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The Situation Room
Nation Prepares For Bird Flu Threat; Toronto Health Officials Investigate Mysterious Sickness; Investigators Look for Cause of Tour Boat Tragedy
Aired October 05, 2005 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John King. And you're in THE SITUATION ROOM, where news and information arrive at one place simultaneously. Standing by, CNN reporters across the U.S. and around the world to bring you the day's top stories.
Happening now, it's 3:00 p.m. here in Washington, where officials are increasingly concerned about the bird flu threat and bracing for what could be the next great pandemic.
It's 3:00 p.m. in Toronto, where health officials are desperately trying to solve a deadly mystery. What's killing patients and sickening workers at a home for the elderly?
And it's 2:00 p.m. in Opelousas, Louisiana, where one hurricane evacuee is celebrating her changing fortune and a giant jackpot.
You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. Thanks for joining us. Wolf has the day off.
If you're hearing a lot more lately about the bird flu, there's a very good reason. Health and government officials in Washington and across the world are increasingly concerned the avian influenza virus could lead to a global health crisis of proportions not seen in almost a century.
CNN's Brian Todd is here with the latest on that story. Brian?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, every day, top health officials seem to use more blunt language to warn the public about avian flu. And just this afternoon, new research has been released that draws some chilling comparisons with an earlier pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TODD (voice-over): Two new papers, one in the journal "Science," the other in the magazine "Nature," draw fascinating parallels between the devastating 1918 virus, the so-called Spanish flu, and the bird flu that now has top health officials very worried.
Among the discoveries, that the 1918 virus also likely started in birds. They've also figured out why the 1918 flu was so deadly, and that knowledge will now help in understanding the current bird flu, also known as avian flu, or its technical name, H5N1.
DR. JEFFERY TAUBENBERGER, CO-AUTHOR, 1918 FLU STUDY: Looking for mutations that would be shared between the 1918 virus and other virulent influenza viruses, like the H5, help us understand whether the H5 viruses are actually adapting to humans and why they cause disease, why they kill people.
TODD: Avian flu has been sweeping bird populations in Asia. More than 60 people have died after contracting the disease, making health officials worry about what could happen if the virus successfully mutated, so that it could be passed easily from person to person.
DR. DAVID NABARRO, UNITED NATIONS AVIAN FLU COORDINATOR: Well, we certainly believe there will be another pandemic before long. They come in cycles. And we're due for one about now. The likely contender for the virus that will cause the flu is this one that is currently affecting the birds, in Asia particularly.
TODD: There is no cure for avian flu. About half who contract it die. A vaccine can't be developed until it mutates into something that can spread rapidly among people, which would be too late. The 1918 Spanish flu killed as many as 100 million people across the globe.
JOHN BARRY, AUTHOR, "THE GREAT INFLUENZA": Even without accounting for population, it still killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years.
TODD: In his 2004 four book "The Great Influenza," John Barry captures the devastation inflicted when virtually everyone on Earth was exposed to the virus.
He writes: "Normally, influenza kills the elderly and infants. But in the 1918 pandemic, roughly half of those who died were young men and women in the prime of their life, in their 20s and 30s. Many of them were young soldiers, spreading the virus to each other in tightly-packed troop ships at the end of World War I."
That ability to travel is one ominous comparison between the 1918 flu and the avian strain. If the bird flu mutated, health officials worry, it would be only one airplane flight from the U.S.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TODD: But health officials are quick to point out, at this point, avian flu does not spread very easily at all between people. Their worry is that there are still no obvious and ready solutions to combat the disease if it begins to infect people in large numbers.
John.
KING: And, Brian, no vaccine possible, none in the pipeline, nothing foolproof? What is the status of that?
TODD: Health officials tell us that there is a vaccine in development. It is not fully developed yet. Still, HHS officials, the Department of Health and Human Services, is stockpiling some 20 million doses of this vaccine that is still in development.
They're also stockpiling antivirals. These are drugs that can be given to people who already have the virus. Now, those antivirals have not proven very effective so far in combating the disease among people who still have it. But health officials tell us that's likely because the people who have gotten the antivirals have gotten them while they were just too far along in the disease.
KING: Brain Todd for us on this critical developing story. Thank you, Brian.
And underscoring how seriously the government is taking this threat, the State Department will host a bird flu conference starting tomorrow, with more than 65 countries and international organizations taking part. We will have more on this bird flu threat in our 5:00 hour.
We will talk to the co-author of the newly published 1918 flu study. Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, will join us right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.
Health concerns of a different kind at the Supreme Court today, where justices are considering Oregon's controversial assisted-suicide law.
