would you be doing right now? >> hiring about 30 teachers. >> reporter: the teacher likes the policy more than the typical taxpayer. they said the contract with the city expired more than a decade ago, the negotiations failed. and they add that they are woefully under paid. it's quite interesting to hear what the president of the teachers union has to say about the plastic surgery benefit. >> we told the teachers at the beginning of the negotiations six or seven years ago that we're willing to give it up, but when the board is willing to negotiate with us, it's gone. >> do you think they should say, teachers, no more plastic surgery. >> it would be as good as gone. >> all they have to say is we're willing to negotiate. >> but you're not willing to do it unilaterally? >> no. >> those departments aren't dealing with the same financial problems as the economically challenged school system. >> everybody has to work for a

living. they should pay their tithes examine offerings like everybody else. >> i don't think taxpayers should have to pay for that. not for free, anyway. >> reporter: for now the policy remains in a cool district with a unique mix of brain and beauty. gary tuckman, cnn, buffalo, new york. and we continue along here. top of the hour. welcome back, i'm brooke baldwin. a couple stories. you better check your accounts. dow hits a big milestone today. and protesters shout death to america in the streets. time to play reporter roulette. allison, i want to go straight to you. at the new york stock exchange, we've been talking about how we've been flirting with the number. we hit it today, the magic number 13,000. i know we talked about how it's psychological in terms of importance, but it's more than that. >> it is more than that. yeah, it is an important -- that psychological mile tone, but it's also a confidence booster. the average person, brooke,

looks at the dow as an indicator of how the economy overall is doing. so 13,000 is one of those feel-good numbers. what you saw happen today with stocks, they are lower right now and they are further away from that 13,000 mark. but that greek bailout agreement, that helped lift us earlier today, but the market didn't get to this point all of a sudden. the dow has been climbing for several months because of indications the recovery is picking up speed, jobs, manufacturing, housing, those areas are all improving. companies have been doing well. their profits are up and it's reflected in their stock prices, so i say it's okay to go ahead and loinvest in the stock marke. >> something else we're not liking seeing going up, up, up, but going up it is. >> the price of oil is now close to $106 a barrel today.

it's happening because iran. iran cut off exports to britain and france over the weekend, and what iran is doing is reacting to eu sanctions put in place last month over its nuclear enrichment program. that oil price spike directly affects what the price is at the gas pump, but what's interesting about this phenomenon, brooke, is it's less about the real supply of oil and more about the fear of what if iran continues to choke supply. it's already $4 in some states. here we go again. brooke? >> kosik, thank you so much. our cnn correspondent barbara star is on this one from the pentagon. you're talking to military officials. what are they saying about this? >> well, brooke, what they're saying is they gathered up these religious materials for

disposal. that was planned. but what happened next was not. apparently much of this religious material was put into some kind of a situation where it was burned for disposal and that was inappropriate. that led to the demonstrations outside the bogran air base. hundreds of thousands of afghanistans protesting the burning of their holy book, the quran. but there's more to the story we learned late in the day. apparently what u.s. officials found, when they looked at a library that detainees were using at a detention facility in bogram, they found that some of this literature had extremist sayings written into it, some extremist messages in it, and extremist literature that had made its way into the detention facility at bogram. a security breach by all accounts. that is the material that they gathered up for disposal. so we have two things going on here. material that was a security

breach gathered for disposal, and when it was disposed of, disposed of inappropriately which led to this situation, brooke. >> okay, so two points, and your sources are then agreeing with nato officials saying the actual burning, that was a mistake, yes? >> absolutely. general john allen, the top commander in afghanistan, issued an apology. the secretary of defense, the state department, another very, you know, concerning incident to them after so many when things in afghanistan were not handled appropriately. troops now will be trained in the proper disposition of islamic religious material, brooke. >> and then back to your point how these detainees used this library and there were scribblings of the extremist sayings, is that how some of these detainees were able to communicate with each other? do we know anything more about that? >> funny you mention that. that's one of the suspicions now. as one official said, clandestine communications? they're not really sure.

