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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  March 31, 2010 9:00am-11:00am EDT

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see you tomorrow morning. >> and good luck everybody who's dealing with this severe weather situation out there. we think it will be better tomorrow. >> sunshine, nice warm temperatures tomorrow. >> meanwhile, here's "cnn newsroom" with kyra phillips. good morning, kyra. good morning, guys. it's almost april. do you know where the mcstays are? not a peep from them. their cell phones, their credit cards for about two months. are these people missing? maybe they don't want to be found. if that's the case, it's a heck of a vanishing act. groping, rape, torture. for fun? for the win? what? is the night stalker cranking out video games from death row? this stuff is being made legal in japan. would you want your kid -- heck, would you want your husband or boyfriend playing this game? and cornell puts up fences to prevent more suicides. one student says they make the campus look like an insane asyl asylum. his words. so is it a steel band-aid or could it make the problem even
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worse? but first we begin with the weather assault of new england. flooding that you say once every 100 years, heck, maybe 500 years, looks like this is rhode island's year. >> i could turn on the jet ski and go for a ride. what can you do? mother nature's winning. >> the smallest state in big trouble. rivers cresting at record levels, major roads closed, power out, evacuations, shelters everywhere. a state pound and paralyzed by rain. not just there, either. rhode island's neighbors are taking a beating, too. a state of emergency in massachusetts, the national guard ready to help. well, it's a record river level also in connecticut. boats where boats shouldn't even be. theian ti iayantick, more than feet above flood stage. let's swim back to rhode island, shall we? reynolds wolf's got his boots on. you need them where he is. he's in cranston. when is all this rain going to end? what do you think, reynolds? >> reporter: well, it looks like
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today the rain is going to come to a screeching halt, and that couldn't happen soon enough. take a look at this. i happen to be on a street in cran stron, rhode island, as you mentioned, and about 12 hours ago this was a dry roadway. but now you have the waters, the river, the pawtuxet river that have come right on through. and this is what happens when you have, let's see, 15.47 inches of rain that fell during the month of march. you're talking the month of march being like a wet lion. well, tuesday came in roaring, also, where we had 7.9 inches of rainfall that fell in about 24 hours. when that happens, you can see the result all around me. as you mentioned, it's something we're dealing with not just locally but regionally, affecting millions of people. we had a chance to speak a short while ago to a man by the name of eddie flynn, who's called cranston home his entire life and this morning had this river certainly brought all kinds of damage and heartbreak to both him and his family. >> it is ridiculous. we just don't -- put the keys on the counter and walk out of the
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houses. it's at that point now, you know? i mean, i got four of my neighbors down the street that had u-haul trucks yesterday, moved everything out. >> reporter: talking about other damage they've been dealing with not just in homes but many businesses and also sewage treatment plants over in warwick and west warwick. both sewage plants closed down. that will affect tens of thousands of people told not to flush it tos or do laundry until conditions get better. although the rain has stopped and the water continues to rise, it looks like things will get better through the weekend, early next week, when all the waters recede. then comes the cleanup and what a big cleanup it's going to be. that's the latest from here. more stories of course ahead and jacqui jeras has the latest on the forecast. one big weather package for you throughout the day. back to you, kyra. >> perfect segue. jacqui jeras, help us out. how are conditions looking right now? >> a couple spotty showers, so it's hit and miss. not everybody is going to get wet in this area today. you can see it on radar, a
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little bit of that blue right here, and even some of that is not reaching the ground. additional rainfall well under a quarter of an inch i think for everybody here. and the accumulating rain is going to stay into parts of maine, so that's some good news. our low-pressure system is going to push on up to the north and east, so it's looking a lot better. let's show you the accumulated rainfall totals, what we're expecting here, and there you can see nothing accumulating here, all up to the north, again, less than an inch. but we've had record rainfall not just yesterday in many of these areas but for the entire month of march. in fact, boston, not only is this just a march record, this is the second wettest month you've ever had on record. providence, rhode island, 16 inches of rainfall for the month. and you should have approximately 4. so all that stuff's got to run off. the good news that we have for you, as that low-pressure system pulls out, high pressure is going to move the and we're going to have a reversal of the weather patterns. very beautiful weather, sunny conditions, 70-degree temperatures as we head into
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tomorrow. that should last at least until saturday, but we'll be watching sunday as this next storm system approaches. we're hopeful the worst of the weather actually moves up to the north of the region and stays out. but we could potentially have some things pop up again over the weekend. we'll keep track of that storm as it develops. kyra? >> thanks, jacqui. first female suicide bombers killed dozens of innocent subway riders. now police officers have lost their lives in yet another blast in russia. the terrorism continues. 12 people died today. it happened in russia's southern republic. police say the first blast happened when a car rigged with explosives blew up as police were driving by. then 20 minutes later, a suicide bomber impersonating a police officer blew himself up after approaching rescue workers responding to the first explosion. bombs, it's a terrorist weapon of choice, and this time it's happening in southern afghanistan. 13 people killed, 45 injured when a bicycle laced with explosives blew up. this bomb went off near a crowded marketplace in helmand
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prove dinse, and as you know, helmand province is the forefront of the u.s. effort to get rid of the taliban. it continues to be a huge challenge for our troops. and a chance to get out of jail today for members of that michigan militia group we've been telling you about. nine members of hutaree were indicted on weapons charges after a plot to kill police was uncovered. their alleged plan, weapons of mass destruction to take out our cops. federal investigators say that attack was imminent. a judge is expected to decide if they'll get bail at a hearing this afternoon. we're going to track it for you. it's not exactly drill, baby, drill, but later this morning, president obama is poised to unveil sweeping new changes to the nation's new domestic energy policy, including opening up previously closed coastal areas for expanded oil and natural gas exploration and drilling. the president is expected to announce his revamped energy plan a few hours from now during an address at andrews naval air facility. and you can watch it live right here on cnn. that's 11:05 a.m. eastern time.
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health care reform. the is are dotted, the ts are crossed and the complete measure signed into law. but as president obama basks in the victory, some of his loyal democrats are facing the wrath of angry voters. i guess we saw that coming. brianna keilar, our congressional correspondent in cincinnati, where one congressman may have voted himself out of office, right, brianna? >> reporter: that's right, kyra. behind me, this is downtown cincinnati. this politically is not the problem for congressman steve drieha driehaus. this is the area of his district that trends more democratic. but across town, it's a different story as he tries to sell his "yes" vote on health care reform. we're on the west side of cincinnati. >> this flower shop here is owned by my cousin. >> reporter: following democratic congressman steve driehaus through the neighborhood where he lives one week after he volted for health care reform. >> how you guys doing? >> reporter: talk to some of his
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constituents at the local chili joint, and it doesn't feel so sweet to be home. what do you think about his vote on health care? >> pretty upsetting. i trusted steve. i voted for steve. and he didn't do what he said he would when he ran for congress. >> reporter: what do you feel like he didn't deliver on? >> i'm -- abortion. >> reporter: ken stinson went to catholic school with driehaus, but like many constituents in this conservative, heavily catholic part of town, he's angry because of this. driehaus joined a handful of ant anti-abortion democrats to deliver the needed votes to pass health care. a move that could cost him his job in november. have you come to grips with the fact that, considering the environment, this could be it for you? >> every election i run in is a tough election. if you're looking for job security, politics is not the place to be. and so i think it's absolutely a the right vote, and i'm going to run on it and help people understand why it's the right thing to do for the country.
