tv CBS Overnight News CBS October 9, 2019 3:12am-3:59am PDT
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extortion, kidnapping. >> reporter: in these shelters, fear is only outmatched by the uncertainty most families now face. there's nowhere to stay here. they don't have paperwork. they don't have anything to help him stay here. i caught up with the mayor of nuevo laredo today, and i asked him about the situation. hes working with the feds to keep these migrants safe. but that is not what we've seen or what we've heard since we've been here in mexico. norah. >> all right, mireya, thank you. we want to turn now overseas because tonight turkish tanks and troops are moving toward the worried border with northern syria one day after u.s. forces were abruptly withdrawn. turkey is expected to mount an offensive against kurdish troops inside syria. the kurds have been u.s. allies in the fight against isis. and late today, the pentagon issued a statement saying the u.s. military was, in fact, consulted before the troops were withdrawn under president trump's order. tonight, new york state officials are reporting the first vaping death in the state,
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a 17-year-old from the bronx who died last friday. he is believed to be the youngest of at least 24 who have died in 20 states. more than 1,000 illnesses from vaping have been reported nationwide. nationwide. now, a cbs news investigation into zantac and its generic versions. the nation's three largest pharmacy chains stopped selling the heartburn drug used by millions after the f.d.a. warned this month that it may contain a potentially dangerous impurity. our dr. jon lapook reports zantac's problems may not just be an impurity but something much more serious. >> we take the entire tablet, just as a patient would, and we dissolve it into the solvent. >> reporter: at this connecticut lab, called valisure, researchers test drugs from its own online pharmacy to check for purity and quality. last spring, they decided to analyze a few heartburn drugs to see if they contained a chemical called m.d.m.a., a probable last year, that same chemical
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had led to recalls of some blood pressure pills. >> so, we're going to crush this. >> reporter: okay. one medication stood out-- zantac and its generic version, ranitidine. it had levels of m.d.m.a. higher than considered acceptable. valisure c.e.o. david light: >> the active ingredient in zantac appears to us to be a fundamentally unstable molecule. >> reporter: light reported to the f.d.a. his suspicion that the problem is not just an impurity, but what could happen to the pill inside the body. >> and in a variety of conditions-- conditions of the lab, conditions of the human body-- it can break down and then form the carcinogen m.d.m.a. >> reporter: you're saying the thitidine could be converted into m.d.m.a. inside the body, was suggested three years ago in research published by william mitch, a professor at stanford university.
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watested.l study, ten voluntrs m.d.m.a. levels were more than 400 times greater than what the f.d.a. considers acceptable. even after adjusting for a new f.d.a. protocol for measuring m.d.m.a., mitch got similar result >> what we were hoping was that someone else would eventually pick up the results, who is in the pharmaceutical field. >> reporter: and did they? >> to my knowledge, not yet. but maybe this will spur them to. >> reporter: three months after valisure first alerted the f.d.a. to its findings, the agency issued a safety alert, saying its own testing found low levels of m.d.m.a. in ranitidine. it is now calling even those levels unacceptable. the agency told cbs news it is now investigating what happens to ranitidine inside the body after it's exposed to stomach acid. what do you think happens going forward now? what would like to see happen? >> what we've been petitioning for is for the complete recall of all ranitidine products-- brand, doest matt m
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>> reporter: zantac's maker, sanofi, told cbs news that the mitch study has limitations, that the company is working closely with the f.d.a. and while zantac is still being sold, some generic makers have issued voluntary recalls. >> okay, i think the bottom-line question everybody wants to know: is there a link between zantac and cancer? >> reporter: no, but memorial sloan kettering, one of the world's top cancer centers, has pulled ranitidine from its pharmacy shelves as it looks for any evidence that people who take it are more prone to get certain types of cancers. now, people should know, norah, if they're taking zantac or ranitidine, there are alternatives they should discuss with their clinician. >> all right. we're going to continue to follow this story very closely. thank you, dr. lapook. there is still much more ahead tonight in the "cbs evening news." there is a twist in the murder of a key witness in the amber geyger case. also, why ellen degeneres refuses to be shamed over her choice of friends. and simone biles at age 22 proves again why she may be the best gymnast ever. my lady!
