Hurricane Wilma Pounds Mexico; President Bush Losing Control?; Flattery Key to Landing Job Promotion?
Aired October 21, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Interesting program tonight. Good evening again, everyone. Hurricane Wilma has slammed into Mexico. Is Florida up next?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANNOUNCER: Wicked Wilma makes landfall, pounding the Mexico resort island of Cozumel. Will it now make its move to Florida? The Sunshine State braces for impact. His party's top lawmaker arrested, his Supreme Court nominee treading in dangerous waters, and two top aides in potential legal jeopardy -- why some say the so-called CEO president is losing control. And brownnosing, bootlicking, toadying, anything to get ahead, but does it really work? Tonight, why sometimes it is not your resume that counts. It's how well you have mastered the fine art of flattery.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEWSNIGHT. Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York is Aaron Brown and, from Naples, Florida, Anderson Cooper. BROWN: Well, we have much to get to tonight. Wilma has arrived in Cancun, 140-mile-an-hour winds. Those winds, that storm, may soon reach Florida -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: yes, 140-mile-and-hour winds, Aaron, an extraordinarily strong storm at this point, Category 4. Good evening, everyone. I am in Naples Florida, a city that may be the next target for Wilma. But the people here are hoping it simply passes them by. Mandatory evacuations are already under way here in parts of Naples, also along the -- the Florida coastline. Right now, the Category 4 hurricane is literally parked over Cancun. It's moving about five miles per hour over Mexico. We are going to bring you the latest in just a second. But, first, here's a look at what's happening with the storm at this moment. A deadly virus has spread. The bird flu has reached Britain. Officials there say the strain was found in a quarantined parrot. The bird was from South America, which is yet to have a reported case of the disease. So, that is certainly troubling. The flu has also been detected in other European countries. To date, it has killed more than 60 people.The mother charged with drowning her three children in San Francisco Bay pleaded not guilty to murder today. She's being held without bail. Authorities say she hurled her three young boys into the water, now all of them believed to have died. If convicted, she could face the death penalty. In Northern California, CNN has confirmed that this teenager, 16- year-old Scott Dyleski, has been charged with the murder of Pamela Vitale. Now, she, of course, was the wife of prominent defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. Bail for the teen suspect has been set at $1 million. And more time will be needed for the Iraqi army to operate on its own, a lot more time, that according to the U.S. commander -- the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad. Today, he said, it may take as long as two more years before the Iraqi force can provide security and protection for their own country. We turn now to Hurricane Wilma. For the last few hours, the eye of the storm has been fixed over Cancun, Mexico, bringing a massive storm surge, torrential rains and catastrophic winds, 140 miles an hour, to the resort area. CNN's Susan Candiotti is there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A relentless pounding from Wilma, as it pummeled the coastline of evacuated seaside hotels, about 20,000 tourists put out of harm's way, residents holed up at schools and motel ballrooms in the center of town. Not since Emily hit in July have conditions been so bad. CNN clocked winds of nearly 130 miles per hour. At one hotel about 40 straw tiki huts on the beach were swallowed into the surf, looking like toothpicks in the waves. (on camera): There is debris in the roadway. Look at this pole over here on the left, this traffic light just bent over and is sitting on the highway, with the wind and the rain whipping around it. (voice-over): The force of winds strong enough to blow out one of these windows on a hotel balcony. (on camera): The post from this fence ripped out of the ground. And this thing is just ripping back and forth and back and forth, relentless pounding from wind gusts doing a number on what used to be a nightclub. You can see that the covering has sheered off. All that's left is the frame. Listen to that canopy at Pat O'Brien's (ph). It almost sounds like gunfire. (voice-over): Back at a hotel, chandeliers swayed precariously from the ceilings. A glass-walled foyer burst under the pressure. Pieces of sky roof wobbled, cracked and eventually crashed to the floor, one right after the other. And the word is, the conditions could last another day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, it is no one better to track to storm than CNN severe weather expert Chad Myers. He joins us now from Atlanta. Chad, I -- I just cannot get over that this is 140 mile-per- hour...
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.
COOPER: ... sustained winds.
MYERS: Yes.
COOPER: We're not talking about gusts.
MYERS: Right. And the -- some of the gusts, even at the airport -- they do it kilometers per hour, but almost at 160 kilometers per hour. And that's inland. That's not even on the shore, where the hotel zone is. They're going to wake up tomorrow and maybe this thing isn't even going to be gone enough to take pictures.But the pictures that you see out of the hotel zone and also downtown Cancun are going to be devastating, along with Cozumel right there, still getting lashed with the southern eyewall, with west winds at about 115 to 120 miles per hour, and then the northern eyewall here. We do have the Cancun radar back. Some time -- somehow, these guys got this back up and working again. It was down for a while. Here's downtown Cancun, the little seven part, the hotel zone there, very strong squalls here, and the northern eyewall. There are two eyewalls, one and then two. But, from the Royal Hideaway down to Xcaret, the entire area, the Moon Palace, just getting pounded this evening. And the storm just refuses to move. In fact, it may be less than 20 miles from right where it is now by the time we wake up tomorrow morning. The storm has essentially stalled right over the Yucatan -- Anderson.
COOPER: Well, Chad, if the storm stalls over the Yucatan, what does that mean for us, in terms of the arrival time, the strength of it, if and when it does get here? MYERS: The longer it's over land, the weaker it gets. The more it's over water, the stronger it gets. So, it is kind of 50/50 right now, kind of half on, half off. There are your latest wind gusts, at 140 miles per hour, gusting to sometimes to 160 to 165, although I think a lot of winds, those gusts may be above the surface, 105 as it gets back into the water for Sunday, and, then, for Monday afternoon, making landfall somewhere in Florida, we still think, at about 90 miles per hour, all the way across the -- all the way across the entire peninsula as a hurricane, so, a backside hurricane for West Palm, Fort Lauderdale, Miami-Dade.Actually, winds will be coming in from the west. Most of the time, you prepare for storms and winds coming in from the east, as storms typically don't come that way across Florida -- Anderson.
COOPER: We will be getting more storm updates throughout the...
MYERS: Oh, sure.
COOPER: ... over the course of the next two hours.
MYERS: Yes.
COOPER: Of course, Chad will bring them to you as soon as we get them. Chad, thanks very much. Aaron, you know, you see those images out of Cancun. I -- I -- I mean, I have said it now multiple times, but, again, 145 -- 140 mile- per-hour winds is just staggering, that that is just hour after hour after hour. And to think, they are going to wake up tomorrow and maybe the winds are the same speed as they are right now. It's extraordinary.
BROWN: And when -- when those winds pass, I mean, Cancun counts on a winter tourist season that starts Thanksgiving week for American tourists and goes on through the winter. They don't have that much time to repair every hotel, to repair everything that's -- all the nightclubs, everything else that's going to be taken down.
COOPER: Yes. It is going to be a total mess. It's -- let's hope, you know -- let's hope it at least moves offshore quickly and just dissipates somewhere over the water south of Florida. But we will see.
BROWN: It's the weekend story, Anderson. Thank you. Perhaps it's a cliche or perhaps it is simply what it is. Natural disaster and political misfortune invite the same language. Storm clouds gather. Controversies swirl. Winds gather force. People hunker down. At the White House, they do seem to be hunkering down these days. This much is clear. And so is this. You can't get much done when you're hunkering down. Here's our senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Somewhere between reelection...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Harriet, thank you for agreeing to serve.
CROWLEY: ... and Harriet Miers...
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I think it's been a -- a chaotic process.
CROWLEY: Even Republicans think the A-team has morphed into the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
SCOTT REED, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: The last six or nine months have been as difficult as anything the party has gone through in over 30 years.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will never get to see him again.
CROWLEY: A cold shoulder to a grieving mom, a Social Security plan that faltered off the launchpad, Katrina, and the specter of indictments out of the CIA leak investigation. The very disciplined, aggressive team of Bush loyalists, lauded for their ability to control the message, seems to have lost control.
BUSH: There's some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining. But the American people expect me to do my job. And I'm going to.
CROWLEY: Analyzing the president's year of living badly, Democrats and Republicans see a combination of bad luck, bad policy and bad relationships. Democrats seethe over the partisan style and, worse..
JACKIE CALMES, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": The word I hear over and over again on the Hill from Republicans is hubris.
CROWLEY: Republicans and Democrats in and out of government complain, the president is both perpetrator and victim of an insular White House.
CALMES: Their complaint is not enough information is getting through to him and that he is making his decisions -- let's say Harriet Miers -- based on his own gut instincts.
CROWLEY: Having governed from the right, the president has always found comfort there. It is all but gone.
REED: Economic conservatives started to get a little wobbly this summer on spending. The Harriet Miers nomination caught some social conservatives off base, some of the more self-appointed leaders of the social conservative movement. And they riled up. It seems like it was a tipping point.
CROWLEY: Navigating the roughest terrain of his presidency, George Bush finds himself with no soft place to land. The go-it-alone Texan may need help. Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, where to draw the fine line between good etiquette and just kissing up to the boss? And under which category do you place, "Dear GWB, you are the best governor ever"?Also tonight, found at sea -- a 20-year-old rescued after five days adrift in a sailboat, but he can't exactly say it's a happy ending. We will explain why. From Florida and New York City, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Congressman Tom DeLay made his first court appearance as a defendant today. He went before a judge in Austin, Texas, on charges of conspiracy and money-laundering. That's what the case is about, the law and whether the former majority leader broke the law. It is not, however, all that the case is about. Reporting from Austin, Texas, tonight, congressional correspondent Joe Johns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tom DeLay is known for never backing down from a fight. And, true to form, immediately after his first court appearance, he went right outside and attacked prosecutor Ronnie Earle.
REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: Because Ronnie Earle and the Democrat Party could not beat me at the ballot box and could not beat me on the floor of the House of Representatives, they are now desperately trying to challenge me in a courtroom. JOHNS: Delay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, was also on the attack -- his target, the judge, his goal, to get him removed from the case. DeGuerin said the judge, Bob Perkins, has a conflict of interest. Why? Because he gave money to a liberal political group, MoveOn.org. And that group was selling anti-DeLay T-shirts. But tell that to the judge.
JUDGE BOB PERKINS, TRAVIS COUNTY CRIMINAL DISTRICT COURT: Let me just say, I have never seen that T-shirt, number one. Number two, I haven't bought it. Number three, the last time that I...
(LAUGHTER)
PERKINS: Number three, the last time I contributed to MoveOn that I know of was prior to the November election last year, when they were primarily helping Senator Kerry.
JOHNS: But, in a statement, MoveOn said it's all a Texas tempest in the teapot, that it never sold such T-shirts, that DeLay's attorney has either bad information or lied in court. Reached by CNN, DeLay's lawyer conceded he'd made a mistake. Politics as usual, right? But lost in this is the indictment against DeLay, political money- laundering. (on camera): Essentially, the prosecutor's case is that Tom DeLay and his allies found ways to circumvent Texas law to help select candidates get elected to the statehouse. Why would a national congressman do that? Well, if Republicans controlled Texas, they could redraw the congressional boundaries in favor of Republicans. And, in fact, Republicans did send five new members of Congress to Washington, who, in theory, at least, would have owed a big favor to Tom DeLay. It is all about power.
DELAY: I committed no wrongdoing whatsoever.
JOHNS (voice-over): Again, that's now for the judge and jury to decide. And that's why Ronnie Earle, who's been mostly engaged in prosecuting DeLay, suddenly found himself defending the judge.
RONNIE EARLE, TRAVIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: This judge has a record of fairness to all who come before his bench. And, again, membership in a political party does not determine the quality of justice in this country.
JOHNS: Democratic attorney Chris Feldman (ph), who argued a related civil suit just this year, says the facts are on Earle's side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a very legitimate investigation. And anyone that's going to make fun of it or dismiss it as political is just ignoring the law and the facts. JOHNS: The jousting in this case has so far been mostly about legal procedure and scoring political points. It could be some time next year before they get down to arguing the merits of the case. Joe Johns, CNN, Austin, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A quick look now at some of the other stories that made news today. Christi Paul joins us from Atlanta.Good evening, Ms. Paul.
CHRISTI PAUL, HEADLINE NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Aaron. We start off in Baghdad, where the lawyers for Saddam Hussein are demanding protection. The fearful defense team wants the trial moved out of Iraq. The pleas come after the body of their fellow lawyer was found dumped in the street with two bullets to his head. In Washington, D.C., a major bomb scare. Police detonated suspicious packages in a car near the U.S. Capitol after the vehicle's two occupants said they had an explosive inside. The driver of that car is in custody. The other occupant, an apparent hitchhiker, was released. By the way, no explosives were found. A president, his beloved plane and a shrine -- President Bush and Nancy Reagan dedicated a new exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library today, the Air Force One most used by the former president. During his speech, President Bush likened Reagan's struggle against communism to the current war on terror. And, finally, in New Hampshire, a 20-year-old man who disappeared with his father while on a sailing trip was found alive in the vessel five days later. A shaken Asher Woods was rescued 130 miles from shore. But the search for the father was called off. Woods told authorities his father had been swept overboard without a life vest. That's the news right now from Atlanta -- Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: Thank you. Could have been a better ending there. Thank you. When NEWSNIGHT continues, the resort towns and beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico have an unwelcomed visitor tonight -- an update ahead on Hurricane Wilma and what she has done. And residents of the Florida Keys hoping for the best, preparing for the worst yet again, as the hurricane season seems to be painting a bullseye on the Keys some time Monday. We will go there. You're watching NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Hurricane Wilma is proving to be a more elusive storm than most to get a handle on. Its path, well, it kind of resembles a drunken sailor's. This time around, people living in hurricane-weary Florida are taking few chances. Many schools are closed until further notice. Many weekend activities have been canceled. A lot of people living in the Florida Keys have already boarded up their homes and their businesses and they have gotten out of town. Some, of course, as always, refuse to leave. CNN's Gary Tuchman has met several of them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the mayor of Key West, Florida, preparing for Hurricane Wilma has been quite a whirlwind. (on camera): How long have you been the mayor of Key West?
MORGAN MCPHERSON, MAYOR OF KEY WEST, FLORIDA: A grand 14 days.
TUCHMAN: Mayor Morgan McPherson has began a stressful initiation in his brand new job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, the water will come up here.
TUCHMAN: Along with his commissioners, the effort is now under way to convince people to leave a city that could be demolished by a major hurricane.
MCPHERSON: It's a good idea for you to evacuate.
TUCHMAN: And many of the 30,000 residents say they're going.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not staying here -- definitely not. It looks too strong.
TUCHMAN: But a significant number of people say they're staying put.
MCPHERSON: I'm encouraging everybody to leave, because I think it is dangerous. But I respect your decision. And be safe and be careful.
TUCHMAN: Many of those born and bred in Key West, people affectionately known as "conches," say they have stuck it out before, and, therefore, they can do it again.
MCPHERSON: What do you guys think about this storm?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to be a five.
MCPHERSON: It's going to be a five?Are you going to stay or are you going to leave?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay.
MCPHERSON: You guys are going to stay, huh?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay.
MCPHERSON: You're ready to weather it out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You conchs don't leave?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Say, we conchs, we tough.
TUCHMAN: The city has set up a bus system for free rides to shelters.
MCPHERSON: I'm Morgan McPherson, the mayor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi.
MCPHERSON: Appreciate you
(INAUDIBLE)
TUCHMAN: But, as of now, the buses are not exactly full. (on camera): Did you see what happened in New Orleans with all the people who stayed?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TUCHMAN: Doesn't that scare you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
TUCHMAN: How come?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because I -- I can't run from God. If it's my time, you know, he is...
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is going to get me.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): The mayor says nobody will be physically forced to leave. (on camera): How big of an issue is the conch pride?
MCPHERSON: Very real.
TUCHMAN: People staying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very big. It's -- it's a big issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a big issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will probably find the ones that are staying are conchs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the way of life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rightly or -- right or wrong, that is just the way they are. They like to make their own...
TUCHMAN: The more stubborn mentality?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, they are proud.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're proud.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We conchs are proud people.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Like New Orleans, elevation here is very low. Key West's highest point is one-and-a-half feet above sea level. That's why Mayor McPherson has evacuated his wife and children.
MCPHERSON: It could rearrange Key West. And, you know, that is -- that is -- that is we're looking at.
TUCHMAN: But the new mayor will stay in town as he runs the city.
(LAUGHTER)
TUCHMAN: And, apparently, will have plenty of company.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCHMAN: There's another reason a lot of people don't want to evacuate. There are no shelters whatsoever on the Florida Keys. So, it's a 150-mile drive to the nearest shelter in Miami. There is a couple of closer shelters. They're 90 miles away, but it would not be physically or politically practical to go to those shelters, which are in Havana, Cuba -- Anderson, back to you. COOPER: And -- and, Gary, I mean, are there restaurants still open? Are bars still open?
TUCHMAN: Key West, Anderson, is still a party city this very evening. Most of the tourists are gone. They were told to leave Wednesday. But the residents are still here. And most of the restaurants, most of the stores are still open.And this street, Duval Street, the main drag in town, is still very loud at this hour.
COOPER: All right. Gary Tuchman, thanks very much for that. Aaron, you know, as soon as I asked Gary that question if the bars were open, I realized what an idiotic question that was.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Well, you know, people have to do something. Are you getting any weather yet there? Are the winds picking up? Are you getting any rain?
COOPER: No. Absolutely not. I mean, it -- it's -- you know, it is a beautiful evening here in Naples, frankly. I mean, there are -- you see stores boarded up. A lot of restaurants are -- are kind of closing down already. But, you know, I -- we ate at -- at Chili's tonight. And -- and there are places to eat and places to go.So, it -- it is...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You know, a lot of people are just waiting and kind of watching.
BROWN: It is -- thankfully, it is early in the season for the people of Naples. Another month, month-and-a-half, the population in the city about doubles.
COOPER: Yes. It absolutely does. I mean, this is a -- a beautiful community. A lot of people here have second homes. So, it's -- it's -- you know, it -- it could be much worse if it was later on. But, you know, I got to tell you, people watching that storm over Cancun now, 140 miles-an-hour winds. That is getting a lot of the people's attention here right now tonight.
BROWN: I will bet it is getting their attention. Up next, speed up or slow down, turn to the north, if so, how soon, how far, how quickly? We will update the projected course of Wilma, a storm that has, so far, confounded the experts, to a degree. Also, the day's top headlines, including the plea from the mother accused of tossing her three young children into the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay. We will take a break first. From New York, Florida and around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: You are looking at the scene in Cancun, Mexico, 140 mile-per-hour sustained winds, gusts up to 160 miles per hour -- this storm moving at about five miles per hour, just inching over Cancun. It is most likely residents, they're going to wake up tomorrow morning, and the same level of winds will still be battering the downtown area. For a little comparison, here are the waves in Naples, Florida, right now, calm as can be. No hint of the storm that is out there, a deadly storm, which could be heading this way.Coming up later on in the program, we are going to take a look at a much different subject, the fine art of kissing up. Was "Leave It to Beaver"'s Eddie Haskell on to something?First, a look at the news at this moment.A bird has tested positive for bird flu in Britain. Officials say the parrot was imported from South America, died while being held in a routine government quarantine program. Bird later tested positive for the flu. It's not yet known if it's the same potentially deadly bird's flu strain that has reached Europe from Asia.Former House majority leader Tom DeLay's arraignment on conspiracy and money-laundering charges was delayed today pending a request on his request for a new judge. DeLay's attorney challenged the impartiality of the Texas judge assigned to hear the case, alleging he's contributed to Democrats and liberal causes.A California mother accused of tossing her three young children into the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay pleaded not guilty to murder charges today. Relatives say that this 23-year-old mother has a history of mental health problems, and recently stopped taking her medication. Rescuers have found the body of one of the children. The other two are missing, presumed dead.Google is becoming the little search engine that could. For the first time, Google's market value briefly topped $100 billion today. Google shares jumped more than 12 percent after the online search company reported earnings and revenue numbers that astonished even seasoned investors.Sustained winds of 145 -- 140 miles per hour right now, and storm surge 11 feet. And the worst for Cancun, Mexico, may be far from over.CNN's Susan Candiotti is directly under the eye of Hurricane Wilma. She joins us on the phone from Cancun. Susan, what's the -- what are you seeing?