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>> reporter: starting with local business leaders. >> but, look, i understand the fear, but the fear doesn't align with the reality of the legislation. >> reporter: and some of health care reform's staunchest critics, seniors. >> we're making investments in primary care. >> reporter: but if health care reform is a tough sell in driehaus' neighborhood, he does have some supporters. jason and erin humphry live on his street. >> i just think with the economy and everything that's going on, i think it's a good change for people that have had issues being able to get covered in health care and be able to afford health care. >> we have to do something. we need change. and this is a good step. but, again, he may have performed career suicide. >> reporter: but supporters like his neighbors the humphries there tell me they hope that his "yes" vote works to his advantage. but this is really the issue for steve driehaus. when he came into power, his first term, 2008, he's a freshman democrat, he was really
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buoyed by urban and black voters who were very much energized by president obama being on the ticket. well, there are no more coattails. that's an issue for driehaus, although he tells me, kyra, he's hoping that president obama can help him out by campaigning in this very competitive district and revving up that democratic base. >> we'll track it. brianna, thanks. they haven't been seen in nearly two months, but new evidence suggests a family disappearing act was more deliberate than previously thought. police and one relative weigh in. click your mouse and you can touch, feel, grope, and, you ready for this? rape women. it's sick. and it's a video game that's made women mad at hell, forcing the game maker to bow to pressure.
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well, as we know, kids can be so cruel. and as we watched this story unravel, new heartwrenching details surrounding a teenage girl's suicide in hadley, massachusetts, are coming out. they knocked books out of her hand, sent her threatening text messages, even called her an irish slug. now more students are being punished. this time, a small group of students have been kicked out of south hadley high school. nine other students have already been charged. charges ranging from statutory rape to criminal harassment. prosecutors say 15-year-old phoebe prince was bullied for months before she hanged herself in january. now investigators are trying to figure out why would she be such a target of this kind of abuse. >> jealousy, probably.
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i would imagine that they were all jealous of her because she got a lot of attention from people, positive attention. >> nick says that phoebe, a freshman, had started dating a senior on the football team. the jock already had a girlfriend. those two are among the nine students facing charges linked to phoebe's suicide. here's a case where one arrest really snowballed. canadian authorities busted a 29-year-old ontario man for alleged sex assault and child pornography. that led to a bigger investigation, a global child porn ring. 73 people arrested in 20 countries. these people do their dirty work in a virtual and hard-to-reach place called the dark net. >> the offenders have taken over that area, and it is very difficult for law enforcement to get down into that area, and it is impossible to specifically identify who's doing what. >> another officer said these child porn perps are getting harder and harder to catch. are they missing or does a
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california family just not want to be found? police in san diego now believe the mcstay family's disappearance nearly two months ago may have been more orchestrated than originally thought. investigators say that evidence from the family's computer suggest a change of scenery was in their future, but a relative doesn't see it that way. >> they were making inquiries concerning travel in mexico and passports, which would indicate there was at least some type of planning ahead. >> it kind of shocked me that, you know, someone is inquiring about that type of information because i know in my heart he would not take those babies over the border unless he was forced or drugged. they had a very good life so, there was no reason at all to just up and poof and disappear. >> police say that they haven't
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seen any activity on the mcstays' bank cards, credit cards, and cell phones since they vanished. their suv was discovered a few blocks away from a border checkpoint into mexico. and on the same day police believe family is seen on surveillance tape entering the country. jacqui jeras, you talked to us about it about 16 minutes ago and it's not going away. rhode island having some serious flooding. >> yeah. in fact, we just got a report in now that the pawtuxet river in cranston has exceeded the forecast crest, so it's now, what, at, what is it, sean, 20.7? 20.76 feet. so that's right around -- it's got to be cresting pretty much right now. it's not going to move a whole heck of a lot much more, but we're in the worst of it right now. i also want to show you, check this out, kiran, remember the movie "mystic pizza"? >> as a matter of fact. wasn't that -- was it julia roberts' big breakout movie? >> it absolutely was. and these pictures from that
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area, this is the mystic river, and this was beau o'brien, who sent us these pictures. he said they had about 9 to ten inches of rainfall there yesterday. he said his house is okay but that's not the case across parts of the area. schools are out, and we move on to this next one, it's going to show you a road which was washed out in this area. there you can see it. look at that. a big sink area, and that's one of those things we tell you to watch out for and why we tell you not to drive over some of these flooded roads. the good news is that the rain is out of here. you know, we've got a couple of spotty showers and that's it, but it's really not going to be adding any more insult to injury. the heavier rain is going to stay up here into parts of maine, but additional rainfall eve therein is going to stay well under an inch, we think. so high pressure will be on the move coming in here by late today and into tomorrow, and this is some great news because this is going to stick around far couple days. in fact, temperatures would be as much as 25 degrees above average as we head out the end
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of the week, so that's some good news. but you know that that cold front is going to come on through by late in the weekend. we veal to watch out for some thunderstorms here, as well. high temperatures today are cooler because of that low sticking in, but those 70s are going to be pushing in. check it out, 72 today in minneapolis, 84 degrees in dallas. we've had a complete reversal of the pattern. while it's been great out west, not so great -- or great in the west, not great in the east, we're going to flip-flop that. look at that. 39. snowing today in salt lake city. >> just amazing the difference from one place to another, you know? >> spring. >> freezing rain in new york yesterday when i fly home and it's like summertime here, jacqui. >> denver had, what, 20 inches of snow a week ago? yesterday 82 degrees, high. >> ski some powder, hang out at the beach. thanks, jacqui. let's go again. maybe not. stranded in midair not quite what they had in mind. i'd like one of those desserts and some coffee.
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to see how our multi-faceted approach... can benefit your multi-generational wealth, look ahead with us at northerntrust.com. pipe bombs being placed around east texas at an increasing pace. that's according to the atf. two more bombs were discovered yesterday in long view, texas. more than a dozen have been found so far. the atf is sending more agents to the area, and they have more than doubled the reward now for information leading to an arrest. it was supposed to be a fun day at the dade county florida fair, but instead two thrill seekers got a different kind of
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ride. they were stuck dangling 50 feet in the air. took about two hours to get them down. local tv stations reported it took so long because fire and rescue crews didn't have a long enough ladder. just can't stop super man. the man of steel shattered another record for most expensive comic book. an issue of action comics number one, the one we first saw clark kent. remember that far back? sold for 1 1/2 million bucks. breaks a previous record set by batman last month. take that, caped crusader.
