Jones' Death Ruled Homicide; Search for Dru Sjodin Continues; Judge Sets Trial Date for Scott Peterson
Aired December 3, 2003 - 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: Good evening again everyone.We don't often get caught up in crime stories around here but they are everywhere tonight. There are crimes as old as time, domestic killings, and crimes as new as the new century, drug sales on the Internet.Greed and lust seem to have their place in this NEWSNIGHT crime wave, as they do in most, and none of it is likely to make you feel any better about your world this night.We ought to change the name of the whip to the lineup, and the whip begins in Cincinnati. CNN's Ed Lavandera is there where again the story is the death of a black man at the hands of police, which hardly tells the story at all, Ed a headline.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, city leaders here in Cincinnati spent the evening talking with several hundred
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saying that the 41-year-old man has been demonized by police but, at the same time, urging everyone to remain calm -- Aaron.BROWN: Ed, thank you.From there to North Dakota and developments in the disappearance of Dru Sjodin. CNN's Jeff Flock has the watch again tonight, Jeff a headline.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, 1,700 volunteers turned out to search for Dru Sjodin today and found absolutely nothing while the man who authorities say knows where she is, is back in the jail behind me and he is apparently not talking.BROWN: Jeff, thank you.Northern California after what seems an eternity another plea from Scott Peterson. CNN's Rusty Dornin following developments in the Peterson case, Rusty your headline tonight.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Scott Peterson told the court he was innocent again and a trial date was set for January but don't hold your breath -- Aaron.
BROWN: Rusty, thank you.And finally Miami and CNN's Susan Candiotti with a crackdown on the drug trade, the online variety, Susan a headline.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Aaron. A "Miami Vice" style drug bust today, no, not cocaine, not heroin, prescription drugs over the Internet. They can be addictive too -- Aaron.
BROWN: Susan, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.Also coming up tonight we'll talk with the former head of the EPA, Harold Browner, about some new and controversial pollution rules the government is about to propose and what looks like the collapse of Kyoto Protocols as well.Also tonight, Christiane Amanpour takes us to an Iraqi glass factory, which in its own way shows the struggle to rebuild both infrastructure and attitudes.Segment 7 takes us to Boone, Iowa and it's outsized contribution to the war with Iraq.And, as always, well pretty much as always, we'll end the night with a check of your morning paper tomorrow, all that and more in the hour ahead.We begin tonight in Cincinnati where the question remains did the death of Nathaniel Jones result from self defense or excessive force by police? Today the coroner in Hamilton County said the violent struggle caught on videotape was the primary cause of Mr. Jones' death, a death that will be ruled a homicide, which is not the same as saying a crime was committed.The coroner also said this. If not for Mr. Jones' obesity, heart disease and the drugs in his system, he probably would have survived the struggle. He didn't.Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It could have been avoided. I want to get somebody to say that.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): This town hall meeting was a chance to ask questions about the death of Nathaniel Jones but it was also a chance for this audience to vent their anger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you think them police is going to respect another black man in a poor neighborhood?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can he have had a chance to respond when every time that he started to move his arms he got hit again?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is what you all done did again, killed another black man.
LAVANDERA: Some 400 people launching questions at Cincinnati's police chief and other city leaders, it was the first time for many of these people to hear the answers face-to-face.
CHIEF THOMAS STREICHER, CINCINNATI POLICE DEPARTMENT: I think it's incumbent upon all of us to be able to come together and look at those with a critical eye and find out what did go wrong.
LAVANDERA: The official autopsy report says Jones died of cardiac arrest brought on by the struggle with the six officers.
CARL PARROTT, CORONER: His death must be regarded as a direct and immediate consequence in part of the struggle (unintelligible) by his obesity, his heart disease and his drug intoxication.
LAVANDERA: Even though videotapes show Nathaniel Jones lunging toward police officers after he had been told to move back and swinging at officers as well, Jones' family says he must have been provoked that in his drugged condition he was a threat to himself not anyone else.
DIANE PEYTON, NATHANIEL'S AUNT: It makes no sense at all. A phone call for help and now he's dead, just answer that, think about it.
LAVANDERA: Because of the history of racial tension involving Cincinnati Police, Nathaniel Jones' grandmother is urging everyone to act peacefully.
BESSIE JONES, GRANDMOTHER: I don't want no anger. I don't want people to get violent. I just want things to be right and honest. We all have to live together. Let's live together and be peaceful.
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LAVANDERA: Now, Nathaniel Jones' family is also saying that they want to conduct their own autopsy of Nathaniel Jones' body. His body will be sent to Indianapolis and we're told it will probably take several more days before those autopsy results are returned as well -- Aaron.
BROWN: Have we got a chance to watch, this is something we talked about this morning on our call, have you had a chance to watch how local television or local media, a couple good newspapers there too, are handling all of this?
LAVANDERA: I haven't had a chance to see much of the local television news coverage, although I have been told through several people who have been watching as well that it has been getting significant attention here.I think some of the newspaper coverage here in Cincinnati perhaps it's been a front page news story but, as I say, it hasn't been above the fold on the several days that I've been here.So, definitely getting prominent play, although speaking with people around here they also say that they're taking aback a little bit about how the national news media has been covering the story.I've had a couple people come up to me and say that we seem to be portraying it much harsher than it actually is but for every couple of people that tell you that you also get other people who tell you completely the opposite so I think somewhere in the middle is probably the most accurate at this point.
BROWN: And it's welcomed to those stories that have race as theme. Thank you, Ed Lavandera is in Cincinnati tonight.We move on to Grand Forks, North Dakota where the answers remain few, the questions many in the disappearance of Dru Sjodin. It is true these stories rarely have happy endings though we've seen a few this year.Police already have a suspect in custody, which frequently is a good sign. What they don't have, at least not that they're saying, is anything that puts them closer to finding the missing young woman.Reporting for us again tonight CNN's Jeff Flock.
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FLOCK (voice-over): Trudging through snow banks across frozen hillsides and country roads they came, 1,700 strong, to search for Dru Sjodin but when they were done scanning the grid maps and picking through the underbrush there was nothing that while the man authorities think knows what happened to her went to court. Alphonso Rodriguez, hood up over his head, agreeing to be transferred to North Dakota to answer charges he kidnapped the 22-year-old college senior. Is Rodriguez cooperating?
SGT. MIKE HEDLUND, GRAND FORKS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I'm afraid I can't discuss that right now.FLOCK: Does DNA evidence in his car link him to Sjodin?
HEDLUND: I can't discuss that.
FLOCK: Was he on any surveillance cameras at this mall where Dru disappeared?
HEDLUND: I can't discuss that either, I'm sorry.
FLOCK: Prosecutors did try to explain why a twice convicted sexual predator was set free.
GREG WIDSETH, POLK COUNTY PROSECUTOR: He's a gentleman that served his sentence to expiration. His only requirements after that are complying with the registration law and he's done that.FLOCK: Rodriguez did register that he was living here at his mother's house in Crookston, Minnesota and had his picture on a sexual predator Web site when he was released in May, though note the change in hair color on his mug shot taken this week. A family friend says the possibility of Rodriguez committing another crime was on his family's mind.
KEN MENDEZ, RODRIGUEZ FAMILY FRIEND: It was a huge concern.FLOCK: Authorities say they don't plan another big search like this one. Many fear that with a suspect in custody and no Dru they may be searching as much for a body as for clues.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I work at the university and I love the students and so I hope we find her.
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FLOCK: Aaron, Mr. Rodriguez is now in the Grand Forks County Jail back there behind me. He makes his first court appearance to answer the kidnapping charges tomorrow afternoon here in town -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jeff, thank you, Jeff Flock in Grand Forks tonight.The case of Laci Peterson moved to a new stage today in both senses of the word. Ms. Peterson's husband Scott, now bound over for trial and heard again his plea, court trial set date, the wheels of justice are grinding on.Those are the basic facts, which of course omits the strange and powerful hold the case seems to have on the people of Modesto, California and beyond. Again, here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.
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DORNIN (voice-over): The defense waived hearing the formal murder charges against the defendant. Scott Peterson definitely wanted to be heard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that correct, Mr. Peterson, you're pleading not guilty to the two charges?
SCOTT PETERSON, DEFENDANT: That's correct, Your Honor, I'm innocent.
DORNIN: The judge is keeping what's been a tight lid on this case in place. He ruled the gag order will continue and documents, including search warrants and autopsy photos will remain sealed.The defense scored a financial victory for his client. Mark Geragos argued prosecutors didn't need $15,000 discovered on Scott Peterson when he was arrested or his pickup truck.
