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CNN Saturday Morning News

Midway Airport Crash Investigation Continues; Some Runways Too Short; Severe Weather In Northeast; Women Purchasing Power On The Rise; Kidnapped Egyptian Found Murdered

Aired December 10, 2005 - 09:00   ET

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

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Not what you want to wake up to, thousands without power and they're facing a big day. After a powerful snowstorm barrels through the northeast, we will have the latest on that straight ahead.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta where it is also very cold. I'm Betty Nguyen on this CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

Is that the front coming in?

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Tony Harris, 3:00 in the afternoon in Oslo, Norway, 6:00 a.m. in Los Angeles. Good morning everyone. Thank you for starting your day with us. More on that foul weather in just a moment, but first a look at what else is happening now in the news.

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan is in London today to attend an anti-war conference. She has lost a son in Iraq, has become a de facto symbol of the anti-war movement in the U.S. She will admit to the recent abduction of four humanitarian workers in Iraq, saying, quote, this won't help the cause of ending the occupation.

Top U.S. officials are pretending this morning that the nightmare scenario of a bird flu pandemic has become a reality. The four-hour exercise at the White House is meant to test the federal response to an outbreak. President Bush and Vice President Cheney are not taking part.

This morning in Oslo, Norway, the Nobel Peace Prize was formally awarded to Mohammed Elbaradei, chief of the U.N. Nuclear Agency. Elbaradei says winning the prestigious prize boosts the agency's credibility and authority worldwide. In his acceptance speech he says mankind faces a choice between nuclear weapon asks survival.

NGUYEN: Well the investigation is moving ahead, but it could take a while. Authorities are looking into what caused a Southwest Airlines plane to slide off the runway during a snowstorm and dart into a busy Chicago intersection where it remains at this hour.

Today the jet is going to be moved to a hangar, but federal investigates say it could take up to a year before they know exactly what caused that accident. Investigators are also beginning to interview crewmembers today and they're going analyze the plane's voice and data recorders in Washington. Thursday's accident at Midway Airport killed this 6-year-old boy. He was in his family's car when the plane rammed into traffic. More than a dozen other people were hurt.

This crash is renewing a nagging question. Are airports doing all they can to keep you safe on the runway? Well, as CNN's Kathleen Koch reports the answer may trouble you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The FAA now requires runways to have a thousand foot buffer zone to keep planes safe, but 38 percent of runways all in older airports built before the rule still don't meet the standard.

JOHN GOGLIA, FMR. NTSB MEMBER: I wouldn't say that it's safe at all. I mean, the risk is there and we need to do what we can to mitigate that risk.

KOCH: The Federal Aviation Administration says it's not easy to get those buffer zones built.

MARION BLAKEY, FAA ADMINISTRATION: We'd love to wave the wand and have overnight, every airport have the safety buffer zone completely installed. Again, this is something that takes time and it obviously requires resources and money. Sometimes there's land acquisition involved.

KOCH: The newest solution relies less on land and more on a system of crushable concrete blocks.

KENT THOMPSON, SAFETY ENGINEER: Perhaps 3,000 or 4,000 of these blocks are assembled as a jigsaw puzzle at the end of a runway and if a aircraft should run off the runway it crushes the material and brings the aircraft to the stop.

KOCH: But the engineer's material arresting system EMAS for is in place at just 14 airports. New York's JFK had a buffer of only 550 feet before it put in the country's first EMAS system in 1996. Since then, EMAS has stopped three aircraft there and local officials insist putting it in more airports is a no brainer.

CHARLES GARGANO, NY & NJ PORT AUTHORITY: We've had instances where passengers could have been badly injure order even lost their lives and when you think about that you don't think about the dollars involved. We all have to put our heads together and say we're going do this.

KOCH: Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: The recently passed federal law seeks to encourage more airports to extend their runway barriers.

HARRIS: Shovels, snowplows, look at the pictures here. NGUYEN: Just look at that.

HARRIS: It's a mess.