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orr:- and again -- >> backflip. double-double! >> reporter: -- nailg signature moves no one has ever done in a major competition. >> that! is biles! >> reporter: slow motion shows the skill needed to pull them off: d it will now be known as the "biles ii." [ cheers and applause ] to top that, biles dazzled the crowd on the balance beam, landing a double-double dismount, now dubbed quite simply "the biles." that's four moves now named in her honor. >> it finally felt good to go out there and hit a beam routine like i trained, because i feel like every time i go up to compete beam, i just, like, bomb it. so, it felt really good to nail it. >> she wears "goat" on the back of her leotard. she is the greatest of all time. >> reporter: olympic gold medalist and world champion kurt
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thomas has three moves to his name. >> when you and you keep raising the difficulty level the way simone does, that's where you're just changing the sport. >> reporter: biles is now ng the olympic games in tokyo next summer. michelle miller, cbs news, new york. >> just historic. congratulations to the whole team. nyquil severe gives you powerful relief
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does scrubbing grease feel like a workout? scrub less with dawn ultra it's superior grease-cleaning formula gets to work faster, making easy work of tough messes. dawn takes care of tough grease, wherever it shows up. scrub less, save more...with dawn an air force fly-over today honored the service of a world war ii aviator missing for more than half a century. major donn young was buried at arlington national cemetery. he was killed when his b25 bomber went down in papua, new guinea, in 1943. young's remains were found after a year's-long search by the nephew of the plane's pilot to locate the crash site and its crew. one man is in custody tonight and two others are being sought in the murder of a key witness in the trial of former dallas police officer amber guyger. remember joshua brown?
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well, he was shot and killed friday in what police say was a drug deal gone bad. they insist there's no connection to the guyger trial. california's largest utility is going to extremes to prevent wildfires. pacific gas and electricity says just after midnight, it will begin turning off the power to nearly 800,000 to prevent wires from sparking. the national weather service calls fire conditions in the bay area and northern california extreme. now to this story: americans are stressed out, and a new study finds nearly 40% of us say politics is to blame. some say it's affecting their health, others claim they've lost sleep over the subject, and 20% say political differences have damaged a valued friendship. so, on that note, coming up next, two very famous people prove it doesn't have to be that way. >> announcer: this portion is
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finally tonight, we thought we'd address kindness, civility, and politics, which don't seem to be mentioned in the same sentence much these days. it took a greeting on the gridiron between former president george w. bush and ellen degeneres to bring it into sharp focus. >> it may not seem like a big deal for a celebrity to attend a football game, but i never leave my house, so it is a big deal. >> reporter: ellen and her wife, portia de rossi, were invited to sit in the private box of dallas cowboys owner jerry jones. former president george w. bush and his wife, laura, were also there. [ laughter ] >> but during the game, they showed a shot of george and me laughing together, and, so, people were upset. they thought, why is a gay hollywood liberal sitting next to a conservative republican president? didn't even notice i'm holding the brand-new iphone 11. [ laughter ] but a lot of people were mad, t.
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buhere's one tweet i loved. this oerson says, "ellen a have faith in america again." [ cheers and applause ] >> but instead of getting into the fray on social media, ellen used the moment to preach about civility. >> here's the thing: i'm friends with george bush. in fact, i'm friend with a lot of people who don't share the same beliefs that i have. we're all different, and i think that we've forgotten that that's okay, that we're all different. when i say "be kind to one another," i don't mean only the people who think the same way that you do. i mean be kind to everyone. it doesn't matter. [ cheers and applause ] >> that's the overnight news for this wednesday. for some of you the news continues. for others, check back later on "cbs this morning." from the broadcast center in n york city, i'm norah o'donnell.
