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tv   Morning Express With Robin Meade  HLN  January 15, 2010 6:00am-10:00am EST

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good morning, on a friday. it's been a long week, i'm sure. i'm robin meade. we're glad to have you with us. let's jump into the stories you'll hear about today. relief aid is pouring into haiti. tons is being held up at the airport, if it could get into the airport. several army officers could be in trouble for the shooting at ft.hood. why they are at fault. rosy o'donnell adds her two cents about what's going on with the late night shows.
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she says who should exit stage right. a u.s. air force team with radios has planes flying in and out of haiti after a huge snarl yesterday. at one point, 44 planes were parked at the airport with just two fuel trucks. other planes were circling, some up to three hours. haiti's airport, for such a big city had one little runway and it had to close. >> it's discouraging. it's impossible. they are gathering a lot of aid, which is a good thing. the issue is that the airport does not have the capacity to turn around, to unload the aircraft and turn them around. >> see this little girl here? the rescuers were finally able to pull the 11-year-old out of
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the rubble. they feared they might have to cut off her leg to free her. she was awake and talking to them. she was pinned under the heavy debris. men worked through the day by hand. finally, someone showed up with a generator and saw to cut the concrete. she is free. poor thing. a man trapped in a pool was pulled out. his brother, father and friend cut away the debris using a torch and chisel. he had to scream out in pain. they poured water over him, trying to cool the metal as they heated it. finally, they got him free. >> he's alive! she's alive! >> a massachusetts teen on a mission trip is safe after her hotel collapsed in the quake.
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her family was desperate for word. they heard she was found alive and flew to south florida. when they got there, they heard it was a mistake and she was still missing. now, it's for sure. >> she's on a helicopter being air lifted to port-au-prince airport and we are so thrilled. we have been here praying for 48 hours and people have been so good. >> one of our i-reporters sent these pictures from port-au-prince. it shows people sleeping on the streets. some inside cars. many lost their homes in the quake. we also showed you yesterday, how some people are sleeping outside because they are afraid to be in the building in case there's an aftershock. we are gouk to bring the latest video as it comes in. because we are "morning
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express." i'll get other news of the day. al qaeda trained terrorists may be looking at targets other than airplanes. investigators found names of at least seven people who al qaeda trained and are equipped to hit trains and other targets. there's no immediate threat, but their concerned intensified. democrats are concerned about losing ted kennedy's former senate seat. president obama e-mailed supporters and hope they will bag democrat coakley. some polls show brown ahead. if he wins, it takes away the filibuster proof majority in the senate. we are hearing from the mother of an 8-year-old on the tsa watch list. his mom says he was first patted down getting on a flight when he was a baby.
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he happens to have the same name of somebody on the list that gets a higher level of security screening. >> i want my kid off the list. you know, i understand the need for security. i was there on 9/11. i understand that people are trying to blow up our planes. that's not the point. the point is, if you get all these people off the list that don't belong on the list, maybe you would find somebody trying to do some harm. >> tsa says agents will start cross referencing names with birth dates to avoid unnecessary screening. >> that would be a pain. five minutes after the hour. looking ahead into the weekend, we'll see if the temperatures are where they ought to be for the weekend. >> the arctic air just about done. we don't see cold stuff in
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florida anymore. no freeze warnings in florida and alabama. temperatures in the upper 30s in jacksonville and northern florida. we are watching this developing storm around san antonio. you can see the heavy rain coming through. lots of moisture in the gulf of mexico. south of houston and san antonio and austin. the flash flood watches are posted. the areas shaded in green, two to four inches of rain. then the rain shield slides over the weekend. how abtd the rain over correspocorpus christi? most of it is to the north. houston, san antonio, much needed rainfall. too much too soon is a bad thing. houston is dry for the time being, but it's moving to the north. it moves through louisiana, mobile, western parts of florida, through georgia and the carolinas. the green shaded area is one to two inches of rain. the yellow is three inches.
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it's all rain, not snow. the arctic air is gone. that's one good thing. to the west, look at the massive storm that stretches south of hawaii. lots of rain with this. it slides from washington state to california. it could be a rainmaker. more on that in a bit. let me show you video. firefighters halted the progress of a wildfire burning in riverside county. this is southern california. 150 acres consumed. it's 25% contained. good news here, the weather is good. no wind. more on that in a little bit. >> thank you. >> yep. a lot of our viewers have probably donated money to help people in haiti. you want to know your money goes right there. we have information on how your money is being used. a woman was arrested for trying to trade her kid. you have to hear what she wanted in return.
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let's salute our troops today. today it's for machinist meat fireman, us navy from his dad, gary. >> hi. i'm gary. i'm sending this salute to my son zachry keuschel. he's a happy loving young man. we hope everything is going well for you. we hope to hear and see you soon and we love you very much. >> gary, that is such a natural and heart-felt message. i appreciate that. i know that person, too, in the service does as well. go to cnn.com/robin if you have someone to salute.
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>> the 10-year-old boy who shot his parents. he was 8. he pleaded guilty to negligent homicide. he was crying during the sentencing and apologized. the community is still shaken. >> has it been difficult? >> yeah, i think so. i think so. everybody knew the father that was killed. his family is from here and been here for years. >> i honestly don't know that we can ever quite get over something like that. >> well prosecutors say the in-patient treatment could go on until the boy is 18. investigators have not released a motive for the killings, but he kept a tally of spankings. nasa is trying to figure out how a bag of cocaine was found in the hangar where "discovery" is housed.
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this is amazing. people raised more than $5 million in haiti through a texting campaign and social networking sites like twitter and facebook. i think a lot of you want to know where is my money going and see it at work. jennifer westhoven, looking out for you. >> thanks. i tried it myself last night to see what happens if you try doing this. basically, you send a text and one comes back saying are you sure? if you are sure, hit yes and reply back. then the $10 is confirmed. the relief organizations say they can turn your money into direct aid in hours. the red cross says that $10 you send through your phone, food, water, shelter, medical supplies for millions of people affected. they are sending essentials like tablets to purify your water. plastic jugs to carry clean
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water. first aid kits, just 7 cents can buy rehydration salts. $700 buys a big tent to use as a shelter or hospital. this is crucial because one of the things we may not think about is in a large scale disaster like this, you see the initial devastation. but the disease that follows can kill just as many people as the first catastrophe, whether a flood or earthquake. if you would like to do something to help, you can text or go to cnn.com/robin and go through your impact your world link. there's a list of big charities helping in haiti. experts say, this is a case where if you want to give, you want to think about giving to a big organization, if you want more of your money to make a difference. they are already there. they are on the ground. they have the infrastructure. they say that's better in this
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case than a smaller group in your area. robin. >> isn't it amazing how technology is helping us? >> i think we are talking $4 million to red cross through the texting thing alone. it's amazing. it really sets the stage that there's an easy way to give quickly in conditions like this. >> obviously, there's still a huge need. the battle over late night is making for great jokes. hear what leno and conan are saying about nbcs plan to shuffle around their shows.
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can you imagine being in a national disaster and even your president becomes homeless in it? that's the situation in haiti after the earthquake on tuesday. richard lui joins us now. leadership is so important, but do we know what the situation is with the president? >> yeah, you are right. central command is key. for the president, he's at the airport, but no senior haitian government officials were visible at the airport yesterday. the quake flattened parts of the presidential palace. haiti's police or lack there of, a spokesman say iing police are not visible at all as perhaps, they, themselves are dealing
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with their own lost homes and loved ones. >> i remember seeing an interview where a man said there's no one. no one coming with heavy equipment. the government can't do anything because they are in trouble themselves. if police are not visible, but about security concerns? >> gangs are a huge problem. before the quake, they were finally confronting the issue of violent gangs of port-au-prince. now, gangs are almost certain to strike with the security void. we initially heard they escaped after the prison crumble. a source telling anderson cooper, they believe the prisoners riots after the quake, took over the facility and bloody hand prints are over the walls where they may have escaped. >> now, those people are out on
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the streets here. i don't think you are talking about somebody held there for robbery. you are talking dangerous crimina criminals. >> right. they had long sen p tenses so crimes were severe. the jokes and insults are flying about the plan to move around the late night shows. >> there's a rumor nbc is so upset with me, they want to keep me off the air for three years. that's what they say, yeah. my response is, if nbc doesn't want people to see me, just leave me on nbc. >> all the controversy going on here at nbc. the "tonight show" has gone up. >> really. >> so, you're welcome. >> now, former talk show host, rosy o'donnell is calling on leno to step down and let conan do the show. it's time for the bus driver to hand over the keys to the new
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guy with the red hair. nfl player, pierre garcon can breathe easier. he has family ties in haiti. he got good news. the wait had to be agonizing. >> yes. his mother spent two days trying to reach family in haiti. they got good news. they are still looking for other family members. he was just one day away from playing in his first career nfl player that he's thank fful for all the concern people have shown for haiti. he's been using twitter, like many others, to get people to help. he's giving autographed pictures to fans who donate to the effort. a senior at southern indiana died yesterday after collapsing on the basketball court during a
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game. a school spokesman said he suddenly fell to the floor during play and was motionless. he left the game on a stretcher and was taken to a hospital where he passed away. >> it's unbelievable. >> terrible story. >> he's a young man. >> yeah, 21 years old. major league baseball's florida mar redskins. they will travel to iraq and kuwait to visit u.s. troops. they are the first u.s. baseball team to make the trip overseas and will provide daily blog updates on the team's website. >> i wonder if they will play a pick-up game or two. >> that would be great. >> that would be fun. >> they are going to head out before spring training starts. health care reform, relief efforts in haiti, ma llia's resital along with handling the business of leaving the country. he has to deal with the
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responsibility of raising two young daughters. the white house did not give details about the resital. you know what? he's a busy man. >> i feel his pain. i was at my 2-year-old's little pre-school cheer leading thing. >> what? they start them early cheer leading here. >> they start them early. good morning. if you are traveling toward texas, main sticking point. here is the texas coast. this is austin and houston, san antonio here. look at the heavy rain coming through. the downpour is throughout most of the morning. we have an hour or more around houston. look at the half hour delays north of there. dallas and seattle, 30 minute delays because of showers. morning fog around chicago. it's four mile visibility. fog around detroit and
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cleveland, too. more in a half hour. >> 2 years old, the spanky pants is what they wear when they are older. >> it's just for exercise.
