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The Situation Room

Doomed Flight's Final Moments; Hope For U.S. Economy?

Aired June 05, 2009 - 15:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): All hell broke loose. We are now getting a real-time glimpse into the chilling moments in the final 14 minutes of Air France Flight 447. And have they found debris or not?

An American icon meets his death in the strangest of ways -- the bizarre mystery surrounding David Carradine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's a typical David way to go, you know? The mysterious death of David Carradine.

Finally, a glimpse of hope for the economy -- what the latest government jobs report says.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And these are the first concrete signs that the massive, massive job losses are slowing.

SANCHEZ: Twitter makes the cover of "TIME" magazine, how it will change us. They noticed. We, who noticed long ago, welcome "TIME" magazine into our national conversation for Friday, June 5, 2009.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And hello again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez. Happy Friday. We are here with the next generation of news. This is a conversation. This isn't a speech and it is your turn to get involved.

As we begin this newscast, President Obama is on a plane, and we understand he's due to arrive in Paris any moment now. This is going to happen on our watch, and you are going to see it play out. These are pictures from earlier today in Buchenwald. Again, we expect his plane to show up in the next few minutes and, when it does, you will see this -- you will see this happen live.

But first, there is something else I want to bring to your attention right now, because a full five days after the crash of Air France Flight 447, we are finally getting a picture of what happened moments before that plane disappeared from radars.

CNN's John Zarrella is going to be live in Rio de Janeiro. He has some new information for us on what has or not been found in terms of the debris from this plane. CNN's Chad Myers is going to be joining us. He's going to be telling us what we're learning about the lightning and the winds on that night when the plane went into that storm. And then Jim Hall is going to be joining us, as well. He's the former head of the NTSB, as you may know, and he's going to tell us if this plane was actually breaking apart in flight, finally, information five days later.

Right now, Airbus is telling CNN new information, that computerized data from the plane suggests that, electronically, something suddenly went terribly wrong with this plane, terribly wrong with this plane, and that, while that was happening, the plane had just entered into a powerful storm producing severe winds and lightning.

So what did the 228 passengers experience in those final minutes? All right. Stay with me. I am going to try and take you through as much of this as I possibly can.

Here's a map that illustrates what happened. It's a satellite picture of the weather that we captured at that moment in that part of the world. That's the actual satellite picture of that moment when the plane supposedly was lost from the radars.

The plane takes off and there are no apparent problems until 11:00 p.m. That's three hours into the flight, all right? Follow with me there. Then, at 11:10, suddenly, the autopilot is disengaged. Alarms begin to sound, noting that the plane's stabilization controls and its key computer system is suddenly on alternative power.

Three minutes later -- now I'm going to take you to 11:13 -- stay with me here -- air speed monitors for altitude and direction, for monitoring the altitude and the direction of the plane, failed. Main flight computer fails. Wing spoilers are can compromised. Remember, Jim Hall is going to be taking us through all of this.

Now, a minute later, it's 11:14. All right? The last bit of information from the plane comes in. The plane is now undergoing complete and total electrical failure. There is also a massive loss of cabin pressure.

As I said, we have John Zarrella standing by. We have Chad Myers standing by and we have former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall standing by.

Let's begin with Jim Hall, because you have to give us an understanding of what it is that I just reported. Let -- let me go back a little bit right here in my own notes and start with where, Jim, the pilot, the autopilot is suddenly engaged and alarms begin to sound.

What's going on, on this plane?

JIM HALL, FORMER CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: Well, obviously, there's a serious in-flight emergency.

And we don't -- will not know until we're able to obtain the flight recorders exactly what caused this in-flight...

SANCHEZ: But let's -- I just want to be as specific as I can. On the autopilot disengaging, is that something that the pilot did or is that something that just happened naturally? Hard to tell.

HALL: Well, we really will not know, unfortunately, without the recorders...

SANCHEZ: OK.

HALL: ... and without matching that up with what was going on with the voice conversations in the cockpit.

SANCHEZ: Let me ask you the next question about at three minutes later, apparently, according to these computer messages that are being sent out by the plane, air speed monitors for altitude and direction fail and the main computer fails. And the wing spoilers are compromised.

That sounds jargony to most of our viewers who maybe don't fly. What does that mean, and what's the impact?

HALL: Well, it sounds as if the electrical system on the aircraft failed, and failed completely, leaving the flight crew, you know, in a very perilous situation, obviously, at that altitude and in the weather that has been described.

