Cordes, Jim Axelrod, Ben Tracy, Cynthia Bowers
xfdcb CBS-EVENING-NEWS-01
<Show: CBS EVENING NEWS>
<Date: March 11, 2010>
<Time: 18:30>
<Tran: 031101cb.401>
<Type: SHOW>
<Head: EVENING NEWS for March 11, 2010, CBS>
<Sect: News; Domestic>
<Byline: Katie Couric, Dean Reynolds, David Martin, John
Blackstone, Nancy Cordes, Jim Axelrod, Ben Tracy, Cynthia Bowers>
<High: A soldier decorated for bravery in the deadliest battle of
the Afghan war gets a career-ending reprimand for that very same battle.>
<Spec: Military; War; Afghanistan>
KATIE COURIC, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: Tonight, a CBS News exclusive: A soldier decorated for bravery in the deadliest battle of the Afghan war gets a career-ending reprimand for that very same battle.I'm Katie Couric. Also tonight, congratulations, you're driving more safely. Traffic fatalities fall to the lowest level since the 1950s.
Should there be health warnings on our cell phones? Some say it's best to put that idea on hold. And it may not be nice to do, but he's fooling Mother Nature.
ANNOUNCER: From CBS News world headquarters in New York, this is the CBS EVENING NEWS with Katie Couric.
COURIC: Good evening, everyone. The Silver Star is one of the highest honors for an American soldier, awarded for extraordinary heroism on the battlefield. But now in a bitter irony, a soldier who received the medal for a battle of Wanat in Afghanistan has just been reprimanded for the very same battle, and it could cost him his career. David Martin now with this exclusive report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID MARTIN, CBS CORRESPONDENT: It was the deadliest battle of the Afghan war. Taliban video shows the enemy surrounding a remote outpost and shooting down on U.S. soldiers like fish in a barrel. When it was over, nine Americans lay dead. Their company commander, Captain Matthew Myer, was awarded the Silver Star for his bravery in fighting off a much larger force. That's his voice calmly talking to Apache gunships overhead.
CAPT. MATTHEW MYER: Be advised, we are in a bad situation. We need you to come in hot immediately.
MARTIN: The enemy is so close, Myer tells the incredulous pilots to lay down fire within 10 meters of his position.
MYER: I know it's high risk, but we need to get these guys off of us, over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ten meters. You got to be kidding me.
MARTIN: Now Myer, along with two of his superior officers who were not at the battle, have received career-ending letters of reprimand for failing to prepare adequate defenses in the days leading up to the attack. 49 American and 24 Afghan soldiers had been ordered to set up the outpost deep in enemy territory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would have liked to have had another platoon up there with troops in the high ground.
MARTIN: It was July of 2008, and according to Sergeant David Zwik (ph), they were short of not just troops but basic necessities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The second day we were extremely low on water. We started running out of water, and it's very hard to continue working through the heat of the day.
MARTIN: Despite warnings from villagers that an attack was imminent, an unmanned surveillance drone which had been watching over the troops was diverted to a higher-priority mission.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not having the surveillance was the concern for me. I-- part of the planning was that we would have some.
MARTIN: The first Apache helicopters got there an hour after the Taliban opened fire. By then, Captain Myer was the only officer still alive.
MYER: They're within hand grenade range at this time. Break.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN: Myer can still appeal, but right now, he has been both decorated and reprimanded for the same battle. Katie.
COURIC: David Martin with an exclusive report from the Pentagon. David, thank you.
In other news tonight, just as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid it leading the fight for health care reform, his wife and daughter needed emergency medical treatment today. Their car was rear-ended by a tractor trailer on a Washington, D.C. highway. Landra Reid, who's 69, has a broken back and neck. Her 48-year-old daughter Lana Barringer also has a neck injury. Doctors say, though, none of the injuries is life-threatening.
Ironically, news of this accident comes on the same day the government is reporting that our highways are getting safer. The latest estimate is there were just under 34,000 traffic deaths last year. Now, that's down nearly 9 percent from the previous year, and national correspondent Dean Reynolds tells us, it is the lowest death toll since 1954.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEAN REYNOLDS, CBS CORRESPONDENT: It is an early but encouraging estimate.
RAY LAHOOD, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: We believe that it's good news for the driving public, but we're not going to sit back on our laurels.
REYNOLDS: Since 2005, when traffic deaths reached a record 43,510, the numbers have declined every year. With last year's fatality figure at the lowest point in almost six decades, it's important to consider that 1954 was two years before the interstate highway system started, and a year before seatbelts were even an option in Fords and Chryslers. Back then, there were 58 million vehicles of all types on the road. Today, there are four times as many. But modern-day highways are unquestionably safer and easier to navigate, and--
(AUDIO GAP).