MARK GERAGOS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: We need the truck back so that we can get rid of it, so that we do not expend taxpayer funds in the defense of this case and there's absolutely no reason why they need it for a jury view.
RICK DISTASSO, PROSECUTOR: I think it's important that the jury be allowed to go out and see how, what I argue how the defendant loaded the body into the truck at his house and how he transported the body to the particular (unintelligible).
DORNIN: But the judge sided with the defense. Peterson will get back both the money and the truck. A trial date was set for January 26 but that's subject to a change of venue hearing scheduled for January 6.
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DORNIN: And Mr. Geragos wants to get all the charges dismissed against Peterson claiming insufficient evidence. Those arguments are going to be heard by another judge. That could also delay the trial date. And in a little side note, Aaron, people were wondering of course, this was Mr. Geragos' first appearance since taking on Michael Jackson as a client. Reporters did mob his mother outside the courtroom and ask her how she felt about it. She said they're very happy with whatever Mr. Geragos does -- Aaron.
BROWN: Confluence of a couple, on the change of venue issue what is the prosecution's position on venue?
DORNIN: They're claiming that this has had such incredible coverage nationally that wherever you go in Fresno or Los Angeles or wherever you went in California that people have been inundated with this story so it would be no different. They want to keep it in Modesto in Stanislaus County.BROWN: Rusty, thank you very much, Rusty Dornin out west tonight.It is true more than ever this Christmas season that anything you might care to buy can be had by surfing, clicking and waiting for the big brown truck to show up at your door and not just books and sweaters or fruit of the month either, prescription drugs to begin with, powerful and potentially dangerous drugs that come to you without the inconvenience of actually having to see a doctor. So old- fashioned is that or not and it isn't to the federal government. Here's CNN's Susan Candiotti.
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CANDIOTTI (voice-over): At dawn an FBI raid on this $5 million ocean front mansion, home of a 32-year-old whiz kid running a rich Internet prescription drug operation.Police sealed off both ends of Golden Beach, a small wealthy enclave north of Miami Beach. The mansion owner, Vincent Chabra (ph), was driven away in handcuffs.Unshaven, dark circles under his eyes, Chabra told the judge: "I was taken from my bed this morning." Also arrested, Chabra's sister who is named as a co-conspirator. The charges against Vincent Chabra, 108 counts, among them conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and money laundering. Chabra's lawyer said: "He's always maintained his innocence and he's looking forward to his trial."The indictment said Chabra's scheme raked in $125 million over the last five years using Web sites like these to peddle diet pills that are controlled substances because they are often abused as so- called uppers.
CARMEN CATIZONE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BOARDS OF PHARMACY: Diet pills fall within that special category of highly addictive and dangerous drugs.
CANDIOTTI: Pills which federal agents said can be resold to addicts.
CATIZONE: Once they buy those drugs on the Internet they turn around and sell them on the street at street value to dealers or to pushers or to others again who shouldn't have access to those prescription drugs.
CANDIOTTI: The Web sites listed as part of Chabra's empire often advertise no prior prescription required. Instead, buyers are instructed to simply fill out a questionnaire without ever seeing a doctor and the site says a physician working with the Web site will write the prescription for them, sometimes, the indictment alleges, without ever looking at the order form.
CATIZONE: We think it's below the standards of care for a patient and it endangers the patient and is a practice that should be stopped.CANDIOTTI: Indicted with Chabra five doctors from Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia.
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CANDIOTTI: Offering other prescription drugs there are many drug sites on the Internet today offering, as I said, other addictive drugs including painkillers, anxiety pills, even sleep aids and all are in business tonight. Cracking down on every one, said one official, is like trying to work every corner drug dealer. He said we can't do it all -- Aaron.
BROWN: I want to walk through a little bit of what here is legal and what is not. Is it necessarily illegal to go on the Internet to fill out that form and to buy a drug? Is that necessarily illegal for the buyer?
CANDIOTTI: Well, according -- well, for the buyer technically it would be because certainly the seller can't do it and therefore the buyer can't but they're targeting sellers here not buyers.But really, Aaron, believe it or not until about five years ago very few states required doctors to meet patients face to face before writing out a prescription for them. Now, 29 states do. Twenty-two states still have no formal rules.
BROWN: And so in those states there's nothing technically illegal about going on the Internet, filling out that form, it says how tall you are and how much you weigh and what your problem is and what your history is and this and that and getting whatever drug the pharmacy, if you will, has to sell?
CANDIOTTI: That appears to be the case and the federal government is now finally trying to get a handle on all of this, especially with how much the Internet has boomed over the past few years.BROWN: Susan, thank you very much, Susan Candiotti in Miami tonight.Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, wide-ranging terror arrests in Britain, we'll give you the details coming up.Then a place in Iraq where things are going well but perhaps though not well enough the local glass factory.Later, a town under siege, Boone, Iowa, population 13,000 and the effects of the war here at home, a break first.From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: We tell our children from the moment we send them off to school for the first time about sticks and stones and words. Words, we say, cannot hurt you and for the most part that is true except when it's not and words turn school kids into bullies and grownups into monsters.Today in Rwanda, an international court found three men guilty of genocide ruling in essence that their words alone helped trigger a massacre that killed 800,000 people.Reporting for us CNN's Jeff Koinange.
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JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They were accused of fanning the flames that led to a million deaths and now two Rwanda news executives have received the maximum sentence, life, while a third was sentenced to 35 years in prison.The verdict ends the landmark three year trial that heard how the media played a major role in inciting extremists from the country's Huja (ph) majority to carry out the 100-day slaughter of ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.The convictions by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda where the first for broadcasters and publications promoting crimes against humanity since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi propagandists following World War II.Two of the journalists were members of Radio Television Libre des Mill Collines or RTLM established in April, 1993, while the third was a magazine writer who had earlier been fired from state radio for broadcasting hate-filled rants.RTLM became known as hate radio and many of its journalists were accused of preaching ethnic hatred and encouraging Hutus, who make up 85 percent of the population, to massacre Tutsis. According to Judge Navanethem Pillay who handed down the sentences: "RTLM broadcasts were a drumbeat calling on listeners to take action against Tutsis." She went on to say: "RTLM spread petrol throughout the country little by little so that one day it would be able to set fire to the whole country."The court also heard just before the genocide began the journalists broadcast such messages as go to work, go clean, and the graves are not yet full.Jeff Koinange, CNN, Abuja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)BROWN: Travel to London for Christmas and you'll see something to mangle a phrase almost unheard of police carrying weapons. Things are a bit jittery in Great Britain these days for a number of reasons, chief among them the arrest of a man in western England. Police now say he was involved in a conspiracy to blow up airliners that began two years ago and continued right up to last Thursday when he was caught.Here's CNN's Matthew Chance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Gloucester home the man British police say they've now linked with a thwarted terrorist plot, 24-year-old Saji Badat (ph) was arrested here last week. The charges against him say he conspired to cause an explosion with Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, sentenced to life earlier this year for attempting to blow up a U.S. airliner.The charges come as British security forces carry out intensive anti-terrorism raids across the country. Fourteen people were arrested on Tuesday alone. The British prime minister has stressed police warnings of a real threat.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Well, there's no doubt there is a threat because these people are operating in most parts of the world. They have no compunction about taking the lives of innocent people and killing as many people as they can.
CHANCE: Britain has proved a haven for militants in the past practicing what's known as watchful tolerance of many dissidents and opposition groups. Analysts say the country now faces a significant threat from international terrorists and British militants.M.J.
GOHEL, TERRORISM EXPERT: It is quite possible that we may see suicide bombers in the U.K. We could see radical bomb attacks or we could see even smaller type of attacks because if these people are here, if they're willing to perpetrate plots outside the U.K. why should they not do it within the U.K. also?
CHANCE: Disrupting British terrorist activity, say police, is now their main objective.(on camera): As Britain approaches the holiday period its police who don't normally carry weapons say they're stepping up their armed patrols of the capital and of towns and cities across the country. Together with the arrest, it's hoped these efforts will be enough to thwart a possible terrorist attack in Britain, which police say they suspect is being planned.Matthew Chance, CNN, London.
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BROWN: Iraq now, a safe day for troops relatively speaking. No major attacks, no Americans soldiers died. Troops from the 82nd Airborne captured a top member of the old regime. He is suspected of having at least indirect contact with Saddam Hussein. He was grabbed in a raid in Fallujah. That is one part of what the Army believes it will take to reshape Iraq, hard work. The other part is just as tough.CNN's Christiane Amanpour has been traveling around Iraq in search of the challenges facing the country and filed this report.