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relief planes are slow ly getting into haiti's main airport now after huge problems yesterday. planes were left circling for hours when port-au-prince airport, with one airplane was clogged with planes and nowhere to put them. the o bbama administration said they made solid progress in the talks about health care reform. president obama met with lawmakers late into the night. the white house included exempting union policies from the 40% excise tax. the doomsday clock was moved
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back by a minute. the world is safer. the scientist panel that controls the clock says government is cooperating to reduce nuclear ars nols are making the world safer. >> good morning. 30 minutes past the hour. you slept in by a half hour, didn't you? i'm robin meade. here is what's going on today. there's so much suffering in haiti now. we are hearing amazing survival stories. a search and rescue team pulled out a woman trapped for 50 hours in a collapsed market. somehow, she was not injured. she was just in the concrete. she says she never gave up hope. >> the first thing i did is to think of my parents. i did not want them to lose me. i'm the only child. the second thing, i never stopped once praying and i'm going to tell you something, i'm someone who prays a lot and now,
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i'm very grateful that i never lost faith, though. >> can you imagine? well, a michigan couple got the news they wanted to hear from haiti. the two children they are adopting were not hurt in the quake. they were hoping to bring the 3-year-old boy and 6-year-old girl home. now, it's up in the air. now, they are just so relieved. >> a huge burden lifted. just this huge weight, you know, where you kind of could get your breath. >> we had pictures of them. we have seen them. had time to bond. kind of get to know their smiles we see in the photographs, you know. so, they are in our hearts all the time. >> we just learned the world food program reports the warehouse in haiti has been looted. no word on how much was taken. millions of dollars are flowing into haiti. some are worried all the money won't get to the people who need
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it desperately. let me emphasize, i don't think it's a reason people should not be giving here. >> good point. >> some of that help, a lot of that help is going to get to people. >> good point. we hate to hear about it. haiti has a track record of a money pit. the united states spent a lot of money there, $5 billion on aid there. the money hasn't always gone where it's supposed to. >> i think it's no secret u.s. aid as well as from other donors has been a failure in haiti. there have been areas of success such as reducing the hiv infection rate. all the other metrics by which you measure aids success, sustainability, impablgt, effects on economic development, human development, it's been a disaster. >> a lot of the problems may
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stem from haiti's government. it's been incapable and unstable as well. >> we are hearing one of haiti's former presidents wants to come back to help. >> yes. he says he wants to return from south africa. he was haiti's first ever democratically elected president in 1990. he was ousted in 1991 and again in 2004. master minded assaults. haiti was ruled by dictators before that. the situation, not necessarily a stable government in recent years. >> it's had a troubled past. thanks so much. as many as eight officers could be in trouble for the deadly attack on ft. hood.
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the review finds fault with supervisors who knew or should have known about the erratic behavior of the suspect, major nidal hassan. he's accused of shooting people in a shooting spree. the same-sex marriage ban may cost california billions a year. the city spends a lot of money on health care for uninsured health care. married people spend more. it boosts tax revenue. he admitted the estimates are based on assumption. talk about rocket fuel. nasa is trying to figure out how a bag of cocaine ended up in the shuttle "discovery" room. 200 workers are getting the shuttle ready for march. nasa says it's drug testing everyone with access. you are dealing with very, very
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delicate and very precise equipment. it's what the astronauts use. we have zero margin for error when dealing with space flight. >> nasa says there's no reason to believe it will have impact on "discovery" upcoming launch. full disclosure, the guy you heard from there used to be a writer on this show. before you came, i think. the story. >> five minutes until space shuttle laundry launch. oh, my gosh. that's all they need is cocaine. if you are traveling out there, we have high pressure dominating the east coast. it's warming up further up to the north. look at what it looks like now. heavy rain out of texas. decent rain in houston. i want to show you the the temperatures. s by going to be a nice one for
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he panhandle and by florida. temperatures in jacksonville, florida, 38 degrees. it's going to be a nicer day across the northeast. temperatures will warm up quickly. rainshowers coming in, again. heavy at times. zoom in around southern texas. this is san antonio. all the areas shaded in green, two to four inches of rain. that's what you find today and tonight. look at corpus christi, lots of thunder offshore. maybe thunderstorms later today. the heavy rain from san antonio through austin and places like new orleans, too. let me take you live to new york city. if you are traveling here, a decent start. temperatures in the upper 40s. it's nice for middle parts of january. gorgeous start for you guys. 48 the high. rain sunday afternoon. more in a bit. >> i'm still cracking up at you. >> that's all they need now. fine tuning the instruments. you don't need cocaine.
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>> no. >> man. >> all right. good looks, a nice car, sense of humor, no drug habit. what do you look for in a mate? check out what joy behar says matters to them. >> i like men a little younger than me. i like them younger, not old. what about you? >> that's interesting. i truly, no, i like an older man. at this point, it doesn't matter. >> they are dead at this point. >> yeah. my mother is very smart. she says you should be the good looking one. he should worry about you, you shouldn't worry about him. >> well, catch the "joy behar show" here on hln. tonight's guest is mandy moore. >> airline security is about to get worse. another terrorist plot is in the works.
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>> good morning. oh robed one. let's check out the headlines in the papers. we already got it for you. in the chicago tribune, a man accused of raping and murdering a woman got life in prison. he said police tortured him into confessing. prosecutors dropped the charges because they could not disprove that. the tea party is trying to shape the gop. activists are signing up to be republican precinct leaders. it's a way to influence who runs for office. usa today has a startling statistic. hundreds of thousands of kids
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might be overdue for their second dose of the h1n1 vaccine. the race for the late ted kennedy's senate seat is heated here. new polls show democrat martha coakley and republican brown are in a heated debate. they talked about coakley's claim that terrorists left afghanistan. >> the very night we were debating, there were three people killed. i think that once again shows the lack of understanding on these important issues of vital national security. >> we know, by and large, the focus of al qaeda shifted. so, the argument is how do we keep our country safe? i think everybody agrees we want to keep our homeland safe. >> in an effort to keep the seat with the democrats, president obama e-mailed video to back
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coakley in next tuesday's election. your next flight may be under tighter security. all airlines flewing to the united states or in the country are prepared for tighter security. it's because of the latest threat to al qaeda's branch in yemen. you can expect more random screenings. people all around the world were hoping to get a look at a rare occurrence, an eclipse. one country was firing rockets to fine out more about it. it's new in about 20 minutes. credit card companies had the nerve to charge a swipe fee. every time you made a donation to the quake relief in haiti. now, they are changing their tune. i add only because they were asked about it. jennifer westhoven is here. good morning. >> good morning. this is normal. this is the behind the scenes when it comes to your credit card.
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every time you swipe your card, this is a standard fee that's collected. the credit card companies keep 2% to 3%. they take it from the charity or retailer. it includes donations to charity. they are breaking with that. visa, mastercard, american express say they will suspend that swipe fee for all do nations that go to victims in haiti and give back the fees they collected. at the grocery store, you may see a shortage of cookie dough. >> no! >> last year, two tested positive for o co-lie. they are rhett tro fitting the plant to change the way they heat the flour. it would kill salmonella or e. coli. the dough on the shelves is safe. if you love it, buy a bunch.
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stick it in the freezer. >> i was just teasing there. be aware, just because someone is promising you are going to make money, it doesn't mean you are making good investment. gilbert arenas has been charged with bringing guns to the locker room. could he be in line for jail time?
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i want you to come here and look at this tape. this tape is from cbs. it shows the quake in haiti as it was happening. can you imagine? watch the buildings on the left here? the shaking just seems to continue forever. you're watching it on tape. it starts to shake violently. dust clouds start to form and obviously people were running there. it's been a long, long few days for people in the united states who have relatives who lived through that in haiti. one of our i-reporters in miami made an emotional plea for help in finding her sister. >> all i'm asking is for help from all the aids, unicef, troops, all the americans that
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are willing to volunteer in haiti. please, please, this is a picture of my sister and i. please have her contact me. please let her know that i love her. we all love her and we're waiting for her phone call. >> now, if you two are looking for loved ones in haiti or you want to help and you're not sure how, you can go to cnn.com/robin and click on the impact link or cnn. >> a lot of you, it's your get away friday. after a week of business travel, you're finally going back home. house the flight? >> pretty good. elwe will get delays around texas. heavy rain. i showed it to you on the radar a couple minutes ago. about an hour or more around houston. george bush. dallas, rain showers headed up in that direction too. watch for about a half hour to hour long delays with the poor
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visibility. seattle again half hour to hour with rain in and out of the area. san francisco about a 45 minute delay for you, morning fog. more on that in about a half hour. the nba star who brought guns into a team locker room is now charged with a crime. joe carter is in for rafer. >> good morning, robin. washington wizards. gilbert arenas has been charged with felony gun possession. he has a court date and plea deal in place which could keep him out of jail. this is an important note. the charge, one count of carrying a pistol without a license. arenas has acknowledged he did store four unloaded guns in his locker at the verizon center saying he wanted to keep them away from his children. arenas is surgical suspended from the nba without pay.
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his six year $111 million contract is in jeopardy of being void. more help is on the way for the people of haiti. major league baseball is pitching in $1 million to help victims of the earthquake. bud selig says the contribution is being made on behalf of the league and its 30 teams. this is coming just one day after the new york yankees donated $500 thousand to the relief fund. if you're just waking up with us. san diego running back ladainian tomlinson is more than a sharp dressed man. he's also a recording artist. take a listen. ♪ >> the lt slide? >> the lt slide electric glide. it's an 80s i inspired dance crushing the web. i have been looking for a new
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dance lately. i'm pretty sure i can do this one. read the defense of the read the defense of the side stip, side step. it's fun. it's on youtube. >> thank you. we have not heard from or seen tiger woods for more than a month now. where is he? a.j. hammer and the crew at "showbiz tonight" might have the answer. >> "showbiz tonight" is on the way at 11:00 a.m. eastern. big brand new tiger woods bombshell to talk about. is tiger woods really in sex rehab. president obama's startling new take on tiger's cheating meltdown. >> will ryan seacrest be replacing simon cowell, and why it could be elton john. showbiz tonight is getting under way at 11:00 a.m. eastern. i wish you and your lovely crew a wonderful weekend. >> sweet talker you. a mother panicked when a man jumped in her car and drove off
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with her son inside. police say no laws were broken. with a kid inside? ñ?
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good morning. must be your turn to get the coffee maker going. i'm robin meade. here's what's going on today. the relief aid is pouring into haiti. we've heard a major relief source has been looted. we have a prayed for the other families because how we felt an hour ago, no one in this world wants to feel that. >> an emotional moment for a father whose daughter was found alive among the rubble in haiti. now he prays for other people still trapped. a mother is accused of trying to trade her child for a gun. wait until you hear why she had
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to make the swap. child for gun. first the world food program is reporting this morning that its warehouse in haiti has been looted. obviously that's bad news right now, because time is the enemy in haiti. experts say the death tool could start climbing. people are still trapped in the rubble of a huge earthquake and there's virtually no heavy equipment to get them out and it's still incredibly difficult to get relief into the island. there have been huge snarls in the airport in port-au-prince. dozens of planes left parked and others were circling the air for hours. relief workers are still trying to get through. rescuers pulled an 11-year-old girl from the rubble yesterday. that's after an agonizing fear that they might have to cut off her leg to free her. she was crying out in pain pinned under heavy debris. finally someone showed up with a generator and electric saw to cut away the concrete.
