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American Morning
Southern States Prepare for the Flooding of the Mississippi River; Fighting Back the Flood; "Jetman" Flies Over Grand Canyon; More Than One Killer in Long Island Murder Mystery; A Rift in U.S./Pakistan Relationship; Education in America: Closing the Achievement Gap; White House Launches "Script Your Future" Campaign
Aired May 11, 2011 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Watching the levees and preparing for the worst. The Mississippi River continues to rise. The danger heading further south this morning. Plus, another passenger tries to exit a plane in midair. What other flyers were thinking when it happened on this AMERICAN MORNING.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. It's Wednesday, May 11th, and welcome to AMERICAN MORNING.
VELSHI: I'm just going to try and get to the bottom of all of this, people trying to get off of planes while they're flying. We're doing some investigating into this.
ROMANS: If you try to get off the plane while it's flying, it's probably not going to end well for anyone.
VELSHI: In most cases it won't work, but I don't want anybody trying.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: We're starting with the historic flooding surging down the Mississippi River affecting more towns in its path, hundreds of people working miles ahead trying to stop at least the best they can the damage. The river has crested near a record high, that was in Memphis, Tennessee.
VELSHI: You can see on this map it started on May 5th, in Caro, Illinois, from Memphis southward, the high water is surging into several counties in Arkansas and much of western Mississippi now ground zero. John King is taking a boat along a quiet street in tunica, Mississippi.
ROMANS: This would normally be a neighborhood block that is quiet, now under 32 feet of water. Nine riverfront casinos, the hub of this local economy, are also underwater.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY LIDDELL, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, TUNICA, MISSISSIPPI: We don't know what damage has been done. We don't know how much water has gotten inside each casino, if any. So no, we don't have a clue. It's way too early to tell.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CHETRY: Further south in Louisiana they're preparing for the worst this morning as well, as 400 National Guard troops have been activated, embedded in 17 different parishes.
VELSHI: They've opened up a spillway that has not been used since 1973, sending millions of gallons of water rushing into Lake Pontchartrain. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal says about three million acres could be affected by flooding.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. BOBBY JINDAL, (R) LOUISIANA: We've got moving search and rescue teams, wildlife and fisheries, leading that effort, working with state police and National Guard positioning assets to the northern part of the state and will move down the river as the water moves down the river.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Rob Marciano is also on the ground in Tunica, Mississippi, and joins us live this morning. Are they able to do early assessing of the damage or is it too soon?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's too soon. Just like what we dealt with the past couple days in Memphis, it's a slow crawl to get this water to the crest level and a slow drain of the river. That's probably the most frustrating part about this.
As you've been talking about across tunica, that's an area where over 200 homes have been completely flooded, a number of other boat houses have been set loose and are floating down the river. Who knows when folks will be able to go back into the area?
A number of people who have been evacuated from that region, most of them are in the shelters, about 400 people in shelters the past couple nights. That number probably not going to go down much further because we've got several days if not a couple weeks before those people can even get back to their homes to start the cleanup process.
As you mentioned this area, really the bread and butter are casinos and a number of them that line the river where they do the actual gaming is on the river but where people stay and the resort areas that's off the river on land and those are the areas struggling with the floods. And we spoke with the Harrah's representative yesterday to break down some of the numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
R. SCOTT BARBER, REGIONAL PRESIDENT, HARRAH'S ENTERTAINMENT INC.: If you look at the market all nine casinos we generate about $85 million a month in revenue or would have in the month of May. You figure about a 12 percent tax rate on that, that's $10 million to $12 million tax impact and about a $90 billion topline revenue impact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIANO: Big numbers spreads across the entire local economy so they're going to take a blow for sure. That's Harrah's, MGM down here as well. They own this property, the Gold Strike casino.
They're using inflatable levees, guys, not inflatable, fill the levees up with water as opposed to sandbags and they've got about a half a mile of linear feet that wrap around this property and we'll get a closer look in the next hour how they work. But so far so good. The river is about a foot above where it would be pouring into the lobby right now if those things didn't work. So far they seem to be working. You can hear pumps. All these businesses are working feverishly to save their properties because if they lose the properties here in the form of casinos, then the town goes along with it. Guys?
VELSHI: All right, Rob, thanks very much for that.