NGUYEN: It makes me cold just to watch it.

HARRIS: You have no sympathy for that Betty.

NGUYEN: The dog liked it.

HARRIS: Everybody knows you're sitting in a warm studio, Betty.

NGUYEN: So are you.

HARRIS: Oh, boy, snow up to a foot deep all across the northeast. Power company crews getting a lot of overtime. The storm knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of customers. At least five fatal traffic accidents are reported in three northeast states. Man.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: We will get an update now, Betty, on all of this weather in the Northeast. Steve Cooper of CNN affiliate WHDH in Boston joins us live from Acton, Massachusetts. You know, Steve, I know that you've got all kinds of problems up there.

You have lightning striking an airplane, I'm reading in the "Globe" this morning you have tractor-trailer jack knifing on the interstate, you have school buses filled with kids and accidents. You have people -- it's a mess, but you what? If you can get past all of that, the snow can be a lot of fun.

STEVE COOPER, WHDH REPORTER: Yes, it can, Tony. As a matter of fact, we're standing here in a mountain of snow this morning and why not? This area of Massachusetts just outside of Boston, we knew they would get a lot of snow yesterday, they talked six to 10 inches and this morning they've ended up with 16, 17 inches of snow and you can see the mountains of snow.

This isn't the mountains of New England this, is North Andover, Massachusetts, just 30 miles north of Boston. You can see what was left behind and this was a weird storm right from the get go. We started out with some snow and some wind and things were settling down and it really got going yesterday afternoon. Creating those piles of problems that you were talking about.

Let me show you what some of the roads look like this morning because you can see that glaze of ice that's still left behind. The main roads seem to be in decent shape this morning, but it's the side roads, the secondary roads that are still causing problems here. The sanders have been out most of the night trying to deal with this stuff. But they have a ways to go.

This is simply a day to dig out from all this stuff. Of course, the holiday season is here, just two weeks away until Christmas and everybody is dreaming of a white Christmas. This has probably come true because this stuff isn't going anywhere in the next couple of weeks, I can promise you that. You can see, Christmas wreaths and trees, well they are hot sellers today and why not? A lot of people are sort of waiting until the last minute as we get closer ...

HARRIS: Hey, Steve. Steve, that's good stuff, man, but we're about to run out of time. I see you with the board there. You're going to do something with it.

COOPER: Hang on, Tony, live from Massachusetts, Steve Cooper, back to you.

NGUYEN: I hope a car doesn't come by. Get out of the street.

HARRIS: Hold the phones. All right.

NGUYEN: I hope you didn't hurt yourself.

HARRIS: There you go. Steve Cooper, having fun in the snow.

NGUYEN: That's fun. You need a hat. Look at that stuff. You want to ball it up and make snowmen.

HARRIS: All right. Steve, that's enough camera time for you, good-bye.

NGUYEN: Get out of the street. You're going get hit.

HARRIS: Still ahead this morning. Let me guess where you're going at some point today. No, no, no. You're going a mall, we hope. We need the dollars and the economy, all right? During the shopping season. You go girls! What women want and how much they spend getting it. That story coming up.

NGUYEN: Because you know they're going to get it one way or the other, right? Yes. And so many lights, so much music and so many bands. So why was it all unplugged? You will find out later here on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: So you've heard of girl power, right? Women are becoming the driving force behind culture, commerce, politics, religion. They're also taking charge of the marketplace as the primary purchasers of homes, cars, appliances and electronics. That's right, we like those techie items. So will they drive the holiday sales this season? Kelly Anne Conway and Celinea Lake spotted this trend and they're the authors of the book "What Women Really Want." They join us now, Celinea Lake is in Washington. Hi there.

CELINEA LAKE, AUTHOR, "WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT:" Hi, how are you?

NGUYEN: Great. And Kelly Anne Conway is in New York. Welcome, ladies. Kelly, let's start with you. Will women drive holiday sales?