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she is badly hurt and sent to the hospital. many of the hospitals collapsed in the earthquake. others are filled to capacity. buildings that are still standing even at the points are used as makeshift facilities. a world health organization spokesperson says the situation has made it nearly impossible to treat the injured and prevent the outbreak of disease. it is two minutes after the hour. we also have the story that we'll get for you of a massachusetts father whose daughter was found and she is safe now. it has been a long few days for people in the united states who have relatives in haiti. we have been getting so many different i-reports from people asking for help and finding their loved ones. whoever is watching this video, if you know anything about my daughter chelsea, it would be great to hear from you. i'm posting this message because i'm in the search of my
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sister. please let her know that i love her. we all love her and we're waiting for her phone call. >> if you are looking for a loved one in haiti or you're looking to help, go to cnn.com/robin. click on the impact link or go to cnn.com/impact. we're going to bring you the very latest video and information as it comes in throughout the morning. i want to show you this one. this is from cbs, a tape we got from them as the quake was happening. watch the buildings on the left, and the quake just seems to go on forever, and the buildings are reduced to clouds of concrete dust. obviously people running. what would you do? your body would tell you to do something and your brain doesn't know what to do. we're also, "morning express" so let me get you some of the other headlines today. al qaeda trained terrorists may be looking at targets other than airplanes. sources tell cnn that
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investigators have found the names of at least seven people whom al qaeda in yemen has trained and equipped to hit trains and other targets. while officials say there's no immediate threat, their concerns have intensified. democrats are in danger of losing the seat held by the late senator ted kennedy and president obama is trying to help out. he e-mailed a video to supporters in hopes they would back democrat martha coakley. the race is heated and some polls show brown is ahead. if he wins, it would take away the dem's filibuster proof majority in the senate. a 10-year-old boy will be going to a treatment center. he was only 8 when the shootings happen and he pleaded guilty to one count of negligent homicide. his attorney says he was crying during the sentencing and apologized. still the community is shaken. >> has it been difficult? >> i think so because everybody
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knew the father that was killed, i mean his family is from here and been here for years. >> i honestly don't know that we can ever quite get over something like that. prosecutors say the inpatient treatment could go on until the boy is 18. investigators have not released a motive for the killings, but the boy told him that he kept a tally of how many spankings he got. five minutes after the hour. here we come up to the weekend. should we be seeing temperatures that obviously you would see in january? i guess we can't complain if that's the case. >> you're right. when you see teens in florida just two days ago, that's not a good sign. that's going to warm up for you, but that's because a storm is developing now across the gulf coast and high pressure getting boo booted away. port arkansas 3.77 inches of rain. it's still raining now and most of it is coming down heavy in
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the same area. that's your low. that's your storm. that's the one gathering strength. that's going to spread all the way into the gulf of mexico, all the way up towards basically alabama and florida today through georgia and the carolinas over the weekend. look at the temperatures. 50 in orlando, 39 in jacksonville. yesterday morning everybody waking up around jacksonville at about 32 degrees. 28 in charlotte, 32 in atlanta, but we're going to see the rain heading in that direction. look at the heavy shield of rain, flash flood watches in all the areas shaded in dark green. 2 to 4 inches with isolated 6 in amounts. the rain is going to spread across the gulf coast. rain over corpus christi, over to san antonio. this area still needs the rain from the drought you have been in but not this much this soon. you're looking at a lot of rain
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around san antonio stretching back to houston. now approaching the city and we're going to get massive air flight delays out of that once the heavy rain moves in later this morning. next 48 hours, new orleans, you'll see the heavy rain too, towards birmingham and columbia and charlotte. the yellow shaded areas, 3 inches of rain, but luckily not phasing up with the arctic air mass, otherwise that would all be snow. it's just going to be liquid, not freezing on the surface. let me show you video from yesterday. firefighters say they have halted the progress of a wildfire burning in lake elsinore in southern california. no wind and you're going to see heavy rain coming in by sunday night and monday, but 25% of it is contained. already burned 150 acres. heavy rain, mud slides a potential for southern california. >> we're going to hear from the
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mother of a cub scout who continues to be on the tsa terrorism watch list, a cub scout. what she has to see about her kidding targeted.
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in our salute to the troops. today's salute is for sackry keuschel, u.s. navy from his dad gary. hi, robin. my name is gary keuschel and i'm sending this salute to my son, zachary keuschel. he's just a really happy and loving young man, and we hope everything is going well for you, and we hope to hear and see you soon and we love you very much. >> so sweet. if you have somebody in the
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service and you want to salute them, go to cnn.com/robin. we are hearing from the mother of an 8-year-old cub scout who is on a tsa watch list. mikey hicks' mother said he was patted down when he was just a baby. he happens to have the same name as somebody on the list which gives people a higher level of security screening. >> i want my kid off the list. i understand the need for security. you know, i was there on 9/11. i had him with me. he was three weeks old. i understand that people are trying to blow up our planes. that's not the point. the point is if you would get all these people off the list who don't belong on the list, maybe you would find somebody who was trying to do some harm. >> a tsa spokesperson says in the next few moments, agents will begin cross-checking the names with birth dates and gender to help avoid unnecessary screenings. breaking news, the u.s.
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aircraft carrier carl vincent has arrived in haiti today. the u.s. aircraft carrier is carrying 19 helicopters. it will be very important here to get aid to people in haiti and it also has 30 pallets of relief goods. just 30 pallets. obviously the country needs a lot more, but it is help. it is getting in and the helicopters as you can imagine will help the relief get in. that's breaking news. this is amazing that people have raised more than $5 million to for haiti just through a texting campaign and through messages that you would find on social networking sites like twitter and facebook. if you're giving money, you might want to know where is the money going exactly. our money expert jennifer westhoven tracking that for you? >> in case you're thinking about
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how to do it. we're talking almost $6 million through the red cross campaign. i tried it last night. you just make a new text message, you send it to 90999 and send it haiti. you get are you sure, and you hit yes that's what will happen. $10 will be on your next phone bill. in hours, that $10 donation they can turn into what haiti needs right now. the red cross says it could be food, water, shelter, medical supplies for the millions of people who are in danger right now. unicef sat down with cnn's alina cho. they said they are sending plastic jugs. >> these cost 7 cents for this package. it can bring a child back to
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life. >> how much does this tent cost? >> about $700. >> what is so important here in terms of getting the stuff on the ground is experts say in any large scale disaster, the disease that follows in the days and weeks afterwards, that can kill just as many people as the initial catastrophe did. if you want to make a difference, you can text the $10 donation or go to cnn.com/impact or cnn.com/robin. you will see a list of many of the big charities that are helping in haiti and what charity experts say, in a case like this, if you want your money to make a difference on the ground, it is best to give to a big group that is already in haiti as opposed to a smaller group in your area. if you are traveling this morning, we're covering everything here. you want to know if you need to get on the road a little early. >> hot spots today texas once
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again. houston, san antonio, heavy rain coming in. that's going to really be a delay area for you for the entire afternoon. here's the way it looks on saber flight explorer. dallas is up across the screen into the north. you can see houston, rain now beginning to edge in. that's going to be a problem. houston, one hour or more, good possibility, especially this morning as the clouds continue to run in. dallas seattle, 30 minutes, light showers, but the visibility poor. chicago, morning fog, same with areas around detroit, quick delay first thing in the day. cleveland, half hour delays possibly in the morning. many of you have donated money over the past couple of days. jen just talked about that, but the battle for late night still continues. nbc is getting slammed by both conan and leno. we'll hear what they had to say coming up.
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one of our i-reporters sent us heart wrenching pim turs. many lost their homes in the quake. some are sleeping outside because they are too afraid of aftershocks to go inside. can you imagine being in such a national disaster and even your president is homeless. that's the situation in haiti and it makes you wonder what
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kind of leadership there is right now, if the president doesn't even have a place to go to send out messages or, you know, how do i say, some leadership there. let's talk with richard lui who is joining us. it boggles the mind. it doesn't seem to have a flow of information or leadership there? >> so important. in katrina, when you think about central command. it is key. no senior haitian government officials were visible at the airport yesterday. according to the dominican republic's president, haiti's president is said to be in control from the airport, and that's because the quake flattened parts of the presidential palace and other government buildings. a u.n. peacekeeping spokesman said police are not visible at all on the streets as perhaps they themselves deal with lost homes and loved ones.
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>> it's hard to imagine. without police visible, who could fill the void? >> unfortunately, criminal gangs. gangs controlled staples like rice and gasoline. these gang leaders move to political and social causes to try to bond with people in the respective territories. as haiti moves to the next post disaster phase and foods become scarce, this situation might be ripe for gangs to muscle in again. >> richard, thank you very much. we'll continue to cover many different angles coming out of haiti today. police in a small south texas town found more than 00 pounds of pot in an abandoned car. police think the driver overshot
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an intersection and ended up in a ditch. the town is near mexico's border and police say so far they have seized 3,000 pounds in the past two weeks. nfl player pierre garcon can breathe a little easier this morning. the indianapolis colts receiver who has family ties in haiti got good news. >> pierre's mother spent the last two days trying to reach family members by phone and she got good news. according to the player, they are still looking for other family members. garcon is one day away from playing in his first playoff game. he's very thankful for the concern shown. garcon has been using twitter to get people to help the people of haiti. he is also giving auto graphed pictures to people helping with the effort.
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in the world of college basketball, jeron lewis died yesterday after collapsing on the basketball court during a basketball game. lewis suddenly fell to the floor during play and was motionless. he left the gym on a stretcher and was taken to a nearby hospital where he passed away. an autopsy is scheduled for later today. lewis a young man, only 21 years old. time now for our true champion. major league's baseball florida marlins. several members of the team will get on an airplane and travel to iraq and kuwait to pay a visit to u.s. troops. the march lynns are the very first major league baseball team to make the trip and they will be providing daily blog updates and photos of their trip on the team's website, so much shown appreciation by the florida march lynns to our troops overseas. >> i haven't thought about that to support the troops.
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>> nice. >> a woman was arrested for trying to trade her kid. you have to hear what she wanted in return. a mysterious bag was fond on a nasa space shuttle and it was not filled with tank. how did cocaine get there?
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new this morning the uss carl vinson has arrived in haiti. the aircraft carrier has 19 helicopters and 30 pallets of goods on board. the relief planes are also getting into haiti's main airport now. planes were left circling for hours yesterday when the port-au-prince airport which by the way only has one runway was clogged. a u.s. air force team is handling the traffic right now. the obama administration say they made solid progress on talks of health care reform. president obama met with la makers late into the night. they gave in when it exempted certain problems from the excite
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tax. pope benedict's planned visit. jewish leaders are angry to make a world war ii era pope a saint. he did not speak out against the holocaust. pope benedict has already visited synagogues in germany and new york. >> i know it's early, but let me get you ready for the day. 31 minutes past the hour. i'm robin meade. there is so much suffering in haiti right now, but we're also hearing amazing survival stories. a search and rescue team from ice land pulled out a woman who had been trapped for 50 hours. she says she never gave up hope. >> the first thing i did was to think of my parents because i did not want them to lose me of the i'm the only child. the second thing, i never
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stopped, never stopped once praying. i'm going to tell you something. i'm someone who prays a lot. now, i'm very grateful that i never lost faith. >> the only haitian priest in nashville, tennessee is doing everything he can for the relief efforts while also dealing with a personal tragedy. last night he learned that his brother in port-au-prince was killed in the quake. >> when you are christian, you are not thinking about yourself, yourself, because your life is self giving life, you know. even though when people call me about my brother, you know, but i really, i go farther than my brother. the warehouse has been looted from the 15 ton stockpile of food. millions of aid dollars are flowing into haiti but will the
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money get to the people who need it so much. richard lui is digging into the concerns about corruption? >> haiti has a track record something of a money pit in the past. corruption has been rampant and success scarce, says one expert. >> i think it's no secret that u.s. aid as well as aid from other donors has been basically an abject failure in haiti. there have been some areas of success, such as in reducing the hiv infection rate, but all the other metrics by which you would measure aid success, sustain ability, impact, effects on economic development, human development, it has been an utter disaster. >> the united states has invested about $5 billion in aid since 1960, but it hasn't always reached its target. a lot of the aid problems may stem from haiti's government which has been called unstable in the past.
