Stabbing Suspect Arrested at Atlanta Airport; Federal Judge Lifts Stay, Kills Prop 8; JetBlue Flight Attendant Wants Job Back; New Orleans: Law & Disorder
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and thanks so much for joining us on the Most News in the Morning. It's Friday, and it's the 13th of August.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I thought you weren't going to mention it because it would be bad vibes.</s>ROBERTS: Are you a triskaidekaphobiac (ph)</s>COSTELLO: I don't believe so.</s>ROBERTS: Oh, that's a good thing.</s>COSTELLO: But I could have that.</s>ROBERTS: That's if you're afraid of Friday the 13th, that's what you are. We'll be talking about that this morning. Triskaidekaphobiacs as well, people who are afraid just of the number 13. I'm John Roberts.</s>COSTELLO: Too much to wrap my mind around this morning.</s>ROBERTS: Good morning to you.</s>COSTELLO: I'm Carol Costello. Kiran Chetry has the day off. A lot to talk about this morning, so let's get right to it. Brand-new details of a serial stabbing suspect caught at the airport trying to flee to Israel. We now have a name and it turns out cops had him at least twice before he almost slipped out of the country.</s>ROBERTS: Same-sex couples in California could be free to marry once again. A federal judge striking down Proposition 8. The ruling taking effect next Wednesday giving the other side five days to appeal. In the meantime, city halls across the state are gearing up for what could be a tidal wave of weddings.</s>COSTELLO: And New Orleans right now dealing with a violent crime wave. The city averaging one murder every other day. People are scared and they want help. Drew Griffin of CNN special investigations unit has details on the new tactic to stop the violence.</s>ROBERTS: And the amFIX blog is up and running this Friday morning. Join the live conversation going on right now. Just go to CNN.com/am</s>FIX. COSTELLO: But first up this morning, the manhunt is over but the questions are just beginning. There is brand-new information this morning about the serial stabbing suspect and his prior brushes with the law.</s>ROBERTS: We were the first to break the news of his arrest yesterday morning, and now we know who he is. Police say Elias Abuelazam went on a violent rampage across three states and came this close to slipping out of the country. And authorities apparently missed chances to stop him sooner. Our Jeanne Meserve is live for us in Washington this morning. She has been digging through her sources, coming up with information. And, Jean, what are we looking at in terms of this guy potentially being within range of being caught but still going free?</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, they didn't know he was a suspect at the time, but now they do. He is an Israeli citizen and he was arrested as he was about to board a flight to his home country.</s>MESERVE (voice-over): Authorities believe this man is responsible for stabbings in Michigan, Ohio and Virginia. Five of them fatal. Elias Abuelazam, a 33-year-old Israeli citizen living legally in the U.S., was arrested Wednesday night as he was about to board a Delta flight to Tel Aviv.</s>DAVID LEYTON, GENESSEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN PROSECUTOR: Suspect was loaded -- located, rather, at the boarding gate of Atlanta's Hartsfield airport and was called to the front of the boarding area where he surrendered without incident to customs agents.</s>MESERVE: The stabbings began in May. The last one was just last weekend. They attracted national publicity because there were so many and so many of the victims were African-American. 17-year-old Etwan Wilson was one.</s>ETWAN WILSON, SURVIVED ASSAULT: I pushed off of him and ran -- ran to the first house I've seen with the light on.</s>MESERVE: During the investigation, police released a composite drawing and surveillance tape of a green SUV. A tip eventually connected Abuelazam with the car and the crimes and when authorities realized he was en route to Israel, they moved in. Though Abuelazam recently worked in Michigan, he lived for a time in this house in Leesburg, Virginia. A man who lived just steps away was stabbed and bludgeoned to death last year. The murder is still unsolved. The victim's daughter remembers Abuelazam.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seemed to be pretty nice. His whole family did.</s>MESERVE: Officials in Virginia and Michigan had different responses when asked if the stabbings were race related.</s>CHIEF JOSEPH PRICE, LEESBURG, VA POLICE: My belief is he selected the victims in Leesburg based upon the color of their skin.</s>LEYTON: We don't have any other evidence that suggests it's racially motivated. I'm not saying it's not, but what I'm saying is, is that without more evidence, I'm not going to make that statement.