An airline passenger under arrest this morning for allegedly trying to open a plane's emergency door during the flight. We continue to ask what these folks are thinking. It happened last night on a delta flight from Orlando to Boston. Authorities say the crew subdued the unruly passenger with the help of an off-duty cop. The plane landed safely in Boston. Passengers say it was a bit scary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was very scary. I didn't know until the very end. I wasn't scared at all during the flight. It was probably good. It was a good thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought somebody was just getting sick in the back of the plane. I saw people being escorted to the back but didn't think anything big was going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Once the plane landed the suspect was taken into custody by Boston police. Other witnesses say he appeared to be drunk. This is the fourth security incident aboard U.S. flights since Friday. That continues to be a troubling trend.
ROMANS: I was on a flight where a guy stood up and saying I have a heart attack, and we have to go back to the gate. His wife says he always says that, he's afraid to fly.
VELSHI: Deal with some place other than when you get on the plane.
ROMANS: We took off.
More eyes will soon get to see the forbidden photos of Osama bin Laden dead. The pictures were taken during the raid on the 9/11 mastermind's Pakistani compound. CNN has learned members of the Senate armed services committee and the Senate intelligence committees will be allowed to view the pictures along with members of similar committees in the house. The viewing will take place at CIA headquarters in Virginia. A date has not been set yet.
CHETRY: Also, the CIA telling CBS news it's gathering new leads every hour from the evidence that was seized from bin Laden's compound. A federal law enforcement official also tells CNN that some of that evidence is now being used by counterterrorism agents in New York to actively pursue leads. That source says no active terror plots have been uncovered.
VELSHI: Pakistani officials say China is very interested in examining the wreckage of an American helicopter that crashed during the bin Laden raid. The U.S. asked Pakistan to return it, but according to analysts, that's not likely to happen any time soon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANCES TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: Once they had the hard landing and had to blow it and leave it behind, I think U.S. military intelligence officials not only assumed that Pakistani government would exploit it and try to reverse engineer it, but that they might, in fact, share it with China.
PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: The history between these countries is very long. I think it's a very reasonable assumption to the Chinese which is a country engaged in aggressive espionage, it would want to get hold of this stuff.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: One U.S. official said he would be shocked if Pakistan hasn't already shown the wreckage to the Chinese.
ROMANS: A Syrian official has claimed they have the upper hand after weeks of cracking down on anti-government protesters, like what you're about to see from the city of Homs. The video shows a tank rolling down the street, firing on its own citizens. It's a scene that's said to be happening in a number of cities across Syria. Here you can see tanks lined up on another city street. The government claims it's released more than 2,600 people.
CHETRY: President Obama wants Congress to repeal big tax breaks for big oil. Senate Democrats will open debate today on a measure to do just that. It claims they'll save $21 billion in the process. Tomorrow oil industry leaders will testify on Capitol Hill. They'll include representatives of Chevron, Shell, BP America, and Connaco Phillips, as well as ExxonMobil. Democrats say the billions of dollars in oil and gas subsidies would help with the deficit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL, (D) MISSOURI: This is very simple. There is more hot air around this building about deficit reduction than any other topic right now. And if we cannot end subsidies to the five biggest, most profitable corporations in the history of the planet that come from the federal taxpayer, then I don't think anyone should take us seriously about deficit reduction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: The proposal came in response to remarks Tuesday by House Speaker John Boehner who said that raising any taxes in any way is off the table.
The world's two economic super powers are making progress when it comes to trade. After two days of talks, China is now promising to make it easier for American companies to bid for government contracts. Washington demand that China let its currency appreciate has not been made. Many claim China keeps its currency artificially low, which makes Chinese goods cheaper in the United States and makes American products more expensive in China. China has historically made a lot of promises on these fronts that haven't live up to.
ROMANS: And they make promises about making things more open to bidding for government contracts. The fact of the matter is, the software it uses, the government uses, is counterfeit software. The industry has pushed and said you can't be a rising super power and use counterfeit software.
CHETRY: How much power we have to change their policy --
VELSHI: Right now they're our bankers. They're calling the shots.
CHETRY: Former house speaker Newt Gingrich about to announce he's in. Gingrich is expected to break the news he'll run for president later today on Facebook and Twitter. But if Gingrich wants to run he will have to work on his reputation. According to a recent CNN opinion research cooperation poll, 44 percent of Americans have a negative view of him, 30 percent have a favorable view of the former House speaker.
ROMANS: Up next on "American Morning," GM is breaking out some really dusty help wanted signs. We're going to have the details of where they're hiring and where they're ramping up.
VELSHI: And a controversial plan by a Long Island New York school district to benefit the students or is it going to hurt them. Deb Feyerick has the story.
CHETRY: Also, this mystery continues on long island's beaches. The discovery of more remains at first investigators thought they were dealing with one serial killer. Now that theory is changing. We're going to talk about it coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Since the death of Osama bin Laden, relations between the United States and Pakistan have become very shaky.
