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American Morning
Stock Markets Slide; World Markets Reeling; Stocks Take a Beating Worldwide; Deal to End FAA Funding Standoff; New Jobs Push for Vets; Biden Heading to Asia; Penalty Phase for Warren Jeffs; So Much Heat, So Little Rain; Heat Wave Claims More Lives; How Safe is Our Food?; Syrian Crackdown In Hama; Obama's Jobs For Vets Plan; Teachers March For Education Reform
Aired August 05, 2011 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Stock market slide. Good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. After the single worst day on Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis, just how bad could it get and what does it mean for your nest egg?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Gloom around the globe. I'm Christine Romans. Markets in Asia down sharply, a sell-off also under way in Europe where the debt crisis is accelerating. We're live across the globe with what this means for the health of the global economy.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: And the July jobs report, I'm Ali Velshi, one of the most closely watched economic indicators on Wall Street comes out this morning. We'll tell you what it means for you, your job and the recovery on this AMERICAN MORNING.
COSTELLO: And good morning to you. Happy Friday. It is August 5th. This is AMERICAN MORNING.
ROMANS: All right. We begin with your money. Everyone I hope you had a good night's sleep because we're going to see what happens on day two.
At this hour markets across the globe are reeling, that selling driven by fears of a debt crisis in Europe and a stalled recovery here and around the world.
Our economic growth is slowing, manufacturing is down, consumer spending is down, and today, in just two and a half hours, we're going to learn the number of jobs created last month, just how robust or how weak that was.
VELSHI: Everybody certainly anybody with investments, 401(k) or IRA watched yesterday as the Dow dumped 512 points. That is a more than 4 percent drop. Yesterday capped a brutal couple of weeks.
Take a look at this. In the past 10 trading days, the Dow, along with the Nasdaq and S&P 500, have all lost more than 10 percent. That's money gone from the calculation of the value of your portfolio.
COSTELLO: So, you're asking, how soon will it get better? Because that's what we all want to know.
ROMANS: That's right.
COSTELLO: We know, let's look -- it's so gloomy and doesn't have to be so gloomy, right?
ROMANS: I just want to say one thing. I mean, the big move happened yesterday. It was the 116th biggest percentage decline in history for the Dow, 116th.
We have seen these kinds of days before. If you're making trading decisions about your retirement today based on what happened yesterday --
VELSHI: You're a day late.
ROMANS: You're a day late and probably several hundred dollars short.
COSTELLO: OK. Thank you. For lifting the gloom just a little. And we have reporters standing by across the globe, rather, Andrews Stevens is live in Hongkong, Nina Dos Santos is live in London.
Let's start with Nina, shall we? European markets what are they looking like this morning?
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm afraid it's not looking too good. We saw a number of these markets taking their cue from the heavy declines in the United States.
Yesterday when those markets shut down, in excess of 4 percent, FTSE 100, for instance, opened the day down to the tune of 3 percent, adding already to year-to-date loss that is already in the double digits.
And this is what I really want to point out to you guys. If you think you have it bad where you are, well, the Dow Jones Industrial average after yesterday's steep fall is only down by just shy of 2 percent year-to-date.
But put it into context against some of these European markets and you really see where the problem lies. Milan is down 20 percent year-to-date, Switzerland is down 18 percent year-to-date, even the Dax is down by about 9 percent year-to-date.
And that shows you that some of these European markets are the ones suffering because, of course, it's the euro zone credit situation and debt situation that is the one that has markets worried.
We'll have a pivotal situation in the two and a half hours from now and of course, Europe will focus its eyes on the United States when we get the nonfarm payroll numbers, perhaps they will give a shot of optimism to the markets. At the moment, I'm afraid to say it doesn't look like it.
VELSHI: All right, Nina. Thanks very much for that. Nina Dos Santos in London watching this very closely. Let's go to Andrews Stevens now. He's standing by in Hongkong where the Hang Seng closed down nearly 4.5 percent, not unlike a lot of other Asian markets. Andrew, what did it look like?
ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It looked pretty ugly, Ali. It really did to end the trading week. It's been pretty ugly for a while. What Nina was saying and you were saying about the longer run.
There's been a big correction going on in the Asian markets for a while and it did come to a head today. As you said Hongkong down 4 percent, that's a big move even for a volatile market like Hongkong.
Japan down 3.7 percent. Australia down by 4 percent. That's a really big move for Australia. Australia is particularly sensitive because it's a commodity based index and that means it's very sensitive to what's going on with perception of the global economy and this is what this is all about.
You've got the huge crisis brewing in Europe. You've got recession or no recession, certainly a stall going on in the U.S., and Asia still being the engine, manufacturing center of the world, is feeling the effects.
It's funny, a bit of deja vu going on here, Ali. Remember 2008, we watched the crisis of Lehman's, which spiralled into a banking crisis, financial crisis in the U.S. and Europe while Asia also got hit.