SANCHEZ: So -- so that means that the pilot doesn't know what the air speed is, he doesn't know his direction and he doesn't know his altitude. He is flying at night and he's in a severe storm. That does sound like a pretty bad combination.

(CROSSTALK)

HALL: That's -- you know, that's a horrible combination and one, obviously, that resulted in a horrible tragedy, the loss of this entire flight full of people.

SANCHEZ: All right, I want to bring in John Zarrella.

John, how bad was the weather on that night? What was really going on? What did he -- what did this plane actually fly into?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Well, from every indication, you are talking an about area that I think Chad would describe as sort of near the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

And you a lot of huge thunderstorms out there that you get this time of the year, with thunderheads topping 50,000 feet maybe in some places, an updraft of maybe 100 miles an hour coming out of the tops of those clouds and lightning.

I don't want to step on Chad, but I think that that...

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Let's do this.

(CROSSTALK)

ZARRELLA: ... pretty good indication of the severity of the weather, bad storms.

SANCHEZ: Let's do this. Chad, can you draw that out for us? Can you show us what was going on that night that this plane went in to?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, actually, also what happened was that a line of storms from when this pilot took off to when he or she arrived at that location actually became an elongated line of cells, too, Rick, which means that all of a sudden flying in, he has got his radar he's looking at, but there's a line of weather now, not just one cell to fly around.

So, as he tried to fly around the one big cell, he may have been caught in the updraft of another system. Sure, I can take you right here back into the Google Earth. And we know that the violent lightning event was actually a manual signal sent by the pilot at 11:00.

So, he said, violent lightning, big turbulence. I'm flying into what he called a black thunderhead with a lot of electricity. Then he lost -- 10 minutes, lost the autopilot. And last one, the final transmission, way up here, was vertical cabin speed. Now, that can be up vertically or down vertically. And I think we know the answer to that one, don't we, that that was a fault of excessive vertical cabin speed.

SANCHEZ: John Zarrella, two stories -- two questions for you, John, because we are getting some new information today that seems to suggest that parts of the plane were found, but then we have also been getting information that seems to suggest -- suggest that maybe that wasn't the plane after all.

Can you clear this up for us?

ZARRELLA: Yes. I think I can.

What you had was that the Air Force is telling us today that a lot of the debris that they found early on, at least they eyeballed or saw on radar, they didn't pick it up, they didn't recover anything, remember, until yesterday, was the first day they did.

But some of the things they saw were wiring on the surface of the water. They saw what they believed to be the seat from the airplane, and, of course, we know they saw this long oil slick or kerosene slick on the water, as well as some plastic material and other metal material.

Well, the first order of business was to try and find survivors and then to try and find bodies. When none of that happened, yesterday, they turned their focus to recovering some of the materials that they saw.

Well, it turned out that the first items they picked up off the water were not from the plane. One was a pallet, just a wooden pallet. And the other one was what looks like an orange buoy, both of those items just see trash that may have fallen off a ship. They still believe that the other materials out there, Rick, that they have seen on the water are from the plane. But they haven't gotten them yet. And weather conditions out there are not real good today.

SANCHEZ: That's amazing. I mean, we're five days into this thing and still they can't even be sure if what they have found is part of the plane and it sounds like what they thought they had nailed down is not.

So, John, Chad, Jim, my thanks to all of you for bringing us to date on this story that so many people all over the world are following.

Man, so many of us grew up watching this thing, "Kung Fu" and David Carradine. Now it's a bizarre story of death. Suicide? Possibly. Foul play? Don't know. Ropes tied around certain parts of his body, we get. This is a number-one story on Twitter and social media. We are reaching out to get answers for you.

Also, several color photos of Adolf Hitler have just out as we were preparing this newscast. We are going to show you. There's about eight of them. I'm going to take you through them.

Also, I just sat and watched and found those pictures to be, well, especially eerie today. Why? Because this was also the day the president of the United States went to Buchenwald. We will put those two together for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We welcome you back. I'm Rick Sanchez here in the world headquarters of CNN.

There's a whole new layer of mystery today surrounding the death of an American icon. That's a word that is often overused, icon. What is an icon, right? But this actor, at least the television role that he played, achieved that rare trick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "KUNG FU")

DAVID CARRADINE, ACTOR: I am Caine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: You remember the show. You remember the actor. That's David Carradine. He was in Kwai Chang Caine "Kung Fu." In a mere three seasons, "Kung Fu" mesmerized millions and millions of Americans, encouraging many to start thinking about Eastern religion, among other things.