ROMANS: And complicating matters, Pakistan is a nuclear power that also has their hands on what's left of a top secret U.S. helicopter.
CHETRY: The one that went down in that raid. Joining us live from Washington this morning is Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, an expert on Pakistani-U.S. relations and also professor of Islamic studies at American university. And interestingly enough you lived in Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden was found. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
AKBAR AHMED, FORMER PAKISTAN AMBASSADOR: Thank you. Good morning.
CHETRY: What did you think about that? You lived there. Was it a surprise to find him living in this garrison city as they call it in Pakistan?
AHMED: It was a surprise. I thought he would be in Waziristan, as I was in charge of Waziristan many years ago. Abbottabad is a save town, very settled. It's a garrison town, which means there are several regiments posted there, the military academy there. I was schooled in Abbottabad, one of the premier schools run by Catholic priests. So it's the last place I would have thought he would be hiding.
And if he was there and we know he was there because he was discovered there, then the question is, how was he living there? And did the authorities know? I would suspect that the authorities at some level certainly knew about it, because Pakistani officials just simply saying we did not know about it seems bumbling, seem, frankly speaking, duplicitous and have not convinced anyone, least of all their own people or America.
ROMANS: But it's interesting, Mr. Akbar, because you will get American officials who are kind of cautious about being too tough on Pakistan on that point. They say when you do an investigation, we've lots of questions we want to ask and many say it's because of the nuclear factor here. The United States wants to be a close ally of this country because a, we're fighting terrorism, and b, this is a nuclear power. How does that complicate the American response?
AHMED: It complicates it because while there's a great deal of anger and recriminations on both sides, remember the American public and the Pakistani public, mad at each other right now. Anger is at a high level. The governments both administrations, very much want to hang on to this relationship. It is vital in a sense for both.
Pakistan is not only critical in the war on terror in Afghanistan. And even for the short term and even if we come out of Afghanistan, Pakistan remains a critical country. It is at a geopolitical location which is vital for American interests. China on one side, India to the south, Iran to the west, Afghanistan to the north. It's a big country, 180 million people, nuclear as you say.
VELSHI: Yes.
AHMED: And then most important, it's often overlooked here, Pakistan was founded by Mr. Jinnah who believed that he was creating a modern Muslim state, women's rights, minority rights --
VELSHI: Right.
AHMED: -- human rights, respect for the law. So every Pakistani in his or her DNA has an idea of a modern Muslim state which didn't quite work out.
VELSHI: Let me ask you this, Professor. Let me ask you this because when you go to Pakistan you see pictures of Jinnah all over the place, in fact, and when others talk about Americans, they may talk about it as a monolith just as when we talk about Pakistan, we think of it as a monolith. But it's not. Tell us the key divisions here particularly between the intelligence service, the military, and the elected government. They certainly are not monolithic and they don't see the relations with the west or terrorism the same way.
AHMED: I think that's a great question and I hope America is listening to this, this discussion, because we stand to see Pakistan as a monolith. Indeed, the Muslim world as a monolith.
Pakistan is a battlefield for three kinds of Islam. And this is a very important discussion. One modernist Islam like Jinnah's vision, a modern Muslim nation, Muslims being proud of their traditions and yet modern, wanting to live with the rest of the world. Second, mystic Islam. And Pakistan has millions and millions of people who are really devoted to mystic Sufi Islam, peaceful universal. And thirdly, literalist Islam, not all literalist Muslims are violent or tend towards violence. But it is this Islam that believes Islam is under attack and must be defended, must be fought for. And from this you have branches emerging which are, in fact, very influential particularly in areas like the tribal areas of Pakistan, or in rural Punjab.
CHETRY: Right.
AHMED: And a lot of the violence is, in fact, coming from this. We think that this is not something that concerns us but this is a battle taking place. My wife is from Swat. She comes from the royal family there. She's lost six members of her family fighting the Taliban in Swat.
CHETRY: Right. And I want to add --
AHMED: Yes.
CHETRY: And I want to actually show you a piece of video that highlights this point not only in Pakistan but also in Afghanistan. This is our Stan Grant getting a rare look inside of a strict Islamic school, a madrassa in a poor neighborhood in Kabul. Let's take a look at what he saw.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STAN GRANT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outside the day is just dawning, but these students, some as young as 6, are already locked in a trans-like rhythm, over and over. They recite the Koran. These boys' minds are poisoned against the United States.
Do they like the U.S.? No, they say. Should they leave Afghanistan? Yes, they say. We want our country to be peaceful. They are the devil. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: So they're indoctrinating these young boys to believe that the United States is their enemy. Meantime, we're spending years, hundreds of millions of dollars and American lives fighting this war. Is there a solution?