We're getting hit again. The economy is in pretty good shape here relatively speaking, but they're still tanking.
VELSHI: Andrew Stevens, we'll be watching it carefully again all day today. Thanks so much, Andrew Stevens in Hongkong.
ROMANS: The fact is this is a big market plunge in the middle of a bull market. We've been in a bull market for two years. I mean, you got stocks 80 percent or some crazy amount since those horrible days of 2008.
Joining us now is investment adviser Matt McCall, president of Penn Financial Group. So strategists, many of them are sticking to their call that the S&P rallies from here through the end of the year despite what we've seen over the last day or so. How are people supposed to be feeling this morning about stocks?
MATT MCCALL, AUTHOR, "THE NEXT GREAT BULL MARKET": You should not be as panicked as you are, are, but it's very difficult not to be panicked. I mean, I'm a human being as well. I have emotions.
I woke up after about an hour of sleep and turned on and saw Asia was down, Europe down, futures here were down. So it's only normal to feel panic. The problem is, when you invest, you cannot make emotional decisions.
Any time you make emotional decisions, anything in life. It's going to go the wrong way. So right now, you kind of take a deep breath, do a little bit of yoga this morning maybe, go back to the markets before they open, check out the jobs numbers, but don't make any harsh decisions right now.
COSTELLO: You're talking about your 401(k) and stuff. Not like people have great amounts of money to invest anyway. They can't take advantage because the stock market is at a low, right?
I think what people are most worried about, is this a sign we're going to slip into a double dip recession. That's what people are concerned about. So are we?
MCCALL: No, I don't think we go into double dip. I mean, think about right now and you think about 2008. In 2008, company profits were actually falling. The banks were over leverage. We have company profits right now, this quarter on pace to be the best quarter in 3.5 years.
ROMANS: They can borrow money cheaply and we have seen big companies borrow money so cheaply that it's inspiring other companies to borrow money cheaply, which is the point of low interest rates.
MCCALL: The problem is they're borrowing money, what are they doing with it? They're stuffing it under the bed right now. They're not actually going out there and hiring and spending because there's a lot of overhang from the administration.
And from everything else going on, we don't know what regulations are going to be. We don't what taxes will be going forward. So with all the unknowns everybody is sitting on their hands.
VELSHI: So Matt, we talked about this a lot. You make investment decisions based on the quality of a company what it's likely to do. What happened in the market yesterday ran completely counter to what you might think.
I mean, McDonald's is not worth 5 percent less today as a company than it was yesterday or GM or Microsoft. So, how do you continue and how do our viewers continue to make decisions going forward with this strange, weird, overhang that's disconnected from reality around us?
MCCALL: Well, the first thing is, you don't base your long it term decisions. Most people are investing for decades. You can't base on one or two days of action in the market. Let's say McDonalds. Remember, stocks are now cheap, but they can get cheaper.
That's where it comes the timing of the market, trying to pick the bottom or top is very difficult. The market as individual investor, somebody in their 30s, you want to put money into the market today in my mind. It may not be the bottom, but you're seeing a great opportunity longer term if you have to put money in.
COSTELLO: What if you're 50?
MCCALL: If you're 50, I would still do the same thing.
COSTELLO: 60?
MCCALL: Let's talk. That's another show.
COSTELLO: Maybe 60 and you're working your program you should not be so fully engaged in the market it hurts so bad yesterday.
MCCALL: You should be in fixed income, which fixed income was up yesterday. You have to be diversified. Our largest holding is gold the last four years. It hit an all-time high in the morning.
So if you're diversified, you can weather this storm. Again it goes back to the short-term swings you can't make your long- term decisions based on a couple days action in the market. It's difficult to sit on your hands and watch this, but unfortunately you have to.
ROMANS: Reason why we should be looking out five years, 10 years and have anything to be excited about for stocks. When you look at what's happening to some of the countries and debt situations, overleveraged American consumer and over leverage American government.
COSTELLO: And you look at dysfunctional Washington.
ROMANS: That's part of this concern too.
MCCALL: Geez, makes me want to sell.
VELSHI: All right. Well then I'll give you something. You have India, China, these places still growing.
MCCALL: Yes. There is opportunity. Indonesia is one of my favorite countries, fourth most populace country in the world. Great growth story, Southeast Asia, people don't look at that.
They think, well, you know, it's too risky. The United States is risky. I hate to break it to you. There are opportunities out there. There are growth stories out there. The U.S. may only grow 2 percent the next five years, but there are opportunities out there.
ROMANS: Two percent, two percent growth does not bring down unemployment. I mean that's --
MCCALL: Unfortunately, you're right. I know I hate to say that.
COSTELLO: All right. So you're the bearer of good news and bad news.
ROMANS: Medium news.
COSTELLO: We're going to keep talking this morning and keep watching futures. Say one other thing, over the past 25 years the S&P 500 when it's had a day like yesterday, four out of five times there are rallies the next day. Doesn't mean it will stay rallying. If you're selling this morning --
MCCALL: Do not sell this morning. If you get anything out of this do not sell this morning.
