Homebuyers Beware; Better, But Not Great
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Broken borders. A shocking, new report exposing the holes, not in the middle of nowhere, but at the checkpoint. Extreme weather. The growing emergency in Mexico. Now deadly mudslides on top of dramatic flooding. Plus, TV land in reruns.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our production will stop within the next couple of days because we have stopped writing.</s>CHETRY: Stars rally for the writers. Shows already shut down. How long could it last? Find out on this AMERICAN MORNING. Yes, it's probably weird for a lot of people not to watch Letterman and Leno.</s>JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Already went into reruns that first day. My goodness.</s>CHETRY: Exactly. We're going to talk more about that throughout the hour. Also, it's Tuesday, November 6th. Thanks for being with us. I'm Kiran Chetry</s>ROBERTS: And good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. We begin this morning with breaking news on the security watch. Twenty terror suspects arrested across Europe today. According to Italian police, more than half were nabbed in Italy alone, specifically in northern cities like Milan, where the investigation started. They are suspected of involvement in trying to recruit suicide bombers for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Italian police say they found al Qaeda manuals that detailed how to make and detonate explosives and concoct various poisons. In Pakistan, meanwhile, brutal police beatings are taking place in the streets today. About 25 percent of the country's lawyers are now in jail since President Musharraf ordered a crackdown on protesters. People who live there tell CNN, it's not safe for them to go outside.</s>AYESHA TAMMY HAQ, PAKISTANI LAWYER IN HIDING: From the military, obviously, there's been a huge crackdown of anyone who's out, anyone who's protesting against General Musharraf is being arrested. So I'm trying to stay out of jail. It's not just brutal, it's violently brutal, and they seem to enjoy themselves. They seem to actually take pleasure in what they're doing. Very shocking.</s>ROBERTS: President Bush is calling on Musharraf to hold elections and resign as general as soon as possible. The U.S. has given Pakistan $10 billion to help fight al Qaeda and has suggested future aid might be in jeopardy. Kiran.</s>CHETRY: Some alarming news this morning about security breaches at our borders. The General Accountability Office found as many as 21,000 people were able to slip through U.S. border checkpoints last year. At one point of entry, GAO investigators found no agents in the inspection booth. The report did not specify where these security breaches happened. The deputy administrator of Customs and Border Protection says that part of the problem is a lack of consistent rules.</s>JAYSON AHERN, CBP DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: Today there is currently not a requirement, either statutorily or regulatory requiring everyone to have a document coming across the border. So, no, they're all being checked.</s>CHETRY: The GAO report blames, among other things, staffing shortages and poor management. His confirmation as attorney general appears almost certain this morning. In just a few hours, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to approve Michael Mukasey's nomination and send it to the full Senate for confirmation. Mukasey's reluctance to define waterboarding as torture, even though he called the interrogation "repugnant," put his nomination in jeopardy. But two, key Senate Democrats agreed to vote with Republicans and approve Mukasey. So what do Americans think about waterboarding? A CNN/Opinion Research poll found that 69 percent of people surveyed do consider it torture, 40 percent say, yes, it should be used to get information from terror suspects and 58 percent say, no, it should not be used. John.</s>ROBERTS: It's coming up on three minutes after the hour. In southern Mexico, as many as 18 people are feared dead after a wave of water and mud swept through the remote village of Villahermosa. It follows a week of heavy rain and flooding that has forced about a half a million people out of their homes. President Bush is proposing emergency aid to help the flood victims. Back in this country, we're experiencing strong winds in the Midwest. Powerful gusts up to 45 miles an hour knocked down two light poles in downtown Milwaukee yesterday. The winds ahead of a sharp cold front moving in. And check out this amazing footage from Charleston, West Virginia. Thunderstorms there brought drenching rains, and as you can see, some pretty fierce lightning. So where's the extreme weather today? It's here in New York. Rob Marciano at our weather desk tracking it this morning. We've got some storms out there, Rob. Obviously going to cause some big problems with air traffic as well.