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>> they are desperate for supplies? >> some aid groups are running out of basic supplies like drinking water. >> it's overwhelming the need. at world vision, we basically have one day left supply of water, of blavgets of some of the basic things we're distributing. i think we're typical of the challenges we're having as organizations to get enough supplies to help people here. time is running out. you feel the urgency growing minute by minute everyday. >> there could be hurdles in getting supplies to people, aid groups may be the best route for getting supplies to people especially since haiti's government has been damaged. >> we'll continue to get you more information as it comes in out of haiti about the relief efforts. as many as eight army officers could be punished for the deadly rampage at ft. hood. the pentagon's report on what went wrong comes out today. an official is telling the ap
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says the review finds fault with supervisors who knew or should have known about thor rattic behavior of the suspect, major nidal hasan. he's accused of killing 13 people during a shooting spree in november. nasa is trying to find out how a bag of cocaine ended up in the shuttle "discovery's" hangar. it was in a restricted area where 200 workers are. nasa says it's drug testing everyone with access and it should not affect "discovery's" mission in march. >> your next flight may be under even tighter security. yesterday, all airlines flying to the united states were told to prepare for more security. a law enforcement official says that is because of the latest threat from al qaeda branch in yemen. more air marshals are on international flights and you can expect more random screenings. california same sex marriage
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ban may be costing san francisco millions of dollars a year. during the trial for proposition 8 a city economist testified the city spends a lot of money on health care for uninsured partn partners. on cross examination, he admitted that many of his estimates are based on assumptions. people from africa to asia were able to see a solar eclipse. the monday crossed the sun's path temporary blocking it. india launched rockets to help study the effects of the eclipse. scientists want to find out the sudden cutoff in solar radiation, if it changes the atmosphere. this type of eclipse happens about 66 times a century. so what about my weather? where you go, meteorologist bob van dillen. what kind of temperatures are we going to see? >> i want to show the southeast
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temperatures for closure sake. we're finally getting rid of the cold temperatures, especially around northern florida flashings central florida, they have gone. these are the temperature readings currently, 39 degrees in jacksonville, last couple of mornings into the 20s. much better for you today. orlando, 50. 65 in miami. up to 77. couple showers a possibility, but at least you are not flirting with the freezing temperatures. look at the rain coming in in southern texas. most of that area of low pressure is back across the west now beginning to form into a nice area of low. that moves towards new orleans over the next couple of days. as it does that, the heavy rain shield is going to stretch into the lower gulf coast ultimately to the northeast by sunday afternoon. new york city rain coming in for sunday. here's what it looks like flood wise. san antonio 2 to 4 inches of rain. the heavy rain is by corpus christi. more rain on top of the 2.5
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inches you got yesterday. the rain stretches into san antonio, and austin. here is houston. let me take you live to the city. it's still dark, but the clouds are in here. they are going to be off and on for most of the day. the heavy down pours reach in and we will get delays in houston because of that action. watch for the heavy pileups in houston. the next 48 hours, i want to give you a sense of where the rain is headed, getting into the lower parts of florida, north florida, georgia. temperatures finally warming up. more on that in just a little bit. >> thanks. >> ding, ding, that's the alarm that your kid was supposed to have a shot but the time has already passed. those of you who love to curl up on a friday night and eat raw cookie dough while you're watching tv, you might need to go to a grocery store right now.
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all right. 19 to the hour. let's check out some of the headlines in the morning papers. in the "chicago tribune" a man convicted of raping and murdering a woman walked free for of from a life sentence. he spent more than 23 years behind bars. police tortured him into confessing. prosecutors dropped the charges because they couldn't disprove that. it looks like the t.e.a. party movement is trying to shape the future of the gop. activists are signing up to be republican precinct leaders across the country. it's a way for them to influence who runs for office. "usa today" has a stat that
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hundreds of thousands of kids, up to 80% nationwide might be overdue for their second dose of the h1n1 vaccine. a massachusetts teen was among the thousands reported missing after the quake in haiti and their family was terrified but then they got a call. >> she's alive. they rescued her. she's alive. >> that is her father so relieved. 19-year-old brittany was on a mission trip to the islands. the family got conflicting reports about whether she was alive or dead. >> she's on a helicopter being air lifted to port-au-prince airport, and we are so thrilled. we have been here praying for 48 hours and people have been so good. >> brittany only had been in haiti for a day before the quake
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hit. credit card companies had the nerve to charge a swipe fee every time you were making a donation to relief for haiti, but now, after they were asked, i mind you, they are changing their tune. our money expert jennifer westhoven is here. >> they weren't like donations, let's charge a fee. that's their normal policy. it's just something you may not know. it's standard. every time you use your card, the credit card companies keep 2 to 3%. it's called the interchange fee. it's behind the scenes on all swipes out there. the in a case like this where every dollar that you give could make a huge difference in someone's life, the credit card companies, they're going to break with the usual. visa, mastercard, american express are temporarily suspending that fee for any donations to haiti, but just like robin said, this is after some lawmakers basically called them out and said, hey, it's not cool for you guys to be
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profiting off these americans being generous, making all these donations, keeping all of that money. there are some estimates that they make millions of dollars a year off charitable donations alone. i wonder if that's not something we might see oversight of. you may see a shortage at the grocery store of cookie dough. there's a huge cookie dough plant temporarily shutting down. last year, two samples of nestle cookdy dough tested positive for e. coli. they are going to retrofit the whole plant. they've got a new way to kill any e. coli bacteria, two words you don't want to hear in connection with your cookie dough. the dough on the shelves is safe. if you see a shortage, this is why it's happening. stock up. >> i have to admit -- you're not
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supposed to eat it raw? >> i know. i do too. >> i know. just can't make it to the little cookie sheet. a mother panicked when a man jumped into her car and drove off with her son inside. police are saying no laws were broken. are you kidding me. nba star gilbert arenas is being charged for bringing guns into the locker room. can he be in line for jail time?
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it is day four after the haiti earthquake. tens of thousands are feared dead. i wanted to get you the latest numbers here. the relief is pouring in, but it's going to be hard to deliver it because the port is badly damaged. the airport is tiny. it's got one runway. it is overwhelmed. the roads are ripped apart. a huge fear now is disease, because sanitation is such a big problem, but the united states and at least ten other countries are rushing in aid. meteorologist bob van dillen, i wonder if the weather there is helping or hindering the search and rescue teams? . it's been pretty good.
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it's been typical too. i want to show you the five day forecast for port-au-prince. 92 degrees today. that's the average for t this te of year. it's cool when you look at the low tomorrow morning. 71 degrees. some of the folks are complaining who are sleeping outside. it's going to be on the cool side. but again, through the weekend temperatures in the low 90s, about a 20% chance of showers. the trade wind comes up and thunderstorms are popping but it doesn't hit a lot of the island or hispaniola. >> you think about, that's not going to stop people from getting the aid in? >> no, weather won't be a factor. >> what the problem is, you have such heat and you have bodies around and they're not being buried, so you have the potential there for some serious problems. thank you. the nba star who brought guns into the locker room has
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been charged with a crime. joe carter is in for rafer. >> good morning. the nba's most dramatic story takes a new turn. gilbert arenas has been charged with felony gun possession. the charge, one count of ka caring a pistol without a license is a crime that carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison, but arenas is expect today plead guilty today which could keep him out of jail. arenas has acknowledged he stored four unloaded guns in the locker at the verizon center he is currently suspended without pay. more help is on the way for the people of haiti. major league baseball is stepping in and pitching in $1 million to help the victims of the earthquake. commissioner bud selig says contribution is being made on behalf of the 30 teams from around the league. this is after the yankees
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donated half a million dollars there. >> it's good to see. thank you so much. >> you bet. >> in this tough economy, we could all use our money coach. hln money expert clark howard is here. listen to which will la's story. >> i'm will la and i need a money coach. when i left the postal service, i had thrift savings program. i had invested in it and i have almost $50,000 in a g fund but at this particular time, the g fund is not generating a lot of interest. i think i need a money coach because i don't have a lot of involvy about what to do with that amount of money. i want to invest that money in the future for my kids because i don't think i'll use it. my question is what should i do
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with my thrift savings plan account? >> you want to stay in the tsp, but take your money and put it into the other choices in the plan. split a quarter of your money each because this is money you can set aside for the rest of your life for someone to inherit. that is always the key with money. when are you going to need it? in will la's case maybe not ever. if you're going to need money sooner rather than later, invest conservatively, but if it's money you're not going to lead for a long time, you want to stay heavily invested in the stock and bond type choices available to you in your 401(k) or for government workers in the tsp. that was clark.
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clark howard will teach you to save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off.
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good morning. it's been a long week and we're sure glad to have you with us this morning. it's 8:00 eastern, i'm robin meade and here's what's going on today. >> i think in the next few days people are going to be running out of food, out of water. we need help because it's urgent. >> tons of food and supplies are going to haiti, but the problems at the airport may be holding it up, and we're getting new information this morning about possible looting. also ahead, a top leader in the taliban has reportedly been injured. what intelligence officials are saying about a drone strike in pakistan. a woman is accused of trying to trade her kid in to a family friend. what cops say what she wanted to
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give up her daughter for was a gun. first, though, new information coming out of haiti. the "uss carl vinson" has arrived off the coast of haiti, and it is carrying 19 helicopters and tons of relief supplies. onshore, there are major problems, though. the world food program's warehouse has been looted. we don't know how much of the critical food and water has been taken. other relief agencies say they're running out of the basic supplie supplies. >> once again this morning coming here it was -- i would say a mile-long line of people waiting for gasoline, for petrol. so that's another issue. we are short basics that allow you to distribute it affecti affectively. a u.s. air force team with radios strapped to their backs has planes flying in and out of haiti, though, that's after a huge snarl yesterday. at one point there were 44 planes parked at the airport with just two fuel trucks to handle them, so they're running out of fuel.
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other planes were circling for up to three hourses. haiti's airport has only one runway and it had to close. there was no place to put those planes. rescuers finally pulled an 11-year-old girl out of the rubble from the earthquake yesterday after agonizing fear that they might have to cut off her leg just to free her. she was crying out in pain, pinned under heavy debris. someone showed up as a generator and an electric saw, something as basic as that and cut the concrete. she's badly hurt. a u.s. grad student is among the survivors. she lost part of her leg when a building collapsed around her. christina was in haiti for a literacy volunteer project and she spoke to cnn about what happened. >> i slipped when i was going down the stairs, and so the roof of the house fell down on to my leg and crushed my right leg, but my left leg was fine. well, crushed, but not as badly
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upon. >> there she is in miami because they're now getting care. we're going to bring you the very latest video and the information as it comes in throughout the morning from haiti. we are also "morning express" so let me get you the other headlines affecting your day as well. al qaeda train terrorists may be looking at targets other than airplanes. investigators have found the names of at least seven people whom al qaeda in yemen has equipped to hit trains and other targets. while officials say there is no immediate threat apparently their concerns have intensified. a 10-year-old arizona biwho admitted to shooting and killing his father and another man will be going a treatment center. he was 8 when the shootings happened. he pleaded guilty last year to one count of negligent homicide. his attorney said he was crying during the sentencing and apologized. the community is still shaken. >> thz been difficult? i think so. i think so because everybody
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knew the father that was killed and i mean, his family is from here and been here for years. >> i honestly don't know that we can ever quite get over something like that. >> prosecutors say that the in-patient treatment could go on until the boy's 18. investigators have not released a motive for the killings, but the boy told him that he kept a tally of his spankings. >> some final deals on health care reform could come today. the obama administration and democratic leaders say they made solid progress into the talks that stretched into the night. leaders may accept a deal over high-cost insurance planses. lawmakers would like to put together a bill today that both houses can vote on. >> people from africa to asia were able to see a solar eclipse today. the moon crossed the sun's path temporarily blocking it. u-shaped launched rockets to help study the effects of an eclipse. scientists want to find out if the cut off of solar radiation
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changes the atmosphere. this type of eclipse happens 66 times a century. ♪ four minuteses past the hour. finally, some of the areas that have seen a hard freeze are getting something that is back to semi-normal. bob will show you some of the tallies. >> florida is what you're talking about and once it warms up rain comes in, too. we're looking at rain across texas. porter ranch 3.77. corpus christi, 2.89 inches of rain and that will last through the late afternoon and evening hours and stretches to the gulf coast. >> high pressure dominating the eastern seaboard. you're traveling from atlanta to charlotte back in toward d.c. and new york, it looks pretty good. >> let me take you live to washington, d.c. the temperature is about 52 degrees and the high mostly sunny and sunday, that's when
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your gulf coast rain moves in. the first half looks pretty good for maryland and virginia. >> what about the temperatures? here's the way they look. 39 in jacksonville right now. we saw temperatures as low as the low 20s. right now upper 30s. so safely above freezing. miami back up to 68 degrees. high today, 77 and a couple of showers in and out and not in the freezing mark. as all of the rain pulls in off the gulf of mexico it will really pile up. two to four inches of rain is a good possibility. isolated areas could see as much as six inches of rain today and you can see the flash flood watches, the areas shaded in dark green and the dark shade of green is the flash flood warnings. corpus christi, here are your rains and basically overhead and going to the north. san antonio, decent showers into areas like houston. more rain and that will be there most of the day as it finally moves into the city and again, gets to the northeast by sunday.