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are your multivitamins doing
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more harm than good? before you clean out the medicine cabinet, listen up. there's a tud di linking vitamins to greater instances of breast cancer in some women. cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta talking about how serious that risk is. you hear a lot of stories about multivitamins, and i've gone back and forth tossing them out, buying them again, tossing them out. how do you know? >> these are tough stories to report because there have been studies in the past showing the opposite, that multivitamins don't have a link to breast cancer. but this was done out of sweden, a big study, 35,000 women, following them over ten years. they try and find certain populations of people who are more likely to get breast cancer and figure out what are the things that are different in those women than the women who didn't. one of the things that came out was use of multivitamins. what that basically said was there was about a 19% increased risk of women taking multivitamins at the beginning of a ten-year period as compared to women who are not. they are care to feel say there is not a cause and effect here,
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that multivitamins somehow causing breast cancer, but there does appear to be this association, which is what i think they were focused on. we talked to several people about this, and they say, look, you know, it's not cause for going out and throwing out all the multivitamins in your medicine cabinet, but is it biologically plausible that something in a multivitamin, which has lots of vitamins, minerals, lots of different things, could somehow increase your risk of branser? possibly. we don't know what it is, don't know who the women are who are likely to develop it and there's no direct cause and effect established. >> i know i'm throwing out random questions we didn't discuss so, tell me if you don't know. >> i often don't know. >> moveon.org. is it possible something in that multivitamin, one part of that multivitamin, that just needs to be isolated and taken out? are they going to study that now, break it apart and -- >> that's exactly what it is. >> okay. >> they have ideas already. they're focusing on the b vitamins, b-12, b-6, possibly --
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>> isn't that what you take for energy? >> some people take it because they have a deficiency of it. >> right. >> should you be taking a multivitamin for the heck of it or to overcome some sort of deficiency. there are people who should take multivitamins for sure, people who are -- pregnant women, for example. >> fprenatals. >> seniors. you can see the list there. people with g.i. disorders, restricted diets. for the vast majority of people, if you're eating a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables, you probably don't need to take the multivitamin. trying to get the good stuff, if you will, out of food and putting it into a pill form, is a lot harder than it sounds. you have these bottles with a picture of broccoli on it. you're not getting broccoli in a pill. you're getting the substance of broccoli. >> i have more questions later on. thanks. >> i think i filibustered in there. sorry about that. next time. >> thank you, sanjay. time may be running out on a tax credit, but if you still haven't found your dream home,
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don't fret it. you could still save a ton of cash. the census helps us know exactly what we need, so everyone can get their fair share of funding. we can't move forward until you mail it back. 2010 census.
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expectations are growing that reports this week would show some job growth. bell ringing on wall street. but some of the air has come out of that balloon. stephanie elam, whew, boom. >> exactly. we were so excited and now we're kind of like, yeah. but you're right, there are still some roadblocks that are out there. wall street's was expecting today's unemployment report to show jobs were added this month, but instead private sector payrolls dropped by 23,000, so adp says american businesses are on the cusp. >> referee: of recovery, that's how they put it. it doesn't compare to the hundreds of thousands of job losses we saw at the start of the recession and it happens to be the smallest number of cuts in two years. this report comes two days before we get the big jobs report from the government for march, and it's expected to show
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job growth since take into account the folks that were hired to handle it will 2010 census, the fact that some people couldn't get hired because of the snowstorms in february. so this is actually supposed to show a really big number of 190,000. that's the estimate there. we'll be keeping our eyes on that one. it's usually more in line than this so we'll be watching this one. may have to do with folks hired to do the census. the chevy volt is scheduled to roll off the production line today. it comes just a day after nissan announced its battery-powered car, the leaf, and it would cost $33,000 or $25,000 after a federal tax credit, and that happens to be about $6,000 less than the volt. finally, we're watching shares of apple. they hit an all-time high yesterday after "the wall street journal" said the company is developing an iphone for the verizon network. right now the iphone is only available through at&t, and this will open their product to a whole new slew of people out there who might be willing to get it if it's at verizon.
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let's check the markets and see how they're reacting to this adp report, kyra. not surprising to see we're on the down side, the dow off 28 points, and the nasdaq off about seven at 2403. we'll be keeping our eyes on it. but so far folks not too happy to see this jobs report is going the other direction of what we're hoping to hear on friday. >> thanks, steph. let's talk about saving you some money, shall we? if you've been thinking about taking advantage of that home buyer tax credit, you've got a month left, but depending on where you're house shopping you could gelt maybe an even better deal later on. josh levs at the stimulus desk. what do you think, josh? >> all a matter of what position you're in. isn't it nice to know there are people out there buying homes at all in this economy? it's something compared to where we have been. they kept delaying this or really extending this opportunity from the stimulus. this home buyer tax credit. people wanted to take advantage of it. gives you $8,000. this is right here what it says
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there. it expires april 30th, and you have up to $8,000 for first-time home buyers. it doesn't apply to absolutely every person. there are some specifications there, like there are limits on your income, limits on how much you can be spending on your home. but overall if you're a new home buyer you can get up to $8,000. and if you're someone else who is wanting to get a home and you already own one, you can get up to $6,500, all that coming from the stimulus. but this is what i find so interesting here. you might be better off not going for that big chunk of change and instead waiting. and the reason there, kyra, is is that unfortunately, it's a reality of our economy, home prices are still dropping more and more. so if you rush to take advantage of that $8,000 now, you might miss out on the fact that the same home might cost $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 less late they are year, beginning of next year. this is where you get into that gamble, that guessing game. do you want to take advantage of that $8,000 now or risk it and see if the home price goes down
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a lot more? that's why we're saying don't necessarily rush to take advantage of it. >> how can people know prices will go up or down where they want to move on? >> this is really cool. i have a map to click on. let's take this computer behind me right now. a lot of information for you at cnn.com/stimulus. this story right here shows you these maps. what you do is click on all these different cities and it shows you what's been going on with home prices in that area and what is expected to happen in the coming months up to the next year. this can help you a lot. i've been looking into this. these figures do have a really good track record. the places that are providing this information have a good track record of getting it right. i have a link on my facebook at josh levs on cnn. if you're interested in buying a house and want to check it out, hopefully that gives you the information you need to give yourself the most educated guess you can. but of course the big caveat in the end, it is something of a guessing game, something of a
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gamble. you make that call and we wish you the best of luck. kyra? >> thanks, josh. >> thank you. the days of merlin are so over. there's a video game out there now where players can actually grope, torture, and, get this, rape women. this game's so bad we can't even tell you all the graphic details. but we can tell you, though, will blow you away. toyota has done a lot of research and a lot of work, and we've been open 24 hours a day -- 7 days a week. and we've made a tremendous amount of progress. you know, safety and reliability is top priority.
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and we're just getting this news in to cnn. apparently the u.s. navy right now is searching for a missing crewman in the persian gulf. he was actually aboard a radar surveillance plane taking part in operation enduring freedom. the other three crew member, we are told, have been rescued. the plane was actually heading back to the carrier, "uss eisenhower." we'll be tracking the story for you to bring you more information. this is actually not the aircraft that went down.