</s>MESERVE: On August 5th, a week ago Thursday, Abuelazam was arrested in Arlington, Virginia on an outstanding misdemeanor assault warrant. He was driving a green SUV and inside, officials say, police found a knife and a hammer. A hammer was used along with a knife in one of the stabbings, but at that time authorities had not connected Abuelazam or the car with the crimes. He was released and just hours later there was another stabbing in Virginia. John, Carol, back to you.</s>COSTELLO: Jeanne, it's so confusing. If the killings weren't racially motivated, why did this guy allegedly do this?</s>MESERVE: Well, they aren't speculating on why he did this. Yesterday, there were several questions at the press conferences about it. There was a refusal in the Michigan press conference to speculate on what the motive might be. There's still very much in the investigative phase now.</s>ROBERTS: Jeanne Meserve in Washington this morning with the latest. Jeanne, thanks. In the next five days, same-sex couples could once again be tying the knot in California. It is a watershed moment for gay rights activists who fought hard for the freedom to marry.</s>COSTELLO: Celebrations erupted yesterday after a federal judge announced the state's ban on gay marriage can no longer be enforced. More now on the ruling from Dan Simon in San Francisco.</s>DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Barring a reversal from an appeals court, same-sex couples here in California can resume getting married next Wednesday, August 18th, at precisely 5:00 p.m. That was what was in the judge's ruling. Judge Vaughn Walker issuing that ruling here at San Francisco's city hall. We've got numerous same-sex couples in line hoping to get marriage certificates and get married, but now the judge saying that cannot take place until next Wednesday. We talked to people on both sides of the issue.</s>LUKE OTTERSTADT, SUPPORTS PROP 8: It undermines the definition of marriage, the institution of marriage, in the same way that a counterfeit dollar bill affects the dollar bill, the real dollar bill in my pocket. It undermines the value of that because it takes away and puts something false in there as something that's true.</s>PHILLIP ALVARADO AND MATTHEW HAWK, OPPOSE PROP 8: It's life and it will happen for us.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like one step forward --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. But you know, like, it's life and you got to take it through its courses. So we're not going to give up.</s>PROTESTERS: Free to marry. Free to marry.</s>SIMON: We have a statement here from the National Organization of Marriage which supported Proposition 8. It says, in part, "When a lower judge makes an unprecedented ruling that totally overturns existing Supreme Court precedent, the normal thing for that judge to do is stay his decision and let the higher courts decide. Obviously Prop 8 supporters making it clear that they plan to appeal this ruling and try to keep this ban in place but barring any sort of decision or reversal from the appeals court, same-sex couples can get married in California once again beginning next Wednesday. I'm Dan Simon reporting from San Francisco.</s>COSTELLO: But who knows for how long? We're going to get into that in the next hour of AMERICAN MORNING. OK. We have to talk about the saga of Steven Slater. I guess it's a never-ending story, isn't it?</s>ROBERTS: The 15 minutes are still taking on.</s>COSTELLO: That's right. And there's something kind of new this morning. The JetBlue flight attendant turned Internet folk hero, he wants his job back according to his attorney who added that's his life. His life is his job. But a JetBlue company memo obtained by CNN makes that sound quite unlikely. The memo states that "using the safety slide for any reason other than to protect passengers and crew, quote, "will not, and cannot be tolerated." The charges against Slater include two felonies, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief, so his troubles have begun.</s>ROBERTS: And now, some of the passengers who are on-board that flight are coming forward saying, hey, wait a second, this just didn't happen like that. This guy was surly. This flight attendant, Steven Slater, was surly through the entire flight.</s>COSTELLO: From the beginning of the flight through the end.</s>ROBERTS: Yes.</s>COSTELLO: And then the cut on his head? Some people are saying it was already there, and that it wasn't a case of somebody's bag falling and hitting him in the head.