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let me show you video of southern california. firefighters have halted the progress of wildfires burning in riverside county. this is near lake elsinore. i should know that from watching strange brew, elsinore. the weather is helping them out, though, robin. looking at calm conditions today. that is 25% contained and it burned 150 acres. heavy rain in store for southern california by monday. flash flooding will be a concern. you ever see that movie "strange brew," probably not. >> talking to you, rob. >> what did you say about strange brew? >> you ever see the movie? >> no. >> i didn't think so. >> you're lucky i saw "e.t." >> all right. >> a lot of people, maybe you're among them have donated money to help people in haiti, and i'm sure that if you did donate money you want to know where is it going so we'll tell you where the money is being spent.
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salute to the troops time now. today's salute is for machinist made fire mid-cap. from his dad gary. >> hi, robin. my name is gary crushel and i'm sending this salute to my son zachary keuschel. he's just a really happy and loving young man, and we hope everything is going well for you, and we hope to hear and see you soon, and we love you very much. >> if you have somebody in the service, you want to salute them i would be happy to help. go to cnn.com/robin. can you imagine being in a national disaster an even your president becomes homeless. that is exactly the situation in haiti after its devastating earthquake on tuesday. let me ask correspondent richard lui about what kind of
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leadership people are getting in that situation. >> central command is so important right now, robin, yet when you take a look at a key installation. no government officials were visible at the airport yesterday, but according to the dominican republic's president, rene preval is said to be in control from the airport. the quake flattened parts of the presidential palace and other government buildings. a u.s. peacekeeping spokesmen say police are not visible at all in the streets as perhaps, they themselves deal with lost homes and loved ones. >> they have their own personal matter. >> without police around you have the feeling of who can fill the void? >> critical here, gangs are a huge concern. before the quake, haiti's police and the unstablization mission were finally confronting the violent gangs of port-au-prince, according to "time magazine." plus we have new details of 1,000 dangerous prisoners. they escaped after the prison
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crumbled and a u.n. source telling cnn's anderson cooper they believe they rioted and took over the facility there and bloody handprints are all over the prison wall. >> some people are not in there for robbery, they're in there for other things are out on the streets now. >> that's right. >> thank you. >> sure. >> new this morning the taliban's leader in pakistan was wounded in a suspected u.s. drone strike yesterday. that's according to intelligence sources and taliban sources say that he's being treated by doctors in a safe place. he is seen sitting next to the man believed to be the suicide bomber who killed seven cia personnel and contractors in the video that the taliban released saturday. you know, people are really mobilizing together, maybe you're among them, to raise money for people in haiti. they raised almost $6 million for haiti just through a texting campaign upon. so if you're taking part in this, you want to know, where is
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the money going, exactly? our money expert, jennifer westhoven is sorting that out. we've never seen anything like that where you could pick up your phone and send a little text along and $10 gets pout your cell phone bill at the end of month and that is donated. nearly $6 million has been raised that way just through the text campaign and this is a case where, you know, every dollar that you give can make a huge difference to someone. the relief organization says that in just hours they can take your money and turn that into what haiti needs right now. the red cross says it's buying food, water, shelter, medical supplies for the millions of people in danger. of course, people are also giving online as well, too. unicef, also in action. they sat down with alain cho and sending essentials like tablets that purify water. plastic jugs so they can carry clean water and first aid kits. >> this is something called oral rehydration salts.
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these cost 7 cents for this package. it literally can bring a child back to life. >> how much does a tent like this costs? $700 for a tent. it's a shelter, it's a community center, it can be a hospital. >> and this kind of giving is crucial because any time you've got a large-scale disaster like this whether it's an earthquake or tsunami, for example, experts say that the disease that can come after in the days and weeks afterwards when people can't get things like clean water, that can kill just as many people as the initial catastrophe did. so if you want to do something, if you want to take some action to help, you can text the $10 donation to 90999 and you get a text back, hit something else to confirm and you can just confirm it or go to cnn.com/impact or cnn.com/robin. you know our site. if you come through the impact your world link you'll get to links of doss dozens of charities and experts say that
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this is one of the times where if you really want your money to make the most impact, then it's best to give to a big organization that's already on the ground as opposed to a smaller one in your area. >> i don't know if we can get that video back up that you just had that you were talking over there and you see people digging with simple tools like shovels or, you know, a pick axe or anything they can find. people are being put on the side of the road and some of these are patients that need help and otherses are bodies because there's just simply no place to put the bodies right now. it's so -- how can i say? the basic services that you would expect and you would think in a city this large, they just don't exist right now. so people are turning to each other to rescue. it's not like there are people running around saying i'm an expert rescuer. no. it's your next-door neighbor. survivors in haiti are finding ways to let their loved ones know that they're okay. new this morning hear from some
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people who are reaching out. plus, some people found a unique way to try to hide their pot-growing organization.
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that will wake you up. 17 minutes past the hour. democrats are in danger of losing the seat held by ted kennedy and president obama's trying to help out. we e-mailed a video to supporters in hopes they will back democrat martha cokely. the race is heated. polls show brown is ahead. if he wins it would take the democrats' filibuster-proof majority in the senate. talk about a bus ride. north carolina investigators found huge amounts of marijuana being grown on a school bus that was buried under a garage. deputies say drug-sniffing dogs found a hidden door and behind the tunnel leads to the bus. officials were looking for a marijuana farm in the area. they never saw anything when they'd fly over in a helicopter. i'm sure they didn't expect that. ♪ ♪
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>> magic bus! that's off the audio operator. all right. nfl player pierre garzon can breathe a sife relief. the indianapolis colts receiver who has family in haiti got some good news, thank goodness. joe carter is in for rafer. good morning. >> good morning. it's good news, but i don't want to say the family is out of the woods per se, just yet. >> if they're there. right. exactly. >> good news because four of his family members were found and they are safe, but the status of numerous other aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives are still unknown. the colts receiver has his mind in other places. one day away from playing in his first career nfl playoff game and he told reporters that he's thankful for the concern people have shown for haiti. garzon like others have been using twit tore get people to send funds to haiti. garzon is giving autographed items to fans donating to the
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relief effort. tough news from the world of college basketball. jaron lewis a senior at southern indiana died yesterday after collapsing on the basketball court during a basketball game. a school folksman says lewis fell to the court during play and was simply motionless. he left the game on a stretcher and was taken to a nearby hospital where he passed away. an autopsy is scheduled for later today. lewis just 21 years old. time now for our true champion. major league baseball's florida marlins. several members of the team will get on an airplane and travel to iraq and kuwait to pay visit to our u.s. troops. the marlins are making history in the process. they're the first major league baseball team to make the trip overseas. the team will be providing daily blog updates and photos of the trip on the team website. the marlins do have direct ties to the military. chris coughlin plays left field for the marlins and his brother is a corporal in the u.s. marines. >> okay. this is a nice effort of them. >> absolutely. the first team to do it and
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hopefully many will follow. >> i never thought about this with the athletic teams there. >> good idea. >> thanks. >> you bet. 20 minutes past the hour. it is a getaway day friday for our business travelers, get home friday. hi, bob. >> good morning, robin. >> actually not that bad of a day with the exception of texas and possibly some fog across the middle part of the country, but let me show you right now, flight explorer zeroed in to the region of southern texas. this is san antonio. s.a.t., the rain is stretching into houston. you can see the air traffic trying to get in and out of houston. here's what we have for the day. houston, 30-minute to 45-minute delay will most likely climb to over an hour as heavy rain continues to move in. dallas and salth, showers. they'll be on the light side. and then morning fog is a possibility. chicago, maybe fog delays in detroit. they ought to be very short and same with cleveland and san francisco, more for you and it could be 45 minutes. more in a bit.
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>> thank you. late-might monologue battles have kicked it to overdrive. leno and conan are letting it rip. if you're trying to live better now and trying to tone up and shape up. the key is getting the right workout. so what is it? lifting weights or doing the cardio, huh?
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[ music ] >> welcome to comcast local edition, i'm donna richardson, and my guest this hour is leslie prewitt, director of external operations, opportunity builders. good to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> can you tell the viewers about opportunity builders incorporated and what exactly the organization does? >> absolutely. we have been around for 47. we were started in 1962. we provokessa provide training d rehabilitation. >> what are the services you
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offer your clients? >> there are 170 that stay in our warehouse that do packaging then we have 180 individuals that go out and work for local employer. >> you have the employers who are helping out and also having the contracts to give those, like you said, in the warehouse employment possibilities. >> absolutely. we're always looking to new contracts to fulfill, inside of our warehouse and then outside we're always looking for new employers to hire our adults. >> now all of this, i know it takes funding, and you've got a fund-raiser coming up. >> right. >> so tell us about your mardi gras. >> well, hence the beads so you know why i'm wearing beads. we are very proud of our 12th
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annual mardi gras. we have live music, we have a casino, an auction, great food, beer, wine, and ice cream and it's a great night and a lot of fun. >> it does sound like a lot of fun. how much are the tickets to be able to enjoy all this fun? >> the tickets are $50 each. >> very, very reasonable, and it sounds like you're getting a huge value with the opportunity of the casinos and the great food and the auctions and the dancing. >> uh-huh. >> so with this, because i know it takes a lot of dollars in order to run the program, how do you plan to use the proceeds? >> the proceeds will help with our operating expenses, especially with the downturn in the economy and budget cuts, we will be using it to assist the organization. >> leslie, i do have a question.
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how do your clients become a part of opportunity builders? >> they are funded for the developmental disability administration. if someone is interested, if a family is interested in having family members participate in an opportunity with opportunity builders, they would call and then we would direct them to our director of employment that would start them through the process of the program. >> once they're in the program, do you also provide training before the clients either work in the warehouse or go out to work with your partner businesses? >> absolutely. in the warehouse, we do have an instructor to assist individuals with each contract, and as far as the individuals who go out into the community and work, we do training for those individuals. they have a one on one coach so we'll make sure the individual knows how to do the job before we have them working on their own. >> in going back to mardi gras,
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do you need any volunteers to help out, because that's a big undertaking you have so many different activities going on? >> absolutely. we can always use volunteers, but we can always use the ticket sales, and that's really a big emphasis for us, ticket sales and sponsorships. >> exactly. so there are sponsorship opportunities available? >> absolutely. >> how can they reach you if they want to buy tickets or become a sponsor? they can call our office. >> perfect. well, leslie, thanks so much for joining me. >> thank you for having me. >> our guest this hour is less by prior to director of external operations at opportunity builders. for comcast local edition, i'm donna richardson.