AHMED: There is a solution. We need to think intelligently of our relations with both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Drone strikes, missile strikes, killing wedding parties, innocent people are not helping us at all because in Afghanistan and Pakistan the discussion and debate is about national sovereignty. What we need to do is give our aid. And you're right we've given billions of dollars, not just millions, and they seem to be going into a black hole. We need to give it to intelligence.
For example, we should be tied up at education. We should simply say 40 percent, 50 percent for education. For example, reform the madrassas.
ROMANS: Right.
AHMED: You've shown a clip of the madrassas. I was in charge of divisions in Baluchistan (ph) in the 1980s and I saw that the madrassas were going to produce a whole generation of kids who would be very narrow minded in their interpretation of Islam. Open them up. Have teachers training programs, change the syllabi, send these kids out, let them join the rest of the world.
ROMANS: Right. All very good piece of advice.
And let me ask you, there's one quick question, we talked about this. A helicopter in the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden was killed, and that the Chinese may want to get their hands on it or get a look on it. That's another level of complication here that you have. Other allies of Pakistan who may have competing interests with the United States?
AHMED: Exactly. Another good question because the United States has a very close relationship with Pakistan, but Pakistan also has a very close relationship with China and it values this relationship. When the prime minister spoke to parliament on Monday, he made clear that he criticized the United States in thinly veiled references and praised China. He called it a fair weather friend, contrasting it with the United States. Although we're seeing some strains in the Pakistan/U.S. relationship, the outing of the CIA operative, President Obama now making it clear he's not going to visit Pakistan later this year.
VELSHI: Yes.
AHMED: It was hoped in Pakistan that he'd go there, balance his visit to India. This always has a big impact in Pakistan because everything is seen in terms of the India/Pakistan relationship.
VELSHI: Yes. AHMED: So all this is suggesting that the leaders of both countries need to step back, cool it, relax it, and begin to restructure and recreate the relationship which is so important to both countries and Pakistani officials have to stop assuming that everyone is dumb or stupid or idiotic because two plus two equals four.
VELSHI: Yes.
AHMED: It doesn't equal eight or 10.
VELSHI: There you go. Professor, excellent advice. Great insight. Thanks very much for joining us. Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is a professor of Islamic studies at the American University.
AHMED: Thank you.
VELSHI: He's also the author of "Journey Into America."
ROMANS: Best line is everyone needs to cool it and then we need to restructure this relationship.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: It's interesting.
All right. Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, a controversial plan by a Long Island school district. This is fascinating. Does it close the achievement gap by putting everyone into honors, the top track, or does it hold some students back? The top track students. Deb Feyerick has that story.
VELSHI: And we're going to show an amazing video of a daredevil who soared over the Grand Canyon in a jetpack when we come back.
It's 22 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: It's 24 minutes past the hour. "Minding Your Business" this morning.
Strong earnings and Microsoft's deal to buy Skype pushed stocks higher for the third day in a row. The Dow closed up 76 points. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 were also higher.
Toyota reporting its fourth-quarter profit slid -- wow, 77 percent. This after Japan's devastating earthquake forced the world's largest carmaker to stop production at a number of plants. GM, though, is now hiring. The automaker says it plans to create or preserve the way -- that's the way they put it -- 4,000 jobs in the U.S. by investing $2 billion into its plants.
A nearly three percent drop in the amount of mail being sent, just hammering the U.S. Postal Service's bottom line. The agency lost more than $2 billion over the first three months of the year. Fewer flights were on time in March, according to the Department of Transportation. The airlines' on-line arrival rate was down slightly from a year ago. One piece of good news, though, your cancellations were down.
And if you're at a Philadelphia Phillies game, your next beer could be just one tweet away. A beer vendor there says fans can send them a tweet with their location and he'll deliver them an ice cold beer.
AMERICAN MORNING is back right after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-eight minutes past the hour right now. An academic road map drawn up by a Long Island school district, Long Island in New York, it's a suburb here, is under fire from parents.
VELSHI: At issue is the tracking system that traditionally separates students academically.
ROMANS: Right. There's top track, there's middle track and, you know, honors programs and the like. Our Deb Feyerick takes a look at the controversy in today's education in America report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Audrey Goropeuschek took over as principal of Long Beach Middle School three years ago, she was stunned by what she saw.
AUDREY GOROPEUSCHEK, PRINCIPAL, LONG BEACH MIDDLE SCHOOL: We did have classes that seemed to be somewhat segregated.