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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like just about everything in Iraq, this glass factory is old and broken down and like just about every Iraqi workers here expect the Americans to fix it, to bring in electricity, gas, water."The Americans are the only authority in Iraq; therefore, they can supply all that" says Ismail (ph)."The Americans have promised to provide us with all our needs" says Hamid. "They've given us nothing. Things were better before."This is a major source of frustration for Sergeant John Craemer of the U.S. Army Civil Affairs. He got this factory working two months ago and spent thousands improving things in Ramadi.
SGT. 1ST CLASS JOHN CRAEMER, U.S. ARMY CIVIL AFFAIRS: They expect handouts. They came from a socialist regime in which it was basically everything was handed to them and they expect that to continue to happen and they don't realize that if they want to make Iraq better they need to work with us.
AMANPOUR: But this factory could employ as many as 5,000 people. Only 700 are working right now. U.S. officers know that people with jobs are less likely to join the insurgents who often pay them to attack Americans, especially in Ramadi, a bastion of Saddam support.
CRAEMER: Former regime loyalists or whatever it's being called this week are causing the problems.
AMANPOUR: Which means factories like these must get fully back online. This one was built in the '60s. In the '70s a U.S. company supplied the furnaces but years of sanctions, war, and neglect have left it with substandard raw material, ancient kiln bricks, and a lack of spare parts so it produces highly imperfect glass. Because of the violence and insecurity in Iraq, no outside companies or countries are willing to put money into it or come and upgrade the equipment.
LT. SCOTT SLAUGHTER, FLORIDA NATIONAL GUARD: This one plant symbolizes the rest of Iraq. It's old. It's run down. It hasn't been kept up like a lot of stuff in Iraq. If we can get this to work maybe we can get the rest of Iraq to work too.
AMANPOUR: The stakes are very high for American success here and with insurgents feeding on every failure to deliver, time is not a luxury the U.S. can afford.Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Ramadi.
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BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, reducing air pollution and reducing regulation, can those two things coexist?We'll talk with the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Chief Carol Browner as NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.
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BROWN: Two stories of note on the environment tonight, both political stories as well, no surprise that.On the table tonight the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement that would require cuts in the emission of gasses to reduce global warming. Yesterday, a senior Kremlin official said Russia will not ratify it. Today, another official appeared to back away from that statement so the story seems somewhat in flux.Russia signed on the treaty in '97 as did the United States under President Clinton. The Bush administration later backed out, which bring us to topic two, the administration's plans for new regulations on mercury emissions from power plants, plants environmentalists say would save the utility industry a lot of money. No one disputes that. What is in dispute is whether it would be bad for the environment.Carol Browner is a former administrator of the EPA during the Clinton years and she joins us tonight from Washington, good to have you with us. Let's see how much we can get done. On Kyoto first, if in fact the Russians pull out is the treaty dead?
CAROL BROWNER, FORMER EPA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, it may be but maybe not. Obviously, everyone would like to see Russia stay in to become a part of it. I think if Russia does pull out this administration, the Bush administration is partly to blame. The United States is the leading emitter of greenhouse gases. We need to do our part in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. And I think Russia is looking at what we're failing to do and thinking twice. It would be a big disappointment.
BROWN: The Russians, at one point, when they looked at the treaty with the United States in it, actually figured out that they would be financial beneficiaries of the treaty, because they would be -- they could sell their credits, their emission credits, to the United States. When the United States backed out, it gave the Russians less economic incentive to go along?
BROWNER: I think that's a real possibility. That is right. Russia could actually sell credits to other countries that have emissions that are above the baseline. The United States is certainly above the baseline. And Russia had hoped to sell credits. The good news is that Europe is moving forward with the program. They are working in the European Union in their parliament right now to adopt a trading program. So there may be some other opportunities for Russia, if they go ahead and ratify.
BROWN: As a practical matter, this does seem to me -- and you'll correct me, I'm sure -- that, unless the world gets together to do something, whether the Europeans do something and the Americans do something else and other countries do nothing at all, probably isn't going to get it done. Do you agree with that?
BROWNER: Aaron, I absolutely agree. This is the single greatest public health and environmental threat the world has ever faced. And it will take the entire world working together, Russia, the United States, Europe, China, Japan, everyone working together. Absolutely.
BROWN: Why is it still -- the facts of this or science of this seem continually in dispute, whether or not humans -- there is a human cause to this, whether carbon dioxide is really at fault. All of this seems to be, by critics of the treaty and others, scientifically in play.
BROWNER: Well, I think that the naysayers, those in industry who would have to clean up their pollution, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, love to raise the scientific questions. But the truth of the matter is, there is more scientific agreement on the fact that, in fact, humans are contributing to changes in the climate of the Earth than there's ever been on any other environmental or public health issue. You have 2,500 of the world's leading scientists all in agreement that there is a problem and that we need to start the process of addressing the problem.
BROWN: Let's try and do something that's probably impossible and deal with the mercury issue in about a minute's time.Mercury, everybody acknowledges is dangerous stuff. And it's in a lot of lakes and it causes a lot of problems. Is there something inherently wrong, in your view, with this method of controlling pollutants, where some industries trade their credits to others who can continue to pollute?
BROWNER: There's nothing wrong with cap and trade. We were part of -- our administration was part of launching the first cap and trade program for air pollution.The problem, Aaron, is, the cap the administration is proposing simply leaves too much mercury in the air for too long. Under the current law, under the rules that we were proposing, you can achieve a 90 percent reduction in mercury within the next five years. What the administration, Bush administration, is talking about is a 70 percent reduction in 15 years. Mercury is a neurotoxin. It is bad for our children. It is dangerous to pregnant women. It should not be in the air.
BROWN: And how expensive is it to clean it up? Because that's part of the equation.
BROWNER: Well, it's actually -- the costs are coming down, in part because, during our administration, we required other sources of mercury, other smokestacks, incinerators, for example, to go ahead and put in place the best available technologies. And as these technologies have come on to the market, as they've been tested, as they've been proven to be effective, the cost inevitably comes down.
BROWN: Good to see you again. Thank you. Nice job tonight.
BROWNER: Thanks.
BROWN: Thank you very much. Before we go to break, a quick run through the business pages, starting with SUVs. Tomorrow, Detroit plans to announce voluntary steps to make SUVs safer in collisions, especially for those in the other car, if you will. Wal-Mart says it will no longer accept debit MasterCards, the kind of card that gets run through like a credit card. You sign the slip and it charges your bank account, your checking account, instead of going on a credit card. Wal-Mart says the cost is too high for such a service. American workers did a pretty fair job in the third quarter this year, pushing productivity up at a 9.4 percent annual clip. That means you're working really hard. That is higher than anticipated and the best showing in 20 years, which, not surprisingly, sent the markets squarely sideways. Investors expected the good news. They got their buying out of the way earlier. Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: How separate do church and state need to be? A Supreme Court case we'll talk about with "Slate"'s Dahlia Lithwick, as NEWSNIGHT continues tonight from New York.
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BROWN: The U.S. Supreme Court is wrestling with a case that could have profound implications on public of funding of religious education and, some contend, much more than that. The justices appear evenly split on this one. The tie-breaking vote, as it often seems to be, rests with Sandra Day O'Connor, if the predictions prove true.At issue in the case, a state law in Washington state out West banning taxpayer money for theology studies. A young man who is now 23 was denied a scholarship under the law and is challenging that law. Many issues here. Dahlia Lithwick has been covering the story for "Slate" magazine. And she helps us on legal matters from time to time.It's good to have you with us tonight.Basically -- tell me if I got this right -- the question before the court is, can a state which pays for someone to major in history or political science or nursing or whatever draw a line at theology?
DAHLIA LITHWICK, "SLATE": That's exactly it. This is essentially a discrimination case. And this is more or less under the free exercise clause of the United States Constitution. And religious people are saying that that wall that's been erected between church and state gets in the way of them freely exercising their religion.
BROWN: OK, here's what to me is the fundamental question. And, obviously, I don't get it. This, to me, looks like a slam dunk. Why is it not a slam dunk? If there is a separation between church and state, how can the state pay to train a minister of a specific religion, any religion?
LITHWICK: Well, I think you need to look a little bit at the history and you need to sort of see this as the logical outgrowth of a series of decisions that the Rehnquist court has handed down, as I say, chipping away at that wall between church and state. And if you recall, a year and a half ago, the Rehnquist court sort of opened the door to this case by saying that state money can go to religious education as long as it's funneled through a state voucher system. That essentially opened what I think has turned into a Pandora's box. This case is sort of a natural outgrowth. And it says, if a state can give money to a religious school, then isn't it discrimination when a state decides not to?