they're looking into that. they may know a good deal more than they're telling us right now. because this is a security breach, this is something that's very concerning to them. the most we know at this point is the materials that they gathered up, as you quite correctly point out, have these extremist scribblings in them right inside the library that detainees were using inside bogram air base. how they got there, they're not saying. >> barbara starr, thank you very much. coming up next, steven colbert is back. he addresses the mystery of why his show suddenly stopped production last week. you will hear his message in a rare moment. plus, at least 23 million americans are said to be addicted to booze, drugs, prescription medication, and dr. sanjay gupta is about to explain why it really is all in their heads, and why quitting is harder than most think. your profile said you were milk...? yeah, i am.

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free is very good. my money. my choice. my meineke. is. if it is interesting and happening right now, you're about to see it. rapid fire. let's go. in california, a teacher involved in child sex abuse appears in court. mark berndt pleaded not guilty today to 23 counts involving lewd acts involving a child. he was arrested last month after miramonte school officials discovered just about 600 very graphic photos of students, some of them just too disturbing to describe. president obama today giving americans a pat on the back for helping push the payroll tax cut extension through congress. >> we are here because of you. this got done because of you. because you called, you e-mailed, you tweeted your

representatives and you demanded action. you made it clear that you wanted to see some common sense in washington. and because you did, no working american is going to see their taxes go up this year. that's good news. [ applause ] >> the president urged congress to pass more help for the middle class, and to give you an example here, the payroll tax break is worth more than $80,000 a month f-- $80 a month for someone making $50,000 a year. the supreme court agreed to hear today the case of a young woman denied admission to the university of texas because she is white. the policy says race is only one of the many factors to determine acceptance. the case will be at the height of the campaign season. now this. that is not the sound you want to hear as hail is pelting your car. this crazy storm blew through

parts of kansas, causing all kinds of damage. hail the size of nickels pelted cars, high winds blew trees down, sent a roof flying at a community college. that same storm system is now moving east. and move over, oprah winfrey and mark cuban. the cable world getting a little more crowded. comcast has announced that nba legend "magic" johnson will launch fire. shawn diddy combs to launch "revolt." steven colbert is back on set after abrupting cancelling shows last week. he took off to be with his ailing 91-year-old mother. there has been no comment from come did he central or colbert himself. last night, in true colbert fashion, he kept everyone guessing. >> i just wanted to address my

recent absence from the national conversation. as the hub upon which the republic turns, i can understand why the machinery of this great nation ground to a halt last week when you were denied this. evidently, having 11 children makes you tough as nails. confidential to a lovely lady: [ gestured ] . >> did you know he was one of that many children? and getting plastic surgery. whitney houston was laid to rest over the weekend, but what caused the superstar's sudden death is still not known. investigators are looking into whether her battle with drug addiction played a part at all. so all this week, cnn is committing to going in-depth on addiction in america. and part of that now, new research reveals that substance abuse causes lasting changes in the way your brain works, resulting in cravings as

sufficient as thirst and hunger, and joining me now, dr. sanjay gupta who knows a little thing or two about the brain. i'm disappointed you don't have the brain model with you today. >> i try to take my brain with me everywhere i go. >> you do it so well. what exactly does the brain of an addict look like? >> this idea that the brain of an addict is somehow different i think is pretty well proven. everyone has sort of an anticipatory response, meaning you crave something, you want something. take a look at the animation specifically. someone has a substance they're exposed to, maybe a drug, maybe even certain parts of food. those drugs, dopeamine. that's what you expect, that sense of euphoria, so to speak. now take a look at these images over here. on the left, that's what a normal brain should look like. it stays lit up. on the right, the addict brain starts to get a little dimmer

again. why is that important? they don't have the sense of euphoria for that long after they take a substance. the result? you take more and more of the substance to try to get that sense of well-being. it's a little simplistic in the way we look at addiction, but it's that simple in the brain. >> so i guess one would have a predisposition? one would, from birth on, look like that? >> there are going to be certain people who will more likely have that. it's unclear whether they're born like that or whether the exposure to substances changed their brain. but genetics. if you're the son or daughter of alcoholics, you're seven times more likely to become an alcoholic yourself. if you're exposed to substances a lot, that can make you more likely to become an addict. and if you have some sort of mental illness, be it depression or anxiety, that predisposes you to addiction. >> seeing the brain on the left, the changes, the grooves, is

