Iranian Elections Underway; Obama Heckled Over Iran at Fundraiser; Study: Sleep Gets Better With Age; Apple More Valuable Than Poland; Civil Rights Anniversary; Controversial Voter ID Laws
O'BRIEN: This is off of Rick's play list. Bruno mars. You are so much cooler --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Than you thought.</s>O'BRIEN: Yes, yes, I like that.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See, Republicans can be cool.</s>O'BRIEN: That was not a political statement at all. But I like the way you take it there immediately. People say it all the time, you like that song? I actually like you now. Let's get to the headlines this morning. Christine has those. Hi, Christine.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Let's go to Syria first where food and medical supplies are getting in and the wounded are now getting out. The Syrian government giving the Red Cross the green light to enter the besieged city of Homs. Trucks getting closer as we speak. Meantime, the voice of the Syrian uprising, an activist known as Danny, was able to escape to Lebanon. He told CNN's Anderson Cooper about the regime's brutality in the city of Homs.</s>DANNY", SYRIAN ACTIVIST: I actually went back not to become a camera. I went back to join the Free Syrian Army. They did not allow me to join. They say I have no army training. So they told me you've got good English, try and get the news out to the outside world. We want them to know the truth about what's going on. So I just -- I picked up the camera and started shooting me doing reports. Most of the images I remember the first week because -- I wasn't used to seeing pieces of bodies in the street, seeing bodies that I can't say -- I can't even move because the sniper would shoot me if I tried to move the body.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, CNN'S "AC 360": What do you think is going to happen now in Baba Amir? "</s>DANNY": Well, I what I know what's going to happen now in Baba Amier. The army went into Baba Amir. They will have revenge on the families that live there. They will take out revenge on the families. They will torture women. They will torture kids. They will every single thing they find in the houses.</s>ROMANS: At an E.U. summit in Brussels, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Syria must be held accountable for crimes against its people and warn for a day of reckoning for the Assad regime. Parliamentary elections are going under way in Iran right now. Forty eight million Iranians are eligible to vote and there's a power struggle emerging between Iran's most powerful figure, Supreme Leader Ayatolla Ali Kameni and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran also facing global mounting pressure and sanctions over its nuclear program, 290 parliament seats are up for grabs today in those elections. And on the subject of Iran, President Obama forced to deal with a heckler over his handling of Iran's nuclear program during a fundraising speech in New York last night. Listen.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: None of this changed -- none of this -- nobody has announced a war, young lady, but we appreciate your sentiment. You're jumping the gun a little bit there.</s>ROMANS: About 900 people paid up to $35,000 each to attend that event meaning about $5 million for the president's re-election campaign. The event was hosted by Russell Simmons and Deepak Chopra. Your "A.M. House Call" you're not getting older, you're getting more sleep that's what researchers found. They say contrary to popular opinions, older people do not suffer as many sleep problems as younger people. A telephone survey found that people in their 80s had the fewest complaints about their sleeping problems and the middle age, especially women, reported the most complaints. All right, Apple, it's now one of the most valuable companies at any point in history. Apple cracked the rare $500 billion mark in market value this week. That's half a trillion dollars. Only Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Cisco, and GE have ever done it before. It's higher, look at it this way, it's higher than the GDP of Poland, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan. What else is Apple worth more than? Well, there's a blog for that. Things Apple is worth more than on tumbler, how about the entire U.S. aircraft carrier fleet, annual U.S. beef consumption, two entire Apollo space programs, all the gold at the New York Federal Reserve, or maybe all the electricity consumed in the U.S. in a year. Things that Apple is worth, $544 a share for Apple stock. Wish I bought it at $2.</s>O'BRIEN: I know, really. There's no would have, could have, should have window at the racetrack as they say, Christine.</s>ROMANS: Nope.