CNN's Kathleen Koch is here with the details of today's arguments. Kathleen?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, though there were numerous protests outside the court this morning on the pros and cons of assisted suicide, that really wasn't what the justices inside the court were debating.
What they were really trying to do was get inside the heads of Congress back in 1970, when it passed the Controlled Substances Act, because that's the act that the federal government is using to try to stop physicians in the state of Oregon from administering a lethal dose of medication to terminally ill patients.
And what the court was debating were issues like one brought up by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- say, for instance, could that law be applied to, say, lethal injections -- injections, if an attorney general of the United States opposed capital punishment? Could it apply in that case? So, very interesting discussions.
Oregon's law was passed in 1994, went into effect in '97. Some 208 people have chosen to end their lives that way. The federal government, though, contends that this is an improper use of medication and therefore is a violation of federal law.
John.
KING: And Kathleen, this is the first big case of the Roberts Court. Did we learn anything about the new chief justice during today's arguments, about his style, about how he approaches cases?
KOCH: Well, just as in Monday's arguments, he was -- he was very differential. He was very generous to the other justices, who really did seem to welcome him very easily into their elite club. But he has, in many ways -- he was already a de facto member of this club, having argued so many cases before the Supreme Court in the past, knowing many, many of the justices personally. So, he's -- he's fitting in quite nicely and running a tight ship, John.
KING: Having been on the receiving end of some of those interruptions, perhaps a bit more differential to the attorneys as well.
KOCH: Quite so.
KING: Thank you, Kathleen.
The next potential member of the high court is once again courting members of Congress. Supreme Court Justice nominee Harriet Miers made bipartisan rounds on Capitol Hill, meeting with Texas Republican John Cornyn and Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy.
A new poll of conservatives shows many are more skeptical of Miers than they were of John Roberts. Fifty-eight percent rate the president's latest pick as excellent or good; 77 percent said that of the new chief justice, John Roberts. Twenty-two percent rated Miers only a fair choice, compared to just 8 percent for Roberts.
We will have much more on the Miers nomination coming up in our next hour.
To Iraq now, though, and the U.S. military's take on Iraqi soldiers' readiness to protect their homeland.
CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is just out of a Defense Department briefing on that subject. And Jamie joins us now live from the Pentagon. Jamie?
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, the three-star general who briefed President Bush today about the progress in training Iraqi forces also briefed reporters at the Pentagon, insisting that Iraqi security forces are in much better shape than some people might have thought from recent reports.
He said 197,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped. And of that, there's about 115 combat battalions, both army and police. Of that, he said 80 battalions can fight right alongside the U.S., and that 36 can lead their own operations. Only one can operate entirely by itself. But he said that 36 number, which represents roughly 30,000 troops, is the key one, because those troops could, in theory, today replace U.S. troops, allowing the U.S. troops to come home.
Any decision on bringing the troops home, though, depends on the outcome of the referendum, the elections and the political process. And he's quick to admit that, even though these Iraqi forces don't meet standards of, say, the 1st Marine Division of the 101st Airborne, they have been getting better every day, he said, under very difficult conditions. And even though they take casualties at twice the rate of U.S. troops, he says Iraqis are still volunteering in droves to join the new security forces.
John.
KING: And so, Jamie, they're talking up the readiness of the Iraqis, but they're not yet ready to answer the question, when will they be ready enough to bring more U.S. troops home?
MCINTYRE: Well, they say that, right now, some of these troops could replace the U.S. troops. But the decision on when to bring the U.S. troops home is going to depend on a lot of factors, again, including the election, how the political process plays out, and also the state of the insurgency. And that's a decision they're not ready to make yet.
KING: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you.
And still to come, hurricane luck. A Katrina evacuee plays the slots and walks away a millionaire. She joins us live to share her remarkable story.
Also, Tropical Storm Tammy, find out where forecasters think it may hit.
And, a little later, the python vs. the gator. Two predators go to battle. Find out why scientists are concerned these deadly snakes are taking over the Everglades.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Residents of New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood are being allowed to return home today, for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. But it's only a brief homecoming.
CNN's Lisa Sylvester is there. And he joins us now live. Hello, Lisa.
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, John. You know, people started coming back to this neighborhood about 8:00 in the morning. And I got to tell you, it is not pretty what they're seeing. For starters, the water level in these neighborhoods got up to about 10 feet. So, as you walk into these homes, and it's story after story, house after house, it's the same thing.