that permanent? >> that question has a little bit of a controversial answer. some people say it is not permanent. with time the brain can sort of rewire itself, if you will, and have natural pleasure, normal pleasure, to substances, not have this tamped down like you see in the addict's brain. what i hear is the threes. three days of acute withdrawal, it's painful to leaving substances, three months to where you're really vulnerable to another relapse, and three years to where the brain really rewires itself. if you're a smoker, stop smoking, pick up a cigarette. you're much more likely to go to addict phase than someone who never spoemoked before. the brain never forgets. >> is there a connection to an addict's brain to anyone suffering any kind of disease? >> disease is the right word, because addiction is a brain disease. there are lots of other chronic diseases which have similar sort of patterns. you have the disease, you can

have relapse similar to addiction, you can compare it to things like asthma, to diabetes, to chronic heart disease. relapse rates are very similar with those sort of chronic diseases as they are with addiction. this is a brain disease. and i think most of the scientific community sort of agrees on that point. they don't always agree on the origins of it, exactly, and they don't always agree on the treatments, but the fact they call it a disease changes the perception of it, i think. >> you're coming back later this week, i hear. >> yeah. >> it's so, so important. either someone you know or someone you've touched has had an addiction. >> yeah. they need to bring in supplies that these people so desperately need. it has to be as fast as possible. >> as the government murders its own people, families and children are running out of food, they're running out of baby diapers.

arwa damon with an inside look to how they survive in secret. it's something you will not see anywhere else.

we do have some new word out of syria today. opposition sources are telling us 55 people have been killed today in the syria town of idlib. that is a scene of fierce crashes between government troops and the armed opposition, and today's deaths in idlib eclipsed the numbers in homs where today 44 people have been killed. by now, as you may be aware,

cnn's arwa damon was able to sneak into homs without a government visa, and her reporting has shown a harrowing light. now she shows that people in homs are beginning to fear that they will starve. >> reporter: the men call out names, carefully counting out and distributing baby diapers to families huddled in a bunker. everything here is carefully rationed. including food, which is running short. shake aman tells us that in the last two weeks, nothing has come into the neighborhood. some of what they gather come from stocks in homes or salvage in stores hit by the military. we take them so they don't go to waste. we keep track of everything we took to reimburse the owners. moving the staples is an elaborate process. even an operation like this one,

bringing in the basic supplies that residents so desperately need, has to happen undercover of darkness, and they also have to be as fast as possible. they've been quickly calculating exactly what it is they need to take out for the time being. and they've been loading things like baby diapers, cracked wheat, lentils, but then someone called out saying, oh, should we put cooking oil on the truck? well, they've run out of cooking oil. in fact, this is pretty much all that they have left. all they have left for the thousands trapped in baramad. there is no food, there is only cracked wheat and rice, says this woman, showing what bread she has left. look at it. look what we are eating. the shortage is not just limited to there. there is an entire network in place just to deliver bread and fuel. war brings out the worst in

people, but also the best. this is one of the many people trying to help otrs out by making runs to damascus and get things like bread, gasoline, cooking oil. but even that takes lengthy planning and great risks, he tells us. we have people there that we are working with to gather the products, he says. but it takes time. and the road is very tough. we have to go through the farmlands, getting shot at, just for a bite of bread and a bit of fuel. local bread factories lie idle. there is still hardened dough covering these machines, although this particular bread factory has not produced a single loaf for around a week now. even though there is yeast in the refrigerator and there are bags of salt. however, there is no flour. and that is because flour is subsidized by the government. its distribution, well, that is fully under the control of the regime, and the regime is not sending supplies out here anymore.

ashlam lives in a bunker after her home was destroyed by artillery. she goes to the medical clinic and then comes back to this. today i just had a cup of coffee and two cigarettes, she told us. and nothing the last two days before that. i can guarantee you this. people will starve to death. if the shelling doesn't kill them, maybe hunger will. arwa damon, cnn, homs, syria. >> arwa damon, thank you. back here in the uls u.s., d is murdered in front of his son's daycare in what police call a deadly love triangle. but the man accused of pulling the trigger will use barry white and olivia newton john in his defense. sunny hostin so the case. she's next. ew. seriously? so gross.

