Dozens Killed in Double Suicide Attack in Baghdad
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. Welcome to the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Tony Harris.</s>BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen in for Heidi Collins today. You can watch events come into the NEWSROOM live on this Friday, February 1st. Here's what's on the rundown. Do you Yahoo? Well, Microsoft does. It is making a $44 billion, with a B, play for the Internet portal. Will Wall Street say Yahoo?</s>HARRIS: Nice. Baghdad's calm shattered by a double suicide attack today. Dozens killed in the blood path.</s>NGUYEN: Also Clinton and Obama hunt for super Tuesday voters following the polite debate on CNN. Making nice. Right here in the</s>NEWSROOM. HARRIS: OK. Let's get started this morning. Breaking news involving a big name in technology. Actually two. Microsoft makes a multibillion dollar bid for Yahoo. Both companies struggling to compete with Google, the powerhouse search engine. Senior business correspondent Ali Velshi live from New York. Ali, I heard you say not too long ago this is huge.</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN SR. BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, honestly, Tony, this is going to be one of those days that we look back at in five, ten years as a real change in the history of business. We are looking at -- take the three companies involved here -- Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. Google is bigger than so many other companies combined and it really has started to eat into Microsoft's business. Microsoft needs a way to compete with that particularly in the area of search. Yahoo! has been a very strong company but just not doing what Google is doing. It needs somebody else. So Microsoft today makes a $44.6 billion bid to buy Yahoo. Now let me just tell you how that breaks down. If you were a Yahoo! shareholder at the close of business yesterday, those shares were worth $19.18. This bid values them at $31 a share.</s>HARRIS: Whoa.</s>VELSHI: That's a 62 percent premium. So Microsoft is saying we mean business. We're not sort of giving you 5 percent extra to sell your shares to us. This is a big deal. Those shares are trading in pre-market trades at that level. They are trading at almost $31 which means investors think this is serious. Microsoft in its press release said, without naming Google, they were saying there is one sort of leader in this industry and Microsoft and Yahoo! together can be competitive. So Microsoft making an admission...</s>HARRIS: Absolutely.</s>VELSHI: ...that they need to do this.</s>HARRIS: Well, and they're also saying with this bid, a 62 percent premium on the close of the stock market yesterday?</s>VELSHI: Yes.</s>HARRIS: That -- look, we are going to -- this is a knockout blow. We don't want a whole bunch of competition here.</s>VELSHI: That's right.</s>HARRIS: We want this done and we want it done quickly.</s>VELSHI: And that's a good point because Yahoo! is in that catbird position where it hasn't done very well in the last few years. But everybody knows the name. Everybody knows where to go for it. So it could be attractive to lots of other companies. Microsoft has one thing and that's a lot of money. They're saying we are coming in with a serious bid for this thing. Right now it's an unsolicited offer.</s>HARRIS: Yes.</s>VELSHI: We've just heard from Yahoo. They're saying they're going to review this offer. And we expect to hear from them soon.</s>HARRIS: You think they're going to review the offer? Of course, they will. And Ali, jobs. The jobs report is in for January and it's not particularly great news.</s>VELSHI: Yes. When you look at it initially you will see the unemployment rate actually dropped from 5 percent to 4.9 percent. Most people will think that's a good thing. But here's the thing you have to look at. Jobs -- job creation is important. We -- many economists say we need 100,000 new jobs a month just to keep in track with the in crease in the working age population. We lost jobs in January. They were down 17,000. That's very bad news. As I always talk to you about, Tony, whether it's house prices or mortgages or energy prices, nothing matters as much as your income.</s>HARRIS: Yes.</s>VELSHI: If you think that you might lose your job, that's when you put the credit card back in the wallet and say hang on.</s>HARRIS: Wow. There he is. "Minding Your Business," first thing out of the gate this morning. Ali Velshi, Ali, great to see you. Thank you.</s>VELSHI: You too.</s>HARRIS: You know, it's an icon of technology really but what is Yahoo! and how did it begin? Some background for you now. Yahoo! was founded in 1994. It started as a hobby by two Stanford PhD students. According to the company history the Web site was initially called "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web." Did you know that?</s>NGUYEN: That's a mouthful.</s>HARRIS: Boy. The company was incorporated in March of 1995 and went public in April of 1996. Yahoo! provides online services for consumers and businesses ranging from Internet searches to shopping and entertainment. The company says it has 500 million users worldwide and 12,000 employees.