CANDIOTTI (on phone): Well, Anderson,
(INAUDIBLE)
storm, and I've covered a lot of them over the course of 20 years, is how slowly it is moving, it is just plodding along, Wilma is. And it's been eight hours now, saturating the Yucatan with water, and it won't let up. I would describe it as relentless and loud even at this hour. I don't know if you can hear it in the background. But it is just roaring away over my shoulder.And as a matter of fact, that's why we couldn't get our video signal up, because the conditions are so bad.You've heard a lot of people describe tornadoes like freight trains. That's what this is like. And in terms of the Gulf of Mexico, and this hotel where we are located, 27 feet above sea level, you can't even make out the water, especially in the daytime, because it's like a white-out. We've clocked wind speeds on our meter at at least 150 miles per hour.Now, a hotel
(INAUDIBLE)
they got out of here, up to 20,000 of them scattered at schools and at shelters and downtown Cancun and in Cozumel. Downtown Cancun, about half-hour away from here, of course. As important as all of this, the residents of the country, of this region, how are they doing? We have no way of knowing at this hour. We tried to get downtown earlier today, and we could not, because the roads were impassable.And, of course, as I'm sure you have heard, there are predictions that these conditions could last throughout the day tomorrow, Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, it is horrific to think about that, Susan. How difficult is it just covering this storm?
CANDIOTTI: Well, I tell you, you know, and I should know better, but this morning, when I was out, before conditions got worse, as bad as they are now, I just walked down into the hotel. There's a cement sort of sidewalk that opens out onto the beach. I was on the sidewalk, kind of looked down for a second, when, out of nowhere, it seemed, a wave came crashing up, knocked me over, onto my -- off my feet. And there was a railing there. I was sitting literally on the cement. And it took at least two waves to push me forward to get back to the railing so I could right myself. And I was chest-deep in water.So again, a warning to people,
(INAUDIBLE)
hurricanes all the time, you want to come out and take a look around, it can be dangerous.
CANDIOTTI: Susan, thank you. We'll check in with you a little bit later on in the program.Aaron, of course, it is not just that -- those 140-mile-per-hour winds, it is that storm surge, and, of course, inland flooding, always a problem that often causes more deaths from a hurricane than the actual wind speed itself.
BROWN: All right. So now, where it's going, or, in this case, where it's not going, we turn to our severe weather expert, meteorologist Chad Myers. Chad, what are the forces that are moving it, or not moving it, as the case may be?
MYERS: Well, it's called a KOL, it's a K-O-L kind of a storm. There's a high pressure here, little high pressure here. It's right kind of smack-dab in the saddle of that. And so that's why it's not moving one way or the other. We have to wait for one of those highs to move away. And it will. But Aaron, this storm, I finally have the 11:00 advisory, or I got it a little early, I suppose. Six hours, the last six hours, the storm has moved 18 miles. So you can imagine, if you've got wind at 130, and it's blowing at 130 for six hours, how much more damage that would actually do than if it just came through, blew, and then left.So this storm is not losing any strength. It is still a category 4 storm. Here is the very latest. That is the 11:00 advisory. I know it's not 11:00, but you get the idea. They put it out early for us. Sustained winds, 140, category 4. Latitude and longitude, not more than 14 to 18 miles away from where it was at the 5:00 advisory.Here's Cancun. Here's the little 7 right there, where our reporter is, Susan Candiotti, getting a very large squall in the eyewall here. Still getting winds here in Cozumel off from the west, and that -- you think, Oh, that's good, because it's off land, it's not going to be that bad. Wrong. Because the little town of Cozumel is actually on the west side of the island. It would be better if it was blowing the other way.And Cancun is getting it from the east, which is bad, because it's on the west side of land. Just couldn't be a worse situation for this thing. And if it's not going to move overnight tonight, the rain's going to pile up, the wind's going to pile up, and it's going to be a disaster there, Aaron.
BROWN: Chad, we'll check again. Thank you very much. Chad Myers in Atlanta.About 160 miles to the northeast of Cancun, if you're looking at the map, western tip of Cuba, tonight, it is getting a taste, a hearty taste of Wilma. In fact, the entire western half of Cuba is having a pretty rough night.Lucia Newman joins us from Havana.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): A loudspeaker announces a hurricane alert is in effect, urging the people of this fishing town in Cuba's southwestern coast to speed up preparations for their evacuation."We're expecting waves, five, six, even seven meters, which poses potential danger for this area. So we're rushing to conclude the evacuation," says civil defense chief Ediberto Lugo (ph).In the city of Pinar del Rio, coastal residents, like Myfu Martinez and her son, are relieved to spend the next few days at least in this school, a shelter about an hour inland."Two years ago, when my son was born, the sea inundated my town. And you can imagine the desperation to be surrounded by water. So, they say leave, we leave," she says.According to Cuba's chief meteorologist, the long, wet wait for Wilma poses a special threat to the western tip of the island, where it's expected to rain nonstop until at least Monday."There'll be a substantial accumulation of water. And this is an area where it's already rained so much this season that the soil is saturated. The water can't be absorbed, so there's flooding," says Roservu Viera (ph).But in historic old Havana, where the rain isn't expected to let up until at least early next week, the worst threat isn't flooding.(on camera): Here, the dilapidated and overcrowded buildings, like this one, soak up the rain for days. And when the sun finally comes out, and they begin to dry, they often crack and just simply collapse.(voice-over): These residents will be evacuated soon."Can't you see? All of this can just cave in. The water comes in everywhere," says Pedro Martinez.Those who are waiting out the storm in one of 1,000 state- organized shelters will have food, water, and medical attention. What's harder to supply is patience to ride out this slow-moving storm.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWMAN: And Aaron, just to give you an idea of the atmosphere here, what you see behind me is 23rd Street, Havana's emblematic La Randa (ph), which is usually packed with people on a Friday night, chockablock. Nobody, practically, is out here, even though, really, the serious weather isn't expected to hit Havana for another 24 hours, Aaron.BROWN: Ah, Lucia, thank you. Lucia Newman in Havana tonight.Still to come on the program, the city knows destruction, deadly Donna came ashore, category 4, in 1960, and 50 people died. So how's the current mayor of Naples, Florida, preparing for Wilma?And later tonight, business-casual makes its debut in the NBA this season. Former league superstar Dennis Rodman, who once appeared in a wedding dress, and, honestly looked quite fetching, shares his thoughts on the dress code crackdown.That's still ahead here on NEWSNIGHT on a Friday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Coming to you from Naples, Florida, a beautiful city that could be hit hard by the ferocious Hurricane Wilma, but a city that has -- well, they've seen this sort of thing before.You see, Naples was a sleepy retirement community back in 1960. Hurricane Donna changed all that. It forced the city to rebuild from scratch, though a lot has changed in the last 45 years. Some people who survived Donna are still here. We look back now at the last hurricane to strike Naples head-on.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Deadly Donna, that's what they called it. September 1960, Donna made landfall as a cat 4 hurricane, slamming into Florida. It was a monster. Homes flipped upside down. Beachfront resort towns were blown apart, reduced to ghost towns. Donna claimed 50 lives. It was the worst folks here had seen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's kind of like a -- covering your eyes, let's hope it goes away.
COOPER: Bonnie Vinshoden (ph) and Becky Riley (ph) have always lived in Naples. They work at "The Naples Daily News." They were both 12 years old when Donna hit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We lived in a split-level house, and a third of our roof came off and went into our swimming pool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a boyfriend at the time that rode a canoe from 14th Avenue South to Lake Park, to my house.COOPER: This 1960s weather loop tells Donna's story. After striking Florida, it turned tail and headed up the East Coast.
MYERS: Rolled up through the Florida straits, almost the exact opposite direction that Wilma's going to be taking, and then slammed right across the middle keys very close to Marathon, Florida, into Florida Bay, across Naples and Fort Myers, hanging a right-hand turn across Tampa, just to the south of Jacksonville, and then literally hugging the coast all the way up through North Carolina, and then finally out into the North Atlantic.
COOPER: Donna ranked sixth on CNN's top 10 list of the most intense hurricanes. Its remnants live on in photo archives, streets under water, a causeway ripped apart, washed away, marinas turned into boat graveyards. This dramatic photo of a rescue in Boston Harbor, the shipmate was saved, but the schooner smashed into a sea wall. Looking at this damage, though, we need to remember, in the 1960s, the Florida coastline was a very different place than it is today.
MYERS: From 1960, when Donna hit, to now, we've built hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of homes and condos right along the water, because everyone -- everybody wants a view of the Gulf of Mexico. And that view may be taken out if this storm comes in better than a cat 1 or a category 2.
COOPER: Hurricane Donna was the last major hurricane to strike Naples directly. They have a saying here, "God has a condo in Naples. That's why it never gets hit." Tonight, many are hoping that 45 years of good luck still holds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm planning on staying in my own -- in the little house that I own, that was built in 1949, and it went through Donna, and I'm hoping that it'll go through whatever Mother Nature throws at us next.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Joining us now is Bill Barnett, the mayor of Naples, Florida.Mayor, thanks very much for being with us.
MAYOR BILL BARNETT, NAPLES, FLORIDA: Thank you.COOPER: So nice to see you.
BARNETT: Thank you.
(INAUDIBLE).
COOPER: It's a beautiful city. Let me just say that.
BARNETT: Thank you.
COOPER: And I hope it passes very quickly.You know, you look back at those old pictures of Donna, and what happened to the city then. There's not a lot of people around who were here back then. Do you think, do you worry that people have sort of forgotten what can happen?
BARNETT: I don't think that's the case. You know, we've had so many near-hits, or I should say near-misses, over the years. People are pretty used to the preparation and getting ready for these hurricanes.
COOPER: If it is a, you know, a category 1, a category 2 storm that hits here, is Naples ready?
BARNETT: We're ready. We're definitely ready. I mean, I want to look at it, and I'm always the eternal optimist, but I think we're ready for whatever -- whatever nature deals us, we're going to be ready for it. I mean, how we're going to withstand it, I can't tell you. (INAUDIBLE)...COOPER: Are there shelters in town?
BARNETT: Yes. There are shelters throughout the county. We have schools that are opened up. We've got our emergency operations center, that are, you know, they're all working and ready to go. The biggest question is the buildings and the high-rises that you see, and the homes that you see. They've never been really tested. That's -- because everything came after Donna.
COOPER: Right. Do -- but you think they can pass the test.
BARNETT: Well, you know, I'm -- it's going to be an educated guess. I think some of them will, and I don't know what's going to happen with some of them. I don't know what's going to happen with the storm surge. You know, these are all unknowns.
COOPER: Some parts of the town are under mandatory evacuations. Where is under mandatory evacuations, and how have you made those decisions?
BARNETT: Where we are right now, anything west of U.S. 41 and south of U.S. 41, in other words, all your beach -- the majority of the city of Naples is under mandatory evacuation now. And we have extended it to Sunday at 8:00 a.m. that with the people need to leave. And based on tomorrow, and as you said, you've been reporting so well on that, you know, where the storm is now, if it's still stays stalled, if we don't know it's going to turn, we might extend that, you know, mandatory evacuation.
COOPER: Mandatory evacuation, of course, I mean, it's kind of misnomer. It doesn't really mean mandatory evacuation.
BARNETT: Thank you. You are so right. I have been well -- I've been fighting that battle. It's -- the word "mandatory" is a little bit ambiguous...
COOPER: Right.
BARNETT: ... because if you decide you're going to stay in your home, and you're not leaving, nobody's coming in and going to drag you out. However, once the police, fire, emergency services, everybody's called in, you're on your own.
COOPER: And yet, as we saw even in New Orleans, you know, police are still motivated to try to go out and respond, because that's what they do.
BARNETT: Right. But, you know, with Charley here last year, when we were called in, we were just -- I mean, we were in. We just could not go out, because the conditions were so bad.
COOPER: Yes, we talked to some people who talked about having an emergency preparedness kit. What do you recommend people have? I mean, if they are trying to weather the storm, what do you recommend they have?
BARNETT: Well, you know, they have to have their water and flashlights and some food, hopefully not frozen food, obviously. They're not going to be cooking. But some canned food, ways the open that food, and their medicine, if they need it. But I just can't imagine, after watching what we're watching today, that anybody would say, Hey, I'm -- you know, I'm going to -- would say, I'm staying, I'm not getting out of here.
COOPER: Right.
BARNETT: There was an attitude that people have been
(INAUDIBLE)
, there was an attitude, even after Charley, about, you know, you heard the hurricane parties, right? Everyone, Well, we're going to say and have a hurricane party. After what Katrina did, I don't see -- I don't feel that. I don't see that. People are serious. They're not joking. They're not -- I don't hear any hurricane jokes either.
COOPER: That's right, yes, certainly
(INAUDIBLE)
. Mayor, thank you very much for (INAUDIBLE)...
BARNETT: My pleasure, and thanks for being here.
COOPER: All right.
BARNETT: OK, be safe.
COOPER: Oh, I know you don't really want me here if I know -- because
(INAUDIBLE)
bad news.
BARNETT: I -- no, no, I want you here. But come back and visit us when we don't have a threat of a storm.
COOPER: OK, all right.Up next, the president and his choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Harriet Miers, nothing but good things to say about each other. But in the world of politics, that might turn out to be a bad thing. We'll explain why ahead.Also later, the mystery of a missing airman may be closer to being solved. Officials are thawing a body recovered high in the Sierra Nevadas.This is NEWSNIGHT, from Naples, and New York, and around the world.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We have a cool, cloudy night in the city.Harriet Miers may or may not make it to the Supreme Court, but she's already earned a spot alongside some of the greats.But before we go through anymore on this, something needs to be said. The executive producer who came up with the idea for this piece -- and we don't say this lightly -- is a genius.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now you're operating. Get in there and pitch, lover boy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN (voice-over): Eddie Haskell most certainly set the standard for sycophants back in the '50s. But since then, everyone from Hollywood honchos to powerful politicians have done their best to raise the bar.So it's not surprising that some have turned a suspicious eye on notes written by Harriet Miers to her boss, back a decade ago. She was the head of the Texas State Lottery. Her boss was Governor George W. Bush. Like any smart employee, she sent her boss a birthday card, cute little puppy on the cover. And on it, she wrote, "Dear Governor
GEORGE W. BUSH, You are the best governor ever, deserving of great respect." And, "At least for 30 days, you are not older than me." In another note, she made sure to mention the kids writing, "Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are 'cool,' as do the rest of us."Chances are, speaking as the father of a teenager, they did not.Her notes were filled with superlatives, like, "Great speech," and "The dinner was great, especially the speech." Some would say this is simply good etiquette. Others might call it classic kissing up.
RICHARD STENGEL, CEO, NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER: Sycophantic behavior has been around for a very long time, but particularly around presidents and leaders. And I would bet, if you look back in the archives, you know, there are plenty of notes to Abe Lincoln saying, Abe, your beard looks great, or, You're so brilliant.
BROWN: If it was just flattery, did it do her any good? Well, it certainly didn't hurt. Just ask the now-Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers. If ingratiation is an essential part of politics, imagine how big it is in Hollywood.
STENGEL: In Hollywood, you can't just say a movie is good. If it's not great, the person thinks that you didn't like it.
BROWN: In film and in television, they celebrate the need to, well, suck up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Larry.
BROWN: In "The Player," producer after producer, one more desperate than the next, never failed to toss the idle compliments to any studio head around. From politicians, to players, to just plain folks, no doubt we all can benefit from a few well-placed words, as long as we remember the rules.According to the experts, be specific. Don't go too far. And as Mark Twain said, "Don't offer a compliment and ask for a favor at the same time."STENGEL: If you praise upward well, you have a better chance of getting that corner office than if you don't say anything at all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: By the way, y'all look great tonight.Still ahead, serious stuff. What happens when a brutal storm takes a powerfully long time to leave? We'll update the path of Wilma. Also tonight, is the new NBA dress code really code about race?And later, Michael Jackson's journey from Neverland to where?A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Category 4 Hurricane Wilma Pounds Away at Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula; 16-Year Old Charged with Murder; The Frozen Discovery in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is Being Slowly Thawed; Bird Flu Detected in a Parrot in Britain; Hurricane Wilma Batters Cancun, Destroying Luxury Hotels In Mayan Riviera; NBA Imposes Dress Code On Players, No More Urban Scene; Dome Of A Home, New Ideas In Building Hurricane- Proof Structures; Michael Jackson Is Moving To Bahrain
Aired October 21, 2005 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. Welcome to NEWSNIGHT. The charge against a young man in California is murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Accused of brutally murdering his neighbor, a 16-year old is charged as an adult in a California court. What's the state's evidence? And what's the possible punishment for the heinous crime? NBA players up in arms about the new dress code -- aimed at doing away with dew rags, flashy chains and loose fitting clothes. Tonight, we'll talk to the former NBA rebel, Dennis Rodman. Could a dress code really help bring in more fans?A frozen discovery in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, now being slowly thawed to determine the past of this frozen man. Tonight, will forensic evidence shed light on a life frozen in time?This is NEWSNIGHT. Live, from the CNN Broadcast in New York is Aaron Brown. And from Naples, Florida, Anderson Cooper.
