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CNN Live Today

Suicide Bombing in Israel Kills At Least 4; Florida, After Hurricane Wilma; Stranded in Cancun

Aired October 26, 2005 - 10:59   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take a look at what's happening "Now in the News."
We're following a developing story about an explosion in the Israeli coastal city of Hadera. Just minutes ago, Israeli police confirmed that it was a suicide bombing. CNN has learned that the militant group Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for the attack. Israeli medical services report at least four people have died, several people are wounded.

We'll have a live report just ahead.

Today is the deadline for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers to submit a more detailed questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The panel's leaders asked Miers last week to resubmit her answers, saying committee members were not satisfied with the amount of detail that she provided. Confirmation hearings are scheduled to begin November 7.

The man largely blamed for the poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina reportedly planned to resign days before the monstrous storm plowed into the Gulf Coast. According to "The Washington Post," e- mail released by a congressional probe show that former FEMA chief Michael Brown was on the verge of announcing his resignation. The chair of the Senate probe says that may explain his apparent detachment during the aftermath.

Good morning. Welcome back to the next hour of CNN LIVE TODAY.

Checking the time around the world, just past 10:00 a.m. in Cancun, Mexico; just past 11:00 a.m. In Washington, D.C.; and it's a little after 6:00 in Baghdad.

From CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Daryn Kagan.

We're going to start this hour with a developing story that we have been following in Israel, an explosion in the coastal city of Hadera. Israeli police have confirmed the explosion was a suicide bombing, and there has been a claim of responsibility.

CNN's John Vause joins us from Jerusalem with the latest -- John.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.

As far as that claim of responsibility, it's coming from the militant group Islamic Jihad in Gaza, saying this is in fact a revenge attack for the death of a senior Islamic Jihad leader at the hands of Israeli troops on Monday night. That leader was killed in the West Bank town of Tulkarem.

They said at the time, or shortly after his death, that there would be a revenge attack. They vowed revenge. It now seems that the people of Hadera in this marketplace are now paying the price for that revenge.

At least four people killed, another five people are in critical condition. And 20 people, at least 20 people, have been hurt in this blast. Some as of a short time ago were still being treated at the scene, others were taken to a nearby playing field to be treated. But Israeli medical services, emergency services, are well used to this kind of a scene.

Hadera, a small town, about 50,000 people, about 40 miles north of Tel Aviv, has been the scene of these kinds of suicide bombings in the past. It's not far from the green line, the line which separates Israel from the West Bank.

Though no specific warnings for Hadera put out, but we are coming to the end of the Jewish holidays, and there had been a number of general warnings. The number of police on the roads, the number of Israeli soldiers out and about had been increased in response to those general warnings.

Also in Hadera, in this open-air marketplace, Israeli soldiers (ph) have been searching for a secondary explosion. As of now, there has been no -- no discovery. They've found no secondary explosion in the marketplaces.

This is in fact the first suicide bombing since one in Ber Sheva which left about 20 or so people wounded. There was another suicide bombing in Netanya in July which killed five or six Israelis, and another one in February in Tel Aviv.

We've also heard from the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, pleading on all sides to stick with the cease-fire. He condemned this attack, but he called on both the Israelis and also the Palestinian militant groups to try and stick to that shaky cease-fire which was negotiated in February this year -- Daryn.

KAGAN: John Vause, live from Jerusalem with the latest. Thank you.

We're going to turn now to south Florida, where the scramble is under way to get relief to Hurricane Wilma victims. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, whose department oversees FEMA, is getting a firsthand look today at some of the damage.

Tempers have already flared over the pace of the relief efforts in Florida.

Our senior correspondent, Allan Chernoff, is in Oakland Park, near Fort Lauderdale, with more on that.

Hello.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SR. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

And the ice here lasted for about two hours. For two hours people were lining up, getting two bags a piece. But at 10:25 this morning, the truck pulled out after 22 pallets full of ice had already been given out, given out here, and also to people in cars who had been lining up.

This is now beginning to become a little reminiscent of what happened yesterday. People here had been waiting for hours and hours to get their ice, and they got very frustrated here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCIA JENKINS, OAKLAND PARK RESIDENT: Yesterday, we stood in line from 12:00 to about 4:00, and we didn't get any ice. I gave up and I left.

CHERNOFF (on camera): You waited four hours and nothing?

JENKINS: Nothing. Nothing. So I figured I'd come today, and I got to the end of the line, and this is what happened. No more ice. They said wait until the next truck.

CHERNOFF (voice over): How long are you going to wait?

JENKINS: I don't know, maybe as long as I could.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: The mayor says that eight more trucks are supposed to be coming, but so far nothing's showing up.