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p shall ♪ ♪ >> announcer: this is the "cbs overnight news." >> >> warm welcome to the overnight news. i'm errol barnett. president donald trump has declared political war on the congressional impeachment inquiry, calling it a kangaroo court. the white house has barred a diplomat from speaking to investigators and the president signalled he will stone wall any effort to speak to witnesses or to subpoena documents. nancy cordes brings us the latest. lyer said d.c. from his post in brussels. house intelligence chairman adam shif. >> the failure to produce this
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witness we consider yet additional strong evidence of obstruction of the constitutional functions of congress. >> reporter: president trump appeared to take responsibility for the last-minute move, tweeting, i would love to send ambassador sondland to testify. but unfortunately, he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court. >> what we see in this impeachment is a kangaroo court. >> reporter: a group of house republicans backed the president's move. the administration is blocking a key interview. doesn't that imply that there is something they're trying to hide? >> no. it's based on the unfair and partisan process mr. schiff has been running. >> reporter: sondland is a hotel mogul and trump megadonor. text exchanges this summer show sondland pushing for an unequivocal promise for election medding and burisma. mr. trump really wants the
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deliverable, sondland wrote. when a fellow diplomat argued, it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign, sondland responded four hours later, the president has been crystal clear. no quid pro quos of any kind. a source tells cbs news sondland called the white house during that four-hour gap. democrats say sondland has more texts and emails stored on a personal device that they now plan to subpoena. she has argued that she is under no legal or legislative obligation to hold that vote and she's not going to be bullied into it by the white house. democrats also argue that if they were to hold this vote, they think that the white house would simply come up with some other reason not to cooperate. >> the supreme court is back in session, and at the top of its agenda, the case of two people who were fired from their jobs because they are gay. jan crawford has this story.
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>> i was fired for being gay. >> reporter: gerald bostock says he lost his job in georgia after joining a gay recreational softball league. >> it's a much bigger issue than just me. >> reporter: transgender woman aimee stephens said she was fired from a micn funel home af transitioning from a man. >> and we all deserve the same rights 14 federal civil righ act, which prohibits discrimination based on an individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, also protects employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. but conservative justices suggested those arguments should be directed instead at congress. justice samuel alito. the point is that discrimination on the basis of sex in the sense that congress understood it in 1964, is a different concept from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. justices noted far-reaching implications -- same-sex
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bathrooms, dress codes, and transgender women playing on women's sports teams. congress repeatedly has refused to change the 1964 law to specifically prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. and until last year, federal appeals courts have uniformly said it wasn't covered, leaving 22 states and the district of columbia to pass their own laws outlawing it. but liberal justices were sympathetic, saying the civil rights law was aimed at combating discrimination, even if not seen as a problem at the time. justice ruth bader ginsburg. tight the 7 was meant to strike out the entire spectrum of sex stereotyping. now, the court's two new justices seemed impossible to predict. justice neil gorsuch did seem somewhat open to the idea that the words of the law might be read to cover this kind of discrimination, but then he worried about "massive social upheaval." >> now, there are new concerns this morning about the widely
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used heartburn medication zantac. the food and drug administration found unacceptable levels of cancer-causing impurities, both in zantac and its generic version. some drugstores have already pulled it off the shelves. dr. jon lapook brings us the latest. >> we take the entire tablet, just as a patient would, and we dissolve it into the solvent. >> reporter: at this connecticut lab, called valisure, researchers test drugs from its own online pharmacy to check for purity and quality. last spring, they decided to analyze a few heartburn drugs to see if they contained a chemical called m.d.m.a., a probable carcinogen. last year, that same chemical had led to recalls of some blood pressure pills. >> so, we're going to crush this. >> reporter: okay. one medication stood out-- zantac and its generic version, ranitidine. it had levels of m.d.m.a. higher than considered acceptable. valisure c.e.o. david light: >> the active ingredient in zantac appears to us to be a fundamentally unstable molecule.
