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Big Trees Become Hazard in Parts of U.S.; What Is Yellowcake?; Controversy Over Cameras on Baseball Diamond

Aired July 13, 2003 - 17:00   ET

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

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


RHONDA SCHAFFLER, CNN ANCHOR: NEXT@CNN begins right now.
Welcome to NEXT@CNN for this Sunday, July 13. I'm Rhonda Schaffler. And coming up in this hour, recent soaking rains in parts of the U.S. have made big trees a hazard. We're going to explain the danger.

You know that nuclear material that president erroneously claimed Iraq was trying to acquire from Africa? We'll explain what that material is.

And the umpires strike back. The controversy over cameras on the baseball diamond.

But, first, the hurricane watch is now in effect in Texas as tropical storm Claudette approaches the Gulf Coast. After drenching many Caribbean vacation spots last week, the storm, with winds increasing to nearly 60 miles per hour, is expected to hit the Texas/Mexico boarder as early as Tuesday morning.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras joins us now with the very latest -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Rhonda, we have brand new information as of the top of the hour on tropical storm Claudette. And it's not necessarily good news.

The storm system has basically stalled out, so very little movement. That means it's going to be staying over the open waters a little bit longer than we initially had anticipated, and that gives it more time to strengthen.

The primary impact we're expecting from Claudette will be hurricane force winds. We're anticipating it should penal code a weak category one hurricane before it makes land fall sometime on Tuesday morning. Flooding rain expect between five to eight inches widespread, with some isolated amounts of up to 10 inches. So, flooding is going to be common into the southern Texas region.

Storm surge will be a problem as well as very strong rip currents today all the way extending through your Wednesday.

Here's the latest satellite image now of Claudette. And the circulation center is way over here. All of the convection, or all of the heavy thunderstorms has pulling away from the center of the storm. So we are expecting to see some more changes with this over the next 24 hours or so.

I want to show you the latest now on those hurricane watches from Port O'Connor, Texas, all the way down to Brownsville. And what a hurricane watch means is that hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours.

Here are the latest statistics. They're exactly the same as they were at the 2 o'clock advisory other than the movement. It is now nearly stationary. But it should be picking up again in the next six to 12 hours or so and taking that track again west, northwesterly and continue the forecast trek towards the Texas coastline.

Tonight, very little changes expected with Claudette. By Monday morning, it will be within a couple of hundred miles yet of the coastline. And we will watch for those tides to be one to two feet above normal.

Then on Tuesday morning, likely north of the Brownsville area. And the worst part of the storm is going to be on the back side of the eye wall, for folks. So it's going to kind of sneak up on you. We'll be talking about it making landfall. You'll probably only be noticing some storm surge, some strong winds, and then the heavy rain will be arriving after that -- Rhonda.

SCHAFFLER: Jacqui, when will we get a better idea as to when this thing could potentially strengthen?

JERAS: We're really going to have to watch it the next six hours very closely because, if it just sits there and spins, it gives it ample time to strengthen. Right now it's stalled out between two high-pressure ridge systems, and we're expecting more of a trough to come in. And that is what will start kick I it out and as it moves closer toward the shoreline, it moves into warmer waters, and that provides some of that fuel and allow that strengthening.

So, it's going to be later. It's going to be closer towards it making landfall when it strengthens rather than the next 12 to 24 hours.

SCHAFFLER: Jacqui Jeras, thanks so much for tracking that for us.

JERAS: OK.

SCHAFFLER: Hurricanes and big events that show us the danger of mother nature. But smaller scale natural events can be deadly as well. In Atlanta on Thursday, a tree fell on an SUV killing a mother and her two children. This unfortunate event has reminded us just how dangerous tree falls can be. Here to tell us a little bit about what we can do to try to prevent this is Jim Foote, certified arborist with Arbor Guard, here in Atlanta.

Good to have you with us.

JIM FOOTE, CERTIFIED ARBORIST, ARBOR GUARD: Thank you, Rhonda. SCHAFFLER: This is probably a danger a lot of people don't spend too much time thinking about until they hear some sort of tragic story.

FOOTE: Trees falling and killing people are certainly tragic. And in the case of that particular instance here in Atlanta, it was compounded by the fact that that tree actually fell on numerous vehicles. So there were some fortunate and lucky people involved in that situation, too.

SCHAFFLER: From what we know, what sort of preventative steps can you take, if anything at all?

FOOTE: I think it's very important that the listeners understand that, when they have a large tree in their property, they have an obligation not only to their neighbors, but their families and pedestrians, and any tree that could potentially reach a structure, a neighbor's property, traveling public vehicles, et cetera, they have an obligation to make sure those trees are inspected, at least annually, to reduce the risk.

SCHAFFLER: What do you do when you inspect a tree? What do you even look for?

FOOTE: Well, typically, an arborist trained in risk is going to walk onto the property and do an overview of a large tree. And then as they approach the tree, they're going to look at the structure of the tree and particularly the base, the bottom, or the trunk, as people understand it, the stem of the tree.

That is where the physics of dynamic wind forces are applied. If you can imagine a crown spread on the canopy of a tree, 100 feet across, and that tree being, oh, 100 foot tall. And when you consider the wind resistance that canopy presents, often the tree cannot sustain a 70-mile an hour wind or a 60-mile an hour wind. And that, with structural flaws, increases the risk of the tree failing dramatically.

SCHAFFLER: Let's talk a little bit about financial liability, where you do have a situation where a tree falls. What's the insurance industry response?

FOOTE: Well, each homeowner is going to have to assess their own policy, but in the case of tree failure or a tree hitting a structure or an insured object, generally, homeowner insurance covers that; but there are limits and liability as far as deductions, et cetera. But if it falls and hits an insured structure, generally, the insurance industry is very willing to assist.

The problem lies with a high-risk tree. An insurance company does not preventatively, per se, pay to have a removal done. So their general response is, well, if it falls on your house, we'll remove it.

SCHAFFLER: Probably not the response most would like to hear.

FOOTE: That's correct. SCHAFFLER: Jim Foote, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate your time.

FOOTE: Thank you.

When NEXT@CNN returns, remember how popular duct tape was in the early days of the color-coded terror alert system. That's not the only industry that changed in the months after September 11. We'll have more on that just ahead.

And later, he set the standard for nature photography. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ansel Adams.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHAFFLER: That's a great moment and a great song.

Well, yellowcake sounds like something you'd bring to a July picnic. President Bush claimed during this year's state of the union that Iraq was trying to acquire this nuclear material from Africa. Lately critics have been feasting on admissions those claims were not true. CNN Science Correspondent Ann Kellan joins us now to serve up some facts on yellowcake.

Hi, Ann.

ANN KELLAN, CNN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT: Much of Niger is desolate. It's remote settlements struggling to get by. One of the things this landlocked nation has to offer the rest of the world -- uranium. After Canada and Australia, it's the third largest producer of raw uranium in the world.

When the uranium ore is mined in the heart of Sahara Desert, it's refined by a chemical process into yellowcake, raw material for nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and now a political up roar. The yellowcake is made by crushing and milling raw uranium rock into a fine powder. The non-radioactive parts, called tailings, are set aside as waste.

The yellowcake, often yellow, reddish or gray in appearance, is shipped to plants where its radioactive power is enhanced. The yellowcake powder, is called uranium oxide, is subjected to a barrage of chemical processes, which convert it to uranium hexo fluoride gas. This uranium hex can be purified into nuclear fuel for commercial use in nuclear power plants, or if it's further purified, uranium can be used in nuclear weapons.

This year's biggest customers for yellowcake powder are France and Japan. But 1985 documents from the International Atomic Energy Agency show that 20 years ago Saddam Hussein's regime acquired nearly 1,000 barrels, that's 200 tons of yellowcake from the African nation.

SCHAFFLER: And I guess with this yellowcake if we say the word nuclear, it began with yellowcake, pretty much everything nuclear then? KELLAN: Well, you think of it as the core material. And it has to go through many different types of processes, and through these different processes, you either end up with nuclear fuel for nuclear power plants, or material that can be used for nuclear weapons.

SCHAFFLER: Ann Kellan, thanks so much.

U.S. businesses have changed in a lot of ways since the terror attacks of 9/11, from the size and shape of their buildings to the way their information is stored. Some of those changes affect us all, from our credit reports to the security systems at airports and border crossings.

Joining us now with a look at some of those changes is Rob Enderle of Forrester Research. He's in our San Francisco bureau.

Good to see you.

ROB ENDERLE, FORRESTER RESEARCH: Glad to be here.

SCHAFFLER: We talked after September 11 about some of the big industries impacted, of course, airlines, tourism. Tell us a bit about how new businesses, perhaps, and technology businesses, in particular, cropped up.