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[ music ]
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the suspected mastermind of the 2002 bali nightclub bombing may be tried in washington. the associated press says the boom administration is considering trying the man known as hambali in the capital. he was considered osama bin laden's point man in indonesia. more than 200 people died in that attack. controversy is brewing over pope benedict's planned visit to rome's main synagogue on sunday. jewish leaders are angry over vaticanier as to make a world war ii era a saint. pope benedict has visited synagogues in germany and new york. those are a few of our top
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stories today, but i just want to say good morning to you. hello, welcome. come and sit down if you have the time. break it down on tw fronts when it comes to getting aid to haiti. first "uss comfort" will be bound for haiti. it's not like it will get there like this, it will take a couple of days to get there. the "uss comfort" you would hope that would provide medical care for the people there. >> cuba is going to let the united states to use its airspace to fly medical evacuation flights from the earthquake-devastated country of haiti. that news just in this morning. so that agreement will allow the united states to fly earthquake victims directly from haiti to the united states and reduce the flight time for these flights. so cuba says go ahead and use our airspace. there is so much suffering in haiti right now, but we are also hearing amazing survival stories. a search and rescue team from
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ice l.a.p.d. pulled out a woman who had been trapped for 50 hours in complete darkness in a collapsed market. somehow she had no injuries and she says she never gave up hope. >> the first thing i did is to tell my parents because i did not want them to lose me, i'm the only child and the second thing, i never stopped, never stopped once praying and i'm going to tell you something -- i'm someone who prays a lot and now i'm very grateful that i never lost faith. >> isn't that amazing? >> the world food program reports this morning that its warehouse in haiti was looted this morning. no word yet on how much was taken from the agency's 15,000-ton stockpile of food. millions of aid dollars are flowing into haiti, but will the money get to the people who need it so desperately. correspondent richard lui is digging into concerns about corruption in haiti's aid system. by no means does it mean that
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people should stop giving. there is a huge need. >> absolutely. this is a problem they're looking at. haiti has a track record of being a money pit. corruption has been rampant and success scarce says one expert. >> i think it's no secret that u.s. aid as well as aid from other donors has been basically an abject failure in haiti. there have been some areas of success such as in reducing the hiv infection rate, but all the other metrics by which you would measure aids success, economic development, human development has been an utter disaster. >> since 1960 the united states has invested about $5 billion in aid, but it has not always reached its end target. a lot of the aid problems may stem from haiti's government which has been called incapable and unstable, by some. >> we are also hearing some good news in the struggle to clear
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massive amounts of debris. >> right. >> from the streets there, debris that i would imagine fell from the earthquake. >> a lot of it. haiti desperately needing heavy machinery to clear tons of debris. former president bill clinton says a solution is on the way. >> haitians bought with some of their aid after the hurricanes in 2008 some really good moving equipment. they had it out in the country dredging the waterways to protect against hurricanes. they're getting that back into the cities now. they will be able to move the debris off the streets. that's going to happen. >> now clinton and former president george h.w. bush are helping lead aid and humanitarian efforts. >> thank you. very latest on that. >> we will bring you any new information and video as it comes in this morning. let me get you some of the other headlines as we are "morning express." as many as eight army officers could be punished for the deadly rampage on forthood.
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the report on what went wrong comes out today. officials tell the a.p. that the review finds fault with supervisors who knew or should have known about the erratic behavior of the suspect, major nidal hasan. he's accused of killing 13 people during a shooting spree in november. talk about some kind of rocket fuel. nasa is trying to find out how a bag of cocaine ended up in the shuttle discovery's hangar. a worker found the small bag on the floor outside a bathroom, though it's in a restricted area where about 200 workers are getting the shuttle red for a mission in march. nasa says it's drug testing everyone with access. >> you're dealing with very, very delicate and very precise equipment. it's what the astronauts use. zero tolerance policy for the very reason because you have zero margin for error when you deal with spaceflight. >> nasa said there is no reason to believe that this will have any impact on discovery's upcoming launch.
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>> no. >> cocaine? >> no, it won't be. i can picture it. can you listen to it right now with the cocaine in there? the space shuttle t-minus five minutes and we'll go, we'll beat the space station in ten minutes? oh, yeah. >> you're good. >> i'm just telling you, cocaine and spaceflight probably don't mix. >> not a good mix. >> hi, bobby. >> let me show you changes in the weather. high pressure sliding down the eastern seaboard. look at the low pressure center ask off the coast of texas and a lot of rain out here and that will stretch through the gulf coast and ultimately to the northeast by sunday and let me show you what it looks like over the next 48 hours and rainfall total wise and you start to see the yellow pop up and that will be around houston again today and same with corpus christi and galveston and the yellow stretches through alabama and out of the panhandle of florida, through the carolinas and that's a good rain soaker and luckily it is not syncing up with the arctic air mass that was over
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the place. it would be either all ice or snow, not the case. it will be plain old rain. it's heavy at times, basically southern parts of texas, houston showers and san antonio it's each heavier. notice dallas on the fringes of lighter showers. the clouds are in and we'll take you live to big d. the temperature right now is 50 degrees and up to 55 degrees with a passing shower or two. the real heavy stuff will be down to the south and the showers will work their way into dfw, the airport there. you might see a short delay because of poor visibility. back to the map and we'll show you the heavy rain again and in southern parts of texas. two to four inches of rain a good possibility and all of this region in the flash flood watch on top of the stuff you will see today. a couple of regional radars. the heaviest rain is to the north and gets into san antonio and ultimately moves to houston and we'll talk about that, robin in just about a half hour. >> it's pretty heavy. >> some credit card companies are changing the way they do
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business to help people in haiti. it's one of those stories, that you go, you're kidding me. you were taking a fee? today is the first anniversary of the hudson river plane landing. it has been a year ago, but you will hear about how it brought two people together. is this a love story?
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all right. we've just learned something that the "uss carl vinson" is not yet in haiti. the aircraft carrier. this is the thing with 19 helicopters on it and 30 pallets of relief goods for earthquake victims in haiti. word is now that it could be arriving some time today. earlier reports said it was there, but we've learned now that it's on its way.
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looking at the morning papers and we did the work for you. in "the chicago tribune" a man convicting of raping and murdering a woman just walked free from a life sentence. he spent more than 23 years behind bars, but he says police tortured him into confessing. prosecutors finally dropped the charges because they couldn't disprove that. it looks like the tea party movement is trying to shape the future of the gop. activists are signing up to be republican precinct leaders across the country. it's a way for them to influence who runs for office. "usa today today" has a startling stat that kids up to 80% might be overdue for their second dose of the h1n1 vaccine. that's a look at the papers. the jokes and insults are really flying at nbc about the plan to move around the late-night shows. >> there's a rumor that nbc is so upset with me they want to keep me off the air for three years.
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yeah. my response is if nbc doesn't want people to see me just leave me on nbc. >> a lot of controversy at nbc. "the tonight show with conan o'brien's" ratings have gone up. so you're welcome. >> former talk show host, rosie o'donnell is getting in the mix. she's calling on leno to step down and let conan do "the tonight show." she said it's time for the bus driver to hand over the keys to the new guy with the red hair. >> you know, i love listening to the stories. one of the perspectives i heard that i just thought was really sobering is no matter what you hear between the talk show hosts they say this is all about the network executives and money. make no mistake. >> well, yeah. sure. it's business, right? >> they'll love you one second and then cut you loose the next. >> in terms of the big network. not this network. >> not at hln.
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they love us, they love us. tell me you love me! >> the credit card companies have a nerve to take a fee while you're donating to hate? i there's been uproar about it and that's changed. this is something a lot of people don't know that's going on behind the scenes. every time you use it, the credit card companies keep 2% to 3%. so that's happening when you're at the store or when you're giving to charity and in a case like this where we know that every dollar can make a difference, we've been talking about how some life-saving things cost just 7 cents. the credit card companies are going to break with their usual, their business as usual. visa, mastercard and american express will temporarily suspend that normal interchange fee. the swipe fee for any doninge d to haiti. law makers said this is not the time for you to be profiting off generosity and it raises the issue that maybe in the future is it right for credit card companies to keep that money
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when it comes to charities? maybe they could cut the fee or something like that, but that's a lot of money for them to keep there. you may see a shortage of cookie dough at the grocery store. there's a big nestle cookie dough plant temporarily shutting down. last year samples in two of the batches tested positive for e. coli. so nestle will retrofit the whole plant and changing their baking process to make sure that any process any salmonella or e. coli, those bacteria will be killed. those are two words you want to think about. >> as you're sitting in your jammehs, watching your tv eating your raw cookie dough and you're watching saying, salmonella? it is safe. the point is to make sure they change the process so it can't happen again. if you do love your nestle cookie dough, go get a bunch of packs. danica patrick is the most famous te male race car driver.
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they reveal the trailblazer who drove the gender barrier on the track. here's today's breakthrough women. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> hi, i'm sarah fisher and i'm an indy 500 race car driver and team owner. i'm nominating indian an liss 500 race car driver janet guthrie as a breakthrough woman. janet guthrie is the first woman to compete in both the indianapolis 500 and the daytona 500. she pioneered women in racing as it relates to our accept ability. she's always been my mentor. she's broken through the glass ceiling for all women race car drivers like myself. she continues to never give up, setting her sights on the goal whether that was competing in the indianapolis 500 and the daytona 500 being the first woman to look at the challenges as an opportunity. i want to thank janet for standing behind me in my career and being a supporter of not only my race team, but my career as an indianapolis 500 driver. >> that was great. i enjoyed that tape, too.
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some stars may join together to help the haiti earthquake relief effort and one of hollywood's biggest names is taking the lead. nba star gilbert arenas is being charged for bringing guns into a locker room. could he be in line for any jail time now?
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more breaking news this morning and it's about the effort to get aid to haiti needing it so bad right now. the faa is reporting that the airport at port-au-prince in haiti will have to do a ground stop at least until 10:00 a.m. because of the ramp space. we'll give you an example of why this is a problem. here's the deal. you have a city of millions of people, but you've got one ramp, you've got one runway, and not a whole lot of ramp space at all so these planes come in and they
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have a lot of equipment like the military plane that came in here. so this thing is full of, you would think equipment and supplies. you've got to unload those things before it takes off again. where do you put the plane if there's only one runway and you're trying to unload it. that's yet faa is doing a ground stop at that airport for planes coming out of the united states. the faa was taking control of the flights going in and out of there because simply there's no other way to have some order about that. so we'll keep on top of that. also, bob is going to check in, too, with that, too. he has our -- what do they call it the flight explorer. i always forget the word. the flight explorer that will show us what the planes that are being held in the air are doing. george clooney is trying to do what he can for earthquake relief. the actor is working with mtv on a telethon that would air next friday. still no word on what celebs will join them. several other networks including sister network cnn may also be
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airing the telethon. the nba star who brought a gun into the locker room has been charged with a crime, and joe carter is and joe carter is filling in for rafer with more on that. >> is he going to serve some time for this? >> what started out as a joke, robin, turn under to a pretty serious issue for this guy. gilbert arenas has been changed with felony gun possession. one count of carrying a pistol without a license and a crime that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison but arenas is expected to plead guilty today in a plea deal to keep him out of jail. arenas did acknowledge he did score four unloaded guns in his locker at the united center. he is suspended from the nba indefinitely without pay. his contract is also in jeopardy of being terminated. more help on the way there the people of haiti.
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major league baseball is pitching in $1 million to help victims of the earthquake. the contribution is being made on behalf of the league and its 30 teams overall. this is coming one day after the new york yankees stepped up and donated $500,000 to the relief fund. we have a nice little surprise for you on this friday morning. that is san diego runningback ladainian tomlinson. this is the l.t. slide electric glide soon to be hitting dance floors across america. >> let me hear. ♪ i do my dance i get my stance ♪ ♪ i read the defense i read the defense ♪ ♪ now side step side step ♪ >> you know, i can just see it now, weddings across the country this summer where some husband is going to convince their wife
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to play this song and you'll see grandma and uncle frank. >> instead of the electric slide. we're hearing from the mother of a cub scout who was on the terror list.