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>> reporter: light reported to the f.d.a. his suspicion that the problem is not just an impurity, but what could happen to the pill inside the body. >> and in a variety of conditions-- conditions of the lab, conditions of the human body-- it can break down and then form the carcinogen m.d.m.a. >> reporter: you're saying the ranitidine itself can break down and form m.d.m.a. >> correct. >> reporter: that possibility, that ranitidine could be converted into m.d.m.a. inside the body, was suggested three years ago in research published by william mitch, a professor at stanford university. in a small study, ten volunteers were given a tablet of zantac, and their urine was tested. m.d.m.a. levels were more than 400 times greater than what the f.d.a. considers acceptable. even after adjusting for a new f.d.a. protocol for measuring m.d.m.a., mitch got similar results. >> what we were hoping was that someone else would eventually pick up the results, who is in the pharmaceutical field. >> reporter: and did they? >> to my knowledge, not yet.
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but maybe this will spur them to. >> reporter: three months after valisure first alerted the f.d.a. to its findings, the agency issued a safety alert, saying its own testing found low levels of m.d.m.a. in ranitidine. it is now calling even those levels unacceptable. the agency told cbs news it is now investigating what happens to ranitidine inside the body after it's exposed to stomach acid. what do you think happens going forward now? what would like to see happen? >> what we've been petitioning for is for the complete recall of all ranitidine products-- brand, generic-- doesn't matter. doesn't matter who made it or what lot number it is. >> reporter: zantac's maker, sanofi, told cbs news that the mitch study has limitations, that the company is working closely with the f.d.a. and doing its own robust testing. while zantac is still being sold, some generic makers have issued voluntary recalls. dr. jon lapook, cbs news, new york.
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♪ ♪ >> announcer: this is the "cbs overnight news." >> welcome back to the overnight news. i'm errol barnett. president trump's true pull out of northern syria has cleared the way for a turkish invasion across the border. now, that spells bad news for america's allies, the kurdish militias. after fighting alongside u.s. special forces in the battle against the islamic state, the kurds were hoping to set up their own government in that region. turkey insists, though, it will never let that happen. if and when the kurds are drives of isis fighters and their families held in kurdish prisons. holly williams reports. >> reporter: we were actually the first ever camera crew aloud inside this high security prison. you may remember that president trump recently demanded that
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european countries take their nationals who joined isis here in syria home. so what we did not expect to find was prisoners who told us they were american. you were born in belgium? >> yes. >> reporter: the prison is like the united nations. you're from holland? >> yes. >> reporter: you're from the netherlands? >> yes. >> reporter: except everyone here is accused of joining isis. >> i'm from germany. >> reporter: they signed up for an islamic paradise, but ended up living 50 to a cell, some with terrible injuries from the battle field. and you're american or -- you're american? >> reporter: yes. he told us he left his home in chicago to live under isis in 2015, and he's unrepentant. >> thees that i made in somebody's eyes are the wrong choices, so i face jail time. >> reporter: were they the wrong choices in your eydo you think choices? >> no. just wanted to live under islamic law. >> reporter: there are about
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5,000 prisoners inside this jail, and the guards say many of them are dangerous. if they escape, there are fears they'll re-join isis insurgents who continue to carry out attacks. they organized him to pretend his sick and then called the guards in. the guards showed us this attempted prison break. they pull the door off its hinges and they charge even further down the corridor. they want to send the foreign prisoners home, but in most cases their own governments don't want them back. even when they're children. we met another prisoner here who identified himself as a 17-year-old u.s. citizen from new york city. he told us his parents took him to join isis. he didn't want to appear on camera. but like nearly all of the foreigners here, he is desperate to leave. do you want to go back to the u.s.? >> of course. i'm going to die soon here. i'm sick. i do not get any medical
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in india, for instance, nearly 1.8 million people die every single year from breathing polluted air. elizabeth palmer brings us this report from new delhi. >> reporter: delhi has tubes in both lungs fighting tuberculosis. >> they have a lot of respiratory distress. he was having difficulty breathing. >> reporter: he still is. and so is every patient in the emergency ward of delhi's national institute for tb and respiratory disease. all of them, one way or another, are victims of delhi's filthy air. every day, between 800 and a thousand people with lung problems, line up here to be treated. dr. arvand kumar is a prominent chest surgeon and founder of the lung care foundation. >> we have no non-smoker in india. everybody living in india is a smoker.
