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CNN Live Today

General Motors Cutting More Jobs, Closing Several North American Plants; Teen Dad Killed

Aired November 21, 2005 - 10:31   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some really tough economic news to share with you, and unfortunately it comes just before the holidays. General Motors, that's the world's largest automaker, is cutting more jobs and closing several North American plants. This discouraging news came about two hours ago from the GM chairman. In all, nine plants will close by the end of 2008; 30,000 hourly workers will lose their jobs. More now on the announcement of what it might mean for the U.S. economy from our CNN senior correspondent, Allan Chernoff, who is in New York.
Allan, hello.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

And when you sell cars and trucks at the employee discount to everyone in the country, you know it's going impact the bottom line. That's exactly what's been happening at GM. So far this year, the company has lost $3.8 billion. These cutbacks have been in the works for some time, and they are quite deep. They extend all of the way through 2008. As you mentioned, 30,000 jobs plan to be cut over at General Motors, and this is at assembly plants, and also at service- and-parts facilities as well. The company plans to reduce its capacity by one-million vehicles. That's by 2008, and if you compare that to 2002, that will be a decline in capacity of 30 percent, and this is all part of a $7 billion cost-savings plan that the company has been working on for some time. The chief executive officer, of GM, Rick Wagoner, says it's going to be painful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK WAGONER, CEO, GENERAL MOTORS: The decisions we're announcing today were very difficult to reach, because of their impact on our employees and the communities where we live and work, but these actions are necessary for General Motors to get its costs in line with our major global competitors. In short, they're an essential part of our plan to return our North American operations to profitability as soon as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: Although the chief executive is not predicting exactly when GM may return to profitability. The stock, by the way, hit a 14- year low last week. It's up slightly this morning, and also the first factory to shut down will be in Oklahoma City, a factory that manufactures sport-utility vehicles. Daryn, the company has been relying too much on SUVs. KAGAN: Alan, how much of this has to do with health care costs that the company faces?

CHERNOFF: Well, as most major companies face this issue, of course, that is a very big problem for GM, but it's not the only problem. Of course, let's also keep in mind that GM has so many retirees, and it has huge expenses for those retirees, but GM also has been facing very tough competition from the Japanese. The situation with the yen has been hurting GM.

And as I mentioned, they've also been relying very much on the sport-utility vehicle. They make nice profits from that, when they're not selling at the employee discount, but demand for SUVs has been on the decline. And of course the recent jump in gas prices has done nothing to help that situation.

KAGAN: Is it just me, or does it seem like news like this always comes right before the holidays?

CHERNOFF: Yes. Unfortunately a lot of companies do end up announcing their layoffs. They try to make it a little bit before the holidays, so it doesn't come, say, just before Christmas. Maybe there's a rush to get the new ones out, so it's not at the very end of the year.

KAGAN: But is it a fiscal thing that they have to do it by the way that calendar works?

CHERNOFF: Look, they can make these announcements at any time. They're not forced to do it at the end of year by any means.

KAGAN: All right, Alan, thank you.

To New Orleans now, the water has drained away, but insidious reminders of Katrina's toll runs silently and dangerously in thousands of buildings. It's mold.

CNN's Rusty Dornin shows us it may have met its match, though, in a weapon that already conquered anthrax in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOMBARD (ph): We try to clean things.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's growing in the Lombard house.

LOMBARD: The mold grew about four, five feet here. It's black mold. They say it's really toxic, really bad.

DORNIN: It covered parts of Bob DeFelice's restaurant.

BOB DEFELICE, RESTAURANT OWNER: And if you look down here, you can kind of see the black mold kind of taking over the weaker mold.

DORNIN: As it has in thousands of homes on the Gulf Coast. DEFELICE: We might be able to salvage those.

DORNIN: Like many, Bob DeFelice, owner of Pascal's Manale, a New Orleans restaurant institution dating back to 1913, was facing weeks of work ripping out and rebuilding all his interior walls. That's the standard treatment.

Then he heard about a gas fumigation system, a system that would sterilize his restaurant, every nook and cranny, without rebuilding. The company, Sabre Technology, used the same gas to decontaminate Capitol Hill following the 2001 anthrax attacks. Turns out, chlorine dioxide kills everything from termites to mold.