</s>O'BRIEN: Too bad now. All right, let's talk this morning about the anniversary of the day that's known as bloody Sunday. Kind of a new fight they're looking at. Forty seven years ago, a civil rights march happened across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was a demand for fairness in voter registration and it ended, as you recall, in violence. Police in riot gear attacked the 600 or so marchers. Dozens of people were injured. Now the man who led the march, Congressman John Lewis, and 20 members of the Kennedy family are going to do it again not just to mark the anniversary, but to fight for voters' rights again. They are challenging that state's controversial immigration law, as well. Joining me this morning is Kerry Kennedy. She's the daughter, of course, of Robert F. Kennedy, and the president of Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. And also joining me is Congressman John Lewis. He's a Democrat from the state of Georgia. Nice to see you both. Congressman Lewis, I'm going to start with you if I can. Let's talk a little politics first before we get into the anniversary of bloody Sunday. Newt Gingrich has talked about the stakes coming up in Super Tuesday. Here's what he said.</s>NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have to win Georgia, I think, to be credible in the race.</s>O'BRIEN: All right. That's a short version of a southern strategy. What do you make of this strategy? Is he right?</s>REP.  JOHN LEWIS (D), GEORGIA: Well, I think it's important that he be able to win his home state, but I'm not going to get involved in the Republican primary. It's their primary. As a Democrat, I wished them well.</s>O'BRIEN: I wish them well and that's all I'm saying about it. All right, Congressman Lewis, we can move on. We could talk a little bit about the anniversary of the bloody Sunday march. In a way, you've said that the march is going to change this year because of the changing landscape. What exactly has changed, Congressman?</s>LEWIS: Well, Selma, the state of Alabama, the south, and the nation, so different than 47 years ago. We got the Voting Rights Act passed and hundreds and thousands and millions of people in the south can register and vote. But in many parts of America today people are passing voter ID laws, making it difficult for many people to participate in a democratic process. The Vernon Center based in New York has reported that maybe more than 5 million people would be denied the right to participate in a democratic process. Because of these voter IDs, early voting, making it hard and difficult for young people, minority, seniors and others to vote on Election Day.</s>O'BRIEN: So Kerry, why don't you explain that to me? I know there are sort of two prongs in this. One is voter ID and also the immigration. Let's start with voter ID, which would require in the state of Alabama, voter identification. You say it's disproportionally affecting poor people and people of color. Why is that?</s>KERRY KENNEDY, PRESIDENT, ROBERT F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS: Well, you know, this was legislation passed in order to get people to self deport. And it's really to harass and terrify people into leaving the state of Alabama and it's had terrible, terrible consequences. They are not only going to lose up to six percent of their GDP because of job loss. They're going to lose up to 140,000 jobs in Alabama. This is legislation that's opposed by the Homebuilders Association, by the Chamber of Commerce, and by human rights groups. And it's had awful consequences to the people who live there. The Southern Poverty Law Center has set up a hotline to hear complaints about this legislation. Already in the last five months, they've already gotten 5,000 complaints and questions about it. The consequences are terrible. One family, for instance, was denied water into their house for 40 days because their papers weren't in order. At a local pep rally at a high school, a bunch of students were heckled and yelled at, Mexicans to the back, Mexicans to the back. And sadly, a group of young children got up and left the front of the room and went to the back. You know, Rosa Parks would not get to the back of the bus and this is going --</s>O'BRIEN: Let me ask the last question of Congressman Lewis.</s>KENNEDY: Go ahead.</s>O'BRIEN: Because a lot of what Kerry is describing it sounds like to some degree with a different population, obviously 47 years ago, you're focused on African-Americans and now you're moving to a focus on Latinos and people in poverty. Do you feel sometimes like you're marching for the same thing all these many years ago?</s>LEWIS: I feel like we're still marching and it's necessary to march again. It is not right. It's not fair. It's unjust to treat the Latino population or any population the way people are being treated. In the state of Alabama and in so many other states in America, Hispanics, Latinos live in constant fear. These laws are bad. They are bad for our fellow human beings. I don't think there's any such thing as an illegal human being. We all are legal. People must be treated with a sense of dignity. We must respect the dignity and the worth of every human being.</s>O'BRIEN: Yes. Anniversary of bloody Sunday. Thank you both for joining me this morning. I appreciate your time.</s>LEWIS: Thank you.</s>O'BRIEN: You bet. Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT, an American family that's living in Syria says their 16-year-old son has been kidnapped. The young man's brother is going to join us live to talk about what they're hoping to do to try to rescue this young man. And "Game Change," the movie comes out next week. It's about McCain and Palin during the election of 2008. Well, now Sarah Palin is speaking out about what she thinks about the movie. We leave you with Terry's play list, the Beatles, "Can't Buy Me Love."