FEYERICK: That's because students in sixth, seventh and eighth grade honors classes were primarily white while in regular classes students were primarily Latino and African-American, among them Jennifer Smith's daughter.
(on camera): If she was getting honors, why wasn't she put in an honors program?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was in the high 90s in every class. I couldn't understand it. And no one was pushing her, you know, to go into honors.
FEYERICK (voice-over): It's called tracking, separating children based on academic abilities. But in Long Beach, the racial disparity in grade six became hard for educators to ignore.
(on camera): What is the danger in tracking somebody in sixth grade.
GOROPEUSCHEK: In my opinion, it's developmentally inappropriate.
FEYERICK (voice-over): As one of Long Island's oldest communities, it is also one of its most economically diverse. ROBERT GREENBERG, SUPERINTENDENT OF LONG BEACH SCHOOL DISTRICT: We were not providing equal opportunities and equal access to all youngsters and that needed to -- that needed to change.
FEYERICK: In a controversial move two years ago, Superintendent Robert Greenberg did away with tracking, mixing sixth graders of all different academic abilities and creating more challenging curriculum.
GREENBERG: When we begin to prepare youngsters in this way in middle school, they are far more successful at high school.
FEYERICK: But some parents like Tom Sewfield argue smart kids like his daughter are being unfairly penalized.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If someone is intelligent enough that they belong in an honors program, they should be in an honors program. If someone doesn't belong in that program, they should be in a program that teaches to their level.
FEYERICK: Martha initially skeptical has embraced the system for her younger daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What they're afraid of is opportunity for their children, opportunity to get scholarships to colleges.
FEYERICK (on camera): What is the message your trying to give children who traditionally were not put in an honors class?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The message is you can do it. You're bright and you can perform well and we expect you to.
FEYERICK (voice-over): As proof it's working, school officials say a greater number of kids are enrolling in advanced classes, however test scores are still out. Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Long Beach, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: Those are some real interesting questions, doesn't it?
VELSHI: And Long Island school board meeting last night, parents showed up to speak about a policy that they say is holding their students back.
There was a possibility that the seventh grade could be detracked or untracked. After the debate, the Board of Education voted not to detrack that grade.
A quick programming note for you, for all of you so interested in education as we all are, at 8:00 Eastern on Sunday night, Soledad O'Brien special, education in America report, "Don't Fail Me" Sunday night 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time right here on CNN.
CHETRY\: It's a stark academic reality, right, American students under performing on the world stage, the U.S. ranking 14th in reading, as we've talked before 17th in science and 25th in math out of 34 industrialized countries. Well, it's raising questions about whether American students would perhaps, see an improvement if they went to school year-round. We want to know what you think. It's our question of the day.
Should kids go to school year-round? We got responses, some very interesting ones. I would say that most our responders don't think it's a good idea, but for varying reasons, creative ones at that.
Thepollbrom says summer vacation is not outdated. He's saying this because we talked about how - it used to be for the kids -- It is a way for kids to take a change from the day-to-day routine and have a little fun for a change.
VELSHI: On Twitter, Craig writes something dear to my business heart. That would ruin the back-to-school sale, a real American tradition. Education is more important than retail though. Go for it.
ROMANS: Another interesting business angle if you will, Mike says on the blog, this would obviously increase taxes. I think it's a bad idea.
VELSHI: Why -- why would it obviously increase taxes?
ROMANS: Well, there a lot of people that say because of budget cuts in schools are cutting to the bone. Everything that's not mandatory, could they really --
VELSHI: Kids in school for a year less?
ROMANS: No, they're not leaving school any earlier.
CHETRY: You can also argue between investing --
ROMANS: True. You could argue the investment on the front end with the studies that kids who drop out are likely to go to prison save the money on the other end of people who had to drop out of school.
CHETRY: Right, but if you have no money in your district, which these people are dealing with right now -- year-round busses, activities, year-round extracurricular. I mean, it is expensive.
VELSHI: But you don't have to pay for a year-round care for your kids during the day.
CHETRY: That's right, that money --
ROMANS: Mike says don't raise Mike's taxes, whatever we decide to do to improve the quality of education in America.
VELSHI: You know what? I'm pretty convinced people's taxes are going up one way or another whether we send kids back to school year-round.
CHETRY: All right, well, keep your comments coming, send us an e- mail, a tweet, or tell it to us on Facebook. We're also @kiranchetrycnn, @alivelshi and @christineromans. ROMANS: All right, back to our top story this morning, the flooding crisis in the south. CNN going in-depth now on the manmade effort to hold back the Mississippi River.