ROMANS: Advice taken.
VELSHI: We have a good friend, Christine and I, who worked with us at the New York Stock Exchange. He's still there. He's been trader for 40 years, Ted Weisburg.
ROMANS: Yes.
VELSHI: What did he say last night? He said the stock market is the only place where they hold a sale, nobody comes.
COSTELLO: It's true.
ROMANS: There is a bit of bright news this morning a tiny bit. It's new this morning. Congress may have left town, but they are still wheeling and dealing so to speak.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announcing a bipartisan compromise to fund the FAA and send tens of thousands of government construction employees back to work.
Basically, here's the deal. The Senate will accept a temporary spending bill passed by House Republicans and Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood will use his authority to block the bill's spending cuts, targeting some smaller airports.
So they figured out a way where lawmakers didn't have to come back from vacation, but the FAA workers can still get paid.
VELSHI: They only figured out that way because everybody went nuts.
COSTELLO: Exactly, but that's the victory here. Power of the people.
VELSHI: That's totally right. That's a good point.
COSTELLO: People were really mad about this. Maybe they forced Congress to act.
VELSHI: President Obama set to unveil his plan to help unemployed veterans find jobs. It's designed to help military men and women make that transition back into the civilian work force. It offers business tax incentives to hire vets.
Interesting plan. Right now, the unemployment rate for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is triple the national average. That's incredible.
ROMANS: And now that the U.S. debt crisis has cooled, Vice President Joe Biden is heading to China. He'll be leaving in 11 days for talks with top Chinese officials and then he head to Mongolia and Japan.
In Japan, he'll meet with U.S civilian and military personnel who have been helping with that country's nuclear crisis in Fukushima.
COSTELLO: Coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING, polygamous prophet Warren Jeffs found guilty on two counts of aggravated assault against minors. Now the penalty phase is underway. We'll have the details for you.
VELSHI: And you've got to see this. Terrifying moment for passengers on board a packed city bus in Philadelphia as it's hit with a hail of gunfire. We're going to tell you what triggered the shooting?
ROMANS: Tiger Woods back in action with his new caddie, but it's his old caddie who may get the last laugh. It's 11 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: The tragedy in Syria continues. There's news now of more deaths, more than 100 deaths in and around Hama, the city is at the center of the latest crackdown by dissident -- on dissidents by security forces.
The United States condemning President Assad's regime saying it's lost legitimacy after witnesses reported civilians being executed in the streets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN RICE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: It's horrific. It's appalling. He's massacring his own people who are coming out simply to express themselves peacefully. It's absolutely unacceptable, appalling behavior and it deserves not only the condemnation but the full force of the international community, to pressure that it stop.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: More than 200 people have now been killed in Hama since government troops moved into the city last weekend to crush the revolt there.
ROMANS: The penalty phase is now under way after a Texas jury found polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs guilty on two counts of sexual assault against minors. The jury - jury reached that verdict in less than four hours. And the same 12 jurors will now sentence Jeffs possibly to life in prison. The charges Jeffs was convicted of stem from a 2008 raid on his ranch - his ranch that his church operates near Eldorado, Texas.
COSTELLO: Dramatic surveillance video shows a Philadelphia City bus packed with passengers being shot up from the street. The tape was shown at a hearing for six people charged in the shooting, which happened back in June.
One of those people, a mother who allegedly triggered this whole incident, you see her getting off the bus after a passenger criticized her for spanking her child. Authorities say she had called a group of friends who then opened fire with semiautomatic weapons. Remarkably, no passengers were injured.
VELSHI: It's unbelievable. So there's video inside this bus and outside. These guys show up with big, big guns and they start shooting the bus.
COSTELLO: All because this woman spanked her child on the bus and passengers complained.
VELSHI: If I ever call you two to tell me that I got into something on a bus with somebody, don't - don't show up with weapons. Yell at somebody if you want.
COSTELLO: It's just unbelievable.
VELSHI: And it's unbelievable that nobody got hurt in that thing.
COSTELLO: Well, that's like - I don't know. There's divine intervention there.
VELSHI: Unbelievable. Yes.
ROMANS: The bus driver must have panicked, you know? I mean, you see him sitting there, sitting in the bus there.
VELSHI: Well, I don't know if this is true. I heard somebody tell me, it's just so much information going through my head the last 12 hours, I don't know what's real and what isn't, but that he was a war veteran.
ROMANS: Oh, really?
VELSHI: Yes. That he had some sense of experience of dealing with this. So he just - he just hit the pedal and got out of there as fast as he could.
ROMANS: Wow.
COSTELLO: That's good for him.
VELSHI: That's good for him.