ENDERLE: Well, what happened, of course, is we suddenly had a demand for equipment that we hadn't really seen before, equipment to scan bombs, scan for weapons, to look for things not only for people going onto airplanes, but people that were going into buildings, both public and private.

And then, of course, we expanded to other areas, other areas where we needed to secure data, needed to secure the livelihood of our companies, and our people. It extended rather broadly.

SCHAFFLER: Rob, let's talk a little bit about physical changes. Buildings are being built differently, some of them, than in the past?

ENDERLE: Correct. For the last few years, the last couple decades, we've been using a window wall system for low costs building. In other words these were the big glass sided buildings that we've seen all over the place.

Of course, with the new fear of terrorist attacks and explosions we've gone back to traditional building methods, where we put cement structure on the outside -- and often put the core data and intellectual property in the center of the building, where it can be better secured. It's a rather massive change from a method that was optimized for cost to one that is optimized more for structural rigidity and security.

SCHAFFLER: While we're on the subject of cost, we know these are tough times for businesses. Would you find many of them are willing to spend on security and changes that would protect their workers?

ENDERLE: Well, yes. Strangely enough, actually, that's the case. Remember, a lot of the executives that make these decisions are those workers. There's one high-tech company that went through a lot of trouble putting in doors that arguably would stop a Howitzer. Of course, that's the top floor and all the employees that are on the lower floors are kind of worried about the fact that they didn't get those doors. But the fact of the matter is the executives are in fact spending money to protect the buildings.

SCHAFFLER: Another big part of security is the technology and what's going on within the computer industry. Talk to us about that.

ENDERLE: A lot of what's going on in the computer industry is this idea of shifting data into areas that are more secure. Clearly, what we had -- or learned because of 9/11 was, even when the people survived, very often the data didn't. So people would come back, and there would be nothing for them to do.

On the other hand, a lot of times the people died, and even though the data was secure -- and once again, you still couldn't bring business up in operation, so you had a set of policies come out that allowed the people to work more distributed, and then, also secured the data. So in the face of a terrorist attack like that, there was a much better chance the company itself would survive and come back from the disaster.

SCHAFFLER: Has that helped data overall be better protected?

ENDERLE: For the most part, yes. People are thinking a lot more about how to physically secure data and electronically secure data. Microsoft, for instance, put in place a policy that was driven down from the top to focus on security and focus on security heart. It was something they didn't have in place before they received criticism for not having it.

Suddenly, post 9/11 it rose to the top of the pile, and it is it is one of their most high driving policies. They're not the only ones. Clearly, security for most of the other companies as well.

SCHAFFLER: It seems so many buildings now have the little security I.D. cards you've got to swipe to get in. How effective are those?

ENDERLE: Well, smart cards are at least a lot more effective than what we had before, which was often nothing. They do have an issue, of course that you can steal a smart card and still use it much like you can use a key.

Most folks are thinking probably the best solution, given current technology, is to use a smart card and something in the biometrics, where the biometrics and the smart card are tied together, where you can not use the smart card without the person assigned to it.

SCHAFFLER: That's the high tech stuff. What about plain old duct tape?

ENDERLE: Well, that's true. We did see duct tape get a certain amount of play because people concerned about gas attacks. This idea of being able to have a secure room in your house and using duct tape and plastic sheets to protect yourself from biological weapons.

I think that was more of a case of people needing to feel safe, very much like we had back in the '50s, when we were told to get underneath the desk and put our head between our legs and kiss our hind quarters good-bye. But it did make us feel a lot better.

The fact is that very often, there's nothing you can do about an attack like that. If you can feel better about it and get back to your lives, you can feel more secure. If you feel more secure, you can get things done.

SCHAFFLER: Excellent point. Rob Enderle, good to have you on the show. Thanks so much.

ENDERLE: You're welcome.

SCHAFFLER: Another job that's changing, and it has nothing to do with 9/11. Baseball umpire. Major league umps are upset about cameras watching their every moves. We'll talk to a veteran umpire about that.

Also ahead, we'll tell you why the TV heads are walking the streets of Tokyo.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHAFFLER: Taking a look now at some NEXT news headlines: An elderly man from Alcooney (ph) County, South Carolina has the first human case of West Nile virus this season. A diagnosis confirmed this week by the CDC.

Last year, 284 people died of the disease out of about 4,100 cases. High mosquito populations are predicted this summer due to above average rainfall, and that has local control efforts in full swing. The CDC has good news to report on that front. It's advising that people near areas sprayed with insecticides are at low risk for adverse health effects. They monitored nine states for the past four years now and turned up only 133 cases of sickness due to exposure.

They say everything is bigger in New York City, and to the surprise of some scientists, even the trees in that urban jungle grow twice as big as genetically identical trees planted in several rural sites on Long Island. Ecologist Jillian Greg published the study; she's seen here with the big tough trees of the city and on the right side of your screen, those scrawnier country cousins.

The culprit is ozone. Once ozone is blown out of the city, to the countryside, it stays in the atmosphere longer and that's what's to blame for the reduced growth.

After selling more than 21 million of the old style Beetles, Volkswagen announced this week it will stop producing that classic car. The only factory in the world currently making the bug is Puebla, Mexico. It will switch over to the new style Beetle, which sells for $20,000 to $25,000. The classic VW sold for less than $7,000. Volkswagen says the low cost made the old-style Beetle one of the most popular cars of all time.

Federal Express and General Motors this week launched the first commercial fuel cell vehicle. FedEx will use the GM hydrogen 3 on delivery routes in Tokyo for a one year free trial period. The cars liquid hydrogen fuel cell lasts for 250 miles before it needs to be filled up.

And no, this is not what Teletubbies grow up to be, these are what's known as monitor men. It's the latest way for advertisers to get their messages across. A Japanese ad agency came up with this wacky concept. The monitor men roam Tokyo streets, sports arenas -- pretty much anywhere people are; the sandwich board man coming of age.

1, 2, 3 strikes you're out. But who should make the call? Man or machine? Major League Baseball is using an experimental system called QuesTec in 10 of 30 big league parks to evaluate umpires behind the plate.

QuesTec cameras track every pitch, and then umpire's calls are compared with the system's electronic strike zone. Umpires and players don't like it, but baseball officials are sticking to their guns and say QuesTec is a fair way to evaluate umpires.

Ken Kaiser spent 20 years as a big league umpire. His book "Planet of the Umps" is on store shelves now. He joins us from Rochester.

Very good to see you. Thanks for joining us.

KEN KAISER, VETERAN BASEBALL UMPIRE: Nice to talk to you, Rhonda. How are you?

SCHAFFLER: I'm doing pretty well. Do you like QuesTec or not?

KAISER: I've never been involved. They were bringing it in when I started umpiring. They started bringing it in, in '99 when we were having the wars with baseball.

First of all, guys have been umpiring for X number of years, and we've never had a problem with balls and strikes. Everyone questioned the National League and American League strike zone, and what they came up with was a zone now that's uncallable. These guys can't work to the zone that they're trying to give them. Balls that are up over the shoulders, guys couldn't swing it. Guys like George Brett that hit about .250.

SCHAFFLER: This thing has caused such an uproar, we've got people like Curt Schilling that actually destroyed one of these cameras, with a bat, last May here. Give us a little sense of how the frustration is building up over this.

KAISER: This can go two ways, Rhonda. This could be a built-in alibi for a lot of people, too. Because, you know, they're messing with their strike zones. I told them years ago you can't mess with guys' strike zones. As soon as you do, you get them all messed up, and they're not going to be able to call a true zone. Even the veteran umpires are going to have problems with this because they have called the zone 20, 25 years, and now you're trying to change it. It's unthinkable to try to call the pitches the way the want them to be called.

SCHAFFLER: I don't know, quite frankly how anything gets called. I mean, these balls come 90 miles an hour. From the layman's view, it's very hard to tell. Would a camera do a better job than the human eye?

KAISER: Well, you see, the problem they're having with this camera also, Rhonda, is it's not a true accuracy because it stops about a foot and a half in front of the plate. And you're pretty much getting a guess from there on.

Also, these cameras aren't directly behind the plate. They'd have to have a camera in the umpire's cap or they'd have to have a camera in the catcher's mask, to get a true shot of that plate. They have to be off to an angle because the catcher is behind the plate, and the pitcher's on the mound. They can't get an exact shot of that. So, this is an erroneous situation.

SCHAFFLER: Would it have been better to have this as a training tool and maybe work to perfect the technology and try a couple of years from now?

KAISER: You should be a commissioner.

(LAUGHTER)

That's exactly...

SCHAFFLER: That will be my next job.

