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coming up -- we revisit the 20% of americans who say they have no religious affiliation. and kim lawton reports on the ongoing standoff between the vatican and american nuns. welcome, i'm bob abernethy. it's good to have you with us. at the vatican, the college of cardinals is making preparations for the selection of the next pope now that benedict xvi has officially stepped down, the first pope to do so in over 600 years. on thursday, his final day, benedict met with the cardinals already gathered in rome and promised "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his successor. he then took a helicopter to the papal villa, castel gandolfo, where he will stay until moving to a vatican monastery for what he's said will be a life of prayer outside of public view. during his last papal audience on wednesday, benedict spoke of the joy of leading the church, as well as the many difficulties he faced a pope. >> i will continue to accompany the church with my prayers and i ask each of you to pray for me and for the new pope. with the papal seat empty, the cardinals will soon decide when to begin the conclave to elect their next leader. earlier this week, cardinal keith o'brien of scotland, who recently resigned because of age, announced he would not attend the conclave, after charges against him by other priests of "inappropriate" behavior. american cardinal roger mahony will participate, despite objections from some american catholics over mahony's role in covering up clergy sex abuse. all cardinals under the age of 80 can cast ballots for the next pope, who is selected by a vote of at least a two-thirds majority. meanwhile, the 77-million-member anglican communion is also getting a new leader. later this month, justin welby will take his seat as the new archbishop of canterbury, spiritual leader to anglicans and episcopalians around the world. kim lawton was in the u.k. this week and spoke with welby about this important moment in these two christian traditions. >> reporter: at the historic coventry cathedral, archbishop justin welby was attending a conference this week about faith and reconciliation. welby told me he's watching the events in rome closely. he says he believes catholics and anglicans have much in common, despite their sometimes tense relationship. >> we have major differences over the ordination of women, things like that. we have historically different understandings of the nature of the church, the authority of the church. but we have a common basis around the need to proclaim the good news of jesus christ. >> reporter: he says he hopes dialogue between the two will continue to grow. welby will be enthroned as the next archbishop of canterbury on march 21, when he officially takes the helm of one of the largest bodies of christianity. the former oil-executive-turned-clergyman acknowledges it's interesting that the anglican communion and the roman catholic church will both have new leaders within the next few weeks. >> i don't read too much into it. benedict xvi was a very remarkable, has been a remarkable pope. he took over at the age of 78, not the age most of us would want to take on a new task, and he gave himself, spent himself almost. but i do look forward very much to meeting the new pope later in the year, and i'm confident we'll find in each other a common love for christ. >> reporter: archbishop welby says he hopes to attend the inallati ceremony for the new pope in rome depending on when it takes place. i'm kim lawton in england's coventry cathedral. >> we'll have more of kim's interview with the new archbishop of canterbury in coming weeks. in other news, in washington, as the so-called sequester neared, a coalition of close to one hundred christian leaders urged congress to prevent cuts to poverty programs from going into effect. in what they described as a pastoral letter, the leaders, both liberal and conservative, called for an end to political brinksmanship which they said has prevented a "sound and moral path" to fiscal sustainabity. the group acknowledged congress had agreed to protect certain programs that help low-income americans, but they said more needs to be done to reduce hunger and poverty. advocates on both sides of the gay marriage debate have filed briefs in two highly anticipated supreme court cases. later this month, the court will hear arguments on proposition 8, california's ban on gay marriage and on the federal defense of marriage act, which defines marria as tween a man a a man. this week, this obama administration as well as several dozen prominent republicans, including many from the bush administration, filed briefs in support of gay marriage and opposing the california ban. religious groups have also filed briefs both in favor of and against gay marriage. meanwhile, outside the court on wednesday, civil rights and some faith organizations urged the justices to strike down a challenge to the voting rights act. > aordin to rece surveys there has been a steady increase in the number of people in this country who say they have no religious affiliation at all. pollsters call them the nones, n-o-n-e-s, because when they are shown a list of religions and denominations, and asked which one is theirs, they say, in effect, none of the above. last fall we did a well-received series on the nones, who they are, what they believe, and we want to revisit those stories today and in the next two weeks. our partner in theeriewas the pew forum on religion and public life, where greg smith is a senior researcher. >> almost one in five american adults, 20%, describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated. that equates to about 46 million adults in the united states, so this is a big, growing, important group in american society. to see its continued growth at this kind of rapid rate has been very striking. >> striking indeed. in the early 1990s just under 10% were unaffiliated. since then that number has doubled. about 13 million are atheists and agnostics. 33 million more describe their religion as "nothing in particular." by education and income and other common measurements, the nones are very much like americans as a whole. except for age. >> about one-third of all american adults under the age of 30 describe themselves as either atheists or agnostics or say they just don't have any particular religion. and that large number is a big part of what's driving the overall grow in this population. >> being unaffiliated means not being a member. it does not mean being a nonbeliever or being hostile to religion. indeed, many nones have kind words for places of worship. >> they say that religious organizations are effective in providing help to the poor and to the needy. they say religious organizations do a good job of helping bring communities together. >> two-thirds of the unaffiliated say they believe in god, or a universal spirit. more than a third, 37%, call themselves spiritual but not religious. about one in five say they pray every day, and the same number say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives. with all that religiosity, then, why do 46 million americans say they are unaffiliated with any religious organization? >> they tend to be much more likely than the public as a whole, for example, say that religion and religious organizations are too focused on rules, too concerned with things like money and power,too cuseon pitics. >> we spoke with several young nones, among them rachel mariman, a junior in college who was raised in a very religious home. but during her senior year in high school, she says, she turned away from all religion. >> my church was actually pretty good, but i sort of just had issues with religion in general. young people are becoming increasingly willing to tolerate people who are different. to tolerate different sexual orientation, different religion, different ethnic background, whatever. we don't want to be told that we can't accept gay marriage or that we can't support birth control or abortion. you can still be moral and you can still be a good person without being religious. >> 27-year-old kellen mcclure describes himself as very spiritual. he believes in god and visits churches, but not for their worship services. >> i don't necessarily feel like i need to be guided through my relationship with, you know, the higher power or whatever you will call it. i feel like it's a very personal relationship and i dot necessarily need to be sitting in a church to experience that relationship. so that's why i've never really been drawn to attending services regularly. >> instead, kellen meditates, here in a basilica. >> being spiritual to me means reflecting that maybe i'm not just a biological creature. it means that there's something else and that something else could be a higher power, and it's that something else that connects us to each other. >> thank you very much for everything that we have. >> kellen says he gives thanks daily. >> every day my girlfriend and i sit down to dinner. i am insistent that we say a grace, and that grace is not necessarily a religious grace. it's just a moment that we can both sit there and reflect on how lucky we are. >> kellen also said one reason he does not go to church often is that sunday mornings are his only times to rest. >> we live very hectic lives. i work. i go to school. it leaves a very short amount of time to do things on my own free time. >> among religious leaders and social scientists, there are lots of theories about why there are so many nones. some say many people don't want to join anything, religious or otherwise. some think there's a general softening in religious belief and commitment. many of the nones say they want no part of the conservative politics some churches embrace. others say society in general has become much more tolerant of non-believers, so it's easier thait used to be for some people to acknowledge publicly what they have long been in private, to come out of the atheist or agnostic closet. >> many people of faith may be troubled by the findings in our survey. for instance, three-quarters of all the nones say they were raised in religious homes. very few of them say they are seeking a church that is right for them. they seem quite content to remain unaffiliated. indeed, for people in any age group, the percentage of unaffiliated when ty are young remains the same as they get old. >> i think that if i have children i think that's the same thing that i would like to teach them is that religion is important, being spiritual is important. what's not as important is to join and to go every week. >> however people interpret our survey, greg smith insists the results are snapshots, not predictors. >> while the number of religiously unaffiliated people is growing, it's also true that the vast majority of americans continue to be affiliated with a religion and that's even true of young pple. if one-third of young people are unaffiliated it means that two-thirds of them do continue to identify themselves as members of a religious faith. >> and if 20% of americans say they have no religious affiliation, that leaves 80% who do. one of many questions surrounding the soon to be selectenew pope is how he will handle the standoff between the vatican and many american nuns. last april, the vatican accused the umbrella group that represents the majority of us nuns of "doctrinal confusion." yet many of these sisters say they are just following the spirit of vatican ii, the landmark council convened in 1962 by pope john xxiii to make the catholic church more relevant to the modern world. kim lawton has this special report. >> reporter: in washington, d.c., sister maureen fiedler hosts the public radio program interfaith voices. she tries to broaden interreligious understanding in order to further justice and peace, values she says come straight from her roman catholic faith. >> this isn't something peripheral. this is central to the preaching of the gospel. >> reporter: fiedler entered religious life 50 years ago, just before vatican ii got underway. she says the spirit of the vatican meetings had a profound impact on how she viewed her calling. >> the second vatican council had a marvelous document called "the church in the modern world," which basically underlined the message of justice and peace in the gospel. >> reporter: fiedler became involved in a series of social justice causes, including a 37-day fast in support of the equal rights amendment and rallies in support of the ordination of female priests. >> it just all fit together as a piece for me, and it also fit together in my prayer as i tried to put this together with the second vatican council. it simply made sense to try to alleviate the suffering of the poor, to end wars, to overcome discrimination. that for me was christianity. >> reporter: but some critics say many catholic sisters have been using the second vatican council to justify positions and activities that are in conflict with official church teachings. colleen carroll campbell is a columnist and author. >> this idea that having this second vatican council and pronouncing that there's this amorphous spirit that gives us license to pretty much throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, when it comes to catholic doctrine-it's simply wrong, and i think we've heard over and over from pope john paul ii and pope benedict xvi that it's wrong. >> reporter: pope john xxiii convened the second vatican council in october 1962 in order, as he put it, to "open a window and let in a little fresh air." >> even though in the united states there were a lot of changes going on in the '40s and '50s after the second world war, in worldwide catholicism these changes really hadn't occurred. and so in order to open up a window for the whole church, not just in modernized countries, this council was called. >> reporter: over the next three years, church leaders at the council produced 16 documents on a host of topics, from introducing local languages into the mass to expanding lay involvement and promoting more interfaith dialogue. one of the documents focused on religious life. it encouraged catholic sisters to reexamine their mission, their rules, even their style of dress. >reporter: many u.s. siers began mofyinor en eliminating the traditional habit. the clothing changes for prioresses of the dominican sisters in amityville, new york, were dramatic. >> she says vatican ii urged people to get out of the city. >> i think that's one of the great gifts of vatican ii, that it sent us back to study what the gospels were saying, and er and over again it was about feed the hungry, visit those in prison, help the poor. >> reporter: the dominican sisters in amityville have a variety of ministries designed to help those at the margins, such as literacy classes to teach new immigrant women english. there are homes to help women and children with nowhere else to live, and there's even an organic garden, where about 20% of the produce is donated to an interfaith food network. under an umbrella organization called the leadership conference of women religious, or lcwr, many communities of nuns began shifting their ministries in the wake of vatican ii. fo some sisters, it was an exhilarating time. but others were concerned. >> there was a minority of women who didn't feel that the changes were appropriate, that the adaptations to modern life, the moving out of the parish into the world, that these movements had gone too far. >> reporter: some nuns became part of a separate organization that holds more traditional views. >> the vatican ii documents are a pretty straightforward read. i think the difficulty mes whenou don't read everything in context, perhaps. i would find it difficult to read the documents, then come up with them saying something more than what they say. >> reporter: the lcwr still represents about 80% of the some 57,000 american nuns. the group has increasingly taken on advocacy positions, including some that are controversial. >> these are the sisters that publicly stated to john paul ii that women should be ordained, that women should be allowed to work in all the ministries of the crch. this is the same organization that signed "the new york times" letter which said that there is a legitimate, diverse opinion on the question of abortion. >> reporter: sister mary hughes is immediate past president of the lcwr and still part of its leadership team. >> are there persons who have divergent opinions? i think that's true in the whole church. it's not just true in religious life. i think sometimes there's a concern if we raise a question that means that we are in defiance, and that's not at all what happens. but i think we're going to continue to raise the questions, because there might be areas that we would hope the church would look at. >> reporter: in 2008, vatican officials began an investigation into the lives and doctrine of u.s. women religious. this past april, the vatican released a report accusing the lcwr of having "serious doctrinal problems." the assessment specifically criticized the group for being largely silent on right-to-life issues, and it mandated that the group come under the authority of some us bishops. >> we're stuck with a situation that we are not happy about, that we answered all the questions that we're given to us in the doctrinal assessment honestly, carefully, prudently, and when we didn't hear back, i guess we thought that we were believed. and i think there are aspects of the mandate that make us wonder if our materials were read. >> reporter: for example, hughes says she believes there is more than one way to promote the sanctity of human life. she says her community's ministries against domestic violence and in support of homeless mothers and children is also prolife work. >> that's about the sanctity of human life. it's about doing it differently. i think it's complementary. i don't think you can have one without the other. >> we're talking about defending the sanctity of every human life from the cradle to the grave, defending the sanctity of marriage as the church sees marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and just generally promoting church teaching, and upholding that teaching and witnessing with joy to that, and that's not what many lay catholics have seen. >> reporter: professor mcdannell says since the death of john the xxiii church leaders have appeared to be consolidating authority. >> the new generation of men want a catholic church which is more traditional, which is more devotional, which is more willing to be obedient to the authority. >> reporter: some wonder if there is any room for dialogue and debate. >> this is not just about the vatican versus the nuns. this really is about the future of how we interpret the message of the second vatican council, and what's going on right now quite frankly makes me sad, because i see certain people in rome, in the vatican, who want retrenchment, who want to go back to the church the way it was before the second vatican council, when the church was essentially the hierarchy, and they determined everything down to sometimes the minutia of catholic life. >> women religious need to stand with the church, and if they don't feel that they can in good conscience do that anymore then i think it would take more integrity to simply step back and say, you know, maybe we're not called to be catholic women religious anymore. maybe we want to be something else. >> reporter: many lay catholics have been rallying in support of the sisters. hughes says they been getting letters of encouragement from across the country. she says she remains hopeful that, in the spirit of vatican ii, healing can prevail. >> there's always a blessing that comes with every conflict. perhaps the blessing is that we continue to open up within the church avenues for true dialogue and true dialogue isn't about winners and losers. it's about people truly being able to listen to understand the other perspective before making any judgments. >> reporter: i'm kim lawton reporting. on our calendar, this weekend, bahai's begin a 19-day fast. they abstain from food and drink between sunrise and sunset and practice prayer and meditation, the time of fasting leads up to the new year celebration, nowz. on wednesday, at the capitol in washington, the late rosa parks became the first black woman to be depicted in a full-length statue in statuary hall. park's refusal in 1955 to give up her seat on a segregated montgomery, alabama, bus led to a bus boycott that lasted more than a year and helped trigger the civil rights movement. >> and in a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change america -- and change the world. >> according to parks' biographer, her mother and grandmother taught her that part of being respected was to demand respect. parks died in 2005 at the age of 92. and, finally, doctor c. everett koop died this past week. he was a highly-respected pediatric surgeon appointed by president reagan in the early '80s to be surgeon general of the united states. koop campaigned vigorously against smoking, with considerable success. he wasan evangical presbyterian who surprised many by his vigorous efforts to address the hiv and aids epidemic through his advocacy of condom use and sex education. he was also a staunch opponent of abortion. dr. koop was 96 years old. that's our program for now. i'm bob abernethy. you can follow us on twitter and facebook and watch us anytime on the pbs app for iphones and ipads. there's much more on our webte. you can comment on all of our stories and share them. audio and video podcasts are also available. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, scenes from the vatican of benedict xvi, now pope emeritus, during his final days as the successor to saint peter. major funding is provided by the lilly endowment dedicated to its founders interest in community education. additional funding provided by mutual of america designing custized, indivual d group retirement

Transcripts For CNNW Sanjay Gupta MD 20130302

brake pedal, which his feet apparently had been blocking. no one, miraculously, was hurt. and it's the country's newest dance craze. you know what i'm talking about. yes. the harlem shake. okay. doing it on an airline, apparently, isn't such a great idea, because the faa is now investigating this incident. pilots call it a serious safety and security problem. they say an airline isn't a dance hall. and look out. if you head to this park in sacramento, california -- ooh, oh, my gosh, what's going on? two angry geese just might attack you like they did him. they have been named frizzel and frazel. oh, that's so embarrassing. well, apparently they're really just defending their territory. so don't go near that park. that's going to do it for me, i'm fredricka width whitfield. aleah cho in for don lemon. a high stakes battle against bullying with our own anderson cooper. hey there, thanks for joining us. i want to start today with a disturbing number. parents pay attention to this. estimates are that one in five children is bullied at school. most of the time, it's verbal abuse. relentless name-calling that leaves emotional scars. we know those scars can last a lifetime. it's something we can play a role in stopping. i want you to meet a family and girl going through extreme measures to make the bullying stop. it's a parent's nightmare. >> when i was a little kid -- now i'm just shy. >> children for 14-year-old nadia, the bullying started in first grade. >> there was this girl, he came up to me and -- just -- speechless. because i didn't think about it until she said that. >> dumbo, elephant ears and much, much worse. seven years of torment. so withdrawn, still so hard to talk about. what is the -- do you remember the worst sort of taunting or teasing or, you know, whatever -- do you remember a day where that happened? >> it happened a lot. well, it happened so many times, it kind of all blends together, that i kind of don't remember. >> nadia was 10 years old when she asked her mom if she could have surgery to pin her ears back, also known as an oat owe plasty. she wanted them to stick out less, all in an effort to stop the bullying. it's been sort of a dark place for you for some time, it sounds like. >> yeah, it's been very depressing. >> her mom, desperate to help, turned to the internet and stumbled across "the little baby face foundation," the nonprofit organization offers free plastic surgery for children, like nadia who are bullied because of their physical appearance and can't afford an operation. >> there may be people, nadia, who say, look, you don't need to do this. this is just who you are. it's the way you were born. people should love people for who they are. what do you say to those folks? >> i say that they're right. but it will never stop. it will just keep going. get worse and worse. >> the foundation flew nadia and her mother from georgia to new york city for an all-expense-paid trip to this hospital. >> this will be our target ear. so i'll match the other ear, which is not as lateralized as this ear. >> in her application, nadia had asked to have her ears pinned back. but dr. thomas romo with the little baby face foundation recommended she change more than just her ears. >> i love thin chins. but i don't want them as pointy as that chin. we talked about that, didn't we? >> uh-huh. >> we looked at some pictures of some different people. and their chins come up just a little more square. so that's exactly what we're going to do, too. >> and there was more. >> when i looked up inside her, the whole septum is actually going off this way. as the septum goes, so goes the nose. >> she never talked about the nose or the chin before, right? >> she did not. because she didn't recognize it. >> dr. romo says with her ears pinned back, her nose and a symmetrical chin would be more pronounced. he said all three surgeries combined are necessary to balance out nadia's features. >> any last thoughts as we're going into the o.r. here? >> nervous. excited. >> so in some ways, this has been seven years in the making for nadia. she just went under but tells me she has been dreaming about this day for some time. and now it's all happening for her. so what doctor romo is doing is an oto plasty, reducing the size of the nose and here on the chin. what might surprise a lot of people, 42% of otoplasties on the ears are done on people under the age of 18. this four-hour operation would normally come with a price tag of about $40,000. for nadia, it's free. here in the operating room, when you see what's happening here behind me, gives you a good idea just how significant bullying can be. kids become depressed, anxious. and nadia's case, she told me it changed her entire personality. but surgery alone won't wipe away the pain from years of all that bullying. nadia's mom hopes counseling will be the final step in the healing process. 72 hours post-op, nadia is still swollen, but cautiously optimistic as dr. romo removes the bandages and she says her new self for the first time. >> i look beautiful. this is exactly what i wanted. i love it. >> and we are joined now by nadia ile. thank you for joining us, nadia. i tell you, as a parent, i think a lot of parents, grand parents out there, watching what you went through, it hits -- it hits close to home. and it's great to see you. it's been about seven months now since your operation. u turned 15. you started high school. how are you doing? how do you feel? >> i am feeling great. changed my whole outcome of life. my whole outcome, what i think of life. >> it was bullying, and you were very candid in just how tough that bullying was on you, and i'm curious. with the plastic surgery now, with the operation, has the bullying stopped? >> yes, it has. i mean, i have changed a lot. a lot of people are now treating me with respect, and they actually talk to me now, and they say that they're sorry and they -- and they apologize for everything they did. >> you can't help but note, this is obviously -- it's plastic surgery. it's superficial. it's just changing your appearance. how do you feel about -- is it superficial that they're apologizing, just because of this change in your appearance? >> no, they probably apologize because they have probably thought, like, wow, it must have hurt you so bad that you wanted to change your appearance and stuff. and they just -- they felt sorry they -- that they were the ones who caused this. >> you look great. you look so beautiful. i mean, you're a young woman. i wish you the best. and as i think i told you, i have three daughters myself, so one can't help but think of their own kids when talking to someone like you. thank you for being so candid and talking about this. >> thank you. we want to continue this discussion. i'm going to be talking with my friend, anderson cooper. he's got details on a grass roots movement that's pushing for sweeping change across the country on this very topic. that's next. ♪ none of us think bad things are gonna happen to us. i'm here at my house on thanksgiving day, and i have a massive heart attack right in my driveway. an artery in your heart, it's called the widow maker. and mine was 95% blocked. they took me to the hospital, and the doctor put me on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] aspirin is not appropriate for everyone, so be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. i'm a blue-collar worker. to me, bayer aspirin is another tool. go talk to your doctor. you're not indestructible anymore. ♪ [ male announcer ] when you wear dentures you may not know it, but your mouth is under attack. food particles infiltrate and bacteria proliferate. ♪ protect your mouth, with fixodent. the adhesive helps create a food seal defense for a clean mouth and kills bacteria for fresh breath. ♪ fixodent, and forget it. continuing our discussion on bullying, the bullying effect chronicles the journey of a bullied child, the grieving parent, and a film maker turned activist. each has become a powerful food soldier in this battle against bullying. >> everything that happened to me on that bus happened every day, if not worse. >> the bullying got so bad at school, we feared for her safety. >> rolled over on me. when i rolled on to the ground, he drove away. >> my wife and i, we plan on fighting bullying forever. because our boy, he's going to be 11 years old forever. >> the bystanders of the school get involved, i'll guarantee, we can over power any bully. >> i really found -- i want to say my purpose. >> let's get this rolling. >> i'm telling you, i believe in you. you believe in you. tell me. of i am somebody. raise this roof! >> i am somebody! >> that is what i'm talking about. >> and anderson joins us now. thanks for joining us. watching that kid get slugged on the bus. >> incredible. >> what was it like making this documentary? is. >> it was -- the original movie, "bully" that prompted this by lee hirsch, he captured something that is really captured on film. you see kids being bullied and you see the impact it has on them, their families, on the parents, on the schools. and we wanted to follow up with some of the people we met in his film. and that young man who was being pump punched on the bus would see how his life was transformed and seeing what works in trying to stop bullying, what doesn't work, and where we can do more. and what more needs to be done. >> the film maker, as you mentioned, talked about his own experiences with bullying, as well. is this something that you had any sort of personal -- how do you ask somebody if they were bullied? i hate being asked that myself. >> i wasn't really bullied in school at all. i was lucky. my school was very tended to. there was certainly bullying going on. but i think anybody -- i think we all can remember what it's like to be a kid. and i think all kids feel a sense of alienation, feel a sense of not fitting in. certainly if you are a gay or lesbian child, that's exacerbated all the more. and so i mean, i'm very kind of everyone lettic to what a lot of these kids have gone through and are continuing to go through. and just as a reporter, you know, i've done so many stories and interviewed so many parents who, you know, who found their child, 10-year-old child, 11-year-old child hanging in their closet in their bedroom, and the parent didn't know or didn't think it was as serious or kind of thought, look, this is what happens to all kids. but it's really -- the nature really has changed and there is kind of a cruelty that the anonymity of online presence allows. and i think that's something that a lot of parents sort of have finally started to come to understand. >> yeah, that anonymity as you mentioned, as well. i'm really looking forward to watching. >> really fascinating series. >> thank you for being here. it's called "the bully effect," sunday night 8:00 p.m. eastern here on cnn. there is a big study about the mediterranean diet. i'll tell you what it says about the best way to prevent heart disease. stay with us. >> if you think about everything, all of the consumer products, the -- rigid. completely green space of soft machine. the robotics energy is concerned with the number of degrees of freedom and how much it costs. here is a way we can really transform the cost of robotics. we'll eliminate the server motors, the pins, bearings, joints. and we will sew you a robot out of fabric and use pressurized fluids to make it work. and it will reduce the cost of robots 100-fold and make them 10 or 100 times more powerful. the one behind me weighs 1 or hundred pounds, the size of your arm. when fully pressurized, i could lift a human at arm's length. no hinges and bearings there. it's all done in these tensile fabric. so built the way biological systems are work. this works much more like a fish or shark than like a robot. personally something that excites us a lot is prosthetic applications. essentially putting a wearable robot over a human skeleton as a prosthetic device. and i think that's a beautiful application. ♪ you know my heart burns for you... ♪ i'm up next, but now i'm singing the heartburn blues. hold on, prilosec isn't for fast relief. cue up alka-seltzer. it stops heartburn fast. ♪ oh what a relief it is! big topic this week. a lot of people talking about the mediterranean diet. that's because a study was just published in the "new england journal of medicine" which says patients who follow the diet sharply cut their risk of heart attacks and strokes. there's some basics about this. you want to eat at least four tablespoons of olive oil a day. at least three servings of fruit a day. two servings of vegetables. fish, three times a week. white meat instead of red meat. a lot of nuts. and here's the one everyone always pays attention to. seven glasses of wine with meals every week. i want to bring in one of our favorite guests, catkinsman. your managing editor of cnn's eat ocracy blog. >> i love this. this is a boon for food-lovers. the basic tenet is stay away from processed things and eat real food. essentially, don't eat anything that your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as foot. >> it's so so simple. when people put it like that. i was interested, because i know the mediterranean diet. i want to talk about the study. but i'm always curious specifically about breakfast. one of my big things, eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a peasant. i think front-loading your meals is helpful. but what do you eat for breakfast on a mediterranean diet? >> again, it's -- i think a lot of people get up in their head too much about what breakfast food actually is. first of all, start your day with something just delicious. and your world can open up. so i brought in a bunch of things you can have. you could maybe cut some lovely fruit in half, serve it with some beautiful greek style yogurt. have some -- you don't always have to have fresh fruit on hand. i know that's sort of a problem sometimes in winter. but you can always rely on wonderful dried goji berries, raisins, dried plums. >> eggs on here. >> you can have eggs on this too. and you don't have to be all -- take out the yolk. back it up with a little bit of spinach or whatever else happens to be in season. but really, you're not -- the great thing about this diet is, you don't have to eat that way. you get to eat that way. and it's a matter of perception. >> yeah. and obsteamous we don't hear enough of on television. it's accessible to people. >> and whole grain oatmeal, we're trying to eat more of anyway. >> one thing was interesting and i'm sure you noticed. the question they were trying to answer is, is it a mediterranean diet better than a low-fat diet with regard to heart disease. and what they found is that the people who they put in the low-fat diet group, they couldn't stay on it. they were supposed to get very low fat in terms of their consumption. but they pretty much were eating a standard diet. what -- what did you think of that as a person who focuses on this? is it that low fat diets are hard to maintain? >> there is a sense of deprivation. something in your brain saying i'm being punished. so great thing, so many foods are packed with flavor, it's a reward, you don't feel like you're sacrificing anything. and if you are having a hard time staying on a low-fat diet, put some hot sauce on there, smoked paprikaa. anything you can do to amp up the flavor and you're not going to have that little signal in your head, thinking that you're going to rebel later by having some cake or something like that. >> which happens a lot. >> it does. >> they will trash it all when they get home with the ice cream or cake or whatever. >> think of this, this is the food where if you were on vacation, you would be delighted if they served this for breakfast. so -- vacation every day. >> it's good to see you. thanks -- good to be with you in person on the set. >> i know. >> and we get great food. what happens with the food now, do we get to eat it? >> get to eat it. >> love it. thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. chris was a promising hockey player, fierce competitor, on his way to a professional hockey career. but last year he was forced to confront an opponent he didn't know he could beat. >> on three, one, two, three! >> chris rumble loves the hard hits. of the camaraderie, and the trash talk. >> hey, do you whine the entire game. >> and hockey. >> always in the back of my mind, yeah, i want to be a hockey player. >> in high school, rumble played defense for the wild amateur hockey team. in april of 2012, rumble noticed his glands were swollen. his energy level was low. and then came the diagnosis. >> i knew leukemia was a form of cancer. and kind of felt like i had 1,000 pounds on my shoulders and i just kind of sunk into my seat. >> reporter: rumble approached his six months of brutal chemotherapy with a positive attitude. >> my largest intestine ruptured so i wasn't allowed to eat or drink for 14 days. >> reporter: he was a patient at seattle children's hospital. he was a role model for the younger ones and tried to cheer them up with another passion, making music videos. >> this camera. ♪ >> this video went viral. registering millions of hits. ♪ stand a little taller >> reporter: now his cancer is in remission. rumble is back on the ice. as a freshman playing defense for the golden griffins. >> there were a couple points where i didn't think i would make it back on the ice, let alone division 1 college hockey. >> reporter: a win on the ice, and in life. rumble saying he hopes sharing his story is going to help others keep a positive attitude when times get tough. and still ahead, the most important thing c. everett koop ever did. ♪ ♪ if loving you is wrong ♪ i don't wanna be right [ record scratch ] what?! it's not bad for you. it just tastes that way. [ female announcer ] honey nut cheerios cereal -- heart-healthy, whole grain oats. you can't go wrong loving it. bee happy. bee healthy. with clusters of flakes and o's. oh, ho ho... it's the honey sweetness. i...i mean, you...love. ♪ many hot dogs are within you. try pepto-bismol to-go, it's the power of pepto, but it fits in your pocket. now tell the world daniel... of pepto-bismol to-go.