REYNOLDS: Seatbelt laws is strict and widespread. All states, except New Hampshire, require them. Seatbelt usage is now up to (inaudible) percent.
Airbags, front and side, are now in 170 million vehicles on the road. Much-improved tires help hold cars to the pavement, and, as this comparison shows, so do the increasingly sophisticated electronic stability controls estimated to save up to 9,000 lives every year. And safety experts say there's also been a cultural shift against drinking and driving, accounting for nearly a third of all traffic-related deaths in 2008.
JONATHAN LINKOV: The days of one for the road have certainly been passed. That's something that we would see on TV in the '80s on sitcoms.
REYNOLDS: But a relapse is not out of the question. Cutting-edge computer systems, such as those on Toyotas, may pose unintended risks that they malfunction and leave the driver without control. And there are new distractions, from visually arresting displays to cell phone texting -- so dangerous that 20 states now ban texting while driving.
LAHOOD: We heard heartbreaking stories from people who lost loved ones as a result of somebody thinking they could text and drive or use a cell phone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REYNOLDS: Secretary LaHood told us today he'd like to see a national ban on texting, and he'd like to see it implied over the entire country.
COURIC: And Dean, I was going to ask you, because of the recession and the high gas prices, I know fewer people are out on the road. Is that a contributing factor here as well?
REYNOLDS: It's a contributing factor, no question, but apparently a small one, because while there are fewer people on the road, the actual number of miles driven seem to have gone down, so there's no question that the people seem to be driving more safely. Katie.
COURIC: All right, Dean Reynolds. Dean, thanks so much.
The recession is certainly a factor in our next story. Schools all over America are having serious money problems. 29 states have already cut their education budgets. Every other state is struggling. And Cynthia Bowers tells us one major city is about to take drastic action.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CYNTHIA BOWERS, CBS CORRESPONDENT: Despite long months of emotional protests and a tight vote that fell largely along racial lines, Kansas City School Board says it will close nearly half of its schools by next year. 26 of 61 schools shuttered, 700 jobs lost, 285 of them teachers.
JOHN COVINGTON, SUPERINTENDENT, KANSAS CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION: It has been a difficult and painful and very emotional process that impacts our entire community. No one likes closing schools.
BOWERS: But it was necessary, he says. Enrollment at Kansas City schools has dropped by nearly 50 percent over the last decade, leaving too many schools with too few students. Tensions are heightened here because many of the schools targeted for closure are in the inner city.
SHARON SANDERS BROOKS, COUNCILWOMAN, KANSAS CITY, MO: This intentional continuation of the blighting of the urban core is scandalous and shameful.
BOWERS: Lorea Robinson (ph) agrees. Her two kids attend an inner-city Montessori (ph) school set to close next year.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think they're setting kids up for failure. Every teacher in this school knows every student.
BOWERS: But administrators say, overall, Kansas City test scores have been plummeting, and this move could strengthen schools and erase a $15 million deficit.
While Kansas City is the most drastic example, education cuts are being made in at least 29 states. Georgia schools have made more than $400 million in cuts, with plans to lay off thousands of teachers. And Illinois' governor says a 33 percent state income tax hike is the only way to avoid $1.3 billion in cuts.
GOV. PAT QUINN (D), ILLINOIS: If we can enact this emergency rescue plan properly, we can keep 17,000 committed teachers from getting layoff notices.
BOWERS: But Lorea Robinson worries that balancing budgets matters more than educating the next generation.
Have you gotten really angry about this when you think about what it could mean for your kids' future?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, because if the schools are failing with the economy, why would you start a business in this country?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOWERS: And that's the dilemma in this tough economy-- how to keep America's kids globally competitive when the budget axe back home in this country keeps falling. Katie.
COURIC: Cynthia Bowers in Kansas City, Missouri, thanks very much.
Meanwhile, help may be on the way for some schools. President Obama's race to the top program will give more than $4 billion to states willing to shake up their school systems. But Ben Tracy tells us the money comes with strings attached, and that's not earning high marks from some teachers' unions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN TRACY, CBS CORRESPONDENT: Locke (ph) high school in Los Angeles is what is called a dropout factory.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, when you're done, flip it over.
TRACY: Nearly one out of every two students does not graduate.
STEPHANIE SALAZAR: There was constantly fights. Every day there was a new fight.
TRACY: However, Locke recently became a charter school, publicly funded but privately run.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you want to flip over to a new page--
TRACY: The teachers are energetic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hawaii was annexed.