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it is a similar -- it's a picture of the same type of surveillance plane that they are looking for. if you're not familiar with this kind of aircraft, it can hold a pretty good amount of crew members monitoring radars and special satellites to try and find enemy aircraft weapons on the ground. it's extremely important aircraft for the u.s. navy. and apparently now we're getting word that it went down and a member of the crew is still missing. meanwhile, three others of that crew have been rescued. we're tracking it for you. we'll bring you more information as we get it. a video game so vile and disgusting that it makes your stomach turn. players actually groping, stalking, raping, and groping little girls because it's fun. the game is made in japan, but women's groups around the world
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are outraged. it's a story that makes your stomach sick. >> reporter: well, that's the reaction that a lot of women's groups around the world and namely in the united states are having that feeling after watching and viewing this game or even just hearing about it. we want to make something very clear -- the game has been pulled from the shelves but in your digital borderless world, that's just the very beginning of the story. we want to warn our viewers that some of the information in this story you may find a little disturbing. the heart of. pa japan's electronics district, the games of tomorrow on sale today. on shelves in mainstream stores, plenty of what's known here as hen-tai games. almost all feature girlish-looking characters. some are violent, depicting rape, torture, and bondage. find and rape the woman who fired the player from his imaginary job. most of this game we cannot show
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you. these games are not new for japan. this country has long produced products the rest of the world would call importapornographic. a quick web search general rates hundreds of japanese games. once a game goes on sale in tokyo, it's digitized and shared everywhere. this one, called "rape way," begins with a teenage girl on a subway platform. with a click of your mouse, you can grope her and lift her skirt. you, the player, stalk her, her sister, and her mother, following them on the train. what follows is a series of graphic interactive scenes that we can't show you. players can corner the women to rape them again and again, and it goes on from there. the game infuriated women's rights groups. >> these sort of games that normalize extreme sexual violence against women and girls have really no place in our
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communities. >> reporter: international outrage led the japanese developer to pull the "rape way" game from stores last year, but that didn't stop it from spreading. in fact, the controversy took it viral. that's how lucy kibble and jim gardner in eng land heard about and downloaded the game as they told me over skype. >> it's a controversial subject, and i wanted to try it just to see what it was all about. >> reporter: that global availability is why international women's rights groups say japan needs to regulate game makers better, stopping creation of certain content. >> what we are calling for, though, is that the japanese government ban all games that promote and simulate sexual violence, sexual torture, stalking, and rape against women and girls. and there are plenty of games like that. >> reporter: how sensitive is japan to this issue? despite weeks of repeated calls to the government, not a single government official would speak to cnn on camera. they wouldn't even make a statement on paper.
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over the phone, one official who would not allow us to use her name said that the government realizes these games are a problem and it is checking to see whether self-policing by the gaming industry is enough. sexual images are subject to censorship in japan. for example, in the "rape way" game, genitalia are obscured. but japan does not have laws that restrict video game themes. did you feel offended as a woman? >> no. not at all. >> reporter: lucy and jim point out it is easy to find shoot 'em up games which no one seems to worry about. >> it's escapism. that's why people play it. >> the idea of telling people what they can and can't do just because on the off chance some kid might get involved in it is just ridiculous. >> reporter: but women's rights groups say the interactive games step closer and closer to reality and no one should play a game where the only way to win is to rape. in part because of the international pressure, there
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are a couple of proposals in japan to talk about limiting and reining in child pornography. but kyra, there is no discussion as of yet on how to limit the assault of women in these video games. kyra? >> should be banned, period. we'll follow the story with you. kyung lah. disturbing story. tell us what you think about the rape video game. go to my blog and post your comments. i'll read some on the air next hour. thanks for weighing in. an order of insensitivity with a side order of humiliation. you might have found a restaurant that served up exactly that.
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weather permitting, rescue helicopters will take off this morning for the summit of california's mt. shasta. a man is believed to be trapped there. his friend says he was not in good shape when he left for help. milwaukee's archbishop says his archdiocese and not the vatican should take the blame for mishandling the case of an abusive priest. apologize for that. we were supposed to hear some of what father richard murphy -- or the story regarding father richard murphy. he died in 1998. he was believed to have molested up to 200 boys, mostly at a school for the deaf. now, even though students told church officials about the abuse, murphy was promoted to run the school. students eventually reported
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murphy to police, and no charges were filed. a lot of flooding in rhode island. well, a lot of flooding that nobody has ever seen, not unless you're a few hundred years old. reynolds wolf is right there in the middle of it in cranston. so, reynolds, these people already had bad flooding a couple weeblg weeks ago, right? any hopes for drying out anytime soon? >> reporter: it won't happen rapidly. it will take a while for all this water to recede. just to give you our bearings, we are in cranston where it was dry less than 24 hours ago. it's now water. look over the trees, where the pawtuxet river used to run, but now it flows right through here. to be honest, folks, you're not just seeing water. you're seeing history. we're talking 15 inches of rainfall during the month of march, on tuesday, 8 inches of rainfall alone. this has been the result and
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mandatory evacuations in some places, volunteers here in the ocean state of rhode island. there have been hundreds evacuated, also businesses. they've emptied out as the water has come through. other big problems we've had on roadways, not just the one i'm standing on but secs of i-95 have been closed down. side streets and back roads are in the same condition you see here, water all over the place. speaking of water, two wastewater facilities in warwick and west warwick have closed down due to the rising floodwaters. things are expected to get better but it's going to take time. thankfully we don't have any major rainfall in the forecast for this particular region, which is great news, but still we have to wait for the water to recede and the cleanup will begin. that's the latest from here. back to you. thanks, reynolds. see the end of the world? just click play. this is a video of what a black hole would look like as it gobbles up the earth. so what prompted this doomsday scenario?
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and this is what they got. sorry, no food, no service, no sympathy. now get out. a texas couple says that's pretty much how it went down at a restaurant and how they were treated. i guess sensitivity isn't on the menu. more on the story now. cnn affiliate wfaa jason whitley brings us the story. >> here she is. >> reporter: mckenna is the middle child, an exuberant 5-year-old with special needs after being born with brain damage. mom and dad say her world is often accommodating, but rece recently humiliating. >> i felt as if my daughter was treated as if she was an animal.
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she's a 5-year-old little girl. she's beautiful. >> the johnsons say they never expected what happened as they lunched recently at a chinese buffet in plano. >> mckenna makes an "uh" sound before she wants more. >> you're a happy girl? >> she hits her chest and she says uh, definitely not any louder than the other kids in the restaurant. >> reporter: but her father, a pastor turned policeman says the manager marched over, stuffed suckers in her hand and singled them all out. >> he said everyone's complaining and you're too loud and you need to go. you need to leave. i said, are you serious? he said go, go, go. >> reporter: it happened at the great wall super buffet on west plano parkway. the manager wouldn't talk to us on camera, but showed us surveillance video of what happened. the manager said he never touched mckenna and never asked her to leave only to be quiet
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because four or five senior citizens complained of noise and then got up to move. >> this shouldn't happen to anyone. >> reporter: they filed complaint with the department of justice alleging the restaurant discriminated against their daughter and violated the americans with disabilities act by asking her to leave. >> a claim the diner disputes and feds will decide. >> we'll definitely stay on the story and let you know how it develops and ultimately ends. suicide at cornell. are fences the answer or are they a band-aid to a bigger problem? we'll talk about it next hour.