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we heard opening statements today in the murder trial of

hemy neuman, someone with no prior criminal record. he is charged of murdering this father outside his son's daycare in 2010. neuman was having a workplace affair with rusty snyderman's wife. he has pleaded not guilty by reasons of insanity. the defense says a demon with the voice of barry white and an angel that looked like olivia newton john commanded him to pull the trigger. sunny hostin on the case. i know, i hear your -- i'm thinking the same thing. on that note, let's talk about the insanity defense. what is the defense trying to prove? >> well, in this case, brooke, in georgia, they've got to prove that, bottom line, he didn't really understand the difference between right and wrong, that he was operating under this mental disease or defect, that he just couldn't tell what he was doing at the time that he committed

this crime was wrong. it's a really difficult defense to prove, and we've talked about this, brooke, right? it's probably one of the most, if not the most, controversial defense strategies in our system, and it's rarely, rarely successful. but they've told us from the very beginning that this is what they intend to prove, and we heard about that defense in opening statements today. >> i want to play a little bit of the sound. this is what the victim's widow said when the prosecution asked her about neuman's alleged visions. >> did the defendant ever tell you that he saw or talked to a demon? >> no. >> did the defendant ever tell you that he saw or talked to an angel figure? >> no. >> did you ever see the defendant prior to november 18, 2010 act illogical or irrational? >> never. >> so you heard the line of questioning. what is the prosecutor trying to do there? >> well, the prosecutor is certainly trying to show that he knew the difference between

right and wrong, that this was a planned, well-executed murder. there is some evidence to support that. we know that he went there in disguise, brooke, he rented a car so that no one would recognize his car. he left his cell phone at his place of employment, ge, for anan anal -- an alibi, and he went into that rental car after the crime and sped off into traffic. when he got back to work, he didn't acti irrationally. he was a supervisor there. so i think that is enough evidence to show that he planned this or he knew what he was doing was wrong because he tried to cover up his actions. i think that's a pretty good rebuttal of a defense.

>> but on the other side, they're saying he's a survivor. >> that could certainly help if they are using this insanity as a defense. there will be a doctor called by the state to say that this defendant was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. he was also apparently diagnosed with another disorder. but it's very, very difficult to prove because the onus is on the defendant to prove that he was insane at the time that the murder was committed. >> so he faces life in prison if convicted. you mentioned the defense. they say, you know, he's been diagnosed with did elusional disorder, bipolar. if he is let go by reason of

insanity, would he go tie mental hospital? >> yes, he could spend his life in a mental institution. after the hinckley acquittal, i think people feel very uncomfortable with the insanity defense, but that certainly would happen if he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. he may spend the rest of his life in a mental institution. >> on the case as always, sunny hostin. thank you very much. piers morgan just sat down with the governor of new jersey, chris christie. you're going to hear why christie says the republican party isn't in love with the guy he endorsed. that is just in. we'll play it for you next. lighr how good they taste. get your free sample of quaker oatmeal squares on facebook.