All right. The security scare on the Virginia Tech Campus, an alert was issued yesterday morning after it was believed that a man was possibly on campus carrying a gun. Summer school students were told to stay indoors. Classes were eventually canceled after several hours of searching a gunman was found and the alert was dropped.
You'll remember in 2007, a gunman opened fire at Virginia Tech, fatally shooting 32 people, before killing himself. COSTELLO: Now is your chance to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. Our question this morning, when will our fears about Muslim-Americans fade? I bring this up because the governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, a Republican, and a Tea Party favorite, has had enough of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Christie was defending his choice of Muslim-American lawyer, Sohail Mohammed for a state judgeship. Conservative bloggers were furious. They accused Christie of being in bed with the enemy. They feared Mohammed would make judicial decisions based on the Koran or Sharia law.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIE: Sharia law has nothing to do with this at all. It's crazy. It's crazy. The guy is an American citizen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Been almost 10 years since 9/11. Osama Bin Laden is dead. And, yes, there have been arrests of Muslim extremists within the United States and, yes, we do need to be vigilant about homeland security, but should all Muslims be suspect?
According to the "New York Times" more than two dozen states have considered measures to restrict judges from consulting Sharia law.
So our "Talk Back" question today, when will our fears about Muslim-Americans fade? Tell us on our Facebook page, Facebook.com/AMERICANMORNING. Write out AMERICAN MORNING. Facebook.com/AmericanMorning. We'll read your comments later this hour.
ROMANS: I think Governor Christie thinks it's crazy. (INAUDIBLE).
COSTELLO: He was just so out there with it. It was kind of - it's great to hear.
VELSHI: And - but that's very characteristic of him. He - when he thinks something is not right -
ROMANS: Yes.
VELSHI: -- he says it. If there's something - whether you like his politics or not, a lot of people don't, that is an interesting characteristic of his.
ROMANS: Yes. He just says it. It's very kind of a New York - New - it's a Jersey thing.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: All right. Tiger Woods admits he was a little nervous, but he says he decided to just let it rip and see what happens. So far, so good. Tiger returning to the tour yesterday at the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, firing a solid two under par 68 in the opening round. He - he hasn't played in three months.
Tiger's six strokes behind the leader Adam Scott. Guess who's caddying for Scott? Oh, yes, Steve Williams, the caddie that Tiger recently fired.
VELSHI: Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, dusty plane, so much heat, barely any rain, it's on pace to be the most stifling summer ever in the American heartland. We're live in Dallas where staying cool has become a matter of life and death.
ROMANS: And why scientists believe these new NASA photos of Mars could mean there's life on the Red Planet. Get ready to geek out all of you who love -
COSTELLO: This is cool.
ROMANS: -- Martian action.
It's 20 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: "Minding Your Business" this morning.
World stock markets dropped sharply as global economic worries grow. Stock indices in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia all closing with losses hovering around four percent.
Meanwhile, European markets have opened. They're continuing their slide after the Dow fell 512 points on Thursday. That's the worst one-day drop since the financial crisis in 2008.
A new jobs report due out this morning from the Labor Department, the last report saw the unemployment rate rise to 9.2 percent. That was for June. Economists predict it could save up the same for July with a paltry 75,000 jobs added to payrolls. That is not enough to boost an economic recovery here.
Almost one out of seven Americans rely on food stamps, that's according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As of May, some 50 million Americans were using food stamps. That's an increase of 34 percent from just two years ago.
AIG just reported its first profitable quarter since the financial crisis. The global insurance giant was bailed out by the U.S. government, bailed out to the tune of $180 billion. The company now reporting a net income of $1.8 billion in the second quarter. And Chrysler reported it's recalling 300,000 model year 2008 minivans because of a problem that causes their air bags to deploy unnecessarily. Chrysler had already recalled some of these same minivans once before to fix a similar problem with those air bags.
AMERICAN MORNING will be right back after this quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Good morning. It's 28 minutes after the hour. It's time for this morning's top stories.
Fears over a stalled global economy pushing Asian stocks down sharply. The Hong Kong Hang Seng was up by more than four percent. Japan's Nikkei was down by more than three percent. And Europe where trading is still under way, markets are also negative. The declines coming after the Dow tumbled more than 500 points yesterday.
And today's July jobs report will dictate whether the selling continues. That report comes out in about - well, exactly two hours. Economists surveyed by CNNMoney predict that the economy created 75,000 jobs. That would be a slight improvement from June. Wouldn't be fantastic. And if it's worse than that, fasten your seat belts.
And today, the Senate is expected to pass a deal to break the deadlock over funding the Federal Aviation Administration, that should put thousands of furloughed workers back to work. President Obama called the deal, quote, "important step forward."
COSTELLO: Oh, let's talk about the weather now. The heat wave, it's suffocating the Southern Plains and it's not letting up any time today. Just to give you an idea of the hellish conditions, take a look at this blood red lake in San San Angelo, Texas. Bacteria that literally feeds off the hot conditions -
ROMANS: Gross.