BROWN: And, among the nine justices, there did appear to be a fair amount of hand-wringing going on, on this one.
LITHWICK: Well, there was a tremendous amount of hand-wringing going on from the four traditionally liberal justices, the justices who really see the court's job as sort of policing that wall between church and state. I can only describe as gleeful the four justices who really do think that religion belongs in the public square. They see this as an evolution that they really welcome.
BROWN: And, Justice O'Connor, who often finds herself in the middle of these sorts of things, has, in the past, at least as I recall, sided with the conservatives on these separation questions. Did she seem troubled by the issues before the court?
LITHWICK: She did. I think she recognized, in a profound way, that this case isn't just about the funding of public education. It really will have consequences that ripple through all of the taxpayer money going to programs. Justice Breyer asked some good questions, sort of saying, what about government contractors? What about nursing schools? What about hospitals? Are religious entities all going to be now entitled to funding if states hand out funding to secular entities? And O'Connor was very troubled. She, in fact, asked one of the attorneys, aren't we undoing centuries worth of law that says we don't do this sort of thing?
BROWN: If the court overturns the Washington state law, which is based on the Washington state Constitution, which is somewhat more rigorous in this area than the federal Constitution even, is there much separation of church and state left?
LITHWICK: Well, it's not just Washington, for one thing. There are 37 states that have similar laws on the books. So, certainly, that's a very broad proportion of the country that would have their laws effectively struck down, too. And, no, I think the answer is, there won't be much of a wall left between church and state, because whenever the -- your taxpayer dollars are going out to fund secular entities, there will be, as I say, an entitlement to fund religious entities. How can there, after that, really be a wall anymore? BROWN: Dahlia, good to have you with us again. Thank you.
LITHWICK: Thank you for having me.
BROWN: Thank you. A few more items now from around the country, starting with another case in a different court that has serious constitutional implications as well, the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the government today urging a federal appeals court in Virginia to put the death penalty back in play -- Mr. Moussaoui's side arguing that depriving their client of the opportunity to call three other al Qaeda members to the witness stand deprives him of a fair trial. The judges seemed to press the government fairly hard on that score today, which doesn't necessarily mean they'll rule against the government. In Washington tonight, Shoshana Johnson was honored for bravery. Ms. Johnson, you'll recall, was taken prisoner in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the first female African-American POW in U.S. history. In New York tonight, a holiday tradition -- oh, my goodness -- the lighting of the big tree at Rockefeller Center and the beginning of the major midtown traffic jam that will go on until New Year's, not that anyone will mind once they see the tree close up. It is, as always, spectacular.
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the town that keeps on giving, Boone, Iowa, where more and more people are being called up to serve in the military. A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Iowa's first winter storm of the season dropped up to eight inches of snow on some parts of the state overnight, including the small town of Boone, where it's going to be a very long winter, and not just because of the snow. In ways most of us can't imagine, Boone, Iowa, has been touched by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a place where everyone knows just about everyone. And a lot of people won't be home for Christmas. They will be at war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Clyde Anderson has been giving haircuts in Boone, Iowa, for 50 years, fewer now since 9/11 and the war with Iraq, a lot fewer.
CLYDE ANDERSON, BARBER: They're gone. They're good customers. Every week or so, they get a haircut. And now they're all gone. BROWN: In this rural town of 13,000, nearly 400 residents are in the National Guard and almost all are deployed somewhere else. Their training facility on the edge of town is nearly empty.
COL. ROBERT KING, IOWA NATIONAL GUARD: A huge burden of America's defense role is in the reserve components. The old term of weekend warrior doesn't count anymore. We're full-fledged members of America's military program.
BROWN: They are also the city's firefighters and police officers and shop owners, even the city administrator. Brent Trout got his orders a few weeks ago and will be leaving his job for a tour of duty in Iraq that could last anywhere from a year to 18 months.
BRENT TROUT, BOONE CITY ADMINISTRATOR: A little shocked, a little, "Now what do I do?" type thing, lot of issues with family and with work, and a lot to get done in a short amount of time.
BROWN: The city will find a replacement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The interim city administrator.
BROWN: His family will not.
CONNIE TROUT, WIFE OF NATIONAL GUARDSMAN: I love you.
TROUT: I love you, too.
C. TROUT: Every day will be hard, raising my two boys by myself. Now that they don't have daddy to throw the ball around and play games with them and stuff, that's going to be the hardest.
BROWN: Makenzie Patterson's husband, Rob, has been deployed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, since last February.
SPC. MAKENZIE PATTERSON, IOWA NATIONAL GUARD: The hardest part is when 3:00 in the morning comes and Chloe (ph) wakes up screaming for him. She's very understanding now. She knows. You say something about daddy and she says, daddy's at work. She always said, my daddy works hard, because he spends the night there. So that's the hardest part, is trying to explain to your kids. BROWN: Mrs. Patterson is also in the National Guard. Her number could come up. And with all these numbers coming up in Boone, questions are being raised.
DON ANDERSON, ASSISTANT CHIEF OF POLICE: The National Guard role is to fill in the blanks. We only train one weekend a month and two weeks a year. And I don't feel that's enough training to be putting us right into the hot spot where we're at right now. That's for somebody that's training every day, all year long. BROWN: This is a place where everyone knows someone in the war, a husband, a friend, in Rosie Berdesa's (ph) case, a brother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was gung-ho at first and, we went in there and going to do our job. And now he puts in his words as feeling like a sitting duck, wants just to do the job that we went there to do and come home. BROWN: Another season is passing in Boone, Iowa. Christmas is coming. And many neighbors are away. Here, the war is not a story on the TV or in the paper. In Boone, more than most places, it is felt at the barbershop and in the fields, at city hall and everywhere else.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Boone, Iowa. Morning papers after the break.
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BROWN: All righty, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Or, in this case, we'll just start with, not tomorrow's paper, but a weekly paper in Burt County. That would be Burt County, Nebraska. But you know that, didn't you. "The Burt County Plaindealer," devoted to the interests of the people of Burt County. And here's their lead, OK? This is the weekly lead. "Shop at Home This Year." This is basically a commercial for the video store and the hardware store and all those other good stores in Tekamah -- I think that's the way you pronounce it -- Nebraska. That's their lead. And then "Howdy Partners" is the picture there, with these three young kids all dressed up for -- what is it? -- some kind of school deal, yes. Good for them. That's "The Plaindealer" in Burt County. By the way, if you want to subscribe to this and you don't live in Burt County, it's $40 a year, $30 if you live in the county. But you probably get it already.
"The Washington Times" from Washington, D.C. There was something here I liked, down here. "Bishops to Pressure Catholic Politicians, Urge Them to Follow Their Faith." I just find that a really interesting issue, whether -- and a conflict for, I'm sure, a good many Catholics on a good many issues. Anyway, the bishops seem to be ready to take a stand again. I don't think it's the first time that happened. They also lead with the economy. "Productivity Skyrockets. Labor Reports 9.4 Percent Boost, the Best in 20 Years."I guess that's good, but doesn't it mean we're working more for less? Isn't that what that means? I think it does. Traffic stories make a couple newspapers.
"Chattanooga Times Free Press." "A New Right of Way" and this fabulous graphic explaining how to make a right turn, or maybe it's a left turn, in this new set of streets, OK?And also
"The Detroit News." "Big Boxes, Fast Food, Slow Cars Define Clogged M-59." That's the big story in the -- we're really running out of time that quickly? All right. "The Boston Herald" tomorrow morning. I like this headline. "Dems Need Cash," or DNC. Get it? "Sky-High Costs Dog Convention." The Democrats will convene in Boston next summer.
"The Detroit Free Press" leads with hockey. "Welcome, Sergei," Sergei Fedorov coming back to hockey. Detroit is hockey town, USA. They can lead with it any time they want. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, according to
"The Chicago Sun- Times," is "uh-oh." That's really what it is, is "uh-oh." It looks like snow in the forecast in Chicago tomorrow, which means it's probably heading our way. We'll take a break and take a look at the day's top story. And I'll preview tomorrow after the -- after the break. That's what I meant to say.
