural therapies, vitamins and herbs.
TINA CARLSEN, MOTHER: I just want him to be healthy. I want him to eat good and we eat organic. I eat according to my blood type and he's the same blood type.
SIMON (on camera): That set up a showdown between his mother, Tina Carlson, and Seattle's Children's Hospital. Carlsen's refusal to accept traditional medicine would have serious consequences. The case wound up here at a Takoma, Washington courthouse where a judge made the decision to take away Riley from his mother.
(voice-over): Riley's doctors urged the court to intervene to protect the infant.
DR. DOUG DIEKEMA, SEATTLE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: A parent should be able to make health care decisions for their children until the decision, up to the point where a decision places the child at significant risk of serious harm.
SIMON: The judge put Riley in the hands of child protective services so the hospital could treat him. Before he could begin dialysis, Riley needed to have a short operation in which doctors would insert a catheter and feeding tube. That's where the case took a turn. His mother, adamantly opposed to the surgery, came up with a plan.
(on camera): She walked into little Riley's room and stuffed him in a diaper bag. She then hit the road. As far as the police and hospital were concerned, it was a full-blown kidnapping .
Was it a kidnapping in your opinion?
CARLSEN: He's my son.
SIMON (voice-over): We caught up with Carlson for a few moments before a court appearance.
(on camera): You put him in a small diaper bag. Can you explain how that worked, what you did? CARLSEN: I can't, not right now. Not right now. I'll tell you it wasn't a small diaper bag though. I can tell you that.
SIMON: Police put out an amber alert. Less than two days later, Carlsen was captured. The baby brought back to the hospital, Carlsen to jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have been charged by information with a crime of kidnapping in the second degree.
SIMON: Carlson pleaded not guilty and was released. If convicted, she could face a year in prison. Todd Rogers, the baby's father and Carlsen's ex-boyfriend, said she did it out of fear that something would go wrong in surgery.
TODD ROGERS, FATHER: She firmly believed in her heart that he was going to die. And she firmly believed in her heart that he didn't need the surgery.
SIMON: Doctors and social workers say they have no doubt Carlsen loves her baby. But what's best for him, they say, is modern medicine.
DR. RICHARD MOLTENI, SEATTLE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: I think he's leaving the hospital as healthy a child, with his underlying problem, that he can be.
SIMON: Carlsen will be allowed to visit Riley, while supervised, at least four hours a week as she fights the kidnapping charges and fights to regain custody. For now, Riley is living with his father, a construction worker who says he's ready to switch jobs to parenting.
Dan Simon, CNN, Seattle.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And you can see more of Dan Simon's stories on Anderson Cooper's show. Watch "AC 360" weeknights, 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
Talk about justice delayed. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has finally pardoned Grace Sherwood three centuries after she became the state's only convicted witch. Although it appears to be a colonial version of David Letterman's game will it float, this is a re- enactment of Sherwood's trial by water on July 10, 1706. Sherwood was accused of causing another woman to have miscarriage. And despite having her thumbs tied to her toes before she was tossed into a river, Sherwood did float. According to the custom of the day, that proved her guilt. Sherwood went to jail and it appears she stayed there for eight years until she paid back taxes on her property. She managed to stay out of trouble until she died at the age of 80.
Your plants about to shut down, your job's disappearing. What are you going to do?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said, I gave my last $30 for the Lottery. I never gave it another thought.
PHILLIPS: Some lottery winners we can all cheer for, coming up on CNN.
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