KELLY ANNE CONWAY, AUTHOR, "WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT:" They already are and that includes some of the beeping, blinking, big-ticket items that in the past have been the primaries of men like automobiles, computers.

This year iPods certainly are big and what's different about women is they number one are feeling more comfortable using technology to complete the sale online of holiday goods and number two, they're actually buying technological goods. What's really fascinating is that many of them are getting their advice not from the stores clerks and not from the men in their lives but from the children in their lives because children have technology as their native tongue.

NGUYEN: I have to tell you my little sister. She's only 12 going 30 and she knows everything about technology. If I have a problem I am like how do you do this? It almost seems wrong that she knows more than me so I can understand that, but why is it that women are really driving the sales when it comes to these big-ticket items and how much money are we talking about, Kelly?

CONWAY: You are talking about billions and you're talking about billions per year now and the holiday season figures will be in next month so we'll know for sure, but the early sales figures did show that women were the ones busting through those doors and getting the early specials. They weren't buying clothing necessarily. They were buying DVD players and MP3 players. And here's what's different for women. Number one, you have more women leading households.

So they literally have to be the purchasers of these big ticket items and number two, women feel more comfortable with technology now that you feel more comfortable to complete the credit card information and third and most importantly in perhaps, women are more upwardly socially mobile. They have their own disposable incomes to spend and they have enough black pants in the closet. So they're going and getting into the '90s.

NGUYEN: So Linda I want to bring you in because when it comes to buying these items they're not only buying for themselves, but they're buying for their family. So what do women really want?

LAKE: Well women are making the decisions in lots of areas now and one of the things that we found is that 80 percent of all purchasing decisions now are made by women and even more are heavily influenced by women.

Women are looking for -- to turn their home into the new center of their life for themselves and their families and as we talk about in the book, they're making their home the new electric time in their lives. They're looking for control and lots of people from people selling cell phones to people selling soup cans are talking about ways in which women can gain more control over their lives.

They're looking for choices and they're not necessarily making choices in the same sequence that they've always made them before. Finally, we see that -- I want to underscore what Kelly Anne said which is that women influence each other. A third of women say they talked to other women as a primary source of information.

NGUYEN: Absolutely, so are retailers and companies picking up this? Are they marketing to women more?

LAKE: We se record amounts of marketing to women. And that includes online. Online shopping and online information searches used to be the purview of men, but now women have taken over that arena from everything from eBay to Best Buy. So companies from cards to homes to second homes to boats, to DVD players are marketing women now.

NGUYEN: Yes. You name it. We are taking over the world. You ladies know that, right?

CONWAY: We do.

NGUYEN: This is what we want. Ooh all lined up in your book. "What Women Really Want." We appreciate your time. Kelly Anne Conway and Celinea Lake. The happiest of holidays to you.

LAKE: Thank you so much.

CONWAY: Thank you.

NGUYEN: Tony,

HARRIS: This just in to CNN, a kidnapped Egyptian has been found murdered in Iraq. Mohammed Ibrahim Al Halali, 46 years old was found dead north of Tikrit. He was snatch by gunmen on Friday evening from downtown Tikrit.

He had lived in the country, had lived in Iraq for ten years and actually was building a medical center in Tikrit with U.S. funds found dead in Tikrit today by -- and this report is coming us to from Iraqi police and other officials on the ground there. All of this playing out as the deadline to kill four western hostages including one American is set to expire today. Once again this, just in to CNN, a kidnapped Egyptian found dead in Tikrit.

NGUYEN: And still to come, we are going find out more information about that and this. New video of the man air marshals shot at the Miami airport. Investigators are still sorting out all of the details here and we are going have more from our dot com desk about it. >

HARRIS: Betty, is this a Christmas or is this a holiday tree?

NGUYEN: Christmas tree versus holiday tree. The battle rages on. You know it does every year it comes up.