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BROWN: Before we go tonight, a quick look back at our top story. The coroner for Cincinnati calls the death of Nathaniel Jones a homicide, which is not to say a crime was committed, only that the struggle with police, in addition to a heart condition and drugs in his system, led to his death. Members of his family today said police could have been more restrained. African-American leaders are again calling for Cincinnati's police chief to resign. But Cincinnati's mayor stands behind Tommy Streicher. And the chief stands behind his officers. Tomorrow night, right here on this program: The Russians are coming just where you'd least expect the Russians to be. And where might that be, you ask? Ah, a reason to watch tomorrow."LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next.Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.comContinues; Judge Sets Trial Date for Scott Peterson>
Aired December 3, 2003 - 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: Good evening again everyone.We don't often get caught up in crime stories around here but they are everywhere tonight. There are crimes as old as time, domestic killings, and crimes as new as the new century, drug sales on the Internet.Greed and lust seem to have their place in this NEWSNIGHT crime wave, as they do in most, and none of it is likely to make you feel any better about your world this night.We ought to change the name of the whip to the lineup, and the whip begins in Cincinnati. CNN's Ed Lavandera is there where again the story is the death of a black man at the hands of police, which hardly tells the story at all, Ed a headline.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, city leaders here in Cincinnati spent the evening talking with several hundred
(AUDIO GAP)
saying that the 41-year-old man has been demonized by police but, at the same time, urging everyone to remain calm -- Aaron.BROWN: Ed, thank you.From there to North Dakota and developments in the disappearance of Dru Sjodin. CNN's Jeff Flock has the watch again tonight, Jeff a headline.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, 1,700 volunteers turned out to search for Dru Sjodin today and found absolutely nothing while the man who authorities say knows where she is, is back in the jail behind me and he is apparently not talking.BROWN: Jeff, thank you.Northern California after what seems an eternity another plea from Scott Peterson. CNN's Rusty Dornin following developments in the Peterson case, Rusty your headline tonight.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Scott Peterson told the court he was innocent again and a trial date was set for January but don't hold your breath -- Aaron.
BROWN: Rusty, thank you.And finally Miami and CNN's Susan Candiotti with a crackdown on the drug trade, the online variety, Susan a headline.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Aaron. A "Miami Vice" style drug bust today, no, not cocaine, not heroin, prescription drugs over the Internet. They can be addictive too -- Aaron.
BROWN: Susan, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.Also coming up tonight we'll talk with the former head of the EPA, Harold Browner, about some new and controversial pollution rules the government is about to propose and what looks like the collapse of Kyoto Protocols as well.Also tonight, Christiane Amanpour takes us to an Iraqi glass factory, which in its own way shows the struggle to rebuild both infrastructure and attitudes.Segment 7 takes us to Boone, Iowa and it's outsized contribution to the war with Iraq.And, as always, well pretty much as always, we'll end the night with a check of your morning paper tomorrow, all that and more in the hour ahead.We begin tonight in Cincinnati where the question remains did the death of Nathaniel Jones result from self defense or excessive force by police? Today the coroner in Hamilton County said the violent struggle caught on videotape was the primary cause of Mr. Jones' death, a death that will be ruled a homicide, which is not the same as saying a crime was committed.The coroner also said this. If not for Mr. Jones' obesity, heart disease and the drugs in his system, he probably would have survived the struggle. He didn't.Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It could have been avoided. I want to get somebody to say that.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): This town hall meeting was a chance to ask questions about the death of Nathaniel Jones but it was also a chance for this audience to vent their anger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you think them police is going to respect another black man in a poor neighborhood?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can he have had a chance to respond when every time that he started to move his arms he got hit again?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is what you all done did again, killed another black man.
LAVANDERA: Some 400 people launching questions at Cincinnati's police chief and other city leaders, it was the first time for many of these people to hear the answers face-to-face.
CHIEF THOMAS STREICHER, CINCINNATI POLICE DEPARTMENT: I think it's incumbent upon all of us to be able to come together and look at those with a critical eye and find out what did go wrong.
LAVANDERA: The official autopsy report says Jones died of cardiac arrest brought on by the struggle with the six officers.
CARL PARROTT, CORONER: His death must be regarded as a direct and immediate consequence in part of the struggle (unintelligible) by his obesity, his heart disease and his drug intoxication.
LAVANDERA: Even though videotapes show Nathaniel Jones lunging toward police officers after he had been told to move back and swinging at officers as well, Jones' family says he must have been provoked that in his drugged condition he was a threat to himself not anyone else.
DIANE PEYTON, NATHANIEL'S AUNT: It makes no sense at all. A phone call for help and now he's dead, just answer that, think about it.
LAVANDERA: Because of the history of racial tension involving Cincinnati Police, Nathaniel Jones' grandmother is urging everyone to act peacefully.
BESSIE JONES, GRANDMOTHER: I don't want no anger. I don't want people to get violent. I just want things to be right and honest. We all have to live together. Let's live together and be peaceful.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: Now, Nathaniel Jones' family is also saying that they want to conduct their own autopsy of Nathaniel Jones' body. His body will be sent to Indianapolis and we're told it will probably take several more days before those autopsy results are returned as well -- Aaron.
BROWN: Have we got a chance to watch, this is something we talked about this morning on our call, have you had a chance to watch how local television or local media, a couple good newspapers there too, are handling all of this?
LAVANDERA: I haven't had a chance to see much of the local television news coverage, although I have been told through several people who have been watching as well that it has been getting significant attention here.I think some of the newspaper coverage here in Cincinnati perhaps it's been a front page news story but, as I say, it hasn't been above the fold on the several days that I've been here.So, definitely getting prominent play, although speaking with people around here they also say that they're taking aback a little bit about how the national news media has been covering the story.I've had a couple people come up to me and say that we seem to be portraying it much harsher than it actually is but for every couple of people that tell you that you also get other people who tell you completely the opposite so I think somewhere in the middle is probably the most accurate at this point.
BROWN: And it's welcomed to those stories that have race as theme. Thank you, Ed Lavandera is in Cincinnati tonight.We move on to Grand Forks, North Dakota where the answers remain few, the questions many in the disappearance of Dru Sjodin. It is true these stories rarely have happy endings though we've seen a few this year.Police already have a suspect in custody, which frequently is a good sign. What they don't have, at least not that they're saying, is anything that puts them closer to finding the missing young woman.Reporting for us again tonight CNN's Jeff Flock.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FLOCK (voice-over): Trudging through snow banks across frozen hillsides and country roads they came, 1,700 strong, to search for Dru Sjodin but when they were done scanning the grid maps and picking through the underbrush there was nothing that while the man authorities think knows what happened to her went to court. Alphonso Rodriguez, hood up over his head, agreeing to be transferred to North Dakota to answer charges he kidnapped the 22-year-old college senior. Is Rodriguez cooperating?
SGT. MIKE HEDLUND, GRAND FORKS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I'm afraid I can't discuss that right now.FLOCK: Does DNA evidence in his car link him to Sjodin?
HEDLUND: I can't discuss that.
FLOCK: Was he on any surveillance cameras at this mall where Dru disappeared?
HEDLUND: I can't discuss that either, I'm sorry.
FLOCK: Prosecutors did try to explain why a twice convicted sexual predator was set free.
GREG WIDSETH, POLK COUNTY PROSECUTOR: He's a gentleman that served his sentence to expiration. His only requirements after that are complying with the registration law and he's done that.FLOCK: Rodriguez did register that he was living here at his mother's house in Crookston, Minnesota and had his picture on a sexual predator Web site when he was released in May, though note the change in hair color on his mug shot taken this week. A family friend says the possibility of Rodriguez committing another crime was on his family's mind.
KEN MENDEZ, RODRIGUEZ FAMILY FRIEND: It was a huge concern.FLOCK: Authorities say they don't plan another big search like this one. Many fear that with a suspect in custody and no Dru they may be searching as much for a body as for clues.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I work at the university and I love the students and so I hope we find her.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FLOCK: Aaron, Mr. Rodriguez is now in the Grand Forks County Jail back there behind me. He makes his first court appearance to answer the kidnapping charges tomorrow afternoon here in town -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jeff, thank you, Jeff Flock in Grand Forks tonight.The case of Laci Peterson moved to a new stage today in both senses of the word. Ms. Peterson's husband Scott, now bound over for trial and heard again his plea, court trial set date, the wheels of justice are grinding on.Those are the basic facts, which of course omits the strange and powerful hold the case seems to have on the people of Modesto, California and beyond. Again, here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DORNIN (voice-over): The defense waived hearing the formal murder charges against the defendant. Scott Peterson definitely wanted to be heard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that correct, Mr. Peterson, you're pleading not guilty to the two charges?
SCOTT PETERSON, DEFENDANT: That's correct, Your Honor, I'm innocent.
DORNIN: The judge is keeping what's been a tight lid on this case in place. He ruled the gag order will continue and documents, including search warrants and autopsy photos will remain sealed.The defense scored a financial victory for his client. Mark Geragos argued prosecutors didn't need $15,000 discovered on Scott Peterson when he was arrested or his pickup truck.