KAISER: That's exactly what they should do, Rhonda. Is they should take this on a technical thing. And work it in the minor leagues, try to get a true basis to use this things, so guys aren't getting killed up here. And basically they are getting killed because their zones -- it's unbelievable what they've done to the strike zones for these guys.

They're just like taking kids to kindergarten, and putting them back in school, because they're guessing. There's a lot of guessing going on, on what the real strike is, and plus what they want you to call. It's terrible. It's ruining the hitters, too, hitters and pitchers. They don't know where to throw to and the guys don't know what to swing at.

SCHAFFLER: And then, of course, it's sort of unusual because it's not in all the ballparks.

KAISER: It's in the friendly ballparks, the guys that are friends of the commissioner, I guess. I couldn't tell you what the reason is. But they pick and choose, unless it's too expensive to put it everywhere. But you know, on any given day, they're going to take a guy's zone and say, well, today you were good. Well, maybe the guy was sick. Maybe he traveled 3,000 miles. Maybe he worked a double header. Maybe he had trouble with his wife. Anything could happen on any given day. You can't rate an umpire on one, two, or three plate jobs. It takes a series of plate jobs of probably, I would say, with two and a half to three years.

SCHAFFLER: Aren't we taking some of the human drama out of baseball?

KAISER: Absolutely. That's another thing. I would love to have this thing happen to me in 1990 when Billy Martin or Earl Weaver, I'd have said hey, come running out to me, and I could say, hey, don't talk to me. Go check with the QuesTec. It was a built in excuse. I mean, it didn't matter how good you were. Just go argue with that and go argue with the commissioner. If you get mad at me, go on over and do like Schilling, take a bat to it.

SCHAFFLER: Ken Kaiser, I've got to end it there. You and I will work together when I become commissioner, I guess.

KAISER: If you become commissioner, I'll work for you for nothing, Rhonda.

SCHAFFLER: Oh, well, that's a deal. I'll see you soon, then. Thanks so much.

KAISER: Thank you.

SCHAFFLER: QuesTec, the manufacturers of the system, declined our request for an interview. But if you want to find out more about their point of view and the system, the web site is www.questec.com. On that web side, QuesTec says the following.

"How do the umpires feel about it?

"In general, they support it! ... We wouldn't dare everyone loves it, at this point, but from what we have seen the umpiring community as a whole agrees this information has a lot of potential value and they want to work with it to see what can be learned."

The umpires might disagree with the assertion that they support it. Their union has filed a grievance over the use of QuesTec. And 47 out of 68 major league umps have signed a no confidence letter criticizing that QuesTec system.

Coming up in our next half hour, a look at the technology that kept a close call from becoming a disaster at a major U.S. airport this past week.

And an ex-pat artist that returns to her homeland of Iraq to find out what has happened to her artwork.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

SCHAFFLER: You know that air traffic controllers monitor the skies around airports, but they also pay close attention to ground traffic on the runways. CNN's Patty Davis is live at Reagan National Airport in Washington with a look at runway radar technology. Hi, Patty.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Rhonda. Runway incursions are down about 4 percent this year, and that's in part due to a new technology called AMASS that warns air traffic controllers about possible collisions on the ground, on the runway, and it proved a valuable tool last week at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVIS (voice over): Busy Runway 26 at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport has thousands of safe landings like this one. But last Monday night, a close call for Continental Express Flight 2300 on final approach.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The aircraft was on about a quarter mile final, about 200 feet. That is very short approach for Runway 26 Right, when a cargo truck entered the runway at the approach in.

DAVIS: This new technology in the Atlanta control tower just over a year called AMASS, Airport Movement Area Safety System, saw a potentially deadly runway collision just seconds away and is credited with averting it. Air traffic control heard a warning similar to this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Warning, go around, runway 28 Left closed.

DAVIS: And told the Continental Express pilot to abort his landing. The FAA says runway incursions have dropped 37 percent at airports with AMASS. It works by combining radar information on planes in the air with radar data on planes and vehicles on the ground. It predicts whether they're on a collision course and warns controllers. At up to $2 million a piece, AMASS is in just 28 airports. Another six are in the works.

MARION BLAKEY, FAA ADMINISTRATOR: It needs to go into airports that have a heavy volume of traffic, where, in fact, we have seen a significant issue with runway problems, potential collisions.

DAVIS: But AMASS is not perfect. The FAA says it's still working out a problem with false alarms. Each airport gets about four every year.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DAVIS: An even newer technology called AZX (ph) is coming to airports next. Now it gives air traffic controllers more information on a plane's position and identification so they can communicate even more quickly -- Rhonda. SCHAFFLER: All right, Patty. I'm flying out soon. I'm happy we have this in place. But I've got to ask you, any explanation for why that vehicle was even on the runway in that situation in Atlanta?

DAVIS: Well, it apparently was lost, and it is an airport vehicle. The FAA says that it has that under investigation. But one official tells me that this incident in Atlanta will probably go down as one of the worst kind. And actually AMASS is having some good impact on those worst kind -- it looks like it avoided this one -- on the worst kind of possible collisions. AMASS has brought those down 60 percent. So, it seems really to be working -- Rhonda.

SCHAFFLER: Comforting stats. Thanks so much, Patty Davis. Good to see you.

An Iraqi artist, once commissioned by the Saddam Hussein government to help beautify Iraq, recently returned to her homeland to see what became of her work. CNN's Jane Arraf has more from Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NUHA AL-RADI, IRAQI ARTIST: I hope there's no bomb on the floor here. I don't want to blow up.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Art among the ruins. Iraqi expatriate, Nuha al-Radi, has come to look at what's left of her work.

AL-RADI: There's a bit of hope. Look. Look at the crescent. The moon is still there. Do you see it?

ARRAF: This presidential guest palace is rubble, the ceiling tumbled into the ceiling pool, but the ceramic she spent eight months working on in the 1980s peeks out. We went with Radi, an author and artist, to see some of her works commissioned by the city. Her ceramic of a flying carpet over Baghdad put up during the Iran-Iraq war is intact, although the building isn't. She hasn't seen it for years. Located next to the Iranian embassy, Iraqis knew it was dangerous to even look in that direction.

AL-RADI: We always have to see it in passing cars. We were not allowed to stop and not allowed to take photographs. So, it's wonderful that we're actually standing here right now.

ARRAF: The burnt and looted streets are more sobering.

AL-RADI: Very sad.

ARRAF: The looted National Gallery, worst of all. It's all gone now.

AL-RADI: I don't want to stay anymore. Can't stay.

ARRAF: Radi's Baghdad diaries chronicled life during the 1991 war. In her kitchen, she's updated it with this latest war.

AL-RADI: The helicopters overhead. They fly so low, just on top of the palms. I can see the marines, their legs hanging out.

ARRAF: The daughter of an ambassador, Radi grew up in India, Iraq, and England.

AL-RADI: And here's Indira Gandhi. This is my sister. This is my mother. This is my father. There's me.

ARRAF: She spent years in Lebanon and says she's been through so many wars and revolutions, the gun fire and explosions here don't bother her. There's not much electricity here to escape the heat. She sleeps on the roof.

AL-RADI: And so I lie down, and I've got all these palm trees over my head, and the moon goes in between.

ARRAF: It's a bit of magic she says, rising above her ruined city.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: Coming up later, a look at the work of another artist, the preeminent photographer of the American west, Ansel Adams.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLAN (voice-over): Remember the movie "Sleeper?" Scientists cloned a man out of a nose. Fiction 25 years ago, but closer to reality today considering the animals being cloned. And now researchers say someday they'll be able to make carbon copies of that nose, ear, and even internal organs like a heart, uses something as common in just about every office, a printer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This approach is very different.

KELLAN: Researchers at Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina have developed an inkjet printer that sifts out human tissues. Human cells are inserted where the ink usually goes. The printer spits out the cells onto gel-like paper that encourages the cells to grow and reproduce. In this sample, the human cells spell out a tiny "CNN." Researchers say this is the first step.

Eventually, using a more sophisticated 3-D printer, researchers will be able to shape the biopaper into a three dimensional nose and print the human tissue on it. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) estimates the nose could be rolling off the presses in five years. Already they're working with NASA to print out a 3-D blood vessel.

THOMAS BOLAND, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY: They're improving it, and they might be sooner than you think might be able to actually have that type of blood vessel. KELLAN: Researchers claim in the not so distant future, a plastic surgeon, instead of fashioning a nose, will be able to design one on the computer and simply print it out. Absurd you say? Almost as much as cloning from a nose.

Ann Kellan, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: Congress is trying to figure out ways to ease that avalanche of spam that keeps filling our inboxes. Four bills are circulating on the Hill, and a House subcommittee held a hearing on the issue this past week. More from Julie Vallese.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): You won't find this refrigerator in any home store. It can only be found at the Federal Trade Commission. It's full of only one product, spam. E- mail spam, that is, 46 million so far, with 102,000 messages added each day.