HARRIS: You said it with such berth. Share your thoughts with us here at WEEKENDS@CNN.com. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Convicted serial killer who has brought death to so many now wants to save a life? Just one of the stories people at CNN.com are clicking on this morning. Veronica De La Cruz joins us now from the dot.com . This is a good tease. I want to know all about this. VERONICA DE LA CRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very interesting headline, which is why so many people are clicking on it. They're also interested in watching the surveillance video. We have been watching it this morning. But we're going to take a look at it right now. This is the video from the airport. We're just about to show it to you.

You what I'm talking about? This is the airport in Kito, Ecuador before Rigoberto Alpizar was shot and killed by air marshals at that Miami International Airport. Like I was saying we've all heard the story by now Alpizar was shot after he claimed to have a bomb in his bag and the video we have on CNN.com doesn't have any audio, but you can watch as he makes his way through the airport and then he makes his way through customs with his wife. So it's very interesting to watch.

Now to that story we were just talking about. After being convicted of killing 29 people in New Jersey, Charles Cullen now wants to donate one of his kidneys to help save a life. Cullen who was once a nurse killed more than two dozen patients in his 16-year career by injecting them with lethal doses of drugs. I know. Some suggest he just wants to do something good now after causing so much harm and others say he wants to continue playing the angel of mercy or he wants to remain having control over life or death. Either way, it's bizarre.

Finally, guys, take a listen to this.

HARRIS: Good stuff.

DE LA CRUZ: I know, good stuff. Eight years ago this man's wife said hey, honey, can you put some lights on the house an and -- 25,000 lights later we have this. Carson Williams combined lights, computer software and music to create one of the biggest home light shows in U.S. history. This light show is so popular, and has drawn so much attention that Williams recently got an offer to feature the house in a beer commercial.

HARRIS: Nice.

NGUYEN: What does that have to do with beer?

HARRIS: A lot!

NGUYEN: Unfortunately his 15 minutes of fame are up after a minor fender bender in front of the house because of all of that traffic. The cops have asked him to pull the plug at least for the rest of the year.

Why don't they just close it off to walking traffic only?

Something I wanted to mention. He says he has the most fun picking out the songs. I was thinking maybe we could give him a few suggestions for what he does next year. Do you have any favorites?

DE LA CRUZ: He obviously is the expert with the techno Christmas thing he's got going.

HARRIS: Trans Siberian Orchestra, wizards in winter. That is the song.

NGUYEN: They were so impressed that they flew him out to wherever they for Europe. Where are they from? Norway or something. Siberia. He was flown out because they were so impressed with the light show and he says, you guys, you haven't made it until you're featured in a beer commercial.

DE LA CRUZ: I guess that's true.

HARRIS: All roads lead there.

DE LA CRUZ: Good seeing you. CNN.com/video.

NGUYEN: All right. "Open House" is straight ahead right after a quick look at the day's top stories.

And the next hour, a quietly weapon in the war against Al Qaeda. Iraqi citizens capture a terrorist leader and turned him over to U.S. forces and we're going to take you live to Baghdad to tell you just what this means in the war on terror.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET RENO: I made the decision. I'm accountable. The buck stops with me.

ANNOUNCER: Plain spoken and tough, Janet Reno became the first woman U.S. Attorney General. A star of the Clinton cabinet, she had the president's confidence and ultimately took responsibility and heat for the Elian Gonzalez case and the branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas. She was attorney general for eight years. Earning a spot in pop culture by being impersonated on "Saturday Night Live." Reno made a guest appearance when she left office.

RENO: I just dance, now hit it.

ANNOUNCER: Reno is now living in Miami. She's currently working on various legal issues and supports Everglade's conservation. Despite dealing with Parkinson's disease she hasn't slowed down or lost her sense of humor.

RENO: Just get used to the fading.

ANNOUNCER: Reno ran for Florida governor in 2002, she doesn't plan on running for public office again. She enjoys spending time with her nieces and nephews and is an avid kayaked.

RENO: Time to smell the roses and to appreciate kayaking and listen to a symphony, to spend time with the people I love and it's a good way to live.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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