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♪ ♪ oh e happy birthday, eiffel tower. you look pretty darn good for 121 years old. i'll bet you didn't know it actually opened as a temporary monument for the world's fair. yes, temporary. it was only supposed to stand for 20 years. it was just too popular and brought in way too much money to tear down and now you can't think paris without the eiffel tower, right? ♪ ♪ okay. it's not a time machine, but a massive scientific experiment
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may just take us back to the very birth of our universe, but this breakthrough is not just about the past, but our future. it could unlock all kinds of scientific mysteries around us. cnn's atika shubert shows us why researchers around the world are buzzing. >> reporter: it took 16 years and more than $10 billion, but finally, the large hadron collider, the biggest scientific experiment in history has yielded results. scientists watched in suspense as two particle beams traveling at close to the speed of light, collided at the highest-ever recorded energy. this, in essence, recreates the big bang, the conditions at the very beginning of our universe. >> we really are starting physics and this is the really -- the first timing which we enter a new territory, exploring it would be a fantastic adventure. we are just at the beginning and
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we have to do a lot of work, we have to understand physics in this new region of energy. >> reporter: one of the top goals, to identify the much-theorized but never before detected bosen particle. the so-called god particle that gives mass to particles, meaning it allows solid structures like, say, a table or a chair to exist. there could also be new discoveries in what scientists call super symmetry. the idea that every particle in our universe has a super partner mirrored in another quantum dimension, but scientists aren't expecting those first major discoveries until later this year. the large hadron collider needs to run for several months for scientists to collect enough data and keeping the machine going is an engineering feat in itself. the hadron collider has already stalled twice before. directing two particle beams
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around this 17-mile or 27-kilometer track underneath the swiss-french border is as one scientist put it, like trying to get two needles to crash into each other over the atlantic. so watching those first successful collisions is something for scientists to separate. now they believe the discovery of what our universe is made of can really begin. atika shubert, cnn, london. >> critics warn the scientist his no idea what forces they might unleash. some say it could create a black hole that swallows up the world. since none of us might be around to see it we wanted to show you what it would look like. the siren screams and sucks in europe and spreads out in all directions. the earth, literally being sucked into itself, or rather, into a well of gravity so dense not even light escapes. pretty grim, huh? the good news, the manner of
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extinction would be relatively painless. by the way, this earth-swallowing animation has had 4 million hits now on had 4 million hits now on youtube. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com getting ready to top the hour. pipe bombs are being placed around east texas in an increasing pace. we're getting that from the atf. two more bombs were discovered yesterday in longview, texas. more than a dozen have been found so far. the atf is sending more agents to the area now and they've more than doubled the reward for information leading to an arrest. people forced into shelters in louisiana. their homes evacuated after a massive chemical fire. a warehouse filled with industrial cleaners exploded and burned for nearly four hours. no word on what caused the blast. police say residents may be able to go back home later this afternoon. it was supposed to be a fun day at the dade county, florida, fair, but instead these two thrill seekers got a different kind of ride.
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they were stuck on this space roller dangling 50 feet into the air. it took about two hours to get them down. local tv stations say it took that long because fire and rescue crews didn't have a ladder long enough to get to them. coming up this hour, two stories that aren't exactly uplifting. sorry about that, but we've got to talk about them. two schools with something in common, suicide. south hadley high school in massachusetts. a 15-year-old girl who dies by suicide. she needed some kind of barrier to protect her from bullies. she didn't get it and cornell university, six student suicides reported this academic year. fences now up to prevent more, but are these barriers more like band-aids for a deeper problem? we're pushing forward both stories this hour, but first, part of the northeast are still under water. a storm that wouldn't quit has forced people to leave their homes and kranston, rhode island is getting the worst of it,
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reynolds wolf is there. reynolds? >> reporter: it's amazing how quickly these things happen. yesterday we had a crew out here walking around and doing what we refer to on television as a site survey. the ground is bone dry, but now it's covered with water. we've seen it flow in from the river past these homes many of which have been evacuated. some of them just in the left couple of hours where people take the things that mean most to them, the prized possessions, their pets and they evacuate as soon as possible. it's a scene that's been playing out for many, many people across the region and not just here on rhode island. going fishing reads the sign on this front door and they didn't have far to go. hundreds of rhode island residents were forced from their homes by yet another torrential downpour which the governor's office calls the worst in the state in at least a century. >> it absolutely is a record breaker. >> reporter: all across new england and the northeast rivers are approaching record levels, but the one everyone is watching is the paw tuxet river in
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crantston, rhode island. >> a lot of it is historic. it is unprecedented and it's a one in a 500-year storm. >> reporter: it's expected to crest this morning at 20 feet, scary high considering that's 11 feet above flood stage. the storm that just sat over the region for days dumped more than 8 inches of rainfall in areas that were already saturated. >> it started rushing in and it was like a waterfall. real bad. so i just said i have to get out. >> people were trying to shake off the effects of the last nor'easter. people that had cleaned out the moldy furniture and lost power all over again. >> throw the keys on the counter and walk out of the houses and it's at that point now, you know? i mean, four of my neighbors down the street that had u-haul trucks yesterday moved everything out. >> it is the wettest march on record. in massachusetts, a state of emergency this morning.
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national guard soldiers are filling sandbags. almost every river in the commonwealth is at risk right now and just outside new york city, police officers saved a 77-year-old man who was up to his neck in water inside his submerged pickup after driving around a barricade. now, again, when it comes to roadways and when it comes to vehicles, many roads and a few vehicles submerged like the one you see behind me. a lot of the roads are in the same condition covered by floodwaters and parts of i-95 running right through the state and many others in the northeast have parts that have been closed off and certainly rough times to say the least. although the skies appear to be cloudy and they certainly are at this time, rain will not play a big factor and things should begin to dry out and slowly, but surely the waters are expected to recede. among the climbing waters and not receding for the time being, let's send it back to you in the studio. >> reynolds, thanks. jacqui jeras, it it will be so tough for folks there. hopefully they won't have
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weather like this to deal with and make it worse. >> things do look much improved. we just got another reading on the pawtuxet and it's only gotten up a foot in the last hour. so hopefully those rivers will go down and there won't be any additional rain, at least not enough to aggravate the flooding situation over the next several days. a few spotty showers will be possible, but all of the heavy rain will stay up here into parts of maine. there you can see over the next 48 hours nothing accumulating and that's great news and look at some of these numbers. the big red area that you see there, that's anywhere between 4 and 8 inches of rainfall and that was just in a 24-hour period and not to mention what you had for the entire month. those are march records and providence, rhode island, within 16 inches and you should have four inches just to put in perspective, the wettest month on record. high pressure moves in and it
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will be gorgeous the next couple of days in the northeast. 07-degree temperatures and a complete national wrap-up coming up in 30 minutes. sounds good. thanks, jacqui. far beyond school yard taunting. students stand accused of violating civil rights. >> the word bullying is probably not even accurate. really, when you look at what happened with her, it's persecution. i mean, this thing was a hate crime. >> and drive tone suicide. why was this cute 15-year-old targeted? we will hear from her friends in 90 seconds. we thought, oh, goldie, you're getting older, and she started eating the purina one... and people would say, "what did you do to her?" [ announcer ] purina one for seniors unlocks the brilliance of nature. [ kristen ] it's a great feeling having a beautiful, happy dog. it makes you feel like you've done something good for your pet. [ announcer ] it's amazing what one can do. now, reformulated with... enhanced botanical oils... that naturally nourish... to help sustain a bright mind.
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[ woman ] nine iron, it's almost tee-time. time to face the pollen that used to make me sneeze, my eyes water. but with new zyrtec® liquid gels, i get allergy relief at liquid speed. that's the fast, powerful relief of zyrtec®, now in a liquid gel. zyrtec® is the fastest 24-hour allergy medicine. it works on my worst symptoms so i'm ready by the time we get to the first hole. and that's good because the competition's steep today. new zyrtec® liquid gels work fast, so i can love the air.™ as we watch this story unravel, new heart wrenching details surrounding a teenage girl's suicide in hadley, massachusetts, are coming out. they knocked books out of her
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hands, sent her threatening text messages and even called her an irish slut. now investigators are trying to figure out why would she be a target of such abuse? cnn's alina cho talked with one of her friends. >> reporter: by all accounts 15-year-old phoebe prince was fun, approachable and popular. a pretty, 15-year-old transplant from ireland with a nice broge and a nice smile. >> reporter: why on earth would people want to bully her? >> jealousy, probably. i would imagine they were all jealous of her because she got a lot of attention from people, positive attention. >> reporter: nick was prince's close friend and pallbearer at her funeral. he says the cryptic explanation the d.a. gave about why she was allegedly bullied. >> appears to have been motivated by the group's displeasure with phoebe's brief dating relationship with a male student. >> reporter: to friends is clear.