HOWARD BEALES, FTC CONSUMER PROTECTION: People are always going to get marketing that they didn't want or that they thought they didn't want.

VALLESE: But the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee believes consumers should decide who enters their home, be it by door, phone, or Internet.

REP. BILLY TAUZIN (R), LOUISIANA: Consumers don't have a vehicle to deal with it. They don't have a right established in law, and they don't have a system by which they can stop junk e-mailers.

VALLESE: There are now four bills before Congress, all with proposals on how to combat spam.

(on camera): One receiving the most attention, a do not spasm registry, similar to the FTC's do not call registry that's set up to cut down on telemarketing. While the idea intrigues many, it has its problems.

BEALES: For one thing, it's easy to figure out phone numbers and hard to figure out valid e-mail addresses. And a do not spam list would be a list of valid e-mail addresses.

VALLESE (voice-over): Basically handing spammers a treasure trove of targets. So while Congress works on a law, it's up to consumers to combat spam. And the best way?''

CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, CONSUMERS UNION: Is to actually do nothing, which is don't respond to spam. Don't even preview spam in your preview window on your e-mail program. And certainly don't opt out.

VALLESE: Unless you want spam. Because once you respond, you're sure to get a full plate. Julie Vallese, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: Shuttle investigators are wrapping up their probe of the Columbia disaster. Their final report is not expected until next month, but you can preview the board's working scenario on the web at caib.us. It's about 189 pages long, though. At a news conference Friday, the board chairman said they aren't trying to single out anyone in a blame game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. HAROLD GEHMAN (RET.), COLUMBIA INVESTIGATION BOARD: We will not, we have not, we did not address or look for any personal accountability here. However, if a reader of our report, or the Congress, or the administrator of NASA, wants to follow up on some process that doesn't look right because they think maybe somebody fell down on the job, it will be pretty easy to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHAFFLER: A test conducted on Monday fired a piece of foam onto a mock shuttle wing at 500 miles per hour. It produced a 16-inch wide hole, and at least one investigator is calling it the smoking gun for the Columbia disaster. Eighty-two seconds after launch, a piece of foam struck the leading edge of the shuttle's wing. One panel member said a NASA tracking camera located 20 miles from the launch pad might have spotted the damage, but that camera was out of focus on the day of the disaster.

NASA revealed this week there was a similar breach in another shuttle. Internal NASA documents show that superheated gases leaked into the left wing of the shuttle Atlantis after it landed after a mission in May of 2000. NASA says an improperly installed seal in Atlantis'' wing was the cause. The breach was in nearly the same location as the breach in Columbia but did not pose a serious threat to the crew or spacecrafts.

NASA has finally launched its second of two Mars rovers. The Delta rocket lifted off successfully Monday night in its second launch window of the night. The first launch opportunity was scrubbed with just seven seconds left in the count down because of a valve problem. The space agency had been trying to launch Opportunity for two weeks, but technical problems and bad weather repeatedly postponed liftoff.

Lions and tigers and -- can you hear me now? Good. Mobile phones in the U. K. roar to life, and soon you'll start hearing all sorts of jungle noises across Great Britain. The British library has a collection of 100,000 animal sounds from Europe, South America, and Africa and has licensed 40 of the recordings to cell phone companies as ring tones. Penguins, pigs, bellowing hippos, and screeching parrots are among the choices.

Call me Ishmael. A rare white whale has been sighted off the east coast of Australia, making its way up the Great Barrier Reef. The white humpback is delighting hundreds of whale watchers who are chartering boats to get a closer look. Some locals have already nicknamed the visitor Moby.

From white whales to white elephants, it's not the world's tallest building, but it ranks in the top five. And it's an engineering masterpiece. It's the 88-story office building known as "2 IFC" in downtown Hong Kong. It just opened last month. But it seems few tenants want to move in. Andrew Brown explains why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): 2 IFC is designed to deliver the ultimate room with a view. It's not the highest building in the world. Sears Tower in Chicago, for instance, is higher. But engineers say they managed to minimize the load bearing structures positioned near the windows of 2 IFC. So, looking down on Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, you don't have to peer through a forest of pillars to see the panorama.

DAVID DUMIGAN, 2 IFC DEPUTY PROJECT MANAGER: If you look at the Sears Tower in Chicago, they have a lot of structure on the edge of the building and, therefore, even though they have the height, the views are not so good.

BROWN: It has to be said, views from this platform at the top of 2 IFC are partially obscured by 20-meter high fins. Fortunately, there is a way you can peep over the top.

BROWN (on camera): These spikes at the top of the lightning conductor are more than 420 meters above street level. They are the absolute tallest point of the building. It doesn't feel too safe up here.

BROWN (voice over): This building is safe, though. At least according to the team that built it. 2 IFC has been beefed up to withstand the super typhoons that occasionally blow in from the Pacific.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wind is really the governing force.

BROWN: Well, wind and money. It's estimated investors agreed to pour around $3 billion U. S. into this building and several related projects including a one hectar park and a still to be finished Four Seasons Hotel. Developers are already earning some good publicity. Hollywood has paid homage to the building with this stunt, part of the movie "Tomb Raider 2." Are skyscrapers overrated, though?

JOAN SHENG, JP MORGAN: When people go to Shanghai, they look at the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) area, look at the buildings. The people immediately feel very impressed. But that's the big hideaway. Hideaway is not difficult to acquire. Services (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is much harder. It requires a change of mentality.

BROWN: Hong Kong has a reputation for high quality services, but its economy is in a tail spin, and commercial real estate prices are at a 15-year low, according to some industry experts. Some prospective tenants are reportedly trying to talk monthly rents down to around $1 U. S. a square foot at 2 IFC. Of course, the developers behind 2 IFC believe rents will eventually rise, and they have time on their side. 2 IFC is built to last 120 years.

Andrew Brown, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: Worry not, Andrew did get down safely.

Still to come on NEXT@CNN, the grand master of photographic art, Ansel Adams. Museum curators are celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth. We will show you how.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHAFFLER: Ansel Adams' grand black and white photos are among the most elegant and enduring images of the American west. On the 100th anniversary of his birth last year, museum curators put together a career retrospective that has traveled from Adams' native California to Europe. It's now back in the U. S. Michael Okwu reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The maze-like majesty of the Grand Canyon; a lake, a ripple smooth enough to want to touch; a thunder cloud speaking a thousand words. When you think of landscape photography, you usually think of Ansel Adams.

JOHN SEKOWSKI, CURATOR: He did something that no photographer had done. People don't think of landscapes as moving, but they do. The image -- the image moves all the time. The light changes. The clouds move. And that's what Adams' photography is really all about, about the fact that nature is not permanent.

OKWU: John Sekowski is the curator of "Ansel Adams at 100." From now until November, you can see 113 of Adams' finest photographs at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the last stop on an international tour.

SEKOWSKI: This is called, "The Gateway," and it's basically the entrance to Yosemite Valley.

OKWU: On view, Adams' lifelong homage to the American west, the natural spectacle of Yosemite National Park, celestial light high above the Sierra Nevada. This one is entitled, "Moon rise, Hernandez, New Mexico." He took the shot seconds before the moonlight reflected in those crosses faded into darkness. Sometimes Adams would just set his camera down and let the scenery change.

SEKOWSKI: He basically photographed, I think, the natural world as an intense experience, his own intense experience.

OKWU: Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902. Ambitions to become a pianist were side tracked after visits to Yosemite, which he first photographed with a Brownie box camera. He joined the Sierra Club and even lobbied presidents to preserve the environment before he returned to the solitude of the country.

BILL TURNAGE, FRIEND OF ANSEL ADAMS: We would walk across a meadow in Yosemite, and he would just stop and look up, and there were clouds, and he'd just look at me and say, "My God, it is so wonderful."

OKWU: Adams revisited his favorite subjects, Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, again and again. For all those portraits of sweeping vistas, he had a keen eye for details in the landscape, a weathered stump, a cascade of flowers growing over a crevice in the mountains. He conveyed a sense, Sekowski says, that the mountains are no more miraculous than a few blades of grass floating on good water. But those mountains...

Michael Okwu, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: That's all the time we have for now. But before we go, here's a peek as what's coming up next weekend. Do you really want to know what goes into the food you eat? In some cases, you might want to read the fine print. Even then, you might not find the whole story. We are going to clue you in. That story and much more coming up next week. Hope you'll join us.