We're going to take you -- give you a little peek of what one of these houses looks like inside. And you can just see mold just covered about an inch thick, furniture topsy-turvy. And take a look at this. Take a look at that ceiling fan, just completely warped and bent over. I mean, this -- this house used to be this very cute, adorable doll house that has essentially just been -- been trashed. And it's going to be months, if not years, before this house is going to be livable.
What I want to do right now is, I want to interview and I want to talk to the woman. This is Prudence Grissom. And it's her mother's house. Tell me about what it was like when you first walked in here.
PRUDENCE GRISSOM, RESIDENT OF NEW ORLEANS: You can't imagine it. You just can't imagine. It's like a bomb went off or something. And I don't even -- I don't think there's anything. We're trying to save a few photographs, but there's really nothing much we can save, none of the furniture or anything. It's...
SYLVESTER: Can -- can we see some of the trinkets? You've got some pictures. And it...
GRISSOM: We're trying to save photographs. But, as you can see, most of them have been, you know -- they're just ruined. They're gone, you know? And -- and, as I was telling you, it's interesting that the color photograph, the color all runs. And then the few black and white ones we have found, like this one, you know, they're OK. We will be able to salvage them.
SYLVESTER: These are memories, aren't they? These are memories of your family?
GRISSOM: This is my daughter. And so it's my mother's granddaughter.
SYLVESTER: And what is it -- what is it like having all of these memories gone?
GRISSOM: Well, there -- it's gone. They're irreplaceable. They're things you can't get back. You can't buy another one. So, that's just it. You -- you know, but we're OK. We have ourselves. We have each other. And, you know...
SYLVESTER: OK, tell me what this is. This is something that you found, right? Show the camera and...
GRISSOM: It's just -- I don't know. It seemed very appropriate right now. It's just a needlepoint my mother made and just, as you see, it says "Happiness is not what we have, but what we enjoy". So...
SYLVESTER: Does it take on new meaning now?
GRISSOM: Definitely. Yes. We will have to reframe this one, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
GRISSOM: So...
SYLVESTER: OK. Thank you very much, Prudence, for sharing your story with us. And, you know, I can't emphasize enough, this is one woman's story. But there are house after house after house. It's the same thing. And many people have not been back yet, so they don't even really know what's in store for them. Another big problem is insurance, whether or not insurance is going to kick in.
In this case, Prudence's mom did not have insurance, so it's unclear what's going to happen at this point. And even people who had flood insurance, the problem that is there are certain caps, so that they may find themselves in a situation where the insurance doesn't cover the value of the house and the contents. So, that's going to be a real problem as we develop and as we follow this story.
John.
KING: And, Lisa, what about the psychological issues? You mentioned the insurance, other financial issues. Are the people determined -- this is my house; I'm going to move back in no matter how long it takes? Or do you have some people who look at it and think, you know what, I'm going to get what I can and move somewhere else?
SYLVESTER: You know, John, we have talked to several families. And every family that I talk to say, we're coming back. I mean, there's -- this is a true story on the resilience of human nature. I mean, these people are very determined. This is their neighborhood. And, yes, it might look like this right now. But they are vowing to rebuild. They don't know exactly how, but this is home for them. And they plan on staying.
KING: All right. Lisa Sylvester for us in the Lakeview neighborhood today. Thank you very much, Lisa.
And, of course, many of those residents forced to evacuate their homes are living in hotel rooms. For how long?
Ali Velshi is in New York. He has the "Bottom Line" on that. Ali?
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. For a lot of the people, the opportunity to go home hasn't presented itself yet. There are over 400,000 people, John, living in hotel rooms all across the country. Most of them are in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Now, it's a program that the Red Cross contracts. They use -- they use a company that finds hotel rooms across the country and they have put up the money for these hotel rooms.
The program is supposed to be paid for by FEMA. At the moment, FEMA hasn't paid for them, but we don't know that that's an issue. What is happening is, this program was supposed to end on October 15. Now it is being extended because there's nowhere to put these 400 and -- what are we looking at -- 438,000 people.
There have been efforts, as you know, to use those cruise ships. There have been efforts to find market-rate apartments. And, as we have seen, there are some trailer parks being developed. But at the moment, most of the evacuees are now in hotel or motel rooms, about $59 on average per night. This program was set to cost about $140 million. That was what it was originally budgeted for. That's gone up to $168 million now, and because it goes beyond October 14, not quite sure how much it's going to end up costing.
This is about 141,000 rooms, John, that are being used for evacuees. And, as I say, while most of them are in those states in the South, the fact is, they need more rooms than they had available in the South. So, people are all over the place.
John.
KING: Ali Velshi with the "Bottom Line" on that. Ali, we will see you a bit later in the program. Thank you.