VELSHI: Mississippi and Louisiana are now in the danger zone for this flood. Hundreds of engineers are trying to manage and contain the water within a system of levees and spillways.
CHETRY: Everyone is hoping it holds. Casey Wian is live for us in Vicsburg, Mississippi. This is where the Army Corps of Engineers is working now feverishly to try to fight back the flood. Hi, Casey.
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Let me give you a sense of just the amount of water that these engineers are trying to deal with. You look behind me, you can see Diamond Jacks Casino. You can see the end of that building and what looks like a window. That's actually a door so that is under about four or five feet of water.
There is a roadway between here and there that is completely covered with water and over the next seven or eight days, before the river is expected to crest, water level will raise another four to five feet.
You can see off in the distance. There's a cluster of barges, moving up against this fast-moving current and over here, you can see one of the businesses, a marine supply business, taken it upon itself to put up sandbags and a barrier.
With the river cresting another four or five feet higher anybody's guess whether that barrier will be enough to keep the water away from that business. Now earlier we spent time with the Army Corps of Engineers, which is trying to prevent flooding and some of these levees from failing.
And one of the things we can show you pictures of they've been doing is laying these polyurethane sheets along the backside of some of these levees, four miles along one stretch and they hope that is going to stop the erosion that could cause the levees to collapse if, in fact, the water level rises and sort of back water areas above the levee toms.
They're trying to save the farmland there. Now of course, during Hurricane Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers received a lot of criticism and one of its main critics was Congressman Bennie Thompson whose district stretches along about 280 miles of the Mississippi River in this area.
He spent some time with the army corps going over their plans, this time, and here's what he has to say about how they've changed since Katrina.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D), MISSISSIPPI: Well, there's no question they mishandled Hurricane Katrina. They mishandled communicating with state and local officials. They mishandled part of the response in terms of handling the water and they kept making mistakes upon mistakes.
Rather than admitting that we made a mistake, but what I've seen since Katrina is a core that reaches out, talks as far as I know to every local entity that's interested in what they are doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIAN: Now when the water level crests, next week, Thursday is the expected day, it's supposed to pass the historic level of 1927 and the Army Corps says they're much better prepared this time.
They don't expect any significant damage, any loss of life, as long as people heed the warnings to get out of the areas expected to be flooded. Back to you in the studio.
VELSHI: Right and they've had lots and lots of warnings. The one advantage of this disaster is that it has been moving very slowly. We hope that is the case. Casey, thank you very much.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
All right, you got to check this out. This flight over the Grand Canyon, big deal, right? We've all seen that. On the wings of man. Yves Jetman Rossy dropped out of a helicopter this past Saturday, flew for eight minutes --
CHETRY: That's so cool.
VELSHI: On a jet pack. I love this.
CHETRY: If I could guarantee I would survive it, I would do it.
VELSHI: He doesn't look like he's having any struggles there. He was 200 feet above the rim of the Grand Canyon then deployed his parachute executing a picture-perfect landing on to the Canyon floor.
ROMANS: This maybe a dumb question, but then how does he get back out?
VELSHI: I think he probably has a team of people to get him out or it's going to be a long hike out of the Grand Canyon.
ROMANS: Wow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Everybody dreamed about that. For all of the fantastic advances in science and technology, don't we all just want to jet pack?
ROMANS: All the way back to Leonardo Da Vinchi, trying to make man fly.
CHETRY: All right, well ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, more support for breastfeeding your baby. There's another new study out talking about the health advantages of this. Do we make it easy enough for moms to keep up with it? We're going to talk about that coming up.
VELSHI: Three out of four Americans do not follow their doctor's orders. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin coming after you after our break. It's 38 minutes after the hour.
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ROMANS: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Police on Long Island say 10 sets of human remains discovered along a stretch of beach there may be the work of more than one killer.
VELSHI: For the longest time investigators were looking for a single serial killer. Now it appears the area they've been searching has been a dumping ground for bodies for years.
CHETRY: Joining us now is Retired Nassau County Police Officer Lou Palumbo who heads the New York based elite agency, which provides security for major events like NASCAR races as well as the Golden Globes. He got a lot of experience with this area as well.
In fact, last time we had you on you talked about this being a popular, sad to say, dumping ground for people that would be committing these murders.
First of all, are they any closer to figuring out what we're dealing with in terms of the killer?
LOU PALUMBO, RETIRED NASSAU COUNTY NEW YORK POLICE OFFICER: Only that there's commonalty in four of these homicides and they're still trying to determine with the second four bodies discovered in Suffolk county if there's any correlation to the first four.
They do not believe there is. That's why a statement came out by the police commissioner of Suffolk County Police Department indicating in their opinion there were several people responsible for these deaths.