COSTELLO: -- have taken over what's left of the water and it's turned it -
VELSHI: Wow.
COSTELLO: -- blood red.
ROMANS: And on top of the lethal heat, Texas is in the midst of the most severe drought in state history.
Ed Lavandera live in Dallas this morning. That's not good for joggers, farmers, anybody trying to run a business outside. This is just tough times.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really is brutal. That red water, we got blue water for you. Kind of wanted to lighten things up a little bit here this morning.
You know, this is actually a gas station or huge gas station for truckers. So hot around here they're putting in pools, guys. The heat here is really taking its toll on a lot of people in many different ways.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): These days, when the sun breaks through the horizon, it comes with a sense of dread. It doesn't take long for triple digit temperatures to lock a suffocating grip on the Southern Plains.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The system (ph) was gone. Well, nothing there.
LAVANDERA: That dread struck the heart of Lucy Harris's Dallas neighborhood. Her 79-year-old neighbor Delores Grissome (ph) died in her home. The medical examiner says the heat caused her death, but Lucy says her friend didn't have to die. Someone stole the elderly woman's air conditioning unit.
HARRIS: She had no idea. She said her house was hot. I said when your house is hot because the air conditioning is gone.
LAVANDERA: The unit was ripped out of this cage. The family has put in a new one. Grissome reported it stolen. Two days later, she died.
(on camera): What do you think should happen to the people that stole this air conditioning unit.
HARRIS: They need to be put away. That's what needed to happen. They need to be -- they need life in prison for doing some stuff like that because -- I mean, they caused her to die, so they need to be in prison.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Protecting the most vulnerable is an urgent concern for social service agencies like the Salvation Army. It's opened cooling stations targeting the homeless. They give out free water and they're keeping emergency shelters open 24 hours.
MICHAEL ALLEN, SALVATION ARMY: This is every year.
LAVANDERA: Shelter director Michael Allen says it's a matter of life and death.
(on camera): Have you seen people who have come in here with heat exhaustion, just on the verge of passing out?
ALLEN: Yes. Sometimes, we have some guys at the front gate, they're passed out at the front gate and we have to bring them out.
LAVANDERA: Passed out from the heat?
ALLEN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Occupants out of their vehicles.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Some of the hottest spots in major urban areas are on the roadways.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Command center this is --
LAVANDERA: Inside the command center of the North Texas Tollway Authority, they're on the lookout for stranded drivers. They can use heat sensors to monitor roadway temperatures in real time.
MARTY LEE, NORTH TEXAS TOLLWAY AUTHORITY: When someone breaks down and they're out in these kind of temperatures on a roadway system, it's very dangerous.
LAVANDERA: The numbers are staggering. Workers are recording temperatures of 105 degrees, 18 inches below the toll roads. That can cause roadways to buckle and crack.
But this is the most stunning number of all. If you're standing on a paved bridge in this urban jungle, temperatures are reaching almost 142 degrees.
LEE: The actual temperatures are going beyond what we've experienced in the past and we've not really seen roadway temperatures like this probably ever.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: That 142 number is almost just staggering to think about, hard to comprehend really. And just for the record, Dallas-Ft. Worth probably hit that 35-day mark today, straight days of 100 degree-plus temperatures. The all-time record is one week away, 42. We'll reach that mark next week.
Guys, back to you.
COSTELLO: Ed, I'm betting you're going to jump in that pool by the end of the day --
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: -- because it sure would feel nice.
LAVANDERA: Might. Yes, couple hours, right?
COSTELLO: Thank you.
VELSHI: I think he's going to do it in between his reports for us.
Rob Marciano in the extreme weather center for us.
Now, Rob, you're tracking that. At least this is now the main problem we're tracking. We don't have that tropical storm Emily to deal with. But, boy, that heat is just not moving.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's not. It's been stuck there for several weeks now, and really just waiting for the angle of the sun to get lower in the sky so that, you know, we just don't have so much input. That's our only relief at this point and that comes later in the summer.
But Dallas and Oklahoma City, along with a slew of other states, still under heat advisories and warnings today and when you couple the humidity, it's going to feel like 115 or higher in the spots.
Wichita Falls has a streak of its own, over 40 days on 100 plus -- 111 today expected. Dallas, 108; Oklahoma City, 108 yesterday for a record; 107 in Austin. So, populated areas getting this heat and keeping this heat dangerous heat.
Do we cool down? One hundred ten expected today in Oklahoma City, 108 in Dallas. That's not really a cool down. We cool down to 107 in Dallas tomorrow.
How about -- how about Sunday? One hundred six.
I think by the time we get towards next week, the middle part of next week, we start to break down this ridge and temperatures will cool all the way to maybe 99, 98. So, we'll probably get to that streak. We're going to -- as far as breaking that record, we'll get right there.