After the nightmare in New Orleans has a happy ending for at least one evacuee. Jacquelyn Sherman wound up in a casino in Opelousas, Louisiana, last night, where she won a $1.6 million -- that's $1.6 million slot machine jackpot. And she joins us live now.
Jacquelyn, I have to ask, walking into a casino, given the events that have happened to you over the past several week, you could not have felt all that lucky walking in the door.
JACQUELYN SHERMAN, HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUEE: I couldn't hear that. I didn't hear. He cut off.
KING: Let me try that again, Jacquelyn. John King in Washington. Can you hear me?
SHERMAN: Yes.
KING: I was just asking you, given the tragic events of recent weeks, you could not have felt all that lucky when you walked into the casino.
SHERMAN: No, I did not, nowhere near it.
KING: Well, tell our viewers what happened. You went in, I understand, with about $20?
SHERMAN: That's correct, went in, was on the route to Kmart, and decided to stop at the casino, came in, and the rest is standing in front of me now.
KING: And you spent about $4.25 on the slots?
SHERMAN: That's right, out of a $20 bill.
KING: And then -- and explain what happened. Tell us about pulling the lever and watching it happen.
SHERMAN: Well, when you first see it happen, you just -- you just go you dunce. You don't realize what done happened until the person next to you hits you and say, oh, you done did it. And, after that, it was just on from then on.
KING: One-point-six million dollars. What are you going to do with the money?
SHERMAN: I have no idea. I haven't thought about it yet. I -- I -- first of all, I would like to find somewhere to live, because my house was destroyed in Katrina.
KING: And you're staying now, I understand, at your sister's house with 26 other people?
SHERMAN: That's right. That's right. That's how many we have.
KING: Well, Jacquelyn, as I congratulate you, in closing, I'm going bet one thing about that money. Those 26 people are going to count on you to buy dinner.
(LAUGHTER)
SHERMAN: Don't mind. Don't mind at all.
KING: Well, congratulations to you, Jacquelyn Sherman; $1.6 million could not have gone to a more deserving soul. Best of luck to you.
SHERMAN: Thank you. Thank you very much.
KING: Thank you. Thank you. You take care.
And still to come, Tropical Storm Tammy, eye on Florida. Find out where flooding could happen.
Plus, the python that swallowed the alligator, and the alligator that fought back. Find out why exotic animals are posing a risk in the Florida Everglades.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Tropical Storm Tammy is the newest threat to Florida and the Southeast. We have video coming in from Cocoa Beach, Florida. Tammy formed off Florida. It's the 19th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.
Our meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is monitoring Tammy from the CNN Hurricane Headquarters in Atlanta. Jacqui?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, John, Tammy's been kind of hugging the coast throughout much of the day today. It's about maybe 15, 20 miles offshore and about halfway between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville, Florida.
The biggest problem we're going to be dealing with here is the heavy rain. Sure, winds are a little gusty, maximum sustained winds about 45 miles per hour. But rainfall totals are going to be on the range of three to five inches widespread, with some locally heavier amounts, maybe as much as six to 10 inches in a few locales.
There you can see the center of circulation. And since it's been moving parallel to the storm, it's real difficult to pinpoint an exact location and an exact time when it's going to make landfall. And landfall actually really is not all that important. It's how long this rain is going to be sticking around. It's going to be sticking around parts of Georgia and into the Carolinas for a good couple of days.
As the storm makes its way inland, we're also dealing with some rough surge, some seas about eight to 12 feet or so. And we are also dealing with the threat of rip currents and rough travel all along the I-95 Corridor.
We do have tropical storm warnings in effect from Flagler Beach, extending on up to the South Santee River. That means those tropical storm conditions can be expected in 24 hours or less.
It's going to continue to move up to the west-northwest, but it's starting to slow down in forward speed just a little bit. And so, that's why some of these rainfall totals are going to be quite heavy across parts of Georgia, Thursday, and even into Friday, as that system makes its way inland.
We also have a big storm system in the nation's midsection that is bringing winter weather to the Dakotas, feeling like summer ahead of the storm into the Great Lakes. That's going to help pick up this system and bring Tammy up into the Northeast by the end of the week.
John.
KING: Winter weather in the Dakotas already. Jacqui Jeras, thank you very much.
Our Zain Verjee joins us now from the CNN Center in Atlanta with a closer look at other stories making news. Hi, Zain.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNNHN ANCHOR: Hi, John. How are you?