And that's predicated on the fact that the way death occurred is different, the way these bodies may have been secreted or bound, being different. The geographic area along that beach is quite a long stretch. As we now know there was an Asian gentleman that was found.
ROMANS: And we don't know anything more about him really other than he was a young, Asian male -
CHETRY: And they believe that he was the victim of homicide.
PALUMBO: Well, I happen to have spoken to the investigators that found him ironically enough and they don't know if there is a tie to the other homicides.
But I want to go back and say what I said the other time, this place, this area, has been used for decades to discard bodies and this is not something that's --
ROMANS: And why? PALUMBO: Because of the inaccessible nature of this terrain, the fact that it's very raw and narrowly and you can just secrete things in this shrubbery and brush you can't get to.
CHETRY: It seems chilling that unrelated murderers would know each other, would all choose the same spot to dump bodies in unrelated murders.
VELSHI: How does this change the investigation? If the last time we were here, we were thinking about a serial killer. What does this do for the police? What does it change for the way they're investigating it? If now they're thinking they're just coming across bodies?
PALUMBO: Well, it makes far more complex because now you're not just looking for one individual, you're looking for multiple individuals, number one.
You know, the one thing I do want to say about finding these women that were prostitutes, you know, the public, someone in the public knows them, and as usual the public will end up being an aid to law enforcement through disclosing their identity.
Someone as long as they're not too fearful might come forward and put a timeline together as to where that person was last. That's one thing. The other issue here, deals with the fact that because of the elements in this environment there is no physical evidence there.
What they have to do first when they find these bodies is conduct an anthropological study of the bodies to determine gender and race and from there hope that there's enough DNA sufficient enough to identify them, you know, to put a name to them.
CHETRY: Right and that's the question, what is going to be the key here? Is it going to be DNA? I mean, they have an incomplete database. Obviously, they're going to be cross referencing some of this.
But they say right now, they have not been able to identify one woman, not identify the Asian man that they believe in his late teens or early 20s and a toddler they say likely a girl found wrapped in a blanket with no signs of trauma.
PALUMBO: And again, I go back and say this, that I know that someone was on the show saying they're going to catch this person. I'm very skeptical as to whether or not they will catch this individual. This is problematic for law enforcement. It should not reflect on the Suffolk County Police Department in any way as being inept.
ROMANS: It's a hard case --
PALUMBO: It's an almost impossible case.
ROMANS: Or cases.
PALUMBO: You know, I spoke to an investigator from a law enforcement agency, all I want to say, and when they discovered the most recent set of skeletal remains.
ROMANS: Right.
PALUMBO: Near Tobay Beach in proximity, their immediate believe was that these bones have been there for like four, five, six years, possibly longer. I will tell you with confidence there's no doubt in my mind bodies have been dumped there for decades. And, you know, the other question that they pose to as law enforcement now is, well, how do you patrol this and prevent this from happening again?
CHETRY: Exactly.
ROMANS: Right.
PALUMBO: And it's very problematic because there isn't justification to dedicate resources in the form of radio cars and policeman to an area that's basically uninhabitable.
ROMANS: And to a maybe. Maybe someone --
VELSHI: That's right.
PALUMBO: There's other technology as we know. You know, you can do flybys with thermal imaging, which are on our helicopters today to pick up the body heat from cadavers or whatever the case may be. But, this is really a huge, huge problem.
And listen, Nassau and Suffolk County police departments are very sophisticated departments, they're very experienced. Contrary to public opinion in Suffolk County, it's very busy out there. The detectives work like animals because they have a lot of crime.
CHETRY: And they have a lot of people and this is scary for people living nearby it. I know a lot of people want to get this solved.
Lou Palumbo, retired Nassau County police officer. Thanks so much for joining us.
ROMANS: Nice to see you.
PALUMBO: My pleasure.
VELSHI: We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. It's 46 minutes after the hour.
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VELSHI: A lot going on. Here's what you need to know to start your day. It peaked in Memphis. Now the bloated Mississippi River is surging south. Casinos in Tunica, Mississippi have been flooded out. In Louisiana, the governor has mobilized the National Guard saying three million acres in his state could be impacted.
Select members of Congress will get a view of Osama bin Laden's death photos. They'll see them at CIA headquarters in Virginia. Donald Trump's gone from first place among possible GOP candidates with 26 percent, to fifth place in the latest polling, with just 8 percent. That's the span within one month.
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signing a bill into law that cuts funding to Planned Parenthood. It's the first state to do so. The measure imposes some of the tightest restrictions in the country on abortion. Indiana's Planned Parenthood hopes to get an injunction to keep the funding in place.