The lines also forming at gas stations. In fact, gas stations throughout the state. This morning we were in Sunny Isle and there were two gas stations open early this morning. From one I counted 80 cars, and another had a line of 90 cars.

So certainly people trying to get gas wherever they possibly can. Keep in mind, many of the gas stations remain shuttered. Gas stations just don't have power. Many of them don't. In a few areas the power has come back on, and that's where we see the long lines -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Yes. And the pictures we're looking at, Allan, it looks like people are lining up on foot to get the gas in a gas can rather than in their cars, too.

CHERNOFF: Oh, absolutely. Well, that's actually an efficient way to do it, because, of course, if you're waiting in your car, the engine running, you're using up valuable gas. And this morning where we were, people had driven from several miles away, and they had tanks that were still half full, but nonetheless, they were so concerned they were willing to just wait on lines.

KAGAN: And you're talking about the power being a problem. What are you hearing down there for south Florida for folks to get their power turned back on?

CHERNOFF: In some areas, the power has been coming back on. In fact, at our hotel last night, the power did go back on. But for other people no improvement whatsoever.

Here in Oakland Park, there is no power. In fact, right near us, there's a power line that remains down.

There is so much repair work that the utility crews need to do over here. They've got 6,000 folks working the lines, trying to get the substations back on. The utility company says 240 substation were damaged by Hurricane Wilma.

KAGAN: A lot of work to do there in south Florida. Allan Chernoff, thank you.

Well, when Wilma roared across Mexico's Yucatan peninsula over the weekend, the hurricane stranded thousands of tourists. A lot of Americans are among those still stuck in Cancun and Cozumel.

Earlier on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING," one of the stranded Americans talked about his ordeal with Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL ATTARDI, AMERICAN STRANDED IN COZUMEL: It's still pretty much of a very danger zone still here. The problem that was occurring is that the airport was under about like three feet of water.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: But now that it's opened -- now that it's opened, presumably, the floodgates, if you will -- that's a bad expression in this case -- could open as far as airplanes, right?

ATTARDI: Yes, it can. But apparently it was taken over by the Mexican government for supplies coming in and out.

O'BRIEN: Oh, I see. I understand.

ATTARDI: But as far as the spirits over here, we are very, very excited. I haven't got onto the airplane yet, but at least there's a sign of hope. We -- you know, again, thank you, again.

We also got in contact with the U.S. Embassy from Mexico City, who has been very, very busy over in Cancun. And so we're happy to hear that they actually know that we're here.

O'BRIEN: What about supplies, Michael, food, water, that sort of thing? Are you doing OK on that?

ATTARDI: Yes, wave been pretty fortunate in our hotel, but, like I said yesterday, we were going around the streets. I was taking some food with me, because there were quite few Americans their out of food, water. We had helped them as much as possible. The shelters have been very, very good, good source for them to, like, sleep, drink a little, but they were still having problems getting, you know, proper food. O'BRIEN: All right. And as you were outside, describe the scenes you saw. I mean, you mentioned you sort of saw some kind of New Orleansesque scenes, looting on the street, that kind of thing. What did you see most recently? Are things calming down a bit?

ATTARDI: I will say one thing. The Mexican government here, the local government, has been incredible. You see people that are on the streets working, trying to get big debris off, small trees down. If you saw this place, it was annihilated, I mean annihilated. The whole place was in wrecks. I mean, we were fortunate here. Our hotel was probably one of the few that wasn't hit as worse, you know.

And, you know, it's just -- it was an amazing scene. It's just hard to even explain, but I would say that seeing the people out there and working with such an inspirational (INAUDIBLE).

O'BRIEN: Michael, one final thought here. Are you still with us?

ATTARDI: Yes, I am.

O'BRIEN: We had hoped to have the spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy on with you here, but we haven't been able to connect with her for some reason. If you had one question for her this morning, now you say you've spoken to U.S. embassy officials. But do you have anything you want me to pass along?

ATTARDI: Well, I just wanted to know why it took so long. You know, we've been actually trying to reach them since Saturday. And just were trying to get some answers, because there was nothing coming to us. And we had to just rely on the hotel staff because there was only one phone here, you know, and it was a very scary situation, because there were actually children, women here, senior citizens, and we were really just more -- more concerned about them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Well, some Americans who are stranded in Mexico are blasting the State Department, accusing it of leaving them high and dry. The department is defending its efforts to get the stranded Americans back home. A spokesman at the State Department says the U.S. has been working to ensure that supplies and medical attention are available at the shelters where Americans are saying.