You mentioned Emily. This is what's left of it. We said it would have trouble getting over the mountains of Hispaniola. It certainly did fell apart completely yesterday. That's good news for Haiti. They got about fived or six inches as opposed to seeing 15 or 20.
This thing may reemerge in southern Bahamas. If it does so, it has a chance of developing back into a tropical storm. Its name would still be Emily. We'll certainly keep track of that.
Showers and cooler weather not bad across the Northeast and then heavy thunderstorms expected across parts of this stationary boundary, and that's where you'll see some travel delays, including potentially Atlanta today, tomorrow and on Sunday.
Oh, real cool picture of this, I never get tired of lightning -- out of Phoenix. It's a still shot, just one, but there is some beauty in Mother Nature even in the most ferocious storms, gorgeous stuff there.
Al right. Guys, I'll toss it back to you.
COSTELLO: Wow, that's a little deep for this morning, isn't it?
(LAUGHTER)
MARCIANO: It's Friday. We're just pushing through it, guys.
COSTELLO: We are. Thank you, Rob.
ROMANS: OK. This is deep, how is this? Life on mars, it might not be so farfetched. These new photos of the red planet creating an awful lot of excitement at NASA. That's because the channels in those craters suggest the possibility that saltwater is flowing on Mars and NASA scientists say where there's water, there could be --
COSTELLO: Little green men.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Living organisms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHILIP CHRISTENSEN, GEOPHYSICIST, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY: The key here is, we know mars has a lot of ice. But this is the first time we've seen the potential for liquid water. It might be salty water, but it's still -- it's still liquid. I think that's the real -- the key here. It's not that Mars doesn't have a lot of ice. Liquid water certainly to an organism is very, very different than ice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: According to one of the lead scientists of the project if those channels were made by saltwater flows, the possibility of life on Mars, quote, "looks more likely."
VELSHI: Not the life we think of. Not the green men, right?
COSTELLO: Really?
VELSHI: Microbes or something.
COSTELLO: Really?
VELSHI: I don't know. I always thought when we were looking for life, we were looking for like a colony of people.
ROMANS: Oh, come on. They got small mouth bass in there. You can go fishing.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: Just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, a massive recall of tainted ground turkey reveals holes in the food safety net. We'll talk to a former FDA official about what you can do to protect yourself.
VELSHI: And this is neat, an organism with an appetite for plastic. A couple of Yale undergrads may have found the answer to the age old question of where do we put all this trash? We'll tell you about that on the other side.
Thirty-seven minutes after the hour.
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COSTELLO: There's new concern this morning about the salmonella outbreak that's spread to 26 states, killing at least one person and sickening dozens more. Federal health officials say it may be more resistant than usual to antibiotics.
The outbreak traced to ground turkey -- to a ground turkey production plant at Cargill in Arkansas. Thirty million pounds of potentially contaminated turkey meat have been recalled and it's renewed questions about the safety of our food.
David Acheson, former chief medical officer for the FDA, joins us now from Washington.
Thank you so much for being here this morning.
DAVID: Pleasure. Good morning.
COSTELLO: So, the first signs of this were, what, back in March?
DAVID ACHESON, FORMER FDA CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: That's right.
COSTELLO: And then, in May, you know, they sort of discovered it was coming from ground turkey. But it took them until July to call Cargill and say, hey, maybe you better get turkey meat off the market.
When you look at it that way you think to yourself, that just seems some -- not a good working system. What should we take from that?
ACHESON: Right. Well, that's a long time. And throughout that time, people are getting exposed to potentially contaminated food.
But this is not that unusual with our public health system and maintaining robust structures at the local health authority level, state and federal is all key in not just preventing these problems. But when they occur, as you point out, jumping on them quickly, finding the cause, finding the food, and forming consumers and preventing exposures. It's key.
COSTELLO: Well, the president signed a Food Safety Modernization Act back in January. Has that had any effect at all?
ACHESON: Not yet, no. It's going to take a while that is. And that actually is focused entirely on the Food and Drug Administration.
Turkey is regulated by the Department of Agriculture. They don't come under anything to do with this new act. But, unfortunately, this new act, which is really important, and it's key for protecting the American consumer, is essentially an unfunded mandate for the FDA. They don't have the resources to do what they need to do.
COSTELLO: Well, it doesn't seem they're likely going to get the resources. So, if they don't have the resources to do what they'd like to do, why have a department at all? Why have -- I mean --
ACHESON: Well, that's a bit extreme. I mean, that's -- they have got money and they are doing things.
I think the important part about this, is this new authority will give the FDA to right the rules. And then it's up to industry to look at those rules and to follow the new regulations and requirements.
What FDA will struggle with is providing enough inspection and oversight to ensure those rules are being enforced.
But this is a complex issue and the regulatory structure needed some updating which this act did in January this year.
COSTELLO: So in your estimation, when you look at the overall picture in finding out that it was ground turkey to blame, I mean how did the government do?