BROWN: The blue flu -- make that the bird flu continues its march across Europe -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, Aaron. Good evening, everyone. I'm in Naples, Florida, where the state is getting more time to prepare as Wilma slowly approaches; 140 mile per hour winds right now -- no one taking any chances. We're going to bring you the latest on the storm in just a second. First, here's a look at what's happening at this moment. Let's take a look. In Britain, a major concern after a bird from South America dies under quarantine. The parrot tested positive for bird flu strain, but it is not know if that's the same as the deadly strain of bird flu found in Asia. Texas Congressman Tom DeLay made his first court appearance this morning. His arraignment on conspiracy and money laundering charges was delayed pending a hearing on his request for a new judge. In Washington, a man who apparently told police there was a bomb in his car, today has been taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. D.C. police detonated a package inside the vehicle on Capitol Hill. No explosives were found inside.And President Bush is calling a U.N. report released today deeply disturbing. The report implicates Syria in the February murder of Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Mr. Bush says the world body must take strong action and hold those guilty accountable.We continue to watch Wilma. Right now the Category 4 hurricane is lashing Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. It's got 140 mile per hour winds, storm surge of 11 feet. Tracking Wilma from Atlanta is CNN's Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers. Chad, what's the latest?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The latest, we just have the 11:00 o'clock advisory. Some of the newer stuff, the discussion coming, as we call it. The storm has literally moved about 15 miles in six hours, just pounding away here at the Yucatan. There is Cozumel. Basically this entire area is called the Mayan Riviera. Some very high dollar, high-class resorts, all the way from the seven in Cancun -- and we'll get you a little bit closer -- the seven in Cancun is called the resort or the hotel zone. That's where all the big hotels are. And as we get you a little bit closer with the radar, this entire thing turns to the right -- look, by 8:00 o'clock tomorrow night, it only moves 50 miles. And then it finally picks up some speed and tries to track toward the Florida coast. I am not convinced that it's going to be this far south, though. It could be a little bit farther to the north. I haven't read enough about what the Hurricane Center is thinking about that, but that is the same forecast, the same path that this thing's been taking for a long time. These guys are not changing their mind much. This has been a pretty solid forecast. I'm sure the timing has changed a little and I think it maybe even sped up a little bit. It looks like tomorrow it starts to speed up a little bit after it gets offshore. Here's the storm itself, though. Here's Cozumel, the island here. There's the town of Cozumel. Down here where the cruise ships dock, and then Cancun just getting the extreme northern eye wall. The airport, right about there, so just south of the Moon Palace -- right through here -- that's what's getting pounded with those 140 mile per hour winds. Cancun itself and the Hotel 7, right there. You have to use your imagination, but it is there, getting winds at 110 now and going up. And the Hurricane Center talking about the center of the eye almost making a second landfall right now; it made the first one right here in Cozumel. Still tracking off towards the northwest at three miles per hour, Anderson, an excruciatingly slow storm for the people getting by these high winds right now.
COOPER: I cannot even imagine a three mile per hour storm. I'm trying to remember what the slowest storm that I was in was and I think it was even double digits. I think it was maybe 10 or 12.
MYERS: Oh, sure.
COOPER: Three is just extraordinary.
MYERS: Yes. And something on the other side of my screen here -- I don't want to get you all excited, but probably something that could be turning into a tropical depression for tomorrow. And if it does, and then to a storm, it would be Alpha -- the first time we ever had to get to the Greek alphabet.
COOPER: I don't even want to hear any Greek right now from you Chad.
MYERS: Just so you know.
COOPER: Not right now. It's too much. All right, thanks very much. Appreciate it. I know you got to tell us. Aaron, we always hate it when Chad is the bearer of bad news or the bearer of another storm, but the imaginable -- to think there could be another one out there.
BROWN: Yes, I can live without Alpha and I'm sure everyone down there can too. Thank you.Classmates say he was a gothic kid, a loner who always dressed in black. Tonight, 16-year old Scott Dyleski is charged with murder in the killing of Pamela Vitale, the wife of Defense Attorney and TV Commentator Daniel Horowitz. From California tonight, CNN's Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 16-year old Scott Dyleski is being treated as an adult by the state of California. He made his first court appearance late today on charges of first-degree murder.
HAL JEWETT, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: This is a brutal homicide. And because he is very close to his 17th birthday, we believe that it's a situation where he is not entitled to protections afforded him under the juvenile law and it's appropriate to prosecute him as an adult.
ROWLANDS: Dyleski is accused of killing 52-year old Pamela Vitale, the wife of defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. Vitale was found dead at the couple's northern California estate last Saturday. A law enforcement source close to the case tells CNN that investigators believe Dyleski used a piece of crown molding to beat Vitale to death. They say he then carved a cross-like symbol into her back. Friday evening investigators with dogs were back at the Horowitz estate, apparently searching for potential evidence. Schoolmates tell CNN in recent year, Dyleski was withdrawn, dressing in black, painting his nails black and wearing makeup. Anthony Catanesi says he used to play baseball with Scott Dyleski. He says Dyleski changed after his older sister died in an auto accident a few years ago.
ANTHONY CATANESI, FRIEND OF SUSPECT: That may have helped in his turn towards the, you know, the goth side.
ROWLANDS: The decision to treat a 16-year old boy as an adult can be a difficult one, according to Former Prosecutor Jim Anderson, but not in this case.
JIM ANDERSON, FORMER PROSECUTOR: The horrendous nature of the crime in and of itself is going me, if I was the one in charge and making that call, I'd file ASAB (ph) right now. It's just not even going to be a second glance.
ROWLANDS: During his short court appearance, Dyleski did not speak or enter a plea. The hearing was continued because his lawyer was out of town. Dyleski is scheduled to be back in court next Thursday
.(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: And as it stands now, the maximum sentence that Scott Dyleski faces is 26 years to life. That said, investigators were out looking for more clues tonight and prosecutors do have the ability to add special circumstances, meaning he could face a possible life without parole sentence. Because he is under the age of 18, he is not eligible for the death penalty -- Aaron.
BROWN: Is there any suggestion that he has been talking to police?
ROWLANDS: Well, from what we know from law enforcement sources yesterday, the answer to that is no, in terms of a confession. Whether that has changed over the last 24 hours, who knows. He is a 16-year old boy and I'm sure they're asking him for details. And who knows whether his cooperation level has changed.
BROWN: Ted, thank you. Ted Rowlands, San Francisco.Tonight, a fence moving quickly since yesterday's break in this case. 16-year old suspect, as we just told you, will be tried as an adult. Bail: Million dollars. We're learning some detail now on the bludgeoning of Pamela Vitale. We talked with CNN's Nancy Grace a little bit earlier tonight about some of the developments.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Nancy, I suppose if photos and mug shots were evidence, we wouldn't even need to have a trial. This is a scary looking young man. But mug shots aren't evidence and what do we know of the evidence against this boy?
NANCY GRACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know is this young man, Scott Dyleski, went to a first appearance today, as it is called in many jurisdictions, and he was charged with murder one; bail set at $1 million, Aaron. We also know or strongly suspect that the link to this young many will be DNA evidence. We know that Pamela Vitale put up a ferocious fight. I have confirmed tonight that Scott Dyleski is covered in scratches. That says to me DNA will be under Pamela's fingernails. Now, as you know, several days have passed. So a DNA match could have already been made up. But it's my understanding from Daniel Horowitz as late as tonight, that the tip line is what led to the arrest. Remember, this is a 16-year old with no fingerprints no DNA on file, no criminal history. So the tip line apparently led to police questioning and then arresting him.
BROWN: Do we know anything about the tip?
GRACE: I think the tip had something to do with the young man being scratched up.
BROWN: Do we know if it came from a student? Do we have any idea who it came from -- a fellow student? A neighbor? Do we have any idea?
GRACE: I have an idea, but I have not confirmed it. I do know that this young man lived very near Daniel Horowitz, on that same mountain, a very remote area. I also confirmed tonight that Daniel had done quite a bit of pro bono work for this family, just as a neighbor, for free.
BROWN: Do we know that if this boy had contact with the victim?
GRACE: You mean prior to the killing?
BROWN: Yes, prior -- yes.
GRACE: In the sense that they were neighbors, most likely, yes.
BROWN: Do we know if there was bad blood?
GRACE: No. No bad blood to my knowledge whatsoever. In fact, as I said, Horowitz had helped the family out. Tonight there are a lot of suspicions that there was some type of credit card fraud that this young man was engaging in and that Horowitz's mailbox or mail had been tampered with by him. But I can tell you this much, Aaron, as I went over the crest of that hill and down to Horowitz's trailer where they were living while building the home, you could see immediately that she was there alone. I saw her car still parked there alone, covered in fingerprint dust. But the first thing he would have known, whether by the street or by one of many, many foot paths across that mountain, he would have known she was there by herself.
BROWN: All right, just one more question here. He's charged with murder one as an adult, but he's 16, so he is not death penalty eligible?
GRACE: Absolutely not. Until recently the cutoff in our country was 16. It has now been upped. He does however face life without the possibility of parole.
BROWN: Nancy, it's good to see you. Have a good weekend.
GRACE: Thank you, friend.
BROWN: Still to come on the program, tracking down the identity of a man frozen in time. We take a look at the painstaking process, using both sophisticated forensics and a good old public library.And later, an entire Russian village under quarantine tonight -- bird flu to blame. We'll take you there. We'll take a look at where the deadly virus has already spread in this world. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A sad, but simple fact -- unless you happen to be rich or famous or notorious, you probably won't run into a lot of people wanting to write your biography. That's hardly the case of a man who departed life years -- perhaps decades ago -- possibly on a training mission during World War II. Though probably not famous or notorious or rich, he now has biographers of plenty lining at his feet -- very cold feet. Here's CNN Thelma Gutierrez.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Sierra Nevada mountain range, 400 miles long. Could it be that this man recently discovered at the foot of a glacier, preserved in ice and frozen in time, was on an ill-fated military flight during World War II?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Disappeared while on a routine training flight.
GUTIERREZ: Some local historians think so.
RAY SILVIA, LIBRARIAN: Tuesday morning I received a call from the government and they said they had found an airman.
GUTIERREZ: Ray Silvia, the Fresno librarian, says the military asked him to research plane crashes in the Sierra Nevada mountain range during that era.
SILVIA: It's kind of an obscure book, but it's one of a kind on aircraft wrecks.
GUTIERREZ: Ray searched for the name of the glacier where the soldier was found. There it was, a crash back on November 18, 1942, that killed everyone on board.
SILVIA: It was uncertain really whether everyone was found.
GUTIERREZ: Then, Ray turned to local newspaper reports from 1942. More details matched the discovery in the ice.
ALEX PICABET, SEQUOIA AND KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK: People who reported finding this had found a parachute and cut a piece off of that parachute. And the parachute itself said U.S. Army.
GUTIERREZ: Alex Picabet says it was a highly trained team of national park rangers who chipped into the ice for hours so that this soldier could finally come home.
PICABET: You could have all kinds of things go with him in his pocket. He could have photos or letters. We don't know. There's so much still to be revealed as he comes out of the ice that kept him company for the last 60 plus years.
GUTIERREZ: The body, encased in 400 pounds of granite and ice was flown to the Fresno coroner's office, where it was thawed.
LORALEE CERVANTES, FRESNO COUNTY CORONER: We've just been using cold water to melt the ice at a quicker rate.
GUTIERREZ: The coroner x-rayed the body in ice, but so far no
ID.CERVANTES: Even if we found something that had his name on it or had an ID, we'd go further than that to try to provide positive ID.
GUTIERREZ: From Fresno, the body will be flown to the joint POW- MIA Counting Command in Hawaii where forensic studies will help determine who this man, still wearing a military green sweater, was.
CERVANTES: Something like this is really exciting, because the chance to return anyone, much less someone who's been missing for 60 plus years, the chance to return them to their family is pretty exciting for a coroner to be able to take part in that.
GUTIERREZ: Exciting for everyone, from the park rangers who brought him out, to local librarians who dug up the details. It's a chance to participate in history. Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Fresno, California.
BROWN: History and science. For more on the science, we talked with Forensic Anthropologist Kathy Reichs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Let's just assume for a second that the speculation turns out to be all factual and that the body was frozen the whole time. What kind of condition is that body in?
KATHY REICHS, FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST: Well, if it's been frozen the whole time, it should be in pretty good condition. And there's a good chance 13,000 feet up, that maybe it was. Now when they saw it, part of it was sticking out. I think part of the head and part of the hands were sticking out. So there's a possibility that over the years the snow has retreated and advanced and retreated and advanced, so there may have been periods when it was exposed.
BROWN: And when it was exposed, it would decompose?
REICHS: Yes. It would be subject to decomposition, just like any other body. Now, again, being 13,000 feet up, it may be protected in some ways. The insect activity is probably going to be just about zero up in that climate.
BROWN: But it's possible you have a relatively intact human being, isn't it?
REICHS: It's very possible. Remember the ice man that was discovered in the Italian Alps? He was 7,000 years old.
BROWN: And if in fact it's a relatively intact human being, is it so intact that you could actually recognize the face?
REICHS: Well, that was certainly the case with the ice man. You could still see that his eyes had been blue. You could still see he had a mustache. You could still see his tattoos. So if this guy was in, you know, permafrost for 66 years, it's very possible.
BROWN: Let's talk about the challenges. Assuming it was less than optimal, the challenges for determining the identity after all these years are what?
REICHS: Well, you've got a closed population. One of the -- I consulted to the military identification lab out in Hawaii for years, so I'm very familiar with the process. You've got a closed population. They're going to -- first of all they're going to research what planes might have crashed in that area. They're going to take the paraphernalia that were found with the body and they're going to trace back through that. So they're going to get a list of names, possible names. So that they're going to be able to go out and get dental records and antemortem medical records. And the military is really good at archiving that kind of information. So it's not like you have a complete unknown and you're starting from zero. So the anthropologists and the dentists that work out at the military ID lab, out in Hawaii are going to begin their analyses, they're going to look at the bones, they're going to look at the teeth and they're going to see which of those individuals on that list of possible matches is the best fit.
BROWN: So it's not without challenges, but it's not a one in a million, figuring out who this is either?
REICHS: Oh, not at all. In fact, I think it's probably in some way, it's going to be easier than if you just stumble upon a completely unknown individual. You're going to have those records that you can go to. Now, if they come up zero as a match to anybody in those records, then you've got a real challenge.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Kathy Reichs, talked with her earlier. Preparations against bird flu being stepped up around the world. This will give you a good idea why too. Until recently, bird flu was contained to Asia; 60 people there have died from bird flu, presumably from contact with animals that had the disease. Bird flu has now spread to Europe, detected in Turkey, Romania and in Russia. And just today, Britain found bird flu in a parrot from South America. We don't yet know if it's the deadly strain.Officials fear the virus could mutate into a form that could spread easily among humans and set off a world-wide pandemic. And in Russia, that means drastic measures. Here's CNN's Ryan Chilcote.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This checkpoint is the closest journalists can get to the Russian village of Yandovka. Only government workers and its 200 residents are allowed in now. The government ordered Yandovka sealed off and all its birds destroyed after test results indicated some were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. In six days, 300 birds died. None of the villagers have come down with bird flu symptoms yet, as has happened in Southeast Asia. And of those who came to the checkpoint to talk to journalists, none worried they would. The worry here is for their livelihood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (In Russian)
CHILCOTE: They're not afraid of the flu, this villager says, but they are of course sad. There's no work here, but poultry, which now all the poultry is gone.Just a day earlier, before the quarantine, cameras were allowed inside Yandovka. The villagers clearly upset about giving up their chickens, geese and ducks. When this official told these women they'd get $3 per chicken, they told him that won't fly. This elderly couple began hastily butchering their ducks before health officials could take their birds away. And in defiance of the official's instructions, they said they'd keep the meat. Officials say the villagers eventually cooperated and all of the birds -- an estimated 2,500 -- were culled. On the way back from filming the burn pit on the edge of town, we were disinfected. (on camera): Absolutely everyone who leaves Yandovka goes through this procedure. They come into this area where there's a lot of sawdust, and this gentleman right here disinfects them with a liquid that smells a lot like vinegar.(voice-over): Cars, too, are sprayed with a disinfecting solution. Yandovka will remain under quarantine for three weeks and its villagers will be closely monitored for bird flu symptoms. But that's little comfort, the villagers say, when the little livelihood they had in this impoverished Russian village is now gone. Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Yandovka, Russia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still to come, on a Friday night, Wilma's fury, as seen from the ground. And later, the NBA is calling for a bling-free zone. I've never said bling on TV before. The dress code off the court, and more as NEWSNIGHT continues.What was the most popular story on CNN.com today? Was it Hurricane Wilma crashing in to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula? Or Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay requesting a new judge at his arraignment? Or was it a 16-year old suspect arrested for murdering the wife of a prominent California attorney? The answer, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: So what was the most popular story on CNN.com today?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN (voice-over): Investigators in California have arrested Scott Dyleski, a 16-year old, in the connection with the murder of Pam Vitale, the wife of Criminal Defense Attorney Daniel Horowitz; investigators still trying to determine a motive. Vitale was found dead by her husband on October 15. Dyleski will be charged as an adult in the state of California.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: More on Hurricane Wilma in just a moment. Time now to make a quick check on some of the other news of the day. Christi Paul in Atlanta.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Aaron. NATO is joining the effort to help earthquake victims in South Asia. Members of the alliance today agreeing to send up to 1,000 engineers, medics and other troops to help with the relief effort. Officials are warning of a second wave of death as winter sets in.A California mother accused of tossing her three young children to certain death in the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay was in court today. Lashaun Harris kept her head down during the brief arraignment. Her public defender entered a plea of not guilty. Relatives say Harris has a history of mental problems, including schizophrenia and had stopped taking her medication.Scott Peterson has lost his gannet to get his late wife's life insurance policy. Today, a judge in Fresno, California ruled Laci Peterson's $250,000 policy will go to her mother. Mr. Peterson is sentenced to death for her murder and the murder of their unborn son. Under California law, criminals cannot profit from their crimes.And who said what to whom and why? Those have always been the key questions in the valor acclaimed CIA leak investigation. Now comes word Reporter Judith Miller's boss at the New York Times says she appears to have mislead the paper about her role in the investigation. Miller went to jail for refusing to reveal her source, as you will remember. That's it from Atlanta. Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: Christi, thank you, very much. Scott Peterson gets the insurance money -- that would be a shocker right there. That's a lead -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, it certainly is unbelievable. Aaron, welcome back. We are in Naples, Florida, watching Hurricane Wilma. It could hit the state by Monday. A mandatory evacuation is in effect here and is also going to resume tomorrow in the Florida Keys where thousands of residents are being told to pack up and get out. Not all of them are however. CNN's Gary Tuchman is live in Key West with more. Gary, what's going on?
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there may be a hurricane on the horizon, but the fact is Key West is still very lively. Most of the tourists are gone. They were told to evacuate on Wednesday, but there is still no mandatory evacuation for most of the people who live here. Some people have left. Others haven't, though, just yet. And many tell us they won't leave. The mayor and the city councilmen here in Key West are going door to door, telling people they should leave no matter what, telling them: You remember what happened in New Orleans? A lot of people decided not to leave. Look what happened. Please be careful and go. But many people here are telling us no matter what, they're sticking it out. Especially now they see it won't be as strong -- or it doesn't look like it will be as strong as originally anticipated. Now, we can tell you obviously a hurricane is a serious story, but this is Key West. This is a major party town. And tonight, all over Key West there are Wilma parties taking place. I just met some women a short time ago here who were participating in one of those Wilma parties. There's a gentleman there too. I think that he wasn't with the group originally. But I can tell you -- I'm not going to tell you what kind of theme parties are going -- we're just going to listen to these ladies for a second and you'll see what kind of theme parties are going on. Ladies, do what you were doing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: Flintstones, meet the Flintstones. We're the modern stone-age family. Lalalalalala.
TUCHMAN: OK. Now I cut in for a second. The idea is the Flintstones, but where is Wilma? None of you are Wilma. There's Fred, there's Barney, there's Betty.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're looking for -- where is Wilma.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're looking for Wilma. But where is she?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, but I have a question.
TUCHMAN: OK, and these guys are not exceptions to the rule. In fact, it's all over -- All over Duval Street here in Key West, there are Wilma parties taking place. This is Key West. The only place, Anderson, that may be like this is New Orleans, where we both just came from. All right, back to you.
COOPER: Yes, certainly. I like that they don't know the other lines of the Flintstones song. It was -- they all in unison went da- da-da-dya-dryadra (ph) ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have a gay old time.