Well, switching gears to weather here, a different type of weather, it looks like -- a lot like winter in parts of the Northeast in the U.S. A big Nor'easter, that struck the region yesterday. It dumped heavy snow from West Virginia to Maine.

Reporter Ray Brewer is with our affiliate WMUR. He gives us a closer look of the storm's effect in New Hampshire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAY BREWER, REPORTER, WMUR: It has indeed been a crazy couple of days as far as the weather is concerned here in New Hampshire. Yesterday, dealing with the Nor'easter, the storm surge, the howling winds, and today many people in the Granite State are waking up to find the first snowfall of the season.

Now, snow beginning to taper off a little bit, but it has been accumulating throughout the night. In fact, some parts of New Hampshire reporting up to a foot of snow.

The snow is also being blamed for one death in the neighboring state of Maine. A woman sliding on some snow-covered roads. And the storm is begin blamed for about 5,000 power outages here in the state of New Hampshire.

Other parts of the Granite State, though, aren't seeing snow. They're continuing to see rain, and a flood watch remains in effect. It seems there's a little bit of everything in New Hampshire except sunshine.

Reporting for CNN, I'm Ray Brewer, in Sunapee, New Hampshire.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Well, that Nor'easter that pounded New England and the Mid-Atlantic is blamed for at least two deaths. The storm drew some of its energy from the remnants of Hurricane Wilma. It packed 70- mile-an-hour winds and it churned up to 20-foot waves. It knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses.

Well, let's bring in our Chad Myers in here.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: We've been watching what the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, might come up with as we watch the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. and the White House. There is news to report, and for that let's go to our Bob Franken -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And Daryn, what we're going to report is what we don't expect to happen. We now have a source who is very deeply involved in the investigation who tells CNN that we should not expect an announcement today from the special prosecutor or the grand jury about indictments or lack thereof in this investigation that has now gone on for almost two years.

The fact that the deadline from the grand jury before it goes out of existence is this Friday has fueled speculation that there could be an announcement of what the prosecutor intends to do. And what this could mean is good news for the White House, bad news for the White House. It definitely means no news, at least, immediately, for us.

Now, the grand jury, as I said, is supposed to go out of existence on Friday. The investigation is concerned leaks that identified Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative. Valerie Plame, the wife of Joseph Wilson, a harsh administration critic.

The investigation has been trying to determine whether conversations with reporters crossed the line into illegalities, a violation of the law which makes the identification of an undercover agent a violation of the law.

And also, according to any number of people involved, it seems that the special prosecutor has been looking into whether during the course of the investigation false statements have been made which would possibly be obstruction of justice, perjury or something like that. What we now know based on this source is we are not going to have any announcement of any results today, which does not necessarily mean that decisions have not been made, just that they're not about to be announced -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Bob, thank you for that.

Bob Franken outside the federal courthouse from Washington, D.C.

So, as Bob was telling you, certain things we do know, including that this grand jury is supposed to wrap up its term this Friday, and that perhaps we were expecting to hear something today. So why the delay?

Let's go ahead and bring in our Kelli Arena, our Justice correspondent, who's with us in Washington, D.C., as well.

Kelli, hello.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Daryn.

Well, first of all, this grand jury can be extended. I mean, that is one option for the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald.

He did ask for one extension. Grand juries usually meet for 18 months. Fitzgerald asked for an extension for six more months. He does have six more months to play with if he chooses.

If he makes a request and says, you know what? Maybe I need a few more weeks, maybe one more month to wrap everything up, a judge would probably -- would grant that extension, and it wouldn't be too much of a hardship for these jurors who have already been serving on this grand jury for so long. So that's one option.

The second option is that there might be indictments handed up today which are then put under seal. But many legal experts really don't see any justification for indictments being put under seal. Usually that happens when there are some -- there are arrests under way and you don't want to alert people to the fact that other people have been indicted, or someone's life could be in danger.

Fitzgerald could, according to some legal experts, go before a judge and say, you know what? This case has been so public, there is just so much to deal with here, we need a few hours, maybe a day to get all of our ducks lined up in a row. We'd like to keep this under seal until tomorrow morning. A small possibility, but a possibility, Daryn.

So we don't know, because we're not behind those closed doors. But just because we're not having a public announcement today doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be any indictments in the future. KAGAN: But we did cover the possibility that there's no announcement today because there will be no indictments.

ARENA: Right. Well, of course. There could always be no indictments. But I think the important thing here is that there's -- as you know, all of Washington is very much on edge, especially in the White House. And several officials there, you know, speaking to our reporters.