Now they're talking all over new and old media today specifically about Carradine's mysterious death. Have you heard? At age 72, at a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, he was there to film a movie, we're told, his body reportedly found in his suite, in a closet, to be exact. It was first reported as a suicide. Then his associate said foul play was involved, and now it looks like it may have been something entirely different, neither of those.

Joining me now from Los Angeles is Dax Holt. He is a reporter from TMZ.

As tastefully as you can see tell it, explain to our viewers what the circumstances were surrounding his death, for example, how they described his body.

DAX HOLT, TMZ: Well, Rick, what we're hearing is that they found David's body, obviously, naked in his hotel room with neck around the rope, his genital parts, and then he had his arms tied behind his back.

His rep wanted to make it very clear that they feel like there's foul play because his arms were tied around his back and that he was on a great mood days before. Everyone felt like he was happy. There wasn't any signs of depression. We did talk to the producers of his movie and everyone there seemed to agree with that.

And we have gotten a lot of questions about what they're going to be doing with this movie. And producers say, you know, we have been to film it, so we have been rewriting like crazy, trying to get it done, and...

SANCHEZ: Well, we just lost the signal. We -- we -- we -- you think we will be able to get Dax back? Or should we just let it go? You going to work on it?

All right, Angie (ph), thanks so much.

I should add some of the questions that are coming into play here, because as you heard Dax intimate moments ago, there are indication that there's a possibility that his -- that this was somehow involving foul play.

But, if it involves foul play, there would have had to be another person in the room. The problem with the argument, while not yet nailed down, is that, according to all reports that have been released thus far from the hotel and its security and the maid that found them, there are no signs that anyone else had been in the room with him.

Now, that's what's stirring the controversy and that's what a lot of people have been talking about on Twitter and social media. So, again, that's the situation with David Carradine, a story that we will continue to stay with.

And if we get Dax back, we will put him back on the air.

Never-before-seen pictures of Adolf Hitler, they show another side of the dictator, including a picture of his first schoolhouse and his office.

And then also the president makes an emotional visit to a former Nazi concentration camp in Germany -- there he is -- where he says his great uncle helped free prisoners during World War II.

Also, what did Bill O'Reilly say that makes me have to answer him? What is it? And will I answer it? You betcha.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: I think we have got some -- do we have that picture? We told you as promised that we were going to show you the president of the United States arriving in Paris. This is part of this whirlwind tour that he's been doing.

Is the -- are these live pictures we are looking at of his plane? Oh, good. All right. These are the first pictures I have seen, so I'm being as -- as transparent with you as I possibly can, as usual, and show you the information as we get it.

We expect the president of the United States will likely come out those doors at any minute now. We don't know if he's going to be met by the French president. We don't know if there's any specific ceremony.

In fact, we have been trying to find this out throughout the day, but perhaps, for security reasons, it has been tough to get that information. So, we're going to work on that.

And, as we watch this picture, hey, Rog, do -- you know what? Do me a favor. Just keep the picture, up even if you have got other put it in a corner or something, so, if it happens, nobody misses it as it happens. This is a very important trip for the president.

But let me tell you about something that is going on here at home, because this is important as well. This is a sign of hope for the American economy. And there you go. There's the picture. I was wondering if you were going to like get rid of it. All right, this is a sign of hope for the American economy.

And I think all of us living in this country right now are happy to hear any piece of good news. It looks like, it looks like the number of jobs lost is not as bad as we thought it would be.

Well, what does that mean? Here's what it means. I want to show you this picture, this graph we put for you. You see it right there? Employers cut just 345,000 jobs in May, right? Now, if these were good times, we would say, that's not good, 345,000 jobs lost. That's not good. But, because these are bad times, that's actually good. That's what the experts are saying.

Now, look at that chart. You see how the numbers are -- are getting better? Look at from January to -- to May. You see the bar? It's getting smaller and smaller. Look how small the bar is in May, compared to January, compared to February. That means the number of jobs lost is less.

And that's important. By the way, here's the unemployment figure. It hit 9.4 percent this month. So, the total, no, it's not so good. The trend, though, does seem to be promising. Keep your fingers crossed.