</s>CHETRY: Well, the first night without TV writers featured reruns of all the late night talk shows. That freed up Jay Leno to show some support for his strikers. He showed up at the picket line during the day with doughnuts for the writers.</s>JAY LENO, "TONIGHT SHOW" HOST: I've been working with these people for 20 years, so I support them. And people kind of get the wrong idea how much writers make. I know I'm real cheap and I don't pay them anything. So unless they get anything from these DVD sales and all those other stuff. So, I mean, I think it's a good cause.</s>CHETRY: Other stars, such as Tina Fey -- she's also the head writer for "Saturday Night Live," was picketing. And even presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton weighed in on the issue, urging the two sides to come up with a deal. The main issue is how to distribute revenue from new media, such as DVDs and internet downloads. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologizing to the father of a Ground Zero worker for saying that his son was "not a hero." Bloomberg made the comment after a city medical examiner ruled that James Zadroga died from abusing prescription drugs, not from dust inhaled at the World Trade Center site. Bloomberg caught a lot of flack for the comment and met with Zadroga's father yesterday. The family insist Zadroga did not abuse any drugs. In Illinois, cadaver sniffing dogs and mountain teams are joining the search for 23-year-old Stacy Peterson. Peterson, a mother of two, was last seen by her husband, Police Sergeant Drew Peterson, October 28th, two days after he claims she told him she wanted a divorce. Now she's his fourth wife. Sergeant Peterson is not a suspect at this point, but there are questions being raised about the bathtub drowning of his previous wife. Her sister discussed that relationship last night on "Nancy Grace."</s>SUE DOMAN, SISTER WAS DREW PETERSON'S WIFE: In the beginning, everything was fine. And then after a few years, it did start up. He would always ask, who are you on the phone with? And she would say, just, you know, a friend or a family member. And then he would just smirk and laugh and he said, who were you on the phone with? NANCY GRACE, CNN's "</s>NANCY GRACE": But, Sue, let me ask you, did she ever express a fear? Did she ever say, this guy scares me. I mean . . .</s>DOMAN: Oh, definitely. She said it many times. She said -- many times she told family, friends, anybody she could tell, I'm scared to death of him. He's going to kill me.</s>CHETRY: So, again, that was the sister of his previous wife who died in a bathtub. We're going to have a report from Bolingbrook, Illinois, on the very latest in this case coming up in our next half hour.</s>ROBERTS: And later on this morning we're also going to be talking with Stacy Peterson's aunt, Candace Aikin, about this whole case. An advisory panel will recommend to the president today that the FDA be given more power to protect Americans from tainted imports. The panel was created in response to the growing list of dangerous or unhealthy items coming into the United States. It wants the FDA to be able to order mandatory recalls. A power it currently doesn't have. It also wants more inspectors in countries that are major U.S. exporters. And in about 40 minutes time here on AMERICAN MORNING, we'll be speaking with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt about other ways to keep imports safe. A Halloween fund-raiser, organized by the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, may have crossed the line. Some employees say they were offended by a man dressed in a prison outfit, dreadlocks and a skin bronzer to make him look African-American. The assistant Homeland Security secretary, who hosted the party, Julie Myers, has apologized for the "inappropriate and offensive costume." During the party, though, Myers and two other party judges cited the prisoner costume for its originality. There were pictures taken at that party, but they've since been deleted. Homeland Security officials plan to investigate the whole thing. And a California National Guard unit is being investigated today for allegedly taking donations intended for wildfire victims. The 330th military police company was providing security in Potrero, about 40 miles east of San Diego. The guard launched its investigation after volunteers reported the troops were taking away cartons of snacks and diapers, items that were intended for displaced fire victims near the U.S.-Mexican border. One soldier has already been relieved of duty. Kiran.</s>CHETRY: Well, it's time now to check in with our AMERICAN MORNING team of correspondents for other stories new this morning. Homebuyers beware. The fallout from the credit crunch means that it is harder to get a mortgage from the bank. Ali Velshi is at the business update desk with that. Hi, Ali.