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hello, hello, good morning on a friday. so glad that you're with us today. morning, sunshine. i'm robin meade. here's what's making the news today. survivors of haiti's earthquake tell new and agonizing details about being trapped under tons of concrete. >> there are voices there, i can hear them. johnny. >> and a reporter finds evidence of life among the rubble. the story of a race against time. several army officers could be punished for the deadly rampage at ft. hood. why a new pentagon report says that they are at fault. and then talk about some kind of rocket fuel. nasa is trying to figure out how a bag of cocaine heended up in e
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hangar that "discovery" is kept. the white house is saying that cuba has agreed to allow the united states to fly through its air space for medical flights. that means people hurt in the earthquake will fly straight to florida and that will save some time. now, is this the airport i'm seeing here in port-au-prince, haiti. the airport is experiencing a ground stop until 10:00 a.m. and that's because it is just a tiny, tiny little airport with one runway. so, the runway looks to be getting cleared but you see how the airplanes are kind of inching upward. after you land you're full of people or equipment aid and you have to unload that stuff. where are you going to do it if there is only one runway. you can't bring more airplanes in. they have a ground stoppage until 10:00 a.m. at least 11 countries are
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rushing aid into haiti and getting it there is not easy after the deal at the airport the roads are ruined and jammed with people too afraid to go back into the buildings. take a look at one road to haiti's port. right now deliveries by ship are all but impossible. shore planes can bring in supplies but the real heavy lifting has to come by water. the capital's airport is closed right now, too many planes stuck on the ground. the usair force team has taken charge of getting the planes in and out. a huge storm yesterday and at one point you had 44 planes parked at the airport with just two fuel trucks to handle all of them. other planes were circling for up to three hours. the airport is tiny and it had to close. >> very discouraging, but logistically it's impossible so they're getting a lot of aid, which is a good thing. the issue is that the airport does not have the capacity to
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turn around, to unload this aircraft and turn them around. >> rescuers finally pulled an 11-year-old girl out of the rubble from the earthquake yesterday after agonizing all afternoon if they would have to cut off her leg to free her. she was awake and crying out in pain pinned under debris. finally someone showed up with a generator and electric saw to cut the concrete. something as basic as that. she is badly hurt and has been sent to a hospital. a u.s. grad student is also among of the survivors. she lost part of her leg when a building collapsed around her. she was in haiti for a literacy volunteer project and she tells our sister network that she's so grateful to be alive. >> i was very, very scared but my main thought was to try not to panic. i was running through all the lines in our elementary school earthquake drills. i have one leg in good condition and other than that i'm fairly
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healthy. as long as i got prompt medical care i was going to be okay and i'm just thankful to be alive. >> she is in miami now where she is getting care. one of our ireporters sent pictures of people sleeping on the streets and some inside cars and many lost their homes in the quake and some are sleeping outside because they're afraid of aftershocks. we'll bring you any new video or information as it comes in throughout the morning. because we're morning express, let's get you other news of the day. al qaeda-trained terrorists are looking at sources other than planes. investigate have found the names of seven people who al qaeda and yemen have trained and equipped to hit trains and other targets. while official os say there is no immediate threat, their concerns have intensified. democrats are in danger of losing the seat, the senate seat held by the late senator ted
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kennedy and president obama is trying to help out. martha coakley and republican scott brown in a virtual dead heat. now, some of the topics in the election are health care and the wars. yesterday the candidates talked about coakley's claim in a recent debate. the terrorists have left afghanistan. >> the very night we were debating, there were three people killed and i think, once again, it shows the lack of understanding and on these very important issues of vital national security. >> we know that by and large the focus of al qaeda has also shifted and, so, the argument is how do we keep our country safe? i think everybody agrees we want to keep our homeland safe. >> well, if brown wins it will take away the dems' filibuster proof in the senate. back coakley in next tuesday's election. talk about rocket fuel of some kind. nasa is trying to find out how a bag of cocaine ended up in the
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shuttle "discovery's" hangar. it was in a restricted area where about 200 workers are getting the shuttle ready for a mission in march. nasa says that it's drug testing everybody with access. >> you're dealing with very, very delicate and very precise equipment. it's what the astronauts use. we have zero margin for error when you're doing a space flight. >> nasa says there's no reason to believe this is going to impact "discovery's" upcoming launch. >> no, in fact, they'll get to the iss four days in advance because of that. >> they're going so fast. >> they're going to go fast. good morning. i want to start with west coast. >> i see that. >> lots of rain coming in for bc, british columbia. you're looking at that rain sliding into seattle and ultimately over the weekend that rain will slip down through oregon and california and lower parts of california, too. look at the trajectory.
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you see all the clouds extending way down south by hawaii and you had the jet stream down to the south and nice fetch across the ocean and capability of producing tremendous amounts of rainfall. let me show you video out of southern california and firefighters say they've halted the progress of some wildfires burning in riverside county near lake elsinor. you see what it looks like here. not a lot of wind. it was dry yesterday, but they have it 25% contained. they already consumed 150 acres. rain down into seattle and stretches all the way back down i-5 and just south of portland, too. the rain is here already and see it pile up pretty quickly. flood warnings all around seattle and just off to your west and also notice montana in a flood watch. the reason for this the ice jam flooding and ice breaking up around the rivers and acts like a natural dam when the ice chupgs pretty much go right across the river right there.
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potential around great falls for today as the warm temperatures are back into place. seattle, here's your radar picture and heaviest rain around the puget sound and delays in the airports and talk about that coming up in just about ten minutes. rob? >> thank you. many of you have donated money to help people in haiti and where is the money going exactly. we'll tell you what we've learned. we're hearing from the mother of a cub scout who is on the tsa terrorism watch list. what she has to say about her kid being targeted.
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breaking news on several fronts right now about getting aid into haiti. the hospital ship "usns" will deploy tomorrow. we learned that today.is expectt week. it is 560 hospital personnel on board. let me show you pictures we got
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in recently and it just deployed moments ago to haiti. one of many u.s. ships headed there to help with humanitarian assistance after tuesday's earthquake. and the "uss carl vincent" should arrive in haiti today. 19 helicopters and relief on board for the earthquake victims. come here if you have just been listening to me and running around the house. this is video we got from cbs of the quake as it happened. can you see from this camera it's shaking and it's shaking and it seems to go on forever. watch the buildings on the left, they're just reduced to concrete dust. as the dust clouds are forming, you can see people running in the front there. what would you do? talk about a bus ride of some kind' north carolina investigators found the school bus buried under a garage and it was being used to grow huge
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amounts of pots. that's a magic bus all right. deputies say drug-sniffing dogs found a hidden door and behind it a tunnel leads to the bus. they had been looking for a marijuana farm in the area but they never saw anything when they flew over in a helicopter. they buried the bus. that's a lot of work. lt, we always salute our troops. machinist mate fireman. hi, gary. >> hi, robin. my name is gary and i'm sending this salute to my son, zachary keuschel. just a really happy and loving young man. and we hope everything is going well for you and we hope to hear and see you soon. we love you very much. >> gary, i like your salute.
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if you have somebody in the service and you want to salute them. go to cnn.com/robin. you know what, this is really just a great job by everybody. people raised almost $6 million for haiti through a texting campaign. maybe you took part in it. now, you want to know, so, where does our money go? jennifer westhoven looking out for you. >> a lot of the big relief organizations say they can take the money that you send and turn it into what haiti needs right now in just a matter of hours. the red cross has said that ten bucks and maybe you've heard about the whole campaign where you can just take your cell phone and you can text to 90999 and just write the word haiti in that text and you'll get a reply back and you just hit yes and basically ten dollars added on to your next cell phone bill. they use the money to buy food, water, shelter, medical supplies for the millions of people in
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danger. unicef is one of the big charities on the ground. they taukd with our alina cho and sending tablets to purify the water and plastic jugs to carry the water and first aid kits and more. >> this is something called oral rehydration salts. these cost 7 cents for this package and it literally can bring a child back to life. >> how much does a tent like this cost? >> $7,000. it can be a shelter, a hospital, a community center. >> $700 all that money that they put together can make a huge difference for people whose lives are at risk right now and, you know, we were just looking at the footage of the initial disaster before but in any large-scale disaster like this whether it's an earthquake or a tsunami a lot of experts say what happens in the following days and weeks is disease and that can kill as many people as
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the initial catastrophe did. it's important that they get those basics down there very quickly. if you want to take some action and do something, you can text the $10 donation like we were talking about or go to cnn.com/impact or page cnn.com/robin and there is a link, go right through impact your world and yiou'll get to this list of many charities. giving to the big charities is best because a lot of them are already on the ground there and you can get that money to work very quickly. d.j. lee is a typical 7-year-old. he likes to run and he likes to play, but -- >> if i run too long like my chest starts to hurt. >> oh, man. >> you see, d.j. has asthma, he developed it as a baby. at first it was hard to figure out what was wrong with him.
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>> at first we thought he just had a cold. >> turns out mold and dust often trigger his asthma but his pediatrician says that winter brings additional challenges. cold air can exacerbate the condition as can getting sick. >> there are a lot of children who have more problems in the fall and winter, probably due to the fact that there are just more colds and viral illnesses. >> these triggers can cause the airways in the lungs to become inflamed and swollen and sometimes making it difficult to breathe. but the key for d.j. and many other children with asthma is using preventative medicine. >> that breaks down all that inflammation and keeps the lungs more like a child without asthma. that allows more running and more playing. no matter the season. i'm dr. sanjay gupta.
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you know, we have new video from haiti from a prison that we talked about where thousands of inmates were able to escape after the earthquake. the international red cross which visited detapeies said a few inmates died but that the
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vast majority, 4,000 had escaped and were freely roaming the streets at the capital. we're hearing now from the mother of an 8-year-old cub scout who's on a tsa watchlist. the 8-year-old is. he was first padded down getting on a flight when he was a baby. he just happens to have the same name as somebody on the list which gets people a higher level of security screening. >> i want my kid off the list. you know, i understand the need for security. you know, i was there on 9/11, i had him with me and i understand that people are trying to blow up our planes and that's not the point. the point is if you'd get all these people off the list who don't belong on the list maybe you'd find somebody who was trying to do some harm. >> a tsa spokesperson says in the next few months agents will begin crosschecking names with birth dates and gender to avoid unnecessary screenings.