There's the plane again. We expect the president to be coming out at any moment. Let's try and sneak a break in. And then we will come back. And if the happens during the break, we will interrupt the break and show it you as it happens, the president of the United States arriving in Paris and all the coverage you expect from us up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: All right, Rog, give me the shot of the president again. This is in Paris. You see the door of Air Force One, where the president's going to be coming out any moment. There it is, as a matter of fact. Sorry. I didn't notice it was there already.

Are we seeing some movement? Oh, my goodness. Great timing. As soon as we come out of the commercial, we see the president of the United States. Let's take the shot full now. And the president is now in place arriving.

We don't know at this point if President Sarkozy is going to be joining him there at, I would imagine -- is this Charles de Gaulle Airport? I would imagine it is. The president will be meeting there with some French officials.

And I imagine that this is really part of a trip that underscores what the president has tried to do. Now, the message has been sent far and wide, as some past presidents have uttered, Kennedy in particular, to Muslims around the world that there's a new framework that's going to be had by this president.

He seems to be underscoring that same message by not just going to France, as you see him arriving today, but actually going to Germany earlier in the day. And -- and we're going to be taking you through that part of the coverage as well.

Now, it's important to note -- oh, this is Orly International airport, not Charles de Gaulle, again, Orly International Airport. This is not Charles de Gaulle, again, Orly International Airport. There we see the president again. He's getting in the -- in the limousine.

We -- we are not sure if there are going to be -- remember, the last time we did this, we were covering one of the -- one of the president's trips to Latin America. We were told that there would be no ceremony at the airport and then suddenly a ceremony popped up, to our surprise.

We don't know if it was to the surprise of White House officials. I'm sure Secret Service knew about it. And, at the same -- and, by the way, when we covered that one, he also got in the car, then went to another side of the airport, where they had a podium and a microphone set up, and he made some statements.

So, we're going to hang tight on this, just to make sure that doesn't happen and we end up missing it, not that we missed it on that occasion.

Earlier in the day, the president was, in fact, in Buchenwald, where some 56,000 Jews lost their lives in a concentration camp. The president's great uncle, as a matter of fact, and I think -- if we have some pictures of that, let's go ahead and transpose those. We will watch the president arriving in Paris, but the message he was trying to send earlier in Buchenwald was the message that he made yesterday while he was speaking in Cairo, Egypt.

And that is, it is wrong for anyone to not take the historic purpose for the nation of Israel seriously. And that is to say that Jews were -- history made Jews create Israel, that history pushed Jews in that era, and it was wrong. And it seemed to be yesterday when the president made the point that he was pointing his fingers squarely at Ahmadinejad about this point.

And there again is the president. That was him earlier today in Buchenwald. He was laying flowers, along with Angela Merkel, the president of Germany, at -- at that place where the concentration camp once was.

So, there you have the moment as it happens. We will follow the president's goings on there in Paris.

Meantime, a story that, eerily enough, happens on the same day as the president went to Buchenwald, I want to share this with you. Watch this. This is chilling. Go ahead and give me those shots, if you got them. This is a 70-year-old photograph, never before seen by the public.

It's a photo of Adolf Hitler. Take a look. This is Hitler addressing Nazi Party members in Munich in 1938. It's the year before his tanks invaded Poland. Now, look at the Nazi armbands, the flags, the Nazis, the rapt attention, the fuhrer bathed in bright light -- again, this never published before.

And now I want to read this quote. This is from Hitler, by the way, from the photos that we have been looking at. That's not the only one. We have got some others that we're going to be sharing with you. This is from Hitler on the speech that he gave on that day. We looked it up. Here it is.

"The leader of genius must have the ability to make different types of opponents appear as if they belong to one single category." I will read it again. "The leader of genius must have the ability to make different types of opponents -- to make different types of opponents appear as if they belong to one single category."

That was his strategy back then, Hitler's. Think about that.

Next, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Robert Kimmitt is going to be joining me -- why he calls President Obama's visit to Buchenwald a significant event.

And Bill O'Reilly, what he said, what I will say.

Stay with us. I will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SANCHEZ: MySpace and Facebook, a lot of folks reacting already to what's upcoming.

As a matter of fact, MySpace, let's check that one real quick.

"Great. Go get him, Rick. You will be in great company in taking on O'Reilly. I will not use some of the other nicknames. After all, this is a family board."

We appreciate you not doing that. And I really don't need egging on, but, nonetheless, we thank you for the comment.

As we showed you moments ago, President Obama has arrived in Paris. He's going to be in Normandy tomorrow to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. CNN, as aforementioned, will have extensive coverage of that.