</s>NGUYEN: The CNN presidential debate, only two Democrats, seemingly one mission, and that's to make nice. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama shelled the sharp attacks that heated up their latest faceoff. Instead the mild-mannered candidates traded soft cordial jabs on a few platform issues, the Iraq war, health care and immigration. But as for heat, well, they celebrated one shared target. That's the Republicans.</s>SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With all due respect, we have a president who basically ran as the CEO/MBA president and look what we got. I am not too happy about the results.</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think the Republicans are going to be in a real strong position to argue fiscal responsibility when they've added $4, $5 trillion worth of national debt. I am happy to have that argument.</s>NGUYEN: Both also praised former rival John Edwards who dropped out of the race earlier this week.</s>HARRIS: Super Tuesday voting just four days away now. The countdown clock is getting louder. Why is the anger getting quieter? CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley looks at the Democrats' apparent truce.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Mr. and Mrs. Nice showed up on stage in Los Angeles where it seemed they came not to bury but to praise each other.</s>OBAMA: I was friends with Hillary Clinton before we started this campaign. I will be with friends with Hillary Clinton after this campaign is over.</s>CLINTON: The differences between Barack and I pale in comparison to the differences that we have with the Republicans.</s>CROWLEY: Getting real, it was their last debate before the critical contest super Tuesday so they did launch missiles, particularly on the subject of Iraq. She played her experience card.</s>CLINTON: It will be important, however, that our nominee be able to present both a reasoned argument against continuing our presence in Iraq and the necessary credentials and gravitas for commander in chief.</s>CROWLEY: But after she tried to explain her yes vote on the Iraq war, Obama went after her with a reminder that he opposed the war from the start.</s>OBAMA: Senator Clinton, I think, fairly has claimed that she's got the experience on day one. And part of the argument that I'm making in this campaign is that it is important to be right on day one.</s>CROWLEY: He suggested she was AWOL on putting together an immigration bill. She shot back that she worked on immigration before he got to the Senate. She said his health care bill was inadequate because it didn't cover everybody. He said hers was unworkable because you can't force people to buy health care insurance. Still both campaigns had clearly decided that five days before super Tuesday was a time to put the best foot forward, making for a high-stakes and low-volume evening.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN MODERATOR: Senator Clinton, that's a clear swipe at you.</s>CLINTON: Really?</s>OBAMA: I wouldn't call it swipe. I think...</s>CLINTON: We're having, we're having such a good time.</s>OBAMA: We are having...</s>CLINTON: Yes, we are. We are. We are having a wonderful time.</s>OBAMA: Absolutely.</s>CROWLEY: They debated in the Kodak Theater where they give out the Oscars for best actor and best actress. Candy Crowley, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>NGUYEN: Well, it was a bloody morning in Baghdad. Two mentally disabled women strapped with bombs and detonated. At least 64 people killed. Take you live now to CNN to Arwa Damon in the Iraqi capital. Arwa, what learned about these women?</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Betty, as you just mentioned, according to the spokesman for the Baghdad security plan both of these women were mentally disabled and both of them had their explosives detonated remotely. Both of the attacks also were carried out in popular pet marketplaces at a time when these areas would have been at their busiest. It is Friday which is the weekly Muslim holiday. And families, individuals tend to flock to these markets right around the time when the explosions took place. The first happening at 10:30. It was the deadliest killing at least 46 people. The second coming about a half and hour later. That attack killing at least 18. Now, Baghdad, the capital, has enjoyed a period of relative calm with the death tolls among civilians decreasing significantly as of September. But this morning's violence really a brutal reminder of what lies ahead. The dangers that are still out there. And also, dashing many Iraqis' hopes that just maybe the worst has been left behind them - Betty?</s>NGUYEN: You know, Arwa, when we the situation, the suicide bombers, it's usually men. How unusual is it for it to be women this time around and mentally unstable women at that?