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hours to go until tomorrow night's republican debate in arizona. the positives is flooding for rick santorum.

santorum brought in twice the money last month than he had the entire campaign, $4 million. mitt romney, on the other hand, took in 6.5 million, and his cash dwarfs santorum 5-1. so money aside, mitt romney has some heavy-hitting endorsements, including new jersey governor chris christie who will run tonight. here's just part of it. >> why are members of his own party in love with mitt romney? >> the first is he's a very reserved guy. so in the time that we're in right now, which is very tumultuous, angry, emotional time, at the moment reserved is not necessarily what the primary seems to want. that's one part of it. i think it will be a real asset to him in the general election as times are tumultuous and

people are looking for a president, not just a nominee. but i think secondly, too, it is the nature of our republican elector right now that they're very angry with the president, the direction the president has taken us in, and they want someone who they believe will fight the president. now, i think governor romney will do that on the issues. they seem to want something more motive at the moment. i think that kind of ebbs and flows, and i think it will come back his way as we look at this conference coming up at the end of the month and then on to super tuesday. >> but before super tuesday, one more stop on the cnn stage. huge debate tomorrow night, mesa, arizona host bid john king. live arizona, 8:00 p.m. eastern time. i hope you join us all in tweeting. meantime, thinking of tweets, my twitter feed has been blowing up because of my next guest. she is a former runway model and a person dr. drew once predicted would die because of her addiction. she is jennifer gimenez.

she is good enough to join me today about her life in rehab, even her time in a psych ward and what kept her alive. don't miss it. [ baby crying ] ♪ what started as a whisper ♪ every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing. ♪ slowly turned to a scream ♪ there's an insurance company that does that, too. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? ♪ amen, omen

. right now more than 23 million americans are fitting--n fighting an alcohol or drug abuse, and jennifer gimenez, she is one of them. she was a house manager on the

reality show called "silver house." in this clip, gimenez is trying to track down a house member who has relapsed. >> hello? hi. i'm not in a position right now to go out searching for seth. so the next best thing to do is call one of the people that loves him the most to go find him. here's the deal. he said, i'm okay, although he's high. >> it looks like he has a loft there. >> it's a loft. like a hotel. do you know if that's his hangout? it's his dealer's house. >> and gimenez has a lot of experience for the job because she has been fighting addiction herself. while a model in her teens, she attempted suicide, fighting her need for alcohol and drugs. i want to welcome her to the show. jennifer gimenez, good to see you. i just read, jen, you marked your sixth year of sobriety. congratulations. >> thank you so much.

thanks for having me on the show. january 15 is my sober birthday. i just celebrated. thank you, thank you, thank you. it's seriously the biggest fight i've ever done in my life. >> let me back you up because i just want to start at the beginning, the back story, because i know starting from your supermodel days in your late teens to when you used cocaine for the very first time. take me back to then. >> i took my first drink when i was 12 years old, and i just wanted to feel -- my family is from argentina, and i just remember everyone celebrating and having a good time, and the wine was always in a bottle on the floor, and i just wanted to feel that happy. when i moved back to america and to l.a., there was a lot of things going on in my personal life with my family and whatnot, and i just wanted to escape, you know, and what happened is now that i understand it is i have always felt myself so uniquely different, and i never felt like i fit in. and it helped me cope. i took that first drink at 12, and around 14 or so, i started

experimenting with pot and this and that, and at close to 18, i took my first line of cocaine. and seriously, that was what was the greatest love i have had. and i've had to -- >> how so? doing i don't know how many lines of cocaine, what did that high do for you? what did it feel like? >> you know, it was that one first line that is the thing that i've been chasing ever since. it just -- it shut everything up in my head and made everything quiet and okay for just a minute. i've been seeking it ever since. they say one is too many and 1,000 is never enough. i ended up doing like an eight ball in one night. that's how my drug addiction took its toll. i went -- i blew everything, not only on the outside. on the outside my life still looked okay. i was really great at pretending and acting as if, and making you

think i was okay until it just got really dark and really ugly. and, you know, it was really painful. >> at the dark place, you end up in this psych ward, and i understand, jen, you tried to take your own life. what's the last thing you remember about that moment? >> you know, i have been struggling with sobriety. i've been fighting for the last 14 years. i've been in and out of a 12-step program of sobriety, i've had stints of a lot of three days, 30 days, six months. i think the longest i had was about a year and a half, and i relapsed on ambien because i couldn't sleep and my doctor gave me an ambien prescription, and then it just stopped working, and he said go ahead and take 15 milligrams instead of the 10, and that would make me go into a blackout and i would take the whole bottle. that was 300 milligrams of ambien. pretty much your body shuts down, you go into a coma state.