Coming up next, a special edition of "BURDEN OF PROOF" on the weapons of mass destruction controversy. That's followed by "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS," profiling Arnold Schwarzenegger and Venus and Serena Williams at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

And at 8:00 p.m., "CNN PRESENTS: AFRICAN JOURNEY." CNN continues right after a quick break.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Yellowcake?; Controversy Over Cameras on Baseball Diamond>


Aired July 13, 2003 - 17:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RHONDA SCHAFFLER, CNN ANCHOR: NEXT@CNN begins right now.
Welcome to NEXT@CNN for this Sunday, July 13. I'm Rhonda Schaffler. And coming up in this hour, recent soaking rains in parts of the U.S. have made big trees a hazard. We're going to explain the danger.

You know that nuclear material that president erroneously claimed Iraq was trying to acquire from Africa? We'll explain what that material is.

And the umpires strike back. The controversy over cameras on the baseball diamond.

But, first, the hurricane watch is now in effect in Texas as tropical storm Claudette approaches the Gulf Coast. After drenching many Caribbean vacation spots last week, the storm, with winds increasing to nearly 60 miles per hour, is expected to hit the Texas/Mexico boarder as early as Tuesday morning.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras joins us now with the very latest -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Rhonda, we have brand new information as of the top of the hour on tropical storm Claudette. And it's not necessarily good news.

The storm system has basically stalled out, so very little movement. That means it's going to be staying over the open waters a little bit longer than we initially had anticipated, and that gives it more time to strengthen.

The primary impact we're expecting from Claudette will be hurricane force winds. We're anticipating it should penal code a weak category one hurricane before it makes land fall sometime on Tuesday morning. Flooding rain expect between five to eight inches widespread, with some isolated amounts of up to 10 inches. So, flooding is going to be common into the southern Texas region.

Storm surge will be a problem as well as very strong rip currents today all the way extending through your Wednesday.

Here's the latest satellite image now of Claudette. And the circulation center is way over here. All of the convection, or all of the heavy thunderstorms has pulling away from the center of the storm. So we are expecting to see some more changes with this over the next 24 hours or so.

I want to show you the latest now on those hurricane watches from Port O'Connor, Texas, all the way down to Brownsville. And what a hurricane watch means is that hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours.

Here are the latest statistics. They're exactly the same as they were at the 2 o'clock advisory other than the movement. It is now nearly stationary. But it should be picking up again in the next six to 12 hours or so and taking that track again west, northwesterly and continue the forecast trek towards the Texas coastline.

Tonight, very little changes expected with Claudette. By Monday morning, it will be within a couple of hundred miles yet of the coastline. And we will watch for those tides to be one to two feet above normal.

Then on Tuesday morning, likely north of the Brownsville area. And the worst part of the storm is going to be on the back side of the eye wall, for folks. So it's going to kind of sneak up on you. We'll be talking about it making landfall. You'll probably only be noticing some storm surge, some strong winds, and then the heavy rain will be arriving after that -- Rhonda.

SCHAFFLER: Jacqui, when will we get a better idea as to when this thing could potentially strengthen?

JERAS: We're really going to have to watch it the next six hours very closely because, if it just sits there and spins, it gives it ample time to strengthen. Right now it's stalled out between two high-pressure ridge systems, and we're expecting more of a trough to come in. And that is what will start kick I it out and as it moves closer toward the shoreline, it moves into warmer waters, and that provides some of that fuel and allow that strengthening.

So, it's going to be later. It's going to be closer towards it making landfall when it strengthens rather than the next 12 to 24 hours.

SCHAFFLER: Jacqui Jeras, thanks so much for tracking that for us.

JERAS: OK.

SCHAFFLER: Hurricanes and big events that show us the danger of mother nature. But smaller scale natural events can be deadly as well. In Atlanta on Thursday, a tree fell on an SUV killing a mother and her two children. This unfortunate event has reminded us just how dangerous tree falls can be. Here to tell us a little bit about what we can do to try to prevent this is Jim Foote, certified arborist with Arbor Guard, here in Atlanta.

Good to have you with us.

JIM FOOTE, CERTIFIED ARBORIST, ARBOR GUARD: Thank you, Rhonda. SCHAFFLER: This is probably a danger a lot of people don't spend too much time thinking about until they hear some sort of tragic story.

FOOTE: Trees falling and killing people are certainly tragic. And in the case of that particular instance here in Atlanta, it was compounded by the fact that that tree actually fell on numerous vehicles. So there were some fortunate and lucky people involved in that situation, too.

SCHAFFLER: From what we know, what sort of preventative steps can you take, if anything at all?

FOOTE: I think it's very important that the listeners understand that, when they have a large tree in their property, they have an obligation not only to their neighbors, but their families and pedestrians, and any tree that could potentially reach a structure, a neighbor's property, traveling public vehicles, et cetera, they have an obligation to make sure those trees are inspected, at least annually, to reduce the risk.

SCHAFFLER: What do you do when you inspect a tree? What do you even look for?

FOOTE: Well, typically, an arborist trained in risk is going to walk onto the property and do an overview of a large tree. And then as they approach the tree, they're going to look at the structure of the tree and particularly the base, the bottom, or the trunk, as people understand it, the stem of the tree.

That is where the physics of dynamic wind forces are applied. If you can imagine a crown spread on the canopy of a tree, 100 feet across, and that tree being, oh, 100 foot tall. And when you consider the wind resistance that canopy presents, often the tree cannot sustain a 70-mile an hour wind or a 60-mile an hour wind. And that, with structural flaws, increases the risk of the tree failing dramatically.

SCHAFFLER: Let's talk a little bit about financial liability, where you do have a situation where a tree falls. What's the insurance industry response?

FOOTE: Well, each homeowner is going to have to assess their own policy, but in the case of tree failure or a tree hitting a structure or an insured object, generally, homeowner insurance covers that; but there are limits and liability as far as deductions, et cetera. But if it falls and hits an insured structure, generally, the insurance industry is very willing to assist.

The problem lies with a high-risk tree. An insurance company does not preventatively, per se, pay to have a removal done. So their general response is, well, if it falls on your house, we'll remove it.

SCHAFFLER: Probably not the response most would like to hear.

FOOTE: That's correct. SCHAFFLER: Jim Foote, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate your time.

FOOTE: Thank you.

When NEXT@CNN returns, remember how popular duct tape was in the early days of the color-coded terror alert system. That's not the only industry that changed in the months after September 11. We'll have more on that just ahead.

And later, he set the standard for nature photography. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ansel Adams.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHAFFLER: That's a great moment and a great song.

Well, yellowcake sounds like something you'd bring to a July picnic. President Bush claimed during this year's state of the union that Iraq was trying to acquire this nuclear material from Africa. Lately critics have been feasting on admissions those claims were not true. CNN Science Correspondent Ann Kellan joins us now to serve up some facts on yellowcake.

Hi, Ann.

ANN KELLAN, CNN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT: Much of Niger is desolate. It's remote settlements struggling to get by. One of the things this landlocked nation has to offer the rest of the world -- uranium. After Canada and Australia, it's the third largest producer of raw uranium in the world.

When the uranium ore is mined in the heart of Sahara Desert, it's refined by a chemical process into yellowcake, raw material for nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and now a political up roar. The yellowcake is made by crushing and milling raw uranium rock into a fine powder. The non-radioactive parts, called tailings, are set aside as waste.

The yellowcake, often yellow, reddish or gray in appearance, is shipped to plants where its radioactive power is enhanced. The yellowcake powder, is called uranium oxide, is subjected to a barrage of chemical processes, which convert it to uranium hexo fluoride gas. This uranium hex can be purified into nuclear fuel for commercial use in nuclear power plants, or if it's further purified, uranium can be used in nuclear weapons.

This year's biggest customers for yellowcake powder are France and Japan. But 1985 documents from the International Atomic Energy Agency show that 20 years ago Saddam Hussein's regime acquired nearly 1,000 barrels, that's 200 tons of yellowcake from the African nation.

SCHAFFLER: And I guess with this yellowcake if we say the word nuclear, it began with yellowcake, pretty much everything nuclear then? KELLAN: Well, you think of it as the core material. And it has to go through many different types of processes, and through these different processes, you either end up with nuclear fuel for nuclear power plants, or material that can be used for nuclear weapons.

SCHAFFLER: Ann Kellan, thanks so much.

U.S. businesses have changed in a lot of ways since the terror attacks of 9/11, from the size and shape of their buildings to the way their information is stored. Some of those changes affect us all, from our credit reports to the security systems at airports and border crossings.

Joining us now with a look at some of those changes is Rob Enderle of Forrester Research. He's in our San Francisco bureau.

Good to see you.

ROB ENDERLE, FORRESTER RESEARCH: Glad to be here.

SCHAFFLER: We talked after September 11 about some of the big industries impacted, of course, airlines, tourism. Tell us a bit about how new businesses, perhaps, and technology businesses, in particular, cropped up.