COOPER: OK, there they go. All right. They knew end of it all right. Gary, thanks very much for that original report. And -- yes, why don't we just leave it at that. Coming up, we're tracking Hurricane Wilma. We'll have the very latest from Chad Myers in the Weather Center. Plus, NBA players getting a makeover, whether they like it or not. Look at the new mandated dress code, minus the bling and the bling. And later, it seems Neverland has lost its charm. Said it ain't so. Michael Jackson decides to put down roots in the sand. From the Arabian Peninsula to Manhattan Island to Naples, Florida, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back from the beautiful town of Naples, Florida. In just a moment we're going to talk to Dennis Rodman, live, about the new NBA dress code. Hmm? That will be interesting. And we're tracking Hurricane Wilma, of course. Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers is going to have the latest. First, a look at the news at this moment. Bail for 16-year-old Scott Edgar Dyleski, has been set at $1 million. He has been charged with murdering Pamela Vitale, wife of defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. Prosecutor says Dyleski will be tried as an adult. At least of the president's men could be in legal jeopardy in the CIA leak case. Karl Rove, the President Bush's top aide and Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, should learn their fate next week. Grand jury may vote on possible indictments by next Wednesday. Congressman Tom DeLay was all smiles today as he made his first court appearance in his conspiracy and money laundering case. The defense maintains that both the prosecutor and judge are partisans and want the judge replaced. Another judge will rule on the defense's motion. And in Iraq, four new U.S. fatalities. Three Marines and a soldier were killed in Anbar Province. This, as the vote count continues on the new Iraqi constitution. As always CNN Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers has the latest on Hurricane Wilma. He joins us now from Atlanta -- Chad.
MYERS: A little bit more on the discussion coming out for the 11 o'clock advisory, Anderson. And now they actually have landfall coming in as a Category 2 storm, not a Category 1 like it was before. So above the Category 1, 2 threshold there. There is the storm, itself, and I'll zoom into this storm. It may, in fact, have actually drifted south. The wrong direction for that matter, in the past couple of hours. It kind of got up here. That is the island of Cozumel. And notice maybe just a little southward, maybe just a kink there, to the storm. Here's the latest radar picture. There is Cantana Rue (ph), there is Cancun, Cozumel. Right on down the Mayan Riviera, just multi-million-dollar resorts through here, and spas. South of Cozumel, that is the island area there. The hotel zone, downtown, right under that northern eye wall, picking up winds now in excess of 120 miles per hour. Just absolutely something you don't want to hear when you are talking about -- just structures here that probably don't have the same type of quality that some other folks are used to. At 8 o'clock on Saturday, the storm does travel to the northwest, about 50 miles in almost a single day. So what is that, two, three miles per hour? And then making a right-hand turn Sunday and finally into Monday, making landfall somewhere around 2 o'clock on Monday afternoon. So maybe that is a little bit faster actually, than we were thinking. And the Hurricane Center was thinking at 5 o'clock. There is the storm, itself, not very much progress. The arms of the storm all the way up to Florida, and for that matter right on down to Honduras. Port St. Lucie, Miami, picking up some rain showers. I got a call from my mom earlier, near Orlando. She said, hey, is this stuff from the storm? From Wilma? Yes, it is. In fact, even the rain showers all the way up to Jacksonville, part of Wilma. A little bit farther to the north, rain showers ending in Atlanta and more rain headed to the Northeast for the weekend. Not part of Wilma, part of a cold front. That will make some showers from the Ohio Valley right on up into Upstate New York. Back to you guys.
COOPER: And we saw some rain in Naples earlier today, Chad. But it has since calmed down and no rain here right now. Thanks very much for that. Aaron, a lot going on around the world. What is this about the NBA dress code? I've been totally out of the loop on this.
BROWN: Well, and I know how rigorously you read the sports page every single day.
(LAUGHTER)
So I'm shocked to hear that. Let me fill you in on that, OK? The storm -- it is an ongoing joke we have with each other. The storm around the NBA a week before the season starts is in some ways as old as the debate about athletes as role models. We humbly suggest that if one is looking for a role model one might look at a school teacher or a firefighter. But somehow athletes have been given that responsibility. To some NBA players it seems especially burdensome, requiring beginning this season that they dress the part of -- well, a professional.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): No one disputes it's about image, and perhaps, a bit about race. Some of the NBA's biggest stars dress off the court the way many young African-American men dress on the street. So sitting on the bench, Allen Iverson, with his tattoos aplenty, and hat turned sideways, baggie pants and bling, is not the image the League wants to project to the people who buy what it is selling. So a League edict, the baggie pants, the bling, the jerseys, even headphones have to go at public team events. Unhappy news for Mr. Iverson.
ALLEN IVERSON, PHILADELPHIA 76ERS: You know, you can put a suit or a shirt and tie on a bad person, still going to be a bad person. So I just think it is a bad idea, you know, basically because we have our own identity. We have our own personalities.
BROWN: Another of the League's stars was even more direct. Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs said, quote, "I think it a load of crap. I'll probably stay in the locker room if I don't play. I understand what they're trying to do with the do-rags and the hats," he went on, "But I don't understand why they're taking it to this extreme."Race has long been an issue for the League and its fans. A generation ago it was said you could start two black players at home, three on the road. Those days are long gone. But League executives worry that young star look like gangsters. They would rather they look like San Antonio's Tony Parker. And a lot of players seem to agree.
ANDRIS BIEDRINS, SAN FRANCISCO WARRIORS: I have a lot of suits. I bought a lot of
(INAUDIBLE)
so, I don't have a problem with that.
DEJI AKINDELE, SAN FRANCISCO WARRIORS: I don't have no problem with the dress code, because I think it -- make you look like a professional.
BROWN: Some players say the whole idea should have gone through the players union. Others are upset because they see it as an edict imposed by white executives on mostly African-American athletes.
DEREK FISHER, SAN FRANCISCO WARRIORS: I think it is always tough when you get into taking away an individual person's ability to express themselves, in the way they feel comfortable, whether it is through speech, or whether it is through dress, or whatever it maybe.
BROWN: As we said in the end, it is all about image and image matters. So when all is said and done, what fans may most remember, is not what Allen Iverson wears, but what he said.
IVERSON: I feel like they want us to dress a certain way. They should pay for, you know, our clothing.
BROWN: Mr. Iverson makes about $11 million a year for playing basketball and another $8 million or so for the sneakers he wears.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In making the announcement on Tuesday, the NBA Commissioner David Stern called it a dress code even Mark Cuban could live with. Mr. Cuban being the outspoken and often underdressed owner of the Dallas Mavericks. We spoke with him earlier tonight about the notion that players appear too urban to too street.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARK CUBAN, OWNER, DALLAS MAVERICKS: I think, there is not question that, sure, anybody looking from the outside in that would be the perception. I think you know there is just a faction within the NBA, particularly the ownership group, that just doesn't understand the players these days. And that comes through as being perceived as being we're too street and that's unfortunate. BROWN: I think they would say, I'm reluctant to speak for Mr. Stern, but it's not a question of whether they understand the players, it is whether fans understand the players, whether corporations understand the players, whether commercial potential sponsors understand the players. Maybe they're wrong, but that is how they see it.
CUBAN: To your point, you know, if you don't really understand the people you are selling, or the product you are selling it is awful tough to sell it to corporations. And there is no question that from time to time the NBA has had a struggle in certain corporate environments. And this is definitely a response to that. Do I think it is the right response? Certainly, not the right timing in the response, but I understand why we did it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We're joined, from Costa Mesa, California, by Dennis Rodman, who is a man who wore many jerseys in his NBA career, and just about everything else off the court. He's also the recent author of, "I Should Be Dead By Now". And we're glad to see that he is not. It is nice to see you, Mr. Rodman. Would you agree that among a good chunk of the audience that watches basketball, the NBA has an image concern?
DENNIS RODMAN, FMR. NBA PLAYER: Well, I don't think so. I think the fact that if you look at the guys back, like Michael Jordan, and Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas and Charles Butler (ph), those guys that represented the League real well, as far as dressing and a dress code, I think those guys would say, you know what, we didn't care what we dressed like, as long as we performed and get the fans what they want. You know, get their money's worth. And for me, I didn't care what I looked like.
BROWN: Really?
RODMAN: I don't think the fans cared either.
(LAUGHTER)
No, I don't think the fans care either. They just want the players to come on the court and produce. I think David Sterns went way, way overboard with this.
BROWN: You don't think that -- I don't know, I'm trying to think of a sponsor that I won't get in trouble on -- but some company that might buy a luxury box at a arena, or might buy time on a television newscast -- on a television cast of a basketball game, that those people, money people, the revenue that players count on to pay very hefty salaries, aren't concerned about the image of pro basketball players?
RODMAN: Well, that's a loaded question, right there. I mean basketball will be basketball players --
BROWN: That's my job.
RODMAN: I know it's your job. I know it's your job. But I mean, you got to understand something. David Stern should have communicated with the Players Association, and with the players and all the players and their teams should have sat down and got with some type -- you know, some type of -- middle man, and said, OK, let's dress this way. If we can't do that, let's do it this way. He didn't do that. He just said, you know what we're going to sign this right here. And just declaration, this is where it is going to go, and we can't have -- we have so much money now, we need more money from the corporate sponsors. And I'm looking like this, you know, why is it that the sports figures have to portray an image where, we're not trying to be role model type people. I think if you want to look at anything. You ask those corporate people that are trying to buy teams and trying to buy everything in the world. If you are going to their homes, how many of their kids are watching MTV, VH-1, that is where they're getting all this from. Not from the NBA players. If you ask any -- any kid, who are you dressed like? Who are you trying be like? You go in the homes, there is MTV, that's all that crap on MTV, VH-1.
BROWN: No, maybe -- you know, you may be exactly right and maybe one of the reasons that they find it troubling that athletes dress this way, is exactly that. That they're uncomfortable with their kids dressing that way, and they're uncomfortable with athletes as role models when they do. I'm not sure they're right or wrong. I'm just saying that is how they feel. And if they pay the freight, they should get to call that shot, shouldn't they?
RODMAN: Well, you have to understand something. What I'm saying, in my career, you pay me to play. You don't pay to control my life. You don't pay to control my life. You know, if I want to feel like I want to come to the gym, maybe to the stadium, maybe three four hours earlier. Does that mean I have to wear a suit, there is no one here? Can I come in my sweats and work out before the game. And when I'm the last person to leave, should I wear a suit to go out? Is that right? No, it's not right. I think the players and the people that are in this business seem to understand that. It's like, if you want to buy a team, are you going to judge every particular player on your team, everybody in your office, and say, you know what, (INAUDIBLE) cannot dress that way. You have to dress this certain way or you're done. That's not right. You have to give them an opportunity --
BROWN: It depends if they can make a three-point shot at the buzzer.
RODMAN: But it ...
BROWN: Do you ever miss playing?
RODMAN: Well, as far as, yes -- I don't know about that. Today, I don't -- you know, all these rules and regulations. I don't know man.
BROWN: Oh, you'd do fine.
RODMAN: I'd have to go to David Stern and say, David, you know, it's OK. I'm all right. I'm a good guy, now can I play? I'm not going to sit there and kiss anybody's ass. I'm not going to do that. But you know what, we have to play by the rules and perform, that's great.
BROWN: Mr. Rodman, it is good to talk to you.
RODMAN: All right, brother.
BROWN: There's a lesson in there. I know I ask one too many questions. Still to come on the program, reminiscent of "The Three Little Pigs", a special house built to withstand all the huffing and puffing the hurricane throw it's way. And Neverland no more, Michael Jackson leaves the Hollywood scene for a bit of royalty. We'll take a break, clean up our act, and continue, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: As we speak Hurricane Wilma sweeping along the Yucatan Peninsula out to sea, but is it true that man-made structures can't withstand a major hurricane? Maybe not, if your home is a dome. CNN's Jonathan Freed investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're here in Pensacola Beach, Florida, and behind me is what's called the dome of a home.If you're driving by here, you cannot help but stop and stare at this thing.Let me give you a sense of where we are. Over here, we're about 150 yards away from the Gulf of Mexico right there. Now, this home is built to withstand, as you pointed out, the force of a hurricane.Let me give you an example about that. Come back here, and if you see what used to be their neighbors, there's nothing there. The homes that were next door here were just completely razed by last year's hurricane season here in Florida.Joining me now is the member of the family that built this home, Rick Kuklinsky. Thank you for joining you.
RICK KUKLINSKY, FAMILY MEMBER: You're welcome.
FREED: So what is it about the shape, this dome shape that really allows this home to withstand the force of a hurricane?
KUKLINSKY: Well, it's a monolithic design. The ground is built up and bermed to the side. It's a dome shape, so when the wind hits this, it breaks around. So it doesn't have, you know, the sheer force to knock it down, so it will withstand tremendous forces.
FREED: So with other more traditional homes, with flat walls, you have that wind just impacting right on the walls there, and adding stress.
KUKLINSKY: Right.
FREED: Here, the wind just breaks right around the side.
KUKLINSKY: Right. Like an airplane wing kind of thing.
FREED: OK. Now, part of the construction here involves actually inflating a balloon in order to cover over that dome. How does that work?
KUKLINSKY: Well, it's sprayed with -- a balloon is blown up. It's sprayed with foam and then shot with concrete to coat it. And inside the concrete, there's rebar. So basically, we're making a cooler -- a cooler home. There's no infiltration of moisture whatsoever.So long-term, this home will be here for a couple of lifetimes.
FREED: So if you've ever played with paper mache as a kid and covered over a balloon with newspaper dipped it in ...
KUKLINSKY: Well ...
FREED: It's kind of a high-tech version of that?
KUKLINSKY: That's correct. That's correct. This is sort of experimental. Mr. Sigler has spent five years developing the concept, and Ivan proved that it worked. The break-away worked, the house stood.
FREED: And talking about things and break-away, that sort of thing, let's go inside here. Now, the whole house is built on pilings.
KUKLINSKY: Right.
FREED: And you can park, what, a half-a-dozen cars down here?
KUKLINSKY: When you say pilings, it's a different design. Pilings are usually -- they're every 10 foot, that you have a post. This home has a perimeter ring with the pilings going down to a certain depth, and they're reusable pilings. But it gives us a free space, which was a unique design.
FREED: And the storm surge will come -- the waves will come right through?
KUKLINSKY: Gush right through, that's the plan.
FREED: And that's kind of like you were describing before, if you took a glass of water.
KUKLINSKY: That's what a storm surge is like. A lot of people don't understand this. If you took a big tumbler, put a piece of cardboard on top, flipped it over and lifted up the glass, and the water goes out. You multiply that by 20, 30 miles, that's what happens. And it starts right here at the beach.
FREED: And speaking about right out here. Come on, Rick. Let's show people the one thing last season's hurricanes actually washed away. And we're talking about the staircase that's here in the front of the house. But this is really a break-away staircase.
KUKLINKSY: Right, this is built to wash away, when an intense surge comes, this breaks away from the home and it doesn't take the home with it. It's an expendable piece of structure.
FREED: OK. Now, what's it like inside? I think people would imagine if the wind is whipping around the outside of a dome like this, they would think it's probably quite noisy during a storm.
KUKLINSKY: Well, it's been amazing. Mr. Sigler stayed here during Ivan with about four other people. And they actually slept through the intense part of Ivan. And it was just quiet inside.
FREED: They slept through the storm?
KUKLINSKY: They slept through the storm, yes, the main part of it. They were up to about midnight, but then during the main eye they were sleeping and weren't disturbed. It's like being in a cooler. This is a concrete, huge, massive structure that is going to be here forever. It's an amazing feat that these pulled off. And it works.
FREED: If people want more information about this type of construction, where can they go?
KUKLINSKY: Domeofahome.com. In fact, universities are using this Web site. It's a massive thing. Domeofahome.com. They can got to that, find out everything about the dome, the construction, etc cetera.
FREED: All right. Rick Kuklinsky, thank you very much for showing off your house with us.
KUKLINSKY: Oh, you're welcome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Coming up, he's got a dome of his own. The King of Pop in a Persian Gulf Palace? Michael Jackson leave Neverland and the United States behind? NEWSNIGHT will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back to Naples, Florida. We're spending a lot of time covering Hurricane Wilma tonight, and rightfully so. But there are other stories making news, some are important, some -- well, they just kind of get your attention. Take the case of Michael Jackson, he's been out of the spotlight for a while and we don't mind that one bit, I must say. But now he's back. It seems the aging King of Pop maybe leaving America for good, trading it in for desert home -- oh, so far away.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Like life imitating art, Michael Jackson has packed up his gloves, his dancing shoes and his not guilty verdict and beat it, from the streets of LA, to Bahrain. Bahrain?That's right, Bahrain. And island in the Persian Gulf. They call it the pearl of the Persian Gulf, in fact. Slightly to the right of Saudi Arabia. In fact, this is their national anthem. For those of you unfamiliar with Michael's new home. A few facts, it's a monarchy. The King of Pop's new best friend is the Crown Prince Sheik Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the official language is Arabic, but English is spoken just about everywhere. And 82 percent of the population practices Islam. That's the where, but the real question is, why?
STACEY BROWN, AUTHOR, "MICHAEL JACKSON": The fact that the royal family over there has basically taken care of him, financially and physically, they've really nursed him back to health.
COOPER: Judging from what we know of his lifestyle at the Neverland Ranch, it is going to take more than two men and a truck to move Michael across an ocean, a sea, and a couple of continents to his new digs. Who can handle a ferris wheel, a tiny train line, and menagerie? Oh, yes, Bahrain allows pets to come in, so Bubbles, if he's still around, will be welcome. Even if he leaves his toys behind, Michael won't want for life's luxuries. According to GulfNews.com, Michael has already made a few purchases, enough land to build a mansion and two villas for his closest friends.
BROWN: Now, that he's made Bahrain his permanent home, you can rest assured that wherever he lives there, he will try and recreate Neverland. COOPER: There is an upside to life in self-imposed exile on and dessert island, especially when your guided tours are conducted by millionaire race car drivers. In fact, there are reports that Michael has been seen driving around his new homeland in a flashy red Ferrari. You'll be happy to know a source told GulfNews.com that is just baseless gossip and the gloved one, quote, "Has a limited entourage, and he moves in his Rolls Royce."Nice to know he may have moved out of Neverland, but he hasn't lost the common touch.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And of course we did that story, because all week, Aaron has been asking me, where is Michael Jackson, where is Michael Jackson? So, Aaron, now you know.
BROWN: Thank you very much. He makes Dennis Rodman seem normal. Thank you. A quick of morning papers, before we leave you for the week, "The Washington Post", the Harriet Miers story -- I just think this is trouble here. It doesn't bother me, but it is going to bother some people. "Miers backed race, sex, set asides: She made diversity Texas Bar goal (ph)". She is just tough to get a handle on, which is not a terrible thing. But it is gonna bother some people. "New York Daily News", that would be here in New York, "Inside Story of a Wild Strip Club Spending Spree: Oh, What A Night!" Rob McCormick the CEO of the Savits (ph) Communications company allegedly, according to American Express, spent about $200,000, in one night, in a strip joint. If you happen to be going to the World Series in Chicago tomorrow, according to "The Chicago Sun-Times", it is going to be a mess, "contrary" is the weather. A bit of rain, too. We'll wrap up our week with you in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, that's if for us here in Naples, Florida. Of course, Aaron, this weekend, we'll be watching very closely Wilma, right now over Cancun, 140 mile an hour winds, a very slow moving storm.