Transcripts For CNNW CNN Saturday Morning 20130303

recognize the epidemic. when he joined the fight he pulled no punches. >> his bully approach to great killers in this world, tobacco and hiv, i believe he's responsible for saving many, many lives. >> you can't ask more of a doctor than that. dr. koop was the first surgeon general to officially warn about the dangers of passive smoking. he was a vigorous opponent of big tobacco as you probably know. something i always like to tell people who want to quit smoking. you don't have to wait years to see the benefits. take a look. just 20 minutes after your last cigarette, your heart rate and blood pressure will drop. in 24 hours, your heart disease risk goes down. two weeks later your lung function improves. after five years your cancer risk declines. in fact, in 20 years, your overall risk is the same as a nonsmoker. tools or tricks to help you kick the habit, go to smokefree.gov. that will wrap things up here, time to send it back to atlanta for your top stories right now. the mission has changed because we can no longer sustain the rescue effort. >> the florida sinkhole that swallowed up one life is threatening a neighborhood. wait until you see what authorities are doing to the houses just minutes from now. it's the first sunday without a pope. now the cardinals are descending on the vatican to lec the next holy father. accused murderer jodi arias expected on the stand last monday. last week's display of sobs and cries may have swayed the jury but our body language expert said it was all an act. >> good morning, everyone. i'm brianna keilar in for randi kaye. it's march 3rd. we're glad you're with us. happening outside, demolition crews about to tear down a house sitting on a killer sinkhole, it's about 50 feet deep and 30 feet wide. the ground is so unstable, wrecking crews will have to demolish from a distance. they won't take their equipment past the sidewalk. it has become so dangerous search crews have been forced to give up the search for jeff bush's body. he was in his bed when the hole opened up and collapsed beneath him. there's fears it could spread to neighboring houses. at least two families left. we'll take you to the ground outside the house in a few minutes. most of the people chased out by a brush fire in daytona beach are back home this morning. firefighters there say they have it about 75% contained. at one appoint about 300 families had to leave and leave quick because the fire was moving so fast. winds and low humidity have been feeding the fire, those are the same conditions that are expected today. the crew aboard international space station is getting ready to lock down the dragon cargo vehicle. you can see it there. they use the station's robotic arm to reach out and grand prix early this morning. they will dock around 9:30 eastern. we'll be looking at that obviously. you may recall there were glitches when the dragon launched. that's why it's been delayed. this is an unmanned capsule, caring 1200 pounds of supplies for the station crew and their experiments so they are certainly anxious thinkstious to get it. to washington, lawmakers expected back this week. they have some unfinished business to handle. dealing with those forced spending cuts in effect isn't the only big thing on their plate. cnn's congressional correspondent dana bash with more. >> reporter: the house speaker walked out of an unproductive meeting about spending cuts going on now and instead focused on the next looming crisis. the end of this month march 27th funding for the government runs out. >> i'm hopeful we won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown while we're dealing with the sequester at the same time. the house will act next week and i hope the senate will follow suit. >> reporter: john boehner and house republicans plan to pass a bill next week to keep the government funded through september 30th, the end of the fiscal year. along with that deal with some of the pain with forced cuts going into effect now, just the military giving leeway in its new budget. >> it is going to help update the categories which will reduce some of the damage. >> but that does not necessarily mean crisis averted. why? congressional democrats are skeptical about helping the military and not other americans hit by spending cuts like children in head start programs. >> we need to have programs in there that meet compelling human need, housing, education, health care. we also need transportation. >> senator who heads it at work while most colleagues are home this weekend expressed frustration congress is gone. >> i'm here, ready to go. i'm waiting for the photo opp at the white house to come here and give me direction. >> they tried to put faces on forced spending cuts. >> now that congress has left, someone is going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage. they are going to have less pay. the janitors, security guards, they just got a pay cut and they have got to figure out how to manage it. >> we checked on that. it turns out the president was not exactly right. the senate sergeant-at-arms told cnn neither capitol police nor janitors will see salaries slashed only limited overtime. the only announced effect so far at the capital is some entrances will close. a small inconvenience to lawmakers and their aides. when it comes to a shutdown at the end of the month, the president was optimistic this was not going to happen. i'm told senate democrats took that as a signal they should find a way to bridge real differences with house republicans on budget priorities. dana bash, cnn, capitol hill. >> we wan to take you for selma, alabama where the issue of voting rights is taking stage again. forty years after the march for voting rights vice president joe biden heads there to commemorate the historic march and draw attention to the case before the supreme court. so let's catch up with victor blackwell. he's there in selma. victor, i understand you spoke with one of the attorneys who argued this case before the supreme court. what did he have to say? >> i did. special counsel to the naacp legal defense fund. he was arguing alongside the u.s. solicitor general. he will say what we're expecting the vice president to talk about today during a keynote address at a brunch before he crosses the edmund pettus bridge that the voting rights of 1965 should be continued as it's been reauthorized without being dismantled as the county in alabama is trying to take out one part of it. they are trying to have the supreme court overturn section 5 of the voting rights act, which gives the federal government the opportunity to negate or overturn elements of voting laws in certain states. alabama is one of them. here is what he said about a comment made by justice scalia calling that section racial entitlement. >> from the perspective of a civil rights lawyer and american, it completely denies our history. the voting rights act is a remedy for more than a century of persist endiscrimination. it's discrimination that stood in the face of the constitution. it's an answer to promises that went unkept for over 100 years. voting rights captures what's bess in america, the idea we should all be able to participate in democracy. >> the argument from that attorney from sheldon county, alabama was that the discrimination of the '60s, that was supposed to be overturned by the voting rights act, those problems have been solved. the vice president said a few days at a brunch at his home, the naval observatory in d.c., he was unaware that we would have to refight so many fights, this being one of them. brianna. >> i wonder what that lawyer thinks about the expectation for how the court may vote. when you listen to the oral arguments, any way you cut it, victor, we're expecting this to be a 5-4 decision. voting rights advocates are hanging hopes on justice anthony kennedy. he said some things they may find alarming indicating he may ultimately side against them. did this lawyer have a sense of how he thought the court may go? >> i think the comment specifically when kennedy asked do people in the south face a higher level of discrimination, african-americans, than people matt north. this attorney said the problem here is that this is institutionalized in some of these states. all aren't in the south. there are districts in other parts of the country. he believes that ultimately the voting rights act will be upheld. it was just reauthorized in 2006 by a vote of 98-0 in the senate to continue to 2031. again, this attorney believes when this is done, when the opinion comes from the court, the majority will be to uphold that reauthorization. >> what about the critics who argue, victor, that the provision isn't needed anymore because race relations have improved? obviously they are hoping the opposite. >> that is one element. i read portions of this 93-page brief that was filed with the court on behalf of shelby county. another thing they said this is a high cost of federalism. they say this is giving the federal government too much oversight over these states, one of them alabama, mississippi another, other states in the south. they say those two elements primarily are the reason this should not be upheld. another element is that in 2006 when this was reauthorized, congress did not offer any type of measurement, any barometer on which they would measure if there were still the levels of discrimination and how to measure -- needs to be reauthorized moving forward. >> this is going to be a very important case to watch. victor blackwell, we'll be checking in with you throughout the day in selma. thank you for that report. if you waking up with us today, this is a momentous day at the vatican, there is no pope. there is no sunday public mass being held by the pontiff. instead you have cardinals returning to the vatican for what will be one of the world's most secret meetings. their mission find a successor to pope benedict xvi who resigned last week. the next pope will lead the world's 1.2 billion roman catholics. cnn national correspondent susan candiotti is outside new york city's famed st. patrick's cathedral. what are you hearing from people there, susan? >> certainly there's a lot of anticipation this morning from outside here at st. patrick's. arguably the most famous catholic church in the united states. as everyone is waiting to see when the selection process will begin. of course, one of the 115 cardinals who will be part of that selection process is the head of the archdiocese in new york, cardinal timothy dolan. we talked to a few people as they were going into mass about what changes they would like to see in the catholic church. one man told us he thinks it will be a good idea to allow priests to marry. >> i think it's difficult for them not to be. i think the population is getting old. i think if they were allowed to live a slightly more normal lifestyle it would be better. >> what about female ordained priests. >> i think that would be a great thing. >> why is that? >> i think that would lead to a greater population of really talented priests of. >> another man told us he's very concerned about the ongoing scandal that is rocking the catholic church involving sexual abuse being committed by pleases and what to do about that. here is how he addressed that in terms of how the next pope will be selected. listen. >> the report that benedict requested to be prepared on various allegations and reported scandals is a report that he has chosen to make available to his successor but not to the voting cardinal electors, which to me is a bit of a disappointment. i think people empowered to vote and make a decision in choosing the next leader should have all available information. >> so two very thoughtful questions and answers from some catholics attending mass this day. brianna. >> susan candiotti in new york. thank you for that report. now searchers outside of tampa have given up on finding a man who disappeared when a sinkhole opened under his bed. now wrecking crews begin a very careful demolition of the house and jackie callaway from our affiliate wfts tv is there. jackie, what can you tell us? >>. [ inaudible ] >> we're having an auto problem with jackie with our affiliate wfts. she's our eyes on the ground so we'll be back to her moemt earl. back to the pope. the pope is not like running for president. it's unusual to see a campaign for cardinal. it's tabu. not only that, it could hurt your chances of getting elected. we'll talk about it. ♪ [ construction sounds ] ♪ [ watch ticking ] [ engine revs ] come in. ♪ got the coffee. that was fast. we're outta here. ♪ [ engine revs ] ♪ for those nights when it's more than a bad dream, be ready. for the times you need to double-check the temperature on the thermometer, be ready. for high fever, nothing works faster or lasts longer. be ready with children's motrin. progress-oh! [ female announcer ] with 40 delicious progresso soups at 100 calories or less, there are plenty of reasons people are saying "progress-oh!" share your progress-oh! story on facebook. many cereals say they're good for your heart, but did you know there's a cereal that's recommended by doctors? it's post shredded wheat. recommended by nine out of ten doctors to help reduce the risk of heart disease. post shredded wheat is made with only one ingredient: one hundred percent whole grain wheat, with no added sugar or salt. try adding fruit for more health benefits and more taste in your bowl. it's the ideal way to start your heart healthy day. try post shredded wheat. this has been medifacts for post shredded wheat. try post shredded wheat. see lioutdoors, or in.ight. transitions® lenses automatically filter just the right amount of light. so you see everything the way it's meant to be seen. maybe even a little better. visit your eyecare professional today to ask about our newest lenses, transitions vantage and transitions xtractive lenses. experience life well lit. ask which transitions adaptive lens is best for you. today is the first sunday without a pope and the vatican could be popeless for a while longer. some cardinals who were supposed to vote aren't even in the vatican yet. look at this. it seems some people are campaigning for their favorite cardinal. posters around rome are urging cardinals to vote for peter turkson, from ghana. if elected he would be the first black pope. these posters could cause him problem. joining me in new york, father beck, a cnn contributor, host of sunday mass. father, when you are a potential candidate for pope, this isn't exactly like running for senior class president. it's a big tabu to campaign. even if he's not involved, do you think this could hurt turkson's chances? >> we've all heard the famous adage, the cardinal that goes in a pope comes out a cardinal. that isn't always true since paul vi was a front-runner as was pope benedict. they both went in and it was expected they would become pope and they did. however, it is tab yours to campaign for one's self. he gave an interview to telegraph in the uk and speculated on a question from the journalist, what would it be like. he said it would change my life. it would be hard. people didn't like the fact he speculated about it. nothing to do with the posters. some of the controversy around it could hurt him. >> the interview, that's interesting, more than the posters would hurt him. are there other no nos for someone who might be next pope. >> cardinals try not to go on the record with any statement about faith or morals that seem to contradict or too far left because those come back to haunt them. they should stay away from economy communities controversial. >> tomorrow, father, cardinals are supposed to start meeting. ultimately they have to set a date for the conclave. do we have a sense of when that will happen? >> the general conclave begins tomorrow. it's expected they will last about a week. at least that's common wisdom, which would put conclave beginning a week from monday on the 11th. we'll see. that means that a pope could be elected and maybe we have the installation mass by the 17th of march, which would be good, because the following sunday is palm sunday. i don't think you would want to have the installation for the pope on palm sunday for holy week so they are hoping to have it done by the 17th. >> that would be a little strange. give us a sense of the color of this process. there is a lot. there's a lot of ritual. one of the things we all know because it wasn't that long ago was the smoke that comes out of the vatican. it changes black to white. this is interesting because it's not always reliable you say. >> not only reliable but hasn't always been the case. the first time that ballots were burned was opinion 17, it wasn't until 1914 that smoke was indicator. used to be bells would ring and cannons would sound and that would indicate a pope was elected. we can't always tell what color it is. look gray, use black cartridges and they forget to put it in. it hasn't been a reliable indicator. >> it's so important. you hope they get it right because there's goes to be so many eyes, whether it's the faithful or tourists or journalists covering this trained on that smoke waiting to see. really appreciate it, father beck, thanks for being with us. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> if you're going to get stuck in an elevator, might as well get stuck with these guys. up next, cast of modern family has a not so scripted moment. they reported it all for our benefit. i'm up next, but now i'm singing the heartburn blues. hold on, prilosec isn't for fast relief. cue up alka-seltzer. it stops heartburn fast. ♪ oh what a relief it is! cue up alka-seltzer. it stops heartburn fast. dad: you excited for youyeah.st day? ♪ dad: you'll be fine, ok? girl: ok. dad: you look so pretty. ♪ i'm overprotective. that's why i got a subaru. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. [heart beating] [heartbeat continues] [heartbeat, music playing louder] ♪ i'm feeling better since you know me... ♪ announcer: this song was created with heartbeats of children in need. find out how it can help frontline health workers bring hope to millions of children at everybeatmatters.org. so what happens when you put three actors from modern family together in an elevator? parental they get stuck. ju they were on the way to a fundraiser in kansas city when their elevator stopped between floors for nearly an hour. so what do they do? what many of us might do. they took to twitter to vent about it and put out this video. >> get us out. >> get us out. >> get us out. >> whole room. >> get us out. >> a dozen other people were stuck in the elevator with them making for some good fun. kansas city firemen eventually came to the rescue, as you can see, escorting julie bowen off there. later at the fundraiser stone street told the crowd, have a great night and don't use the elevator. to sports now, duke senior ryan kelly returned from injury and had one of the greatest games in team history. amazing. coach k called it a performance for the ages. joe carter joining me now in more from this morning's breacher report to tell us about it. >> good morning. you think of all the star players coach k has seen play through the year, for him to call ryan's performance one for the ages certainly says a lot about his game. coming into the game, no basketball for 13. no basketball for the last months because he's suffering from a really bad foot injury. the miami coach said he thought they were prepared for kelly's return, obviously they were not prepared for this ryan kelly. the senior at the fifth ranked team in the country, poured 36 points on them. duke proved to the rest of the country they are still a legitimate title threat. after the game, coach k praised kelly for doing it all. >> saying spectacular, whatever, doesn't do his performance justice. one for the ages. probably as good a performance as any player has had, duke player has had at cameron. >> wow, that says a lot. so after she record the the fastest time at daytona last week danica patrick, for lack of a better word, is struggling in phoenix. she qualified with one of the slowest times on the field, finished 40th out of 43 cars. i'm not negative nelly for danica. last year in this race she started 47th and finished 17th, which was her best cup finish of the soap. it's not all bad for danica, she still has a good shot today. instead of settling for overtime, baylor went for the win against kansas state. that back fired in the hands of a teammate, went out-of-bounds, no one touched it, no time off the clock. they would get the buzzer beater three-pointer win, hangs on 64-61. baylor is kicking themselves for not going to overtime. when the rankings comes out tomorrow gonzaga, the first time in history number one. some saying duke with the addition of ryan kelly is the best in the country. you can join the debate at bleacherreport.com. i'm going to use your method of picking brackets for march madness. that way. >> is that weird for kelly to come back and so-so well? normally i would think a player who has been disabled comes back and it kinds of takes a while to thaw out. >> you would think. you would think it's like coming back to a show after you've been off for a few days. shake off the cob web. he shook it off quick. >> joe carter, thanks for that. a long time state lawmaker in connect gets stripped of his leadership post. it's all something he said to a teenager girl. it was all too much for his colleagues. one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. live the regular life. phillips'. for those nights when it's more than a bad dream, be ready. for the times you need to double-check the temperature on the thermometer, be ready. for high fever, nothing works faster or lasts longer. be ready with children's motrin. how did i know? well, i didn't really. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive... but when i started losing energy and became moody... that's when i had an honest conversation with my doctor. we discussed all the symptoms... then he gave me some blood tests. showed it was low t. that's it. it was a number -- not just me. 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[ male announcer ] in a clinical study, over 80% of treated men had their t levels restored to normal. talk to your doctor about all your symptoms. get the blood tests. change your number. turn it up. androgel 1.62%. you are watching live pictures coming to us from florida. this is that house near tampa where on thursday night a sinkhole opened up in the bedroom of a florida man, jeff bush, and swallowed him alive. right now, as we understand it, we're trying to figure out exactly what's going on here. these are demolition crews -- that's what they are doing. they are taking the american flag out of the front yard. they are about to demolish this home. before they do so, out of respect, as they should, they took the american flag that had been posted in the front yard. after this we expect they are going to start taking the home apart. what you can't see, obviously, is the sinkhole. but we understand it's 50 feet deep, about 30 feet wide, and it's inside the home. we're wondering exactly as they do this what is going to happen. it's a very precarious situation. the authorities there are concerned that the sinkhole could grow. we do know sometimes sinkholes are widened by something like construction, by vibration. so obviously the act of demolishing the home could have some effect on that. folks who live near this in homes surrounding this bush family home have been evacuated. there's concern the sinkhole could go into neighboring properties. we're watching as the demolition crew there, as they do electric a safe distance, this is important to note, theriault way back. as you see from pictures, there are people gathering in the neighborhood to watch. you can see they are demolishing this back from the sidewalk because there are so many concerns. snchers were actually for erered to give up the search for jeff bush's body. obviously they wanted to recover the body for the family. they decided it was too dangerous. they may be risking the safety and lives of the folks they were hoping would be able to recover his body. families, as i mentioned, in the houses adjacent to these properties have left because this sinkhole could spread. we'll be monitoring these pictures as they get under way. this just started here in florida. again, as i mentioned this all started thursday night. jeff bush's brother said he had just gone in to tell his brother something. when he went into where he was in the house he heard this roar. he went into the bedroom where his brother was and it was just a sinkhole. that is a picture, i believe, of jeff bush's brother. not live. that's a taped picture. he come by previous days, obviously very distraught. he had obviously sunday night jumped into the sinkhole trying to rescue his brother. he was unable to do it. there's a picture of jeff bush. he was unable to do it. ultimately authorities made the decision to pull him from the hole. he tried to jump in with a shovel, just trying to get his brother. and ultimately they pulled him out of the sinkhole to safety. we will continue -- will we continue to monitor these pictures? we'll keep watching these. this is the demolition crew. this is selfner, florida, near tampa. there's a lot of sinkholes. while floridans are familiar with this happening, it's something very rare for this to happen in a home and to claim the life of someone. we are still waiting, obviously, to see what we can't see inside this home, which is the sinkhole. we understand it's 50 feet deep, about 30 feet wide. it could very likely grow. in previous days as crews were trying to locate jeff bush's body, they used in equipment to tether folks to the ground there in the front yard, so if they went in and they were searching for his body and the sinkhole were to widen, that they would be okay. they would be tethered to safety. obviously even now, that has been determined to be just too unsafe. no one is even allowed in the front yard where we saw crews operating yesterday. they pulled back operations to the street. people who are watching this happen, trying to get a glimpse of this, are pushed back farther to the opposite sidewalk. again, we are watching this demolition crew as they prepare to demolish this home, which has obviously been condemned. what we just saw a moment ago, what would be the corner of the house going into the entryway of the house, we saw what at first we couldn't figure out what they were doing. they kind of looked like they were scooping up a bit of earth, and it turned out they were scooping up an american flag that was sitting in the front yard of the house. so they went ahead and did that to make sure that out of respect that is something that did not go down with the home as it was demolished. you're watching as they are just getting started here. it looks like about to press in the roof. they are doing this gingerly as we've been watching here. there's a concern when you have a sinkhole. sometimes they are actually caused by the fact that water has dissolved limestone. that is why they are caused. it's water dissolving limestone. sometimes the event precipitating the sinkhole could be caused from nearby construction. that's been known to happen. this is something obviously they are doing very gingerly. they are, i imagine, going to be starting just a little bit by a little bit as they try to demolish this home. the sinkhole could get wider. one of the major concerns for the demolition crews is stabilizing the situation and trying to kind of get a handle on it and see ultimately where the sinkhole is going to stop growing. so this is happening again outside of tampa. this is in seffner, florida where jeff burba man there, was just going to bed. it's an incredibly freak accident. who do we have on the phone? josh gant, affiliate reporter with bay news 9. josh, where are you in. >> reporter: i'm actually about 25 or so yards from the home. demolition just started probably three minutes ago at this home here in receivener. last night we learned officials here had abandoned efforts of recovering the body of 36-year-old jeff bush saying the ground in the area was just too unstable to support a search here. heavy equipment was brought in late last night as i mentioned. what's going to happen is demolition crews will take off the left portion of the home, so the family members can -- they can actually bring that portion to the road so family members can collect whatever belongings they can. after that crews will use that excavator. officials are telling us at this point there's no hope of uncovering jeff bush's body because things are so unstable at this point. an hour to an hour and a half before demolition started, we did see a few family members walk up, kneel down and say a prayer for their loved one. as i membershipsed, demolition just getting under way three or four minutes ago in seffner. >> they feel, authorities feel it's structurally sound enough they could open up what i presume was the bedroom when this sinkhole opened up. they feel it's going to be structurally sound enough family members can go in and get some of their personal effects? >> what they are going to do is tear down a portion of the home and sort of drag that to the street. whatever belongings the family members can grab, they can grab. they are not letting -- >> all right. unfortunately we lost josh gant, our reporter there with cnn affiliate bay news 9, but we have a geologist on the phone, r randall orndorf that can give us a sense of when these crews are dealing with. i can only discern further demolition will only widen this sinkhole. is that right? >> that is correct. you can see they have got a crane that's as far away as possible from the hole. any kind of weight you're going to put on that surface is going to make it more unstable. >> how big do you think ultimately the sinkhole could be? >> hard to say, because we really can't see under ground very well. i know they had some geotechnical people doing geophysics earlier in the week to see if they could detect how large the hole would be underneath. we don't have the best methods to see under ground to really understand that. that's why all these precautions have to be taken. >> we don't have that. there is no technology or no sonar you can kind of use to test the ground and get a sense of where a potential sinkhole may be? >> is very difficult. there are some methods we're working with to see if we can do that. we've had various success with them. the material on top and the surface a lot of times will hinder what we can actually see underneath the ground. >> so ultimately, do you think it's just a precaution that the homes adjacent to this bush family property have been evacuated or do you think they may very well be at risk? >> i really don't know. again, the precaution is definitely needed. these holes tend to grow when they happen. we've seen in other parts of the country where houses have collapsed. luckily people have not been killed in those. where the inside of the house will collapse and then over a matter of days, that hole will continue to grow and swallow up more area around. >> what was your reaction when you heard about this probably friday morning? >> well, it's very tragic, obviously, was the worst thing. but you know, these sinkholes happen all over our country. almost every state has areas where this can happen. florida has the largest in the region. we don't hear about a lot of the sinkholes that occur because they are very localized. not widespread events like you see with hurricanes and earthquakes. so we have to -- you just don't see a lot of these in this situation. >> do you think it's safe at this point for the family members to go in and get some of their personal belongings? would you be concerned about their safety? is there a way to make sure they are safe, some tests can be done to make sure the ground is solid? >> i really don't think so. i think the environment agencies are doing the right thing. >> sorry. can you repeat that? >> i said i don't believe there really is. i think they are doing the right thing by being cautious. >> being cautious. okay. if you can stand by for me, randall, we're going to bring josh gant, our affiliate from bay news 9 back in. josh, you were saying the family members will be trying to get some of their personal effects, as we know they left on thursday night in shock and with nothing but the clothes on their back. tell us again how long this process is expected to take and what some of the precautions that the demolition crew is taking there. >> obviously they are keeping a lot of people back away from this home. at a news cancer a couple hours ago said they would only work a couple hours. they would bring some belongings out to the street so they could grab them. later on today and possibly into tomorrow, that's when they will demolish the rest of this home. as i mentioned, people there, keeping people back from this home because they are not too sure what actually is going to happen, once they start demolishing this home. i can tell you there are hundreds of people here who have gathered. they have their cell phones. they have their cameras. they are taking pictures because as officials told us over the past few days, this is an unprecedented event. >> those are just people who are they neighbors, people who have come for this? even though they are familiar with sinkholes, i imagine this is so bizarre and tragic, obviously, that this happened. >> yeah. we deal with sinkholes here in florida all the time. this situation is very tragic. the fact that people are telling us it took the man's life. he's actually still in there. as you were mentioning, people who have come into this community, residents and family members to witness, like i mentioned, this unprecedented event here in this suburb of tampa. >> all right, josh. thank you very much for that. stand by for us. we're going to be coming back to you as well as randall orndorff who we have on the line. we'll recap what's going on and check in with what's going on. this is seffner, the home where a sinkhole swallowed a man thursday night. authorities have been trying to recover his body. they ultimately decided it was too unsafe to do that and now they are demolishing the home. the homes around it have been evacuated out of concern this sinkhole will grow. this is a process that has just started and will be continuing to go on here straight ahead. we'll be right back to take a look at it. i've always had to keep my eye on her... but, i didn't always watch out for myself. with so much noise about health care... i tuned it all out. with unitedhealthcare, i get information that matters... my individual health profile. not random statistics. they even reward me for addressing my health risks. so i'm doing fine... but she's still going to give me a heart attack. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. and you wouldn't have it any other way.e. but your erectile dysfunction - you know, that could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial. i took something for my sinuses, but i still have this cough. 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[ angry gibberish ] welcome back to cnn. i'm brianna keilar. you're watching live pictures from seffner, florida outside of tampa. this is the home of the man who was swallowed by a sinkhole on thursday night. in the preceding days, authorities there were trying to see if the situation was stable enough to try to recover his body. ultimately, though, they decided it would put other folks at risk of injury or potentially death trying to recover his body from that sinkhole inside this home, which is 50 feet deep, we understand, maybe 60 feet deep, and about 30 feet wide. you're watching the demolition which just began moments ago of this home and will continue for some time. there's i believe an excavator, don't quote me on that, but it is trying to very gingerly, as we have watched this, pull what we understand to be obviously some of the rubble of the home now but also, as we understand it from a reporter on the ground there, with our affiliate bay news 9, we'll go to him momentarily, but he was telling us the demolition crew was trying to pring out personal belongings of jeff bush, who passed away, so that his family can have things to remember him by. they had to leave the home thursday night with nothing but the clothes on his back. there was sort of an interesting moment at the beginning. the first moment of this demolition, if we can roll tape on this, was actually a flag taken from the front yard. it was hard to see what the excavator was doing. it seemed to be testing the ground but turned out that's not what it was doing. it was sort of pulling up with a little bit of earth an american flag sitting there in the front of the house. that fire and rescue team was able to recover it and fold it up so they have that. obviously so the family has that. you can see right now the demolition going on. this is pulling out what appears to be a dresser. may have been jeff bush's dresser or some piece of furniture in the home. let's get to josh gauntt with our affiliate from bay news 9. he's there watching from the ground on the street where authorities have people. josh, set the scene for us. tell us what's happening there and what folks there trying to catch a glimpse of this, what's the mood? >> reporter: the mood is very somber. item witnessed several people in tears while they are taking pictures of this event. as we mentioned, it's ununprecedented event in the area. demolition got under way shortly after 8:00 in this home. last night we learned officials here abandoned efforts of recovering the body of 36 years old jeff bush saying the ground is too unstable to support a search. heavy equipment, the excavator you're seeing there was brought in last night. what's going to happen, you're seeing they are taking apart a portion of the house. they are bringing personal items out to the street so family members can go through the belongings. after that, they are only going to work an hour or two today. after today, they will finish up the work. the sinkhole, as we mentioned, is about 30 feet wide and anywhere from 50 to 60 feet deep. the sinkhole has been growing since it started. as we mentioned, at this point no hope of recovering jeff bush's body because things are too unstable at this point. as you mentioned, brianna, this is a slow, methodical process with this excavator. they don't want to go into this house all at one time and the whole thing collapsed. they want to make sure it's done in a safe way. as mentioned, they are slowly bringing items to the street. as you mentioned a dresser there we saw so family members can collect what's left inside that home. brianna. >> they have pulled -- we've seen them pull a mattress out. we've seen them what appears to be pull speakers out. it is a normal home. that speaks to the fact on the night jeff bush was going about his normal routine, watching television when this happened. josh, it's such a heartrending story. we heard it told from jeremy bush, who obviously loved his brother very much. he jumped in without even thinking into this sinkhole trying to rescue his brother right after this happened. has the family said anything about the fact that his body can't be recovered? obviously, you know, having his remains and being able to bury jeff bush would have meant a whole lot to them. i know authorities would have wanted to do that for them. have they said how this affected them or not? >> reporter: obviously first couple of days they did have some questions. now i think they are slowly coming to the realization that they are not going to be able to bury their loved one. this unfortunately will be his final resting place. like you mentioned, just a very, very tragic story here. i mentioned family members fell to the ground, couldn't take what she was seeing here. just a very tragic situation here in this area. >> so were they there, josh? were they watching this or, no, they can't? >> a few members watching it. i did see a few turning away. there are a few watching this take place. a few looked to the ground in tears, just couldn't take it. >> do you know what they are hoping to recover? >> well, you know, i spoke to his brother over the last couple of days. their hopes were they could possibly recover the body so they could have some closure. we talk about closure in the news business. whether or not that is actually the case, whether it actually brings closure. to them, to have the body of their loved one, and to be able to bury them instead of going through this, that's what they want to do. as i mentioned, i think they are slowly coming to grips that's just not going to happen. >> well, we're hoping, obviously, for their sake, what has just been a tragedy. you can't even imagine. a completely freak accident. such a tragedy. you hope they will at least be able to recover something they can remember jeff by. obviously this family has been torn apart by what happened understandably. i want to bring in now randall orndorff. he's a geologist with the u.s. geological survey, to talk a little bit about the sinkhole in this house. first off, do you think, randall, that we'll be able to get a sense of what it looks like once this demolition is done? i know it's going to be a long process that will probably stretch into tomorrow sounds like. >> sounds like they have a good idea of how large the sinkhole is length and maybe depth wise. if they get better access to it, we'll be able to see more. also maybe understand its shape, give you a better understanding of if it grows in other directions, if it will grow toward those other houses. >> when you say understand its shape, would it be something besides a circle? >> well, depending. it's probably circular. could be oval. one direction could be longer than another