ENDERLE: Well, what happened, of course, is we suddenly had a demand for equipment that we hadn't really seen before, equipment to scan bombs, scan for weapons, to look for things not only for people going onto airplanes, but people that were going into buildings, both public and private.

And then, of course, we expanded to other areas, other areas where we needed to secure data, needed to secure the livelihood of our companies, and our people. It extended rather broadly.

SCHAFFLER: Rob, let's talk a little bit about physical changes. Buildings are being built differently, some of them, than in the past?

ENDERLE: Correct. For the last few years, the last couple decades, we've been using a window wall system for low costs building. In other words these were the big glass sided buildings that we've seen all over the place.

Of course, with the new fear of terrorist attacks and explosions we've gone back to traditional building methods, where we put cement structure on the outside -- and often put the core data and intellectual property in the center of the building, where it can be better secured. It's a rather massive change from a method that was optimized for cost to one that is optimized more for structural rigidity and security.

SCHAFFLER: While we're on the subject of cost, we know these are tough times for businesses. Would you find many of them are willing to spend on security and changes that would protect their workers?

ENDERLE: Well, yes. Strangely enough, actually, that's the case. Remember, a lot of the executives that make these decisions are those workers. There's one high-tech company that went through a lot of trouble putting in doors that arguably would stop a Howitzer. Of course, that's the top floor and all the employees that are on the lower floors are kind of worried about the fact that they didn't get those doors. But the fact of the matter is the executives are in fact spending money to protect the buildings.

SCHAFFLER: Another big part of security is the technology and what's going on within the computer industry. Talk to us about that.

ENDERLE: A lot of what's going on in the computer industry is this idea of shifting data into areas that are more secure. Clearly, what we had -- or learned because of 9/11 was, even when the people survived, very often the data didn't. So people would come back, and there would be nothing for them to do.

On the other hand, a lot of times the people died, and even though the data was secure -- and once again, you still couldn't bring business up in operation, so you had a set of policies come out that allowed the people to work more distributed, and then, also secured the data. So in the face of a terrorist attack like that, there was a much better chance the company itself would survive and come back from the disaster.

SCHAFFLER: Has that helped data overall be better protected?

ENDERLE: For the most part, yes. People are thinking a lot more about how to physically secure data and electronically secure data. Microsoft, for instance, put in place a policy that was driven down from the top to focus on security and focus on security heart. It was something they didn't have in place before they received criticism for not having it.

Suddenly, post 9/11 it rose to the top of the pile, and it is it is one of their most high driving policies. They're not the only ones. Clearly, security for most of the other companies as well.

SCHAFFLER: It seems so many buildings now have the little security I.D. cards you've got to swipe to get in. How effective are those?

ENDERLE: Well, smart cards are at least a lot more effective than what we had before, which was often nothing. They do have an issue, of course that you can steal a smart card and still use it much like you can use a key.

Most folks are thinking probably the best solution, given current technology, is to use a smart card and something in the biometrics, where the biometrics and the smart card are tied together, where you can not use the smart card without the person assigned to it.

SCHAFFLER: That's the high tech stuff. What about plain old duct tape?

ENDERLE: Well, that's true. We did see duct tape get a certain amount of play because people concerned about gas attacks. This idea of being able to have a secure room in your house and using duct tape and plastic sheets to protect yourself from biological weapons.

I think that was more of a case of people needing to feel safe, very much like we had back in the '50s, when we were told to get underneath the desk and put our head between our legs and kiss our hind quarters good-bye. But it did make us feel a lot better.

The fact is that very often, there's nothing you can do about an attack like that. If you can feel better about it and get back to your lives, you can feel more secure. If you feel more secure, you can get things done.

SCHAFFLER: Excellent point. Rob Enderle, good to have you on the show. Thanks so much.

ENDERLE: You're welcome.

SCHAFFLER: Another job that's changing, and it has nothing to do with 9/11. Baseball umpire. Major league umps are upset about cameras watching their every moves. We'll talk to a veteran umpire about that.

Also ahead, we'll tell you why the TV heads are walking the streets of Tokyo.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHAFFLER: Taking a look now at some NEXT news headlines: An elderly man from Alcooney (ph) County, South Carolina has the first human case of West Nile virus this season. A diagnosis confirmed this week by the CDC.

Last year, 284 people died of the disease out of about 4,100 cases. High mosquito populations are predicted this summer due to above average rainfall, and that has local control efforts in full swing. The CDC has good news to report on that front. It's advising that people near areas sprayed with insecticides are at low risk for adverse health effects. They monitored nine states for the past four years now and turned up only 133 cases of sickness due to exposure.

They say everything is bigger in New York City, and to the surprise of some scientists, even the trees in that urban jungle grow twice as big as genetically identical trees planted in several rural sites on Long Island. Ecologist Jillian Greg published the study; she's seen here with the big tough trees of the city and on the right side of your screen, those scrawnier country cousins.

The culprit is ozone. Once ozone is blown out of the city, to the countryside, it stays in the atmosphere longer and that's what's to blame for the reduced growth.

After selling more than 21 million of the old style Beetles, Volkswagen announced this week it will stop producing that classic car. The only factory in the world currently making the bug is Puebla, Mexico. It will switch over to the new style Beetle, which sells for $20,000 to $25,000. The classic VW sold for less than $7,000. Volkswagen says the low cost made the old-style Beetle one of the most popular cars of all time.

Federal Express and General Motors this week launched the first commercial fuel cell vehicle. FedEx will use the GM hydrogen 3 on delivery routes in Tokyo for a one year free trial period. The cars liquid hydrogen fuel cell lasts for 250 miles before it needs to be filled up.

And no, this is not what Teletubbies grow up to be, these are what's known as monitor men. It's the latest way for advertisers to get their messages across. A Japanese ad agency came up with this wacky concept. The monitor men roam Tokyo streets, sports arenas -- pretty much anywhere people are; the sandwich board man coming of age.

1, 2, 3 strikes you're out. But who should make the call? Man or machine? Major League Baseball is using an experimental system called QuesTec in 10 of 30 big league parks to evaluate umpires behind the plate.

QuesTec cameras track every pitch, and then umpire's calls are compared with the system's electronic strike zone. Umpires and players don't like it, but baseball officials are sticking to their guns and say QuesTec is a fair way to evaluate umpires.

Ken Kaiser spent 20 years as a big league umpire. His book "Planet of the Umps" is on store shelves now. He joins us from Rochester.

Very good to see you. Thanks for joining us.

KEN KAISER, VETERAN BASEBALL UMPIRE: Nice to talk to you, Rhonda. How are you?

SCHAFFLER: I'm doing pretty well. Do you like QuesTec or not?

KAISER: I've never been involved. They were bringing it in when I started umpiring. They started bringing it in, in '99 when we were having the wars with baseball.

First of all, guys have been umpiring for X number of years, and we've never had a problem with balls and strikes. Everyone questioned the National League and American League strike zone, and what they came up with was a zone now that's uncallable. These guys can't work to the zone that they're trying to give them. Balls that are up over the shoulders, guys couldn't swing it. Guys like George Brett that hit about .250.

SCHAFFLER: This thing has caused such an uproar, we've got people like Curt Schilling that actually destroyed one of these cameras, with a bat, last May here. Give us a little sense of how the frustration is building up over this.

KAISER: This can go two ways, Rhonda. This could be a built-in alibi for a lot of people, too. Because, you know, they're messing with their strike zones. I told them years ago you can't mess with guys' strike zones. As soon as you do, you get them all messed up, and they're not going to be able to call a true zone. Even the veteran umpires are going to have problems with this because they have called the zone 20, 25 years, and now you're trying to change it. It's unthinkable to try to call the pitches the way the want them to be called.

SCHAFFLER: I don't know, quite frankly how anything gets called. I mean, these balls come 90 miles an hour. From the layman's view, it's very hard to tell. Would a camera do a better job than the human eye?

KAISER: Well, you see, the problem they're having with this camera also, Rhonda, is it's not a true accuracy because it stops about a foot and a half in front of the plate. And you're pretty much getting a guess from there on.

Also, these cameras aren't directly behind the plate. They'd have to have a camera in the umpire's cap or they'd have to have a camera in the catcher's mask, to get a true shot of that plate. They have to be off to an angle because the catcher is behind the plate, and the pitcher's on the mound. They can't get an exact shot of that. So, this is an erroneous situation.

SCHAFFLER: Would it have been better to have this as a training tool and maybe work to perfect the technology and try a couple of years from now?

KAISER: You should be a commissioner.

(LAUGHTER)

That's exactly...

SCHAFFLER: That will be my next job.

KAISER: That's exactly what they should do, Rhonda. Is they should take this on a technical thing. And work it in the minor leagues, try to get a true basis to use this things, so guys aren't getting killed up here. And basically they are getting killed because their zones -- it's unbelievable what they've done to the strike zones for these guys.