MARK GERAGOS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: We need the truck back so that we can get rid of it, so that we do not expend taxpayer funds in the defense of this case and there's absolutely no reason why they need it for a jury view.
RICK DISTASSO, PROSECUTOR: I think it's important that the jury be allowed to go out and see how, what I argue how the defendant loaded the body into the truck at his house and how he transported the body to the particular (unintelligible).
DORNIN: But the judge sided with the defense. Peterson will get back both the money and the truck. A trial date was set for January 26 but that's subject to a change of venue hearing scheduled for January 6.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DORNIN: And Mr. Geragos wants to get all the charges dismissed against Peterson claiming insufficient evidence. Those arguments are going to be heard by another judge. That could also delay the trial date. And in a little side note, Aaron, people were wondering of course, this was Mr. Geragos' first appearance since taking on Michael Jackson as a client. Reporters did mob his mother outside the courtroom and ask her how she felt about it. She said they're very happy with whatever Mr. Geragos does -- Aaron.
BROWN: Confluence of a couple, on the change of venue issue what is the prosecution's position on venue?
DORNIN: They're claiming that this has had such incredible coverage nationally that wherever you go in Fresno or Los Angeles or wherever you went in California that people have been inundated with this story so it would be no different. They want to keep it in Modesto in Stanislaus County.BROWN: Rusty, thank you very much, Rusty Dornin out west tonight.It is true more than ever this Christmas season that anything you might care to buy can be had by surfing, clicking and waiting for the big brown truck to show up at your door and not just books and sweaters or fruit of the month either, prescription drugs to begin with, powerful and potentially dangerous drugs that come to you without the inconvenience of actually having to see a doctor. So old- fashioned is that or not and it isn't to the federal government. Here's CNN's Susan Candiotti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): At dawn an FBI raid on this $5 million ocean front mansion, home of a 32-year-old whiz kid running a rich Internet prescription drug operation.Police sealed off both ends of Golden Beach, a small wealthy enclave north of Miami Beach. The mansion owner, Vincent Chabra (ph), was driven away in handcuffs.Unshaven, dark circles under his eyes, Chabra told the judge: "I was taken from my bed this morning." Also arrested, Chabra's sister who is named as a co-conspirator. The charges against Vincent Chabra, 108 counts, among them conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and money laundering. Chabra's lawyer said: "He's always maintained his innocence and he's looking forward to his trial."The indictment said Chabra's scheme raked in $125 million over the last five years using Web sites like these to peddle diet pills that are controlled substances because they are often abused as so- called uppers.
CARMEN CATIZONE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BOARDS OF PHARMACY: Diet pills fall within that special category of highly addictive and dangerous drugs.
CANDIOTTI: Pills which federal agents said can be resold to addicts.
CATIZONE: Once they buy those drugs on the Internet they turn around and sell them on the street at street value to dealers or to pushers or to others again who shouldn't have access to those prescription drugs.
CANDIOTTI: The Web sites listed as part of Chabra's empire often advertise no prior prescription required. Instead, buyers are instructed to simply fill out a questionnaire without ever seeing a doctor and the site says a physician working with the Web site will write the prescription for them, sometimes, the indictment alleges, without ever looking at the order form.
CATIZONE: We think it's below the standards of care for a patient and it endangers the patient and is a practice that should be stopped.CANDIOTTI: Indicted with Chabra five doctors from Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI: Offering other prescription drugs there are many drug sites on the Internet today offering, as I said, other addictive drugs including painkillers, anxiety pills, even sleep aids and all are in business tonight. Cracking down on every one, said one official, is like trying to work every corner drug dealer. He said we can't do it all -- Aaron.
BROWN: I want to walk through a little bit of what here is legal and what is not. Is it necessarily illegal to go on the Internet to fill out that form and to buy a drug? Is that necessarily illegal for the buyer?
CANDIOTTI: Well, according -- well, for the buyer technically it would be because certainly the seller can't do it and therefore the buyer can't but they're targeting sellers here not buyers.But really, Aaron, believe it or not until about five years ago very few states required doctors to meet patients face to face before writing out a prescription for them. Now, 29 states do. Twenty-two states still have no formal rules.
BROWN: And so in those states there's nothing technically illegal about going on the Internet, filling out that form, it says how tall you are and how much you weigh and what your problem is and what your history is and this and that and getting whatever drug the pharmacy, if you will, has to sell?
CANDIOTTI: That appears to be the case and the federal government is now finally trying to get a handle on all of this, especially with how much the Internet has boomed over the past few years.BROWN: Susan, thank you very much, Susan Candiotti in Miami tonight.Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, wide-ranging terror arrests in Britain, we'll give you the details coming up.Then a place in Iraq where things are going well but perhaps though not well enough the local glass factory.Later, a town under siege, Boone, Iowa, population 13,000 and the effects of the war here at home, a break first.From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We tell our children from the moment we send them off to school for the first time about sticks and stones and words. Words, we say, cannot hurt you and for the most part that is true except when it's not and words turn school kids into bullies and grownups into monsters.Today in Rwanda, an international court found three men guilty of genocide ruling in essence that their words alone helped trigger a massacre that killed 800,000 people.Reporting for us CNN's Jeff Koinange.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They were accused of fanning the flames that led to a million deaths and now two Rwanda news executives have received the maximum sentence, life, while a third was sentenced to 35 years in prison.The verdict ends the landmark three year trial that heard how the media played a major role in inciting extremists from the country's Huja (ph) majority to carry out the 100-day slaughter of ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.The convictions by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda where the first for broadcasters and publications promoting crimes against humanity since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi propagandists following World War II.Two of the journalists were members of Radio Television Libre des Mill Collines or RTLM established in April, 1993, while the third was a magazine writer who had earlier been fired from state radio for broadcasting hate-filled rants.RTLM became known as hate radio and many of its journalists were accused of preaching ethnic hatred and encouraging Hutus, who make up 85 percent of the population, to massacre Tutsis. According to Judge Navanethem Pillay who handed down the sentences: "RTLM broadcasts were a drumbeat calling on listeners to take action against Tutsis." She went on to say: "RTLM spread petrol throughout the country little by little so that one day it would be able to set fire to the whole country."The court also heard just before the genocide began the journalists broadcast such messages as go to work, go clean, and the graves are not yet full.Jeff Koinange, CNN, Abuja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)BROWN: Travel to London for Christmas and you'll see something to mangle a phrase almost unheard of police carrying weapons. Things are a bit jittery in Great Britain these days for a number of reasons, chief among them the arrest of a man in western England. Police now say he was involved in a conspiracy to blow up airliners that began two years ago and continued right up to last Thursday when he was caught.Here's CNN's Matthew Chance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Gloucester home the man British police say they've now linked with a thwarted terrorist plot, 24-year-old Saji Badat (ph) was arrested here last week. The charges against him say he conspired to cause an explosion with Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, sentenced to life earlier this year for attempting to blow up a U.S. airliner.The charges come as British security forces carry out intensive anti-terrorism raids across the country. Fourteen people were arrested on Tuesday alone. The British prime minister has stressed police warnings of a real threat.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Well, there's no doubt there is a threat because these people are operating in most parts of the world. They have no compunction about taking the lives of innocent people and killing as many people as they can.
CHANCE: Britain has proved a haven for militants in the past practicing what's known as watchful tolerance of many dissidents and opposition groups. Analysts say the country now faces a significant threat from international terrorists and British militants.M.J.
GOHEL, TERRORISM EXPERT: It is quite possible that we may see suicide bombers in the U.K. We could see radical bomb attacks or we could see even smaller type of attacks because if these people are here, if they're willing to perpetrate plots outside the U.K. why should they not do it within the U.K. also?
CHANCE: Disrupting British terrorist activity, say police, is now their main objective.(on camera): As Britain approaches the holiday period its police who don't normally carry weapons say they're stepping up their armed patrols of the capital and of towns and cities across the country. Together with the arrest, it's hoped these efforts will be enough to thwart a possible terrorist attack in Britain, which police say they suspect is being planned.Matthew Chance, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Iraq now, a safe day for troops relatively speaking. No major attacks, no Americans soldiers died. Troops from the 82nd Airborne captured a top member of the old regime. He is suspected of having at least indirect contact with Saddam Hussein. He was grabbed in a raid in Fallujah. That is one part of what the Army believes it will take to reshape Iraq, hard work. The other part is just as tough.CNN's Christiane Amanpour has been traveling around Iraq in search of the challenges facing the country and filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like just about everything in Iraq, this glass factory is old and broken down and like just about every Iraqi workers here expect the Americans to fix it, to bring in electricity, gas, water."The Americans are the only authority in Iraq; therefore, they can supply all that" says Ismail (ph)."The Americans have promised to provide us with all our needs" says Hamid. "They've given us nothing. Things were better before."This is a major source of frustration for Sergeant John Craemer of the U.S. Army Civil Affairs. He got this factory working two months ago and spent thousands improving things in Ramadi.