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>> it was just a whole secret thing. i don't know. >> reporter: they were dating in secret. >> yeah. >> reporter: prince, a freshman caught the eye of a senior, football player sean moefyhill. two started dating, but moefyhill already had a girlfriend, kalen ari another student at south hadley high school. if the two looked familiar and that's because moefyhill and ari are among the nine students facing criminal charges in connection with prince's death. >> when you saw this on the front page of "the boston herald" what did you think? >> true. that's been the fight since the beginning. >> reporter: darby o'brien is a spokesman for prince's family. >> the word bullying is probably not even accurate. really, when you look at what happened with her, it's persecution. this thing was a hate crime. >> reporter: prosecutors say verbal and physical abuse so severe every day and over several months that on january 14th, prince took her own life.
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in addition to the taunts she allegedly endured in the hallways and school library in plain view of faculty, more details are emerging about her final walk home. >> she walked hem home -- >> a karr went by and threw -- one of the girls threw an energy drink at her and they yelled out of the car you irish slut, you irish whore. why don't you kill yourself? >> so when the 15-year-old walked home, she walked into her house. took a scarf her sister had given her for christmas and hung herself. >> reporter: an act that not only ended her life, but shattered the community. people like shana's mother, susan smith. >> i cannot imagine it, honestly. it's unimaginable and to happen in your own town a mile from your house. it's unimaginable. >> reporter: how could this happen? why didn't anyone stop it?
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shana says because prince was able to hide behind her smile. >> it was just like a sense of shock and disbelief, that something like that can happen to a close friend. >> reporter: what also is becoming clear is that bullying appears to be part of the culture, the attitude, not my town, not my kids, but that attitude appears to be shifting. parents are outraged and they're calling for the principal and the superintendent to resign. alina cho, cnn, south hadley, massachusetts. video game so vile and disgusting it's beyond human decency. check this out. it's called rape lay and it shows girls and women on a subway platform and with the click of a house players can stalk them, lift their skirts, rape them and do all types of disgusting things we can't even tell you about. it's been pulled from store shelves, but games like this, that's mainstream in the stores in japan and because of the internet almost anyone around the world can download them and
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women activists are mad as hell. they're demanding japan put the breaks on this content and do a better job regulators gamemakers. so is this game just a game or is it a huge outrage? we want to hear from you. go to my blog, cnn.com/kyra. post your comments and i would like to read some of them coming up later this hour. fill out and mail back the census today. because your census answers are more than just answers. they're the first step toward a happier, healthier community. we can't move forward until you mail it back. 2010 census.
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>> it's not exactly drill, baby drill, but in about 50 minutes from now president obama is poised to unveil sweeping new changes to the nation's domestic energy policy including opening up previously closed coastal areas for expanded oil and
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natural gas exploration and drilling. the president is expected to announce his revamped energy plan just a few hours from now during an address at andrews naval air facility. you can watch it live right here on cnn at 11:05 eastern time. go ahead, bite the ears. researchers in germany say a little chocolate is a good thing and it's about time. they say a bite or two can actually lower the risk of heart attacks. it's all about the flaf nols. they recommend dark over milk chocolate, but there is also a warning, don't eat too much. party. ers. it's made famous and intriguing such as tom cruise and john travolta. they tell us of beatings and humiliations at the hands of the man in charge. you'll hear what the church has to say about it including ex-wives of some of the accusers coming forward to flat out call them liars.
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a close look at scientology, the mysterious religion that boasts celebrity members such as tom cruise and john trois volt abu we're focusing on what the public doesn't see at least according to former leaders. take, for example, the insid ss accounts of marty rathbun and one of the highest-ranking members of the church of scientology. he left in 2005, but while he was there the head of the church routinely beat other high-ranking members of the church. not only did he brutally kick, punch and choke members of the church's international management team, the sea organization and mark rinder, the church's former spokesman,
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rathbun says other managers were expected to get physical. he admits he himself assaulted subordinates and it was done with the encouragement of david miscavige himself. it denies the claims asserting rathbun is a bold-faced liar because he himself assaulted members of the church. tonight as we continue our investigation, you will hear from other high-ranking scientologists saying david miscavige was behind the violence although the church denies it. cnn's anderson cooper continues diggi digging. miscavige was always threats, bullying, haranguing people, verbal abuse, physical abuse. that was his game. he is a bully. >> reporter: jeff hawkins was a scientologist for 35 years and a marketing director for the church, he was a member of the sea organization, the group that runs church operations worldwide. he dedicated his life to
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scientology, a true believer, he earned just $50 a week and lived in church-provided communal housing with other members in california. >> you've worked with marty rathbun and mark rinder. the church told us that they were the ones leading this reign of terror, that marty was the one responsible for these beatings. >> absolutely not true. absolutely not true. david miscage was the one leading this whole physical violence kick and it was him who was beating people up. >> reporter: hawkins, who left in 2005, says miscavige attacked him several times including once during a marketing meeting. >> he jumped up on the conference room table, like with his feet on the conference room table and launched himself across the table at me, i was standing. battered my face and shoved me down on the floor. >> reporter: tom was a construction manager for the church. he was only 12 years old when he joined. he left in 2005 because he says
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he could no longer accept miscage's violence. they asked me a question and i couldn't tell you what the question is today. i don't remember, but the next thing i knew i'm being smacked in the face and knocked on the ground in front of all these people. this was the pope, knocking me down on the ground. >> reporter: amy, a scientologist for 20 years, ran los angeles, designed to cater to tom cruise and john travolta. she also left in 2005 and distinctly remembers watching david choke mark rinder, the church spokesman at the time. >> he grabbed mike around the neck and swings around and is choking him and he's holding his neck and mike is grabbing the side of his chair and struggling like not knowing what was going on, and his face is turning red and -- and the veins are popping in his neck and i'm going, what in the hell is going on?