ACHESON: Well, in all of these situations, we all look at this and say, well, the government could do better. And fingers are always pointed at the Food and Drug Administration or the Department of Agriculture in these types of situations.
But I think an important message here is it's not just what goes on in Washington that's important. It's what's going on at the local and state public health levels because food safety usually begins slowly. And we're not just seeing budget cuts at federal level. We're seeing them at the state level and local level.
So, when problems occur, it takes even longer to get inspectors out, to get interviews of patients, because you don't -- unless you talk to the people who get sick, you can't figure out the cause. It used to take a few days to do that. Now, I believe it's taking longer. It's taking weeks.
So, these things go on longer. It really is -- it's this need for this integrated and well-funded system.
COSTELLO: So, what are we to do? I mean, it's like turkey meat, supposed to be meat that's healthy for you and now, you're afraid to eat it. You know, we've had E. coli scares. You're afraid to eat beef. We had scares concerning vegetables. I mean, what are we supposed to do?
ACHESON: Well, if we take the ground turkey as an example, which is obviously -- that's what's in the headlines today. With regard to that, a consumer should assume, even though the likelihood may be low, they should assume that this product has got salmonella in it. And based on that, when you pick it out of the case in the supermarket, just assume that the outside of that packaging could have contamination, treat it carefully, wash your hands, cook it properly, make sure it doesn't cross contaminate other foods, clean the surfaces, and if you've got leftovers, make sure you refrigerate them.
So, consumers should just make that assumption to play safe. It's the best way they can do to protect the family.
COSTELLO: David Acheson, thank you so much for being with us this morning. We appreciate it.
ACHESON: Thank you. Pleasure.
ROMANS: OK. Could it be the end of garbage? A couple of Yale undergrads say they've discovered plastic eating fungi. Fungi.
COSTELLO: Fungi I would say. What do I know about these things?
ROMANS: You are a pretty fun guy.
The researchers took part in a class that actually travels to the Ecuadorian rainforest to collect plant samples, many we've never encountered before. They say it's too early to call it a cure-all to pollution, but a professor s says that a potential to break down manmade materials could be endless.
VELSHI: That's incredible.
ROMANS: Imagine all that garbage we make, the plastic garbage. We're filling the earth with plastic garbage, if we just could send in microbes to eat it up, would that be wonderful?
We could also make less garbage, maybe, but that's another story.
VELSHI: You seem falsely enthusiastic.
COSTELLO: I don't know. These great ideas come down the pike and then nothing ever happens --
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: But that's a little cynical of me.
VELSHI: Obviously. It's 6:45!
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: Holy smokes!
COSTELLO: Stop it.
VELSHI: We're not going to tell Carol about what happened on the markets yesterday.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Don't tell Carol about the 500-point Dow drop.
VELSHI: All right. Coming up next, we're not going to talk about -- nothing happened on the markets. The protest that no one noticed either. Thousands of angry teachers marching on Washington, D.C. overshadowed by the debt ceiling crisis. Why they say every parent needs to pay attention to what is happening in our schools. Forty-six minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Forty-seven minutes after the hour. Let's have a look at your headlines.
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VELSHI (voice-over): U.S. stock futures are down right now, one day after stocks tanked on Wall Street. This was their worst single point decline since the 2008 financial crisis. Overseas, markets in Asia are closed. They closed lower, and in Europe, where trading is under way, the markets are negative. July jobs report is out at 8:30 this morning eastern time. We'll find out how many jobs were gained or lost last month. We're expecting a gain of between 70 and 80,000 jobs. Of course, we'll bring you that report the minute it's released.
Syrian opposition vowing more protests today in the city of Hama. Follows reports that government security forces have taken their bloody crackdown to a new level, killing at least 109 people in and around Hama.
The U.N. says the famine in Somalia could wind up killing 600,000 children. The Red Cross is pushing for $87 million in donations to help over one million Somalis who are now facing starvation.
A Texas jury meets again today to decide the punishment for convicted polygamist leader, Warren Jeffs. That same jury convicted Jeffs on two counts of sexual assault on a child. He faces a maximum of life in prison.
President Obama unveils his plan to help unemployed veterans find jobs today. It's designed to help military men and women make the transition into the civilian work force. It offers business tax incentives to hire veterans.
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VELSHI (on-camera): You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING back right after this.
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ROMANS: You know, with all the commotion in Washington over the debt ceiling crisis last week and last weekend, no one seemed to notice that thousands of teachers, parents, and students were marching on the capital, demanding education reform and really standing up for teachers, quite frankly. This week's education overtime correspondent, Sam Chaltain, was at the save our schools march to find out why teachers are so concerned.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAM CHALTAIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What will it take to transform public education?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you hot and mad today?
(CHANTING) yes
CHALTAIN: Is it anger and bull horns? Clever posters and language. Will it take me, beat boxing to the words of the notorious Ph.D.