TRACY: Attendance is up, and a dress code ended fights over gang colors.
SALAZAR: I feel like I'm actually coming and I'm learning something new every day.
TRACY: The changes at Locke are what the Obama administration's new race to the top program is encouraging. The president will dole out that $4.3 billion next month to states that have the best school reform plans. 40 states have been competing for the money. Just 15 of them are now finalists. But the president and the secretary of education alone decide which states get the money, so there are big strings attached. If states want a shot at the funds, they need to allow more charter schools to open and start judging teacher performance based on student test scores.
ARNE DUNCAN, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: In the overwhelming majority of states and districts, there's no link between teacher evaluation and student performance. It doesn't make any sense to me.
TRACY: But the administration's approach has them at odds with teachers' unions, who have historically supported Democrats. The unions say the president's plan puts all the blame on them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Teaching is only one aspect of a whole systemic problem which really begins with massive underfunding, lack of resources, in public schools.
TRACY: Back at Locke, math teacher Fernando Avila (ph) says accountability is an issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Teaching has been the only profession I have experienced so far where it didn't feel like I could get fired.
TRACY: A mindset the government wants to change.
Ben Tracy, CBS News, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COURIC: In Washington this election year, both parties are taking aim at those pet projects known, of course, as earmarks. There are 9,500 of them in the current budget, costing taxpayers nearly $16 billion. In the House, the majority Democrats have now banned them for profit-making companies. If they had done it for this year's budget, 1,000 earmarks would have been eliminated, saving $1.7 billion. Here's our congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: I'm unable to answer any questions.
NANCY CORDES, CBS CORRESPONDENT: After a cringe-inducing week for Democrats--
FORMER REP. ERIC MASSA (D), NEW YORK: Now they're saying I groped a male staffer. Yeah, I did.
CORDES: Party leaders in the House hope this dramatic new ban on earmarks to private companies will help repair their image.
NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I'm very proud of it.
CORDES: Not to be outdone, House Republicans announced they wouldn't request earmarks of any kind.
REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: House Republicans are making a clean break from the past.
CORDES: Earmarks are funds members funnel to pet projects by attaching them to legislation. This year's defense appropriations bill alone contained 1,700 earmarks worth $4.2 billion.
REP. NORMAN DICKS (D), WASHINGTON: We wanted to take this step so that there is no appearance of an ethical question here.
CORDES: Democrat Norm Dicks would know. He's one of seven House members who were cleared last month after a long ethics investigation into earmarks they directed to donors. The probe embarrassed Democrats and Republicans alike.
RYAN ALEXANDER, PRESIDENT, TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE: And I think we have to do something, because we look like idiots to the public. We keep saying there's no problem with the campaign contributions in exchange for earmarks, and nobody believes us anymore.
CORDES: Make no mistake, there will still be lots of loopholes. The House ban applies only to earmarks to businesses. Members could still request earmarks to local governments like Alaska's infamous bridge to nowhere, or earmarks to nonprofits like this teapot museum in North Carolina. And since the ban is only in the House, private companies will simply go to the Senate with hat in hand, to the frustration of anti- earmark crusader John McCain.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: So why don't we take the final step and put a moratorium on earmarks until we have a balanced budget.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CORDES: But most of his fellow senators do not appear to be interested in following the House's lead. Still, government watchdogs consider this a significant first step for fiscal responsibility. Katie.
COURIC: Nancy Cordes, Nancy, thank you.
And coming up next here on the CBS EVENING NEWS, why some are pushing to put a warning label on your cell phone.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COURIC: Anywhere you look these days, you're likely to see someone on a cell phone. 20 years ago, there were only about 2.5 million cell phone subscribers here in the U.S. Today it's a quarter billion. And we talk on cell phones an average of nearly three hours a week, but is that really good for your health? Jim Axelrod tells us about a push to require warning labels on cell phones in tonight's Eye on your Health.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM AXELROD, CBS CORRESPONDENT: In the summer of 2008, 58-year-old Alan Marks was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They took out a golf ball-sized tumor. I don't think there's any question it's going to come back.
AXELROD: A real estate developer in California, Mark's talked on his cell phone about an hour a day for 23 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no question what caused it. It was my cell phone.
AXELROD: Which is why his wife, Ellie, traveled cross-country this week to appear before state legislators in Maine--
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to watch my husband die from this.
AXELROD: --and urge them to require a warning label on all cell phones sold in the state.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The wording is, warning, this device emits electromagnetic radiation, exposure to which may cause brain cancer.