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>> reporter: he means just from breathing the air. at its worst, it can be 70 times dirtier than the world health organization considers safe. in delhi, a booming city of 19 million, a thousand extra cars hit the road every day. contributing to murk that's dangerous in many ways. but the real cost of this pollution is human health. >> so, brain attack, brain development poor, heart attack, hypertension, birth defects. >> reporter: politicians if you need a taxi in new delhi, you get into one of these. but with 100,000 rickshaws spewing pollution into the air, the government had to do something. they started out banning the gasoline powered ones.
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now the natural gas ones are being phased out because the future is electric. and it's being built here, at shigan's factory in delhi's out skirts. not very high tech maybe, but these vehicles are zero emission. the managing director headed the shift to electric models three years ago. so the writing is on the wall. >> yes. >> reporter: india is going electric. >> yes. it is inevitable. >> reporter: already the e-rick shaws are a hit. they can be recharged by the driver at home and the government is about to subsidize the cost of the batteries. that's because india can't clean up unless everyone, even the poorest, can afford to join in. take traditional cooking fires in the slums. they send fine particles of burning wood, garbage, even dung deep into the lungs.
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smoke is a huge part of delhi's air problem. while cooking fires like this may nourish a family, at the same time it makes everybody's health that much worse. so the government is subsidizing an alternative. clean-burning natural gas stoves at a price almost everyone can manage. >> air is needed for every breath. the only thing you can do if you want to avoid total damage is to stop breathing. which, unfoertunately, we canno do for more than a minute. >> reporter: there is some hope. peak pollution levels in new delhi seem to have levelled off, so now the urgent challenge is to actually bring them down. i'm elizabeth palmer in new delhi. >> now, one way to battle air pollution is to grow more trees. of course, the people who make money chopping them down have other ideas. tificrthw >> number 2122 sierra, runway 2
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for take off. >> reporter: our trip began in a small plane, maybe the best way to see what's happening in western oregon. >> you can see where there's a few trees left here and there that's required by oregon law. >> reporter: our guide, shan dra la gue of the group, oregon wild. >> we're actually in the heart of the area logging rht now. >> reporter: the views from overhead can be jarring. mountai mountains teeming with towering trees, with nothing but winding stumps. this is what modern day clear-cutting looks like. giant machines handle massive trees like match sticks. this land has never been logged. >> no, it hasn't. >> reporter: this is a place where none of that has happened. a so-called old growth forest. >> we only have about 15% of the forest that once grew trees like this that are left. >> reporter: areas like this were protected by the northwest
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forest plan, which was signed in 1994, and impacted more than 24 million acres of federal land in oregon, california, and washington. was the northwest forest plan a success, or failure? >> from an environmental perspective it's a success, but we're only 25 years in. it's kind of a long-term experiment. >> reporter: logging on federal lands has dropped by as much as 90%. but on state-owned and private land, time lapse of satellite images over northwest oregon give a sense of just how common clear-cutting still is. lague says it has a lasting impact. forests capture carbon, helping to cool the earth and slow climate change. logging companies are required by law to replant new trees after t take at absorbs as much carbon as an old one. not every company like yours is willing to talk about their story, or take us to places like
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this. why, why do you do that? >> i think we as an industry have not done a very good job historically of telling our story. >> reporter: todd payne is the c.e.o. of seneca jones, a timber giant in western oregon. has the northwest forest plan been a success or failure, in your estimation? >> honestly speaking, i think it was a failure. >> reporter: payne believes the northwest forest plan is choking growth. and hands off advocates believe it is leading to more wildfires because forests have been neglected. he took us to one of seneca's expansive tree farms an hour and a half outside eugene where they operate on 50-year cycles. this area next to us was clear-cut about 55 years ago for the first time, and then clear-cut again three or four years ago? >> three years ago, correct. >> reporter: why clear-cut? >> we're mimicking what mother nature has done for billions of years. >> reporter: but this looks traumatic for a lot of people when they see something like this. >> um, i actually look at it quite different. i think it's somewhat