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nfl player pierre garcon can breathe a little easier this morning. he has family ties to haiti and he got some good news. joe carter is in for rafer with more on that. >> his mom was on the phone for days frantically trying to reach somebody in haiti and finally she did make contact and she got some good news from that contact. four family members are okay, but at this point they're still looking for aunts and uncles and cousins and other relatives. pierre has a lot on his mind because he's preparing for a playoff game this weekend and he told reporters after practice on thursday that he was thankful for the concern people have shown for haiti as a whole. garcon like many others have been getting people to use twitter to send funds to haiti. shocking news from the world of college basketball this morning. jauron lewis died yesterday
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after collapsing on the basketball court during a basketball game. a school spokesman said lewis just suddenly fell to the floor during the game and was motionless. he left the game on a stretcher and was taken to a nearby hospital where he then passed away. he is just 21 years old. absolutely terrible. tough story to tell there. time for our true champion. florida marlins are doing good. several members of the team are going to travel to iraq and kuwait to pay a visit to our u.s. troops. they're making history in the process. thal the team will provide blogs and updated photos on their website, which is great. they'll get this trip at the end of the month right before spring training and they have a connection to the military. chris coughlin who plays left field his brother is a corporal in the u.s. marines. >> thank you. listen, some people are sitting on 50 million bucks in uncashed ious and they want to
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give you money right now. richard haas more on that, come on, bring it on. several army officers could be punished in connection with a deadly ft. hood shooting. why a new pentagon report says those officers are at fault. úú
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the new york stock exchange is just open for business. stocks are expected to start out on a weak note. in a few minutes we'll check to see how things are going live. relief planes supposedly are not right now getting into haiti's main airport because there is a ground stop because you got too many planes clogging up the tiny runway there that's after huge problems yesterday. the planes were left circling for hours when port-au-prince's airport when one runway was closed and dozens of planes on the ground and no place to put them as they off loaded all the relief supplies. they're handling the traffic control right now. that is the fairfax urban
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search and rescue team that you're seeing right there. they're trying to find survivors in the rubble. rescue dogs are on the scene, too. a slow and meticulous process and search for any signs of life beneath the crushed concrete and the twisted metal. one worker says that part of the building is still falling there after more aftershocks yesterday. the suspected mastermind of the 2002 bali nightclub bombing may be tried in washington. the associated press says that the obama administration is considering trying the man in the capital. he was considered osama bin laden's point man in indonesia. more than 200 people died in that attack. those are some of our top stories, how is your friday shaping up? i'm robin meade. so much suffering right now in haiti, but we're also hearing amazing survival stories. a search and rescue team from iceland pulled out a woman who had been trapped for 50 hours in
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complete darkness in a market. somehow she was not injured and she just could not get out and she never gave up hope. >> the first thing i did was think of my parents because i did not want them to lose me because i'm an only child. i never did once not stop praying and i'm someone who prays a lot and now i'm very grateful that i never lost faith. >> amazing. amazing will, right? the main hospital in haiti's capital is struggling with an overflow of injured people and not enough staff to treat them. the manager of the hospital says they normally have 150 doctors, but since the quake, they now have fewer than 20 doctors. haiti's president says that his country is suffering. >> i'm very sad. because a lot of people died, a lot of people are suffering and
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i'm very sad because my country is in great difficulty, but i'm very happy, also, to see how the world is with us, is helping us. >> well, we're hearing more this morning from a texas couple whose newly adopted son survived a haiti earthquake and they were waiting anxiously to find out how the 4-year-old was doing. >> finally, we saw, i think it was via facebook the lady that he lives with posted that they're okay and that is the best we could hear and later we got an e-mail that he was there with a nanny and another little boy and he was pretty freaked out, to say the least, i'm sure like every other child when this happens. he was there scared and we were here. >> well, however the couple says that they're worried about what
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might have to happen to the building holding all the adoption paperwork or what might have happened to that building. we'll bring you the latest video and info throughout the morning. as many as eight army officers could be punished for the deadly rampage at ft. hood. now, the pentagon's report on what went wrong comes out today and the official tells the ap that the review finds fault with supervisors who knew or should have known. he is accused of killing 13 people during a shooting spree during november. obviously, guns are not supposed to make it past airport security but a passenger at the airport in montana made it through screening in mid-december and discovered on his own that there was a handgun in his carry-on bag. he told tsa about it and he turned the gun in and then he
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was allowed to continue on his flight. the jokes and insalts are really flying at nbc about the late night scuffle. >> nbc is so upset with me they want to keep my off the air for three years. that's what they say, yeah. my response to that is if nbc doesn't want people to see me, just leave me on nbc. >> all the controversy going on here at nbc, actually, "the tonight show with conanoy o brian" ratings have gone up. you're welcome! >> former talk show host rosie o'donnell is getting in the mix and telling leno to step down and let conan take over. it's a mess, isn't it? >> yes. even rosie's chiming in now. it's interesting. >> 35 minutes past the hour. bobby. >> what's up, robin sph.
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>> i'm looking at a messy morning over texes. >> it is. beginning stages, robin. heavy rain not only in texas this morning but then spreads into lower louisiana over the next couple hours and then ultimately gets to the northeast by sunday. so, a washout weekend, at least the first half of it. that's where the heavy rain is headed. let me show you how much rain over the next 48 hours. a good little map here that depicts it well. i agree with this one, the heaviest rain off the coast and then bleeds in areas by alabama and into florida and south carolina and that's all the yellow and this morning the heaviest rain around san antonio and isolated six amounts when you get around san antonio. that's something we're watching. as for the rain itself, where is it located now, right around houston. that's the heaviest stuff and that is where it is for the day and dry when you get across places like northern georgia and carolinas. if you try to get in or out of the busiest airport in the country, looks pretty good.
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blue skies and break out thongs -- >> break out the what? >> thongs, it's friday. >> you do mean shoes, don't you? >> what do you think i'm talking about? heavy rain for austin, two to four inches. isolated six amounts and that's why the flash flood watches are out there, too. the heaviest rain and corpus christi now stretching inland to san antonio and around austin, as well. just on the outskirts of the houston area you can see the light showers out there and heaviest rain is off shore and something that builds back in later on today. that is where the rains are going to be. heavy rain headed towards the entire coastline and we'll talk about that in ten seconds, robin. not facing with the arctic blast, all rain, no snow, no ice that could have been a different story if it happened last week. >> you're something else, you
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know that? let's go to wall street where the dow has finished higher in seven of the first nine sessions of 2010 and trying to end higher for the second straight week. hi, susan. >> hi, robin. i had the same reaction as you. >> my mother could make a verb out of anything. >> wall street is showing caution in the early going and maybe i should now, i am supposed to report business news. jpmorgan chase said it made more than $3 billion in three months. the banks investment banking and trading business did well because of last year's market rally and ceo david diamond says the company is cautious going forward about credit card lending when the unemployment rate is as high as is it. meanwhile, tech giant intel made more than 2 billion bucks at the end of last year. one of the most profitable
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quarters in its history. microsoft 7 helped carry the chipmaker to a healthy holiday season and pushed up revenue by 30%. finally, the number of corporate donations to relief efforts in haiti has tripled and more companies are expected to contribute today. the list includes 17 companies donating $1 million or more. american businesses have now donated over 30 million dollars to the relief sxefrt the u.s. chamber of commerce estimates total donations could end up exceeding $80 million and, robin, a lot of these companies are doing matching donations, including our parent company, time warner, western union, kelloggs, bank of america encouraging their employees, as well, to give to a very worthy and needy cause. robin? >> while it sounds like, wow, corporate giving its top $30 million, there's still so much need on top of that. >> no doubt about it. for katrina when you think about hurricane katrina in the
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aftermath the corporate giving exceeded $1 billion. >> hey, thank you, appreciate it. >> you're welcome. airline security is about to get even tighter. there are intelligence warnings that another terrorist plot is in the works. also ahead, a woman was arrested for trying to trade her kid and you have to hear what she wanted in return.
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it has been a few long days for people in the united states who have relatives in haiti and one of our ireporters in haiti made an emotional plea for help in finding her sister. >> all i'm asking for help is from other aids, unicef, troops, all the americans who are willing to volunteer in haiti. please, please, this is a
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picture of my sister and i. please, have her contact me, please let her know that i love her. we all love her and we're waiting for her phone call. >> well, if you're looking for loved ones in haiti you can go to cnn.com/robin and hit the impact link or cnn.com/impact. the u.s. doesn't know where osama bin laden is hiding but the fbi is a pretty good idea about what he looks like these days. that's interesting, richard. >> it is. we have a new picture. the fbi has digitally enhanced a photo of the al qaeda leader. we'll show you the new, older face of terrorism. also for you, an escaped inmate has been caught and investigators say it's all thanks to a truck driver and, of course, robin, the latest from haiti. everyone agrees here, aid needs to get there fast or faster and we'll watch that in the next 15 minutes. >> thank you very much. an arizona woman was
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arrested accused of trying to trade her 2-year-old daughter for a gun. police say that the woman felt that a family friend would do a better job of raising the child and then she needed a gun because she couldn't legally buy one. >> certain cases like this, you don't know what they're thinking about why someone would do this. it blows our mind in the sheriff office to why someone would give away their child, for whatever reason. >> well, the woman's in jail and no word on if she has an attorney yet even. all week we've been telling you about the textbook debate going on in texas. it should heat up again today when board of education votes on teaching social studies. the debate includes arguments over teaching of christmas and the religious belief of the nation's founding fathers. beware just because someone is promising you that you're going to make a lot of money, obviously, it doesn't mean it is
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a good investment. nba star gilbert arenas has been charged for bringing guns into the locker room. could he do jailtime?
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>> the images from haiti are heart breaking. homes, hospitals and schools are destroyed. families searching. first lady, michelle obama is joining the red cross to help with the relief effort for haiti. in this public service announcement mrs. obama asked you to donate $10 to the red cross over the internet or on your cell phone. george clooney is trying to do what he can do for the earthquake relief. the actor is working with mtv on a telethon that would air next friday. still no word on what other celebs would join him and other networks, like our sister network, cnn, will join that telethon. your next flight may be even tighter security. yesterday all airlines flying to the united states or even within
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the country were told prepare for more security. a law enforcement official says that is because of the latest threat from al qaeda's branch in yemen. more air marshals are on international flights and you can expect more random screenings. i tell you, i was screened a full three times in the dominican republic airport before i got to the plane. >> you look dangerous. >> three times. all right, the nba star that brought guns into a team locker room has been charged with a crime. joe carter is in for rafer with more on that. >> good morning, robin. the most nba dramatic story takes another turn. gilbert arenas who plays for the washington wizards has been charged with a felony gun possession. the charge, one count of carrying a pistol without a license is a crime that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, wait, hold on, arenas is expected to plead guilty today in a plea deal which could keep him out of prison. now, arenas has acknowledged
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that he did store four unloaded guns in his team locker room at the united center. now, his six-year, $111 million contract is also in jeopardy of being terminated. well, more help is on the way for the people of haiti, thanks to major league baseball. they're pitching in $1 million to help victims of the earthquake. commissioner bud selig said it is being made on behalf of the league and its 30 teams this coming one day after the new york yankees stepped up and donated $500,000 to the relief fund. san diego runningback ladainian tomlinson is more than an nfl star. he is now a youtube sensation. this is the l.t. slide electric glide. this coming to a dance floor near you soon. >> good job, i think.
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♪ i read the defense i read the defense ♪ ♪ now side step now side step ♪ >> he has a real nice suit sneakers as well. >> it will be catching on. thank you. all right. bob, your take. >> we will see what happens. jets fan is like we'll see. >> good morning. let me show you what's happening. 45 minute delay in houston right now. that's going to grow because of the heavy rain in place. we're calling for an hour or more delay for most of the day around houston. dallas metro, dallas ft. worth, watching for 30 minute delay because of some passing showers. otherwise seattle rain all day. it's going to tally up to an inch or more. seattle 30 minute delays. san francisco, fog is around, could get you a half hour delay. >> thank you. california's same sex marriage ban may be costing san francisco
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millions of dollars a year. during the trial over the proposition 8, a city economist testified that the city spends a lot of money on health care for uninsured partners and he says married people spend more, but on cross examination, he admitted that many of his estimates are based on assumptions. new movie friday. kung fu fighting and you get the spy next door. >> jackie chan can stop a bunch of bad guys with his bare hands but don't ask him to watch three kids. critics say don't expect much but the kids might like it. a mother panicked when a man jumped into her car and drove off with her son inside.
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police say no laws were broken. ♪ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ú
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