BROWN: Stay safe down there. We'll talk to you on Monday. Good to have you all with us tonight. "LARRY KING LIVE" coming up next. Have a good weekend.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 21, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Interesting program tonight. Good evening again, everyone. Hurricane Wilma has slammed into Mexico. Is Florida up next?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANNOUNCER: Wicked Wilma makes landfall, pounding the Mexico resort island of Cozumel. Will it now make its move to Florida? The Sunshine State braces for impact. His party's top lawmaker arrested, his Supreme Court nominee treading in dangerous waters, and two top aides in potential legal jeopardy -- why some say the so-called CEO president is losing control. And brownnosing, bootlicking, toadying, anything to get ahead, but does it really work? Tonight, why sometimes it is not your resume that counts. It's how well you have mastered the fine art of flattery.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEWSNIGHT. Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York is Aaron Brown and, from Naples, Florida, Anderson Cooper. BROWN: Well, we have much to get to tonight. Wilma has arrived in Cancun, 140-mile-an-hour winds. Those winds, that storm, may soon reach Florida -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: yes, 140-mile-and-hour winds, Aaron, an extraordinarily strong storm at this point, Category 4. Good evening, everyone. I am in Naples Florida, a city that may be the next target for Wilma. But the people here are hoping it simply passes them by. Mandatory evacuations are already under way here in parts of Naples, also along the -- the Florida coastline. Right now, the Category 4 hurricane is literally parked over Cancun. It's moving about five miles per hour over Mexico. We are going to bring you the latest in just a second. But, first, here's a look at what's happening with the storm at this moment. A deadly virus has spread. The bird flu has reached Britain. Officials there say the strain was found in a quarantined parrot. The bird was from South America, which is yet to have a reported case of the disease. So, that is certainly troubling. The flu has also been detected in other European countries. To date, it has killed more than 60 people.The mother charged with drowning her three children in San Francisco Bay pleaded not guilty to murder today. She's being held without bail. Authorities say she hurled her three young boys into the water, now all of them believed to have died. If convicted, she could face the death penalty. In Northern California, CNN has confirmed that this teenager, 16- year-old Scott Dyleski, has been charged with the murder of Pamela Vitale. Now, she, of course, was the wife of prominent defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. Bail for the teen suspect has been set at $1 million. And more time will be needed for the Iraqi army to operate on its own, a lot more time, that according to the U.S. commander -- the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad. Today, he said, it may take as long as two more years before the Iraqi force can provide security and protection for their own country. We turn now to Hurricane Wilma. For the last few hours, the eye of the storm has been fixed over Cancun, Mexico, bringing a massive storm surge, torrential rains and catastrophic winds, 140 miles an hour, to the resort area. CNN's Susan Candiotti is there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A relentless pounding from Wilma, as it pummeled the coastline of evacuated seaside hotels, about 20,000 tourists put out of harm's way, residents holed up at schools and motel ballrooms in the center of town. Not since Emily hit in July have conditions been so bad. CNN clocked winds of nearly 130 miles per hour. At one hotel about 40 straw tiki huts on the beach were swallowed into the surf, looking like toothpicks in the waves. (on camera): There is debris in the roadway. Look at this pole over here on the left, this traffic light just bent over and is sitting on the highway, with the wind and the rain whipping around it. (voice-over): The force of winds strong enough to blow out one of these windows on a hotel balcony. (on camera): The post from this fence ripped out of the ground. And this thing is just ripping back and forth and back and forth, relentless pounding from wind gusts doing a number on what used to be a nightclub. You can see that the covering has sheered off. All that's left is the frame. Listen to that canopy at Pat O'Brien's (ph). It almost sounds like gunfire. (voice-over): Back at a hotel, chandeliers swayed precariously from the ceilings. A glass-walled foyer burst under the pressure. Pieces of sky roof wobbled, cracked and eventually crashed to the floor, one right after the other. And the word is, the conditions could last another day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, it is no one better to track to storm than CNN severe weather expert Chad Myers. He joins us now from Atlanta. Chad, I -- I just cannot get over that this is 140 mile-per- hour...
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.
COOPER: ... sustained winds.
MYERS: Yes.
COOPER: We're not talking about gusts.
MYERS: Right. And the -- some of the gusts, even at the airport -- they do it kilometers per hour, but almost at 160 kilometers per hour. And that's inland. That's not even on the shore, where the hotel zone is. They're going to wake up tomorrow and maybe this thing isn't even going to be gone enough to take pictures.But the pictures that you see out of the hotel zone and also downtown Cancun are going to be devastating, along with Cozumel right there, still getting lashed with the southern eyewall, with west winds at about 115 to 120 miles per hour, and then the northern eyewall here. We do have the Cancun radar back. Some time -- somehow, these guys got this back up and working again. It was down for a while. Here's downtown Cancun, the little seven part, the hotel zone there, very strong squalls here, and the northern eyewall. There are two eyewalls, one and then two. But, from the Royal Hideaway down to Xcaret, the entire area, the Moon Palace, just getting pounded this evening. And the storm just refuses to move. In fact, it may be less than 20 miles from right where it is now by the time we wake up tomorrow morning. The storm has essentially stalled right over the Yucatan -- Anderson.
COOPER: Well, Chad, if the storm stalls over the Yucatan, what does that mean for us, in terms of the arrival time, the strength of it, if and when it does get here? MYERS: The longer it's over land, the weaker it gets. The more it's over water, the stronger it gets. So, it is kind of 50/50 right now, kind of half on, half off. There are your latest wind gusts, at 140 miles per hour, gusting to sometimes to 160 to 165, although I think a lot of winds, those gusts may be above the surface, 105 as it gets back into the water for Sunday, and, then, for Monday afternoon, making landfall somewhere in Florida, we still think, at about 90 miles per hour, all the way across the -- all the way across the entire peninsula as a hurricane, so, a backside hurricane for West Palm, Fort Lauderdale, Miami-Dade.Actually, winds will be coming in from the west. Most of the time, you prepare for storms and winds coming in from the east, as storms typically don't come that way across Florida -- Anderson.
COOPER: We will be getting more storm updates throughout the...
MYERS: Oh, sure.
COOPER: ... over the course of the next two hours.
MYERS: Yes.
COOPER: Of course, Chad will bring them to you as soon as we get them. Chad, thanks very much. Aaron, you know, you see those images out of Cancun. I -- I -- I mean, I have said it now multiple times, but, again, 145 -- 140 mile- per-hour winds is just staggering, that that is just hour after hour after hour. And to think, they are going to wake up tomorrow and maybe the winds are the same speed as they are right now. It's extraordinary.
BROWN: And when -- when those winds pass, I mean, Cancun counts on a winter tourist season that starts Thanksgiving week for American tourists and goes on through the winter. They don't have that much time to repair every hotel, to repair everything that's -- all the nightclubs, everything else that's going to be taken down.
COOPER: Yes. It is going to be a total mess. It's -- let's hope, you know -- let's hope it at least moves offshore quickly and just dissipates somewhere over the water south of Florida. But we will see.
BROWN: It's the weekend story, Anderson. Thank you. Perhaps it's a cliche or perhaps it is simply what it is. Natural disaster and political misfortune invite the same language. Storm clouds gather. Controversies swirl. Winds gather force. People hunker down. At the White House, they do seem to be hunkering down these days. This much is clear. And so is this. You can't get much done when you're hunkering down. Here's our senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Somewhere between reelection...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Harriet, thank you for agreeing to serve.
CROWLEY: ... and Harriet Miers...
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I think it's been a -- a chaotic process.
CROWLEY: Even Republicans think the A-team has morphed into the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
SCOTT REED, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: The last six or nine months have been as difficult as anything the party has gone through in over 30 years.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will never get to see him again.
CROWLEY: A cold shoulder to a grieving mom, a Social Security plan that faltered off the launchpad, Katrina, and the specter of indictments out of the CIA leak investigation. The very disciplined, aggressive team of Bush loyalists, lauded for their ability to control the message, seems to have lost control.
BUSH: There's some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining. But the American people expect me to do my job. And I'm going to.
CROWLEY: Analyzing the president's year of living badly, Democrats and Republicans see a combination of bad luck, bad policy and bad relationships. Democrats seethe over the partisan style and, worse..
JACKIE CALMES, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": The word I hear over and over again on the Hill from Republicans is hubris.
CROWLEY: Republicans and Democrats in and out of government complain, the president is both perpetrator and victim of an insular White House.
CALMES: Their complaint is not enough information is getting through to him and that he is making his decisions -- let's say Harriet Miers -- based on his own gut instincts.
CROWLEY: Having governed from the right, the president has always found comfort there. It is all but gone.
REED: Economic conservatives started to get a little wobbly this summer on spending. The Harriet Miers nomination caught some social conservatives off base, some of the more self-appointed leaders of the social conservative movement. And they riled up. It seems like it was a tipping point.
CROWLEY: Navigating the roughest terrain of his presidency, George Bush finds himself with no soft place to land. The go-it-alone Texan may need help. Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, where to draw the fine line between good etiquette and just kissing up to the boss? And under which category do you place, "Dear GWB, you are the best governor ever"?Also tonight, found at sea -- a 20-year-old rescued after five days adrift in a sailboat, but he can't exactly say it's a happy ending. We will explain why. From Florida and New York City, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Congressman Tom DeLay made his first court appearance as a defendant today. He went before a judge in Austin, Texas, on charges of conspiracy and money-laundering. That's what the case is about, the law and whether the former majority leader broke the law. It is not, however, all that the case is about. Reporting from Austin, Texas, tonight, congressional correspondent Joe Johns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tom DeLay is known for never backing down from a fight. And, true to form, immediately after his first court appearance, he went right outside and attacked prosecutor Ronnie Earle.
REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: Because Ronnie Earle and the Democrat Party could not beat me at the ballot box and could not beat me on the floor of the House of Representatives, they are now desperately trying to challenge me in a courtroom. JOHNS: Delay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, was also on the attack -- his target, the judge, his goal, to get him removed from the case. DeGuerin said the judge, Bob Perkins, has a conflict of interest. Why? Because he gave money to a liberal political group, MoveOn.org. And that group was selling anti-DeLay T-shirts. But tell that to the judge.
JUDGE BOB PERKINS, TRAVIS COUNTY CRIMINAL DISTRICT COURT: Let me just say, I have never seen that T-shirt, number one. Number two, I haven't bought it. Number three, the last time that I...
(LAUGHTER)
PERKINS: Number three, the last time I contributed to MoveOn that I know of was prior to the November election last year, when they were primarily helping Senator Kerry.
JOHNS: But, in a statement, MoveOn said it's all a Texas tempest in the teapot, that it never sold such T-shirts, that DeLay's attorney has either bad information or lied in court. Reached by CNN, DeLay's lawyer conceded he'd made a mistake. Politics as usual, right? But lost in this is the indictment against DeLay, political money- laundering. (on camera): Essentially, the prosecutor's case is that Tom DeLay and his allies found ways to circumvent Texas law to help select candidates get elected to the statehouse. Why would a national congressman do that? Well, if Republicans controlled Texas, they could redraw the congressional boundaries in favor of Republicans. And, in fact, Republicans did send five new members of Congress to Washington, who, in theory, at least, would have owed a big favor to Tom DeLay. It is all about power.
DELAY: I committed no wrongdoing whatsoever.
JOHNS (voice-over): Again, that's now for the judge and jury to decide. And that's why Ronnie Earle, who's been mostly engaged in prosecuting DeLay, suddenly found himself defending the judge.
RONNIE EARLE, TRAVIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: This judge has a record of fairness to all who come before his bench. And, again, membership in a political party does not determine the quality of justice in this country.
JOHNS: Democratic attorney Chris Feldman (ph), who argued a related civil suit just this year, says the facts are on Earle's side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a very legitimate investigation. And anyone that's going to make fun of it or dismiss it as political is just ignoring the law and the facts. JOHNS: The jousting in this case has so far been mostly about legal procedure and scoring political points. It could be some time next year before they get down to arguing the merits of the case. Joe Johns, CNN, Austin, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A quick look now at some of the other stories that made news today. Christi Paul joins us from Atlanta.Good evening, Ms. Paul.
CHRISTI PAUL, HEADLINE NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Aaron. We start off in Baghdad, where the lawyers for Saddam Hussein are demanding protection. The fearful defense team wants the trial moved out of Iraq. The pleas come after the body of their fellow lawyer was found dumped in the street with two bullets to his head. In Washington, D.C., a major bomb scare. Police detonated suspicious packages in a car near the U.S. Capitol after the vehicle's two occupants said they had an explosive inside. The driver of that car is in custody. The other occupant, an apparent hitchhiker, was released. By the way, no explosives were found. A president, his beloved plane and a shrine -- President Bush and Nancy Reagan dedicated a new exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library today, the Air Force One most used by the former president. During his speech, President Bush likened Reagan's struggle against communism to the current war on terror. And, finally, in New Hampshire, a 20-year-old man who disappeared with his father while on a sailing trip was found alive in the vessel five days later. A shaken Asher Woods was rescued 130 miles from shore. But the search for the father was called off. Woods told authorities his father had been swept overboard without a life vest. That's the news right now from Atlanta -- Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: Thank you. Could have been a better ending there. Thank you. When NEWSNIGHT continues, the resort towns and beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico have an unwelcomed visitor tonight -- an update ahead on Hurricane Wilma and what she has done. And residents of the Florida Keys hoping for the best, preparing for the worst yet again, as the hurricane season seems to be painting a bullseye on the Keys some time Monday. We will go there. You're watching NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Hurricane Wilma is proving to be a more elusive storm than most to get a handle on. Its path, well, it kind of resembles a drunken sailor's. This time around, people living in hurricane-weary Florida are taking few chances. Many schools are closed until further notice. Many weekend activities have been canceled. A lot of people living in the Florida Keys have already boarded up their homes and their businesses and they have gotten out of town. Some, of course, as always, refuse to leave. CNN's Gary Tuchman has met several of them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the mayor of Key West, Florida, preparing for Hurricane Wilma has been quite a whirlwind. (on camera): How long have you been the mayor of Key West?
MORGAN MCPHERSON, MAYOR OF KEY WEST, FLORIDA: A grand 14 days.
TUCHMAN: Mayor Morgan McPherson has began a stressful initiation in his brand new job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, the water will come up here.
TUCHMAN: Along with his commissioners, the effort is now under way to convince people to leave a city that could be demolished by a major hurricane.
MCPHERSON: It's a good idea for you to evacuate.
TUCHMAN: And many of the 30,000 residents say they're going.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not staying here -- definitely not. It looks too strong.
TUCHMAN: But a significant number of people say they're staying put.
MCPHERSON: I'm encouraging everybody to leave, because I think it is dangerous. But I respect your decision. And be safe and be careful.
TUCHMAN: Many of those born and bred in Key West, people affectionately known as "conches," say they have stuck it out before, and, therefore, they can do it again.
MCPHERSON: What do you guys think about this storm?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to be a five.
MCPHERSON: It's going to be a five?Are you going to stay or are you going to leave?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay.
MCPHERSON: You guys are going to stay, huh?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay.
MCPHERSON: You're ready to weather it out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You conchs don't leave?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Say, we conchs, we tough.
TUCHMAN: The city has set up a bus system for free rides to shelters.
MCPHERSON: I'm Morgan McPherson, the mayor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi.
MCPHERSON: Appreciate you
(INAUDIBLE)
TUCHMAN: But, as of now, the buses are not exactly full. (on camera): Did you see what happened in New Orleans with all the people who stayed?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TUCHMAN: Doesn't that scare you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
TUCHMAN: How come?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because I -- I can't run from God. If it's my time, you know, he is...
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is going to get me.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): The mayor says nobody will be physically forced to leave. (on camera): How big of an issue is the conch pride?
MCPHERSON: Very real.
TUCHMAN: People staying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very big. It's -- it's a big issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a big issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will probably find the ones that are staying are conchs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the way of life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rightly or -- right or wrong, that is just the way they are. They like to make their own...
TUCHMAN: The more stubborn mentality?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, they are proud.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're proud.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We conchs are proud people.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Like New Orleans, elevation here is very low. Key West's highest point is one-and-a-half feet above sea level. That's why Mayor McPherson has evacuated his wife and children.
MCPHERSON: It could rearrange Key West. And, you know, that is -- that is -- that is we're looking at.
TUCHMAN: But the new mayor will stay in town as he runs the city.
(LAUGHTER)
TUCHMAN: And, apparently, will have plenty of company.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCHMAN: There's another reason a lot of people don't want to evacuate. There are no shelters whatsoever on the Florida Keys. So, it's a 150-mile drive to the nearest shelter in Miami. There is a couple of closer shelters. They're 90 miles away, but it would not be physically or politically practical to go to those shelters, which are in Havana, Cuba -- Anderson, back to you. COOPER: And -- and, Gary, I mean, are there restaurants still open? Are bars still open?
TUCHMAN: Key West, Anderson, is still a party city this very evening. Most of the tourists are gone. They were told to leave Wednesday. But the residents are still here. And most of the restaurants, most of the stores are still open.And this street, Duval Street, the main drag in town, is still very loud at this hour.
COOPER: All right. Gary Tuchman, thanks very much for that. Aaron, you know, as soon as I asked Gary that question if the bars were open, I realized what an idiotic question that was.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Well, you know, people have to do something. Are you getting any weather yet there? Are the winds picking up? Are you getting any rain?
COOPER: No. Absolutely not. I mean, it -- it's -- you know, it is a beautiful evening here in Naples, frankly. I mean, there are -- you see stores boarded up. A lot of restaurants are -- are kind of closing down already. But, you know, I -- we ate at -- at Chili's tonight. And -- and there are places to eat and places to go.So, it -- it is...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You know, a lot of people are just waiting and kind of watching.
BROWN: It is -- thankfully, it is early in the season for the people of Naples. Another month, month-and-a-half, the population in the city about doubles.
COOPER: Yes. It absolutely does. I mean, this is a -- a beautiful community. A lot of people here have second homes. So, it's -- it's -- you know, it -- it could be much worse if it was later on. But, you know, I got to tell you, people watching that storm over Cancun now, 140 miles-an-hour winds. That is getting a lot of the people's attention here right now tonight.
BROWN: I will bet it is getting their attention. Up next, speed up or slow down, turn to the north, if so, how soon, how far, how quickly? We will update the projected course of Wilma, a storm that has, so far, confounded the experts, to a degree. Also, the day's top headlines, including the plea from the mother accused of tossing her three young children into the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay. We will take a break first. From New York, Florida and around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: You are looking at the scene in Cancun, Mexico, 140 mile-per-hour sustained winds, gusts up to 160 miles per hour -- this storm moving at about five miles per hour, just inching over Cancun. It is most likely residents, they're going to wake up tomorrow morning, and the same level of winds will still be battering the downtown area. For a little comparison, here are the waves in Naples, Florida, right now, calm as can be. No hint of the storm that is out there, a deadly storm, which could be heading this way.Coming up later on in the program, we are going to take a look at a much different subject, the fine art of kissing up. Was "Leave It to Beaver"'s Eddie Haskell on to something?First, a look at the news at this moment.A bird has tested positive for bird flu in Britain. Officials say the parrot was imported from South America, died while being held in a routine government quarantine program. Bird later tested positive for the flu. It's not yet known if it's the same potentially deadly bird's flu strain that has reached Europe from Asia.Former House majority leader Tom DeLay's arraignment on conspiracy and money-laundering charges was delayed today pending a request on his request for a new judge. DeLay's attorney challenged the impartiality of the Texas judge assigned to hear the case, alleging he's contributed to Democrats and liberal causes.A California mother accused of tossing her three young children into the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay pleaded not guilty to murder charges today. Relatives say that this 23-year-old mother has a history of mental health problems, and recently stopped taking her medication. Rescuers have found the body of one of the children. The other two are missing, presumed dead.Google is becoming the little search engine that could. For the first time, Google's market value briefly topped $100 billion today. Google shares jumped more than 12 percent after the online search company reported earnings and revenue numbers that astonished even seasoned investors.Sustained winds of 145 -- 140 miles per hour right now, and storm surge 11 feet. And the worst for Cancun, Mexico, may be far from over.CNN's Susan Candiotti is directly under the eye of Hurricane Wilma. She joins us on the phone from Cancun. Susan, what's the -- what are you seeing?