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esthetically pleasing. >> reporter: you think that looks esthetically pleasing? >> i do. maybe it's somewhat biased, but i look at this and i see sustainability, rejuvenation. >> reporter: timber companies have also traditionally used a practice called aerial spraying, chemicals dropped via helicopter to kill vegetation other than trees used for lumber. >> we use it once or twice in the 50-year cycle. >> reporter: it ultimately flows somewhere, though. >> no, it doesn't. a lot of times -- this stuff doesn't flow off the landscape. the product will adhere to the vegetation that it's targeted for and stay there. >> reporter: nancy webster, who vebeach, oregon, is worried those chemicals seep into her drinking water. >> this affects the fish, the wildlife, and we are up against large corporations. and to even counter it, you kn help. and it's really difficult for small commutes. >> reporter: today the situation may be reaching a critical point
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because the federal government wants to suspend a public review process, which logging companies say needlessly ties them up in court. should there be a public review process when logging takes place on public lands? >> well, we have professionals in place in our federal agencies that are managing these lands and i think we need to let them do that work. >> reporter: in other words, he wants groups like oregon wild to stay away. the argument is for them, if they're not able to log, people can't build homes. >> yeah. well, no one is talking about shutting down logging. we're talking about what i feel are common sense changes that do less damage to the environment that we all share. >> reporter: lague wants to see forests thinned, not clear-cut. a far less invasive approach. she acknowledges it is more expensive and would produce less lumber. >> i think people do need to come to grips with the fact that the wood that they use to build houses or anything else comes from clear-cutting forests in places like
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the oldest living american veteran of world war ii recently turned 110 years old. michelle miller was there for his milestone of a birthday party. >> morning. >> you know, you're my hero. >> reporter: when you've been on the planet as long as lawrence brooks has, you develop a following. are you going to have fun today? >> yes, yes, yes. >> reporter: at 110, he's the oldest american world war ii veteran, a feat worthy of pomp, circumstance, and a five-star serenade at the world's naltionl museum. ♪ happy birthday to you ♪ what is the secret to your success? >> i always love people. i love people. >> reporter: and people love lawrence brooks. that's why so many of them showed up to celebrate, even strangers. >> thank you. god bless. >> reporter: from 1941 to 1945,
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brooks served overseas with the predominantly african-american 91st engineer battalion in places like australia and new guinea. he was a reluctant soldier, opting instead to work as a cook in his unit. >> when i first went -- was drafted in the army, no sergeant was telling us that you're training so you can go kill people. kill people? you mean as much as i love people, i have to go kill them? >> reporter: after returning home to new orleans, brooks faced the challenge of the jim crow south. then more than a half century later, hurricane katrina threatened his life and took hi everything i owned. washed away everything. >> reporter: and yet you survived that, too. >> i survived that, too. yeah. the lord was just good to me. [ laughter ]
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my daddy still gets on his knees at night and pray >> reporter: brooks' daughter vanessa credits her father's diet, exercise and faith for his long life. and in some ways, it's prayer that made this celebration possible. >> i heard that he was an old vet, and i said, well, we need to do something at the world war ii museum. >> reporter: museum docent lee crane met brooks years ago at church and helped launch the now annual museum party in 2014. it's a tradition employees hope won't end any time soon. >> happy birthday. >> reporter: we asked brooks if this year he enjoyed any birthday presents in particular. those ladies who left all that red stuff on your face. >> the bell? >> reporter: you like all those kisses? >> oh, yeah. oh, yeah. ♪ happy birthday to you ♪ and many more ♪
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