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>> reporter: steve hall was a writer for the church who left in 2004. he says he saw miscage attack mark rinder in 2003. >> he grabs mike's head with both his hand, throws mike off his feet because he's strong and he put his whole body into this, he smacks mike's head against this cherry wood wall. >> church of scientology spokesman, tommy davis insists all of these former scientologists are liars, bitter organization members who were demoted from their positions by david miscage. mark rinder was asked about rumors of abuse by bbc when he was spokesman for the church. he was asked these same allegations and one of his responses was, i'll tell you what, if you come up with that again and show up with those crap allegations i'm going to file a complaint. >> he's talking about this bbc interview in 2007 recorded by
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scientologists and posted on youtube before mark rinder left the church. >> absolutely rubbish, rubbish, not true, rubbish. >> reporter: now that mark rinder is no longer working for david miscavige says he was lying during that interview. he told us he was physically assaulted by david miscavige some 50 times. he lied to the bbc because he didn't want to lose his career and his church. that doesn't surprise jeff hawkins who says when he was in the church he would have never spoken against miscavige. >> if you want to stay in the church you have to do what he says. >> if you're a scientologist and you believe in scientology and you believe that your salvation is through the levels of scientology then he holds the power of death for every
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scientologist because he can say you are out of here. you will get no more scientology services. you're done. >> reporter: adding that he supports an anti-scientology movement called anonymous that actively protests the church. >> these are individuals who have proven not only that they will lie, but that they will get other people to lie. it's not much of a stretch for them to get together, corroborate their stories and find other people who left years ago to try and corroborate it even more and come to the news media and attack the very person who removed them. >> reporter: the church provided us with dozens of affidavits from current and former church member, one-time colleagues of the former scientologists and even their ex-wives. all of these affidavits swear david miscavige never hurt anyone. >> i slept with him for 20 years, i never saw one scratch, i never saw one bruise. i never saw one black eye. nothing, nor did he complain about anything personally. >> that's tom devok's ex-wife
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jenny lynnson. she agreed to be interviewed along with the ex-wives of marty rathbun and mark rinder. >> he was never assaulted by david miscavge. >> know every square inch of his body, i know every accident, every time he broke his wrist. we've been together all our lives. it's utterly ridiculous and it isn't true. >> and you were married to marty rathbun. >> 15 years. i know that man better than anybody else. you've got to understand marty rathbun is a liar. he never mentioned it, okay? >> he says he did mention it to you. no, he did not. absolutely not. it's a lie. >> katherine, your ex-husband says you have a heart of gold and you're a good woman and stuck with him through trying times in scientology. >> he didn't have any trying times in scientology. it was the best time of his life. >> reporter: she says jeff hawkins never said a thing to
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her about being hit. >> did you tell anybody about it? did you complain about it? no. no. no. you don't do that when you're inside the base. you don't do that. >> reporter: why? >> well, if you go against miscavige, if you say anything against miscavige or you report on miscavige you are instantly on the base. >> what does that mean, off the base? >> you are sent to a remote location or you're sent to africa or australia. you are just gotten rid of. >> reporter: marty rathbun says he did tell his wife, but never complained to anyone else about miscavige. >> he had the power to say you're excommunicated. you'll never see scientology again. you'll never see you're wife again and you're devoted and this guy can pull the plug and say you can't ever have it again. >> over the past months we've spoken at length with former
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scientology spokesman mark rinder and he admits getting physical with some church members and says he was constantly told to by david miscavige. he wouldn't interview with us because he promised the first interview to the bbc. once that video is aired he welcomes the story. former senior level scientologists report abuse. lie, all lies, says the church. the only abusers were the accusers. at 10:00 eastern. is it the academics, the nasty new york winters? at least six students at cornell university have committed swiez ide. the solution, at least a temporary one, fencers around the deep gorges. we reported this story before, but today we're talking to a student and a cornell official about what's happening there. we'll get their take on what's happening at school. have a hear. that's what happened to me.
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i'm on an aspirin regimen now. my doctor told me it's the easiest preventative thing you can do. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. see your doctor. simple. [ male announcer ] competition... it pushes us to work harder. to be better. to win. but sometimes even rivals realize they share a common goal. america's beverage companies have removed full-calorie soft drinks from schools, reducing beverage calories by 88%.
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together with schools, we're helping kids make more balanced choices every day. ♪
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yeah. you ever play with the sand? >> do you remember that inspirational movie "stand and deliver" starring edward james olmos. we got sad at our morning meeting when we talked about the death of the math teacher that almost played. >> jay mees cal ante died at his california home yesterday after a battle with cancer. he was 79 years old and escalante was surrounded by his family, but just the night before his actor friend had gone public about escalante's cancer and held a fund raise tore help his family pay medical costs. he turned the failed calculous program in east los angeles into one of the top schools in the nation.
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are back from spring break. campus looks a little bit different than it did when they left. fences over the school's beautiful, tragically beautiful gorges. security guards keeping watch. barriers, deterrents for would-be jumpers. at least six cornell students have killed themselves this year, another body still down in the gorge somewhere. yet students did it, no one can say for sure. cornell had a similar problem ten years ago. the new fences are tangible evidence that the school is trying to do something about this. campus paper calls them an
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unfortunate necessity, but some students think they're just a steel ban that make a bad situation worse. one student even said they make cornell look like an insane asylum. justin richmond decker has started a facebook group for students who don't want the bridges. it has more than 1,000 members now. we're talking to him. we're also talking to dr. susan murphy, she's cornell's vice president for student and academic services. also in just a few minutes we will bring in howard and sherry ginsburg. their son, one of the cornell students, who took his own life. justin, let's go ahead and begin with you. why do you and these thousand students that signed up on your facebook page not want the fences there? >> i'm sorry, what? >> can you hear me okay, justin? >> yeah. >> you can hear me okay, now? yes, i can. >> okay. go ahead and tell us, tell our viewers why you and about a
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thousand students now that have signed up on your facebook page do not want the fences there. >> all right. well, um, i guess first of all, they're ugly. they've blocked the view of our beautiful gorges and whenever you walk across the bridges it almost feels like you're in a prison, and seeing the fences is really just a reminder of the tragedies. every time we cross the bridge we just have to think about what happened this year. and i really don't thank that's what we need right now. >> justin, even though you don't like them and they're a grim reminder of what's happened there, do you think that these fences could prevent more suicides? >> all right. i apologize --
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>> oh, there we go. you had frozen for a minute there. we are talking via skype. if you can stay closer to the monitor, justin and tell us if you think these fences could prevent more suicides. >> think it's conceivable because they have been shown to be effective on, for example, the golden gate bridge. suicide rates were reduced throughout the whole city once they installed barriers, but that bridge gets at least, like, 100 suicides a year or attempts and here the suicide rate is not anywhere near that, and also the fact that it's a canvas instead of an entire city makes it a lot easier for, say, the administration to reach out to individuals where you can't do that in the city and you can do that at a college.
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so i think there are plenty of alternative ways to prevent suicides other than fences. >> vice president murphy, why the fences? do you truly believe that this will prevent more suicides and how do you respond to students like justin that are saying, i mean, i'm looking at the comments here throughout the paper. they're a worthless solution to a serious problem. it's an insulting response to tragedies that have occurred. the campus looks like an insane asylum. >> first of all, we do know that bridges can be effective in helping curb suicide. often suicide is an impulsive action on the part of a student or any individual and has been proven through many studies that barriers on bridges are an effective way to restrict that means of death. as a cornellian of over 40 years, i happen to agree with
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justin. they are ugly. they are not what we want to have around our gorges, and that's why we have them up as a temporary measure at this point while we work on an appropriate long-term solution, recognizing that the gorges are one of the most beautiful parts of our campus, but they have been in the past and especially this year, tragic places and can i ask you, vice president, it's not just this crop of students. the same thing happened ten years ago. i was reading an article from a decade ago calling cornell suicide university. i'm curious, what was done then and why didn't it work? why is this happening again? >> well, first of all, i take exception to the label. given our population size wield expect, sadly, to see one to two suicides a year. suicide is the third most frequent means of death for this age group and while we know that college campuses are actually
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protective places compared to the population at large, this tragic demise does happen. we did have a concentration a number of years ago and that caused us to make many, many changes in our mental health and outreach efforts and if you look at cornell's statistics in the first half of this last decade we actually tracked the national average from 2006 until the first half of 2009 we did not have a single suicide and we actually have not had a suicide in the gorge going back to 2001. so i think there have been a number of things that we have done that, in fact, make us a national model for our outreach and efforts to intervene, but cornell's been hit with ten student deaths this year from a whole host of reasons. the three most recent, sadly, by suicide and that caused us to have to take actions that in the past we might not have thought about, but we had to do
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something different to intervene in a pattern that was developing. >> vice president susan murphy, please stay with me. we want to continue our discussion now. moving on to speak with the ginsburgs. their son bradley, one of the cornell students who died by suicide. we appreciate both of you joining us. we will bring you into this conversation in 60 seconds. we'll be right back.