CANDIOTTI (on phone): Well, Anderson,
(INAUDIBLE)
storm, and I've covered a lot of them over the course of 20 years, is how slowly it is moving, it is just plodding along, Wilma is. And it's been eight hours now, saturating the Yucatan with water, and it won't let up. I would describe it as relentless and loud even at this hour. I don't know if you can hear it in the background. But it is just roaring away over my shoulder.And as a matter of fact, that's why we couldn't get our video signal up, because the conditions are so bad.You've heard a lot of people describe tornadoes like freight trains. That's what this is like. And in terms of the Gulf of Mexico, and this hotel where we are located, 27 feet above sea level, you can't even make out the water, especially in the daytime, because it's like a white-out. We've clocked wind speeds on our meter at at least 150 miles per hour.Now, a hotel
(INAUDIBLE)
they got out of here, up to 20,000 of them scattered at schools and at shelters and downtown Cancun and in Cozumel. Downtown Cancun, about half-hour away from here, of course. As important as all of this, the residents of the country, of this region, how are they doing? We have no way of knowing at this hour. We tried to get downtown earlier today, and we could not, because the roads were impassable.And, of course, as I'm sure you have heard, there are predictions that these conditions could last throughout the day tomorrow, Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, it is horrific to think about that, Susan. How difficult is it just covering this storm?
CANDIOTTI: Well, I tell you, you know, and I should know better, but this morning, when I was out, before conditions got worse, as bad as they are now, I just walked down into the hotel. There's a cement sort of sidewalk that opens out onto the beach. I was on the sidewalk, kind of looked down for a second, when, out of nowhere, it seemed, a wave came crashing up, knocked me over, onto my -- off my feet. And there was a railing there. I was sitting literally on the cement. And it took at least two waves to push me forward to get back to the railing so I could right myself. And I was chest-deep in water.So again, a warning to people,
(INAUDIBLE)
hurricanes all the time, you want to come out and take a look around, it can be dangerous.
CANDIOTTI: Susan, thank you. We'll check in with you a little bit later on in the program.Aaron, of course, it is not just that -- those 140-mile-per-hour winds, it is that storm surge, and, of course, inland flooding, always a problem that often causes more deaths from a hurricane than the actual wind speed itself.
BROWN: All right. So now, where it's going, or, in this case, where it's not going, we turn to our severe weather expert, meteorologist Chad Myers. Chad, what are the forces that are moving it, or not moving it, as the case may be?
MYERS: Well, it's called a KOL, it's a K-O-L kind of a storm. There's a high pressure here, little high pressure here. It's right kind of smack-dab in the saddle of that. And so that's why it's not moving one way or the other. We have to wait for one of those highs to move away. And it will. But Aaron, this storm, I finally have the 11:00 advisory, or I got it a little early, I suppose. Six hours, the last six hours, the storm has moved 18 miles. So you can imagine, if you've got wind at 130, and it's blowing at 130 for six hours, how much more damage that would actually do than if it just came through, blew, and then left.So this storm is not losing any strength. It is still a category 4 storm. Here is the very latest. That is the 11:00 advisory. I know it's not 11:00, but you get the idea. They put it out early for us. Sustained winds, 140, category 4. Latitude and longitude, not more than 14 to 18 miles away from where it was at the 5:00 advisory.Here's Cancun. Here's the little 7 right there, where our reporter is, Susan Candiotti, getting a very large squall in the eyewall here. Still getting winds here in Cozumel off from the west, and that -- you think, Oh, that's good, because it's off land, it's not going to be that bad. Wrong. Because the little town of Cozumel is actually on the west side of the island. It would be better if it was blowing the other way.And Cancun is getting it from the east, which is bad, because it's on the west side of land. Just couldn't be a worse situation for this thing. And if it's not going to move overnight tonight, the rain's going to pile up, the wind's going to pile up, and it's going to be a disaster there, Aaron.
BROWN: Chad, we'll check again. Thank you very much. Chad Myers in Atlanta.About 160 miles to the northeast of Cancun, if you're looking at the map, western tip of Cuba, tonight, it is getting a taste, a hearty taste of Wilma. In fact, the entire western half of Cuba is having a pretty rough night.Lucia Newman joins us from Havana.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): A loudspeaker announces a hurricane alert is in effect, urging the people of this fishing town in Cuba's southwestern coast to speed up preparations for their evacuation."We're expecting waves, five, six, even seven meters, which poses potential danger for this area. So we're rushing to conclude the evacuation," says civil defense chief Ediberto Lugo (ph).In the city of Pinar del Rio, coastal residents, like Myfu Martinez and her son, are relieved to spend the next few days at least in this school, a shelter about an hour inland."Two years ago, when my son was born, the sea inundated my town. And you can imagine the desperation to be surrounded by water. So, they say leave, we leave," she says.According to Cuba's chief meteorologist, the long, wet wait for Wilma poses a special threat to the western tip of the island, where it's expected to rain nonstop until at least Monday."There'll be a substantial accumulation of water. And this is an area where it's already rained so much this season that the soil is saturated. The water can't be absorbed, so there's flooding," says Roservu Viera (ph).But in historic old Havana, where the rain isn't expected to let up until at least early next week, the worst threat isn't flooding.(on camera): Here, the dilapidated and overcrowded buildings, like this one, soak up the rain for days. And when the sun finally comes out, and they begin to dry, they often crack and just simply collapse.(voice-over): These residents will be evacuated soon."Can't you see? All of this can just cave in. The water comes in everywhere," says Pedro Martinez.Those who are waiting out the storm in one of 1,000 state- organized shelters will have food, water, and medical attention. What's harder to supply is patience to ride out this slow-moving storm.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWMAN: And Aaron, just to give you an idea of the atmosphere here, what you see behind me is 23rd Street, Havana's emblematic La Randa (ph), which is usually packed with people on a Friday night, chockablock. Nobody, practically, is out here, even though, really, the serious weather isn't expected to hit Havana for another 24 hours, Aaron.BROWN: Ah, Lucia, thank you. Lucia Newman in Havana tonight.Still to come on the program, the city knows destruction, deadly Donna came ashore, category 4, in 1960, and 50 people died. So how's the current mayor of Naples, Florida, preparing for Wilma?And later tonight, business-casual makes its debut in the NBA this season. Former league superstar Dennis Rodman, who once appeared in a wedding dress, and, honestly looked quite fetching, shares his thoughts on the dress code crackdown.That's still ahead here on NEWSNIGHT on a Friday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Coming to you from Naples, Florida, a beautiful city that could be hit hard by the ferocious Hurricane Wilma, but a city that has -- well, they've seen this sort of thing before.You see, Naples was a sleepy retirement community back in 1960. Hurricane Donna changed all that. It forced the city to rebuild from scratch, though a lot has changed in the last 45 years. Some people who survived Donna are still here. We look back now at the last hurricane to strike Naples head-on.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Deadly Donna, that's what they called it. September 1960, Donna made landfall as a cat 4 hurricane, slamming into Florida. It was a monster. Homes flipped upside down. Beachfront resort towns were blown apart, reduced to ghost towns. Donna claimed 50 lives. It was the worst folks here had seen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's kind of like a -- covering your eyes, let's hope it goes away.
COOPER: Bonnie Vinshoden (ph) and Becky Riley (ph) have always lived in Naples. They work at "The Naples Daily News." They were both 12 years old when Donna hit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We lived in a split-level house, and a third of our roof came off and went into our swimming pool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a boyfriend at the time that rode a canoe from 14th Avenue South to Lake Park, to my house.COOPER: This 1960s weather loop tells Donna's story. After striking Florida, it turned tail and headed up the East Coast.
MYERS: Rolled up through the Florida straits, almost the exact opposite direction that Wilma's going to be taking, and then slammed right across the middle keys very close to Marathon, Florida, into Florida Bay, across Naples and Fort Myers, hanging a right-hand turn across Tampa, just to the south of Jacksonville, and then literally hugging the coast all the way up through North Carolina, and then finally out into the North Atlantic.
COOPER: Donna ranked sixth on CNN's top 10 list of the most intense hurricanes. Its remnants live on in photo archives, streets under water, a causeway ripped apart, washed away, marinas turned into boat graveyards. This dramatic photo of a rescue in Boston Harbor, the shipmate was saved, but the schooner smashed into a sea wall. Looking at this damage, though, we need to remember, in the 1960s, the Florida coastline was a very different place than it is today.
MYERS: From 1960, when Donna hit, to now, we've built hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of homes and condos right along the water, because everyone -- everybody wants a view of the Gulf of Mexico. And that view may be taken out if this storm comes in better than a cat 1 or a category 2.
COOPER: Hurricane Donna was the last major hurricane to strike Naples directly. They have a saying here, "God has a condo in Naples. That's why it never gets hit." Tonight, many are hoping that 45 years of good luck still holds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm planning on staying in my own -- in the little house that I own, that was built in 1949, and it went through Donna, and I'm hoping that it'll go through whatever Mother Nature throws at us next.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Joining us now is Bill Barnett, the mayor of Naples, Florida.Mayor, thanks very much for being with us.
MAYOR BILL BARNETT, NAPLES, FLORIDA: Thank you.COOPER: So nice to see you.
BARNETT: Thank you.
(INAUDIBLE).
COOPER: It's a beautiful city. Let me just say that.
BARNETT: Thank you.
COOPER: And I hope it passes very quickly.You know, you look back at those old pictures of Donna, and what happened to the city then. There's not a lot of people around who were here back then. Do you think, do you worry that people have sort of forgotten what can happen?
BARNETT: I don't think that's the case. You know, we've had so many near-hits, or I should say near-misses, over the years. People are pretty used to the preparation and getting ready for these hurricanes.
COOPER: If it is a, you know, a category 1, a category 2 storm that hits here, is Naples ready?
BARNETT: We're ready. We're definitely ready. I mean, I want to look at it, and I'm always the eternal optimist, but I think we're ready for whatever -- whatever nature deals us, we're going to be ready for it. I mean, how we're going to withstand it, I can't tell you. (INAUDIBLE)...COOPER: Are there shelters in town?
BARNETT: Yes. There are shelters throughout the county. We have schools that are opened up. We've got our emergency operations center, that are, you know, they're all working and ready to go. The biggest question is the buildings and the high-rises that you see, and the homes that you see. They've never been really tested. That's -- because everything came after Donna.
COOPER: Right. Do -- but you think they can pass the test.
BARNETT: Well, you know, I'm -- it's going to be an educated guess. I think some of them will, and I don't know what's going to happen with some of them. I don't know what's going to happen with the storm surge. You know, these are all unknowns.
COOPER: Some parts of the town are under mandatory evacuations. Where is under mandatory evacuations, and how have you made those decisions?
BARNETT: Where we are right now, anything west of U.S. 41 and south of U.S. 41, in other words, all your beach -- the majority of the city of Naples is under mandatory evacuation now. And we have extended it to Sunday at 8:00 a.m. that with the people need to leave. And based on tomorrow, and as you said, you've been reporting so well on that, you know, where the storm is now, if it's still stays stalled, if we don't know it's going to turn, we might extend that, you know, mandatory evacuation.
COOPER: Mandatory evacuation, of course, I mean, it's kind of misnomer. It doesn't really mean mandatory evacuation.
BARNETT: Thank you. You are so right. I have been well -- I've been fighting that battle. It's -- the word "mandatory" is a little bit ambiguous...
COOPER: Right.
BARNETT: ... because if you decide you're going to stay in your home, and you're not leaving, nobody's coming in and going to drag you out. However, once the police, fire, emergency services, everybody's called in, you're on your own.
COOPER: And yet, as we saw even in New Orleans, you know, police are still motivated to try to go out and respond, because that's what they do.
BARNETT: Right. But, you know, with Charley here last year, when we were called in, we were just -- I mean, we were in. We just could not go out, because the conditions were so bad.
COOPER: Yes, we talked to some people who talked about having an emergency preparedness kit. What do you recommend people have? I mean, if they are trying to weather the storm, what do you recommend they have?
BARNETT: Well, you know, they have to have their water and flashlights and some food, hopefully not frozen food, obviously. They're not going to be cooking. But some canned food, ways the open that food, and their medicine, if they need it. But I just can't imagine, after watching what we're watching today, that anybody would say, Hey, I'm -- you know, I'm going to -- would say, I'm staying, I'm not getting out of here.
COOPER: Right.
BARNETT: There was an attitude that people have been
(INAUDIBLE)
, there was an attitude, even after Charley, about, you know, you heard the hurricane parties, right? Everyone, Well, we're going to say and have a hurricane party. After what Katrina did, I don't see -- I don't feel that. I don't see that. People are serious. They're not joking. They're not -- I don't hear any hurricane jokes either.
COOPER: That's right, yes, certainly
(INAUDIBLE)
. Mayor, thank you very much for (INAUDIBLE)...
BARNETT: My pleasure, and thanks for being here.
COOPER: All right.
BARNETT: OK, be safe.
COOPER: Oh, I know you don't really want me here if I know -- because
(INAUDIBLE)
bad news.
BARNETT: I -- no, no, I want you here. But come back and visit us when we don't have a threat of a storm.
COOPER: OK, all right.Up next, the president and his choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Harriet Miers, nothing but good things to say about each other. But in the world of politics, that might turn out to be a bad thing. We'll explain why ahead.Also later, the mystery of a missing airman may be closer to being solved. Officials are thawing a body recovered high in the Sierra Nevadas.This is NEWSNIGHT, from Naples, and New York, and around the world.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We have a cool, cloudy night in the city.Harriet Miers may or may not make it to the Supreme Court, but she's already earned a spot alongside some of the greats.But before we go through anymore on this, something needs to be said. The executive producer who came up with the idea for this piece -- and we don't say this lightly -- is a genius.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now you're operating. Get in there and pitch, lover boy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN (voice-over): Eddie Haskell most certainly set the standard for sycophants back in the '50s. But since then, everyone from Hollywood honchos to powerful politicians have done their best to raise the bar.So it's not surprising that some have turned a suspicious eye on notes written by Harriet Miers to her boss, back a decade ago. She was the head of the Texas State Lottery. Her boss was Governor George W. Bush. Like any smart employee, she sent her boss a birthday card, cute little puppy on the cover. And on it, she wrote, "Dear Governor
GEORGE W. BUSH, You are the best governor ever, deserving of great respect." And, "At least for 30 days, you are not older than me." In another note, she made sure to mention the kids writing, "Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are 'cool,' as do the rest of us."Chances are, speaking as the father of a teenager, they did not.Her notes were filled with superlatives, like, "Great speech," and "The dinner was great, especially the speech." Some would say this is simply good etiquette. Others might call it classic kissing up.
RICHARD STENGEL, CEO, NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER: Sycophantic behavior has been around for a very long time, but particularly around presidents and leaders. And I would bet, if you look back in the archives, you know, there are plenty of notes to Abe Lincoln saying, Abe, your beard looks great, or, You're so brilliant.
BROWN: If it was just flattery, did it do her any good? Well, it certainly didn't hurt. Just ask the now-Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers. If ingratiation is an essential part of politics, imagine how big it is in Hollywood.
STENGEL: In Hollywood, you can't just say a movie is good. If it's not great, the person thinks that you didn't like it.
BROWN: In film and in television, they celebrate the need to, well, suck up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Larry.
BROWN: In "The Player," producer after producer, one more desperate than the next, never failed to toss the idle compliments to any studio head around. From politicians, to players, to just plain folks, no doubt we all can benefit from a few well-placed words, as long as we remember the rules.According to the experts, be specific. Don't go too far. And as Mark Twain said, "Don't offer a compliment and ask for a favor at the same time."STENGEL: If you praise upward well, you have a better chance of getting that corner office than if you don't say anything at all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: By the way, y'all look great tonight.Still ahead, serious stuff. What happens when a brutal storm takes a powerfully long time to leave? We'll update the path of Wilma. Also tonight, is the new NBA dress code really code about race?And later, Michael Jackson's journey from Neverland to where?A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Category 4 Hurricane Wilma Pounds Away at Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula; 16-Year Old Charged with Murder; The Frozen Discovery in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is Being Slowly Thawed; Bird Flu Detected in a Parrot in Britain; Hurricane Wilma Batters Cancun, Destroying Luxury Hotels In Mayan Riviera; NBA Imposes Dress Code On Players, No More Urban Scene; Dome Of A Home, New Ideas In Building Hurricane- Proof Structures; Michael Jackson Is Moving To Bahrain
Aired October 21, 2005 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. Welcome to NEWSNIGHT. The charge against a young man in California is murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Accused of brutally murdering his neighbor, a 16-year old is charged as an adult in a California court. What's the state's evidence? And what's the possible punishment for the heinous crime? NBA players up in arms about the new dress code -- aimed at doing away with dew rags, flashy chains and loose fitting clothes. Tonight, we'll talk to the former NBA rebel, Dennis Rodman. Could a dress code really help bring in more fans?A frozen discovery in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, now being slowly thawed to determine the past of this frozen man. Tonight, will forensic evidence shed light on a life frozen in time?This is NEWSNIGHT. Live, from the CNN Broadcast in New York is Aaron Brown. And from Naples, Florida, Anderson Cooper.
BROWN: The blue flu -- make that the bird flu continues its march across Europe -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, Aaron. Good evening, everyone. I'm in Naples, Florida, where the state is getting more time to prepare as Wilma slowly approaches; 140 mile per hour winds right now -- no one taking any chances. We're going to bring you the latest on the storm in just a second. First, here's a look at what's happening at this moment. Let's take a look. In Britain, a major concern after a bird from South America dies under quarantine. The parrot tested positive for bird flu strain, but it is not know if that's the same as the deadly strain of bird flu found in Asia. Texas Congressman Tom DeLay made his first court appearance this morning. His arraignment on conspiracy and money laundering charges was delayed pending a hearing on his request for a new judge. In Washington, a man who apparently told police there was a bomb in his car, today has been taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. D.C. police detonated a package inside the vehicle on Capitol Hill. No explosives were found inside.And President Bush is calling a U.N. report released today deeply disturbing. The report implicates Syria in the February murder of Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Mr. Bush says the world body must take strong action and hold those guilty accountable.We continue to watch Wilma. Right now the Category 4 hurricane is lashing Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. It's got 140 mile per hour winds, storm surge of 11 feet. Tracking Wilma from Atlanta is CNN's Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers. Chad, what's the latest?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The latest, we just have the 11:00 o'clock advisory. Some of the newer stuff, the discussion coming, as we call it. The storm has literally moved about 15 miles in six hours, just pounding away here at the Yucatan. There is Cozumel. Basically this entire area is called the Mayan Riviera. Some very high dollar, high-class resorts, all the way from the seven in Cancun -- and we'll get you a little bit closer -- the seven in Cancun is called the resort or the hotel zone. That's where all the big hotels are. And as we get you a little bit closer with the radar, this entire thing turns to the right -- look, by 8:00 o'clock tomorrow night, it only moves 50 miles. And then it finally picks up some speed and tries to track toward the Florida coast. I am not convinced that it's going to be this far south, though. It could be a little bit farther to the north. I haven't read enough about what the Hurricane Center is thinking about that, but that is the same forecast, the same path that this thing's been taking for a long time. These guys are not changing their mind much. This has been a pretty solid forecast. I'm sure the timing has changed a little and I think it maybe even sped up a little bit. It looks like tomorrow it starts to speed up a little bit after it gets offshore. Here's the storm itself, though. Here's Cozumel, the island here. There's the town of Cozumel. Down here where the cruise ships dock, and then Cancun just getting the extreme northern eye wall. The airport, right about there, so just south of the Moon Palace -- right through here -- that's what's getting pounded with those 140 mile per hour winds. Cancun itself and the Hotel 7, right there. You have to use your imagination, but it is there, getting winds at 110 now and going up. And the Hurricane Center talking about the center of the eye almost making a second landfall right now; it made the first one right here in Cozumel. Still tracking off towards the northwest at three miles per hour, Anderson, an excruciatingly slow storm for the people getting by these high winds right now.