Back at the restaurant, DeFelice's employees were told they could bring any moldy items.

CARMEN PROVENZANO, CHEF: Well, the mold is in the closet.

DORNIN: So we went along with the sous-chef, Carmen Provenzano (ph), to grab some clothes at his wrecked home.

PROVENZANO: I'd rather take a chance and see if it can be saved.

DORNIN: Provenzano hung the clothes in the restaurant's closet. The building was then tented and the gas pumped in. Twelve hours later, the gas is gone, and we followed DeFelice into his restaurant.

DEFELICE: This is incredible. I'm just totally blown away. Look at this wood here. I mean, that was just so dark before, and it's -- you can see all the grain.

DORNIN: What about Carmen Provenzano's clothes?

PROVENZANO: Everything is a little dirty still, just given the situation, but it's definitely clean. You can smell the difference. You can see the difference in the -- there is no mold on anything.

DORNIN: Chlorine dioxide is a pesticide approved by the USDA for everything from purifying drinking water to keeping baby carrots from getting slimy. It costs about $8 per square foot to treat mold with chlorine dioxide, putting the price at under $40,000 for an average house. It won't repair water damage, but it does eradicate mold. And for Bob DeFelice, that means the famous barbecue shrimp will be back on the menu by January.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Just ahead on CNN LIVE TODAY: not just another killing. A young father who became a symbol for taking responsibility for his infant daughter falls victim to the violence.

And 12 years after being put to death for a crime that he says he didn't commit, the people who helped put a young man behind bars have changed their stories. Did Texas execute an innocent man?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Well, now a tragic story that involves a teenaged father. The shooting death last week of this young man is resonating way beyond the Philadelphia neighborhood where he lived. It was just last summer that "People" magazine featured 18-year-old Terrell Pough as a success story in single parenting. Pough worked long hours managing a fast-food restaurant, while going to school and raising his two-year- old daughter diamond. Police say he was on his way home from work on Thursday night when he was gunned down.

Amanda Martin from our CNN affiliate WTXF has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANDA MARTIN, WTXF CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At almost two years old, Diamond can't yet understand exactly what she's lost. She's lost her protector, her caretaker, her dad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's where he got his drive. I mean you look at his daughter, how can you not -- how can you not want to give your all to her?

MARTIN: After she was born, when he was 16 years old, Terrell Pough made a lifetime commitment giving her his all.

RICHARD NESBITT, POUGH'S UNCLE: He was the personification of excellence. He had every opportunity, because of his background, to do the wrong thing. And it would kind of been statistically understandable, but he chose -- he was the exception to the rule.

MARTIN: Terrell made Diamond his number one priority, raising her on his own while going to school and holding a steady job. He was recognized by "People" magazine in August for being an outstanding single father and then earlier this month, honored by the 76ers to stand at the game (ph) for being a responsible young adult.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was capable of doing anything.

MARTIN: Terrell's mentor in a teen parenting program says he was on the path of true success.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's not much that Terrell probably couldn't do with his life.

MARTIN: But now someone has taken Terrell's life and a major part of hers. Thursday night at 10:30 police say Terrell was shot and killed in the 5400 block of Wayne Avenue in Germantown. He was leaving work on the way to pick up Diamond. Police say they have no suspects and no motive.

LIZ POUGH, TERRELL'S MOTHER: What happened to Terrell was senseless; it's sad, and if anyone knows anything about what happened to him, if they would come forward, I would be grateful.

MARTIN: For Diamond, life will never be the same.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Such a sad story. That story coming to us from Amanda Martin with our affiliate KTXF. We do have an addition to this story. Police say that Pough's car and the keys to it are missing. He got the car as a gift from someone who read the article in "People" magazine. And there are others that are stepping up to help his young daughter.

The Diamond Pough Trust Fund has been set up through Youth Build Philadelphia Charter School, 1231 North Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And all contributions will go to honor and to help out his 2-year-old daughter.

There is new information casting doubt on the validity of a Texas execution. It was carried out 12 years ago. Ruben Cantu was put to death in 1993 for a murder that took place in 1984. That was of Pedro Gomez, who was shot during an attempted robbery. Cantu was a teenager at the time of the crime, and always maintained his innocence.