Now some deeply moving moments today, the president touring the former Nazi death camp at Buchenwald, Germany. There, you see him with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, also in the frame there, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel, whose father died in Buchenwald.

What a story he told today. It was riveting -- 56,000 people, as I mentioned to you moments ago when I watched Air Force One arrive, lost their lives in the camp, obviously, most of them Jews.

Joining me now from Washington, former U.S. ambassador to Germany, Robert Kimmitt. Mr. Kimmitt, thanks so much for being with us, sir.

ROBERT KIMMITT, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY: Thank you, Rick.

SANCHEZ: I think you probably would agree that no one that visits a Nazi death camp emerges the same person. What affect will this have on our president?

KIMMITT: Rick, my father took me to Dachau just outside Munich when I was 12 years old and his stationed in Germany. I remember that day as clearly today as I did those many years ago.

I think for the president, this is a very historic, a very emotional day. It's one that he'll never forget.

He ran on a platform of change, but some things don't change, and one is that we cannot ever forget what happened at Buchenwald and we must work so that it never happens again.

SANCHEZ: It is almost like as if it he was underscoring the very thing he was talking about yesterday when he met with Muslims in Cairo. This is a fascinating juxtaposition.

In his speech yesterday, he seemed to be saying, no matter how tough he was on Israel, he, as the president of the United States, reaffirmed the Jewish state's right to exist. And part of his argument was this very video that we're looking at now, that visit that the president made earlier today, was it not?

KIMMITT: I think it was. The president made clear, as have all his predecessors, that we have an unshakable commitment to the safety, security, and peacefulness of the state of Israel.

I might note that Chancellor Merkel today in her remarks today at Buchenwald, made that same point, that that's an elemental part of the foreign policy of Germany.

At the same time, the president said we must work together for a two-state solution in the Middle East because that is the only way we are going to have an Israel living in peace and security side by side with an independent Palestine.

SANCHEZ: Yes, but on one side, he's saying, look, we have to do everything to defend Israel. Israel will always be a friend of the United States. He went on to justify their existence morally and historically.

And then he also said what Israel has to do, which is what Israel is saying they're not willing to do. You're a diplomat, you're an ambassador. How do you cut these two and make them work?

KIMMITT: Well, first, you start with the commitment that the president has made to U.S. engagement. He has called upon both sides to take difficult steps.

It is ultimately up to the Israelis and the Palestinians to move this process forward. But the president has committed the United States and Chancellor Merkel committed Germany to be strongly in support of the that rhetoric.

And the president going beyond the rhetoric of yesterday is sending his special envoy Senator Mitchell to the region next week to start taking those practical steps in support of the dialogue --

SANCHEZ: Ambassador, is he doing the right thing by being hard on Israel while praising them?

KIMMITT: I think his remarks were balanced yesterday. He made clear that both sides have important responsibilities in this process going forward.

He said that, though, after, again, making clear our unshakable commitment to the state of Israel.

SANCHEZ: So I'll take that as a yes.

Mr. Ambassador, my thanks, sir, for taking time to talk to us on this most important day.

KIMMITT: Thank you, Rick.

SANCHEZ: All right. This is a 23-year-old. His name is Abdullah Hakim Mohamed. He's in court today. Police say he's a Muslim convert who spent time in Yemen.

We reported that to you as soon as we heard about it. And he is accused, by the way, in the shooting of two U.S. army privates in Arkansas.

This is a story we've been covering all week on CNN and yesterday. So here's a question for you. Why is Bill O'Reilly telling people, many, many people, that CNN is not covering that story? Why, Bill?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: This next segment is about two things, really. It is about Bill O'Reilly -- Bill O'Reilly and the truth, that is. This is about the story involving a Muslim convert accused of killing U.S. army Private William Long. It's a sad story that as you've seen in our coverage has expanded now even beyond that.

But listen to what Bill O'Reilly says about CNN's coverage of accused killer Abdul Hakim Muhammad .

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cable channels as well. They are over- covering things all the time.

BILL O'REILLY, FOX NEWS HOST: Not this one. Not Sergeant Long.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These things get over-covered all the time. It doesn't mean it's right, I agree.

O'REILLY: Look. On CNN only Anderson Cooper.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: CNN supposed to be the news channel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aren't FOX and MNBC --

O'REILLY: No, no. But CNN says, we don't do opinion. We do news. Only Anderson Cooper at 10:00 covered the story. Nobody else.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're right.