COOPER: I cannot even imagine a three mile per hour storm. I'm trying to remember what the slowest storm that I was in was and I think it was even double digits. I think it was maybe 10 or 12.
MYERS: Oh, sure.
COOPER: Three is just extraordinary.
MYERS: Yes. And something on the other side of my screen here -- I don't want to get you all excited, but probably something that could be turning into a tropical depression for tomorrow. And if it does, and then to a storm, it would be Alpha -- the first time we ever had to get to the Greek alphabet.
COOPER: I don't even want to hear any Greek right now from you Chad.
MYERS: Just so you know.
COOPER: Not right now. It's too much. All right, thanks very much. Appreciate it. I know you got to tell us. Aaron, we always hate it when Chad is the bearer of bad news or the bearer of another storm, but the imaginable -- to think there could be another one out there.
BROWN: Yes, I can live without Alpha and I'm sure everyone down there can too. Thank you.Classmates say he was a gothic kid, a loner who always dressed in black. Tonight, 16-year old Scott Dyleski is charged with murder in the killing of Pamela Vitale, the wife of Defense Attorney and TV Commentator Daniel Horowitz. From California tonight, CNN's Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 16-year old Scott Dyleski is being treated as an adult by the state of California. He made his first court appearance late today on charges of first-degree murder.
HAL JEWETT, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: This is a brutal homicide. And because he is very close to his 17th birthday, we believe that it's a situation where he is not entitled to protections afforded him under the juvenile law and it's appropriate to prosecute him as an adult.
ROWLANDS: Dyleski is accused of killing 52-year old Pamela Vitale, the wife of defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. Vitale was found dead at the couple's northern California estate last Saturday. A law enforcement source close to the case tells CNN that investigators believe Dyleski used a piece of crown molding to beat Vitale to death. They say he then carved a cross-like symbol into her back. Friday evening investigators with dogs were back at the Horowitz estate, apparently searching for potential evidence. Schoolmates tell CNN in recent year, Dyleski was withdrawn, dressing in black, painting his nails black and wearing makeup. Anthony Catanesi says he used to play baseball with Scott Dyleski. He says Dyleski changed after his older sister died in an auto accident a few years ago.
ANTHONY CATANESI, FRIEND OF SUSPECT: That may have helped in his turn towards the, you know, the goth side.
ROWLANDS: The decision to treat a 16-year old boy as an adult can be a difficult one, according to Former Prosecutor Jim Anderson, but not in this case.
JIM ANDERSON, FORMER PROSECUTOR: The horrendous nature of the crime in and of itself is going me, if I was the one in charge and making that call, I'd file ASAB (ph) right now. It's just not even going to be a second glance.
ROWLANDS: During his short court appearance, Dyleski did not speak or enter a plea. The hearing was continued because his lawyer was out of town. Dyleski is scheduled to be back in court next Thursday
.(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: And as it stands now, the maximum sentence that Scott Dyleski faces is 26 years to life. That said, investigators were out looking for more clues tonight and prosecutors do have the ability to add special circumstances, meaning he could face a possible life without parole sentence. Because he is under the age of 18, he is not eligible for the death penalty -- Aaron.
BROWN: Is there any suggestion that he has been talking to police?
ROWLANDS: Well, from what we know from law enforcement sources yesterday, the answer to that is no, in terms of a confession. Whether that has changed over the last 24 hours, who knows. He is a 16-year old boy and I'm sure they're asking him for details. And who knows whether his cooperation level has changed.
BROWN: Ted, thank you. Ted Rowlands, San Francisco.Tonight, a fence moving quickly since yesterday's break in this case. 16-year old suspect, as we just told you, will be tried as an adult. Bail: Million dollars. We're learning some detail now on the bludgeoning of Pamela Vitale. We talked with CNN's Nancy Grace a little bit earlier tonight about some of the developments.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Nancy, I suppose if photos and mug shots were evidence, we wouldn't even need to have a trial. This is a scary looking young man. But mug shots aren't evidence and what do we know of the evidence against this boy?
NANCY GRACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know is this young man, Scott Dyleski, went to a first appearance today, as it is called in many jurisdictions, and he was charged with murder one; bail set at $1 million, Aaron. We also know or strongly suspect that the link to this young many will be DNA evidence. We know that Pamela Vitale put up a ferocious fight. I have confirmed tonight that Scott Dyleski is covered in scratches. That says to me DNA will be under Pamela's fingernails. Now, as you know, several days have passed. So a DNA match could have already been made up. But it's my understanding from Daniel Horowitz as late as tonight, that the tip line is what led to the arrest. Remember, this is a 16-year old with no fingerprints no DNA on file, no criminal history. So the tip line apparently led to police questioning and then arresting him.
BROWN: Do we know anything about the tip?
GRACE: I think the tip had something to do with the young man being scratched up.
BROWN: Do we know if it came from a student? Do we have any idea who it came from -- a fellow student? A neighbor? Do we have any idea?
GRACE: I have an idea, but I have not confirmed it. I do know that this young man lived very near Daniel Horowitz, on that same mountain, a very remote area. I also confirmed tonight that Daniel had done quite a bit of pro bono work for this family, just as a neighbor, for free.
BROWN: Do we know that if this boy had contact with the victim?
GRACE: You mean prior to the killing?
BROWN: Yes, prior -- yes.
GRACE: In the sense that they were neighbors, most likely, yes.
BROWN: Do we know if there was bad blood?
GRACE: No. No bad blood to my knowledge whatsoever. In fact, as I said, Horowitz had helped the family out. Tonight there are a lot of suspicions that there was some type of credit card fraud that this young man was engaging in and that Horowitz's mailbox or mail had been tampered with by him. But I can tell you this much, Aaron, as I went over the crest of that hill and down to Horowitz's trailer where they were living while building the home, you could see immediately that she was there alone. I saw her car still parked there alone, covered in fingerprint dust. But the first thing he would have known, whether by the street or by one of many, many foot paths across that mountain, he would have known she was there by herself.
BROWN: All right, just one more question here. He's charged with murder one as an adult, but he's 16, so he is not death penalty eligible?
GRACE: Absolutely not. Until recently the cutoff in our country was 16. It has now been upped. He does however face life without the possibility of parole.
BROWN: Nancy, it's good to see you. Have a good weekend.
GRACE: Thank you, friend.
BROWN: Still to come on the program, tracking down the identity of a man frozen in time. We take a look at the painstaking process, using both sophisticated forensics and a good old public library.And later, an entire Russian village under quarantine tonight -- bird flu to blame. We'll take you there. We'll take a look at where the deadly virus has already spread in this world. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A sad, but simple fact -- unless you happen to be rich or famous or notorious, you probably won't run into a lot of people wanting to write your biography. That's hardly the case of a man who departed life years -- perhaps decades ago -- possibly on a training mission during World War II. Though probably not famous or notorious or rich, he now has biographers of plenty lining at his feet -- very cold feet. Here's CNN Thelma Gutierrez.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Sierra Nevada mountain range, 400 miles long. Could it be that this man recently discovered at the foot of a glacier, preserved in ice and frozen in time, was on an ill-fated military flight during World War II?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Disappeared while on a routine training flight.
GUTIERREZ: Some local historians think so.
RAY SILVIA, LIBRARIAN: Tuesday morning I received a call from the government and they said they had found an airman.
GUTIERREZ: Ray Silvia, the Fresno librarian, says the military asked him to research plane crashes in the Sierra Nevada mountain range during that era.
SILVIA: It's kind of an obscure book, but it's one of a kind on aircraft wrecks.
GUTIERREZ: Ray searched for the name of the glacier where the soldier was found. There it was, a crash back on November 18, 1942, that killed everyone on board.
SILVIA: It was uncertain really whether everyone was found.
GUTIERREZ: Then, Ray turned to local newspaper reports from 1942. More details matched the discovery in the ice.
ALEX PICABET, SEQUOIA AND KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK: People who reported finding this had found a parachute and cut a piece off of that parachute. And the parachute itself said U.S. Army.
GUTIERREZ: Alex Picabet says it was a highly trained team of national park rangers who chipped into the ice for hours so that this soldier could finally come home.
PICABET: You could have all kinds of things go with him in his pocket. He could have photos or letters. We don't know. There's so much still to be revealed as he comes out of the ice that kept him company for the last 60 plus years.
GUTIERREZ: The body, encased in 400 pounds of granite and ice was flown to the Fresno coroner's office, where it was thawed.
LORALEE CERVANTES, FRESNO COUNTY CORONER: We've just been using cold water to melt the ice at a quicker rate.
GUTIERREZ: The coroner x-rayed the body in ice, but so far no
ID.CERVANTES: Even if we found something that had his name on it or had an ID, we'd go further than that to try to provide positive ID.
GUTIERREZ: From Fresno, the body will be flown to the joint POW- MIA Counting Command in Hawaii where forensic studies will help determine who this man, still wearing a military green sweater, was.
CERVANTES: Something like this is really exciting, because the chance to return anyone, much less someone who's been missing for 60 plus years, the chance to return them to their family is pretty exciting for a coroner to be able to take part in that.
GUTIERREZ: Exciting for everyone, from the park rangers who brought him out, to local librarians who dug up the details. It's a chance to participate in history. Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Fresno, California.
BROWN: History and science. For more on the science, we talked with Forensic Anthropologist Kathy Reichs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Let's just assume for a second that the speculation turns out to be all factual and that the body was frozen the whole time. What kind of condition is that body in?
KATHY REICHS, FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST: Well, if it's been frozen the whole time, it should be in pretty good condition. And there's a good chance 13,000 feet up, that maybe it was. Now when they saw it, part of it was sticking out. I think part of the head and part of the hands were sticking out. So there's a possibility that over the years the snow has retreated and advanced and retreated and advanced, so there may have been periods when it was exposed.
BROWN: And when it was exposed, it would decompose?
REICHS: Yes. It would be subject to decomposition, just like any other body. Now, again, being 13,000 feet up, it may be protected in some ways. The insect activity is probably going to be just about zero up in that climate.
BROWN: But it's possible you have a relatively intact human being, isn't it?
REICHS: It's very possible. Remember the ice man that was discovered in the Italian Alps? He was 7,000 years old.
BROWN: And if in fact it's a relatively intact human being, is it so intact that you could actually recognize the face?
REICHS: Well, that was certainly the case with the ice man. You could still see that his eyes had been blue. You could still see he had a mustache. You could still see his tattoos. So if this guy was in, you know, permafrost for 66 years, it's very possible.
BROWN: Let's talk about the challenges. Assuming it was less than optimal, the challenges for determining the identity after all these years are what?
REICHS: Well, you've got a closed population. One of the -- I consulted to the military identification lab out in Hawaii for years, so I'm very familiar with the process. You've got a closed population. They're going to -- first of all they're going to research what planes might have crashed in that area. They're going to take the paraphernalia that were found with the body and they're going to trace back through that. So they're going to get a list of names, possible names. So that they're going to be able to go out and get dental records and antemortem medical records. And the military is really good at archiving that kind of information. So it's not like you have a complete unknown and you're starting from zero. So the anthropologists and the dentists that work out at the military ID lab, out in Hawaii are going to begin their analyses, they're going to look at the bones, they're going to look at the teeth and they're going to see which of those individuals on that list of possible matches is the best fit.
BROWN: So it's not without challenges, but it's not a one in a million, figuring out who this is either?
REICHS: Oh, not at all. In fact, I think it's probably in some way, it's going to be easier than if you just stumble upon a completely unknown individual. You're going to have those records that you can go to. Now, if they come up zero as a match to anybody in those records, then you've got a real challenge.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Kathy Reichs, talked with her earlier. Preparations against bird flu being stepped up around the world. This will give you a good idea why too. Until recently, bird flu was contained to Asia; 60 people there have died from bird flu, presumably from contact with animals that had the disease. Bird flu has now spread to Europe, detected in Turkey, Romania and in Russia. And just today, Britain found bird flu in a parrot from South America. We don't yet know if it's the deadly strain.Officials fear the virus could mutate into a form that could spread easily among humans and set off a world-wide pandemic. And in Russia, that means drastic measures. Here's CNN's Ryan Chilcote.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This checkpoint is the closest journalists can get to the Russian village of Yandovka. Only government workers and its 200 residents are allowed in now. The government ordered Yandovka sealed off and all its birds destroyed after test results indicated some were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. In six days, 300 birds died. None of the villagers have come down with bird flu symptoms yet, as has happened in Southeast Asia. And of those who came to the checkpoint to talk to journalists, none worried they would. The worry here is for their livelihood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (In Russian)
CHILCOTE: They're not afraid of the flu, this villager says, but they are of course sad. There's no work here, but poultry, which now all the poultry is gone.Just a day earlier, before the quarantine, cameras were allowed inside Yandovka. The villagers clearly upset about giving up their chickens, geese and ducks. When this official told these women they'd get $3 per chicken, they told him that won't fly. This elderly couple began hastily butchering their ducks before health officials could take their birds away. And in defiance of the official's instructions, they said they'd keep the meat. Officials say the villagers eventually cooperated and all of the birds -- an estimated 2,500 -- were culled. On the way back from filming the burn pit on the edge of town, we were disinfected. (on camera): Absolutely everyone who leaves Yandovka goes through this procedure. They come into this area where there's a lot of sawdust, and this gentleman right here disinfects them with a liquid that smells a lot like vinegar.(voice-over): Cars, too, are sprayed with a disinfecting solution. Yandovka will remain under quarantine for three weeks and its villagers will be closely monitored for bird flu symptoms. But that's little comfort, the villagers say, when the little livelihood they had in this impoverished Russian village is now gone. Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Yandovka, Russia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still to come, on a Friday night, Wilma's fury, as seen from the ground. And later, the NBA is calling for a bling-free zone. I've never said bling on TV before. The dress code off the court, and more as NEWSNIGHT continues.What was the most popular story on CNN.com today? Was it Hurricane Wilma crashing in to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula? Or Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay requesting a new judge at his arraignment? Or was it a 16-year old suspect arrested for murdering the wife of a prominent California attorney? The answer, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: So what was the most popular story on CNN.com today?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN (voice-over): Investigators in California have arrested Scott Dyleski, a 16-year old, in the connection with the murder of Pam Vitale, the wife of Criminal Defense Attorney Daniel Horowitz; investigators still trying to determine a motive. Vitale was found dead by her husband on October 15. Dyleski will be charged as an adult in the state of California.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: More on Hurricane Wilma in just a moment. Time now to make a quick check on some of the other news of the day. Christi Paul in Atlanta.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Aaron. NATO is joining the effort to help earthquake victims in South Asia. Members of the alliance today agreeing to send up to 1,000 engineers, medics and other troops to help with the relief effort. Officials are warning of a second wave of death as winter sets in.A California mother accused of tossing her three young children to certain death in the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay was in court today. Lashaun Harris kept her head down during the brief arraignment. Her public defender entered a plea of not guilty. Relatives say Harris has a history of mental problems, including schizophrenia and had stopped taking her medication.Scott Peterson has lost his gannet to get his late wife's life insurance policy. Today, a judge in Fresno, California ruled Laci Peterson's $250,000 policy will go to her mother. Mr. Peterson is sentenced to death for her murder and the murder of their unborn son. Under California law, criminals cannot profit from their crimes.And who said what to whom and why? Those have always been the key questions in the valor acclaimed CIA leak investigation. Now comes word Reporter Judith Miller's boss at the New York Times says she appears to have mislead the paper about her role in the investigation. Miller went to jail for refusing to reveal her source, as you will remember. That's it from Atlanta. Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: Christi, thank you, very much. Scott Peterson gets the insurance money -- that would be a shocker right there. That's a lead -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, it certainly is unbelievable. Aaron, welcome back. We are in Naples, Florida, watching Hurricane Wilma. It could hit the state by Monday. A mandatory evacuation is in effect here and is also going to resume tomorrow in the Florida Keys where thousands of residents are being told to pack up and get out. Not all of them are however. CNN's Gary Tuchman is live in Key West with more. Gary, what's going on?
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there may be a hurricane on the horizon, but the fact is Key West is still very lively. Most of the tourists are gone. They were told to evacuate on Wednesday, but there is still no mandatory evacuation for most of the people who live here. Some people have left. Others haven't, though, just yet. And many tell us they won't leave. The mayor and the city councilmen here in Key West are going door to door, telling people they should leave no matter what, telling them: You remember what happened in New Orleans? A lot of people decided not to leave. Look what happened. Please be careful and go. But many people here are telling us no matter what, they're sticking it out. Especially now they see it won't be as strong -- or it doesn't look like it will be as strong as originally anticipated. Now, we can tell you obviously a hurricane is a serious story, but this is Key West. This is a major party town. And tonight, all over Key West there are Wilma parties taking place. I just met some women a short time ago here who were participating in one of those Wilma parties. There's a gentleman there too. I think that he wasn't with the group originally. But I can tell you -- I'm not going to tell you what kind of theme parties are going -- we're just going to listen to these ladies for a second and you'll see what kind of theme parties are going on. Ladies, do what you were doing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: Flintstones, meet the Flintstones. We're the modern stone-age family. Lalalalalala.
TUCHMAN: OK. Now I cut in for a second. The idea is the Flintstones, but where is Wilma? None of you are Wilma. There's Fred, there's Barney, there's Betty.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're looking for -- where is Wilma.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're looking for Wilma. But where is she?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, but I have a question.
TUCHMAN: OK, and these guys are not exceptions to the rule. In fact, it's all over -- All over Duval Street here in Key West, there are Wilma parties taking place. This is Key West. The only place, Anderson, that may be like this is New Orleans, where we both just came from. All right, back to you.
COOPER: Yes, certainly. I like that they don't know the other lines of the Flintstones song. It was -- they all in unison went da- da-da-dya-dryadra (ph) ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have a gay old time.