A top Palestinian official says Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have tentatively agreed to meet on Tuesday. They were supposed to have met last Sunday, but that was canceled after a late September rocket attack. Top advisers plan to get together Friday to iron out the details of the meeting.
Iraq's National Assembly has reversed last week's change to election rules, a change that would have made its newly drafted constitution a shoo-in. The body bowed to both internal and international pressure and voted overwhelmingly to change the language back to its original form. The move last week was criticized by the United Nations. Iraq's Sunni minority had also threatened to boycott the crucial October 15 referendum.
International relief organizes say poor communication caused a huge amount of clothing aid for Southern Asian tsunami victims to just go to waste. The assessment comes in a report compiled by the British Red Cross. It blames duplication of efforts and competition for causing chaos among the agencies after the disaster. The Red Cross says agencies must communicate their needs more clearly to the public.
And T-bone steaks could be back on the menu in Europe's restaurants by year's end. The European Union has agreed to drop the proposal that would allow the cut of beef to be served up again. The move would lift the four-year ban imposed because of fears about exposure to mad cow disease.
John. KING: Zain, I'm interesting in that report on the tsunami assistance. Do they think better communication is the answer? Or do they think something of that scope, you're just going have some chaos?
SHERMAN: It's definitely part of the answer. One Red Cross official I spoke to today said, look, coordination is absolutely key. But he also stressed, look, it can't be perfect, because, in a disaster, because of inherently what it is means that all the systems are completely overloaded. He did also add that what needs to happen is that local communities, be they in the United States or even in remote parts of Somalia, need to be able to be given the tools themselves for disaster preparedness, and that would go a long way.
KING: Zain Verjee in Atlanta, we will see you in a little bit.
In New York today, investigators don't have many answers, so they're using scientific tests, batteries of them, to figure out why a tour boat in Lake George capsized, killing 20.
And it's killing residents in a Canadian nursing home, but no one knows what it is. It's a mystery illness. Scientists say they have never seen anything that matches it. We will tell you why so many are so worried.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Investigators are going over the sister ship of the tour boat Ethan Allen with a fine-toothed comb today. They hope that battery of tests will produce some clues to why the Ethan Allen capsized in New York's Lake George on Sunday, killing 20 of its elderly passengers.
CNN's Mary Snow tracking this investigation joins us live from our New York studios. Mary?
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, what investigators are calling it is a scientific road test. And what they're doing today is taking a similar boat and using different tests to try and determine what caused the Ethan Allen to capsize over the weekend.
One of the factors they're looking at is to see whether or not excess weight played a role in this tragedy.
And what the NTSB is saying is that it's looking into whether the standard minimum weight -- or standard maximum weight, that is, for each passenger should be increased.
Right now the Coast Guard has those standards set at about 140 pounds per person. But the NTSB is saying that this should be increased because Americans' waistlines are expanding.
One industry that has increased its weight standard is the airline industry.
Earlier today we spoke with the vice president of operations and safety for the Air Transport Association. We asked him how this factors into ordinary flights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASIL BARIMO, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION: On a 200-passenger airplane, if we've got an additional 10 pounds per passenger that are factored into our analysis, we're talking about 2,000 pounds that we cannot carry that would otherwise be revenue-generating cargo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: Now the question is will the Coast Guard follow the lead of the FAA? The Coast Guard says that it -- a couple weeks ago it actually hired contractors to take a look at how it would impact various industries if they did lift this weight standard.
We'll have more about this at 5:00.
John.
KING: Well, Mary, it begs the question, though, if the airline industry did this previously, and it is no secret the past three, four, five years there have been so many studies about obesity problems in America, why did it take a tragedy like this or why just before this tragedy was the NTSB and the Coast Guard getting around to boats? If the airline industry knew it had to act before, why not the boating industry?
SNOW: And there's another question in the fact that the NTSB says that it recommended last year to the Coast Guard to raise these standards.
I asked the Coast Guard that today. They said there are a lot of different things involved in this process, that it can't be done just very quickly because it affects so many different boats. And that's why they say that they didn't do it right away, that they needed to study this before they made any changes.
KING: And essentially today, Mary, they have a double of the Ethan Allen, its sister ship. Are they running these tests out of the water, or in the water or a little bit of both?
SNOW: Well, one main test that they want to do is in the water. And as you said, this is a sister ship. And they're trying to see the effects of weight in water.
And we expect to hear from the NTSB later today on some -- what they went through today and what they expect to find.
KING: Mary Snow tracking this investigation for us in New York. Thank you, Mary.
SNOW: Sure.
KING: It's raising serious worries in Canada and beyond. Coming up, a deadly and mysterious illness that's killed many in a Toronto nursing home. We'll tell you how experts are searching for answers but aren't finding many.