>> are you angry at your doctor for giving you those drugs? >> i'm very angry today with the doctors. prescription drug addiction is so huge right now, it's an epidemic. drug addiction and alcoholism, it's an epidemic going on right now, and there's people out there that don't even know they have the disease and that they're dying. i'm really angry and i told him that i was sober at the time, and what dr. drew has taught me is it wakes a beast. i can't take that kind of stuff. there's other sources out there of things you can take, like a non-narcotic. what happened was, i went back to drinking ask thnd then i weno cocaine again, and i went into treatment with dr. drew. i went for five days just to shut my girlfriend brandy up and my mom up, and i ended up staying nine and a half months. i relapsed in treatment, and my dealer at that point had hooked me -- i thought i was buying cocaine, but he hooked me on

heroin, speed, horse tranquilizer and rat poison. >> were you aware of what you were buying? >> no. i had no idea what i was getting. i just wanted to escape, and at that point i was in such a dark place, and i was so spiritually sick and i was so physically sick. i didn't understand why i was, like, nodding out and why, you know, i was bleeding more through my nose and why it wasn't working anymore, and i just remember being -- i kept hearing about dr. drew, and it wasn't shutting him up at that point. >> so what clicked? how did you change your life? >> my mom and my family. i just knew that i couldn't get sober again. and i felt like, wow, i'm not

even dying quick enough. so i went back to the treatment facility where i got sober. the other doctor, not dr. drew, said you're hooked on opiates. i'm like, what are you talking about? they test med and they said you'll have to go into the psych ward before you can go to a dependency clinic. this is really upsetting, but my mom would tell me, i remember six years ago you were kicking the windshield. i would be screaming at my mom, please, just take me to get one more hit. i had never asked my mom to do that. it was pretty low. but she didn't do that, thank god, and i went to loas encinas and they put me in the psych ward. i thought, wow, this is pretty dark. i thought, i'm just going to end it. when i came to, i was strapped

up. thank god it didn't work. >> thank goodness also for moms. jen, wow. my final question, and i thank you so much just for speaking from your heart and being honest. if you were to see the jen who was sick many years ago, what would you say to her? >> that she's loved. and that she deserves to give herself a break and that it's okay and it's not all her fault. >> jennifer gimenez, i thank you so much. and truly, truly, the best to you. thank you. >> thank you. thank you so much. >> we are back in 80 seconds with important advice about your savings and your mortgage. stay right there. hello, how can i deliver world-class service

for you today ? we gave people right off the street a script and had them read it. no, sorry, i can't help you with that. i'm not authorized to access that transaction. that's not in our policy. i will transfer you now. my supervisor is currently not available. would you like to hold ? that department is currently closed. have i helped you with everything you needed ? if your bank doesn't give you knowledgeable customer service 24/7, you need an ally. ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense.

time now for the help desk where where he get answer to your financial questions. joining me now, consumer education with smartcredit.com, and a personal finance author of the blog, ask the money coach.com. john, yur question comes from brandy in kansas. brandy wrote in, my husband and i have enough in savings to buy our first home as a cash purchase, but the property we like will need some work before we move in. should we finance the home purchase or take out a loan for the repairs? >> i like the idea of buying the house as planned and taking out a heloc. it's not overbearing but large enough to cover the cost of repairs. the good news is the interest on

helocs is generally tax deductible, and not bad for your credit score, and the interest rate is usually about 3 or 4%, really good rates right now. >> michelle said, we're underwater on our mortgage. we do not have a government-backed loan. we have a va loan guarantee loao available if we refinance. what should we do? >> the v.a. prospect is a good option to consider. however since they might have a loan from one of the major five lenders lie citi or chase or j.p. morgan, wells fargo, et cetera, b of a. those lenders as we know just signed an agreement with the attorneys general around is the country, allowing homeowners who are under water, who have a loan held by one of those five institutions to refinance. this would be a big thing obviously in the months and really years to come. i would definitely look into that. those provisions are that if your loan is above 5.25%, they're going to try to get you

in at current rates today. hsh.com today is a good place to shop around for that for the mortgage rate side, but i would look. don't be locked into thinking i have to have a v.a. loan. >> especially with the settlement. if you have a question answered, just send us an e-mail anytime.