Now a jailed co-defendant in the case says Cantu had no involvement in the murder. And Juan Moreno, the lone witness to the shooting and survivor, now says that police pressured him into identifying Cantu as the triggerman.

The prosecutor says he's confident the right people were prosecuted, but he says he should have not pursued the death penalty in the Cantu case.

(MARKET REPORT)

KAGAN: We're talking about something else you might want to plug into your television set. Parents, you might have seen this on your child's Christmas wish list, Xbox 360. Why is PlayStation II or regular Xbox no longer good enough? An up close look at the gaming system that will be flying off store shelves. Is it worth the hefty price tag? We'll take a look when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: OK, shoppers. It's the number one item on a lot of Christmas wish lists this year: Xbox 360. It's the souped up gaming console that goes on sale tomorrow, around $300 a pop. Question is, is it worth your time and money?

Let's check in with our technology correspondent Dan Sieberg. Daniel, good morning.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. I'm going to break away from some research here with the XBox 360.

KAGAN: Yes, research. Good, good.

SIEBERG: Yes, this is serious work here. You've probably noticed that video games are not just for kids anymore. Well, the money that's at stake with the video game industry is not child's play, either. We're talking about a multibillion-dollar a year industry. And Microsoft -- this is the second foray into the console gaming world. The original Xbox came out about four years ago.

The Xbox 360 coming out tomorrow and Microsoft is really hoping to capitalize on being the first out of the gate with the next generation of video game consoles, this being the Xbox 360. Sony and Nintendo with theirs will come out some time next year, we believe. So that's their strategy. They're releasing it a little bit early.

KAGAN: So what does it do differently? As we watch you get creamed her, Daniel.

SIEBERG: Yes, hey, it's tough to play and talk at the same time. I've got gamer face, which is kind of -- looks like I've sort of got drool coming out of my mouth.

Basically, the difference is, obviously, the graphics are a little better. We should point out that it's really maximized for H.D. or high definition TV. So you have a regular TV, you're going to notice that the graphics are little bit better, but you're not going see the full potential of what the Xbox 360 will offer.

It plays DVDs, it plays music. You can actually plug in your MP3 player directly to it and listen to your music. Not your iPod, at least not iTunes, but a lot of other things. It's a multimedia device and Microsoft is really trying to position itself as this digital hub in your living room, if you will. So you do pay that initial price, but then there are prices on top of that, Daryn.

KAGAN: Yes. Let me ask you this, first of all. If you already have an Xbox and you have old games, will the new Xbox 360, as it comes out of the box, play the old games?

SIEBERG: The short answer is no. This is what the system looks like that you would pay a little bit more than $300. This is the sort of advanced system. The core system or the basic Xbox 360, does not have a wireless controller.

It does also -- it also does not have the hard drive. You need this hard drive. And this is a technical explanation, but stick with me here. If you want to play your old Xbox games, you need to have this additional hard drive that will allow you to download some software that will allow you to play a couple hundred of the old Xbox games. I know that sounds a little bit complicated, and for some people it probably will be. That extra hard drive is $100. So buy the base unit with no hard drive, you got to spend that $100 if you want to play your old games.

Now, the nice fancy unit with the wireless controller and the hard drive included, that goes for $400. So you might be thinking well, why would I bother buying the lower-cost version? If I want to play my old games, I got to everything together. You get a few other things included, but basically, we're talking at least $400, then $50, $60 per game. So. KAGAN: Cha-ching.

SIEBERG: It's an investment.

KAGAN: All right, we'll up those costs and we'll let you go back and play your games.

SIEBERG: All right.

KAGAN: Thank you, Daniel.

SIEBERG: I got a lot of work here.

KAGAN: Oh, yes. Sweat, very good.

We have other work to do as well. Straight ahead on CNN LIVE TODAY, the debate over the war in Iraq and the war on terror center stage this morning in Washington, D.C. Vice President Dick Cheney will be speaking shortly. We'll bring it to you live as soon as it happens.

Plus, was Abu Musab al Zarqawi killed in a weekend raid by U.S. troops in Iraq? The White House says probably not. The U.S. military is conducting tests to be certain. A live report ahead as the second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY begins after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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