</s>ROBERTS: The full story yet to be told on this one. Now, though, to a true story of true love that got off to a bit of a rocky start. Matt Cawley thought he had the perfect plan to pop the question to his girlfriend. He tied the nearly $9,000 family heirloom diamond ring to a sand dollar and placed it on a Massachusetts jetty. Yes, you know where this one's going. But when his girlfriend picked up the sand dollar, the ring fell off and slipped between the rocks.</s>MATT CAWLEY, LOST ENGAGEMENT RING: I just kept saying the ring. And she was like what ring? She's like, wait, you bought a ring? Wait, we're getting married? What? It's like, what is going on?</s>STACEY SCANLON, LOST ENGAGEMENT RING: It's so indescribable, like all of our feelings at once. It was, you know, just you were panicked.</s>ROBERTS: The couple searched for hours but came up empty. Luckily, though, the ring was insured. Let's hope that the -- let's hope that the --</s>COSTELLO: And that makes it so much more romantic.</s>ROBERTS: She doesn't say whether she accepted or not.</s>COSTELLO: Well, after he did that kind of irresponsible thing with the ring, you'd have to think twice.</s>ROBERTS: Wait a minute. Irresponsible?</s>COSTELLO: OK, you're on a beach.</s>ROBERTS: Oh, you are --</s>COSTELLO: You tie the ring to a sand dollar.</s>ROBERTS: You are the hopeless romantic, aren't you?</s>COSTELLO: You notice she didn't say yes, though.</s>ROBERTS: Maybe she did.</s>COSTELLO: OK, we'll look it up. We'll get more information for you.</s>ROBERTS: We'll give them a call and find out what happened.</s>COSTELLO: I think we should. The biggest storms on the planet are controlled by the tiniest creatures in the sea. And they probably have that ring right now. Discovery.com has the goods on a new study showing that plankton can actually determine whether a tropical system spins into a monster hurricane, and plankton can even stir mature storms across the ocean. The study comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, better known as NOAA. Plankton are everywhere in the ocean, as you know from watching "Sponge Bob Square Pants," and their bodies tint the blue water to a green color. That's what plankton does. That green-colored water traps light and heat and hurricane- like warm water.</s>ROBERTS: Wow.</s>COSTELLO: Got all that?</s>ROBERTS: Perfect opportunity to check in with Rob Marciano who's at the weather center in Atlanta. And that's some pretty interesting information. So what does that mean about what's going on with the storms like the tropical depression we saw in the last couple of days that fizzled out and a couple before that had?</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well -- yes, those were -- you got to remember that, you know, half the equation is what's going on above the water with the winds and the weather patterns. And that's what's killed these past couple of storms. And the other thing is I really never liked plankton to begin with. So the fact that they're messing with hurricane is really --</s>ROBERTS: They're good sauteed in butter.</s>COSTELLO: Oh, no.</s>MARCIANO: Right up there with escargot, right? Yes. All right, guys, listen. A couple of rain showers across New York, down to Philly and D.C. Nothing like we saw yesterday morning where it was just coming down to beat the band across the nation's capital with severe weather in through Maryland. These are more, you know, run of the mill showers, just kind of wet the pavement on your way to work. More severe weather across parts of the upper Midwest, in through Minneapolis. Severe weather watch boxes up for that. This is a cool front that's trying to make its way south and east and will have a harder time to go south than it will east. And places like St. Louis and Dallas will once again be smoking hot today. A slew of triple-digit record highs which we'll detail later on. Hey, you didn't get outside last night. Check out these</s>COSTELLO: Oh.</s>MARCIANO: See you, guys. Yes, there's the romantic in me, Carol. Huh?</s>COSTELLO: Oh, would you tie your ring to a sand dollar and put it on the beach?</s>MARCIANO: No. Come on. That's just -- no. And you've got to have the bling that's why she didn't say yes. You made a good point there.</s>ROBERTS: You know, sand dollars are very spiritual things.</s>COSTELLO: They are?</s>ROBERTS: Yes.</s>MARCIANO: And quite unstable as far as holding rings go.</s>ROBERTS: Well, I guess it's just, you know, you've got to make sure that you attach it properly.</s>MARCIANO: He should have secured it more importantly.</s>ROBERTS: The all-important attachment.</s>COSTELLO: Figure it out when the tide was coming in and going out. Things like that.</s>ROBERTS: Thanks, Rob. Well, finding the good fight. See how New Orleans' new mayor is trying to rebuild the city he loves as the cycle of violence there continues. It's a CNN special investigation.</s>COSTELLO: And Dr. Laura Schlessinger apologizing for an "n" word barrage on the air. We will play you the tape. It's 11 minutes past the hour.