And it was a turf battle that ended in a fight to the finish -- both reptiles and both in Florida. Certainly bizarre, but why so surprising? Our John Zarrella will explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: A look now at some of the hot shots coming in from the Associated Press. These are pictures likely to be in your newspaper tomorrow.
Indonesia, predawn prayers mark the first day of Ramadan. Millions of Muslims around the world fast from dawn to dusk during the holy month.
In Baghdad, Iraqi police remove a destroyed car from the scene of a bombing. The blast went off just as a U.S. military convoy passed by, injuring one civilian.
In Tehran, a school girl poses with a heavy machine gun recovered from smugglers. That was all part of a police exhibition.
And in China, no, pigs don't fly but they do swim. They're racing for first place in the piggy sports contest -- of course they are.
And that's today's hot shots.
We want to talk more now about that top story from the top of the hour, the fear of bird flu coming here to the United States. The president's point man calls bird flu the top public health priority for the United States.
Here with some valuable online resources on the virus are Internet reporters Jacki Schechner, Abbi Tatton. Jacki?
JACKI SCHECHNER, CNN INTERNET CORRESPONDENT: Well, you have been hearing a lot about bird flu but you probably don't know much about it. And so there are resources online where you can study up about this possible pandemic.
Nature.com, they have a timeline of how the bird flu got started, starts with 1890, the first recorded influenza pandemic. And this one actually specifically got its roots in the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918. The timeline takes you all the way until July of this year, where the World Health Organization announced that $150 million is going to be needed to stop the spread of this disease in humans.
Some concerned citizens taking action into their own hands. Three blogs, Just a Bump in the Beltway, The Next Hurrah and The Effect Measure have put together this fluwikie.com.
Essentially, the idea behind it is that not everybody knows everything, some people know some things. And the idea is let's all compile our information, put it all together in this one location and that we'll have resources online for people to learn more.
This is some of the information that's coming up on fluwikie.com.
And then also some blogs that have popped up, because there is, in fact, a blog for everything these days -- the Avianflu.typepad.com.
And then a teacher, Crawford Killian, has started this site, H5N1.
ABBI TATTON, CNN INTERNET CORRESPONDENT: Government and international agencies online are also helping the public get educated on avian flu. If you look at the Centers for Disease Control Web site -- this is CDC.gov -- they have key facts about the avian influenza. And they also have information about infections in humans.
This is a case -- there have been cases, outbreaks in humans, since 1997, isolated cases around the world. Also international agencies like the World Health Organization tracking what each country around the world is doing, trying to keep tabs on how countries are getting ready for avian flu.
John.
KING: Abbi and Jacki, thank you.
Canadian health officials are scrambling to solve a deadly mystery that is killing patients at a Toronto nursing home.
Our Zain Verjee is following that story from the CNN Center in Atlanta. Zain?
VERJEE: John, this mysterious illness has killed 10 people, and 40 more are in the hospital. All of them were either patients, employees or visitors at a nursing home that's just on the outskirts of Toronto.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. ALLISON MCGEER, MT. SINAI HOSPITAL: This is not influenza. We know this is not SARS. We know this is not avian influenza.
VERJEE (voice-over): So what exactly is the unknown illness spreading through the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged? Toronto's public health officials are desperate to find out. There was some relief when SARS was ruled out. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome killed 44 people in the Toronto area two years ago.
MCGEER: SARS is very different. It has a much longer incubation period, average four to five days, sometimes as long as 10. Younger people get sick with it, people are ill for longer.
VERJEE: But they now say the epidemic may be winding down, and they concede the mystery may never be solved.
MCGEER: We may get through this outbreak with not having an identified virus.
VERJEE: Although the outbreak has been confined so far to the nursing home, that's little comfort to some parents at a child care center housed in the same building.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would rather they took the precaution, closed it, gave us another location. But she's saying, you know, the air they breathe, the children they're breathing is different from the air that's in the seniors. It's unfortunate that I do have it in the seniors, but I do have concerns as well.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: Health officials say outbreaks like this are not necessarily uncommon because the elderly are especially vulnerable to respiratory illnesses and especially also flu season is approaching. The investigation continues, though, John, and the outbreak won't be ruled officially over until one to two weeks after the last case is reported.
KING: Zain, a mystery illness, but are they confident they have contained it from spreading, or can they not answer that?
VERJEE: Well doctors are saying, at a press conference, yes, you know, essentially it has been contained. But what they're also saying is, look, the death toll could rise from those already in a poor condition having already been infected. But they are saying that it has been contained and it really only affected that retirement home and there's no risk to public safety.