Transcripts For KNTV Early Today 20130226

district will brave the snow to cast their vote in today's special primary to replace him. if the senate finance committee approves jack lew as the treasury secretary today a full senate vote could come as early as tomorrow. on top of all that, could lawmakers prevent the sequester's $75 billion automatic spending cuts? nbc's tracie potts is live in washington. good morning to you. who feels those cuts first if congress fails to act, a lot of people are asking? >> reporter: a lot of people could. we're talking about heating assistance, food for new mothers being scaled back, fewer dollars for school construction, unemployment checks for long-term unemployed people could be cut back 10%. with all of that going on in washington, president obama is headed out of washington, headed south to newport news, virginia, where he'll speak at the business of a shipbuilder that has ties to jobs all over the country, using this autos a back drop to make his point to the american people that the impact of these cuts could be devastating. republicans, meantime, including republican house speaker john boehner think the president should stay here, facilitate some sort of negotiation. right now nothing going on between the white house and capitol hill. nothing in front of the cameras, nothing behind the scenes to prevent these cuts on friday. richard? >> we have big egg we got on a tuesday in terms of negotiations. tracie potts, thank you so much. turning to a developing story. at least 14 tourists were killed in a fiery hot air balloon crash in egypt. as the balloon approached luxor south of cairo, an on-board fire triggered an explosion in the gas canister causing it to plunge 1,000 feet into a sugarcane field below. the pilot and tourist who jumped out of the balloon survived with critical injury. cardinal keith o'brien faced accusations he acted imappropriately with priests back to the 1980 says. the vatican says pope benedict accepts the retirement because he was near the retirement age of 75, not because of these accusations. today marks the one-year anniversary of 17-year-old trayvon martin. this evening a candlelight vigil will be held in sanford, florida, while a million hoodichltd e gathering is scheduled in new york city. he was shot and killed by george zimmerman, who has pleaded not guilty and claiming self-defense. his trial is set to start this june. in california, the search continues this morning for four people whose 29-foot sailboat disappeared off the coast of monterey sunday. the coast guard released a distress call believed to be made by a man who was with his wife, son and a young cousin before they abandoned the sinking vessel. >> coast guard, coast guard, we are abandoning ship. we are abandoning ship. >> the bodiers said their electronics were failing and fashioning a make-shift raft. officials hope the call will lead to new information that can aid in the search. now dylan with the forecast. >> you saw the radar and that's a massive storm. just the second one in a week. the h heaviest snow falling across central missouri. wichita, kansas, has come in with the snowiest february on record. the last record was set 100 years ago. it's starting to clear out of kansas but it does look like missouri is going to be the jackpot for up to another foot of snow coming off of the snowstorm last week that also dumped a foot of snow around the kansas city area. the west coast minus a couple of showers, there's not a whole lot going on. temperatures today should top out in the lower 70s through l.a. a comfortable day out there way. 60 in san francisco. temperatures should be in the upper 40s. we'll be in and out of from bak, yuma, arizona, temperatures like nice and mild. but again, all eyes are still on that midwest storm. it's going to move into the chicago area so that creates flight delays all across the country. >> punxsutawney phil may be right about the west in terms of spring. >> around here it's not too bad. looks like rain midweek. what spooked the market in yesterday's major drop-off continue today? plus, the diet that will ward off heart attacks and strokes. iran photoshops the first lady. details in two minutes. you're watching "early today." welcome back. a long-term truce has been broken. israeli police say a rocket has been fired from gaza strip. it's the first such attack since tensions between the two sides peaked in november. the regime of al assad says it's prepared to talk with rebels while a report in "new york times" says saudi arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from croatia for rebels. the wife of gilberto valle, a new york city police officer planning to eat, kill and kidnap women, testified. she said she found her husband's canibalism plans when she looked through his laptop dr. c. everett koop has died. he served during the reagan and bush senior administration. is best known for the work to cut smoking. and advocating condoms to battle aids epidemic. michelle obama showed off her bare arms sunday night while presenting oscar for best picture to "argo." an iranian state news agency was slamming the movie about the iran hostage crisis and the award, they decided to photoshop i new outfit on the first lady, complete with sleeves, perhaps to match the country's dress codes. a new study finds a diet rich in olive oil, fish, nuts, fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and strokes in people by about 30%, underscoring the importance of healthy fat. stocks dropped on news of turmoil in italy. the dow closed at 13,784 after dropping 216. the s&p dropped down 27 and the nasdaq 45. overseas markets follow today, nikkei plummeted 263 points while the hang seng tumbled 300. we'll see if the fear attack tore that tanked stocks monday happens again today. deadlocked elections in italy panicked investors monday with fears without a steady government italy won't be able to tackle its major recession. worries of a disastrous domino effect sparked volume on the volatility index. the market's so-called fear factor is at its highest. today ben bernanke faces tough questions on his controversial easing money policies. bellwether macy's and auto zone delivers numbers before the bell. apollo fell after hours. the first witness is. anded to take the stand in bp's civil trial over the 2010 gulf oil disaster. protesters gathered outside the new orleans court on monday as opening statements got under way. big blow-back from marissa mayor's memo yahoo! workers can no longer work from home. virgin founder richard branson reacted writing, quote, working is not 9:00 to 5:00, companies who do not embrace this are missing the trick. musical downloaders are soon going to be hearing from their internet service providers and could even potentially lose service. a number of companies including comcast, parent of this network, will begin a six-strike policy under the copyright alert policy this week. and honesty is the best policy. people have paid it forward to a homeless panhandler who gave back a woman's lost engagement ring with nearly $150,000 in donations. great guy. straight ahead, tom and gisele may have to tighten their budget. a heartless attack on an aquarium. and manti te'o's performance leaves much to be desired at the nfl combine. now to some other stories that caught our eye this morning. we start in the gulf of mexico where the demolition of abandoned oil rigs is killing thousands of red snapper and destroying sea life habitat. the so-called explosive disposal is part of a federal government program aimed at destroying idol idle rigs. officials within the gulf coast fishing and diving industries say they want the demolitions to stop. in florida, a high-speed pursuit was captured on dash cam. a state trooper had to force a teen driver to spin out. after she struck one trooper working a crash scene and fled. the 18-year-old was arrested for the hit and run and dui. in massachusetts, cold-hearted vandals robs a pet store and smashed a 180-gallon reef track. 25 tropical fish and coral died but one fish that bears a resemblance to dory in "finding nemo" survived in a half inch of water until police arrived six hours later. in texas speeding caused one motorist to launch into a house. the driver lost control or went airborne after hitting a curve at high speeds. the driver was hospitalized in stable condition but no one inside the home was hurt. and finally, new york state assemblyman dov hikind is apologizing after wearing black face and an afro wig as a basketball player for the jewish celebration of purim he wore it to celebrate a holiday but was surprised by the attention. really? in sports first to college basketball number six kansas against iowa state. with the score tied the cyclones missed the last minute of regulations sending them into overtime. jayhawks poured it on over iowa state. number 12 syracuse facing number 22 marquette, running down clock todd mayo hits a three-pointer and marquette wins their 24th straight game although home, upsetting the orange 74-71. new england patriots quarterback tom brady agreed to a contract extension that pays him only $9 million per season. less than half the $20 million per season that top nfl quarterbacks are making now. brady and his wife, supermodel gisele bundchen may have to cut back on a few luxuries, but the deal clears $15 million from new england's salary cap to sign new players. at the nfl scouting combine, linebacker manti te'o was slow in the 40-yard dash. the subpar workout comes more than a month after his highly publicized online romance with a girl that was exposed as a hoax. and it could affect where he's taken in the nfl draft. also at the combine, a south miss linebacker jamie collins makes the longest broad jump of 11 feet, 7 inches. lsu defensive end barkevious mingo had the best vertical at 37 inches. sean payton was at the combine but he may need help with binoculars, using them backwards. and a controversial photo has gone viral. it shows three high school students wearing white hoods resembling kkk costumes at a high school hockey game in grand forks, north dakota. the school said the students were disciplined. and in a third grade sports game in dubuque, iowa, an amazing half-court buzzer-beater right there. mason kunkel's amazing shot gave his team the win and a moment he will never forget. >> announcer: "early today" sports is brought to you by touch of gray. get rid of some gray, never all. just ahead, jennifer lawrence's major transformation just 24 hours after oscar. katniss would be so proud. you're watching "early today." good morning. welcome back. cold this morning in southwestern oregon, 28 degrees in medford. 45 starting off the day in l.a. but it is going to be a cooler, crisp day, especially central and northern california, in the upper 50s and low 60s. l.a. about 75 this afternoon. some showers in seattle but then as we go into tomorrow, looks like just a few spotty sprinkles at the coast. most other places on the west koes should be nice and sunny. not a bad end to the february month out on the west coast. >> yeah, looking pretty good. thanks. turning to entertainment, if you thought jennifer lawrence would take the week to relax after winning the oscar, you were wrong. less than 24 hours after she took home the academy award, the 22-year-old actress had her blond hair died brown to finish filming "catching fire," the sequel to "the hunger games." daniel day-lewis said he needs to relax after becoming the most decorated star in history. the "lincoln" star said i need to lie down for a couple years. it's really hard to imagine doing anything after this. lots of folks tuned in for his big win. the oscar broadcast scored more than 40 million viewers sunday night including the best showing among young viewers in eight years. seth macfarlane may be able to take credit for that. according to an access poll, macfarlane was fairly well liked at least more than james franco. not hard, right? and in the music scene, the grammy's mumford and sons is moving from their normal folksy sound to hip-hop. the artists say they have been talking to jay-z about what hub, quote, a fresh experience for the band. that will be interesting. and, finally, wedding bells all around. jacket jackson has officially confirmed she's marrying her billionaire boyfriend. christina applegate also said "i do" in a private ceremony saturday. >> nothing like marrying a billionaire. i'm richard lui on "early today." just your first stop of the day on your nbc station. in china, crowds gathered near a village to catch a glimpse of a very rare sight. a sleeping wild panda cozied up on a roadside cliff near a national nature reserve. although the area is home to 56 wild pandas, seeing one up close and personal is a real treat here. as people gathered nearby they woke the panda who made a hasty retreat back to the forest. this is one baby you probably don't want bouncing on your knee, a czech zoo welcomed the arrival of a newborn elephant this month. she's the zoo's first new elephant and weighed more than 200 pounds at birth. the calf doesn't have a name quite yet but the zoo plans to have a contest to name her once she makes her public debut. that would be a heavy baby. all the activity at the vatican has given local businesses a boost here. one religious memorabilia store owner said sales have increased as the world awaits the election of a new pope. the papal portraits are apparently the hottest sellers so far. and while pope benedict may be in the spotlight, pope john paul ii merchandise is the favorite among shoppers. he was certainly a favorite and on many people's minds. >> i was in rome, and the line was so long, and i didn't want to wait in line. >> amazon. >> that's true. you can order anything. >> can you get anything on that site. time for an early look at what's coming up ahead and a look back. senators who disagree with the president on how to overhaul immigration will take their ideas to the top. nbc news has learned that republican senators john mccain and lindsey graham will head to the white house later today for talks on immigration. today marks the 20th anniversary of the deadly world trade center attack of 1993. six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured when a bomb in the parking garage of the world trade complex. the bomb left a crater 60 feet wide and caused a collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors in the vicinity of that explosion. on a much lighter note, singer michael bolton turns 60 years old today. all day long you can stay on top of the very latest developments on those stories and the best political analysis on msnbc. and tonight, be sure to watch "nbc nightly news" with brian williams. and, finally, here's a look at what's coming up later this morning on the "today" show. get up close and personal with google glass. and find out how the new technology is changing the way we see the world. and studio 1a is kicking it country this morning with a live performance by jason ail dean. now keep it on this channel for continuing local news, weather, sports and more. i'm richard lui along with dylan drey dreyer. thanks for watching "early today," just your first stop of the day on your nbc station. have a good tuesday. new video of the deadly hot hair balloon crash in egypt. more than a dozen foreigners killed. the latest details next. also a sacramento cop arrested and accused of sexually assaulting a half dozen women. why there may be more victims out there. >> all of a sudden a guy sort of rushed into my younger son and he kind of almost tackled him down and tried to steal my purse. a mother's serenity stolen. how local police stepped in to ease her pain. a live look outside. that is your beautiful bay bridge in san francisco. illuminated right now with lights dancing in the darkness on this tuesday, february 26th. this is "today in the bay." it is 4:31. good morning to everybody. i'm jon kelley. >> i'm laura garcia-cannon. let's check the forecast with christina loren. >> good tuesday morning to you. we made it through monday. we have great looking forecast to carry you through tuesday. temperatures mostly in the upper 30s to low 40s. we're headed toward the 70s in some cities. just about as warm as it was yesterday. i nudged temperatures up just a little bit more and the good news is we keep on climbing as we continue through the week and we keep that rain in the forecast as well. a little bit of something for everybody out there. we'll take you through your full forecast in just a few minutes.