</s>DAMON: Well, Betty, it's very rare that we see female suicide bombers here, although it has happened in the past. At the end of last year, there were four female suicide bombers that carried out their attacks in Diyala province, just north of Baghdad. And then about a year ago there was another female suicide bomber that exploded outside of a university. However, according to the U.S. military they are saying that this increase in female suicide bombings is quite simply because the ongoing intense combat operations had decreased a pool of men available to carry out such attacks and the terrorist groups are increasingly trying to train up women. This is also an insurgency as we very well know that is notorious for trying to exploit weaknesses. And at these marketplaces, for example, what we do see is that many of them have blast walls around them to try to prevent vehicles from coming inside. There are body checks that also do take place there. However, often women are not searched quite simply because there are not enough females within the Iraqi security forces. What we have is a clear example of the insurgency exploiting a weakness within the security system here and continuing to terrorize the population.</s>NGUYEN: Yes. One of the security system will change because of that. Arwa Damon joining us live today. Thank you, Arwa.</s>HARRIS: Well, lovely pictures. But we are talking about a really ugly, ugly situation for millions of Americans getting hammered by fierce winter storms. In Washington state, for example, 15 counties are under a state of emergency right now, Betty. After storms buried major roads and interstates under mounds of snow, avalanche is also a real threat. One measured 400 feet long and 30 feet deep in spots. Another brutal storm system in the Midwest to talk about. Heavy snow blanketing several states. Hundreds of flights have been canceled. More than 600 alone at Chicago's O'Hare airport. Can't tell you what that does to the system. At least four deaths blamed on this dangerous storm system.</s>NGUYEN: All right, Tony. Look who is getting an up-close look and feel of this wintry...</s>HARRIS: OK.</s>NGUYEN: ...mix out there in hardest hit St. Louis. Check them out. CNN's meteorologist Reynolds Wolf. Seems like we always send you to the hardest-hit areas.</s>HARRIS: He has spent in time in that city.</s>NGUYEN: Yes, he has.</s>HARRIS: Yes, he has.</s>REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I was here for about a year, about, let's see, 13 months, two weeks and a couple of days. And I'll tell you, this is really the where it's not usual to have winter-like weather and that's certainly the case of what we found here just over the last 24 hours. Right behind me, you see the trademark of the city, the beautiful arch built back in the 1960s. If you drop back a little bit, you'll see the Basilica of St. Louis. This was actually once a log chapel, though. It's established back in 1770, some well over 200 years. Now I'll tell you, back in 1770, there are a lot of things they didn't have including snow plows to help move the snow. That's what we have here, obviously, in St. Louis. Take a look at this video showing you - them getting out yesterday afternoon, last night, and of course, this morning. These trucks are working around the clock, compliments of the Missouri Department of Transportation, city services throughout there. And these men and women were working so hard to keep these roads in great shape and then certainly what they did - hats got to go off to them. Great job at handling the snow. Now if you'll come back to me and you follow me over here, I'm going to take you out by the streets. From what you can see here a lot of cars have been going by with really no problems. Still Missouri Department of Transportation is advising people that if you are to get on the road, by all means, don't do it. We do have a lot of schools closed all across the metropolitan area. The kids are going to be enjoying the snow today. And drivers, although the snow is moving off and towards parts of Midwest into parts of the northeast, too, they are going to be left with pretty slick conditions on the roadway. So people are advised to really be careful. If you have to get out, it's going to be a nasty commute coming in and certainly going home, it's going to be icy on parts of 64 and I-72. Now coming up, Jacqui Jeras is going to have the very latest on your weather forecast which includes not only snow in places like Chicago and into Detroit. But we're talking about a major ice storm that could be affecting parts of New York including Syracuse. It is going to be a big mess as we get into the weekend. Let send it back to you.</s>NGUYEN: Yes. That's important to know because as we have been reporting four people have been killed and blamed on these storms.</s>HARRIS: That's right. That's right.</s>NGUYEN: Reynolds Wolf, stay safe out there. Stay warm. We will talk with you shortly.</s>REYNOLDS: You bet.</s>HARRIS: Well, let's do that. Let's get the update, the very latest information. Jacqui Jeras standing by for us in the severe weather center. Good morning, Jacqui.</s>NGUYEN: Well, we do want to give you this reminder. If news is happening where you are, send us your video or your photos. All you have to do is go to CNN.com and click on "i-Report" or type "i-Report" at CNN.com into your cell phone. But remember, always stay safe.</s>HARRIS: So how about this? The city refused so a good citizen installed his own crosswalk.</s>WHITNEY STUMP, MUNCIE RESIDENT: I just this I did what's right. I think the city should do what's right. I don't want to make a big deal out of this.</s>HARRIS: But the city did. Guess where he ended up?