They're just like taking kids to kindergarten, and putting them back in school, because they're guessing. There's a lot of guessing going on, on what the real strike is, and plus what they want you to call. It's terrible. It's ruining the hitters, too, hitters and pitchers. They don't know where to throw to and the guys don't know what to swing at.

SCHAFFLER: And then, of course, it's sort of unusual because it's not in all the ballparks.

KAISER: It's in the friendly ballparks, the guys that are friends of the commissioner, I guess. I couldn't tell you what the reason is. But they pick and choose, unless it's too expensive to put it everywhere. But you know, on any given day, they're going to take a guy's zone and say, well, today you were good. Well, maybe the guy was sick. Maybe he traveled 3,000 miles. Maybe he worked a double header. Maybe he had trouble with his wife. Anything could happen on any given day. You can't rate an umpire on one, two, or three plate jobs. It takes a series of plate jobs of probably, I would say, with two and a half to three years.

SCHAFFLER: Aren't we taking some of the human drama out of baseball?

KAISER: Absolutely. That's another thing. I would love to have this thing happen to me in 1990 when Billy Martin or Earl Weaver, I'd have said hey, come running out to me, and I could say, hey, don't talk to me. Go check with the QuesTec. It was a built in excuse. I mean, it didn't matter how good you were. Just go argue with that and go argue with the commissioner. If you get mad at me, go on over and do like Schilling, take a bat to it.

SCHAFFLER: Ken Kaiser, I've got to end it there. You and I will work together when I become commissioner, I guess.

KAISER: If you become commissioner, I'll work for you for nothing, Rhonda.

SCHAFFLER: Oh, well, that's a deal. I'll see you soon, then. Thanks so much.

KAISER: Thank you.

SCHAFFLER: QuesTec, the manufacturers of the system, declined our request for an interview. But if you want to find out more about their point of view and the system, the web site is www.questec.com. On that web side, QuesTec says the following.

"How do the umpires feel about it?

"In general, they support it! ... We wouldn't dare everyone loves it, at this point, but from what we have seen the umpiring community as a whole agrees this information has a lot of potential value and they want to work with it to see what can be learned."

The umpires might disagree with the assertion that they support it. Their union has filed a grievance over the use of QuesTec. And 47 out of 68 major league umps have signed a no confidence letter criticizing that QuesTec system.

Coming up in our next half hour, a look at the technology that kept a close call from becoming a disaster at a major U.S. airport this past week.

And an ex-pat artist that returns to her homeland of Iraq to find out what has happened to her artwork.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

SCHAFFLER: You know that air traffic controllers monitor the skies around airports, but they also pay close attention to ground traffic on the runways. CNN's Patty Davis is live at Reagan National Airport in Washington with a look at runway radar technology. Hi, Patty.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Rhonda. Runway incursions are down about 4 percent this year, and that's in part due to a new technology called AMASS that warns air traffic controllers about possible collisions on the ground, on the runway, and it proved a valuable tool last week at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVIS (voice over): Busy Runway 26 at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport has thousands of safe landings like this one. But last Monday night, a close call for Continental Express Flight 2300 on final approach.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The aircraft was on about a quarter mile final, about 200 feet. That is very short approach for Runway 26 Right, when a cargo truck entered the runway at the approach in.

DAVIS: This new technology in the Atlanta control tower just over a year called AMASS, Airport Movement Area Safety System, saw a potentially deadly runway collision just seconds away and is credited with averting it. Air traffic control heard a warning similar to this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Warning, go around, runway 28 Left closed.

DAVIS: And told the Continental Express pilot to abort his landing. The FAA says runway incursions have dropped 37 percent at airports with AMASS. It works by combining radar information on planes in the air with radar data on planes and vehicles on the ground. It predicts whether they're on a collision course and warns controllers. At up to $2 million a piece, AMASS is in just 28 airports. Another six are in the works.

MARION BLAKEY, FAA ADMINISTRATOR: It needs to go into airports that have a heavy volume of traffic, where, in fact, we have seen a significant issue with runway problems, potential collisions.

DAVIS: But AMASS is not perfect. The FAA says it's still working out a problem with false alarms. Each airport gets about four every year.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DAVIS: An even newer technology called AZX (ph) is coming to airports next. Now it gives air traffic controllers more information on a plane's position and identification so they can communicate even more quickly -- Rhonda. SCHAFFLER: All right, Patty. I'm flying out soon. I'm happy we have this in place. But I've got to ask you, any explanation for why that vehicle was even on the runway in that situation in Atlanta?

DAVIS: Well, it apparently was lost, and it is an airport vehicle. The FAA says that it has that under investigation. But one official tells me that this incident in Atlanta will probably go down as one of the worst kind. And actually AMASS is having some good impact on those worst kind -- it looks like it avoided this one -- on the worst kind of possible collisions. AMASS has brought those down 60 percent. So, it seems really to be working -- Rhonda.

SCHAFFLER: Comforting stats. Thanks so much, Patty Davis. Good to see you.

An Iraqi artist, once commissioned by the Saddam Hussein government to help beautify Iraq, recently returned to her homeland to see what became of her work. CNN's Jane Arraf has more from Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NUHA AL-RADI, IRAQI ARTIST: I hope there's no bomb on the floor here. I don't want to blow up.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Art among the ruins. Iraqi expatriate, Nuha al-Radi, has come to look at what's left of her work.

AL-RADI: There's a bit of hope. Look. Look at the crescent. The moon is still there. Do you see it?

ARRAF: This presidential guest palace is rubble, the ceiling tumbled into the ceiling pool, but the ceramic she spent eight months working on in the 1980s peeks out. We went with Radi, an author and artist, to see some of her works commissioned by the city. Her ceramic of a flying carpet over Baghdad put up during the Iran-Iraq war is intact, although the building isn't. She hasn't seen it for years. Located next to the Iranian embassy, Iraqis knew it was dangerous to even look in that direction.

AL-RADI: We always have to see it in passing cars. We were not allowed to stop and not allowed to take photographs. So, it's wonderful that we're actually standing here right now.

ARRAF: The burnt and looted streets are more sobering.

AL-RADI: Very sad.

ARRAF: The looted National Gallery, worst of all. It's all gone now.

AL-RADI: I don't want to stay anymore. Can't stay.

ARRAF: Radi's Baghdad diaries chronicled life during the 1991 war. In her kitchen, she's updated it with this latest war.

AL-RADI: The helicopters overhead. They fly so low, just on top of the palms. I can see the marines, their legs hanging out.

ARRAF: The daughter of an ambassador, Radi grew up in India, Iraq, and England.

AL-RADI: And here's Indira Gandhi. This is my sister. This is my mother. This is my father. There's me.

ARRAF: She spent years in Lebanon and says she's been through so many wars and revolutions, the gun fire and explosions here don't bother her. There's not much electricity here to escape the heat. She sleeps on the roof.

AL-RADI: And so I lie down, and I've got all these palm trees over my head, and the moon goes in between.

ARRAF: It's a bit of magic she says, rising above her ruined city.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: Coming up later, a look at the work of another artist, the preeminent photographer of the American west, Ansel Adams.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLAN (voice-over): Remember the movie "Sleeper?" Scientists cloned a man out of a nose. Fiction 25 years ago, but closer to reality today considering the animals being cloned. And now researchers say someday they'll be able to make carbon copies of that nose, ear, and even internal organs like a heart, uses something as common in just about every office, a printer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This approach is very different.

KELLAN: Researchers at Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina have developed an inkjet printer that sifts out human tissues. Human cells are inserted where the ink usually goes. The printer spits out the cells onto gel-like paper that encourages the cells to grow and reproduce. In this sample, the human cells spell out a tiny "CNN." Researchers say this is the first step.

Eventually, using a more sophisticated 3-D printer, researchers will be able to shape the biopaper into a three dimensional nose and print the human tissue on it. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) estimates the nose could be rolling off the presses in five years. Already they're working with NASA to print out a 3-D blood vessel.

THOMAS BOLAND, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY: They're improving it, and they might be sooner than you think might be able to actually have that type of blood vessel. KELLAN: Researchers claim in the not so distant future, a plastic surgeon, instead of fashioning a nose, will be able to design one on the computer and simply print it out. Absurd you say? Almost as much as cloning from a nose.

Ann Kellan, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: Congress is trying to figure out ways to ease that avalanche of spam that keeps filling our inboxes. Four bills are circulating on the Hill, and a House subcommittee held a hearing on the issue this past week. More from Julie Vallese.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): You won't find this refrigerator in any home store. It can only be found at the Federal Trade Commission. It's full of only one product, spam. E- mail spam, that is, 46 million so far, with 102,000 messages added each day.