SGT. 1ST CLASS JOHN CRAEMER, U.S. ARMY CIVIL AFFAIRS: They expect handouts. They came from a socialist regime in which it was basically everything was handed to them and they expect that to continue to happen and they don't realize that if they want to make Iraq better they need to work with us.
AMANPOUR: But this factory could employ as many as 5,000 people. Only 700 are working right now. U.S. officers know that people with jobs are less likely to join the insurgents who often pay them to attack Americans, especially in Ramadi, a bastion of Saddam support.
CRAEMER: Former regime loyalists or whatever it's being called this week are causing the problems.
AMANPOUR: Which means factories like these must get fully back online. This one was built in the '60s. In the '70s a U.S. company supplied the furnaces but years of sanctions, war, and neglect have left it with substandard raw material, ancient kiln bricks, and a lack of spare parts so it produces highly imperfect glass. Because of the violence and insecurity in Iraq, no outside companies or countries are willing to put money into it or come and upgrade the equipment.
LT. SCOTT SLAUGHTER, FLORIDA NATIONAL GUARD: This one plant symbolizes the rest of Iraq. It's old. It's run down. It hasn't been kept up like a lot of stuff in Iraq. If we can get this to work maybe we can get the rest of Iraq to work too.
AMANPOUR: The stakes are very high for American success here and with insurgents feeding on every failure to deliver, time is not a luxury the U.S. can afford.Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Ramadi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, reducing air pollution and reducing regulation, can those two things coexist?We'll talk with the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Chief Carol Browner as NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.
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BROWN: Two stories of note on the environment tonight, both political stories as well, no surprise that.On the table tonight the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement that would require cuts in the emission of gasses to reduce global warming. Yesterday, a senior Kremlin official said Russia will not ratify it. Today, another official appeared to back away from that statement so the story seems somewhat in flux.Russia signed on the treaty in '97 as did the United States under President Clinton. The Bush administration later backed out, which bring us to topic two, the administration's plans for new regulations on mercury emissions from power plants, plants environmentalists say would save the utility industry a lot of money. No one disputes that. What is in dispute is whether it would be bad for the environment.Carol Browner is a former administrator of the EPA during the Clinton years and she joins us tonight from Washington, good to have you with us. Let's see how much we can get done. On Kyoto first, if in fact the Russians pull out is the treaty dead?
CAROL BROWNER, FORMER EPA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, it may be but maybe not. Obviously, everyone would like to see Russia stay in to become a part of it. I think if Russia does pull out this administration, the Bush administration is partly to blame. The United States is the leading emitter of greenhouse gases. We need to do our part in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. And I think Russia is looking at what we're failing to do and thinking twice. It would be a big disappointment.
BROWN: The Russians, at one point, when they looked at the treaty with the United States in it, actually figured out that they would be financial beneficiaries of the treaty, because they would be -- they could sell their credits, their emission credits, to the United States. When the United States backed out, it gave the Russians less economic incentive to go along?
BROWNER: I think that's a real possibility. That is right. Russia could actually sell credits to other countries that have emissions that are above the baseline. The United States is certainly above the baseline. And Russia had hoped to sell credits. The good news is that Europe is moving forward with the program. They are working in the European Union in their parliament right now to adopt a trading program. So there may be some other opportunities for Russia, if they go ahead and ratify.
BROWN: As a practical matter, this does seem to me -- and you'll correct me, I'm sure -- that, unless the world gets together to do something, whether the Europeans do something and the Americans do something else and other countries do nothing at all, probably isn't going to get it done. Do you agree with that?
BROWNER: Aaron, I absolutely agree. This is the single greatest public health and environmental threat the world has ever faced. And it will take the entire world working together, Russia, the United States, Europe, China, Japan, everyone working together. Absolutely.
BROWN: Why is it still -- the facts of this or science of this seem continually in dispute, whether or not humans -- there is a human cause to this, whether carbon dioxide is really at fault. All of this seems to be, by critics of the treaty and others, scientifically in play.
BROWNER: Well, I think that the naysayers, those in industry who would have to clean up their pollution, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, love to raise the scientific questions. But the truth of the matter is, there is more scientific agreement on the fact that, in fact, humans are contributing to changes in the climate of the Earth than there's ever been on any other environmental or public health issue. You have 2,500 of the world's leading scientists all in agreement that there is a problem and that we need to start the process of addressing the problem.
BROWN: Let's try and do something that's probably impossible and deal with the mercury issue in about a minute's time.Mercury, everybody acknowledges is dangerous stuff. And it's in a lot of lakes and it causes a lot of problems. Is there something inherently wrong, in your view, with this method of controlling pollutants, where some industries trade their credits to others who can continue to pollute?
BROWNER: There's nothing wrong with cap and trade. We were part of -- our administration was part of launching the first cap and trade program for air pollution.The problem, Aaron, is, the cap the administration is proposing simply leaves too much mercury in the air for too long. Under the current law, under the rules that we were proposing, you can achieve a 90 percent reduction in mercury within the next five years. What the administration, Bush administration, is talking about is a 70 percent reduction in 15 years. Mercury is a neurotoxin. It is bad for our children. It is dangerous to pregnant women. It should not be in the air.
BROWN: And how expensive is it to clean it up? Because that's part of the equation.
BROWNER: Well, it's actually -- the costs are coming down, in part because, during our administration, we required other sources of mercury, other smokestacks, incinerators, for example, to go ahead and put in place the best available technologies. And as these technologies have come on to the market, as they've been tested, as they've been proven to be effective, the cost inevitably comes down.
BROWN: Good to see you again. Thank you. Nice job tonight.
BROWNER: Thanks.
BROWN: Thank you very much. Before we go to break, a quick run through the business pages, starting with SUVs. Tomorrow, Detroit plans to announce voluntary steps to make SUVs safer in collisions, especially for those in the other car, if you will. Wal-Mart says it will no longer accept debit MasterCards, the kind of card that gets run through like a credit card. You sign the slip and it charges your bank account, your checking account, instead of going on a credit card. Wal-Mart says the cost is too high for such a service. American workers did a pretty fair job in the third quarter this year, pushing productivity up at a 9.4 percent annual clip. That means you're working really hard. That is higher than anticipated and the best showing in 20 years, which, not surprisingly, sent the markets squarely sideways. Investors expected the good news. They got their buying out of the way earlier. Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: How separate do church and state need to be? A Supreme Court case we'll talk about with "Slate"'s Dahlia Lithwick, as NEWSNIGHT continues tonight from New York.
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BROWN: The U.S. Supreme Court is wrestling with a case that could have profound implications on public of funding of religious education and, some contend, much more than that. The justices appear evenly split on this one. The tie-breaking vote, as it often seems to be, rests with Sandra Day O'Connor, if the predictions prove true.At issue in the case, a state law in Washington state out West banning taxpayer money for theology studies. A young man who is now 23 was denied a scholarship under the law and is challenging that law. Many issues here. Dahlia Lithwick has been covering the story for "Slate" magazine. And she helps us on legal matters from time to time.It's good to have you with us tonight.Basically -- tell me if I got this right -- the question before the court is, can a state which pays for someone to major in history or political science or nursing or whatever draw a line at theology?
DAHLIA LITHWICK, "SLATE": That's exactly it. This is essentially a discrimination case. And this is more or less under the free exercise clause of the United States Constitution. And religious people are saying that that wall that's been erected between church and state gets in the way of them freely exercising their religion.
BROWN: OK, here's what to me is the fundamental question. And, obviously, I don't get it. This, to me, looks like a slam dunk. Why is it not a slam dunk? If there is a separation between church and state, how can the state pay to train a minister of a specific religion, any religion?
LITHWICK: Well, I think you need to look a little bit at the history and you need to sort of see this as the logical outgrowth of a series of decisions that the Rehnquist court has handed down, as I say, chipping away at that wall between church and state. And if you recall, a year and a half ago, the Rehnquist court sort of opened the door to this case by saying that state money can go to religious education as long as it's funneled through a state voucher system. That essentially opened what I think has turned into a Pandora's box. This case is sort of a natural outgrowth. And it says, if a state can give money to a religious school, then isn't it discrimination when a state decides not to?
BROWN: And, among the nine justices, there did appear to be a fair amount of hand-wringing going on, on this one.