"the situation room" minutes away, wolf blitzer live from mesa, arizona, the site of the big debate come tomorrow night, but let's talk, sir, about big poll numbers. we're rear leasing them in eight minutes. >> correct. take a look at this, brooke. this is the new cnn/"time"/orc

poll. in my hand, i know the answer to this question, that registered republicans, do they support rick santorum, mitt romney? what's going on, and i have the answers at the top of the hour. i can't do it before, but at the top of the hour, i'm going to release these poll numbers, cnn/"time"/orc poll. i think some folks will be surprised. we've seen some other polls about what's going on in michigan one week from today, arizona and michigan, the republicans in both those states, they go to the polls and they vote. a lot could happen between now and next tuesday, but this is good stuff. if you're a political news junkie, like i am, and i know you are, this is good stuff. am i getting them excited? >> i think you are. let any add to that excitement.

i might have snuck a peek from a certainly person. and you're talking about how many times the tables can turn, so we want to push people to your blog. are you having fun on you there, by the way? >> you know, i'm -- on top of everything else, i went to see the wizards play the suns last night here in arizona. >> of course you did. >> the wizards unfortunately lost, but it was a good solid game. always fun to go see an nba basketball game. you know where i'll be this weekend? >> atlanta? >> no. this weekend i'll be in orlando for the nba all-star weekend. of course. >> some linsanity going on. my good friend jeremy lin and i will be hanging out in orlando at the nba all-star weekend. it will be fun. >> give him and the rest of the guys our best. wolf blitzer, always into something. coming up next, we want to

talk about elephants. this is incredibly tragic. 300 elephants are dead after poachers kill them for their tusks as fears grow their babies may soon die of hunger or thirst. we'll speak live from one in the elephant sanctuary in nashville, next. [ male announcer ] it's lobsterfest at red lobster. the one time of year you can savor 12 exciting lobster entrees, like lobster lover's dream or new maine lobster and shrimp trio. [ doug ] the sweet, succulent meat. that's a good-tasting lobster. [ laura ] i'll eat it any way i can. [ doug ] we're the mclennan family from spruce head, maine, and we sea food differently. home protector plus, from liberty mutual insurance, where the costs to both repair your home

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we want to share with you this harrowing story out of west africa. the government of cameroon has confirmed that almost 300 elephants have been killed. it wasf. it was from sudan niece -- we're going to air some pretty disturbing pictures. fair warning right now. i want to bring it rob atkin son. for the royale society he is currently ceo of the elephant sanctuary in tennessee. rob, when you learned of this

elephant slaughter in cameroon, what was your first reaction? >> it's horrific. poaching is increasing in africa. it's as a consequence of lifting a ban on international trade in ivory in 198. since then poaching is widespread. thee losing 800 of the possible lace every year, the slaughter is brutal, it orphans lots of calves. it's carried out using machine guns, also used in warfare. >> and in terms of the numbers, one wildlife official is quoted as saying this particular slaughter dwarfs previous similar killings. can you see any reason why this would happen on such a scale? >> well, there's war going on in sudan. the guerrillas are looking for money. s in a cheap and easy way of getting money. the main cause is the demand.

it's the market for ivory throughout the world, but particularly in the east. so as long as there are ivory markets that are open and legal, poaching with carry on the way it is. >> i understand the guards in these parks are massively outgund by the poachers. 45 seconds, what's the solution? >> the solution is to ban the international trade in ivory, if people can contact their representatives and get the united states to oppose any attempt to have legal sales of ivory. if you can close down the legal market in ivory, you close down the el lyle market in ivory. that's the best way, as well as increasing money to these countries through donations for anti-poaching patrols. >> is it conceivable that poaching, given the demand you talk about could entirely wipe out a country's entire elephant population? >> it's already unsustainable, losing 8% every