John King, one of them, said, you know, look, there's no denying that there's a lot of anxiety here. So everyone has been waiting, everyone knows that this grand jury right now at least is scheduled to wrap things up on the 28th, which is Friday.

And so there were reports, as you heard -- I mean, everybody was saying it could come today, indictments could come today. So I think that just for expectation purposes, it's very good to say, look, we're hearing from a source with knowledge of this case, a very credible source, saying we are not going to get a public announcement today.

So our viewers know that. We're not going to hear it today. We might hear it tomorrow, we might hear it on Friday, or we could go into the weeks beyond that. Who knows?

KAGAN: Right. Well, and you say, of course, but I think there are many people in this politically-charged environment that assume just because there is a grand jury investigation that they expect there to be indictments. But there is a possibility that nothing will come out of this.

ARENA: Absolutely, Daryn. He -- you know, he may decide that he doesn't have enough there, enough evidence there. And we know that activity continues, Daryn.

Just yesterday, FBI agents were interviewing mid-level officials at the White House. On Monday night, FBI agents were back near Valerie Plame's neighborhood talking to neighbors, asking them if they knew whether or not she worked for the CIA before her name was published in the newspaper.

So not everything is all finished yet.

KAGAN: All right. Kelli Arena, live in Washington, D.C. Thank you, Kelli.

ARENA: You're welcome.

KAGAN: We're going to go back to Wilma in a bit. Recovery from Wilma just beginning. There we are.

A lot of people dealing with Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. New Orleans residents want to know what is going to happen to that city's levees.

Plus, more on those nutrition labels at McDonald's. The details are in the wrappers. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: For nearly two months after Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters ravaged New Orleans, people who fled the city's Lower 9th Ward will be allowed to go home starting tomorrow for a so-called look and leave. That word comes from Mayor Ray Nagin's office. Those who return will tour the area on buses. Nagin says it's important for people to see their homes and begin the next step in rebuilding their lives.

As New Orleans residents survey the damage in their neighborhoods, a major problem still remains, how to fix the levees that failed during Hurricane Katrina. This is an issue that is stirring a lot of anger.

Our technology correspondent, Daniel Sieberg, has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BOWLES, HOMEOWNER: As the ground moved, it lifted.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Artist Joe Bowles is on the front lines of the fight over the levee breaks. Bordering the 17th Street Canal, where water rushed in, his entire back yard was pushed up like a rug.

BOWLES: I was very angry, right. You pay your tax money, and you figure the government knows what they're doing when they build levees, and obviously they don't, or they take the cheap route.

SIEBERG: Bowles is not alone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since the government is not going to address the levee situation...

SIEBERG: At a recent meeting in Bowles' Lakeview neighborhood, outraged residents wanted some straight answers on how the Army Corps of Engineers will solve the levee problem.

At that gathering, the Corps only wanted to address debris removal. But Lakeview is one of many neighborhoods near the three locations in New Orleans where a major levee breached. Experts say before the levees can be upgraded, they must know why they failed. And the reasons differ.

At the Industrial Canal, the water flowed over the levee wall, then flooded down the other side, eroding the soil at the base. At the 17th Street and London Avenue locations, a different problem has emerged. The rising water apparently did not top the levee walls, but the type of soil at the base may have contributed to its collapse.

(on camera): Here at the 17th Street Canal, about 12 feet down is a 5-foot layer of peat. It's soaking wet from the groundwater, and it looks like this. Engineers say it would act as a poor anchor for a levee support wall.

GORDON BOUTWELL, ENGINEER: Water will flow through the peat a lot faster than it will through the clay. And so that would allow water to go through and help weaken the soil.

SIEBERG (voice-over): Boutwell is one of the lead investigators of a report being prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

BOUTWELL: Water is pushing. But if the soil here is relatively weak...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BOUTWELL: ... it slides out like that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

BOUTWELL: It slides, and then the whole wall kicks over.

SIEBERG: While engineers look at what happened and how to prepare for the future, residents like Joe Bowles have to figure out what to do now. He lived in this house for 58 years.

(on camera): What's it like to see all this stuff?

BOWLES: It hurts. It really does, especially because it was unnecessary. You know? There's no reason for this. I mean, you live in an area like this where you know things like this could happen? You should have the best -- the very best protection you can.

SIEBERG (voice over): The question is: Will it be in time for the next disaster?

Daniel Sieberg, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: In other news today, the U.S. military death toll in Iraq reaches 2,000, and a large majority of Iraqis say yes to a democratic constitution.

After the break, we're going to live -- we're going to go to Iraq for analysis on the country's government, the continuing violence and what lies ahead for the war-torn nation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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