O'REILLY: So all day long it wasn't news to cover an army recruiter gunned down in Arkansas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: All right. Let's see. Just to be accurate here and to quote. He says "All day long, nobody else, nobody."

Roger, do me a favor. Let's check the tape. Let's see if, in fact, it was just Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This just in to CNN, two soldiers in little rock, Arkansas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A man accused of shooting a soldier and wounding another.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Authorities believe that the suspect was angry about military operations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of our soldiers was killed and another wounded.

SANCHEZ: Another breaking story that we're following for you. Two military recruiters in full uniform -- I mean, listen to this. Two military recruiters in full uniform have been shot repeatedly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Wow. Anderson Cooper, huh? You know, that last guy there, if he was Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper's looking very Cuban these days.

Roger, anymore?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 23-year-old Arkansas man has been arraigned in a shooting that left one U.S. soldier dead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A man arrested in connection with a fatal shooting at a military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas, faces a court hearing today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In Little Rock, Arkansas, where one soldier was killed and another wounded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was intending to kill U.S. soldiers on American soil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: All right. Let's see. That was Kyra Phillips, Tony Harris, Heidi Collins, Lou Dobbs, certainly you saw myself. You just saw David Mattingly there, Wolf Blitzer. We saw Kiran Chetry. We saw Erica Hill. That's nobody?

Oh, and when we found out, by the way, that the suspect was a Muslim convert, this show by itself spent 17 minutes just on that.

Roger, do we have that?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: It turns out this guy, this 23-year-old accused of killing a U.S. soldier outside of Little Rock military center is a Muslim convert. He used to be Carlos Bledsoe. That was his name, Carlos Bledsoe. Now he is Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Are you starting to get the picture?

Then this newscast that you're watching now on this network that you're watching now that Bill O'Reilly says ignored the story got a hold of a FBI expert following that, to ask him about the links to terrorism, to ask him specifically about Mr. Muhammad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: What is your reaction to what's being reported up to now, that he's a Muslim convert, that he's changed his name, he may have had a Somali passport, and that he apparently, according to "ABC News," we haven't confirmed this yet, may have had a recent trip to Yemen?

Is this terrorism? Is this an act of terrorism?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: All right. So let's see. Let's add this up together now. Ready? We led the story when it broke. We led with it again the next day. We analyzed the terrorism angle with experts, and called former FBI agents to take us through it.

And as a network, we covered the story upteen times throughout the days, throughout all hours of those.

But Bill O'Reilly says he only saw it once. And since he only saw it once, well then, that must be the truth. It doesn't matter what really happened, it doesn't matter what the record shows. All that matters is what Bill thinks he saw.

We called FOX today, by the way. No response yet.

Well, we should also note this. O'Reilly did get one thing right. We here at CNN do say we're in the business of doing news. You know why? Because we are.

And while we are far from perfect, we do check our facts before we say things. And if we get it wrong, we say so. And that is called reporting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: You may have heard, by the way, the "Faces of Meth." The ad campaign highlights the physical toll the drug has on users.

There is a new and improved version of this now, and it's targeting a new audience and ethnicity. It's targeting Hispanics. We want to know more about this. Karen Finnstrom is joining us now. She is live in Los Angeles. What is the story here, Karen? KARA FINNSTROM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rick, we actually went to Boise, Idaho, to see what the Meth Project was doing. That is project that has targeted, state by state, different populations. And now it's reaching out the a whole new audience.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FINNSTROM: Brutal attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can do anything you want to me for $50.

FINNSTROM: Teenage prostitution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about her?

FINNSTROM: The Meth Project just made a name for itself with graphic ads. Their aim, wake up kids to the dangers of meth, which the Drug Enforcement Agency calls the most dangerous drug in small town America.

Now, the nonprofit Meth Project is targeting a new audience, the western United States growing population of Spanish speaking teens.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): I think it affected my brain. I have bad thoughts, and I only want to do bad things.

FINNSTROM: In Idaho, radio ads in Spanish feature young addicts, like Aucensio Flores, sharing real-life meth nightmares.

AUCENSIO FLORES, RECOVERING METH USER: When I was using meth, I felt like, kind of unstoppable.

FINNSTROM: Flores says meth deadened his conscience, sucking him into a life of gangs and crime.

FLORES: I shot like 17 shots into the house. And then I walked around the block and back into the car and then just left.

FINNSTROM: This is where he landed.