LITHWICK: Well, there was a tremendous amount of hand-wringing going on from the four traditionally liberal justices, the justices who really see the court's job as sort of policing that wall between church and state. I can only describe as gleeful the four justices who really do think that religion belongs in the public square. They see this as an evolution that they really welcome.
BROWN: And, Justice O'Connor, who often finds herself in the middle of these sorts of things, has, in the past, at least as I recall, sided with the conservatives on these separation questions. Did she seem troubled by the issues before the court?
LITHWICK: She did. I think she recognized, in a profound way, that this case isn't just about the funding of public education. It really will have consequences that ripple through all of the taxpayer money going to programs. Justice Breyer asked some good questions, sort of saying, what about government contractors? What about nursing schools? What about hospitals? Are religious entities all going to be now entitled to funding if states hand out funding to secular entities? And O'Connor was very troubled. She, in fact, asked one of the attorneys, aren't we undoing centuries worth of law that says we don't do this sort of thing?
BROWN: If the court overturns the Washington state law, which is based on the Washington state Constitution, which is somewhat more rigorous in this area than the federal Constitution even, is there much separation of church and state left?
LITHWICK: Well, it's not just Washington, for one thing. There are 37 states that have similar laws on the books. So, certainly, that's a very broad proportion of the country that would have their laws effectively struck down, too. And, no, I think the answer is, there won't be much of a wall left between church and state, because whenever the -- your taxpayer dollars are going out to fund secular entities, there will be, as I say, an entitlement to fund religious entities. How can there, after that, really be a wall anymore? BROWN: Dahlia, good to have you with us again. Thank you.
LITHWICK: Thank you for having me.
BROWN: Thank you. A few more items now from around the country, starting with another case in a different court that has serious constitutional implications as well, the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the government today urging a federal appeals court in Virginia to put the death penalty back in play -- Mr. Moussaoui's side arguing that depriving their client of the opportunity to call three other al Qaeda members to the witness stand deprives him of a fair trial. The judges seemed to press the government fairly hard on that score today, which doesn't necessarily mean they'll rule against the government. In Washington tonight, Shoshana Johnson was honored for bravery. Ms. Johnson, you'll recall, was taken prisoner in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the first female African-American POW in U.S. history. In New York tonight, a holiday tradition -- oh, my goodness -- the lighting of the big tree at Rockefeller Center and the beginning of the major midtown traffic jam that will go on until New Year's, not that anyone will mind once they see the tree close up. It is, as always, spectacular.
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the town that keeps on giving, Boone, Iowa, where more and more people are being called up to serve in the military. A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: Iowa's first winter storm of the season dropped up to eight inches of snow on some parts of the state overnight, including the small town of Boone, where it's going to be a very long winter, and not just because of the snow. In ways most of us can't imagine, Boone, Iowa, has been touched by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a place where everyone knows just about everyone. And a lot of people won't be home for Christmas. They will be at war.
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BROWN (voice-over): Clyde Anderson has been giving haircuts in Boone, Iowa, for 50 years, fewer now since 9/11 and the war with Iraq, a lot fewer.
CLYDE ANDERSON, BARBER: They're gone. They're good customers. Every week or so, they get a haircut. And now they're all gone. BROWN: In this rural town of 13,000, nearly 400 residents are in the National Guard and almost all are deployed somewhere else. Their training facility on the edge of town is nearly empty.
COL. ROBERT KING, IOWA NATIONAL GUARD: A huge burden of America's defense role is in the reserve components. The old term of weekend warrior doesn't count anymore. We're full-fledged members of America's military program.
BROWN: They are also the city's firefighters and police officers and shop owners, even the city administrator. Brent Trout got his orders a few weeks ago and will be leaving his job for a tour of duty in Iraq that could last anywhere from a year to 18 months.
BRENT TROUT, BOONE CITY ADMINISTRATOR: A little shocked, a little, "Now what do I do?" type thing, lot of issues with family and with work, and a lot to get done in a short amount of time.
BROWN: The city will find a replacement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The interim city administrator.
BROWN: His family will not.
CONNIE TROUT, WIFE OF NATIONAL GUARDSMAN: I love you.
TROUT: I love you, too.
C. TROUT: Every day will be hard, raising my two boys by myself. Now that they don't have daddy to throw the ball around and play games with them and stuff, that's going to be the hardest.
BROWN: Makenzie Patterson's husband, Rob, has been deployed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, since last February.
SPC. MAKENZIE PATTERSON, IOWA NATIONAL GUARD: The hardest part is when 3:00 in the morning comes and Chloe (ph) wakes up screaming for him. She's very understanding now. She knows. You say something about daddy and she says, daddy's at work. She always said, my daddy works hard, because he spends the night there. So that's the hardest part, is trying to explain to your kids. BROWN: Mrs. Patterson is also in the National Guard. Her number could come up. And with all these numbers coming up in Boone, questions are being raised.
DON ANDERSON, ASSISTANT CHIEF OF POLICE: The National Guard role is to fill in the blanks. We only train one weekend a month and two weeks a year. And I don't feel that's enough training to be putting us right into the hot spot where we're at right now. That's for somebody that's training every day, all year long. BROWN: This is a place where everyone knows someone in the war, a husband, a friend, in Rosie Berdesa's (ph) case, a brother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was gung-ho at first and, we went in there and going to do our job. And now he puts in his words as feeling like a sitting duck, wants just to do the job that we went there to do and come home. BROWN: Another season is passing in Boone, Iowa. Christmas is coming. And many neighbors are away. Here, the war is not a story on the TV or in the paper. In Boone, more than most places, it is felt at the barbershop and in the fields, at city hall and everywhere else.
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BROWN: Boone, Iowa. Morning papers after the break.
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BROWN: All righty, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Or, in this case, we'll just start with, not tomorrow's paper, but a weekly paper in Burt County. That would be Burt County, Nebraska. But you know that, didn't you. "The Burt County Plaindealer," devoted to the interests of the people of Burt County. And here's their lead, OK? This is the weekly lead. "Shop at Home This Year." This is basically a commercial for the video store and the hardware store and all those other good stores in Tekamah -- I think that's the way you pronounce it -- Nebraska. That's their lead. And then "Howdy Partners" is the picture there, with these three young kids all dressed up for -- what is it? -- some kind of school deal, yes. Good for them. That's "The Plaindealer" in Burt County. By the way, if you want to subscribe to this and you don't live in Burt County, it's $40 a year, $30 if you live in the county. But you probably get it already.
"The Washington Times" from Washington, D.C. There was something here I liked, down here. "Bishops to Pressure Catholic Politicians, Urge Them to Follow Their Faith." I just find that a really interesting issue, whether -- and a conflict for, I'm sure, a good many Catholics on a good many issues. Anyway, the bishops seem to be ready to take a stand again. I don't think it's the first time that happened. They also lead with the economy. "Productivity Skyrockets. Labor Reports 9.4 Percent Boost, the Best in 20 Years."I guess that's good, but doesn't it mean we're working more for less? Isn't that what that means? I think it does. Traffic stories make a couple newspapers.
"Chattanooga Times Free Press." "A New Right of Way" and this fabulous graphic explaining how to make a right turn, or maybe it's a left turn, in this new set of streets, OK?And also
"The Detroit News." "Big Boxes, Fast Food, Slow Cars Define Clogged M-59." That's the big story in the -- we're really running out of time that quickly? All right. "The Boston Herald" tomorrow morning. I like this headline. "Dems Need Cash," or DNC. Get it? "Sky-High Costs Dog Convention." The Democrats will convene in Boston next summer.
"The Detroit Free Press" leads with hockey. "Welcome, Sergei," Sergei Fedorov coming back to hockey. Detroit is hockey town, USA. They can lead with it any time they want. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, according to
"The Chicago Sun- Times," is "uh-oh." That's really what it is, is "uh-oh." It looks like snow in the forecast in Chicago tomorrow, which means it's probably heading our way. We'll take a break and take a look at the day's top story. And I'll preview tomorrow after the -- after the break. That's what I meant to say.
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BROWN: Before we go tonight, a quick look back at our top story. The coroner for Cincinnati calls the death of Nathaniel Jones a homicide, which is not to say a crime was committed, only that the struggle with police, in addition to a heart condition and drugs in his system, led to his death. Members of his family today said police could have been more restrained. African-American leaders are again calling for Cincinnati's police chief to resign. But Cincinnati's mayor stands behind Tommy Streicher. And the chief stands behind his officers. Tomorrow night, right here on this program: The Russians are coming just where you'd least expect the Russians to be. And where might that be, you ask? Ah, a reason to watch tomorrow."LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next.Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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