SAG Rejects "Final" Offer; Mortgage Fallout Continues: Fannie and Freddie Plummet; Your Airline Needs Your Help!; Filmweek Reviews
SAG Rejects "Final" Offer
There's still no deal today between the Screen Actors Guild and film and television producers. Yesterday, SAG officially rejected the final offer by the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. The union wants more money in DVD residuals. SAG also didn't like what the AMPTP offered in payment for new media. Producers say they've made their final offer and they're done talking. SAG's previous contract expired at the end of last month. The union's negotiating committee will meet today to decide where to go from here. Larry talks about the contract stalemate with Jesse Hiestand, spokesman for AMPTP, and Anne-Marie Johnson, member of the SAG negotiating committee.
Mortgage Fallout Continues: Fannie and Freddie Plummet
Two mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, may not be able to raise enough money from investors to cover losses from loan defaults. That could mean Federal intervention and another bank bailout. This is also due to dramatic plunges - 50 percent in the last week in the case of Freddie Mac - in their stock values. As the fallout continues and banks implode under the strain of falling housing prices, what will it mean to the economy overall? And how far can the Feds go in bailing out banks? Larry talks with Walter Hamilton, reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
Your Airline Needs Your Help!
First, you're forced to arrive at the airport hours early, then you have to stand in long lines, then you might get stranded on the tarmac for hours. You're charged for food, luggage, even headsets. Put simply, the once-friendly skies have become anything but. Yet now, the airlines are asking for your help. High fuel prices are bringing the airline industry to its knees. In an open letter to customers a consortium of airlines are urging passengers to contact their elected representatives and demand more transparency in oil markets to try to lower fuel prices. Larry talks with Dave Castleveder, Vice President of Communications for the Air Transportation Association of America, Michael Fabey, Senior Aviation Editor for Travel Weekly, Kate Hanni, founder of the Coalition for the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, about what it would take to keep airlines flying and customers satisfied.
Filmweek Reviews
Larry and critics Wade Major, of boxoffice.com and CityBeat, Claudia Puig, of USA Today, and Charles Solomon, of amazon.com review some of the week's new feature films including "HellBoy 2," "Meet Dave," "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D," "Garden Party," and "The Stone Angel."