AXELROD: Andrea Boland (ph) is the state rep behind the bill. It's common sense to her. We all walk around pressing these radiation-emitting devices to our heads.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The cell phones have never been proven safe, and that's the obligation of the manufacturers.
AXELROD: Warning labels on cell phones would put the Maine legislature ahead of the National Cancer Institute on the issue. The NCI says studies have not shown any consistent link between cell phone use and cancer, but that more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn.
The FDA, FCC, and American Cancer Society all have similar positions. State health officials in Maine want more than just Boland's common sense. They want conclusive evidence.
DR. DORA MILLS, DIRECTOR, MAINE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: You go back 20, 30 years, there's no increase in these cancer rates during this time.
AXELROD: Radiation produced by cell phones is stronger than an F.M. radio signal, but just one-billionth the intensity of an X-ray and considered to be a different type of radiation altogether. But if there's no threat, advocates for a warning want to know why some manufacturers advise users to keep the phone an inch away from the body unless carried in an approved holster.
DEVRA DAVIS, MT. SINAI MEDICAL CENTER: People don't read those tiny little print labels, and that's why I think it's a good idea to put the warning label on phone so you'll think about it when you use the phone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're just not there yet. We're not there yet.
AXELROD: Still, legislators in Maine just haven't seen enough proof. A skeptical health committee pushed the bill to the House floor, but recommended it not pass.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The research is not there. I'm sorry.
AXELROD: A federal study now under way examining possible links between cell phones and cancer is due out in the next few years. Until then, people deciding how much to use their cell phones will be left to their own devices.
Jim Axelrod, CBS News, Augusta, Maine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COURIC: Call it baptism by fire. On the day Chile's new president took office, the country was rocked by more aftershocks from that earthquake that occurred 12 days ago. The strongest was a magnitude 6.9 and startled dignitaries at the swearing in, but there was no new damage. The new president, Sebastian Pinera, is a Harvard-educated billionaire. He promised to get right to work rebuilding Chile.
When President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, he said he would be donating the nearly $1.5 million that comes with it to charity. Today he said the biggest share, $250,000, will go to Fisher House, which helps veterans' families. Another $200,000 will go to the Clinton-Bush Haiti relief fund.
Meanwhile, in California, Merlin Olsen died today. Olsen once terrorized quarterbacks as a member of the Los Angeles Rams' fearsome four. After a Hall of Fame career, he moved to the announcer's booth for CBS and NBC. But many remember him as the gentle giant Jonathan Garvey on Little House on the Prairie. Olsen was diagnosed with cancer of the lung's lining last year, and filed a lawsuit blaming exposure to asbestos. He was 69.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COURIC: Spring is just 10 days away. The crocuses or croci (ph) are popping up in the usual places. And the tulips-- (inaudible) tells us they're blooming in one very unusual place.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN BLACKSTONE, CBS CORRESPONDENT: In Southern California--
(AUDIO GAP)
-- and cactus gardens thrive, but the heat makes it a terrible place for tulips.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just can't grow them here, except that he's the exception to the rule, I guess.
BLACKSTONE: Somehow, Wayne Daniels (ph) grows tulips in Southern California.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As time went on, I kept adding more and more and got some compliments from the neighbors, which encouraged me to add more each year.
BLACKSTONE: Now, after 30 years, he plants more than 3,000 bulbs each fall in his front yard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He loves people to love his plants.
BLACKSTONE: The result-- by March, tulips are bursting into bloom in a place they aren't expected.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of a sudden, bam, you have flowers exploding all over the place.
BLACKSTONE: And tulip lovers, a species starved for nourishment in Southern California, start showing up by the bunch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I enjoy the people at this stage of doing it as much as I do the tulips -- probably even more so.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What a guy! You know, it's not just the flowers. It's the man. It's what he's done for us.
BLACKSTONE: The secret to Daniels' success isn't in the soil. It's in the back of his garage. Before he plants the bulbs, they spend weeks chilling in an old refrigerator. And so they've been convinced that they're up north someplace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly. At least in a colder climate than we have.
BLACKSTONE: For those in colder climates who see tulips as a welcome sign of spring, it may seem unfair that Southern California can have all this beauty without enduring the bitter cold of winter. But that's a controversy I'll just tiptoe around. After all, the unusually nasty winter in much of the country must finally be ending. Please consider this gift from California a preview of a much-deserved springtime.
John Blackstone, CBS News, Orange County, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COURIC: And that is the CBS EVENING NEWS for tonight. I'm Katie Couric. Thanks for watching. I'll see you right back here tomorrow. Good night.
END
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