HOWARD BEALES, FTC CONSUMER PROTECTION: People are always going to get marketing that they didn't want or that they thought they didn't want.

VALLESE: But the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee believes consumers should decide who enters their home, be it by door, phone, or Internet.

REP. BILLY TAUZIN (R), LOUISIANA: Consumers don't have a vehicle to deal with it. They don't have a right established in law, and they don't have a system by which they can stop junk e-mailers.

VALLESE: There are now four bills before Congress, all with proposals on how to combat spam.

(on camera): One receiving the most attention, a do not spasm registry, similar to the FTC's do not call registry that's set up to cut down on telemarketing. While the idea intrigues many, it has its problems.

BEALES: For one thing, it's easy to figure out phone numbers and hard to figure out valid e-mail addresses. And a do not spam list would be a list of valid e-mail addresses.

VALLESE (voice-over): Basically handing spammers a treasure trove of targets. So while Congress works on a law, it's up to consumers to combat spam. And the best way?''

CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, CONSUMERS UNION: Is to actually do nothing, which is don't respond to spam. Don't even preview spam in your preview window on your e-mail program. And certainly don't opt out.

VALLESE: Unless you want spam. Because once you respond, you're sure to get a full plate. Julie Vallese, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: Shuttle investigators are wrapping up their probe of the Columbia disaster. Their final report is not expected until next month, but you can preview the board's working scenario on the web at caib.us. It's about 189 pages long, though. At a news conference Friday, the board chairman said they aren't trying to single out anyone in a blame game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. HAROLD GEHMAN (RET.), COLUMBIA INVESTIGATION BOARD: We will not, we have not, we did not address or look for any personal accountability here. However, if a reader of our report, or the Congress, or the administrator of NASA, wants to follow up on some process that doesn't look right because they think maybe somebody fell down on the job, it will be pretty easy to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHAFFLER: A test conducted on Monday fired a piece of foam onto a mock shuttle wing at 500 miles per hour. It produced a 16-inch wide hole, and at least one investigator is calling it the smoking gun for the Columbia disaster. Eighty-two seconds after launch, a piece of foam struck the leading edge of the shuttle's wing. One panel member said a NASA tracking camera located 20 miles from the launch pad might have spotted the damage, but that camera was out of focus on the day of the disaster.

NASA revealed this week there was a similar breach in another shuttle. Internal NASA documents show that superheated gases leaked into the left wing of the shuttle Atlantis after it landed after a mission in May of 2000. NASA says an improperly installed seal in Atlantis'' wing was the cause. The breach was in nearly the same location as the breach in Columbia but did not pose a serious threat to the crew or spacecrafts.

NASA has finally launched its second of two Mars rovers. The Delta rocket lifted off successfully Monday night in its second launch window of the night. The first launch opportunity was scrubbed with just seven seconds left in the count down because of a valve problem. The space agency had been trying to launch Opportunity for two weeks, but technical problems and bad weather repeatedly postponed liftoff.

Lions and tigers and -- can you hear me now? Good. Mobile phones in the U. K. roar to life, and soon you'll start hearing all sorts of jungle noises across Great Britain. The British library has a collection of 100,000 animal sounds from Europe, South America, and Africa and has licensed 40 of the recordings to cell phone companies as ring tones. Penguins, pigs, bellowing hippos, and screeching parrots are among the choices.

Call me Ishmael. A rare white whale has been sighted off the east coast of Australia, making its way up the Great Barrier Reef. The white humpback is delighting hundreds of whale watchers who are chartering boats to get a closer look. Some locals have already nicknamed the visitor Moby.

From white whales to white elephants, it's not the world's tallest building, but it ranks in the top five. And it's an engineering masterpiece. It's the 88-story office building known as "2 IFC" in downtown Hong Kong. It just opened last month. But it seems few tenants want to move in. Andrew Brown explains why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): 2 IFC is designed to deliver the ultimate room with a view. It's not the highest building in the world. Sears Tower in Chicago, for instance, is higher. But engineers say they managed to minimize the load bearing structures positioned near the windows of 2 IFC. So, looking down on Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, you don't have to peer through a forest of pillars to see the panorama.

DAVID DUMIGAN, 2 IFC DEPUTY PROJECT MANAGER: If you look at the Sears Tower in Chicago, they have a lot of structure on the edge of the building and, therefore, even though they have the height, the views are not so good.

BROWN: It has to be said, views from this platform at the top of 2 IFC are partially obscured by 20-meter high fins. Fortunately, there is a way you can peep over the top.

BROWN (on camera): These spikes at the top of the lightning conductor are more than 420 meters above street level. They are the absolute tallest point of the building. It doesn't feel too safe up here.

BROWN (voice over): This building is safe, though. At least according to the team that built it. 2 IFC has been beefed up to withstand the super typhoons that occasionally blow in from the Pacific.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wind is really the governing force.

BROWN: Well, wind and money. It's estimated investors agreed to pour around $3 billion U. S. into this building and several related projects including a one hectar park and a still to be finished Four Seasons Hotel. Developers are already earning some good publicity. Hollywood has paid homage to the building with this stunt, part of the movie "Tomb Raider 2." Are skyscrapers overrated, though?

JOAN SHENG, JP MORGAN: When people go to Shanghai, they look at the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) area, look at the buildings. The people immediately feel very impressed. But that's the big hideaway. Hideaway is not difficult to acquire. Services (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is much harder. It requires a change of mentality.

BROWN: Hong Kong has a reputation for high quality services, but its economy is in a tail spin, and commercial real estate prices are at a 15-year low, according to some industry experts. Some prospective tenants are reportedly trying to talk monthly rents down to around $1 U. S. a square foot at 2 IFC. Of course, the developers behind 2 IFC believe rents will eventually rise, and they have time on their side. 2 IFC is built to last 120 years.

Andrew Brown, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: Worry not, Andrew did get down safely.

Still to come on NEXT@CNN, the grand master of photographic art, Ansel Adams. Museum curators are celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth. We will show you how.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCHAFFLER: Ansel Adams' grand black and white photos are among the most elegant and enduring images of the American west. On the 100th anniversary of his birth last year, museum curators put together a career retrospective that has traveled from Adams' native California to Europe. It's now back in the U. S. Michael Okwu reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The maze-like majesty of the Grand Canyon; a lake, a ripple smooth enough to want to touch; a thunder cloud speaking a thousand words. When you think of landscape photography, you usually think of Ansel Adams.

JOHN SEKOWSKI, CURATOR: He did something that no photographer had done. People don't think of landscapes as moving, but they do. The image -- the image moves all the time. The light changes. The clouds move. And that's what Adams' photography is really all about, about the fact that nature is not permanent.

OKWU: John Sekowski is the curator of "Ansel Adams at 100." From now until November, you can see 113 of Adams' finest photographs at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the last stop on an international tour.

SEKOWSKI: This is called, "The Gateway," and it's basically the entrance to Yosemite Valley.

OKWU: On view, Adams' lifelong homage to the American west, the natural spectacle of Yosemite National Park, celestial light high above the Sierra Nevada. This one is entitled, "Moon rise, Hernandez, New Mexico." He took the shot seconds before the moonlight reflected in those crosses faded into darkness. Sometimes Adams would just set his camera down and let the scenery change.

SEKOWSKI: He basically photographed, I think, the natural world as an intense experience, his own intense experience.

OKWU: Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902. Ambitions to become a pianist were side tracked after visits to Yosemite, which he first photographed with a Brownie box camera. He joined the Sierra Club and even lobbied presidents to preserve the environment before he returned to the solitude of the country.

BILL TURNAGE, FRIEND OF ANSEL ADAMS: We would walk across a meadow in Yosemite, and he would just stop and look up, and there were clouds, and he'd just look at me and say, "My God, it is so wonderful."

OKWU: Adams revisited his favorite subjects, Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, again and again. For all those portraits of sweeping vistas, he had a keen eye for details in the landscape, a weathered stump, a cascade of flowers growing over a crevice in the mountains. He conveyed a sense, Sekowski says, that the mountains are no more miraculous than a few blades of grass floating on good water. But those mountains...

Michael Okwu, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHAFFLER: That's all the time we have for now. But before we go, here's a peek as what's coming up next weekend. Do you really want to know what goes into the food you eat? In some cases, you might want to read the fine print. Even then, you might not find the whole story. We are going to clue you in. That story and much more coming up next week. Hope you'll join us.

Coming up next, a special edition of "BURDEN OF PROOF" on the weapons of mass destruction controversy. That's followed by "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS," profiling Arnold Schwarzenegger and Venus and Serena Williams at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

And at 8:00 p.m., "CNN PRESENTS: AFRICAN JOURNEY." CNN continues right after a quick break.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





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