Transcripts For WJZ CBS This Morning 20130226

stick. that's three feet deep. >> another brutal wirntd blast buries the heartland. >> wreaking havoc up into the plains states. hurricane-force winds brought travel to a halt. >> the second powerful winter storm in a week continues to dump snow and knock out power. >> it may be worse than the last one. >> congress has until friday to hammer out an agreement to avoid the so-called sequester, a series of sweeping federal spending cuts. >> it looks like we can't defend america, our allies are going to be uncertain and our enemies are going to be on steroids. >> hundreds of thousands of americans will lose access to prime care and preventive care like flu vaccinations. [ beep ] an explosion rocks a hot air balloon in egypt -- >> a couple disappears in peru. back in december. family members fear the couple has been kidnapped. >> i just want somebody to find my sister. >> the dow posting its worse loss of 2013 on worries that italy could spark another debt crisis. >> free speech of speech. in america you have a right to be stupid if you want to be. >> all that -- >> here's the guy so many of us have wanted to be when things don't go right at the airport. this all happened in china. he actually is a high-level government official. >> living la vida loca. [ cheers ] >> and all that matters -- >> the horse meat scandal has snared furniture giant ikea. ikea says the meatballs in the states are safe. >> makes you want to stop taking your family to dinner at a furniture store. >> on "cbs this morning." >> mrs. obama give it to the most american movie, "zero dark thirty," wouldn't want to honor the movie that showed the killing of osama bin laden. her husband wants all the credit for that. captioning funded by cbs welcome to "cbs this morning." for the second time in a week a giant winter storm is hammering the country. it's marching across missouri on its way to the east coast. it's already shutting down highways airports and schools in texas, oklahoma, and kansas. >> now the storm is blamed for at least two deaths. emily rittman from our kansas city affiliate kctc, is in overland park, kansas. good morning. >> reporter: many people are already digging out of last week's snowstorm where a foot and a half of snow fell. and they are expecting much more today. they could see another foot here in kansas. the latest winter storm is unleashing blizzard conditions from texas to oklahoma and kansas. a system so powerful you can literally hear its fury. this was amarillo texas, monday where howling winds whipped around more than a foot and a half of snow creating five-foot snow drift in some areas. >> we're going to step outside and let you see what it's like so far. ooh. >> reporter: the storm knocked out power to thousands in texas and oklahoma and brought traffic to a standstill closing miles of interstates and highways across the southwest. on some road, strong winds and driving snow reduced visibility to near zero. emergency crews focused on locating and rescuing stranded drivers while in some spots motorists abandoned their cars altogether. by monday afternoon, the system had moved into kansas which had barely finished digging out from last week's storm. >> the last storm -- i hadn't seen anything like it since i was a kid. if it's going to be anything like that, there's no need to be out here. >> reporter: at kansas city national airport, crews worked to de-ice planes. still many flights were canceled as the blizzard continued battering the state overnight. >> we're very concerned about the storm. we believe it may be worse than the last one. and in portions of our state, it will be worse than the last one. >> reporter: because snow is expected to fall throughout most of the day officials are urging people to stay off the roads. even if they did decide to get out, most places are closed including businesses, schools, and government offices. for "cbs this morning," emily rittman, overland park kansas. let's check in with meteorologist jeff berardelli of our cbs station woor. where is the storm heading? >> part of the storm is moving into the great lakes. the other part is moving into sonoran and central florida now. i want to show the map. a tornado watch issued for central and northern parts of florida. that means isolated tornadoes are possible and wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour or so. if you're in and around the tampa area orlando, through jacksonville, watch out. some pretty big storms are headed your way. and as we head further north now into the northern side or cold side of the storm, you see how heavy the snow is now. kansas city, snowfall rates about two inches an hour. heavy snow in job lynn. that's all headed toward the northeast during the day today. we expect significant snowfall totals in the area. in fact, as we look at the map you see the purple areas. that's where we expect to see another about foot of snow on top of what we have already. in chicago, probably in general around six inches of snowfall. the good news for the major cities of the northeast, shouldn't be a big deal. it's mostly rain. north and west of there, to upstate new york and the mountains of vermont and new hampshire, we could see up to about a foot of snowfall. the moral of the story is tough traveling today and tough traveling tomorrow. >> jeff thanks. there are just three days left before huge automatic spending cuts hit the nation. a new pew research poll shows more than six out of ten americans think the cuts will have a negative effect on the economy. >> if they come, nearly half of those surveyed say they will blame republicans. just over 1/3 will hold president obama responsible. bill plante is at the white house. bill, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, nora. the president has been blaming republicans. they call it scare mongering. his aides say that he's just warning the country about what could happen if congress doesn't stop the automatic budget cuts scheduled for the end of the week. the white house stepped up its campaign to pressure republicans, enlisting the secretary of homeland security to suggest that layoffs could make it more difficult to prevent terrorist attacks. >> i don't think we can maintain the same level of security at all places around the country with sequester as without sequester. >> reporter: if the $85 billion in across-the-board cuts known in washington as the sequester takes effect on friday, federal agencies will be forced to make tough choices, laying off some workers and putting others on involuntary leave. ♪ >> reporter: the military will be hit the hardest. they must slash $46 billion in spending. at the white house monday, mr. obama painted a bleak picture of the impact to the nation's governors. >> companies are preparing layoff notices. families are preparing to cuts back on expenses. and the longer these cuts are in place, the bigger the impact will become. >> reporter: in order to prevent the cuts the president and democrats want to replace them by closing tax loopholes and targeting the spending cuts. but house speaker john boehner and republicans say they're finished raising taxes. >> the president says we have to have another tax increase to avoid the sequester. mr. president, you got your tax increase. it's time to cut spending here in washington. >> reporter: skeptical republican governors accuse the president of exaggerating. >> the reality is he's been engaged in almost nonstop campaigning, trying to scare the american people. >> reporter: now the president's pressure campaign on republicans will continue today. he's heading to newport news the nation's largest naval base, where layoff warnings have already gone out to hundreds of shipyard workers on. another front, though, there may be a little bit of a sign of progress. the president is also meeting today with senators mccain and graham to talk about immigration. some sign of progress underway. nora, charlie? >> bill plante thank you. washington state congresswoman kathy mcmorris rodgers is the highest ranking republican woman in the house. she joins us this morning. good morning. >> good morning. >> so given the lack of negotiations, i have to ask this question -- do republicans, would they rather have the sequester than any deal that raises taxes? >> we are very concerned about the impact of the sequester. this was president obama's idea back when we were negotiating raising the debt ceiling. the across-the-board cuts that disproportionately affect the military. the republicans almost 300 days ago put forward our plan to replace these cuts with smarter reforms, smarter cuts. there's a better way to do it. what we need is for the president to get off the campaign trail, quit talking about raising taxes, and actually deliver on his promise to cut spending. we're talking $85 billion. >> congresswoman, you say the president's got to stop campaigning and start negotiating. but if you look at the latest polls, it appears it's working. the public is going to blame your party, republicans. >> well, these cuts were the president's idea. we are very concerned about the impact that they're going to have. we hope as we move forward that the president will come back to washington, d.c., sit down with the senate democrats urge them to come up with a plan to show that there is a better way to implement these cuts. $85 billion out of a $4.2 trillion budget. it can be done. but there's a smarter, better way to do it. >> what's the smarter, better way other than raising revenue? >> well the president got revenue increases on january 1. over $600 billion. the republicans have put forward two bills. we've passed legislation twice to show a smarter way -- >> congresswoman let me ask one specific question. do you believe that the president when he points out the impact of the sequester is either using scare tactics or misleading the american public? >> well, we won't know that answer until march 1. but this was the president's -- >> but you know what the president's saying -- >> across the board cuts -- >> you're aware of what he's saying because he's gone across the country to say it. it seems to be working as nora pointed out, because the president looks like the american people in polls support the idea that if the sequester happens, the republicans will be blamed. >> well, america also knows that we have a spending problem. that washington, d.c., has a spending problem. every year we're spending more than we bring in. and it never seems to be the right time to cut the spending. president obama made a promise as a part of this big compromise to raise the debt ceiling. he made a promise that we were going to cut spending. it seems like it's never -- we never get to the place of cutting spending. >> some people point out that it looks like the republicans have changed their position, that in the beginning they talk about how bad the sequester would be but now they're saying okay if we don't get revenue, it's okay to have the sequester. that's a better and new policy. >> no. we are -- we're very concerned about the sequester. there's a better way to find the spending cuts the reforms. we've spent $2.2 billion on a free cell phone program. just in 2013. president obama has spent over $50 million promoting obama care hiring a public relations firm to promote obama care. there is a smarter way to find the savings, reduce spending in the federal government than the president's sequester. these across-the-board cuts. and what we need we've known for nearly two years this day was coming, we need the president, we need the senate domes sit down and put together that plan to move forward. the republicans have put forward a plan cathy mcmorris rodgers, thank you. >> more on tonight's interview on cbs evening news. secretary of state john kerry is already making news. in germany he talked to students about his adventures as the 12-year-old son of a diplomat in post-war berlin. he urged young students to be tolerate of all points of view even if they are unpopular or offensive and said this about the united states -- >> in america, you have a right to be stupid. [ laughter ] >> if you want to be. and you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be. we tolerate it. we somehow make it through that. >> now kerry heads to paris tomorrow for a meeting on the crisis in syria. kerry said monday the u.s. is determined not to leave syrian rebels "dangling in the wind." when pope benedict officials steps down thursday he'll take on a new title. the vatican announced this morning benedict will be called emeritus pope and will continue to wear white. 115 cardinals are expected to vote for his successor. britain's highest ranking catholic leader will not be taking part. in one of his final acts, the pope changed the rules of the meeting. allen pizzey is in vatican city. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. the newest guessing game here is how soon the conclave will begin. by both law and tradition, the cardinals can't talk openly about it until one day after benedict officially leaves office. the cardinals want to get on with the job of choosing a new pope as soon as possible according to a well-placed vatican source. a major issue plaguing them will be the sex abuse scandals. but they must be dealt with in the view of cardinal james stafford, who is too old to vote in the conclave. >> if it mean to be despised which many of us it does mean then we accept that. >> reporter: you also have to overcome that if you want to get people back in the church. you have to rebuild the image as it were. >> we rebuild the image by accepting the reality that we're living in. and not being angry. and not being defensive. >> reporter: how it affects the choice of a new pope will never be known. the penalty for anyone involved in the conclave who breaks the oath of secrecy including technician s technicians used to be by the pope. it was issued almost at the same time as that cardinal keith o'brien took the unprecedented step of refusing himself from the concave. the first in the role over the sex abuse scandals. he stepped out of the voting so as to not have the focus on the issue rather than on the business of choosing the new pope. and there are plenty of other challenges for the conclave according to john sovos, author of "the vatican diaries." >> i think it will be an issue when the cardinals meet. i'm sure that now that the sexual episodes have been sort of thrown to the mix, i think they're going to be looking at that, as well. >> reporter: those who have been in the conclave say they have a deep sense of responsibility and pray for divine guidance. something they'll need more than ever this time. charlie, nora? >> allen pizzey, thank you. a hot air balloon crash in egypt has killed at least 18 tourists. an explosion in a gas canister caused the balloon to crash in luxor. the victims included tourists from france, britain, and hong kong. >> we heard a large explosion behind us. and i looked back and saw lots of smoke. it wasn't immediately clear it was a balloon. we were surrounded by the balloons that had been flying with us. then we could see the reaction of the pilot on the balloon. he said this hasn't happened in a long time. >> three people who survive read in the hospital. furniture chain ikea is the latest to become involved in the horse meat scandal. the swedish company pulled meatballs off the shelves in europe. it does not include meatballs sold at its american stores. we look at the widening investigation. >> reporter: it looks like business as usual. ikea customers still shopping for just about everything at more than 100 stores across europe. except, that is, for meatballs. fresh or frozen they were one of the company's signature products. but ikea pulled them off the shelves after inspectors in the czech republic discovered traces of horse meat in them. >> we take, of course this very, very seriously. >> reporter: the meatballs are no longer available in more than 20 european countries which were supplied from a main factory in sweden. in the u.s. and canada though ikea meatballs are still on sale because they come from a separate local supply chain. >> we haven't had horse slaughter in the united states since 2007. so it's unlikely that there's a lot of horse meat floating around. >> reporter: the wider horse meat scandal erupted last month when irish food inspectors found horse dna in meat labeled as beef. since then horse meat's been detected in a whole range of products. and thousands of packages of processed food across europe have been recalled. it'ssed serious questions about criminal fraud in the meat processing business and about food inspectors and regulators who failed apparently for years to detect what was going on. even though technology should have made their jobs more precise. >> dna technology has changed the game on this one. it's now possible to go in and do species-specific testing. >> reporter: while it's still unclear how horse meat got into ikea ikea's meatballs or any of the other products, it does seem certain that meat inspection is about to become more rigorous in europe and that prices are almost certainly going to go up. for "cbs this morning," elizabeth palmer london. it is time to show some of the morning's headlines from around the globe. britain's "daily mail" says eating a mediterranean-style diet can cut the risk of heart attacks and stroke by as much as 30%. eat plenty of fish vegetables and nuts. they also enjoy olive oil and wine. we'll talk about the findings with dr. roney in a few minutes. "the new york times" says dozens of prominent republicans are endorsing gay marriage calling it constitutional. their legal brief is part of the supreme court lawsuit seeking to strike down california's ban on same-sex marriage. new york's "daily news" looks at macy's lawsuit against martha stewart company. the ceo testified monday he hung up on stewart more than a year ago and has not spoken to her since. that came after stewart called to tell him she struck a deal with jcpenney. macy's says stewart is violating an scloefb contract. the "wall street journal" says the results of italy's election could shake financial markets. the lack of a clear winner sent european markets down about 2% good morning light traffic on pratt street right now. we'll be touching base with sharon gibala here in a few minutes, get an overall look at traffic this tuesday morning commute. it at least is a dry, drive to school and work. it's not going to be later. we're going to have a bunch of rain come our way. in central maryland we have a flash flood watch in effect for an inch of rain republican governor chris cysty is considered a front-runner in 2016. sources say he won't be invited to a major republican gathering. we look at whether this is a good or bad thing. new trouble at america's most contaminated nuclear site. underground tanks are leaking more radioactive waste. >> 1/3 of these tanks have failed already, 1/3. they've leaked a million gallons. there's more to come. >> we'll ask a professor about the danger and why he calls it a scandal on "cbs this morning." [clucking]. everyone wants to be the cadbury bunny. cause only he brings delicious cadbury crème eggs, while others may keep trying. nobunny knows easter better than cadbury! living with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis means living with pain. it could also mean living with joint damage. humira, adalimumab, can help treat more than just the pain. for many adults, humira is clinically proven to help relieve pain and stop further joint damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma or other types of cancer, have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b are prone to infections or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. ask your rheumatologist about humira to help relieve your pain and stop further joint damage. 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[ male announcer ] today tastes so good. another gray february day, but soon to be a wet one. sharon's watching the rush. martty's over at first warning weather. an inch of rain is coming our way and figure it is going to start around noon and go to midnight steady with lingering showers overnight. right now we're in the upper 20s. by the time that moisture hits, 46 and we stay above 40 through the overnight. here's sharon gibala in traffic control. good morning everyone. getting a little busier on this morning's commute. we have picked up our first accidents of the morning, one of them on 895 northbound. that one just approaching poetry street. the second at glen oak liberty road. if you're headed on the beltway, speeds in the upper 30s on the west side of the beltway. on the outer loop topside down to 50, 95 southbound a bit slow between the beltway and the tunnel. that's a live look at the west side of the beltway. that's the outer loop to the right at i-70. that's a look at the topside. this is brought to you by the baltimore area hyundai dealer. back over to you. the teenager who opened fire inside perry hall high school is sentenced to 35 years in prison. robert gladden pleaded guilty to one count of attempted first degree murder in the shooting of daniel borowy. he admits he'd been plotting the attack finish months. thousands rally in annapolis in support of baltimore city school. mike schuh is live with the latest on this. >> reporter: good morning don. good morning everyone. up to 3,000 people from baltimore travel to annapolis to demand from the lawmakers that they better fund baltimore city schools. the rally was in support of a yet unfund unfunded multibillion dollars plan for the 65 most dilapidated schools. the problem was brought to the attention of lawmakers. though the governor likes the concept he's not thrown his support blind the plan. the rally was one of the largest at the capital so far this year. police have identified the two people found shot to at the time death in a burning car. 33-year-old alysia strickland and 34 year taewon tuck were found early friday morning. police say both had been shot in the head and strickland was a graduate student. the maryland stadium authority has banned smoking. the ban prohibit smoking within 25 feet of any entry. the orioles are and ravens are working out a plan that would allow fans to leave the stadium to smoke and reenter. stay with wjz maryland's news station. up next the latest on new jersey's governor chris christie and why he was not invited to t we like to call this a lesson on how not to behave. there is a chinese official who really lost his cool after his family missed two flights. they did arrive in time for their first flight but spent too much time eating breakfast. they were rebooked for an afternoon takeoff, but they missed that one, too. that's when this guy went crazy. he's been relieved of his duties at a factory. welcome back to "cbs this morning." boy, that's new airport rage. >> haven't seen anything like that. >> now you have. sea pack is a political conference that is concern for some testing the presidential waters. >> this year some of the prominent names in the gop is not on the list. elaine quijano shows more. >> reporter: speaking at the event is a who's who was leadership including early favorites for the 2016 republican presidential nomination. one frequently mentioned front-runner won't be there. new jersey governor chris christie, the popular politician known for his quick wit and blunt style. >> i don't do that. >> reporter: has not yet been invited even though he was a featured speaker at last year's event. in today's political landscape, starkly divided along party lines, he's angered some conservatives who see him as too cozy with democrats. >> new jersey governor chris christie has decided to play the role of a greek column today for president obama. >> reporter: when superstorm sandy devastated new jersey's coastline, christie praised the president's quick response only days before the election. >> i cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern and compassion for our state and for the people of our state. >> reporter: in january, christie blasted the republican-controlled congress charging it with gop leaders who were tying up relief funds. >> 66 days and counting. shame on you. shame on congress. >> reporter: after the newtown school shooting, he took on another conservative sacred cow -- the nra. when the gun lobby ran this ad -- >> are the president's kids more important than yours? >> reporter: christie defended mr. obama, calling the attack reprehensible. and on sunday night, christie once again incited his party's conservatives when he was photographed sitting next to first lady michelle obama at the governor's ball. even as 74% -- even a 74% approval rating may not be be enough to get him invited to cpac's party. political director john dickerson is in washington. good morning. tell me what this is about. >> good morning, charlie. well, it's -- it's heartburn about christie and his cozying up to the president. but it seems a little bit inside baseball. because the conservative movement and the republican party are going to a redefining period inside baseball can sometimes be interesting. little decisions end up meaning a lot when we get around a presidential race. one of the things that republicans and conservatives are wrestling is do they dispel sinners and heretics, what chris christie christie christiemight be here, or change the way and bring in more people. christie is quite popular, you can imagine supporting him because he reaches tout a lot of people. >> and has rich republicans that support him as they showed when they tried to get him to run in 2012. >> he does have a lot of rich republicans. but conservatives who go to cpac, money's not important. principle is important. conservatives want to stick to principle. the republican party has different imperatives. has to get people elected. it bends on principle and gets into the messy politics part. at cpac they try and deal just with principle. >> i think it's interesting that christie isn't the only governor out there that has problems with cpac and the group of conservatives, right? >> this might be the most interesting thing. the governor of virginia bob mcdonnell supported tax increases in the state which is what you would do to tick off conservatives. some are talking about disinviting him from cpac. he's being called out by the "wall street journal" editorial page. he's testing the idea of what it means to be a conservative. >> john, the white house denied that access to president obama is for sale. does that argument wash given the new organization that his campaign team has set up that takes large donations and offers meetings with the president? the. >> the argument doesn't wash at all. organizing for action is a conduit to get the president's agenda passed. the white house -- the president and his aides think only through outside pressure can you get the agenda passed. if you give to this organization, you're helping the president pass his agenda. the important thing is not necessarily a meeting with president obama. presidents don't usually change their mind based on whispers from a fat cat. what you get is you get access at the lower level where real decisions are made. if you want to get into a club you want to know the guy working the back door. you don't necessarily need a meeting with the owner. what this does is this gets you the name of the guy at the back door. and that's one of the things that candidate obama campaigned against in 2008. >> i never understood it that way, john. thank you very much. >> the back door seemed to irs resonate with charlotteie. thank you. now to an interesting story we're following. the hanford nuclear reservation in washington state. it is called the most contaminated nuclear site in the country. for decades, the federal government has been struggling to clean it up. but now we are learning of new underground leaks of radioactive wasted. carter evans shows us why time is the enemy. >> reporter: the bomb that brought an end to world war ii was built with plutonium that was produced at the hanford nuclear reservation in southeastern washington state. in the years that followed, hanford has become the nation's nuclear dumping ground. a final resting place for 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge encased in 177 underground storage tanks. >> 1/3 have failed already, 1/3. they've leaked a million gallons. there's more to come. >> reporter: last week washington's governor confirmed six tanks are actively leaking again. >> washington state has a zero tolerance policy on radioactive leaks. >> reporter: but the federal government has already spent billions of dollars and decades attempting to clean up the site. our cameras were not allowed on the property. this is an above-ground replica of the tanks that are leaking. they were designed with a single layer of steel for a maximum life span of 20 years. but the first tanks were built back in the 1940s. >> they lost their integrity, engineer design life, around the time that we sent a man to the moon in the 1960s. >> reporter: while governor insley says the current leaks pose no immediate risk to the public, the cleanup goes on. it's estimated it will take at least 40 years at a cost of more than $1 hulg00 million. for cbs news carter evans. >> onemichio kaku is a physics professor at the university of new york. welcome. >> glad to be on. >> how big a deal are the leaks and how do you define the problem? >> it is scandalous. we are 68 years into the atomic age. we're leaking nuclear waste daytiming all the way back to the nagasaki bomb. outside of russia that makes for the most contaminated nuclear site on the planet. >> wow. >> at the time of sequester, taxpayers spend $2 billion per year just maintaining the cleanup operation. then it was revealed that hundreds of gallons of high-level toxic waste have been leaking over the last several years right into the ground. eventually into the ground water and maybe the columbia river. >> you say the most contaminated site in the world behind places in russia. who's at risk? >> we have to realize that nuclear waste is a toxic witch's brew of chemicals, the most dangerous known to science. plutonium, enriched uranium, nitric acid solvents all mixed in a liquid vat. and we have 56 million gallons worth of this toxic stuff. to get this into perspective, to get your head around this imagine 80 olympic-sized swimming pools containing the most toxic substance known to science of which two olympic-size swimming pools have leaked right into the ground and eventually into the water table and, perhaps, even into people's drinking water. >> what are you going to do? >> well we have to immediately realize that this a major emergency problem. the government promised ten years ago that it's under control. now we realize it's not. they have to take the waste, put it into new vats that are double, triple lined. they have to drill to assess how far the waste is. and it's a ticking time bomb. in 15 50 years, we don't know when, it's going to hit the ground table. when it hits the ground table it will go right into the columbia river. and remember that's one of the major rivers in the entire pacific northwest. >> professor kaku again here with good news. last week it was the asteroids now leaking nuclear material -- >> this is scary. >> very scary. >> this is the league see of the cold war. russia -- legacy of the cold war. russia and the united states. we both have black eyes when it comes to handling nuclear waste. >> that's why we wanted to do the story. professor, thank you. we'll show you the fwhatsds could be coming to offices -- battle that could be coming to offices all offered nation. answer some asking is it time to end working from home. wine could make you healthier. the finding of a study looking at the mediterranean diet. how could it change the fight against heart disease. tomorrow mafia prince breaks his silence. john miller talks with one of the highest ranking mobsters to government a government informant. an interviewer you can only see on "cbs this morning." two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars to help people and businesses who were affected and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy -- and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. we've shared what we've learned with governments and across the industry so we can all produce energy more safely. i want you to know, there's another commitment bp takes just as seriously: our commitment to america. bp supports nearly two-hundred-fifty thousand jobs in communities across the country. we hired three thousand people just last year. bp invests more in america than in any other country. in fact, over the last five years, no other energy company has invested more in the us than bp. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. today, our commitment to the gulf, and to america has never been stronger. 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[ ariel ] my mother was never into our coffee at all. she would only get a splash of coffee in her cup and then fill the rest up with cream and it -- mommy, what's going on? what are you doing? so when we did the blonde roast she finally went from a splash of coffee to only a splash of cream. and i thought that was so cool, i said "well she's enjoying this." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ now 4 minutes before 8:00. even the water looks a little gray today. sharon's watching the streets. that's june just an algae bloom. moisture is marching our way. it's going to be here by noon, as will milder temperatures. 31 now, 46 going to be your high with rain and heavy at times through the afternoon. flood watch will go into effect around then. here's sharon gibala with traffic control. good morning everyone delays are already here, 95 because of an accident in the northbound direction. speeds on the beltway in the 30s on the top and the west west sides of the beltway. 95 southbound, there's a look at 895 slow because of that accident. the west side of the beltway, typical delays there. this traffic is brought by the baltimore boat show february 28 february 28th through march 3 march 3rd at the baltimore convention store. get ticket asks details at baltimoreboatshow.com. a big push in annapolis to rebuild baltimore city schools. mike schuh has the story. >> reporter: good morning everyone. up to 3,000 people from baltimore gathered in annapolis last night to demand the legislature better fund schools. the a rally is in support of a multibillion dollars reconstruction plan for the 65 most dilapidated city schools led by the mayor. the reality of the problem was brought to the attention of lawmakers. the governor has not thrown his support behind the plan. his lieutenant governor spoke at the rally. the rally was among the largest in the capital so far this year i'm mike schuh reporting downtown. back to you. thank you and sty with wjz 13 maryland's news station. up next is working from home not working for it seems our angels have been busy building a new stronger angel soft®. it's built with two softshield™ layers. stronger, holds up better, and still a value you love. new angel soft®. now stronger than ever. good morning to you. it's 8:00. welcome back to "cbs this morning." people in the plains are digging out this hour from a double dose of heavy snow. we'll check on the newest big storm moving toward the great lakes. and yahoo!'s ceo tells floemps come backk -- tells employees to come back to the office. does that mean trouble for everybody else working from home? first, today's "eye opener" at 8:00. >> many people are already digging out of last week's snowstorm. they are expecting much more today. >> for the second time in a week, a giant winter storm is hammering the middle of the country. it's already shutting down highways, airports and schools in texas oklahoma, and kansas. >> the moral of the story is tough traveling today and tough traveling tomorrow. >> the president has been blaming republicans. they call it scare mongering. >> there are just three days left before huge automatic spending cuts hit the nation. >> what we need is for the president to get off the campaign trail,quitted talk-- trail quit talking about raising taxes and dloifr hiseliver on his promise to cut spending. >> a hot air balloon exploded in luxor. >> the newest guessing game is how soon the conclave will begin. >> one of the things conservatives and republicans are wrestling with is do they expel sinners and heretics which is what christie might be here. >> the hanford nuclear reservation in washington state. it is called the most contaminated nuclear site in the country. >> it is scandalous. the government promised us ten years ago that it's under control. now we realize that it's not. >> again here with good news. >> ikea is the latest to become involved in europe's horse meat scandal. the swedish company has pulled its popular meatballs off the shelves across europe. >> do you know what they call a 3:00 meal in england now? the trifecta. >> today's "eye opener" at 8:00 is presented by -- captioning funded by cbs two blizzards in a week is tough nature any-- tough for any see it handle. if you're not used to that kind of snow, it's devastating. >> it latest storm dumped 17 inches of snow on amarillo, texas. there were hurricane-force winds. parts of kansas and oklahoma seeing more than a foot of snow. it's still coming down this hour. emily rittman of our affiliate, kctv, is in nearby overland park. >> reporter: texas oklahoma and kansas are being buried under an unrelenting blizzard. monday in amarillo texas, high winds piled 18 inches of falling snow into some snow, feet five. thousands are without power across the southwest. traffic came to a virtual standstill as miles of interstates and highways were shut down. strong winds and driving snow caused whiteout conditions making it all but impossible for traffic to move. first responders were out in force locating and rescuing stranded drivers. while other motorists abandoned their cars in the middle of the road. late monday, the system crossed the border into kansas dumping more than a foot of snow in areas already hard hit by last week's storm. crews at kansas city's national airport tried to de-ice the planes, but many flights are canceled because of this thick and heavy snow. >> we'll go to meteorologist jeff berardelli of wfor. what's the update? >> this is a huge storm. it's affecting a big part of the country. it's going to cause a lot of travel headaches during the day. i've been speaking to meteorologists in amarillo texas. they are amazed at the power of the system. the latest snowfall total up to 19 inches in amarillo. the storm is now moving out of the area. they have had wind gusts of 75 miles per hour. that's impressive for any blizzard. you can see the size and scope of this system. it's got a cold side. also has a warm and unstable side. because of that the national weather service has issued a tornado watch in effect from northern and central parts of florida. that means tampa, some big storms knocking on your door now. those will move across the i-4 corridor to orlando, as well. watch out for isolated tornadoes from there all the way through northern florida. and also toward the south carolina coastline. and right now we're talking extremely heavy snow in kansas city at around two inches per hour or so. snow totals there added on top of what we have right now, probably another 6 to 12 inches there. eventually that moves to chicago. in chicago, we could see about a half a foot. so the bottom line here is big travel impacts for the next couple of days especially today. >> jeff thank you. and pope benedict officially leaves the papacy on thursday. we're learning new details about his life in retirement. the cardinals who will choose his successor are gathering in vatican city. allen pizzey is there. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. at least two conundrums of dealing with an ex-pope have been resolved. after he leaves office benedict will be known as pope emeritus and will continue to wear the white robe. he will give up the red shoes for brown loafers, handcrafted for him in mexico. he's left behind a new gift for cardinals. he's issued an edict that changes the way people are punished in if they break the conclave rule of secrecy. previously the new pope decided the punishment. under benedict's law, the penalty will be excommunication. that applies to cardinals down to the house maids and other assistants who look after them during the conclave. he also lets the so-called princes of the church gather in conclave previously than the previously mandated 15 days after the end of the papacy. there's still no clear idea as to when that will actually be because by both tradition and law, the cardinals are forbidden to talk about it and openly at least until one day after benedict leaves office. in the meantime they're meeting congregations to discuss what issue they think are most important for the new papacy. and high on that agenda we know will be the sexual abuse case. charlie, nor agaleanora, gayle? the ceo of macy's said he was blind sided by martha stewart's decision to sell goods at jcpenney stores. yesterday the company insisted it has an exclusive deal with stewart. he said in court "i was completely shocked and blown away from what she was saying to me. it was so far from anything i could imagine." lundgren testified he finally hung up on stewart and they have not spoken since the day after the phone call. jcpenney announced it would buy 16% of stewart's company. millions of women take calcium supplements to prevent broken bones. now a top government advisory panel says healthy post menopausal women shouldn't bother. the u.s. preventive services task force says low or moderate doses of calcium or vitamin d are not preventing bone fractures. and the report says they might increase the risk of kidney stones. >> dr. c. everett koop, the most influential and recognizable surgeon general in history died. he was appointed in 1981. with eight years in office, he led a successful anti-smoking campaign. he was also the first major public official to treatedates as a potential -- treat aids as a potential threat to all americans. dr. c. everett koop was 94. 20 years ago in new york city, terrorists made their first attempt to bring down the world trade center. they set off a truck bomb in a parking garage below the twin towers. the explosion killed six people and injured more than 1,000 others. there will be a ceremony this afternoon at the 9/11 memorial. officials will unveil a plaque honoring the 1993 victims. we told you yesterday that iran's government was not happy that "argo" won at the oscars or that michelle obama head the name. turns out the iranians didn't like her dress either. one n an iranian news agency, they retouched the photo to add a high neckline and sleeves to her dress. some people will stop at nothing to find a better tasting beer. two american brews u brewereries and -- breweries and a glass maker have come up with a special glass for india, pa le ale. they say it improves and balances the taste. costs $9 a glass. the beer is not included. >> i don't drink, does that make sense that a glass would make a difference in how it tastes? >> i think so. if you go -- a lot of beers are served with different glasses at bars yeah. depending on the type of beer. you know? >> charlie -- >> i don't know. >> nora knows. that makes a difference. curious. it is 8:08. charlie goes "i don't know." >> i don't know. she knows good morning. we have gray skies in the area and rain is approaching. here is first warning doppler weather radar. rain's not going to be here until noon. noon through midnight with steady rain. we have a flood watch in effect for central maryland. that weather system while we're getting rain and temperatures in the mid-40s is going to bring winter weather to western maryland, advisories the military schools, airports and now the national zoo? we'll show what animals have to do with the massive government spending cuts ahead on "cbs this morning." maybe you'll go to the farmers' market. maybe another headache will get in the way. maybe you'll have some friends over for dinner. maybe you'll have a migraine. if you have migraines with 15 or more headache days a month, you're living a maybe life. and you may have chronic migraine. but knowing this thing you're going through has a name means knowing you can find treatments that are right for you. go to mychronicmigraine.com to find a headache specialist. and don't live a maybe life. 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"thriller" was the first album to feature seven billboards, top 100 singles. hits include "billie jean," "beat it," and "wannabe starting something." it won eight grammys for jackson. i remember, i had the jacket. i had the jacket with the zippers. absolutely. his pants with zippers too. >> i think of michael jackson and quincy jones. quite a combination. >> indeed. that's what i was thinking. plus, jackson's ability to dance. >> that's right. >> 30 years ago. >> moonwalk anyone? the debate is raging beyond silicon valley after yahoo! tells its workers you cannot work from home anymore. will other companies ban telecommuting? that's ahead on "cbs this morning." ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] to hold a patent that has changed the modern world... would define you as an innovator. to hold more than one patent of this caliber... would define you as a true leader. ♪ ♪ to hold over 80,000... well that would make you... the creators of the 2013 mercedes-benz e-class... quite possibly the most advanced luxury sedan ever. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial services. it's time to get real about what happens in the bathroom. and start talking about what you really want from your toilet paper. it's time to talk about clean. feeling clean is so important. i use quilted northern. quilted northern soft and strong is stronger than the leading value brand, for a confident clean. wow, i've been claritin clear for 10 days! when your allergies start, doctors recommend taking one non-drowsy claritin every day during your allergy season for continuous relief. 18 days! 12 days! 24 days of continuous relief. live claritin clear. every day. yahoo! will stop allowing people to work from home. a memo said to be from yahoo! was leaked to a technology blog. it reads in part "being a yahoo! isn't just about your day-to-day job it's about interactions and experiences that are only possible in our offices." business tycoon richard branson tweeted that he was perplexed by the move. >> others see the revival of a corporate culture that lost its edge. mellody hobson is the cbs news contributor and analyst and joins us. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> in "usa today" they said, listen, a stanford researcher said she inherited a complete mess. there are reports that the policies had gotten too lax, there was a lot of dead wood. today she's getting a lot of heat. is it a ruthless decision or smart business decision? >> let's look at what she inherited. at its peak yahoo! was the darling of the tech industry. the stock was trading for $475 a share. it's at $20 today. she does have a real turnaround on her hands. if you say smart or ruthless i go smart because she's looking at the situation and saying i need innovation to change this company. and one of the things that drives innovation is collaboration. people working next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, coming up with ideas. >> marissa mayer as ceo -- what do the changes mean in the workplace? >> i think there are misconceptions about flex-time. i found it interesting in my research that the average person whole telecommutes is a 40 -- person that telecommutes is a 40-year-old male. the average person is a 40-year-old male. we think of it as a stay-at-home mom which is true, there are a ton of stay-at-home moms but that's not the only audience. >> i'm so glad you said. that the people who i know who telecommute are males, not women. people are saying, oh, is marissa mayer, supposed to be -- some people want her to be a woman ceo, i don't know why she can't be a regular ceo, say this is going to hurt women. but the studies show it's a lot of men in telecommute s. that true? >> that's exactly right. i think it's hard to make generalizations, women versus men. woman ceo, what are the expectations, what is she supposed to do. i think she's taken a lot of heat here. and i actually don't think it's fair. >> let's look at her neighbors in silicon valley. facebook, what do they do? >> so the policies from when i talk to many of the companies in silicon valley tend to be very flexible. it's very, very common to have telecommuting with many of her peer companies. however -- >> telecommuting or not? >> facebook -- i am told has telecommuting. >> apple? >> does not. that's what i found out. everyone saying this is going to be terrible for her ability to recruit and retain people. but the -- you know the company that has been the most successful innovator of our generation -- >> apple -- >> you know there's no free food there, the flexible policies are not the same. they've done it very differently. and they still won. >> i think a lot of the outcry today i keep hearing is from working parents. a lot of working parents rely on telecommuting. people are afraid now what is this going to mean for me. >> that's a fair point because a lot of people telecommute. >> yeah. >> estimates are 30 million people telecommute at some point during the of the year. that's a lot of people. so working parents are saying this flexibility allows me to tend to my children, perhaps that will go away. i think that she's trying to save the company. >> right. >> so we -- if they want jobs and want the ability to be able to take care of their kids she's saying we have to make choices now. they may be hard choices -- >> and isn't it her job to save the job? while everyone's comparing her to everybody else shouldn't she focus on her company? >> whether marisa meyer can save yahoo! does not doped this decision. a lot of -- does not depend on this decision. a lot of problems they face. >> she's trying to put her stamp on it and saying you cannot build culture via e-mail. >> and bank of america also made a move like this in the past year, too, which is to say a lot of employees who telecommute have to come back to the office. >> i think people have found that some of the things that they thought would work certainly reduces their overhead costs. you know that's one of the reasons they like telecommuting. allows them to have a more diverse work force. there are a bunch of pros but a lot of things have been tried and companies are pulling them back. flexible time, outsourcing. we've seen a bunch of things come and get pulled in a bit. you know, casual dress. >> yes. >> these things -- >> are they going back on casual dress? >> ebb and flow. >> we told charlotty to stop wearing the flip -- charlie to stop wearing the flip-flops. thank you. it takes more than great acting to win an oscar. sometimes a great deal of money lucky charms?! ♪ ♪ yer always after me lucky charms! whoa. i forgot how good these taste! [ lucky ] ♪ they're magically delicious ♪ nom, nom, nom. ♪ the one and only, cheerios ♪ a live look, sharon's here to wrap up the rush. and here's doppler weather radar harass clear scan in the area right now as you notice that high of 46 degrees, a look at all that moisture coming our way. we're in the low 30s now, no fear of a wintery mix here because temperatures will absolutely be way above freezing through the entire rain event which will go noon to midnight. here's share sharon gibala traffic control. good morning. fortunately no rain on the morning commute. we have some accidents and delays. one of those accidents now on the jfx in the northbound direction at rick son road on the right shoulder. an accident in fallston, at cars mills road and a crash in the city on monroe street. if you're headed on the beltway speeds in the 30s. speeds in the upper 40s on 95 between the beltway and the tunnel. there's a live look at the west side at i-70. don't miss winter's biggest boat sale, the progressive insurance baltimore boat show february 28 february 28th through march 3 march 3rd at the baltimore convention center. it's the best place to see and buy boats. get tickets and details at baltimoreboatshow.com. a big crowd may have been in annapolis. here's mike schuh with the story. >> reporter: 3,000 people from baltimore gathered in annapolis to demand a legislature better fund baltimore city schools. the rally is in support of an unfunded multibillion dollar reconstruction plan for the 65 most dilapidated system citi city schools. the reality of the problem was brought to the attention of lawmakers. the governor likes the concept but has not thrown his support behind the plan. the this rally was among the largest in the capital so far this year. i'm mike schuh reporting downtown, don back you. thank you the u.s. private accused of sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to wick kylikes is back in the courtroom. it may address his attorney's motion to dismiss his charges against him. it may also look at hiss offer to plead guilty to reduce charges for 20 of the 22 counts against him. trial is underway for a new york city police officer and university of maryland graduate charged in the bizarre cannibalism plot. gilberto valle is accused of planning to abduct, torture and eat dozens of women including his estranged wife. she testified it was she who went to the fbi after finding disturbing material on his computer. he claims it was a fantasy. stay with wjz 13 maryland's news station. up next how the library of congress is rescuing several of are you awake? welcome back to "cbs this morning." beautiful shot. coming up in this half-hour, the oscars are not over for the studios. we'll show you how they're cashing in on the glory and how much they spent to get there. plus we continue our "cbs this morning" series with bishop t.d. jakes. his best-selling book is about forgiveness. he'll answer the questions you sent in, and we'll ask about the legacy of pope benedict xvi. it's time to show the headlines from around the globe. "the new york times" says there's a rebellion at weight watchers. employees are frustrated at being paid minimum wage while the company's celebrity spokespeople earn millions. weight watchers' executives are hinting they will start raising pay. the "wall street journal" reports male nurses on average make more money than their female colleagues. yet only 10% of nurses are men. according to the census the average male nurse makes 16% more than a woman. "usa today" found that baby-boomers are divorcing at surprising rates. the number of divorces among people 50 or over doubled between 1990 and 2010. but it can be a costly decision. the two have to split up the same assets to pay for their retirement while spending money on separate homes. and the "jackson hole daily" in wyoming looks at the impact of spending cuts on national parks if the automatic cuts go through on friday. it will hurt the park's ability to fight fires and maintain the land at the grand teton national park. the visitors center will be closed all season. and very little in washington is safe from the potential cuts including animals. jan crawford is on the national mall. good morning. >> reporter: well, good morning. you know, we hear a lot about some of the serious implications these cuts could have -- widespread layoffs cuts in the military, changes in air travel. there are places that could be affected that we don't even think about. the parks, monuments even like you said nora animals at the national zoo. damai is a rare sumatran tiger and one of the most closely watched animals at the smithsonian national zoo where everyone has one question -- is she or isn't me? >> we are hopeful, fingers crossed, that she's pregnant. >> reporter: the only way to tell for sure is through an ultrasound. so what does that have to do with the sequester? it turns out that getting damai ready for her all-important trawl sound takes intense -- ultrasound takes intensive training. that is in jeopardy. >> training research things like this would be the first on my list. >> reporter: research is what the zoo is known for across the world. it was the first to identify a fungus that could make as many as 1/3 of the world's frogs extinct. it also discovered a virus that was killing baby elephants. >> if the sequester remains perm, we're going to have to reduce our mission. we'll have to reduce our research. we'll have to reduce the number of animals we pout exhibits. >> reporter: zoo director dennis kelly says the zoo would have to look at shutting down major exhibits. >> major exhibits here include our lions and tigers. it includes our reptile house where we do a lot of great research. it would include our great ape exhibit. >> reporter: the cuts would reach beyond the national zoo. they would impact all of the smithsonians in d.c. which are preparing for at least a 5% budget cut. also at risk, u.s. national parks from washington to the blue ridge parkway and yellowstone facing reduced hours and services. how would you characterize the impact that this could have? >> very painful. painful to americans and to job creation in america because our national parks are economic engines. >> reporter: interior department secretary ken salazar says visitors should expect a reduced experience. >> the quality of experiences that we're able too give to the american people and to visitors from other parts of the world really are part of an american heritage and so much of that is -- is at risk if we're not able to provide the quality that we experience at these great places. >> reporter: salazar said we'll see effects here on the national mall and not in a good way. he it's going to be dirtier because there's not going to be as many workers to help clean it up. even when you're at the national monuments, if you're looking for someone to give you information or help you explain what it means, it's going to be harder to find people to help you because there may not be as many employees. >> thank you jan. it shows all the things we take for granted that could go away. they call it show business for a reason. the oscars are a $20 million production. in the race to the finish line the studios shell out big bucks themselves because gold means green. with us is marisa guthry senior writer for "the hollywood reporter." good morning. we expect movies like "argo" and anybody else who won to benefit. how much money are we talking about? >> well, they can -- just for nomination, you can get a 20%, 22% bump in box office. so if you're $100 million movie, that's significant. then a win, you can get another windfall because people are looking for that -- the oscar stamp of approval, and they'll part with their hard-earned money to go to the theater to see the best picture winner. >> i know. i've heard people who have not seen "argo" before saying i'm going to see it just because -- >> absolutely. >> i look at all the oscar nomination for best picture and say, oh i haven't seen that. i've got to see that movie. one of the things that interests subcommittee lobbying that goes on to get on this list. >> it's bruising. there's a period where you have to stop campaigning stop gladhanding. but until you can -- in that time where you can coo doo, it most of the best picture movies nominees spend about $10 million. >> what's interesting, they don't just spend money to promote their own. they're spending money to tear down the others. >> yes. well they're doing that tearing down behind the scenes. >> how do they do that? >> hence the word bruising. >> with their campaigns, and i mean, this year -- we had a lot of politically themed movies. there was a real teempt elattempt to elevate -- >> what was behind the success of the movies? >> "zero dark thirty" as we've seen has been surrounded by controversy. >> was that started, controversy started on its own, or helped along by -- >> by conversation, it started on its own. i think the torture debate is still a hot one obviously. but it didn't -- it provided a great shiv for the other movies. >> and columns -- >> exactly. >> has it always been this way, or is it getting worse? it seems bruising and vicious to me today. >> i think it's getting a lot worse. there's a lot at stake with these movies. it's so much harder to break out now. yeah, they take it a lot more seriously. >> harvey weinstein's horse in this race was "silver linings playbook." we heard he hired a former obama aide, stephanie cutter, to help. what do we know? >> she has not confirmed it. he has admitted to conferring with his friends including her. she didn't seem to do a whole lot on the face of this. >> yeah. dave hart is an example, how does he do it even though he didn't have a lot to do -- >> a lot of friends in high places. >> what do they do with him? >> they confer quality. when you have you know bradley cooper and david o. russell the director of "silver linings playbook" meeting with joe biden at the white house to talk about mental illness. harvey gets on the meeting. >> that translates into pub see it -- publicity. >> right. >> where do we develop the hey we know where it's going. nobody was surprised that "argo" won best picture. all the talk was that way. >> it started around "lincoln" and shifted to "argo." >> how do we know where the shift is? >> it's -- that's granular. and i think the shifts are because ben affleck is so likeable. he was snubbed as director didn't get best director nomination. >> people are talking to the people voting and giving a sense wherever their head is? >> yes. exactly. and who is liked. it's a popularity contest at the end of the day. ben is very popular. >> marisa thank you. good to have you here. the movies that earned a spot at the oscars will be watched for generations to come. get this -- library of congress says the vast majority of film and audio recordings made before 1930 have been lost forever. seth doane shows the race to save america's cultural heritage. ♪ >> reporter: this 1936 louis armstrong recording is an artifact nearly lost to time. it's a nickel-plated lacquer disk widely used to record sound in the first half of the 20th century. >> by going back to metal masters, we can go back to the source material and get the best possible preservation copy. >> reporter: in some ways, this is the blueprint the original? >> it is. the equivalent to an original camera negative for a motion picture. >> reporter: patrick loughney is leading the effort to save these cultural relics for the library of congress. >> what goes on is the archaeology of american popular audio visual history. >> reporter: the cylinders made of bees wax were invented by thomas edison. they're the first known devices to record sound. this one holds a campaign song for william mckinley. ♪ >> reporter: when you think of the library of congress you think of documents and typewriter-smudged papers. not here. >> no, it's remarkable that the library early on got into the acquisition of sound recordings and radio programs. they were considered a cultural record just as valuable as books, magazines, newspapers photographs, and other things we hold to be valuable for historical research. >> reporter: the library has 90 miles of shelves at its 45-acre conservation campus in culpeper virginia. specialists here are preserving more than a million films and videos. what would happen if this place didn't exist? >> well, much of it would be lost already. and much of it is lost. >> reporter: more than 80% of american films made before 1930 no left winger exist. >> this is all of the library's nitrate film collection. >> reporter: films are kept at 38 degrees in 200,000 square feet of storage vaults. it's cold. you're trying to stabilize the film. why does film need stabilizing? >> film is an organic product. like fad in your refrigerator, it lasts longer if it's in cold storage. >> reporter: this 1894 film called "annabell butter liefly dance" is one of the oldest films ever restored. each frame was originally colored by hand. ♪ >> reporter: the library has more than four million sound recordings in its collection. and technicians have digitized thousands of tv shows. this is the only appearance of the doors on "the ed sullivan show." ♪ >> this is a hospital. this is a center for trying to resurrect formats in some way that will allow us to recover content and make it publicly available for research. >> a colombian at work program -- >> reporter: cbs radio news 1945 broadcast of howard k. smith announcing the german surrender has been saved. >> the union of soviet socialist republics officially accepted the unconditional surrender of nazi germany. >> there's a growing action indonesia about american past. and our job is -- amnesia about american past. and our job is to bolster that memory, save it for generations who might value in what we're preserving. >> reporter: they've digitized this 1975 blues documentary and are enhancing the color shot by shot in an edits room. it's all part of the mission to preserve america's cultural past for its digital future. for "cbs this morning," keth doane, culpeper, virginia. >> what a great story. when you think about losing your culture, that's when you've got a problem. >> good to see they can revive it so we can see it. "time" magazine calls him america's best preacher. we're talking, of course about bishop t.d. jakes. he's here in studio 57 getting ready to answer your questions about his best-selling book. his best-selling book, a "cbs this morning" read. and we'll talk about get your sunglasses out for the next 10 mt.s. that's the brightest it's going to be. the clouds have moved through the area. take a look at first warning doppler weather radar after this forecast of 46 degrees and i'm showing you that 46 for a reason. right now we're at 31. temperatures are going to start popping up. we have a big amount of moisture coming our way, figure noon through midnight there's going to be rain and about an inch of it, but temperatures through that period of time stay all month long "cbs this morning" reads has been giving you a chance to get involved on line with bishop t.d. jakes and his best-selling book called "let it go: forgive so you can be forgiven." it's published by simon and shuster, a division of cbs. bishop t.d. jakes, welcome back. we'll talk about the book but want to start with the resignation of the pope. most people think the words pope and resign do not belong in the same sentence. when you first heard it we'd love to know your thoughts and reaction. >> i was astounded by it a little bit surprised by it. don't know anything more than the information we've heard. it was quite shocking. >> because? >> i think it was shocking because we haven't seen it for 600 years or so. but then it was indicative of the time we live that people are doing things in new ways and capacity. i take it at face value based on what we know so far. >> we all talk about ecumenacalism as religions coming together. what is the status? >> i think it -- we come together around common needs and common issues. the distinctions are very very important to the uniquenesses of our faith. i think there are things that bring us all together regardless of our faith or belief systems. common good for humanity, taking care of the poor responding to people in crisis. but the options are parts of our distinctions. and i don't think that will fully change ever. >> your book "let it go: forgive so you can be forgiven." last time you said unforgiveness unchecked becomes a cancer in your soul. what's the danger in not forgiving? it's so hard for so many people. >> i think it leads to all things of things, stress and pressure. you start carrying today's issues while you're holding on to yesterday's issues. you can only hold so much. at a certain point you're overwhelmed and don't know why. you have to let things go so you're available for the challenges of today. >> a viewer writes, "my parents have been divorced for over 30 years but still refuse to be in the same room. they have supposedly forgiven one another yet won't put aside their feelings for the sake of their grandchildren or children. does forgiveness mean to completely cut someone out of your life?" >> that's not really forgiveness. i think sometimes you have to rise to the bigger pictures and to the welfare of your children and family. there are some dhums go through a divorce and get along better than they did before. that is when you prioritize the whole idea of family and children above the individual circumstances that led to the divorce. >> the second question -- i love this question -- what if you forgive someone but someone refuses to forgive you? >> you know, that's a very good question because a lot of times people think that forgiveness is based on the other person. it really is not. this is totally about you. it does not exonerate the perpetrator. it doesn't restore the relationship. it just says i'm not going to carry the burden of this unforgiveness inside of me. it has nothing to do with whether you reciprocate or not. this is about liberateing yourself. >> this is hard to do -- >> over and over again -- >> this is you talking. >> no -- >> what would jesus say? >> he says to forgive 70 times 70. and 70 times 70. what he's saying is to perpetuate a methodology to let things go so you're free. it's not the number, but releasing things so you're available for what's in front of you rather than what's behind you. >> do you feel you have to change your message to go with the "sun-times.." >> you change the message -- the times? >> i don't think you change the message as much as you change the method. communication has changed so drastically, even in the last few years. it's not always about speech patterns as much as concise ideologies particularly because of social media. people are receiving and inject and digesting information more than they did ten years ago. >> one question coming out of the discussion going on at the vatican and about the future of the church. they say there's a lot of competition between the catholic church and ecumenical churches and fundamentalist churches in africa and in other parts of the world like that. is that true? >> well it's absolutely true. third world countries, certainly a resurgence of faith. the roman catholic church is trouble stronger in third world countries than some right now. and yet, there's a convergence of ideologies. we have such a s'mores agmorgasbord. it's different from 50 years ago. television, social media. puts everything in front of you now. >> all right, bishop t.d. jakes. always good to have you here. thank you, sir. and you can go to cbsthismorning.com to read excerpts from "let it go." you're watching "cbs this morning." one glass of wine a day is good for you. secondly beer can be better depending on the glass. >> of course, it might always be better in a can. >> if it's cold. >> well -- nothing as good as hot chocolate. >> that do does it for us. 5 minutes before 9:00. marty's over at first warning weather. >> here's first warning doppler weather radar. a big slug of moisture getting ready to pivot into the area noon to midnight. from south to north we'll see rain earlier than later on. forecast today calls for a high of 46, no threat here of a wintery mix. it's just going to be rain. but from allegheny and washington counties out west, there's going to be a wintery mix. garrett county is going to see winter weather period. don take it away. thank you. in the news this morning the teenager who opened fire inside perry hall high school in august is sentence today 35 years in prison. robert gladden pleaded guilty to attempted first degree murder charges in the shooting of danier borowy. in a videotaped confession he admitted he had been planning the attack for months. they identified the two people found shot to death and left in a burning call. the bodies of alysia strickland and 35-year-old taewon tuck were found on friday morning. police say the two had been shot in the head and that strickland was a graduate student at morgan state university. in annapolis a big push to rebuild baltimore city schools. mike schuh stays on the story. >> reporter: good morning don. good morning everyone. up to 3,000 people from baltimore gathered in annapolis last night to demand the legislature better fund baltimore city schools. the rally is in support of a yet unfunded multibillion dollar reconstruction plan for the 65 most dilapidated city schools led by the mayor. the reality of the problem was brought to the attention of lawmakers. though the governor likes the concept he's not thrown his support behind the plan though his lieutenant governor spoke at the rally. this rally was among the largest in the capital so far this year. i'm mike schuh reporting downtown. the army private accused of sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to wikileakss is expected back in a courtroom today. bradley manning is to appear at fort meade for a four day hearing on his attorney's motion to dismiss the charges. his offer to plead guilty on reduced charges will be considered. big changes are coming for smokers at camden yards and m and t bank yard stadium. they have banned smoking entirely at the two facilities. the ban prohibits smoking within 25 feet of an entry. they're said to be working out a plan that would allow smokers to leave the stadiums to smoke and reenter. . stay with wjz 13, maryland's news station, complete news and first warning weather today at noon as always. updates available at any time from anywhere at [ anouncer ] ihop is in time square to compare new griddle-melts to your usual breakfast sandwich. a lot more flavor. 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Transcripts For KRCB PBS NewsHour 20130226

captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: president obama met with the nation's governors today, and painted a gloomy picture of federal spending cuts that are set to kick in friday. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the newshour tonight, we get an update on the potential impact the sequester will have if the white house and congress can't work out a compromise. >> woodruff: then, margaret warner looks into the troubles looming for the catholic church ahead of electing a new pope. >> suarez: a cuba without a castro in charge? we talk with senator patrick leahy, who just returned from the island after an unsuccessful attempt to secure the release of an imprisoned american. >> woodruff: fred de sam lazaro reports on india's push to account for hundreds of millions of its citizens by issuing government identity cards. >> we still have a large number of residents much india who don't have a birth certificate or any other form of official i.d., but now with the highly mobile and aspirational society, you need some kind of an i.d. >> suarez: we talk with reporter steven brill about his time magazine cover story on why medical bills are so high. >> woodruff: and on the daily download, christina bellantoni examines white house efforts to circumvent the press through technology. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation r pulic broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> suarez: president obama and congressional republicans traded barbs today, opening the final week before the looming sequester. but there was no outward sign of a breakthrough to prevent $85 billion in automatic spending reductions. >> these cuts do not have to happen. congress can turn them off any time with just a little bit of compromise. >> suarez: the president's appeal came as he met with the nation's governors at the white house amid growing indications that the sequester will indeed take effect. >> this town has to get past its obsession with focusing on the next election instead of the next generation. all of us are elected officials. all of us are concerned about our politics both in our own parties as well as the other parties. but at some point we have to do some governing. and certainly what we can't do is keep careening from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis. >> suarez: to reinforce the point, the administration on sunday spelled out how each state will be affected from job losses for teachers to cuts in defense spending. after today's meeting, governors largely divided down party lines in voicing their frustration. democrats, including governor daniel maloy of connecticut tended to blame congress. >> they need to get out of that box that sits under the dome and understand that this has real implications in people's lives and they should stop playing around with it and get the job done. by the way, they should compromise to get the job done. suarez: while governor bobby jindal of louisiana and his fellow republicans pointed to the president. >> enough is enough. now is the time to cut spending. it can be done without jeopardizing the economy and without jeopardizing critical services. the president needs to stop campaigning, stop trying to scare the american people, stop trying to scare states. >> suarez: president obama did acknowledge today the effects of the spending cuts may not be felt immediately. but one very noticeable effect could come at the nation's airports where travelers may see major flight delays if airport workers are furl owed. meanwhile congress returned from a week-long recess with little visible progress. democrats backed the president's plan to forestall the sequester by coupling smaller spending cuts with increases in revenue. republicans insisted they already agreed to some tax increases and cannot support any plan that raises taxes now. house speaker john boehner spoke late this afternoon. >> it's time to cut spending here in washington. insteadf using our military men and women as campaign props, if the president was serious he would sit down with harry reid and begin to address our problems. the house has acted twice. we shouldn't have to act a third time before the senate begins to do their work. >> suarez: and as the deadline ticked one day closer, the president planned to visit a virginia shipyard tomorrow to highlight again how the cuts could harm the u.s. military and civilian defense workers. woodruff: to help us better understand the underlying political strategy being used at the white house and on capitol hill, we turn to two journalists closely following the developments. jonathan weisman of the "new york times" covers congress, and margaret talev covers the white house for bloomberg news. we welcome you both to the newshour. margaret, to you first. for days the white house has been raising the specter of terrible things that are going to happen. slowing air travel, people being laid off their jobs. furl owes. border security. problems. now that they see e republicans aren't moving, what do they think about this approach? >> they think it's a very good political approach. they will continue to use it right up until march 1. the white house has been prepared for march 1 to come and go and nothing to happen in the sequester to take effect. a part of what they're doing is a campaign to pressure republicans to get them to act but they're campaigning to position themselves as the ones trying to get this done and republicans as the ones standing in the way. those efforts will continue. >> you're saying they're not surprised that the republicans aren't caving? >> they are not surprised that the republica are not caving. the time lines we can now seity merging has a lot more to do with march 27, the deadline for the resolution on the budget than march 1. >> woodruff: and so on that point, i mean, jonathan weisman, the republicans, no sign of any give between now and friday. is that correct? >> absolutely. they are not going to give. >> woodruff: and so they keep hearing this sort of daily, shall we say, list of crises that are going to happen from the white house. how are they responding to that? >> well, we're going to see legislation probably emerge tomorrow in the senate from republicans that would give... that would give the white house and the administration more latitude to administer these cuts, to mete them out. right now the $85 billion would have to be cut program by program. if you're a program that is not exempted in the 2011 law, the budget control act, you have to take a slice. and that's why the president can go out there and say air traffic controllers are going to be hit, border patrol agents are going to be hit. the republicans would like to present legislation that says, look, the department of transportation doesn't have to cut air traffic controllers. they can cut some administrative part. some other thing that is less vital to the nation's body. and that is going to divide democrats because you already see some democrats who are willing to give that kind of latitude. but you also see republicans who do not want to give that kind of latitude because it's basically ceding authority to the white house. >> woodruff: are the parties united on this? what's the white house, what are democrats going to do if the republicans try to do that? >> there are issues that chief both sides. for the republicans it is many of the republican house districts that will be the most affected by the sequester. nothing will happen after two or three weeks but after a month or two or three or six, areas or defense contractors, these are places where the military and other programs will be affected by the long-term effects of the sequester will take effect. there will be republicans who shorter in the game than other republicans will say, all right, come on. let's cut a deal here. and then the flip side on the democratic side, there are going to be democrats particularly in those kinds of swing districts who are going to say, okay, enough on the tax increases. we need to give a little bit more on the spending cuts. on both sides you do see the potential for the rifts. for right now it does appear to be a game of chicken in terms of how bad are the effects going to be and how quickly will they be felt? >> jonathan weisman, republican leadership, how prepared are they to deal with any division in their ranks? we know that somrepublicans are more comrtable with these cuts than others who believe they're perfectly fine aparnly. >> right. we've really seen highlighted the emergence of a majority of republicans that are much more concerned with the fiscal picture and the size and scope of government, the spending side, than what we used to see which was a very large group of republicans, a majority, that were most concerned with national defense and would protect the defense budget over everything. the president expected that that national defense wing was going to ultimately prevail and stop these cuts from happening, bring their party to the table. that has not happened. i don't think the republicans in the senate may actually begin to splinter. the house is really dug in right now. they feel like they gave it the fiscal cliff. they let taxes rise. and now as one congressman told me, we've gotten to the high ground. the muskets are all pointing out. you want to come and take the hill, give it a shot. >> woodruff: does the white house feel the republicans have the high ground here? >> the white house feels that the republicans are going to want a couple of weeks to kind of make their points and protest. at this point the white house still sees some resolution that reigns in the impact of the sequester over x period of time. >> woodruff: do they have a strategy for how this is going to spool out over the next few weeks? >> i don't know what the strategy is after march 27. if there is one no one has spelled it out me. >> woodruff: this is when the next decisions have to be made. >> from the white houses perspective, not only will the sequester effects be felt more the longer it would go on, right? but because the time overlaps so closely to this continuing budget plan, for the republica republicans, the specter of a government shutdown is a lot more politically painful, broad-based, right, congresswide for all of them than the impacts of the sequester. >> i think that that's why the march 27 deadline is probably less of a big deal than we think. republicans in the house want to move forward beyond that. they're going to move legislation probably next week to just get past that. now the senate democrats might dig in and sy, we are not going to pass legislation to keep the government functioning past march 27 unless you do something about the sequester. but from what i understand, unless there is a huge human cry out there from the american people, they're going to let that pass. they're going to also pass legislation to keep the government open. i actually don't think march 27 is going to be a big deal because i'll tell you the first furl owes, the first lay-offs we're going to see on these sequesters won't hit until april. you're not going to see really angry american voters probably unil past that march 27 deadline. >> woodruff: we're all on the edge of our seats watching to see what happens. and both of you are going to be watching it with us. thank you very much, jonathan weisman, margaret talev, thank you. >> suarez: still to come on the newshour, troubles for the holy see; cuba without a castro; india undertakes a national identification effort; health care's high costs; and the daily download. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: wall street had one of its worst days of the year, amid new fears about instability in europe. stocks went into a late-day sell-off after reports that italy might be unable to form a new government. the dow jones industrial average lost 216 points to close at 13,784. the nasdaq fell 45 points to close at 3116. those reports of paralysis in italy followed crucial parliamentary elections. turnout was low, and a protest movement led by a comedian won nearly a quarter of the vote. as officials counted ballots, partial results showed no clear winner. instead, it appeared opposing coalitions would split control of parliament, and that prompted warnings of a stalemate. >> if a rejection, if they are confirmed, it means that italy will not have a government. so we'll be very, very dangerous. very, very dangerous scenario. >> sreenivasan: if no party is able to form a government, there could be new elections at a time when italy is still grappling with severe financial problems. nato has found no evidence so far that u.s. special forces tortured civilians in eastern afghanistan. the coalition issued that statement today. afghan president hamid karzai ordered all u.s. special forces to leave a key region within two weeks. local officials in wardak province have blamed americans in the disappearance of at least nine men and the murder of a university student. a trial opened today in new orleans on exactly who will pay how much more in the 2010 gulf oil spill, the nation's worst offshore oil disaster. b.p. says it has already paid $24 billion in spill-related expenses. now a federal judge will decide the liability of the oil giant and its partners, transocean and halliburton, for $20 billion in civil claims. the trial is expected to last months, but the judge has promised not to let it drag on. major new research finds that eating mediterranean-style can cut your risk of major heart problems by 30%. a study in spain, published today, touted the benefits of olive oil, nuts, fish, and vegetables. the study lasted five years and involved 7,500 people. it was by far the most detailed look at mediterranean diets. the findings were published in the "new england journal of medicine." former surgeon general c. everett koop died today in hanover, new hampshire. koop gained national notoriety in the 1980's under president reagan by endorsing condoms and sex education to stop aids, and campaigning against smoking. he spoke about his antismoking efforts on the newshour in 1989. >> i cannot work for a tobacco company. i couldn't even work on an assembly line making cigarettes. in fact, i once talked to a man in one of the cigarette-producing cities. he said, you know, i've come to believe that even the machine that turns out those little white things is evil. i think you've got to recognize that if we suddenly ran on tobacco tomorrow as something we didn't know anything about before, there would be no doubt about the fact it would be treated the way we treat toxic wastes or other things that threaten the health of our people. >> sreenivasan: he left office in 1989, and later founded an institute at dartmouth in hanover to teach basic values and ethics to medical students. c. everett koop was 96 years old. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: next, a big story on the big price tags attached to medical care. steven brill spent months reporting his 26,000-word cover story in the latest issue of "time" magazine looking at what's behind our country's high-cost of health care. what he found was startling: a few days of lab work that costs more than a car; a trip to an emergency room for indigestion that totaled more than a semester in college; and many more examples. in response, the american hospital association released a statement that claimed the system is broken and that "patients may look at a hospital bill and think the prices they see only reflect the direct care they received, when in fact what's reflected are all the resources to provide the care." steven brill joins me now. >> hi, judy. how are you. >> woodruff: i'm well. let me just begin by, you paint a devastating picture of the american health care system, and you talk, of course, about a system that is based on private enter prize. the private marketplace in america. i guess my question is... >> exactly. woodruff: ... why isn't the private marketplace working? >> because the private marketplace in other aspect of our lives implies that there's some kind of balance between the seller and the buyer. and in medicine, in health care, there is no balance. if you go into a shoe store and you see a pair of shoes and you say, well, maybe they're, you know, $200, i think i'll buy them. the guy behind the counter at the shoe store tells you that the shoes are $6,000, you can turn around and walk out. in fact, you can walk out and go up the block and go to a different shoe store. you don't have to buy the shoes. in health care not only do you have to buy it because you don't have any choice but you don't know what the price is before you buy it. when you read the statement from the american hospital association, i sort of had to chuckle because the implication there is that if they charge, as i found, $77 for a box of, you know, gauze pads, the reason they're doing that is because of all the other care in the hospital that you're getting. room and the board, the nurses and everything. but they charge for that too. there was one hospital that was charging $1.50, as you know from the cover of the magazine, for a tylenol. and yet they were charging $1791 for the room. now you would think if you're paying $1791 for the room, they would, you know, decide to throw in the tylenol. >> woodruff: well, the hospital asciation and those who are defending their point of view do say that what you're paying for is just essentially to keep the hospital running. that's what patients are being charged for. but you point out... >> well (laughing) you know, yeah, it's keeping the hospital running plus an extra 11.5-12% in pure profit that goes to the nondoctor addsters at the hospital who are making a million, two million, three million, four million, six million dollars a year in salaries. > woodruff: you also write, steven brill, about something called the charge master that sets the price in these hospitals. you cite some extraordinary examples. i mean, we cited a couple of them earlier, tens of thousands of dollars when someone wasn't even found sick. what is a charge master? >> well, it's this thing that everybody in this alternate universe of the health care economy where everybody is making a ton of money, everybody there knows about it. it's this giant price list of every item that the hospital provides ranging from anspiin to the paper cup that you drink the water out of when you take the aspirin to, you know, a $10,000 wonder drug for cancer. it's every single item, and the thing about the charge master is that every hospital has completely different prices. they're typically five to ten times what it cost the hospital to buy those items or provide those items. and insurance companies get big discounts off of the charge master, but the discounts that they get are stillnot enough to keep these hospitals from making very high profit margins and from all the nondoctor administrators at these hospitals from making exorbitant salaries. that's just not the hospitals. it's also the drug companies. it's the lab companies. you know, it's as if we have two economies in this country. we have the economy that you and i live in, which has been hard pressed over the last, you know, half decade. you know, jobs have been scarce. we're under all kinds of pressure. then there's this other economy calledhe health care economy whereverybody just keeps making more and more money. where unemployment is nil. and where everything is fine. yet the worst part about it is, is that that economy is bleeding our economy. >> woodruff: what is striking too, there are a number of things striking in the piece. one is that those who fall under one of the government health care plans -- medicaid and in particular medicare -- someone get taken care of. certainly those who have insurance, who have an insurance policy, they get taken care of. and y a lot of the discussion we hear about reform now has to do with reforming medicare. and putting it back into the or putting it into the private sector. based on what you're seeing, how would that work? >> well, medicare, first of all, is in the private sector. medicare has six or seven hundred government employees and about 8,000 employees from the private sector who do a terrific job administering the claims and running the program. medicare buys its services much more efficieny because it is the big player in the marketplace. none of the insurance companies have the leverage that medicare has. now, the irony is that the only place where medicare is not able to buy efficiently is where congress is handcuffed medicare. medicare can't negotiate the cost of prescription drugs. it can't negotiate the cost of wheelchairs and canes and things like that. so you could knock easily another quarter of a trillion dollars out of the medicare bill, the tax payers' bill, if you took the handcuffs off of medicare. and another way ironically you could save tax payers money, believe it or not, is if you lowered the age of medicare and allowed more people in their 60s to join medicare as opposed to the obama care solution now which is they're all going to have to buy health insurance but the government is going to subsidize their much more expensive private health insurance. >> woodruff: very quickly. we have less than a minute now. i want to ask you about obama care. you just raised it. what effect do you see it having on the health care system after all your reporting? >> well, there are a lot of good aspects of it. it curbs some of the billing collection practices. it obviously puts an umbrella over many more people who will have insurance but it really sort of nips away at the edges of the problem. the problem is the price tag that everybody is able to charge because they're basically able to gouge people because the buyers don't have any leverage. obama care really does nothing to attack that. > woodff: well, we are going to leave it there, steven brill. the article is in this week's "time" magazine. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. the cuban government says gross illegally distributed communications equipment on the island while on a u.s.-funded democracy building program. gross has claimed innocence. i'm joined now by senator patrick leahy. senator, welcome. how is alan gross? you got a chance to see him. >> he's lost an enormous amount of weight since he's been in prison. i saw him last year and saw him again this year. obviously he wants to come home. he wants to be with his family. and he feels frustrated that he's being hld unnecessarily for what at best was not a significant violation. >> suarez: the status of his health is the subject of disagreement between the cuban government and his family back here in america. is he sick? >> i'm not a doctor. i can't make that decision. i would like to have an independent physician look at him. but i think the best thing would be if he could come home. i understand his frustration. and there are a couple of positive things. one, the cubans at the highest level have agreed with me that they do not consider him a spy. that makes it easier to try to work something out. secondly, i see some glimmers of hope. but it's going to require, i think, some real work on behalf of both countries. i would hope work would be out of the spotlight. work that can be done quietly. and who knows. it may come to what i hope is the release of alan gross. >> suarez: was he adequately trained by the united states government? he was there as part of a democracy-building exercise which is not welcome and not recognized by the cuban government. was it at all a risky visit that he was on? >> well, i think there could be a lot of debate on that. i know as a contractor who hired him, i worry that the contract was more interested in its own goals than what might be the safety of mr. gross. but i think it would probably not help him to go into great detail on to what extent he's trading or not. i agree with the cubans. he's not a spy. he's somebody who believes in helping other people. he has no animosity toward the cuban people. he suppressed that several times to me. he has no animosity toward the cuban people but he cannot understand the actions of their government. >> suarez: at this point apart from the humanitarian concern, is his continued incarceration a stumbling block, an impediment to improved u.s.-cuban relations? >> you know, ever since the 1960 we found one stumbling block, one impediment after another. i think it's time that we start sitting down and talking about relationships between our two countries. the relationships reflect the realities of today and not the past history, sometimes the imagined history, of the '60s and the '70s. i think if we do that and look at a whole host of things i think mr. gross is better off. so long as the whole question of u.s.-cuban relationship resolves just on the question of alan gross, i don't think it helps him. i want to help him. i want to see him released. and i also, you know, he was very open. he talked with chris van holland who, of course, is congressman. i asked the cubans if i could bring representative van holland because he knows him. and they readily agreed with that. >> suarez: since your visit to havana, president castro has announced at the end of his current temple he's going to step down from office. when you met with him last week did he give any indication that he was looking for the exit door? >> he made it very clear that he believed in the two-term limit. something he talked about befo before. >> suarez: did you get a chance to meet the man who some say might be his successor, the new vice president? >> no, i have not met him. suarez: what's your impression of the willingness of the current leadership team to continue on the path that cuba is on today? >> well, i briefed the white house since i came back on what they had to say. i mean, cuba doesn't expect to change our form of government. we don't expect to change theirs. but i think that it's an anomaly that we have the kind of relationships or lack of relationships between our two countries. for example, the united states will allow cuban-americans to go to cuba to visit. they won't allow irish-americans or italian-americans, except by very special circumstances. you know, it makes... it certainly makes no sense in that region or to the rest of the world. i think if i were to say anything, it would be that both countries have got to be willing to sit down and quietly work out knowing we're not going to change each other's basic philosophies but we can change a great deal in the behavior of both countries. >> suarez: given those words that you just said, that we... the two countries aren't going to change each other. is it your impression that president castro wants a better relationship with the united states at this moment? >> i think he does. and i want to have our country reciprocate and try to have a better relationship with him. >> suarez: senator patrick leahy of vermont, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> suarez: next, to one of the largest registration drives of all time. it's taking place in india, where authorities are mounting an effort to give every citizen an official biometric identification card and number. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro filed this story as part of our "agents for change" series. >> reporter: across india, in community centers and schools like this one in new delhi, people line up for hours. patience, like application forms they seek, is often in short supply. it seems like a big deal over a rather mundane prize: a new government-issued i.d. but the man behind it all calls this the largest social inclusion project in history. >> we still have a large number of residents of india who don't have a birth certificate or any other form of official i.d. and in the old days, when they lived their entire life in a single village, it maybe didn't matter, but now, with the highly mobile and aspirational society, you need some kind of an i.d. >> reporter: nandan nilekani says an i.d. is the first step to better serve-- or just account for-- hundreds of millions of people in this vast nation of 1.2 billion. the government asked nilekani, a 58-year-old retired software billionaire, to head the massive undertaking. he says it will greatly improve the way it serves the poor. >> to make it more effective, efficient, and equitable. this will play a huge role in reducing corruption and harassment for the common man. the government wants to make sure that benefits go electronically and directly to the genuine beneficiary. >> sreenivasan: the new identifications are electronic, online, and designed to be foolproof. the unique identification project, called u.i.d., goes much farther than the usual mug shot or even fingerprints. each applicant also looks into a viewfinder through which the irises of both eyes are scanned. from these so-called biometrics, an online identification is generated with a unique 12-digit number, which is delivered on a card a few weeks later by mail. people in india do have other cards that serve as i.d.'s. the majority of poor and middle- class families have ration cards that allow them to buy basic foods at subsidized prices in special ration shops. this lady has shown me the one for her family. she receives four kilos of rice, which is about ten pounds of rice. she's also eligible for cooking and heating oil, but rarely gets them. items are frequently out of stock. corruption, mainly through diverted commodities and fake i.d., is widely blamed. the government hopes to change all this by opening and linking bank accounts with the new i.d.'s. instead of food grants, assistance would come in direct deposits, and recipients would have cash to shop in regular stores. vijay kumar, waiting to enroll for his new i.d., likes the idea. >> there are a lot of benefits from government programs, but middlemen steal from them. i don't come from a well-to-do family. there are 12 people, and many are dependent on assistance, and maybe they will be able to benefit from this card. >> reporter: just a few dozen people here in bangalore manage the avalanche of data from 30,000 enrollment centers across the country. one of the few tasks at this center that requires a human hand is here. about 2% of all applications are flagged because there appear to be similar biomeics-- like fingerprints-- between often very different people. >> the photograph clearly says that these are two different people. >> sreenivasan: there usually is a simple explanation, says manager kiran chowbene, like a fingerprint screen with remnants of a previous impression. i can see that the screen looks pretty dirty, hasn't been wiped clean. what percentage are adjudicated successfully here? >> everything. >> reporter: every single one? >> yes. >> reporter: there are no mysteries at the end of this process? >> no. >> reporter: chowbene and almost all of the 100,000 workers on the i.d. project work for private companies contracted by the government. they are paid for each person successfully enrolled, an incentive system that's brought speed unusual for a government project. a quarter of a billion people have been signed up or scanned in in just two years. already, india's unique i.d. project has the largest biometric database in the world. it's fast becoming twice as large as the second biggest one, which is at the u.s. department of homeland security. but there are critics concerned about privacy, who say it's all too rushed. they worry about abusive surveillance, particularly of political, ethnic, or religious minorities. social activist gopal krishna notes britain scrapped a national i.d. program in 2010 after years of debate. here, he says, the project led by nilekani has not been debated, and the government is only beginning to draft a privacy law. >> nilekani has mastered the art of putting the cart before the horse. if privacy is a concern, houldn't a privacy bill come first, then the u.i.d. database? >> reporter: other critics say the new i.d.'s wont reduce corruption, merely create new middlemen to replace the old-- in banks instead of ration shops, for example. usha ramanathan, a lawyer and human rights activist, is also skeptical about the program's stated objective. >> the agenda is not in providing identity to the poor so that the poor can get everything and become un-poor. i need to be really gullible to believe that. and i'm not that. >> reporter: she says the real agenda is to privatize poverty and welfare programs for all but the very poorest people, who would remain in the public distribution system. right now the system protects all recipients from the worst effects of market swings and escalating food costs. >> there is a desire to do a certain kind of social sorting where the state will identify people that they cannot deliver things to. you just have to do it because they are so extremely poor. you don't want an image of yourself where people are dying of starvation. >> sreenivasan: nilekani says he has no problem with market-based reforms, which will empower many people to assert their rights as citizens and consumers. he insists the universal id database is secure, that privacy can be safeguarded. that said, nilekani adds the very nature of privacy is being redefined. >> i think the privacy and convenience are opposites. it's always a trade-off. when you go and buy things at an e-commerce site, that e-commerce organization knows exactly what you're buying. so, you know, it works both ways. >> reporter: the i.d. project may well be subjected to court challenges. it will likely be debated as it comes up for renewal in 2014. by then, the program, at an officially estimated cost of $3.5 billion, expects to have enrolled 600 million people-- half of all indians and a tenth of all humanity. >> suarez: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under-told stories project at saint mary's university in minnesota. woodruff: karen jenkins of independent television news has the story. >> reporter: just days before the pope abdicates the u.k.'s top catholic claire i can announces he's standing aside too. he leaves with immediate effect. and leaves the catholic church once more facing difficult questions. his resignation follows allegations in a national newspaper. he's accused of inappropriate behavior towards four priests dating back to the 1980s. allegations he denies. the only activity here at the cardinal's residence today is the gaggle of cameraman waiting for him to come outside. it's hardly surprising he's keeping a low profile. this resignation is designed to take him out of the media spotlight before the election of a new pope in just a few weeks' time. now the u.k. will have no say in choosing pope benedict's successor. it was to be one of cardinal o'brien's lt official duties before a scheduled retirement next month. but in a statement he said... >> the holy father has now decided that my resignation will take effect today. looking back over my years of ministry for any good i have been able to do, i thank god. for any failures, i apologize to all whom i have offended. >> reporter: he does, however, remain a cardinal. it's understood he could still take part in the election of a new pope and it's his choice not to do so. in scotland cardinal o'brien is a divisive figure though many are sad to see him go. >> no one would have wished these circumstances. everyone will feel great sadness for what's arisen today. i feel that we should reflect for a minute just on the massive contribution that he has made to his church and his country over almost 50 years. >> reporter: others found him difficult not least for his uncompromising opposition to gay marriage. >> what we really hope in scottland is that the cardinal's successor will show more christiane charity to openly gay people than the cardinal was able to do himself. >> reporter: by the end of this week the catholic church will have vacancies not only for pope but for the top job in the u.k. too. >> woodruff: there were other reports of scandal rocking the vatican over the weekend as popen winnipeg ticket prepares to leave office later in the week. margaret warner has more on the latest from rome. >> warner: unsourced stories in the italian media in recent days have alleged sexual and financial impropriety including corruption, favoritism and the attempted blackmail of gay vatican clergy at the highest levels of the church. in response the vatican released a statement saturday attacking the press accounts as an attempt to influence the election of the new pope. stating it is deplorable that there be a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories that cause serious damage to persons and institutions. today pope benedict met with three cardinals he had named to run a secret investigation into a cache of leaked vatican documents last year. the new media allegations are said to be based on their findings. it was announced today that their findings will remain sealed shown only to the new pontiff but not to the cardinal set to gather to select him. jason horowitz of the "washington post" is covering these latest developments and joins us from the vatican. jason, welcome. this has been several days of real turmoil at and involving the vatican. what sort of shadow is it casting over the preparations to gather to select a new pope? >> i think i would say it's casting a pretty long shadow. there's rely a feeling of chaos and confusion here. already the resignation of the pope kind of set things in tilt that people weren't used to th this. the first time in about 600 years. but the fact that it's been followed by revelation or at least, you know, apparent revelation of scandal after scandal hasn't helped matters for the vatican at all. >> warner: and what drove the vatican to issue this very public denunciation of these media reports? i mean, in other words,ow damaging do they think those reports are potentially to the vatican? >> that's a very good question. and i guess that the vatican thought they were very damaging. but i wonder a little bit if they were thinking a little too much with their italian minds and not enough with their kind of global church minds because a lot of people especially american journalists, you know, we were being very cautious about those allegations in the italian press because they were extremely thinly sourced. the idea thathis reporter had seen this document when really it seemed to be only these three cardinals and the pope seem almost far fetched and the accusations were so heavy that you notice that a lot of the american and really international press kind of laid off. it was only when the vatican released that very strong statement calling the reports unverifiable that it kind of forced international journalists to kind of pay attention. and so i wonder if it backfired on them a little bit. >> what if the bigger picture here? what is the bigger picture here? in other words, you have leaks and counterleaks and accusations and counteraccusations. is this just about a struggle for power over getting, you know, who is going to be the new pope or is there a larger thread here? i mean, are there different camps that represent different perspectives on how the church should be managed going forward or indeed where the church should go moving forward? >> i think that the answer to both is yes. i mean, you do have camps within the church that, younow, for whom different things are important. you have certain prelates who care a lot about reaching out to the southern hemisphere. you have others who want to clean up the korea which is the bureaucracy that runs the church. the bigger picture i think is that you're seeing a church that especially here in the vatican where there's really large management problems. and the powerplays that we're seeing in there are probably spilling out into the press is what we're seeing a little bit. they are reflective of a place where there's not aot of stability. and the fact that the pope resigned shocked everyone. all that instability is coming out to the foreright now. it's coming out to the fore, spilling out in press reports. then, of course, you look north and you look to britain. and you have cardinal o'brien who is now, you know, facing really serious accusations and it seems like almost not welcome to the conclave. it marks a very large change and shift for the vatican that if you look back even jt eight years ago they were willing to embrace these cardinals that were, you know,en snared in these scandals. and now they're not so willing to do that. >> warner: will this have any bearing on the american cardinal roger mahoney who has been accused of shielding pedophile priests back in the '80s, stripped of his duties. lay groups are calling on him not to go to the conclave but he says he's going to. >> right. well, i think that the interesting thing there is that what we're seeing with o'brien is the reaction from the vatican. again, if you remember back to cardinal law who was embattled. to say the least with the sex scandals and the priestly abuse. and yet the vatican circled the wagons around him. this time it seems like these cardinals are finding themselves under the wheels of that wagon. they don't seem very eager to have owe bien here. i wonder if they're so eager to have ma moany here either. i mean theye n going toay don't come. it's the right of the cardinal to come. but it brings a distraction. >> warner: briefly before we go, thursday is the pope's last day. friday this process in some fashion begins. what does happen next? >> well, what happens next is that the cardinals start meeting with one another starting on march 1. in fact today the pope kind of made an amendment to the constitution, if you will, of the vatican saying that the cardinals will establish and meet and establish the date of the conclave. on march 1 they'll start meeting decide when the conclave is. really what you're going to have even though they're not supposed to is a bunch of cardinals talking to one another figuring out what issues are important, who are the likely candidates, who they think is the guy to bring them forward in this century. so we're going to have basically, what you're going to see is a lot of coffee and cappuccino being drunk by the cardinals and a lot of talking about the future. >> warner: you'll be there to cover it. jason horowitz, the "washington post." thank you. >> thank you. suarez: next to our series about the digital world's cultural impact. newshour political editor christina bellantoni is here with the daily download team. >> ordinary citizens have more opportunities to talk directly to the president these days. joining us to discuss how the white house is using the internet to work around the press are two journalists from the website daily download. lauren ashburn is the site's editor in chief. howard kurtz is the host of cnn's reliable sources. thanks for being here. we're talking about the president hosting a google hangout on google-plus. this seems designed initially to talk to relatives and far away places. how did it become a political tool? what does the president really accomplish here? >> i think the president is accomplishing reaching around the press corps to actually talk to voters and voters who may not answer or ask questions that t regular press would. >> like any technology, it might start out with me chatting with you but companies and politicians now trying to harness this because it plugs them into a demographic that may not watch a lot of television, that may not read newspapers, for example, but relishes the chance even though do people get that chance to ask a question directly to the president of the united states. >> you have to understand that this has only been around for 18 months. the first time that the president did this, he received 135,000 questions. so that would mean that it was a popular way of reaching out. was something that was really welcomed. >> reporter: this time only thousands of questions according to google which won't provide the exact figure. you get a bounce from that because people can see it later on all kinds much websites and perhaps even in television coverage. >> so that's more than 7500 questions came through this google hangout. they got votes from more than 100,000 people or nearly 100,000. what are the types of things that people are asking in these hangouts? >> most of the questions what are what we journalists would call softball like why don't you make computer courses required in college. every once in a while somebody will ask a question that a journalist wouldn't ask and ask it in a more opinionated way than a journalist would. >> if you remember clearly in 2008 you ran on a platform of really trying to become one of the most transparent administrations in american history. however, with recent leaked guidelines regarding drone strikes on american citizens and benghazi and closed-door hearings on the budget and deficit,t just fes a lot le transparent than i think we had all hoped it would be. how hthe reality of the presidency changed that promise? and what can we do moving forward to kind of get back to that promise? >> well actually on a whole bunch of fronts we've kept that promise. this is the most transparent administration in history. >> they do google hangouts. we moo know that. tell us about this woman who asked this question. what was she trying to get at there? >> she's a video blogger and is trying to find out when... from the president why she doesn't know everything there is to know about our drone program. this was her way of trying to pin him down. >> you know, white house official tells me these google chats or facebook town halls or twitter town halls which obama hassles participated in, that they are not an attempt to go around the mainstream press but it is certainly a way to circumvent the press room and to speak directly to voters like that. she couldn't follow up. she didn't have all the details that a reporter would have. but she pinned him down. >> she did but as other reporters have said, reporters do this on a daily basis. they know the in's and out's of the white house. they know the in's and out's of policy and can ask more nuanced questions. i think that while her question was pointed, he was able to circumvent it. >> because there weren't enough specifics in there in the way that the reporter may have framed the very same topic. >> vice president biden he did actually google hangout with our own hari sreenivasan on the gun issue but recently did a facebook chat. he had a kind of interesting reaction to some of the questions there. >> he thought they weren't supposed to be coming from a parents' magazine sponsored chat. >> the vice president i think it's fair to say bristled at the pointed nature of questions from people who believe in what they would call gun rights. it led to a long animate rather aggressive response from vice president biden in which he said that, you know, you don't need assault weapons. as i told my wife jill just get a shotgun. a couple of blasts from that and you'll scare everybody off. that was replayed on television everywhere because the vice president was so vociferous about it. >> while the google hangout may not have the millions and millions of viewers that traditional television might have on the state of the union night, it does act as a megaphone because then it drives the conversation for every blogger, for every correspondent, for every website out there. >> looking at this, you know, f.d.r. was sort of the example of these radio chats. the first one got 5 million. as many as 54 million heard the height of them. now how many people are actually watching after the fact when it's clipped on you-tube? the white house is using to spread their own message. >> it's hard to measure. clearly it is a fraction of what franklin roosevelt did using the mass medium of the day. if obama wants to reach the most americans that he can, he'll go on television and use that bully pulpit. this is narrow casting to people who might not ordinarily be viewers of the evening news. and a way to communicate directly with folks without having to go through the press. >> when i give speeches about social media, the one thing that i say is that this is a way to reach an audience, to reach other people that you wouldn't normally reach. >> we'll leave it there. thank you very much. we'd like your thoughts on the evolution of white house communication. can you watch the google hangout? what would you ask the president if you a chance? weigh in at newshour dot pbs dot org. >> suarez: again, the major developments of the day. president obama and congressional republicans traded new barbs, with automatic spending cuts set to begin this friday. wall street had one of its worst days of the year, amid signs that elections in italy produced no clear winner. the dow industrials fell 216 points. the surgeon general of the united states, c. everett koop died at 96. >> woodruff: online, we learn about one mans "cerebral" contribution to sceince. hari sreenivasan has more. >> sreenivasan: when doctors in 1953 removed a portion brain from the man known as "h.m.," they began what would become a half-century study into how human memory works. read about those discoveries on our science page. and on making sense, why raising the payroll tax ceiling must occur to help fix social security. and tonight on independent lens, a look into the world of one of the most outspoken artists of our time. "ai wei-wei: never sorry" airs at 10:00 p.m. on most pbs stations, check your local listing. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. ray? >> suarez: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll talk to gloria steinem, and look at the arguments before the supreme court over the collection of d.n.a. evidence. i'm ray suarez. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> macarthur foundation. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