Flores is locked up in a juvenile detention center, serving time for grand theft, possession of a weapon by a minor, and drug procession.

Shortly before he was convicted, Flores became a new father.

FINNSTROM (on camera): Do you have a picture of your son up here?

FLORES: Yes. That's him.

FINNSTROM (voice-over): But he hasn't met his son because the mother doesn't trust Flores.

He recognizes the toll of his addiction.

FLORES: I missed out like on everything, Thanksgiving pictures, Christmas pictures. Everybody's in it except me.

FINNSTROM: Flores recorded a Spanish radio ad hoping to reach other young Latinos.

FLORES: There are a lot of people that manufacture meth. And I know that they're trying to get younger kids to do it. And a lot of them don't know English.

MIGUEL MOUW, METH PROJECT VOLUNTEER: In the Hispanic community, there's just lack of education. There's lack of treatment resources. There's lack of support.

FINNSTROM: Miguel Mouw is an Idaho Meth Project volunteer and recovering meth addict. He's speaking in classroom and at community events. Cindy Rodriguez has been listening.

CINDY RODRIGUEZ, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: We didn't know a lot of what the drugs are and what they do. So what my parents would do like when they were listening to the radio, they were like, oh, you should listen to this.

FINNSTROM: Rodriguez says she was prepared when peers offered her meth.

RODRIGUEZ: Oh, you should do this so that way you can be a little bit cooler, or because you're with us, so you need to do. I'm like, no.

FINNSTROM: Government leaders in Montana, where the Meth Project launched in 2005, credit the effort with great declines in meth use.

But not everyone is convinced of the program's effectiveness. Researcher and critic of the Meth Project David Ersig Hearn tells CNN "Some teenagers react negatively to graphic advertising. These people don't like being told how to behave by the ads, and they rebel."

Flores isn't sure how effective the ads are.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via translator): Trying it once is too much.

FINNSTROM: But he wants young Latinos to hear what meth addiction cost him.

FLORES: Taking away Friday freedom, being away from my family.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: This is a problem that's affected the entire nation. I remember just two years ago we were talking about how many meth labs there were in the southeastern part of the United States, places like Georgia and Tennessee and Alabama.

And now we're hearing it's a huge problem out west. How has it shifted and how big is the problem there?

FINNSTROM: Well, meth is a drug that's made by mixing drugs that is are bought over the counter with some common ingredients. And, Rick, Drug Enforcement Agents say that traffickers have found these rural, remote states are a good place to do the business.

In fact, actually, the DEA says 12 to 14-year-olds who live in smaller towns are more than twice as likely to use meth as those who live in larger cities. So that's why they're focusing so much attention in these rural areas.

SANCHEZ: Kara Finnstrom reporting to us. We thank you for bringing us that story.

There is breaking news that I have to share with you right now. This information is just coming in to us that two people have been arrested, charged with spying on the United States government, doing so, in fact, for the last 30 years. And according to prosecutors, they were spying for the Cuban government.

What's worse, they were inside the U.S. government. One of those being charged apparently worked at the State Department. The other one worked as a congressional aide.

The information, again, just starting to come it. They're charging through the District of Columbia. They're charging Kendall Myers. He's 72, aka Agent 202, and his wife Gwendolyn Myers, 71, aka Agent 123.

So that's the name that's being given to them, illegal agents of the Cuban government committing wire fraud, also being charged with many other crimes.

Again, this information just now coming in to us. We will continue to go through the papers -- as a matter of fact, Johnny, show them what we're talking about. This is the report. Look how many pages are involved in this that explain exactly what they were report, how they were doing, and what a threat it was to the United States government.

Remember, it's not only about what they, the information that they may give to Cuban officials, it's what then those Cuban officials do with the information by passing it on to other governments that may be enemies of the United States. And there's the rub.

We'll stay all over this and get more information and drill down on it for you.

Meanwhile, take a look at what made the cover of "Time" magazine, Twitter. This is a sign of just how far social media has come, and it's all because of you, your feedback.

Remember, we were doing twitter before it was cool to do twitter. "Time" magazine's Stephen Johnson here to tell us how Twitter and other social media are changing the way we do business. But, of course, you already know that from watching this show.

That's kind of a dig. Stay with us. He and I go after this when we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Manila is often called the billboard jungle. The bustling capital of the Philippines is awash in a sea of advertising billboards. With new ads going up all the time, the old ones end up at the landfill.