</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. In fact, the issue here is that it's harder for people with perfectly good credit to get a mortgage from the bank. We've been hearing about this for a long time, but a survey by the Federal Reserve in October of 49 major banks says that 41 percent of those banks say that they have tightened lending standards somewhat or considerably for prime residential mortgages. Those are mortgages given to people with perfectly good credit. A month earlier, that number was only 15 percent. So 41 percent of the major banks that were surveyed by the Fed are now imposing tighter lending standards on people with perfectly good credit. Of the 49 banks, by the way, that the Fed talked to, only nine of them continue to offer loans to sub prime borrowers, people with less than perfect credit. And of those nine, five of them have tightened the lending standards. Four banks remain offering loans to sub prime mortgage applicants without any increase in the lending standards. A little curious about who those four are and why because that's kind of what got us into this problem in the first place. But this has definitely trickled its way up to people with perfectly good credit. We already know that if you're trying to get what's called a jumbo mortgage, for more than $417,000, even if your credit is stellar, that's also become a problem. So this mortgage crisis is working its way up to people who otherwise would have not been affected by it. Kiran.</s>CHETRY: All right, Ali, we'll check in with you throughout the morning. Thanks so much. Also, there's a new report out this morning suggesting airlines might not be doing as badly as it feels they're doing when it comes to delays. Alina Cho has that story. Hi, Alina.</s>ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Kiran. Good morning. You know, this is really a good news/bad news type of situation. The good news first. For the month of September, overall flight delays across the nation are down. But the bad news, the record for on time arrivals is still the worst in 13 years. Now the key to avoiding delays, according to the Transportation Department, steer clear of New York, where flight delays are up 23 percent over last year. JFK in particular. But excluding New York, flight delays at the nation's 31 largest airports are actually down 8 percent over last year. Mostly because of new runways, caps on flights, and even better weather. Now even Chicago O'Hare's and Atlanta's Hartsfield airports, two of the world's busiest, posted improvements. Now here's the breakdown. The airlines with the highest rate of on time arrivals, Aloha Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Frontier Airlines. Those with the worst records, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, Alaska, and Northwest Airlines. And the flight you want to avoid at all cost, Comair Flight 5042 from Philadelphia to New York's JFK. Get this, late 90 percent of the time. Now last month the airlines and the FAA met to talk about just how to fix those epidemic delays at JFK. One proposal is charging airlines fees for taking off during peak travel times and another one is putting caps on the number of flights that can take off during those times. But, Kiran, it is safe to say that there's a lot of finger pointing going on between the FAA, the airlines, and the air traffic controllers. They're going to have to stop fighting in order to come up with a solution. And another interesting point is that the number of complaints has actually sky rocketing 60 percent over last year, which says to me that a lot of people are talking about it. People are less patient about flight delays. And, remember, we're just coming up on the holiday travel season.</s>CHETRY: Oh, joy. All right, Alina Cho, thanks so much.</s>CHO: You bet.</s>CHETRY: John.</s>ROBERTS: A friendlier France topping our "Quick Hits" now. Nicholas Sarkozy makes his first visit to the White House as president of France. That will be this evening. He's on a mission to repair relations with President Bush. Relations that were strained by his predecessor, Jacques Chirac's opposition to the war in Iraq. The House is expected to make history today, overriding President Bush's veto for the first time. They're voting on the $23 billion Water Resources Development Act. The Senate says they also have the votes to override the veto. Crisis in Pakistan. The constitution has been suspended. Thousands of lawyers have been arrested. How chaotic is it there on the streets and how much worse is it likely to get? We'll get a report on the ground in Islamabad. That's coming up next. And why are so many strange men knocking on this door? We'll tell you ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.