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we'd like to continue our conversation now about cornell university, its fences and its deeper problem. six student deaths this academic year ruled suicide. one of them, bradley ginsburg. he fell to his death on the ithica, new york, campus last month. bradley was a freshman from boca ratton, florida. his father howard, a cornell alumnus. howard and his wife sherry with us now from florida. i thank you both for being here. i know this is not easy, but boy, what a message you have for other students and also what's
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happening now on the campus there. i guess howard, i'll start with you. what do you think about these fences? is this a smart way to deal with right now. first of all, i just like to say bradley's death is still being investigat investigated. had there been cameras at the dorms where there are -- which is so common place everywhere for the safety of the students outside the dorms wie s we woul been able to know when bradley left the dorm, whether he was alone or whether there he was with somebody, but since there were no cameras at the dorms at all which we were shocked at, we don't know any of this. the bottom line is the university needs to put cam flas at the dorm immediately. as far as the question that you asked, i believe 100% that these barriers are needed, and i think
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they should have been put in a lot earlier. this has always been a danger spot at cornell, and i have read certain articles that going back ten, 15 years there were discussions about putting these barriers, but because of the situation that as justin, i think, said because of the beauty and not wanting to do anything they didn't put them in and because of that you have had student deaths which very likely could have been prevented because i think as susan murphy said, a lot of these deaths just students just go on an instantaneous thought, and if there were barriers there then they would have been able to have prevented these deaths. so i go for life over beauty, and i don't think that it's really disturbing the beauty anyway of cornell.
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additionally, i would say the university should go even further than just putting barriers at the bridge and put barriers along the gorge because my information is that one student in particular didn't go off the bridge, but went much further down the gorge and that's where the student allegedly jumped. so i think the university has started doing exactly what needed to have been done years ago, and i think it needs to do more with putting further barriers there to save lives. point well made. sherry, i've got to ask you, you know, what a -- i mean, your son so handsome, getting as, had an amazing group of friends. did he ever say to you, mom, i'm struggling. i'm feeling a little depressed. school's kind of tough. there's a lot of pressure on me. did you ever have any idea that he was struggling? >> absolutely not.
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bradley, as you said, the first semester at cornell he had straight as. the second semester when he started out he told me his courses were much easier than the first semester. he wasn't under any academic pressure. he was much happier because he was joining ae pi and he loved the brothers there and he was just very, very happy, and he showed no signs of anything. i know from all of the interviews that were done up at cornell with anyone bradley had contact with from the fraternity brothers to the people in the dorm, the same answer was always given that bradley was always smiling. his nickname at the fraternity was smiles, and he was always happy and brought happiness to everyone else around him. >> he really had a beautiful smile indeed. you sure can't argue with that, sherry. let me ask vice president
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murphy, what do you think about howard's suggestion, dr. murphy, about putting cameras up? >> well, it's one that howie has told me personally, and i told him that wield take a look at that. we're right now trying to devise the measures we need to take this immediate several weeks while the students remain with us for the semester and then we will be looking at longer tomorrow solutions and that is everything from a re-design of appropriate barriers to cameras, as howie suggested to academic calendar and to the kinds of outreach we do now and want to do more of related to student activities. so we had not believed we had the need to do that up to this point, but as i said, things have changed this spring and so it's on the table for consideration. >> vice president susan murphy, appreciate your time and justin
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weighing in from the student perspective and even more so howard and sherry ginsburg. so sorry about your son, and i appreciate you coming forward and telling us about bradley. we lift you up and and hope that not another student takes their lives. we really appreciate your time. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. 
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you've heard the riddle, what came first, the chicken or the egg? here's a twist. what came first? the chicken's farm success or the fire that destroyed much of it? the answer may surprise you. find out what it is in today's example of "building up america." oh sure, we have plenty of employees that...
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you can label as "different." like janice. uh-huh. yeah. fashion deficient. and tom... copy incapable. it's open kimono time. looking good, dan. oh, we want to make sure all our ducks in a row. yeah. volume control syndrome. but we focus on the talent and skill that each person... brings to the team. i mean, no one's really concerned about labels. not even mine. labels get in the way. disabilities rarely do. visit thinkbeyondthelabel.com to evolve your work force.
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we've all seen the doom and gloom of the lousy economy and many of us have felt the impact on businesses, and we want to share a success story. it's an organic chicken farm arc parentally dealt a death blow by a devastating fire and then the customers raced to its rescue. dan simon has the story of "building up america" from vacaville, california. >> there you go. look at that.
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aren't those pretty? >> reporter: apparently green eggs aren't just found in the dr. seuss classic. >> you almost don't want to eat it because it's so pretty. >> i know. >> reporter: we're at the organic soul food chicken farm an hour from san francisco. it's a business that stirs such passion that loyal customers refused quite literally to let go down in flames. >> after a fire killed 1200 chicks and destroyed their coops last september, alexis kofa and her husband eric thought the struggling farm they started just three years ago was finished. >> did you think you were going to be out of business. >> oh, i was convinced we were done. you know, we were already skating by. eric had lost his job. we were just living off of this land. that was a half month's income that went up in smoke, and i thought i'll never recover from that. it's just too hard. >> reporter: starting the farm wasn't easy. alexis and her husband had no farming experience. she was in marketing, he was a
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structural engineer. yet as soon as they began selling their chicken eggs many chefs from the finest local restaurants including alice waters from the nationally renowned chez pani said they were among they ever tasted. >> said grow something that really is tasty, i'll buy it all. >> the farm was saved not just because of its high quality eggs and meat, but also because of its philosophy. >> this egg comes from chickens that are probably crammed in cages, maybe eight, ten birds in a cage. >> she explains by showing us two different eggs. one from a chain grocery store and one of hers. >> and this is a chicken egg that she got to lay her egg how she felt like after eating grass and bugs. >> this is what the chefs like so much. what you're seeing here. the chickens roam freely and eat natural grass. that makes for a higher quality egg, eggs they being not live
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without because when the fire seemingly destroyed the business, her customers got together and said we're not going to let that happen. >> we had a fancy auction. we had a raffle and several fund-raising efforts. >> bonnie powell led the effort to raise $30,000 to keep the farm in business. >> it was kind of amazing how many people felt touched by this like, no, we can't let soul food farm die. >> reporter: the farm still struggles to make money, but alexis loves her land and loves her way of life. >> thank you very much. my husband will be excite happened. >> she's just fine putting all her egg in one basket. dan simon, cnn, vacaville, california.
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a game so vile and disgusting that it makes your stomach turn. players groping, stalking, even raping women and little girls because they think it's fun. the game is made in japan, but women's groups around the world are outraged. so are we. are you? here's what we got on the blog. jessica says this should outrage every world citizen as rape is no game. it's a horrific crime that devastates the victim and their families. more than just women's groups should be upset about this. angie says i can understand the outrage, but what i can't understand is how people don't see it's just a video game. it will never be banned because developers can make what they want. wolf says whether or not you agree with the game is not the point. no one will argue that this game is disturbing, so if it bothers you, don't play it. we always want to hear from you, logon to cnn.com/kyra to share your comments with us. tony harris getting ready to kick off the top of the hour. i don't know about you, but when i saw the

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