COOPER: OK, there they go. All right. They knew end of it all right. Gary, thanks very much for that original report. And -- yes, why don't we just leave it at that. Coming up, we're tracking Hurricane Wilma. We'll have the very latest from Chad Myers in the Weather Center. Plus, NBA players getting a makeover, whether they like it or not. Look at the new mandated dress code, minus the bling and the bling. And later, it seems Neverland has lost its charm. Said it ain't so. Michael Jackson decides to put down roots in the sand. From the Arabian Peninsula to Manhattan Island to Naples, Florida, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back from the beautiful town of Naples, Florida. In just a moment we're going to talk to Dennis Rodman, live, about the new NBA dress code. Hmm? That will be interesting. And we're tracking Hurricane Wilma, of course. Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers is going to have the latest. First, a look at the news at this moment. Bail for 16-year-old Scott Edgar Dyleski, has been set at $1 million. He has been charged with murdering Pamela Vitale, wife of defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. Prosecutor says Dyleski will be tried as an adult. At least of the president's men could be in legal jeopardy in the CIA leak case. Karl Rove, the President Bush's top aide and Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, should learn their fate next week. Grand jury may vote on possible indictments by next Wednesday. Congressman Tom DeLay was all smiles today as he made his first court appearance in his conspiracy and money laundering case. The defense maintains that both the prosecutor and judge are partisans and want the judge replaced. Another judge will rule on the defense's motion. And in Iraq, four new U.S. fatalities. Three Marines and a soldier were killed in Anbar Province. This, as the vote count continues on the new Iraqi constitution. As always CNN Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers has the latest on Hurricane Wilma. He joins us now from Atlanta -- Chad.
MYERS: A little bit more on the discussion coming out for the 11 o'clock advisory, Anderson. And now they actually have landfall coming in as a Category 2 storm, not a Category 1 like it was before. So above the Category 1, 2 threshold there. There is the storm, itself, and I'll zoom into this storm. It may, in fact, have actually drifted south. The wrong direction for that matter, in the past couple of hours. It kind of got up here. That is the island of Cozumel. And notice maybe just a little southward, maybe just a kink there, to the storm. Here's the latest radar picture. There is Cantana Rue (ph), there is Cancun, Cozumel. Right on down the Mayan Riviera, just multi-million-dollar resorts through here, and spas. South of Cozumel, that is the island area there. The hotel zone, downtown, right under that northern eye wall, picking up winds now in excess of 120 miles per hour. Just absolutely something you don't want to hear when you are talking about -- just structures here that probably don't have the same type of quality that some other folks are used to. At 8 o'clock on Saturday, the storm does travel to the northwest, about 50 miles in almost a single day. So what is that, two, three miles per hour? And then making a right-hand turn Sunday and finally into Monday, making landfall somewhere around 2 o'clock on Monday afternoon. So maybe that is a little bit faster actually, than we were thinking. And the Hurricane Center was thinking at 5 o'clock. There is the storm, itself, not very much progress. The arms of the storm all the way up to Florida, and for that matter right on down to Honduras. Port St. Lucie, Miami, picking up some rain showers. I got a call from my mom earlier, near Orlando. She said, hey, is this stuff from the storm? From Wilma? Yes, it is. In fact, even the rain showers all the way up to Jacksonville, part of Wilma. A little bit farther to the north, rain showers ending in Atlanta and more rain headed to the Northeast for the weekend. Not part of Wilma, part of a cold front. That will make some showers from the Ohio Valley right on up into Upstate New York. Back to you guys.
COOPER: And we saw some rain in Naples earlier today, Chad. But it has since calmed down and no rain here right now. Thanks very much for that. Aaron, a lot going on around the world. What is this about the NBA dress code? I've been totally out of the loop on this.
BROWN: Well, and I know how rigorously you read the sports page every single day.
(LAUGHTER)
So I'm shocked to hear that. Let me fill you in on that, OK? The storm -- it is an ongoing joke we have with each other. The storm around the NBA a week before the season starts is in some ways as old as the debate about athletes as role models. We humbly suggest that if one is looking for a role model one might look at a school teacher or a firefighter. But somehow athletes have been given that responsibility. To some NBA players it seems especially burdensome, requiring beginning this season that they dress the part of -- well, a professional.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): No one disputes it's about image, and perhaps, a bit about race. Some of the NBA's biggest stars dress off the court the way many young African-American men dress on the street. So sitting on the bench, Allen Iverson, with his tattoos aplenty, and hat turned sideways, baggie pants and bling, is not the image the League wants to project to the people who buy what it is selling. So a League edict, the baggie pants, the bling, the jerseys, even headphones have to go at public team events. Unhappy news for Mr. Iverson.
ALLEN IVERSON, PHILADELPHIA 76ERS: You know, you can put a suit or a shirt and tie on a bad person, still going to be a bad person. So I just think it is a bad idea, you know, basically because we have our own identity. We have our own personalities.
BROWN: Another of the League's stars was even more direct. Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs said, quote, "I think it a load of crap. I'll probably stay in the locker room if I don't play. I understand what they're trying to do with the do-rags and the hats," he went on, "But I don't understand why they're taking it to this extreme."Race has long been an issue for the League and its fans. A generation ago it was said you could start two black players at home, three on the road. Those days are long gone. But League executives worry that young star look like gangsters. They would rather they look like San Antonio's Tony Parker. And a lot of players seem to agree.
ANDRIS BIEDRINS, SAN FRANCISCO WARRIORS: I have a lot of suits. I bought a lot of
(INAUDIBLE)
so, I don't have a problem with that.
DEJI AKINDELE, SAN FRANCISCO WARRIORS: I don't have no problem with the dress code, because I think it -- make you look like a professional.
BROWN: Some players say the whole idea should have gone through the players union. Others are upset because they see it as an edict imposed by white executives on mostly African-American athletes.
DEREK FISHER, SAN FRANCISCO WARRIORS: I think it is always tough when you get into taking away an individual person's ability to express themselves, in the way they feel comfortable, whether it is through speech, or whether it is through dress, or whatever it maybe.
BROWN: As we said in the end, it is all about image and image matters. So when all is said and done, what fans may most remember, is not what Allen Iverson wears, but what he said.
IVERSON: I feel like they want us to dress a certain way. They should pay for, you know, our clothing.
BROWN: Mr. Iverson makes about $11 million a year for playing basketball and another $8 million or so for the sneakers he wears.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In making the announcement on Tuesday, the NBA Commissioner David Stern called it a dress code even Mark Cuban could live with. Mr. Cuban being the outspoken and often underdressed owner of the Dallas Mavericks. We spoke with him earlier tonight about the notion that players appear too urban to too street.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARK CUBAN, OWNER, DALLAS MAVERICKS: I think, there is not question that, sure, anybody looking from the outside in that would be the perception. I think you know there is just a faction within the NBA, particularly the ownership group, that just doesn't understand the players these days. And that comes through as being perceived as being we're too street and that's unfortunate. BROWN: I think they would say, I'm reluctant to speak for Mr. Stern, but it's not a question of whether they understand the players, it is whether fans understand the players, whether corporations understand the players, whether commercial potential sponsors understand the players. Maybe they're wrong, but that is how they see it.
CUBAN: To your point, you know, if you don't really understand the people you are selling, or the product you are selling it is awful tough to sell it to corporations. And there is no question that from time to time the NBA has had a struggle in certain corporate environments. And this is definitely a response to that. Do I think it is the right response? Certainly, not the right timing in the response, but I understand why we did it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We're joined, from Costa Mesa, California, by Dennis Rodman, who is a man who wore many jerseys in his NBA career, and just about everything else off the court. He's also the recent author of, "I Should Be Dead By Now". And we're glad to see that he is not. It is nice to see you, Mr. Rodman. Would you agree that among a good chunk of the audience that watches basketball, the NBA has an image concern?
DENNIS RODMAN, FMR. NBA PLAYER: Well, I don't think so. I think the fact that if you look at the guys back, like Michael Jordan, and Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas and Charles Butler (ph), those guys that represented the League real well, as far as dressing and a dress code, I think those guys would say, you know what, we didn't care what we dressed like, as long as we performed and get the fans what they want. You know, get their money's worth. And for me, I didn't care what I looked like.
BROWN: Really?
RODMAN: I don't think the fans cared either.
(LAUGHTER)
No, I don't think the fans care either. They just want the players to come on the court and produce. I think David Sterns went way, way overboard with this.
BROWN: You don't think that -- I don't know, I'm trying to think of a sponsor that I won't get in trouble on -- but some company that might buy a luxury box at a arena, or might buy time on a television newscast -- on a television cast of a basketball game, that those people, money people, the revenue that players count on to pay very hefty salaries, aren't concerned about the image of pro basketball players?
RODMAN: Well, that's a loaded question, right there. I mean basketball will be basketball players --
BROWN: That's my job.
RODMAN: I know it's your job. I know it's your job. But I mean, you got to understand something. David Stern should have communicated with the Players Association, and with the players and all the players and their teams should have sat down and got with some type -- you know, some type of -- middle man, and said, OK, let's dress this way. If we can't do that, let's do it this way. He didn't do that. He just said, you know what we're going to sign this right here. And just declaration, this is where it is going to go, and we can't have -- we have so much money now, we need more money from the corporate sponsors. And I'm looking like this, you know, why is it that the sports figures have to portray an image where, we're not trying to be role model type people. I think if you want to look at anything. You ask those corporate people that are trying to buy teams and trying to buy everything in the world. If you are going to their homes, how many of their kids are watching MTV, VH-1, that is where they're getting all this from. Not from the NBA players. If you ask any -- any kid, who are you dressed like? Who are you trying be like? You go in the homes, there is MTV, that's all that crap on MTV, VH-1.
BROWN: No, maybe -- you know, you may be exactly right and maybe one of the reasons that they find it troubling that athletes dress this way, is exactly that. That they're uncomfortable with their kids dressing that way, and they're uncomfortable with athletes as role models when they do. I'm not sure they're right or wrong. I'm just saying that is how they feel. And if they pay the freight, they should get to call that shot, shouldn't they?
RODMAN: Well, you have to understand something. What I'm saying, in my career, you pay me to play. You don't pay to control my life. You don't pay to control my life. You know, if I want to feel like I want to come to the gym, maybe to the stadium, maybe three four hours earlier. Does that mean I have to wear a suit, there is no one here? Can I come in my sweats and work out before the game. And when I'm the last person to leave, should I wear a suit to go out? Is that right? No, it's not right. I think the players and the people that are in this business seem to understand that. It's like, if you want to buy a team, are you going to judge every particular player on your team, everybody in your office, and say, you know what, (INAUDIBLE) cannot dress that way. You have to dress this certain way or you're done. That's not right. You have to give them an opportunity --
BROWN: It depends if they can make a three-point shot at the buzzer.
RODMAN: But it ...
BROWN: Do you ever miss playing?
RODMAN: Well, as far as, yes -- I don't know about that. Today, I don't -- you know, all these rules and regulations. I don't know man.
BROWN: Oh, you'd do fine.
RODMAN: I'd have to go to David Stern and say, David, you know, it's OK. I'm all right. I'm a good guy, now can I play? I'm not going to sit there and kiss anybody's ass. I'm not going to do that. But you know what, we have to play by the rules and perform, that's great.
BROWN: Mr. Rodman, it is good to talk to you.
RODMAN: All right, brother.
BROWN: There's a lesson in there. I know I ask one too many questions. Still to come on the program, reminiscent of "The Three Little Pigs", a special house built to withstand all the huffing and puffing the hurricane throw it's way. And Neverland no more, Michael Jackson leaves the Hollywood scene for a bit of royalty. We'll take a break, clean up our act, and continue, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: As we speak Hurricane Wilma sweeping along the Yucatan Peninsula out to sea, but is it true that man-made structures can't withstand a major hurricane? Maybe not, if your home is a dome. CNN's Jonathan Freed investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're here in Pensacola Beach, Florida, and behind me is what's called the dome of a home.If you're driving by here, you cannot help but stop and stare at this thing.Let me give you a sense of where we are. Over here, we're about 150 yards away from the Gulf of Mexico right there. Now, this home is built to withstand, as you pointed out, the force of a hurricane.Let me give you an example about that. Come back here, and if you see what used to be their neighbors, there's nothing there. The homes that were next door here were just completely razed by last year's hurricane season here in Florida.Joining me now is the member of the family that built this home, Rick Kuklinsky. Thank you for joining you.
RICK KUKLINSKY, FAMILY MEMBER: You're welcome.
FREED: So what is it about the shape, this dome shape that really allows this home to withstand the force of a hurricane?
KUKLINSKY: Well, it's a monolithic design. The ground is built up and bermed to the side. It's a dome shape, so when the wind hits this, it breaks around. So it doesn't have, you know, the sheer force to knock it down, so it will withstand tremendous forces.
FREED: So with other more traditional homes, with flat walls, you have that wind just impacting right on the walls there, and adding stress.
KUKLINSKY: Right.
FREED: Here, the wind just breaks right around the side.
KUKLINSKY: Right. Like an airplane wing kind of thing.
FREED: OK. Now, part of the construction here involves actually inflating a balloon in order to cover over that dome. How does that work?
KUKLINSKY: Well, it's sprayed with -- a balloon is blown up. It's sprayed with foam and then shot with concrete to coat it. And inside the concrete, there's rebar. So basically, we're making a cooler -- a cooler home. There's no infiltration of moisture whatsoever.So long-term, this home will be here for a couple of lifetimes.
FREED: So if you've ever played with paper mache as a kid and covered over a balloon with newspaper dipped it in ...
KUKLINSKY: Well ...
FREED: It's kind of a high-tech version of that?
KUKLINSKY: That's correct. That's correct. This is sort of experimental. Mr. Sigler has spent five years developing the concept, and Ivan proved that it worked. The break-away worked, the house stood.
FREED: And talking about things and break-away, that sort of thing, let's go inside here. Now, the whole house is built on pilings.
KUKLINSKY: Right.
FREED: And you can park, what, a half-a-dozen cars down here?
KUKLINSKY: When you say pilings, it's a different design. Pilings are usually -- they're every 10 foot, that you have a post. This home has a perimeter ring with the pilings going down to a certain depth, and they're reusable pilings. But it gives us a free space, which was a unique design.
FREED: And the storm surge will come -- the waves will come right through?
KUKLINSKY: Gush right through, that's the plan.
FREED: And that's kind of like you were describing before, if you took a glass of water.
KUKLINSKY: That's what a storm surge is like. A lot of people don't understand this. If you took a big tumbler, put a piece of cardboard on top, flipped it over and lifted up the glass, and the water goes out. You multiply that by 20, 30 miles, that's what happens. And it starts right here at the beach.
FREED: And speaking about right out here. Come on, Rick. Let's show people the one thing last season's hurricanes actually washed away. And we're talking about the staircase that's here in the front of the house. But this is really a break-away staircase.
KUKLINKSY: Right, this is built to wash away, when an intense surge comes, this breaks away from the home and it doesn't take the home with it. It's an expendable piece of structure.
FREED: OK. Now, what's it like inside? I think people would imagine if the wind is whipping around the outside of a dome like this, they would think it's probably quite noisy during a storm.
KUKLINSKY: Well, it's been amazing. Mr. Sigler stayed here during Ivan with about four other people. And they actually slept through the intense part of Ivan. And it was just quiet inside.
FREED: They slept through the storm?
KUKLINSKY: They slept through the storm, yes, the main part of it. They were up to about midnight, but then during the main eye they were sleeping and weren't disturbed. It's like being in a cooler. This is a concrete, huge, massive structure that is going to be here forever. It's an amazing feat that these pulled off. And it works.
FREED: If people want more information about this type of construction, where can they go?
KUKLINSKY: Domeofahome.com. In fact, universities are using this Web site. It's a massive thing. Domeofahome.com. They can got to that, find out everything about the dome, the construction, etc cetera.
FREED: All right. Rick Kuklinsky, thank you very much for showing off your house with us.
KUKLINSKY: Oh, you're welcome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Coming up, he's got a dome of his own. The King of Pop in a Persian Gulf Palace? Michael Jackson leave Neverland and the United States behind? NEWSNIGHT will be right back.
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COOPER: Welcome back to Naples, Florida. We're spending a lot of time covering Hurricane Wilma tonight, and rightfully so. But there are other stories making news, some are important, some -- well, they just kind of get your attention. Take the case of Michael Jackson, he's been out of the spotlight for a while and we don't mind that one bit, I must say. But now he's back. It seems the aging King of Pop maybe leaving America for good, trading it in for desert home -- oh, so far away.
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COOPER (voice-over): Like life imitating art, Michael Jackson has packed up his gloves, his dancing shoes and his not guilty verdict and beat it, from the streets of LA, to Bahrain. Bahrain?That's right, Bahrain. And island in the Persian Gulf. They call it the pearl of the Persian Gulf, in fact. Slightly to the right of Saudi Arabia. In fact, this is their national anthem. For those of you unfamiliar with Michael's new home. A few facts, it's a monarchy. The King of Pop's new best friend is the Crown Prince Sheik Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the official language is Arabic, but English is spoken just about everywhere. And 82 percent of the population practices Islam. That's the where, but the real question is, why?
STACEY BROWN, AUTHOR, "MICHAEL JACKSON": The fact that the royal family over there has basically taken care of him, financially and physically, they've really nursed him back to health.
COOPER: Judging from what we know of his lifestyle at the Neverland Ranch, it is going to take more than two men and a truck to move Michael across an ocean, a sea, and a couple of continents to his new digs. Who can handle a ferris wheel, a tiny train line, and menagerie? Oh, yes, Bahrain allows pets to come in, so Bubbles, if he's still around, will be welcome. Even if he leaves his toys behind, Michael won't want for life's luxuries. According to GulfNews.com, Michael has already made a few purchases, enough land to build a mansion and two villas for his closest friends.
BROWN: Now, that he's made Bahrain his permanent home, you can rest assured that wherever he lives there, he will try and recreate Neverland. COOPER: There is an upside to life in self-imposed exile on and dessert island, especially when your guided tours are conducted by millionaire race car drivers. In fact, there are reports that Michael has been seen driving around his new homeland in a flashy red Ferrari. You'll be happy to know a source told GulfNews.com that is just baseless gossip and the gloved one, quote, "Has a limited entourage, and he moves in his Rolls Royce."Nice to know he may have moved out of Neverland, but he hasn't lost the common touch.
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COOPER: And of course we did that story, because all week, Aaron has been asking me, where is Michael Jackson, where is Michael Jackson? So, Aaron, now you know.
BROWN: Thank you very much. He makes Dennis Rodman seem normal. Thank you. A quick of morning papers, before we leave you for the week, "The Washington Post", the Harriet Miers story -- I just think this is trouble here. It doesn't bother me, but it is going to bother some people. "Miers backed race, sex, set asides: She made diversity Texas Bar goal (ph)". She is just tough to get a handle on, which is not a terrible thing. But it is gonna bother some people. "New York Daily News", that would be here in New York, "Inside Story of a Wild Strip Club Spending Spree: Oh, What A Night!" Rob McCormick the CEO of the Savits (ph) Communications company allegedly, according to American Express, spent about $200,000, in one night, in a strip joint. If you happen to be going to the World Series in Chicago tomorrow, according to "The Chicago Sun-Times", it is going to be a mess, "contrary" is the weather. A bit of rain, too. We'll wrap up our week with you in just a moment.
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COOPER: Well, that's if for us here in Naples, Florida. Of course, Aaron, this weekend, we'll be watching very closely Wilma, right now over Cancun, 140 mile an hour winds, a very slow moving storm.
BROWN: Stay safe down there. We'll talk to you on Monday. Good to have you all with us tonight. "LARRY KING LIVE" coming up next. Have a good weekend.
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