(RAPPING) They've exported our jobs, treated us like fools, now, they're working hard to take over our schools
CHALTAIN: Thousands of teachers, students and parents from across the country were here to tell President Obama that his current reform policies are definitely not the change they seek.
Why did you decide to come to D.C.?
MARK NAISON, PROFESSOR: I am so disturbed that teachers are being made to blame for our society's problems.
KARRAN HARPER ROYAL, EDUCATION ADVOCACY: This privatization model is a some children approach to a public education reform. What we need is an all children approach.
CHALTAIN: But if the march is to save our schools from the policies of the Obama administration, what should we be doing instead? Renee Moore is a national board certified teacher from the Mississippi Delta and a former Teacher of the Year.
RENEE MOORE, 2001 MISSISSIPPI TEACHER OF THE YEAR: Teachers, particularly our best teachers, have been largely left out of the conversation in terms of the actual implementation and establishment of these policies.
CHALTAIN: Among those policies, none is less popular than the use of high stakes tests to determine which schools and teachers are successful. Indeed, under current policy, as many as 82 percent of our nation's schools could be labeled as failing this year. The rallies headliner, NYU education historian, Diane Ravitch, says President Obama's race to the top policy punishes teachers even more.
DIANE RAVITCH, NYU PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION: The basic idea of federal aid to education is equity. It's putting the money where the poorest kids are, not sending the money to the state that has the best grant proposal.
CHALTAIN: Clearly, among the marchers, there are real challenges going forward and broad coalitions that need to be built.
ANGELA VALENZUELA, DIR., UNIV. OF TEXAS CENTER FOR EDUCATION POLICY: We're going to be talking very seriously about English language learners, that segment of the population that is growing at the biggest rate in our public school system, then, we really need to be focusing on this community in a holistic way, not in a way that reduces them to their language.
CHALTAIN: Everyone I spoke with agreed that lasting change will take much more than rallies and rhetoric, but they also felt that the first step was to make themselves loudly, undeniably, visible, and to demand their rightful seat at the table before it's too late.
For education overtime, I'm Sam Chaltain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: There was some real star power at last weekend's teacher march. Actor, Matt Damon, was there showing his support for teachers. He's filming a movie right now, so he's bald for that movie, but his mother, Nancy Carlson Page, she's a university professor. I asked her about the negative perception of teachers, high stakes testing, how to raise a son to grow up Like Matt Damon.
Really good advice she had from me there. You can watch that entire interview tomorrow morning on CNN. It airs at 9:30 Eastern on "YOUR BOTTOM LINE." She calls him Matthew, by the way. I thought, so, how do I raise a Matt Damon. She's like, well, Matthew --
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: It's so cute.
COSTELLO: Very cute.
Now is your chance to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. Pegged off the criticism aimed at New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, a Republican for appointing a Muslim-American judge, actually the sort of backwards. Chris Christie was standing up for this Muslim-American lawyer that he appointed to New Jersey State judgeship, and conservative bloggers came out against him, called him an enemy of the state.
So, our question was pegged off of that. We ask, when will our fears about Muslim-Americans fade? Here are some of your responses.
"They will only fade when there comes another minority to hate. In case anyone hasn't noticed, it went African-Americans, then Hispanics, and now Muslims. The country loves to hate its minorities. I should know. I am one."
This from Kenton, "It will take a long time, but I'm sure it will eventually fade. It will probably take many, many more years, though. It will only end when we fight against all terrorists, instead of focusing on a single religious group."
And this from James, "Not in my lifetime."
Keep those comments coming. We appreciate them. Facebook.com/americanmorning. Facebook.com/americanmorning. And we'll have more the next hour.
VELSHI: All right. When the Dow is down, what better way to lift your spirits than some late night laughs. The presidential birthday edition.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN: Happy birthday today to President Barack Obama. Fifty years old today, Barack Obama.
(APPLAUSE)
LETTERMAN: We got some lovely presents. And what can you really get for the president? He got some lovely things. China, China gave him an extension on his rent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh. That was good.
(APPLAUSE)
LETTERMAN: Newt Gingrich gave him a $500,000 gift certificate to Tiffany's.
(LAUGHTER)
JIMMY FALLON, LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON: Michele Obama urged her husband's supporters to sign an e-card for his 50th birthday which explains why Joe Biden has magic marker all over his computer screen.
(LAUGHTER)
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, THE COLBERT REPORT: It's Barack Obama's 50th birthday.
(APPLAUSE)
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: That's right. It's that time of year again, folks, when the president tries to convince us he was born.
(LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: We're not buying it, Obama. Everybody knows that American presidents are born in February. That's why it's called President's Day. Not the only one who's angry. So is Sean Hannity's voice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Very funny.
COSTELLO: Listen to him all day.
ROMANS: I know. Ahead next hour, smelling a rat in cyberspace, dozens of U.S. companies and government agencies hit by cyber hackers in something called "Operation Shady Rat." Do we have the weapons to fight a war that's being waged in the matrix? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