Transcripts For KRCB PBS NewsHour 20130226

captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: president obama met with the nation's governors today, and painted a gloomy picture of federal spending cuts that are set to kick in friday. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the newshour tonight, we get an update on the potential impact the sequester will have if the white house and congress can't work out a compromise. >> woodruff: then, margaret warner looks into the troubles looming for the catholic church ahead of electing a new pope. >> suarez: a cuba without a castro in charge? we talk with senator patrick leahy, who just returned from the island after an unsuccessful attempt to secure the release of an imprisoned american. >> woodruff: fred de sam lazaro reports on india's push to account for hundreds of millions of its citizens by issuing government identity cards. >> we still have a large number of residents much india who don't have a birth certificate or any other form of official i.d., but now with the highly mobile and aspirational society, you need some kind of an i.d. >> suarez: we talk with reporter steven brill about his time magazine cover story on why medical bills are so high. >> woodruff: and on the daily download, christina bellantoni examines white house efforts to circumvent the press through technology. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> suarez: president obama and congressional republicans traded barbs today, opening the final week before the looming sequester. but there was no outward sign of a breakthrough to prevent $85 billion in automatic spending reductions. >> these cuts do not have to happen. congress can turn them off any time with just a little bit of compromise. >> suarez: the president's appeal came as he met with the nation's governors at the white house amid growing indications that the sequester will indeed take effect. >> this town has to get past its obsession with focusing on the next election instead of the next generation. all of us are elected officials. all of us are concerned about our politics both in our own parties as well as the other parties. but at some point we have to do some governing. and certainly what we can't do is keep careening from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis. >> suarez: to reinforce the point, the administration on sunday spelled out how each state will be affected from job losses for teachersto cuts in defense spending. after today's meeting, governors largely divided down party lines in voicing their frustration. democrats, including governor daniel maloy of connecticut tended to blame congress. >> they need to get out of that box that sits under the dome and understand that this has real implications in people's lives and they should stop playing around with it and get the job done. by the way, they should compromise to get the job done. >> suarez: while governor bobby jindal of louisiana and his fellow republicans pointed to the president. >> enough is enough. now is the time to cut spending. it can be done without jeopardizing the economy and without jeopardizing critical services. the president needs to stop campaigning, stop trying to scare the american people, stop trying to scare states. >> suarez: president obama did acknowledge today the effects of the spending cuts may not be felt immediately. but one very noticeable effect could come at the nation's airports where travelers may see major flight delays if airport workers are furl owed. meanwhile congress returned from a week-long recess with little visible progress. democrats backed the president's plan to forestall the sequester by coupling smaller spending cuts with increases in revenue. republicans insisted they already agreed to some tax increases and cannot support any plan that raises taxes now. house speaker john boehner spoke late this afternoon. >> it's time to cut spending here in washington. instead of using our military men and women as campaign props, if the president was serious he would sit down with harry reid and begin to address our problems. the house has acted twice. we shouldn't have to act a third time before the senate begins to do their work. >> suarez: and as the deadline ticked one day closer, the president planned to visit a virginia shipyard tomorrow to highlight again how the cuts could harm the u.s. military and civilian defense workers. >> woodruff: to help us better understand the underlying political strategy being used at the white house and on capitol hill, we turn to two journalists closely following the developments. jonathan weisman of the "new york times" covers congress, and margaret talev covers the ite house for bloomberg news. we welcome you both to the newshour. margaret, to you first. for days the white house has been raising the specter of terrible things that are going to happen. slowing air travel, people being laid off their jobs. furl owes. border security. problems. now that they see e republicans aren't moving, what do they think about this approach? >> they think it's a very good political approach. they will continue to use it right up until march 1. the white house has been prepared for march 1 to come and go and nothing to happen in the sequester to take effect. a part of what they're doing is a campaign to pressure republicans to get them to act but they're campaigning to position themselves as the ones trying to get this done and republicans as the ones standing in the way. those efforts will continue. >> you're saying they're not surprised that the republicans aren't caving? >> they are not surprised that the republicans are not caving. the time line as we can now seity merging has a lot more to do with march 27, the deadline for the resolution on the budget than march 1. >> woodruff: and so on that point, mean, jonathan weisman, the republicans, no sign of any give between now and friday. is that correct? >> absolutely. they are not going to give. >> woodruff: and so they keep hearing this sort of daily, shall we say, list of crises that are going to happen from the white house. how are they responding to that? >> well, we're going to see legislation probably emerge tomorrow in the senate from republicans that would give... that would give the white house and the administration more latitude to administer tse cuts, to mete them out. right now the $85 billion would have to be cut program by program. if you're a program that is not exempted in the 2011 law, the budget control act, you have to take a slice. and that's why the president can go out there and say air traffic controllers are going to be hit, border patrol agents are going to be hit. the republicans would like to present legislation that says, look, the department of transportation doesn't have to cut air traffic controllers. they can cut some administrative part. some other tng that is less vital to the nation's body. and that is going to divide democrats because you already see some democrats who are willing to give that kind of latitude. but you also see republicans who do not want to give that kind of latitude because it's basically ceding authority to the white house. >> woodruff: are the parties united on this? what's the white house, what are democrats going to do if the republicans try to do that? >> there are issues that chief both sides. for the republicans it is many of the republican house districts that will be the most affected by the sequester. nothing will happen after two or three weeks but after a month or two or three or six, areas or defense contractors, these are places where the military and other programs will be affected by the long-term effects of the sequester will take effect. there will be republicans who shorter in the game than other republicans will say, all right, come on. let's cut a deal here. and then the flip side on the democratic side, there are going to be democrats particularly in those kinds of swing districts who are going to say, okay, enough on the tax increases. we need to give a little bit more on the spending cuts. on both sides you do see the potential for the rifts. for right now it does appear to be a game of chicken in terms of how bad are the effects going to be and how quickly will they be felt? >> jonathan weisman, republican leadership, how prepared are they to deal with any division in their ranks? we know that some republicans are more comfortable with these cuts than others who believe they're perfectly fine aparnly. >> right. we've really seen highlighted the emergence of a majority of republicans that are much mo concerned with the fiscal picture and the size and scope of government, the spending side, than what we used to see which was a very large group of republicans, a majority, that were most concerned with national defense and would protect the defense budget over everything. the president expected that that national defense wing was going to ultimately prevail and stop these cuts from happening, bring their party to the table. that has not happened. i don't think the republicans in the senate may aually begin t splinter. the house is really dug in right now. they feel like they gave it the fiscal cliff. they let taxes rise. and now as one congressman told me, we've gotten to the high ground. the muskets are all pointing out. you want to come and take the hill, give it a shot. >> woodruff: does the white house feel the republicans have the high ground here? >> the white house feels that the republicans are going to want a couple of weeks to kind of make their points and protest. at this point the white house still sees some resolution that reigns in the impact of the sequester er x period of time. >> woodruff: do they have a strategy for how this is going to spool out over the next few weeks? >> i don't know what the strategy is after march 27. if there is one no one has spelled it out me. >> woodruff: this is when the next decisions have to be made. >> from the white houses perspective, not only will the sequester effects be felt more the longer it would go on, right? but because the time overlaps so closely to this continuing budget plan, for the republica republicans, the specter of a government shutdown is a lot more politically painful, broad-based, right, congresswide for all of them than the impacts of the sequester. >> i think that that's why the march 27 deadline is probably less of a big deal than we think. republicans in the house want to move forward beyond that. they're going to move legislation probably next week to just get past that. now the senate democrats might dig in and say, we are not going to pass legislation to keep the government functioning past march 27 unless you do something about the sequester. but from what i understand, unless there is a huge human cry out there from the american people, they're going to let that pass. they're going to also pass legislation to keep the government open. i actually don't think march 27 is going to be a big deal because i'll tell you the first furl owes, the first lay-offs we're going to see on these sequesters won't hit until april. you're not going to see really angry american voters probably until past that march 27 deadline. >> woodruff: we're all on the edge of our seats watching to see what happens. and both of you are going to be watching it with us. thank you very much, jonathan weisman, margaret talev, thank you. >> suarez: still to come on the newshour, troubles for the holy see; cuba without a castro; india undertakes a national identification effort; health care's high costs; and the daily download. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: wall street had one of its worst days of the year, amid new fears about instability in europe. stocks went into a late-day sell-off after reports that italy might be unable to form a new government. the dow jones industrial average lost 216 points to close at 13,784. the nasdaq fell 45 points to close at 3116. those reports of paralysis in italy followed crucial parliamentary elections. turnout was low, and a protest movement led by a comedian won nearly a quarter of the vote. as officials counted ballots, partial results showed no clear winner. instead, it appeared opposing coalitions would split control of parliament, and that prompted warnings of a stalemate. >> if a rejection, if they are confirmed, it means that italy will not have a government. so we'll be very, very dangerous. very, very dangerous scenario. >> sreenivasan: if no party is able to form a government, there could be new elections at a time when italy is still grappling with severe financial problems. nato has found no evidence so far that u.s. special forces tortured civilians in eastern afghanistan. the coalition issued that statement today. afghan presidenhamid karzai ordered all u.s. special forces to leave a key region within two weeks. local officials in wardak province have blamed americans in the disappearance of at least nine men and the murder of a university student. a trial opened today in new orleans on exactly who will pay how much more in the 2010 gulf oil spill, the nation's worst offshore oil disaster. b.p. says it has already paid $24 billion in spill-related expenses. now a federal judge will decide the liability of the oil giant and its partners, transocean and halliburton, for $20 billion in civil claims. the trial is expected to last months, but the judge has promised not to let it drag on. major new research finds that eating mediterranean-style can cut your risk of major heart problems by 30%. a study in spain, published today, touted the benefits of olive oil, nuts, fish, and vegetables. the study lasted five years and involved 7,500 people. it was by far the most detailed look at mediterranean diets. the findings were published in the "new england journal of medicine." former surgeon general c. everett koop died today in hanover, new hampshire. kop gaed national noriety in the 1980's under president reagan by endorsing condoms and sex education to stop aids, and campaigning against smoking. he spoke about his antismoking efforts on the newshour in 1989. >> i cannot work for a tobacco company. i couldn't even work on an assembly line making cigarettes. in fact, i once talked to a man in one of the cigarette-producing cities. he said, you know, i've come to believe that even the machine that turns out those little white things is evil. i think you've got to recognize that if we suddenly ran on tobacco tomorrow as something we didn't know anything about before, there would be no doubt about the fact it would be treated the way we treat toxic wastes or other things that threaten the health of our people. >> sreenivasan: he left office in 1989, and later founded an institute at dartmouth in hanover to teach basic values and ethics to medical students. c. everett koop was 96 years old. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: next, a big story on the big price gs attached to medical care. steven brill spent months reporting his 26,000-word cover story in the latest issue of "time" magazine looking at what's behind our country's high-cost of health care. what he found was startling: a few days of lab work that costs more than a car; a trip to an emergency room for indigestion that totaled more than a semester in college; and many more examples. in response, the american hospital association released a statement that claimed the system is broken and that "patients may look at a hospital bill and think the prices they see only reflect the direct care they received, when in fact what's reflected are althe resoues to provide e care." steven brill joins me now. >> hi, judy. how are you. >> woodruff: i'm well. let me just begin by, you paint a devastating picture of the american health care system, and you talk, of course, about a system that is based on private enter prize. the private marketplace in america. i guess my question is... >> exactly. woodruff: ... why isn't the private marketplace working? >> becaus the private marketplace in other aspect of our lives implies that there's some kind of balance between the seller and the buyer. and in medicine, in health care, there is no balance. if you go into a shoe store and you see a pair of shoes and you say, well, maybe they're, you know, $200, i think i'll buy them. the guy behind the counter at the shoe store tells you that the shoes are $6,000, you can turn around and walk out. in fact, you can walk out and go up the block and go to a different shoe store. you don't have to buy the shoes. in health care not only do you have to buy it because you don't have any choice but you don't know what the price is before you buy it. when you read the statement from the american hospital association, i sort of had to chuckle because the implication there is that if they charge, as i found, $77 for a box of, you know, gauze pads, the reason they're doing that is because of all the other care in the hospital that you're getting. room and the board, the nurses and everything. but they charge for that too. there was one hospital that was charging $1.50, as you know from the cover of the magazine, for a tylenol. and yet they were charging $1791 for the room. now you would think if you're paying $1791 for the room, they would, you know, decide to throw in the tylenol. >> woodruff: well, the hospital association and those who are defending their point of view do say that what you're paying for is just essentially to keep the hospital running. that's what patients are being charged for. but you point out. >> well (laughing) you know, yeah, it's keeping the hospital running plus an extra 11.5-12% in pure profit that goes to the nondoctor addsters at the hospital who are making a million, two million, three million, four million, six million dollars a year in salaries. >> woodruff: you also write, steven brill, about something called the charge master that sets the price in these hospitals. you cite some extraordinary examples. i mean, we cited a couple of them earlier, tens of thousands of dollars when someone wasn't even found sick. what is a charge master? >> well, it's this thing that everybody in this alternate universe of the health care economy where everybody is making a ton of money, everybody there knows about it. it's this giant price list of every item that the hospital provides ranging from an aspirin to the paper cup that you drink the water out of when you take the aspirin to, you know, a $10,000 wonder drug for cancer. it's every single item, and the thing about the charge master is that every hospital has completely different prices. they're typically five to ten times what it cost the hospital to buy those items or provide those items. and insurance companies get big discounts off of the charge master, but the discounts that they get are still not enough to keep these hospitals from making very high profit margins and from all the nondoctor administrators at these hospitals from making exorbitant salaries. that's just not the hospitals. it's also the drug companies. it's the lab companies. you know, it's as if we have two economies in this country. we have the economy that you and i live in, which has been hard pressed over the last, you know, half decade. you know, jobs have been scarce. we're under all kinds of pressure. then there's this other economy called the health care economy where everybody just keeps making more and more money. where unemployment is nil. and where everything is fine. yet the worst part about it is, is that that economy is bleeding our economy. >> woodruff: what is striking too, there are a number of things striking in the piece. one is that those who fall under one of the government health care plans -- medicaid and in particular medicare -- someone get taken care of. certainly those who have insurance, who have an insurance policy, they get taken care of. and yet a lot of the discussion we hear about reform now has to do with reforming medicare. and putting it back into the or putting it into the private sector. based on what you're seeing, how wod that work? >> well, medicare, first of all, is in the private sector. medicare has six or seven hundred government employees and about 8,000 employees from the private sector who do a terrific job administering the claims and running the program. medicare buys its services much more efficiently because it is the big player in the marketplace. none of the insurance companies have the leverage that medicare has. now, the irony is that the only place where medicare is not able to buy efficiently is where congress is handcuffed medicare. medicare can't negotiate the cost of prescription drugs. it can't negotiate the cost of wheelchairs and canes and things like that. so you could knock easily another quarter of a trillion dollars out of the medicare bill, the tax payers' bill, if you took the handcuffs off of medicare. and another way ironically you could save tax payers money, believe it or not, is if you lowered the age of dicare and allowed more people in their 60s to join medicare as opposed to the obama care solution now which is they're all going to have to buy health insurance but the government is going to subsidize their much more expensive private health insurance. >> woodruff: very quickly. we have less than a minute now. i want to ask you about obama care. you just raised it. what effect do you see it having on the health care system after all your reporting? >> well, there are a lot of good aspects of it. it curbs some of the billing collection practices. it obviously puts an umbrella over many more people who will have insurance but it really sort of nips away at the edges of the problem. the problem is the price tag that everybody is able to charge because they're basically able to gouge people because the buyers don't have any leverage. obama care really does nothing to attack that. >> woodruff: well, we are going to leave it there, steven brill. the article is in this week's "time" magazine. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. the cuban government says gross illegally distributed communications equipment on the island while on a u.s.-funded democracy building program. gross has claimed innocence. i'm joined now by senator patrick leahy. senator, welcome. how is alan gross? you got a chance to see him. >> he's lost an enormous amount of weight since he's been in prison. i saw him last year and saw him again this year. obviously he wants to come home. he wants to be with his family. and he feels frustrated that he's being held unnecessarily for what at best was not a significant violation. >> suarez: the status of his health is the subject of disagreement between the cuban government andis family back here in america. is he sick? >> i'm not a doctor. i can't make that decision. i would like to have an independent physician look at him. but i think the best thing would be if he could come home. i understand his frustration. and there are a couple of positive things. one, the cubans at the highest level have agreed with me that they do not consider him a spy. that makes it easier to try to work something out. secondly, i see some glimmers of hope. but it's going to require, i think, some real work on behalf of both countries. i would hope work would be out of the spotlight. work that can be done quietly. and who knows. it may come to what i hope is the release of alan gross. >> suarez: washe adequately tined by the united stes government? he was there as part of a democracy-building exercise which is not welcome and not recognized by the cuban government. was it at all a risky visit that he was on? >> well, i think there could be a lot of debate on that. i know as a contractor who hired him, i worry that the contract was more interested in its own goals than what might be the safety of mr. gross. but i think it would probably not help him to go into great detail on to what extent he's trading or not. i agree with the cubans. he's not a spy. he's somebody who believes in helping other people. he has no animosity toward the cuban people. he suppressed that several times to me. he has no animosity toward the cuban people but he cannot understand the actions of their government. >> suarez: at this point apart from the humanitarian concern, is his continued incarceration a stuming block,an impediment to improved u.s.-cuban relations? >> you know, ever since the 1960 we found one stumbling block, one impediment after another. i think it's time that we start sitting down and talking about relationships between our two countries. the relationships reflect the realities of today and not the past history, sometimes the imagined history, of the '60s and the '70s. i think if we that and lo at a whol host of things i think mr. gross is better off. so long as the whole question of u.s.-cuban relationship resolves just on the question of alan gross, i don't think it helps him. i want to help him. i want to see him released. and i also, you know, he was very open. he talked with chris van holland who, of course, is congressman. i asked the cubans if i could bring representative van holland because he knows him. and they readily agreed with that. >> suarez: since your visit to havana, president castro has announced at the end of his current temple he's going to step down from office. when you met with him last week did he give any indication that he was looking for the exit door? >> he made it very clear that he believed in the two-term limit. something he talked about befo before. >> suarez: did you get a chance to meet the man who some say might be his successor, the new vice president? >> no, i have not met him. suarez: what's yr impression of the willingness of the current leadership team to continue on the path that cuba is on today? >> well, i briefed the white house since i came back on what they had to say. i mean, cuba doesn't expect to change our form of government. we don't expect to change theirs. but i think that it's an anomaly that we have the kind of relationships or lack of relationships between our two countries. for example, the united states will allow cuban-americans to go to cuba tovisit. they won't allow irish-americans or italian-americans, except by very special circumstances. you know, it makes... it certainly makes no sense in that region or to the rest of the world. i think if i were to say anything, it would be that both countries have got to be willing to sit down and quietly work out knowing we're not going to change each other's basic philosophies but we can change a great deal in the behavior of both countries. >> suarez: given those words that you just said, that we... the two countries aren't going to change each other. is it your impression that president castro wants a better relationship with the united states at this moment? >> i think he does. and i want to have our country reciprocate and try to have a better relationship with him. >> suarez: senator patrick leahy of vermont, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> suarez: next, to one of the largest registration drives of all time. it's taking place in india, where authorities are mounting an effort to give every citizen an official biometric identification card and number. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro filed this story as part of our "agents for change" series. >> reporter: across india, in community centers and schools like this one in new delhi, people line up for hours. patience, like application forms they seek, is often in short supply. it seems like a big deal over a rather mundane prize: a new government-issued i.d. but the man behind it all calls this the largest social inclusion project in history. >> we still have a large number of residents of india who don't have a birth certificate or any other form of official i.d. and in the old days, when they lived their entire life in a single village, it maybe didn't matter, but now, with the highly mobile and aspirational society, you need some kind of an i.d. >> reporter: nandan nilekani says an i.d. is the first step to better serve-- or just account for-- hundreds of millions of people in this vast nation of 1.2 billion. the government asked nilekani, a 58-year-old retired software billionaire, to head the massive undertaking. he says it will greatly improve the way it serves the poor. >> to make it more effective, efficient, and equitable. this will play a huge role in reducing corruption and harassment for the common man. the government wants to make sure that benefits go electronically and directly to the genuine beneficiary. >> sreenivasan: the new identifications are electronic, online, and designed to be foolproof. the unique identification project, called u.i.d., goes much farther than the usual mug shot or even fingerprints. each applicant also looks into a viewfinder through which the irises of both eyes are scanned. from these so-called biometrics, an online identification is generated with a unique 12-digit number, which is delivered on a card a few weeks later by mail. people in india do have other cards that serve as i.d.'s. the majority of poor and middle- class families have ration cards that allow them to buy basic foods at subsidized prices in special ration shops. this lady has shown me the one for her family. she receives four kilos of rice, which is about ten pounds of rice. she's also eligible for cooking and heating oil, but rarely gets them. items are frequently out of stock. corruption, mainly through diverted commodities and fake i.d., is widely blamed. the government hopes to change all this by opening and linking bank accounts with the new i.d.'s. instead of food grants, assistance would come in direct deposits, and recipients would have cash to shop in regular stores. vijay kumar, waiting to enroll for his new i.d., likes the idea. >> there are a lot of benefits from government programs, but middlemen steal from them. i don't come from a well-to-do family. there are 12 people, and many are dependent on assistance, and maybe they will be able to benefit from this card. >> reporter: just a few dozen people here in bangalore manage the avalanche of data from 30,000 enrollment centers across the country. one of the few tasks at this center that requires a human hand is here. about 2% of all applications are flagged because there appear to be similar biometrics-- like fingerprints-- between often very different people. >> the photograph clearly says that these are two diffent people. >> sreenivasan: there usually is a simple explanation, says manager kiran chowbene, like a fingerprint screen with remnants of a previous impression. i can see that the screen looks pretty dirty, hasn't been wiped clean. what percentage are adjudicated successfully here? >> everything. >> reporter: every single one? >> yes. >> reporter: there are no mysteries at the end of this process? >> no. >> reporter: chowbene and almost all of the 100,000 workers on the i.d. project work for private companies contracted by the government. they are paid for each person successfully enrolled, an incentive system that's brought speed unusual for a government project. a quarter of a billion people have been signed up or scanned in in just two years. already, india's unique i.d. project has the largest biometric database in the world. it's fast becoming twice as large as the second biggest one, which is at the u.s. department of homeland security. but there are critics concerned about privacy, who say it's all too rushed. they worry about abusive surveillance, particularly of political, ethnic, or religious minorities. social activist gopal krishna notes britain scrapped a national i.d. program in 2010 after years of debate. here, he says, the project led by nilekani has not been debated, and the government is only beginning to draft a privacy law. >> nilekani has mastered the art of putting the cart before the horse. if privacy is a concern, shouldn't a privacy bill come first, then the u.i.d. database? >> reporter: other critics say the new i.d.'s wont reduce corruption, merely create new middlemen to replace the old-- in banks instead of ration shops, for example. usha ramanathan, a lawyer and human rights activist, is also skeptical about the program's stated objective. >> the agenda is not in providing identity to the poor so that the poor can get everything and become un-poor. i need to be really gullible to believe that. and i'm not that. >> reporter: she says the real agenda is to privatize poverty and welfare programs for all but the very poorest people, who would remain in the public distribution system. right now the system protects all recipients from the worst effects of market swings and escalating food costs. >> there is a desire to do a certain kind of social sorting where the state will identify people that they cannot deliver things to. you just have to do it because they are so extremely poor. you don't want an image of yourself where people are dying of starvation. >> sreenivasa nilekani says he has no problem with market-based reforms, which will empower many people to assert their rights as citizens and consumers. he insists the universal id database is secure, that privacy can be safeguarded. that said, nilekani adds the very nature of privacy is being redefined. >> i think the privacy and convenience are opposites. it's always a trade-off. when you go and buy things at an e-commerce site, that e-commerce organization knows exactly what you're buying. so, you know, it works both ways. >> reporter: the i.d. project may well be subjected to court challenges. it will likely be debated as it comes up for renewal in 2014 by then, the program, at an officially estimated cost of $3.5 billion, expects to have enrolled 600 million people-- half of all indians and a tenth of all humanity. >> suarez: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under-told stories project at saint mary's university in minnesota. woodruff: karen jkins of independent television news has the story. >> reporter: just days before the pope abdicates the u.k.'s top catholic claire i can announces he's standing aside too. he leaves with immediate effect. and leaves the catholic church once more facing difficult questions. his resignation follows allegations in a national newspaper. he's accused of inappropriate behavior towards four priests dating back to the 1980s. allegations he denies. the only activity here at the cardinal's residence today is the gaggle of cameraman waiting for him to come outside. it's hardly surprising he's keeping a low profile. this resignation is designed to take him out of the media spotlight before the election of a new pope in just a few weeks' time. now the u.k. will have no say in choosing pope benedict's successor. it was to be one of cardinal o'brien's last official duties before a scheduled retirement next month. but in a statement he said... >> the holy father has now decided that my resignation will take effectoday. looking ck over my years of ministry for any good i have been able to do, i thank god. for any failures, i apologize to all whom i have offended. >> reporter: he does, however, remain a cardinal. it's understood he could still take part in the election of a new pope and it's his choice not to do so. in scotland cardinal o'brien is a divisive figure though many are sad to see him go. >> no one would have wished these circumstances. everyone will feel great sadness for what's arisen today. i feel that we should reflect for a minute just on the massive contribution that he has made to his church and his country over almost 50 years. >> reporter: others found him difficult not least for his uncompromising opposition to gay marriage. >> what we really hope in scottland is that the cardinal's successor will show more christiane charity to openly gay people than the cardinal was able to do himself. >> reporter: by the end of this week the catholic church will have vacancies not only for pope but for the top job in the u.k. too. >> woodruff: ere were other reports of scandal rocking the vatican over the weekend as popen winnipeg ticket prepares to leave office later in the week. margaret warner has more on the latest from rome. >> warner: unsourced stories in the italian media in recent days have alleged sexual and financial impropriety including corruption, favoritism and the attempted blackmail of gay vatican clergy at the highest levels of the church. in response the vatican released a statement saturday attacking the press accounts as an attempt to influence the election of the new pope. stating it is deplorable that there be a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories that cause serious damage to persons and institutions. today pope benedict met with three cardinals he had named to run a secret investigation into a cache of leaked vatican documents last year. the new media allegations are said to be based on their findings. it was announced today that their findings will remain sealed shown only to the new pontiff but not to the cardinal set to gather to select him. jason horowitz of the "washington post" is covering these latest developments and joins us from the vatican. jason, welcome. this has been several days of real turmoil at and involving the vatican. what sort of shadow is it casting over the preparations to gather to select a new pope? >> i think i would say it's casting a pretty long shadow. there's really a feeling of chaos and confusion here. already the resignation of the pope kind of set things in tilt that people weren't used to th this. the first time in about 600 yea. but the fact that it's been followed by revelation or at least, you know, apparent revelation of scandal after scandal hasn't helped matters for the vatican at all. >> warner: and what drove the vatican to issue this very public denunciation of these media reports? i mean, in other words, how damaging do they think those reports are potentially to the vatican? >> that's a very good question. and i guess that the vatican thought they were very damaging. but i wonder a little bit if they were thinking a little too much with their italian minds and not enough with their kind of global church minds because a lot of people especially american journalists, you know, we were being very cautious about those allegations in the italian press because they were extremely thinly sourced. the idea that this reporter had seen this document when really it seemed to be only these three cardinals and the pope seem almost far fetched and the accusations were so heavy that you notice that a lot of the american and really international press kind of laid off. it was only when the vatican released that very strong statement calling the reports unverifiable that it kind of forced international journalists to kind of pay attention. and so i wonder if it backfired on them a little bit. >> what if the bigger picture here? what is the bigger picture here? in other words, you have leaks and counterleaks and accusations and counteraccusations. is this just about a struggle for power over getting, you know, who is going to be the new pope or is there a larger thread here? i mean, are there different camps that represent different perspectives on how the church should be managed going forward or indeed where the church should go moving forward? >> i think that the answer to both is yes. i mean, you do have camps within the church that, you know, for whom different things are important. you have certain prelates who care a lot about reaching out to the southern hemisphere. you have others who want to clean up the kore which i the bureaucracy that runs the church. the bigger picture i think is that you're seeing a church that especially here in the vatican where there's really large management problems. and the powerplays that we're seeing in there are probably spilling out into the press is what we're seeing a little bit. they are reflective of a place where there's not a lot of stability. and the fact that the pope resigned shocked everyone. all that instability is coming out to the foreright now. it's coming out to the fore, spilling out inress reports then, of course, you look north and you look to britain. and you have cardinal o'brien who is now, you know, facing really serious accusations and it seems like almost not welcome to the conclave. it marks a very large change and shift for the vatican that if you look back even just eight years ago they were willing to embrace these cardinals that were, you know,en snared in these scandals. and now they're not so willing to do that. >> warner: will this have any bearing on the american cardinal roger mahoney who has been accused of shielding pedophile priests back in the '80s, stripped of his duties. lay groups are calling on him not to go to the conclave but he says he's going to. >> right. well, i think that the interesting thing there is that what we're seeing with o'brien is the reaction from the vatican. again, if you remember back to cardinal law who was embattled. to say t least with the sex scandals and the priestly abuse. and yet the vatican circled the wagons around him. this time it seems like these cardinals are finding themselves under the wheels of that wagon. they don't seem very eager to have owe bien here. i wonder if they're so eager to have ma moany here either. i mean they're not going to say don't come. it's the right of the cardinal to come. but it brings a distraction. >> warner: briefly before we go, thursday is the pope's la day. friday this process in some fashion begins. what does happen next? >> well, what happens next is that the cardinals start meeting with one another starting on march 1. in fact today the pope kind of made an amendment to the constitution, if you will, of the vatican saying that the cardinals will establish and meet and establish the date of the conclave. on march 1 they'll start meeting decide when the conclave is. really what you're going to have even though they're not supposed to is a bunch of cardinals talking to one another figuring out what issues are important, who are the likely candidates, who they think is the guy to bring them forward in this century. so we're going to have basically, what you're going to see is a lot of coffee and cappuccino being drunk by the cardinals and a lot of talking about the future. >> warner: you'll be there to cover it. jason horowitz, the "washington post." thank you. >> thank you. suarez: next to our series about the digital world's cultural impact. newshour political editor christina bellantoni is here with the daily download team. >> ordinary citizens have more opportunities to talk directly to the president these days. joining us to discuss how the white house is using the internet to work around the press are two journalists from the website daily download. lauren ashburn is the site's editor in chief. howard kurtz is the host of cnn's reliable sources. thanks for being here. we're talking about the president hosting a google hangout on google-plus. this seems designed initially to talk to relatives and far away places. how did it become a political tool? what does the president really accomplish here? >> i think the president is accomplishing reaching around the press corps to actually talk to voters and voters who may not answer or ask questions that t regular press would. >> like any technology, it might start out with me chatting with you but companies and politicians now trying to harness this because it plugs them into a demographic that may not watch a lot of television, that may not read newspapers, for example, but relishes the chance even though do people get that chance to ask a question directly to the president of the united states. >> you have to understand that this has only been around for 18 months. the first time that the president did this, he received 135,000 questions. so that would mean that it was a popular way of reaching out. was something that was really welcomed. >> reporter: this time only thousands of questions according to google which won't provide the exact figure. you get a bounce from that because people can see it later on all kinds much websites and perhaps even in television coverage. >> so that's more than 7500 questions came through this google hangout. they got votes from more than 100,000 people or nearly 100,000. what are the types of things that people are asking in these hangouts? >> most of the questions what are what we journalists would call softball like why don't you make computer courses required in college. every once in a while somebody will ask a question that a journalist wouldn't ask and ask it in a more opinionated way than a journalist would. >> if youemember clearly in 2008ou r on a plaorm of really trying to become one of the most transparent administrations in american history. however, with recent leaked guidelines regarding drone strikes on american citizens and benghazi and closed-door hearings on the budget and deficit, it just feels a lot less transparent than i think we had all hoped it would be. how has the reality of the presidency changed that promise? and what can we do moving forward to kind of get back to that promise? >> well actually on a whe bunch of fronts we've kept that promise. this is the most transparent administration in history. >> they do google hangouts. we moo know that. tell us about this woman who asked this question. what was she trying to get at there? >> she's a video blogger and is trying to find out when... from the president why she doesn't know everything there is to know about our drone program. this was her way of trying to pin him down. >> you know, white house official tells me these google chats or facebook town halls or twitter town halls which obama hassles participated in, that they are not an attempt to go around the mainstream press but it is certainly a way to circumvent the press room and to speak directly to voters like that. she couldn't follow up. she didn't have all the details that a reporter would have. but she pinned him down. >> she did but as other reporters have said, reporters do this on a daily basis. they know the in's and out's of the white house. they know the in's and out's of policy and can ask more nuanced questions. i think that while her question was pointed, he was able to circumvent it. >> because there weren't enough specifics in there in the way that the reporter may have framed the very same topic. >> vice president biden he did actually google hangout with our own hari sreenivasan on the gun issue but recently did a facebook chat. he had a kind of interesting reaction to some of the questions there. >> he thought they weren't supposed to be coming from a parents' magazine sponsored chat. >> the vice president i think it's fair to say bristled at the pointed nature of questions from people who believe in what they would call gun rights. it led to a long animate rather aggressive response from vice president biden in which he said that, you know, you don't need assault weapons. as i told my wife jill just get a shotgun. a couple of blasts from that and you'll scare everybody off. that was replayed on television everywhere because the vice president was so vociferous about it. >> while the google hangout may not have the millions and millions of viewers that traditional television might have on the state of the union night, it does act as a megaphone because then it drives the conversation for every blogger, forevery correspondent, for every website out there. >> looking at this, you know, f.d.r. was sort of the example of these radio chats. the first one got 5 million. as many as 54 million heard the height of them. now how many people are actually watching after the fact when it's clipped on you-tube? the white house is using to spread their own message. >> it's hard to measure. clearly it is a fraction of what franklin roosevelt did using the mass medium of the day. if obama wants to reach the most americans that he can, he'll go on television and use that bully pulpit. this is narrow casting to people who might not ordinarily be viewers of the evening news. and a way to communicate directly with folks without having to go through the press. >> when i give speeches about social media, the one thing that i say is that this is a way to reach an audience, to reach other people that you wouldn't normally reach. >> we'll leave it there. thank you very much. we'd like your thoughts on the evolution of white house communication. can you watch the google hangout? what would you ask the president if you a chance? weigh in at newshour dot pbs dot org. >> suarez: again, the major developments of the day. president obama and congressional republicans traded new barbs, with automatic spending cuts set to begin this friday. wall street had one of its worst days of the year, amid signs that elections in italy produced no clear winner. the dow industrials fell 216 points. the surgeon general of the united states, c. everett koop died at 96. >> woodruff: online, we learn about one mans "cerebral" contribution to sceince. hari sreenivasan has more. >> sreenivasan: when doctors in 1953 removed a portion brain from the man known as "h.m.," they began what would become a half-century study into how human memory works. read about those discoveries on our science page. and on making sense, why raising the payroll tax ceiling must occur to help fix social security. and tonight on independent lens, a look into the world of one of the most outspoken artists of our time. "ai wei-wei: never sorry" airs at 10:00 p.m. on most pbs stations, check your local listing. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. ray? >> suarez: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll talk to gloria steinem, and look at the arumen before the sueme court over the collection of d.n.a. evidence. i'm ray suarez. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> macarthur foundation. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

Transcripts For WJZ CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley 20130226

poultry instead of red or processed meat. it allows for seven or more glasses of wine a weak. the low fat diet also encourages fruit and vegetables but discourages all vegetable oils including all olive oil and nuts. >> reporter: by switching the type of fat you eat you can improve your t way your body handles cholesterol levels, improve the way you handle blood sugar, improve the health of the way the blood vessels function and potentially prevent clotting within those vessels. >> reporter: geraldine travali has a strong family history of high cholesterol. last year she got a scare. >> i went to the doctor with a cholesterol of 335, which is outrageous. >> reporter: she began taking a cholesterol-lowering drug called crestor and is following a mediterranean diet. >> it's up to me to take care of myself. my physician can do so much but i need to do the rest. >> reporter: the findings were so dramatic that researchers stopped the study after five years. it would have been unethical to withhold the results any longer. >> pelley: so jon wine fish nuts olive oil. what is in these things that causes a protective effect. >> nobody really knows. one of the theories, scott, is that the oil in the virgin olive oil and also the oil in the nuts can somehow stabilize a tiny clot that's in a blood vessel and stop it from progressing and totally cutting off the blood supply, causing a heart attack or a stroke. whatever the cause scott this study was very very well done and it's a big deal. >> pelley: an important study. jon, thank you. for the second time in a week a major winter storm is pounding the great plains whiteout conditions were reported in amarillo texas which could get a foot and a half of snow. tonight the storm is heading east through oklahoma and kansas and michael shwankee is with our cbs affiliate in wichita. michael, what's happening there? >> reporter: scott the snow has let up but we're told do not expect that to last. more snow expected to come in tonight. forecasters saying right now they're expecting eight to ten inches. that is on top of a near record-breaking snowfall we had just last week when we received more than 14 inches of snow. it's not just kansas go. to the south of here in oklahoma where eight highways are closed, including parts of i-40. take you down to texas texas experiencing what's being called an historic storm. amarillo experiencing record snowfall possibly 14 to 20 inches. we're told road crews are trying to save stranded motorists along a stretch of highway near childress. scott, the problem now for a lot of these communities becomes what do you do with all of this snow? as you can see in the wichita area, a lot of it is still piled up. >> pelley: michael you say you had 14 inch there is last week that must be making things much more complicated this week. >> reporter: much more complicated and a lot of these communities are struggling to find salt and sand. wichita went to a plow-only method because they said they were out of sand. they did receive a delivery this morning. hopefully to try to treat a lot of these roads going into tonight. >> pelley: michael shwankee with our affiliate in wichita michael, thanks very much. while the plains got that snow to the south they're getting severe thunderstorms and the national weather service says that storm system could spawn tornados tomorrow all the way from louisiana to the florida panhandle. well political storm clouds in europe moved over wall street today. a strong showing in italian elections by groups that are opposed to economic reforms there sent stock prices plummeting here. the dow lost 216 points, the biggest decline in more than three months. wall street's not likely to appreciate washington this week, either. those big automatic cuts in the federal budget are very likely to happen starting on friday. there's no progress on a deal. these cuts to address the budget deficit were designed to be so damaging that the white house and congress would be forced to compromise on a better way. but the president wants more tax revenue, republicans say no and major garrett is at the white house to sort it all out for us. major? >> reporter: president obama continued to warn today that budget cuts could do real economic damage but was candid about when people would notice. >> these impacts will not all be felt on day one. but rest assured, the uncertainty is already having an affect companies are preparing layoff notices. families are preparing to cut back on expenses. and the longer these cuts are in place, the bigger the impact will become. >> reporter: one republican governor, nikki haley of south carolina said cutting federal spending without jeopardizing key services is so easy even her two children could do it. >> how many more times are we going to have to deal with these issues over and over again because of the finger pointing and the blame game that keeps on happening in washington? what i will tell you is we heard today a whole lot of no. >> reporter: mr. obama has endorsed a senate democratic bill that seeks higher taxes on millionaires and unspecified cuts to defense and farm programs. house speaker john bane they are afternoon said republicans raised taxes in the fiscal cliff deal and will not again to avoid the automatic budget cuts known as the sequester. >> the president says we have to have another tax increase in order avoid the sequester. well mr. president you got your tax increase. it's time to cut spending here in washington. >> reporter: irritation with ever more frequent budget showdowns is growing and none of the key players are talking to each other. there's every indication that washington's string of dramatic 11th hour compromises will soon be broken. >> pelley: major, thank you. we thought you'd like to see how much of a cut all of this really is. the whole federal budget is more than $3.5 trillion. the budget cut that would start on friday is $85 billion so that's a cut of 2.4% of the budget. but a lot of big programs such as social security are exempt from the cuts so the cuts will be focused in this way: defense will be cut back 7.7% and most other programs will be cut 5.2%. here's the trouble: the law does not allow bureaucrats to decide where to take the cuts they must cut across the board cutting the useless as well as the vital. wyatt andrews found that out at the national institutesover health. >> reporter: at the scripps research institute in florida professor lauren needer ofer believes her team of 40 scientists will one day find a drug to diminish the impact of old age. the drug won't keep you young she says it will make the old less frail. >> my hypothesis would be that there will actually be drugs that you could use that will simultaneously dampen osteoporosis dementia maybe some fatigue and muscle wasting all at the same time. >> reporter: but her funding is in trouble because of automatic budget cuts. the n.i.h., the national institutes of health, is warned despite the promise of her research new grant money won't be approved. >> this line of research will be stopped. there's no other choice. and this is not just my case, there's hundreds of other scientists who are in these exact same boats. >> we have these samples. >> reporter: dr. francis colins is the director of the n.i.h.. he calls the budget cuts sand in the engine in the search for medical discoveries in every area: cancer aging alzheimer's and diabetes. to reach $1.6 billion in cuts collins says the n.i.h. will turn down one thousand of the best new research proposals from the nation's leading labs and medical schools. >> medical research in america will be slowed by this. advances that could have happened sooner will happen later or perhaps not at all. >> reporter: you're turning down more and more of the best new ideas? >> i'm afraid we are. this is what wakes me up in the middle of the night. >> reporter: the cuts will impact collins directly. he's still a research scientist on diabetes and on aging. i have to ask: might your personal experiment be cut? >> absolutely. >> reporter: absolutely? >> we are part of the n.i.h. so the sequester will hit this laboratory with a 5% cut. >> reporter: dr. collins calls cuts to medical research short-sighted and, scott here's an example. collins says the n.i.h. is close to finding a universal flu vaccine that could stop every flu strain and last for three years. that kind of vaccine could save the economy tens of billions of dollars but might be delayed as the n.i.h. saves $1.6 billion. >> pelley: wyatt, thank you very much. we'll be in washington tomorrow to talk to the house speaker john boehner about the budget battle and we'll have that for you on tomorrow's "cbs evening news." pope benedict has just three days left in office and today in one of his last acts before retiring he changed the church rules so that the election of his successor can begin sooner. whoever that successor is allen pizzey tells us he will be inheriting a church in turmoil. >> reporter: the pope seems increasingly at peace as he says his last good-byes. but he leaves behind the vatican beset by troubles for the next pope and those who will choose him. today, britain's most senior cleric scottish cardinal keith o'brien, officially resigned and then took the unprecedented step of opting out of the conclave after he was accused of inappropriate contact with three priests dating back 30 years. o'brien disputes the accusation bus said he didn't want to be the focus of media attention in rome. the news came as the pope accepted a report into what is likely to be his successor's greatest burden. an internal investigation into power struggles and corruptions within the vatican hierarchy. the pope ordered the investigation after his butler was found to have stolen papers off his desk. john thavis is author of "the vatican diaries: an inside look at the church." >> it all forms part of the burden i think, that was placed on pope benedict so i think it went into his decision to resign. >> reporter: and now goes into the decisions of choosing a successor. >>s has been lutely. i think the cardinals are going to want someone who is strong enough so that he won't be victimized by all the malfeasance that are going on around him inside the the vatican walls. >> reporter: benedict ordered that the report be kept secret and shown only to his successor. cardinal bishop robert morlino of madison wisconsin says the church needs an effective manager. >> we need someone with very strong gifts for spirituality and holiness and very strong gifts for governance and administration right now. i don't think there would be any disagreement among catholics about that at the moment. >> reporter: finding someone who fits all these criteria as well as being able to get the church's message out to an increasingly restive flock will require the kind of divine inspiration that cardinals say accompanies them into the conclave. sdmot. >> pelley: allen, thanks very much. there's been a recall at ikea but it's not president furniture. billions are at steak as b.p. goes on trial for oil disaster. and they love the power and the speed, but how can you keep racing fans safe when the "cbs evening news" continues? 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[ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth! >> pelley: in case you missed it jimmy johnson won the daytona 500 yesterday, danica patrick finished 8th. but what everyone is still talking about is the horrific crash during a preliminary race saturday. more than 30 spectators were hurt and we asked mark strassmann to look into it. >> reporter: saturday's nationwide series race at daytona was entering the final turn when a dozen stock cars collided at speeds approaching 200 miles per hour. >> the front end severely torn off! >> reporter: carroll kyle larson's car went air born. it hurdled into the 22 foot high safety fence yards from whitney turner. >> we're up on our feet and all of a sudden we hear "rick rick! " and the cars are going everywhere. >> reporter: the cell phone video showed what the pileup looked like to the fans. >> oh, my god! >> we started seeing stuff fly everywhere. debris tires flying up in your face not knowing if you're going to live or die. >> reporter: debris shattered turner's shin bone and sliced her achilles tendon. other fans suffered deep cuts and broken bones. nascar and track officials investigating the wreck want to improve the safety of so-called catch fences at u.s. speedways. >> dale: tone that's steel pole cable, and wire fence is the industry standard. >> at times it can be like a cheese grater. at some spaces it can shred the car apart and send debris into the stands. >> reporter: ryan hunter-raey is the current champion of the indy car series where speeds typically approach 230 miles per hour. he races monoof the same tracks as nascar. >> this incident gives us an opportunity as an open forum for indy car and nascar to get together and come up with solutions. >> reporter: a grandstand redesign was already planned for daytona. spectators could be moved back but being close to the action is part of the allure for fans like whitney turner. on crutches, she made it back for yesterday's race. mark strassmann, cbs news daytona beach, florida. >> pelley: the oil company b.p. went on trial today in federal court in new orleans for that disaster in the gulf back in 2010, the deepwater hoshz rig exploded killing 11 workers and unleashing the largest accidental oil spill in history. b.p. could face $17 billion in fines if it is found liable at this civil trial. last year, b.p. pleaded guilty to criminal charges and paid $4.5 billion in penalties. the academy award for worst editing of an oscar presenter goes to -- well stay tuned. 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[ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. >> pelley: there's a food scandal growing in europe. horse meat has been showing up in foods whose labels say they contain only beef or pork. today ikea famous for do-it-yourself furniture and meat balls pulled its meat balls from its european stores after horse meat was reportedly found. ikea stores in the u.s. are not affected. there was a time most folks didn't know who the surgeon general was let alone what he did. and then president reagan gave the job to c. everett koop the doctor with the distinctive beard turned the office into a bully pulpit becoming what he called america's health conscience alerting the public to the emerging aids crisis and railing against smoking. c. everett koop died today. he was 96. iran's culture minister today called the oscar-winning film "argo" about the iranian hostage crisis "distorted history." he said this on the same day that iran's fars news agency gave a lesson in how to distort history. have a look. this is michelle obama presenting "argo" with the best picture oscar last night and this is how she looked today in the iranian press after some photo shop alterations to cover her chest and shoulders in the conservative islamic country. another film that was up for best picture has angered some families of 9/11 victims. their story is next. the battle of bataan 1942. 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[ male announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. one a day men's 50+ is a complete multivitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age. it has 7 antioxidants to support cell health. one a day men's 50+. hey america, even though she doesn't need them, lisa rinna is wearing the depend silhouette briefs for charity to prove how great the fit is even under a fantastic dress. the best protection now looks, fits and feels just like underwear. we invite you to get a free sample and try one on too. >> pelley: among the haunting memories of 9/11 are the last phone calls of the victims. those recordings are in the public domain and in one of the movies that was up for best picture. seth doane reports that's created a controversy. >> reporter: the film "zero dark thirty" starts with actual voices of victims in 9/11 recorded as they made their last phone calls. >> there's no one here yet and the floor's completely engulfed. >> it should never have happened. >> reporter: for mary and frank fete chet it brings back painful memories. one of those voices was their son brad who worked on the 89th floor of the world trade center's south tower. >> when i arrived home i found brad's message on my phone. of course, these were his last words in my view because i never heard from him again. >> reporter: as parents how significant is this message that brad left? >> the ongoing anguish we've gone through it's a treasure to that he remembered us. it's a treasured message. it's ours. >> reporter: they say that treasured remembrance was used in the film without their permission. >> my first thought was "isn't anything sacred anymore?" >> reporter: you used this recording in testimony for the 9/11 commission. it's appeared in broadcast t.v. news reports. what's different about having it played as part of this film? >> well i've used in the situations where i wanted to convey brad's story. none of those situations were used for commercial endeavors. >> reporter: the film has grossed more than $90 million worldwide. in a statement, the film distributor sony and the studio annapurna pictures say "zero dark thirty" is a tribute to the victims of 9/11 and before the film's release they initiated contact with a number of family members of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. >> but to say we've reached out to families yeah reached out to say come toll the preview after the film's already completed. >> reporter: so you were never given any notification? >> reporter: harry ong's sister betty was a flight attendant who was killed on american airlines flight 111. >> we're asking that they apologize and recognize basically that they used betty's voice and brad's and others at liberty. >> reporter: after the film was released, thing ons and the fetchet asked sony and annapurna for donations to their 9/11 charities in exchange for the use of their loved ones' voices. but the filmmakers had already decided to donate to the national 9/11 memorial museum. >> the real driver of this is getting this record set straight. i think this should put a line in the sand that says "it's not right." >> reporter: the fetchets hope that by speaking out victims of other tragedys will not suffer similar surprises. seth doane, cbs news new canaan connecticut. >> pelley: and that's the "cbs evening news" for tonight. for all of us at cbs news all around the world good night. captioning sponsored by cbs you watched the oscars. >> now only "e.t." is with all the stars inside the vanity fair party. i'm nancy o'dell. >> i'm rob marciano. >> "entertainment tonight's" vanity fair oscar party exclusive. the private photos. the candid video. >> only "e.t." has the hottest ticket in town. come on. >> jennifer lawrence after her on-air wipeout. who rushed to help her up? >> i want to die. >> her second dress. an