KING: Zain Verjee tracking a mysterious story for us in Atlanta. Thank you very much, Zain.
We want to show you remarkable pictures just in to CNN, this from a brushfire right along the California/Mexico border. This brushfire started in Mexico, jumped across California, over the border. Firefighters battling this blaze now. It's in the Barrett Junction area.
A much bigger fire nearby. Some 1,000 acres we are told at risk here. Again, these pictures just in to CNN. You see a remarkable brushfire started on the Mexican side of the border, has spread up toward the San Diego area. More details as we get them. Obviously firefighters trying to battle this remarkable blaze along the U.S./Mexican border.
Up next, an invasion in Florida pitting reptile against reptile. Is the invader gaining ground over the king of the Everglades?
And speaking of gaining ground, did Wall Street getting some back today? Still ahead, CNN's Ali Velshi fills us in on the trading day.
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KING: Another look now at some pictures just in to CNN from our affiliate -- excuse me -- KFMB in California. This fire, this wildfire, burning now. This fire on the U.S. side is what you're seeing. This fire started on Mexican side of the border.
There's now 235 firefighters fighting it, 100 acres now burning on the U.S. side of the border, 1,000 acres we were told, on the Mexican side. More information as we get it. Again, this from our affiliate, KFMB, a fire just along the border now moving to the north and west. It started on the Mexican side, now 100 acres in California burning we are told. More information as we get it, here at CNN.
It started as a daring duel that ended in double deaths, two wild reptiles in a cold blooded fight. A bizarre story by itself that also says something about one animal invading the turf of another.
CNN's John Zarrella is in Miami with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's clearly a case where his eyes were bigger than his stomach. To the center and right of this photo are the hind legs and tail of a six-foot alligator, stuffed inside the belly of a beast that could be gaining supremacy in Florida's Everglades.
The beast, to the center and left of the photo, is what's left of a 12.5 foot Burmese python. The snake apparently won the fight but ultimately gorged itself to death.
SKIP SNOW, EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK BIOLOGIST: So you have your wild born, didn't buy it at a pet shop.
ZARRELLA: To park biologist Skip Snow and wildlife technician Lori Oberhoffer the tangle in the swamp is a growing concern. Alligators, the native, top of the food chain species here, may not be tough enough to control the python population.
SNOW: Once they get bigger, once they exceed the size of the native snakes -- seven, eight, nine feet, get sort of out of that range that our predators are comfortable with, if you will -- it's unlikely that they have much of a natural predator here.
ZARRELLA: Biologists say pythons, which are not poisonous were first introduced into the park by people who had them as pets.
(on camera): Park biologists say that within the first two years of its life, the Burmese python can grow to nine feet long, and that they say, is when people who keep them as pets decide they're much too difficult to handle.
(voice-over): In the past two years, Snow has documented more than 150 python captures. Before that, captures numbered only in the dozens. Last year, wildlife photographer Mike Mercier (ph) captured these images of another showdown between a giant python and an alligator. And it's images like these that are prompting park rangers to track, trap, and indicate this snake in the river of grass.
John Zarrella, CNN, in Everglades National Park.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Still ahead, we go "Inside Politics". A Bush White House insider who knows Harriet Miers and her work, and yet still says her nomination is an unforced error. We'll ask David Frum what he thinks is wrong with Miers.
And later, the British are coming. Prince Charles and his new wife Camilla will debut as a duo here in the United States. Royal details ahead.
You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: More now on this developing story. Brushfires started in Mexico have moved north across the border into California. A hundred- plus acres in the United States, we are told. Firefighters battling a blaze there. Perhaps a thousand acres burning in Mexico.
Our Tom Foreman is here to join us in THE SITUATION ROOM for a bit more. Tom, where exactly are we talking about?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're talking about right on the border, when you move down to this part of the area. Let me find the right place on the map here. This is the area we're talking about, right down in here. If you see the border of the U.S. here, we're going to zoom into it. This is the border crossing that we've all seen many, many times, when you see lots of cars all backed up.
South of San Diego, if you go to that border crossing, it's over here, just to the east of where this fire is. Now, if we go over to the fire, we're going to turn around here and take a look. The top of mountains over here you see, not terribly far away, looking into Mexico. This is where these fires are burning right now, on top of these mountains.
This time of year, a thousand-acre fire sounds really big. It can be very explosive this time of year out in the West, because you have so much brush that has built up throughout the summer. It's very dry and it can explode throughout an area.