More evidence of the benefits of breastfeeding. A British study finds babies who are breast-fed are less likely to have behavior problems by the time they're five, than those who are formula fed.
It's probably more ice cream than you need for your birthday. But the Dairy Queen chain has built the biggest ice cream cake ever -- 21,000 pound. And you don't want to know how many calories.
They're back. Cicadas. Those large -- those loud but harmless insects are buzzing about after 13 years under ground. People in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia are reporting cicadas emerging in droves.
You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING back after a quick break.
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CHETRY: Fifty-one minutes past the hour right now. If you take a look inside of your medicine cabinet and if you're like the majority of old Americans, you will find old prescription bottles, maybe half filled with pills that your doctors probably wanted you to finish or take more regularly.
Well, listen to this. They say that failure to follow simple doctor's orders, especially with keeping up with your medications costs billions of dollars and countless lives, in the thousands. That is why the U.S. Surgeon General is starting the Script Your Future Campaign. She joins us this morning.
Dr. Regina Benjamin from Washington. Great to see you, this morning. Thanks so much for being with us.
You know, it is astounding, because you think, it seems so simple. If your doctors wants you to be on blood pressure medication, take it every day. If you're supposed to be on cholesterol medication, take it every day. If you are on antibiotics for an infection, you take it until they're finished.
Why is it such a problem?
DR. REGINA BENJAMIN, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: Well Kiran, we know that 75 percent of Americans don't always take their medications as directed and that can have serious medical consequences and so I'm really pleased to join with the National Consumers League to lost this Script Your Future campaign. And it's a national campaign to raise awareness of how important it is to take your medications as directed.
CHETRY: Yes. The World Health Organization says, which was astounding, that we would be better off if everybody followed their existing treatments. We'd actually be healthier as a world than even inventing or finding new treatments. That's astounding.
BENJAMIN: It is. And it's really important for people with chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. When you take your medication as directed, you can prevent those serious consequences like if you don't take it for hypertension, you have a stroke. Or diabetes, you may lose a leg or lose your vision. So those consequences can be prevented and that saves cost. It saves your life. It makes you healthier and you have a healthier life in the future.
CHETRY: And so we asked people -- or they did a study on this to try to find out why people are either skipping their meds or stopping taking them early. People said they -- some people have trouble keeping track of multiple medications. I know that's a challenge for older folks. Unpleasant side effects. People who thought their medication didn't work. And also, costs.
So, let's talk about the costs. What about people who just simply can't afford to keep taking costly medications?
BENJAMIN: Medications are costly but in the long run, if you don't take it, it'll cost you more. Again, if you lose your leg or if you lose your vision or have a stroke, the cost is much, much greater down the line. So we want to make sure that people understand those consequences and to do whatever they can to take their medications as prescribed. Talk to their doctor, talk to their pharmacist and clinician to see what can be done to cut down some of the costs of the medication. But it's real important that they take it.
The other thing I want to mention is, you know, it is also kind of hard for us to remember to take our medicines. You think about the fact that many of us forget to take our vitamins every day. People with chronic illnesses and chronic diseases have to take two and three medicines a day, two or three times a day and oftentimes for the rest of their lives. So, it can be pretty complicated.
CHETRY: Right. I know that that is a challenge. You sometimes need help from caregivers or perhaps putting your pills in those dispensers helps people at times.
I also want to ask you about this irony, because at one point, we're pushing people or you have a campaign to make people more aware of taking prescription medications. On the flip side, we're seeing an abuse in certain prescription medication, notably painkillers like opiate narcotics on the rise. People still point to the pill mills in places like Florida, where people can literally go in there, say they're in pain and walk out with a prescription for a narcotic.
Have we made headway? Are we making headway in the federal government in curbing this problem? BENJAMIN: Yes, in fact, we have an entire campaign devoted to prescription drug misuse and we're going to be talking more about that. The White House has a program for that. But for this campaign, it's mainly to concentrate on people with chronic diseases, chronic illnesses and helping them to understand how to take their medications correctly.
CHETRY: All right. U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, great to talk to you this morning.
Again, just to remind people, the web site is called scriptyourfuture.org. and it's going on live in just an hour. So, congratulations on that. I hope people listen. Thanks so much.
Christine.
ROMANS: All right. Top stories just moments away, including bye-bye summer. Goodbye to the summer break? We're asking you this question all morning. Should American kids go to school all year round? I mean, come on, they're getting their handed to them by the rest of the world, right? We're going to talk to a columnist who sparked this morning's debate, right after this.
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