Transcripts For MSNBC MSNBC Live 20130226

secretary of the navy in new york news. mr. secretary, it's great to have you with me. let's start off, first off, by explaining there's been criticism by the right about the president's pr campaign to go around and talk about what these cuts really mean, the demonstration of it all. and listen to how john boehner has listened to the president on the road. >> the president has been traveling all over the country and today, going down to newport news in order to use our military men and women as a problem in yet another campaign rally to support his tax hikes. >> mr. secretary, how do you respond to that? do you think the president is using our nation's military as a prop? >> well, the military leadership of this nation, both in uniform and civilian, is going to capitol hill for the last year and explaining how bad sequestration would be, what a bad idea this would be, how it would impact military readiness and how it would impact the ability of the navy, marine corps, and the other parts of the military to defend this country. and i think it's important for the president and for everybody to talk about what this means to talk about how damaging this will be to the men and women of our military, to the people who support them, to the people who work at places like newport news ship building and all around the norfolk area of virginia and in this country. this is a bad idea. this was a bad idea at the beginning. it was never supposed to happen. and now that we're at the 11th hour, it hasn't gotten any better and i think it's incredibly important that we explain exactly what will happen. we didn't deploy the truman and our strike group to the middle east because of this sequestration. we have two aircraft carriers, one being built now and one about to be built that could be stopped or certainly delayed in sequestration hits and sticks. those are real impacts to america's military readiness. >> sir, i want to point out what will happen. as we point out the area around hampton road. the army base operation funding could be cut by $146 million. the air force funding for air force operations cut by $8 million. the navy canceling the maintenance of 11 ships in norfolk and 90,000 civilian employees furloughed and you point out that the truman not deploying for the middle east. where do you think the right and left can meet in the middle? do you agree that there are areas in the defense budget that need to be re-examined and better allocated? >> absolutely. we need to make smart cuts in defense. we need to make cuts that won't affect our national security. the president has presented a balanced plan that matches up with strategy and a very comprehensive plan to avoid sequestration, to make the adjustment and cuts to the defense that are needed for the future but make them in a smart way, not in this meat-ax approach and mindless way that both sequestration and the continuing resolution which we will lurch to another artificial budget crisis until something is done. we just cannot run a military lurching from one budget crisis to another. we've got to have some certainty and i think the president has submitted a very comprehensive plan that will require compromise but that's what the job of this government ought to be about. that's what congress needs to take up and make sure that this does not have the impact that it is going to have, both on the workers, the federal workers at our federal shipyard here that will lose up to 20% of their salary and not on the workers at private shipyards like newport news and other shipyards in this area. those are huge numbers in terms of workers that will be affected, in terms of the ripple effect that goes out from that. and in terms of what it does to the navy and to the marine corps. the job of the navy, the job of the marine corps, the job of the rest of our military is to protect this country. and sequestration and the continuing resolution and the uncertainty and threats that those pose make those jobs much harder to do. >> secretary ray mabus of the u.s. navy. thanks for your time. the president's live remarks coming up at 1:05. keep it locked in. another big story unfolding in washington, 75 prominent republicans signing a bref in support of marriage equality. this major development happening with the supreme court about to take up both the defense of marriage act and california's proposition 8. i want to bring in nia-malika henderson, a reporter for "the washington post," ron geg nan reagan and michelle bernard. it's a big morning as we talk about this huge development from the right from marriage equality. let's talk about who is on this. we have jon huntsman, meg whitman, representative richard hanna, steven hadley, carlos gutierrez. nia-malika, what is your opinion about how this is moving? >> if you look at those polls, particularly among younger people, there is a sense that government should be kept out of people's personal lives. that in fact is the primary argument that the tea party makes about the role of government. here you have 70 prominent republicans, most of whom are moderate, making very conservative arguments for gay marriage saying that to protect really the institution of marriage, that gays should be allowed to get married in the way that men and women are allowed to get married to each other. this is a real shift and also we've seen a huge cultural shift as well. let's face it, we saw mitt romney, a candidate courting the religious right but also saying that his favorite show was "modern family "." so i think that republicans have to figure out which way they are going to go with this issue. >> two very powerful names that have been spearheading this opposition, i got an e-mail from ken. he said the men and women who sign this brief are a microcausm as people come to realize that marriage is consistent with freedom and fairness and protects religious liberties. ken mehlman is the former rnc chair. what's your reaction to these big names on the right, some that have never, ever voiced support before? >> if you look at the names on this list, what you see are sensible, centrist republicans. they realize that their party is in big trouble. it was mentioned a moment ago that generationally -- and when you're talking about young people now, young people don't even understand why this conversation is taking place. some of them are surprised that gay people can't get married already across the country. they are astonished when they sort of realize that. they get to college age or whatever. so these are people trying to reposition the republican party in a more sensible, centrist way that tracks with the way the rest of the country is feeling. we've come a long way in the last ten years. marriage equality is accepted as an idea by the vast majority of americans and the republicans who won't go along with that are dooming themselves and by connection, their party. >> we talk about sensible republicans and one thing that has been discussed is the sensibilities of chris christie and the fact that he has not been invited to cpac coming up. there's a headline by politico, chris christie not invited to cpac. the group on the right that supports marriage equality also not invited to cpac. here are the speakers. mitt romney, sarah palin, fred cruz, michelle santorum. what is your reaction, a guy that comes from a blue state that has numbers through the roof would not be invited to cpac which is considered the beauty pageant of republicans. >> they did chris christie a huge favor by not inviting him and having him decline the invitation. if you look at the people speaking, you have to wonder to yourself, does the republican party or the quote/unquote sort of establishment conservatives within the republican party really want to win elections in the future? chris christie, and people like chris christie, are the future of the republican party and i think it speaks volumes that they were not invited to speak at cpac. we've got commonsense, sensible moderate republicans on the roof and then people who want to take us back to the dark ages and they are going to be the reason why the republican party continues to lose elections at the national level. >> insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. joe scarborough broke that down this morning. take a listen. >> this underlies the big problem about the conservative movement over the past few years. it's not about winning. it's just not about winning. it is not about winning. it is about sitting inside of an echo chamber of resentment. >> ron, let me ask you. is the right going to start winning when they actually put out a candidate who understands that to be able to win they also have to afford to be able to lose? it seems that most of these people that have been invited to cpac are trying to hock a book. they understand that if there is somebody on the left, they could lose but they have to be willing to stand out front and lead. >> well, that's right. i mean, the republican party has to ask itself, do they want to tie itself to this sort of tea party far right religious right ideology and you will end up with two republican parties. it will split in two. you'll have the extremists on one side and the other. the deep weeds forever at that point, the democrats will always win elections. so what do the republicans want to do now about this? do they want to hang on to this outdated medieval ideology or do they want to join the 21st century like the rest of most americans want to do? it's up to them. >> thank you to my power panel. really appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, congressional republicans appear willing to let the budget cuts take effect even if the military takes a huge hit. and our question of the day, can moderate republicans change their party's view on marriage equality? tweet me or find us on facebook. 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[ zapping ] [ clang ] this is the next level of performance. the next level of innovation. the next rx. the f sport. this is the pursuit of perfection. the f sport. i've always had to keep my eye on her... but, i didn't always watch out for myself. with so much noise about health care... i tuned it all out. with unitedhealthcare, i get information that matters... my individual health profile. not random statistics. they even reward me for addressing my health risks. so i'm doing fine... but she's still going to give me a heart attack. coming up, congressional looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. in the ongoing showdown of the sequester -- excuse me. we're going to go to this shot here. this is air force one as the president is getting ready to head to newport news, virginia. getting the fiscal house in order is much more important than the defense. $43 billion would be gutted from the pentagon this year. this morning on "jansing & co.," decorated msnbc military analyst jack jacobs said that the cuts will hurt military readyingness. >> in addition to fact -- and there's plenty of fact -- you're also going to cut ammunition, fuel, repair parts for aircraft, flying hours, training time. >> and just moments ago, i had the opportunity to speak with navy secretary ray mabus who said this way of cutting is hurting our military. >> we just cannot run a military lurching from one crisis to another. we've got to have some certainty and i think the president has presented a very balanced plan that will require some compromise. >> joining me is lynn jenkins of kansas. congresswoman, it's great to have you with me. i understand you took part in the conference that was held at the top of the hour and at the same time democrats held their own briefing. congressman chris van hollen made quite an anolg about the cuts. take a listen. >> rearranging the cuts is like rearranging the jobs either way. >> what is the illustration and what that means? >> well, i don't think we are quarrelling with the amount -- dollar amount of the cuts. what we're quarrelling about is where they hit. we are concerned about their military readiness and national security and that is why house republicans twice last year passed a legislation so we couldn't come to this day. >> when we look at what your colleagues are saying, such as republican congressman ready to stand your ground regardless of the defense cuts, they misunderstood what happened on the fiscal cliff. they thought they had republicans on the run when all they did was push us to the high ground. you want to charge the hill. come on. that was congressman cole. he's sticking by the fact that he thinks that the sequester is inevitable. do you believe that this is inevitable? >> this is not our first choice. i want to make that clear. the sequester was the president's idea. the house passed legislation to replace it twice last year. this is a senate-manufactured crisis, if you will, because they chose twice to ignore the issue last year and here we are just days away from the sequester hitting. the president himself even threatened to veto any legislation that would replace the sequester. so at this point it is truly up to the senate and the president to pass something if they want to change it at this point. there is nothing more republicans can do. we can't act unilaterally. so the ball is in their court. >> you announced that the department of homeland security awarded a $40 million contract to build a biodefense facility and you said in that, it's an important step when our nation is looking for significant budget savings. this contract is further evidence we can still find funds for miion critical projects. as we look at where we are as the country, to be war ready and to have military preparedness in check, how do we factor that in with the fact that we are still a nation at war? aren't there places where we need to evaluate where there is an area to cut back that's just not over entitlement, that the left would rather see left in tact? >> well, again, i believe the first function of the federal government should be to protect us and that's why we are concerned about the funding. i represent ft. leavenworth. training there is part of our military readiness. i believe those should be protected. we are going to take in more money than the federal government has ever taken in in the history of our nation. we are going to take that out of the american people's pockets and our spending this year, even if the sequester kicks in, is going to exceed what it was last year. chairman -- vice chairman van hollen's comment about rearranging the debt share, i think people need to keep this in perspective. all we need is flexibility to prioritize the spending so that we don't risk military readiness but we have plenty of ways, ridiculous washington spending that can be cut. we just have to root it out. >> congressman lynn jenkins, thank you for joining me. >> sure. could a vote finally happen for chuck hagel today? senator barrasso says he's not the right man for this job. plus, look at this. getting slammed by a blizzard in the midwest. we'll explain it all. first, today's producer pic selected by our executive producer, gay rights, a lesbian mom but not biological mom is presented the same rights as a biological mother. you can check out the whole story on my facebook page. 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[ engine revs ] what?! quattro!!!!! ♪ quattro!!!!! exciting and would always come max and pto my rescue. bookstore but as time passed, i started to notice max just wasn't himself. and i knew he'd feel better if he lost a little weight. so i switched to purina cat chow healthy weight formula. i just fed the recommended amount... and they both loved the taste. after a few months max's "special powers" returned... and i got my hero back. purina cat chow healthy weight. developing now after seven weeks, the senate is debating chuck hagel's nomination as defense secretary. the senate is expected to vote to end the debate around this at noon with a vote on hagel's nomination shortly thereafter. here is harry reid. >> there's a fair and constructive nomination process politically mow vated sent a terrible signal to our allies around the world. >> joining me right now is john bar ross sew. i want to remind everybody that you sent a letter to the president last week asking him to drop hagel's name from consideration and on that same day we had richard shelby saying that he will support hagel and he's probably as good as we are going to get. why are you still against chuck hagel moving forward and being confirmed? >> well, thank you, thomas, for having me. i think he's the wrong person to lead the department of defense. it's the largest employer in our country, a significant management skills are needed. i also believe that he has been wrong. he has a long history that is to me unsettling in terms of positions on iran, iraq, israel, and nuclear weapons. and i think thomas, anybody that watched the confirmation hearings know that he appeared very wobbly. i don't think we have that with chuck hagel. >> is this more about getting a former republican in charge of defense means this is all about sequestration and the fact that major budgetary cuts are coming to our defense and would provide a great way to get those cuts done because a republican will be overseeing them? >> there are some that have suggested that. if you have somebody, a secretary of defense whose roll it is to advise the president in term of national security. i think he's the wrong person to be there. now, leon panetta who is going out and i did support his nomination, chuck hagel has said that the defense department is bloated and there's plenty of area to cut. >> sir, "the new york times" editorial piece has an article out today drawing up contradictions to what your concerns are. it's one thing to raise serious questions about a candidate's character or political views. it's quite another to with mr. hagel and our first team, they write today, quote, the extra weak after filibustering senator hagel only a bogus group of friends of hamas never existed. do you feel that there are now serious exposures of why the right was wary of chuck hagel? he's making his way through but he's going to be a bloodied defense secretary. when the administration folks had to send him notes as he was testifying to tell him what the position is, i think it's very damning and i talked to democrats very concerned about his nomination as well but is going to vote for him because he's the president's nominee. he's been wrong on iran, i believe, when he imposed sanctions. he was only one of two senators to do that. we now have korea, north korea in developing a missile. their goal is top send nuclear weapons into the united states to hit us on our own homeland and yet he talks about unilaterally disarming ourself as a nation in term of our nuclear arms. i believe he is the wrong choice and those are just some of the reasons but i think he is not qualified to be secretary of defense. >> again, presuming that he passes the c cloak at noon. thank you. i appreciate your time. >> thank you, thomas. more on the major news that we're following with marriage equality. aiming to shoot down california's proposition 8, heavy hitters, really heavy hitters lead the way here. top advisers, including national security adviser, steven hadley and carlos gutierrez. these names could sway the high court as it takes up two cases on marriage equality in march. joining me now is a representative from political action group and msnbc political analyst steve schmidt, former senior strategist for arizona senator john mccain. good to have you here. steve, i want to start with you. because your john hancock is on this brief. you're quotes as saying that the dye is cast. >> i support marriage equality for gay americans because of my conservatism, not in spite of it. when i look at my own marriage, the profound joy that it has brought me, republicans to try to disinfrance chis people from that, which has been affirmed by marriage that is just a fundamental right, that you see a group of republicans, i think, embracing historic foundations in our party of freedom, of equality and i think you will see more and more people coming out and being in support of equality. and when you look at the younger generation, that marriage believes in marriage equality. the dye is cast and gay americans will receive full and equal treatment under the law and hopefully the supreme court will assure that that happens. >> bloomberg is reports that president obama may be getting ready to show nationwide support for marriage equality as the high court gets ready to meet. however, on the flip side, we've got the national report saying that's there's discomfort for the party on that issue. what's your response to that? not just someone who represents members of the gop but is also trying to challenge the party's leadership to move in a more tolerant direction? >> he will with, i think that many in the establishment in washington are out of touch. they are out of touch on this issue and a lot of issues, frankly. but they don't even know what their own base thinks. and this brief today is another example of how conservatives are thinking about the issue of same-sex marriage differently. you know, all politics is personal and everybody thinks about how issues affect their friends and family and everybody has a gay person in their family now and they want the best for their friends and family and they want them to settle down and get marriage. i think more and more conservatives are thinking about this and it's up to the leaders in washington, the establishment, to really get in touch with what's happening among young conservatives and grassroots conservative. >> you talk about the establishment in washington. we have these top moderate republicans supporting this, steve schmidt being one of them. and on the other side we look at the gop base and cpac announcing the lineup. as we look at them, none of the speakers have signed off on that brief. go proud is not invited, right now that i understand it, to cpac. this is the second year in a row the national journal says that this is a mistake. do you think that you're being shut out on purpose and in light of, as steve points out, in spite of the fact that there are conservative republicans that recognize this as a conservative value. but for some reason there's such deep homophobia that cyexists within the gop. >> i certainly disagree with that with cpac. we're focused on working to build a conservative coalition for 2013. that's a winning coalition. and that coalition has to recognize that people are thinking about this differently. i'm a hardcore right winger. people that think like me are in favor of same sex marriage and the establishment is out of touch. they are out of touch with the american people and they are out of touch, frankly, with their own base. the base is moving on this. and they need to recognize that. >> steve, while i have you here, want to get your take on the gop big one chris christy who is not invited to cpac. the governor of new jersey who is a blue state with approval ratings through the roof, he's not going to be one of the speakers. as you point out, too, younger voters, they want to get to know who the future leaders of the right are, what they stand for, what they support. so why does the cpac organization want to risk alienating burgeoning stars like a chris christie, not invite him? >> look, this cpac convention is increasingly the star wars bar scene. all that is missing is a couple of rookies. chris christie is the most effective conservative governor in the country. he's done a fantastic job. he's somebody that could potentially change the electoral map. when you look at the dysfunction going on in government with the sequester, it makes a very compelling case for a chris christie candidacy because he's an adult. he's getting the job done. he understands what his role is. but i want to just set the record straight on something. cpac is not the republican party. there are egxecutionary policie that gays cannot come and participate. these are people that are -- people that don't attract a wider audience that we need to attract to win elections. they are talking to a small-closed group that will get a lot of attention but that group has also no bearing on who our next nominee is. >> doesn't that hold weight? >> well, there is certainly that candidates go there and feel that they have a cash cow for some reason and what i'm telling you is that in the real world, where people are voting in primary elections, that group doesn't hold sway. what goes on there and the cowing that goes on is absolutely debilitating. so mitt romney's going there and doing that, i think it was a big mistake in his campaign. but the point is, the republican party -- and if you look at the pew survey out, 30% of republicans are dissatisfied with the direction of the party. a good number of those are people that want the republicans out of the party window. they want the party to stand for the timeless principles of freedom and equality. >> i want to thank both gentlemen for joining me. big groundbreaking movement on marriage equality from the right. thank you for your time. trayvon martin was shot and killed on his way back from a local star one year ago today. trayvon's parents are going to join me next. chances are, you're not made of money, so don't overpay for motorcycle insurance. geico, see how much you could save. ♪ the middle of this special moment and i need to run off to the bathroom. ♪ i'm fed up with always having to put my bladder's needs ahead of my daughter. ♪ so today, i'm finally talking to my doctor about overactive bladder symptoms. 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[ male announcer ] with no blackout dates, you can use your citi thankyou points to travel whenever you want. visit citi.com/thankyoucards to apply. the country is preparing to honor trayvon martin who was killed one year ago today. an unarmed black teen was encountered by george zimmerman, an hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer in florida. what happened next is a matter of contention ever since. did zimmerman do it in self-defense or act as the result of racial prejudice? george zimmerman, whose defense fund is still raising cash, awaits for his trial that beginses on june 10th. trayvon's parents will begin for a vigil. joining me now are sabryna fulton and i know this is a tough day for tracy and sabryna. the attention in the case has certainly died down, since the height of it, as we witnessed that we all went through last year. you recently had had an opportunity to reflect on your son's death with jonathan capehart. you said that people in general trying to justify why this adult male went after this teenage, young man. you can't justify it. as you look back, what is justice to you at this point? >> initially our focus was to get an arrest and that's why they had so many rallies. i think if they initially arrested him for the murder of trayvon martin, we would not have had so many rallies and so much support from people because they were upset because he was not arrested. >> i think the language of murder is what's being debated and will be debated through the trial and whether or not this was something with the stand your ground law certainly going to be discussed. tracy, you have witnessed how people in many pockets of the country galvanized over this issue about your son's death. i want to play what president obama had to say after the passing of trayvon. take a listen. >> my main message is to the parents of trayvon martin. you know, if i had a son, he would look like trayvon and i think they are right to expect that all of us as americans are going to take this with the seriousness that it deserves and we're going to get to the bottom of exactly what happen gld. >> tracy, are you concerned that the attention has died down and moved on to other situations, like the newtown massacre? >> well, as parents of a slain child, we never move on and we'll do our best to keep it in the media and to keep people's attention on it because certainly, even though trayvon is gone, he would definitely not be forgotten. and just to -- every day news breaks and we don't expect trayvon to be the top story every day in the media. but he's definitely the top story in our life. and we took a vow to make sure that his honor and his legacy won't be painted tainted by thi situation. >> the trial begins on june 10th. mr. crump, when we look at how it's played out in the media so far, i want to get your take on the stand your grand law. sybrina is pushing for limits for the pursuit or followed. a florida task force has reaffirmed the stand your ground law last week. does that signal to you where the zimmerman defense will go, how it will hold up in court? >> well, you know, the stand your ground law, nobody talked about it until trayvon was killed and we have to think about how trayvon has changed the situation. everybody in america knows about this controversial law and an act that stand your ground law, we look at that as a plus. if this case does not go to a d jury where tracy and sabrina can have their right to trial by jury, their day in court, people will be terribly disappointed all across the country because that's all they want is their day in court, and we believe the evidence, once it's presented to the jury, their killer of their son will be convicted. >> as sabrina mentioned, the original motive for a lot of this attention and seeking justice was just to gain an arrest so that more information could be discovered and the case properly vetted. as we go through this, i just want to point out that we should mention george zimmerman has sued nbc universal for defamiliaration, and the company strongly denies those allegations. allegations, some would argue, that the publicity around this case has hurt both sides. there were negative stories that came out about trayvon, damaging revelations about george zimmerman. mr. parks, i want to get your take on the pictures that show george zimmerman. we showed them earlier in the segment. the bloody head on the night of the shooting and how they're going to be used in the trial itself. is this indicative evidence of the fact that mr. sfwlimerman is telling the truth? >> well, i think have you to remember on this night trayvon was unarmed, and that's the part i think that all americans must always remember. trayvon was an unarmed teenager. george zimmerman was a man with a gun. in no situation does trayvon have any obligation. it's very clear here he had the right to fight for his life, and that's important. >> when we talk about the prosecution of florida within your hometown county it's going to be exercising the case itself. they're going to be going up against george zimmerman's defense attorney, and i mentioned since the death of trayvon, we've had the newtown massacre, and a lot of other gun violence in the country, but mainly we've been talking a lot about urban violence and we've had two young girls with bright futures that were recently gunned down in chicago. we had an article just this week in the washington post that talked about how a community in maryland has been rocked by the deaths of six young teens that were killed in separate incidents. sabrina and tracy, i want to ask you, do you think that urban gun violence is getting the attention that it needs? >> i think it's not just urban gun violence. i think it's violence in general. senseless gun violence in general. the newtown massacre all the violence that's going on in chicago the people that they are giving gun licenses to and gun permits and letting them go by weapons. newtown massacre, case in point, why would you need a semiautomatic weapon to be hunting? that's -- you know, that's senseless. >> sabrina, i want to ask you lastly how your family is holding up, and are you ready for the emotional task of what going to trial june 10th means? >> my family is holding up fairly well. we're leaning on each other. we're leaning on the rest of the family and also friends. i don't know if we are ready emotionally. i think we just are going to take one day at a time and just, you know, thank god for each day. >> i want to thank all of you for being here. sabrina fulton, tracy martin. we've got benjamin crump and darrell parks. my thanks to all four of you. back with much more after this. i've got something for you too. 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