KING: Now, you showed us, though, you came in from the border crossing over to these hills. We see roads up on those hills, but this is not where you would expect to find a lot of people?
FOREMAN: No, you would not. You'd find some people, not a whole lot. Obviously, right on the border itself, unless you're talking about a border town, which exists -- a lot of people are sort of brushed back from the border on either side a little bit. But it's all low scrub, stuff that burns very, very quickly. If we zoom in a little bit, you can see there's a smattering of houses in this area. Not a tremendous number, but some different facilities around there.
But it's not a -- if I angle it up like this, you can see it a little bit better. There's a pretty good little cluster of people in here. Not as much, though, as you'd expect in a full-blown town in an area like this. So you have a few people around the border.
The question is, with all of these fires, can you control it? And frankly, when it's on the border like this, you have interagency issues because you have to have the Mexican side of the fight, you have to have the U.S. side of the fight. A lot of cooperation on these kinds of things, but still, when it develops fast, it's a little bit tricky.
KING: And it appears from those pictures access is not an issue. There are at least enough roads, although we don't know much about water supplies or anything else that they do.
FOREMAN: Yes. Water supplies are always an issue and the spread of the fire is always an issue. I'm telling you, all of this, all of this, no matter which direction you go, is a lot like it -- low scrub, very explosive, sort of oily residue in a lot of it. When this stuff starts burning, it can burn and burn and burn.
A lot of firefighters will say, hey, you don't put out a fire like this. You surround it as best you can, you wait for weather to knock it down, and then you put it out. But largely, you watch a fire like this and try to keep it from running to the wrong places.
KING: Tom Foreman, thank you for bringing those images from above. Some more details of where this fire's burning. We will continue to track this developing story. Brushfires -- they began in Mexico. They've crossed now into the United States. We'll continue to track and bring you more as we go ahead.
More developing news just in to CNN. A story involving the director of central intelligence.
Our national security correspondent David Ensor standing by with details. David?
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: John, the CIA Director Porter Goss has just released a statement, made public a statement, announcing his decision about how to handle the inspector general's report, the CIA inspector general's report, in the wake of 9/11.
This was a report in which the inspector general recommended that Porter Goss convene performance boards to possibly mete out punishment to some individuals at the CIA that the inspector general felt had not done as well as they should have and that they were partly to blame for the fact that the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001.
Now, Porter Goss' statement says that he is not going to convene those performance boards, and he does not think it would be an appropriate action at all. In the statement, he says that some of those who are named in the I.G.'s report are -- quote -- "among the finest we have." He says that, "risk is critical part of the intelligence business. Singling out these individuals would send the wrong message to our junior officers of this agency and our sources and methods." Excuse me, "about taking risks -- would send the wrong message to our junior officers about taking risks, whether it would be an operation in the field or being assigned to a hot topic at headquarters."
Goss goes on to say that he opposes a freedom of information request that the I.G.'s report be made public. He says that there's too much detail on how the U.S. intelligence gathers intelligence, its sources and its methods in the report. And he will oppose it being made public.
Now, we also have a statement from his boss, John Negroponte, who is now the director of national intelligence, in which Mr. Negroponte says that he fully supports the decision of Porter Goss.
So those who had called for accountability for individuals who might have had responsibility prior to 9/11, didn't do all they could, those people will be disappointed. Those in the intelligence community who felt that they did the best they could with limited resources, and that it would be a terrible morale problem if there were punishment, they will be happy today.
John.
KING: David Ensor on that developing story. And I suspect some members of Congress with oversight over intelligence will have some questions, perhaps some criticism, of CIA Director Goss' decision on that front.
David Ensor, thank you.
Stay with us here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Just ahead, the closing bell on Wall Street. And we go "Inside Politics". Harriet Miers makes more rounds on Capitol Hill. Can she quiet conservative critics who think she's the wrong person for the Supreme Court? Stay with us here in THE SITUATION ROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Almost time for the markets to close, and the closing bell. Let's check in now with our Ali Velshi for that and much more. Hey, Ali.
VELSHI: A forward-looking report for you right now, John. The nickel is getting redesigned, and the Mint's making a big deal out of this, because it's -- you know the nickel's got Thomas Jefferson on one side and Monticello on the back.
Well, this is how it's going to look. This is the new 2006 nickel. And the thing that is odd about this, if it's not obvious, is that it is forward-looking. It is not a profile of Thomas Jefferson, it's a tribute to the fact that he was a forward-looking guy, sending out Lewis and Clark and doing all those sorts of things. So that's what you're going to see there. And it's a much more detailed Monticello on the back of that.
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