But an environmental charity is hoping to change things by cutting the problem down to size. Old billboards like these are given a second life at a workshop run by a local NGO, the Earth Day Network. They are recycled and remade into bags.

The tarpaulin from the billboards is an ideal material, tough enough for anything from school bags to shopping totes.

Binggirl Clemente started this opinion. Her original aim was to target the company's advertising on the billboards. She wanted to sell the bags back to them to show that these old billboards are, in fact, a resource that has been overlooked.

Many companies took interest, giving the group their old billboards and buying them back reborn as bags.

BINGGIRL CLEMENTE, EARTH DAY NETWORK: When you're done with one thing, please don't though it away. Save it. It may be useful so some other people. It can be useful again to your future needs.

LU STOUT: With the success of the billboard bags, the group is giving free school bags to the village children.

Kristie Lu Stout, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: You remember a long time ago, a lot of people were looking at me, looking at this show like we were crazy when we took out a lap top and we started talking about Facebook and MySpace and social media. And people were saying, twitter, what is that?

No, the folks on MySpace, take a look at this. No, Rick, you're killing us over here, not Twitter. The folks on MySpace are getting mad at me because they think I use Twitter too much and I'm abandoning them. I apologize for you guys taking it that way.

And then over here, the guys on twitter, "Rick Sanchez, AKA -- "also known as," not "aka.""

I just said something a little while ago that was kind of stupid. When I was doing that breaking story, I said "AKA," and I said "aka," which is wrong. For some reason I decided -- I said that for a long time, and I knew it was wrong. They called me on it. That's the transparency of social media. I want to show you what else is going on with social media. This is interesting. Stephen Johnson is joining us now. He's written a story for "Time" magazine, because the cover or "Time" magazine next week is twitter. Take a look at this.

Twitter has made the cover of "Time" magazine. Talk about making it to the big time. Steve is joining us, by the way, from where I was yesterday, hosting a convention on twitter and social media. So this whole thing is going on all over the place.

Here's what's interesting. What I just did -- I just pointed out that I had made a huge mistake, and someone on twitter pointed that out to me. It's very transparent.

I also said that people on MySpace are mad at me because they don't like what I'm doing. For a lot of CEOs and a lot of people who look at social media, that scares them, doesn't it?

STEPHEN JOHNSON, CONTRIBUTOR, "TIME": That's right. I mean, it's a conversation now. It's by definition kind of a two-way conversation. You're going to have ten different monitors of different social networks in front of you, Rick, by the time this is all finished.

But you can't avoid it. The audience is there talking to you, and you have to listen to them.

SANCHEZ: It used to be that the news anchor, or you, or the CEO, or the person gave a speech. Today the format is, as I have found, there are communities out there. You have to go into those communities, like knocking on a door to somebody's house, a neighbor, and say, hey, how are you guys doing, what are you talking about?

And then eventually you introduce yourself, and you tell them maybe about your product or about yourself. That's different than a 30-second spot, isn't it?

JOHNSON: Even when you do give a traditional speech now, you'll find -- I find this all the time, that there's a live conversation happening on twitter about the speech.

So you finish talking, and then you go back and search twitter, and the ability to search twitter is a key thing, one of the things I talked about a lot in the piece, and you see all this chatter about what you have just said.

So even if you're actually giving that kind of one-way conversation in an old lecture format, you still are having a conversation --

SANCHEZ: Listen, let me tell you something. What I found yesterday at that convention, and I'm sure you found it writing this article, the next step in this social media thing that we're all now into, finding communities that fit us and talking about them, is filtering.

Over the next year, we'll see new filtering devices that will tell us, and do for us what you just said, down to 20 seconds.

JOHNSON: This is the really interesting question about the challenge of Google, actually, that's coming out of this, because if you can search for links to interesting articles through your social network, that's a really interesting way to filter out all the irrelevant stuff that's out there and actually find what you're looking for.

SANCHEZ: And you want to find out about yourself or your product. It's cool. I think it's great, great thing going on.

Wolf Blitzer, he's going to get on real soon. He's in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Rick, thanks very much.

Happening now, President Obama confronts the horror of the holocaust and the long and bloody struggle between Israel and the Palestinians this hour, new urgency that's pushed for Middle East peace, and his emotional visit to a Nazi concentration camp.

Plus, why a doomed Air France jet may have been speeding toward destruction. New information from the airplanes maker about a crucial device that could have gone haywire.