ac360 starts right now. >> we begin tonight keeping them honest with breaking news. 360 has learned this waw not the first time that the costa conco concordia steered so close to shore. the cruise line not only knew about the route but approved it. the company that owns the ship said the accident was the result of a rogue decision that the captain and only the captain made. we learned the previous close call happened back in august. we have video, this is the video of the incident in august taken from the shore. the cruise line said the ship was a safe distance from the coastline. lloyds lip said it was dangerously close, closer, in fact, than it came on friday night when it hit the rocks. here is new satellite imagery of the wreck. look how big it is against the coast, just a massive, massive ship. the search for nearly two dozen was suspended when the wreckage began shifting. really dangerous for the rescue divers. a dutch salvage team has arrived to offload diesel fuel. also, today, we got our first look at an interview that the concordia captain, schettino, did a day after the grounding. in it, he maintains that the rock he hit was not on the map. >> i don't know if it was detected or not, but on the nautical chart it was marked just as waiter at some 100 to 150 meters from the rocks, and we were about 300 meters from the shore more or less. we should not have had this contact. there were more than 4,000 people and you were able to rescue everyone. the captain is usually the last one to abandon ship. what happened, captain? >> we were the last to leave the ship. >> last night, we showed you why that simply is not so. his own phone calls to the coast guard from the life boat during the evacuations is truth enough. his story has changed since the interview. he's saying, you might want to sit down for this. he said he somehow tripped and fell into a life boat. not kidding. tripped and fell into a life boat, got stuck in the life boat along with the rest of his senior officers. as for the rock he hit, we got the first up close look at it, and it, too, is breath taking. there are rocks and well water locations on the standard navigation chart of the area. you look at the images, the size of the rock that is embedded still in the hull of the ship, unanswered a eed whether the ca thought his ship was farther out to sea and clearer of the rock than it was which is why the lloyd's list story is intriguing. they track ships and they show the course taken on friday was not a new course. friday night as it tried to skim by the island right along the coast. the concordia's cheap stewart could wave to his family and friends on shore. that's the whole reason they got so close. now, according to lloyd's sat like tracking. this is the course it took on the 14th of august. the crossing point in the middle of the screen where concordia hit the rock. it came win 230 meters or two football fields of the island at one point. neither course is anywhere near the route that concordia and other cruise ships take which is art out to sea. monday, cruise line ceos blamed friday's grounding on the captain. >> we believe it to be a human error here, the captain did not follow the outlined route which is used very frequently, probably more than 100 times in one year we have this route from south chilean sea to the sea, and we think it's a tragic event. >> well, at the same news conference, a stunning admission that as you saw, concordia had been in the same dangerous waters on a nearly identical path last summer. it happened quote, under the thesation of the maritime authority, local maritime authority, with the authority and permission of costa, after having reviewed the route. he said nearby, not closer than 500 meters away from shore. and even 500 meters simply doesn't allow enough room for such dangerous waters. we contacted a representative from the company today because we wanted to know what the standard procedures are for approving course changes like the one in august and on friday. the spokesman saying, quote, onboard decisions about navigations are ultimately taking by the ship master who is responsible for the ship and passengers, in other words, the captain. joining us is adam smallman. if the cost aconcordia sail s just as close to the island in august, was it sheer luck that the disaster didn't happen then. >> it actually sailed closer and on the basis of the data that we looked at, which is exclusive analysis from shore based systems called ais, it got that close, 230 meters at one point, the closesh point on the voyage, closer than this voyage up until the last moment when it came in. so our estimate is that it must have come within slipping distance of the rock, the underwater rock way back in august. >> that's amazing. so when the cruise line said back in august, the ship was never closer than 500 meters to the island, you say that's simply not true. >> we don't believe it true based on the information we have seen. we went to the company today, waiting for a confirmation of our information. it's not 100% accurate, but we think it's pretty accurate. it's used around the world by governments and companies and corporations to track results. we have reason to believe it's accurate. when the court case comes down, there will be debate about precisely where it was. and there will be a lot of debate about what maps and navigation were in use at the time. >> regardless of what the ship has done or not done in the past, the responsibility for where the ship does, where it goes, ultimately still lies with the captain, right? >> absolutely lies with the captain. of course, he's got a massive responsibility. this is a cruise with lots of people who paid lots of money, and he knows where he's taking the ship, what kind of entertainment, what kind of places he's going to go with it. he needs to execute all that and in all that discussed, that was sanctioned. an interesting aspect is if he believed that the route that was taken then was of satisfaction to take again, then you know, that's going to lie right at the center of who is to blame for the dreadful accident. >> a lot of the blame, liability wise, is going to rest on which map the captain was or wasn't using, right? >> up to a point it will be. the question is with the right equipment and the right maps for the captain to do his job, you'll see debate about that. half a billion dollars worth of assets lying on its side in the ocean. a huge amount at stake, not just the civil liabilities but also the cost of the ship and who paid for all that, what is at stake, so there's a lot of debate around the detail of this, which makes the suggestion by the company a very quick and prompt suggestion that the captain was at fault without any hesitation at all, a little surprising. >> adam, thank you. i want to bring in two people, one to speak what it was like eboard the ship, and someone who may well be representing passengers in the legal action to come. georgia ananias who was one of the last to leave the concordia. and jack, who works for companies that own the cruise sh ships. georgia, you were outraged at what happened. i'm so glad you're okay. what is your reaction when you hear that according to satellite tracking data, the same ship was taking close to shore, the same route that caused the disaster, back in august. >> i'm shocked but now with the experience i had, not surprising. d disgusting, and there are so many blatant lies that have been going on with the whole incident, it doesn't surprise me anymore. >> we're showing you infrared images of passenger s crawling over and trying to get off the side of the ship, taking in infrared. you and your husband and two daughters were stuck on the ship for five hours. what was that like? were thru times when you thought you were not going to get off? >> absolutely. there were four times we thought we were dying, and we said our good-byes to each other. and we just said that, you know, there were so many things. >> what was it -- take me to one of the moments when you felt you weren't going to make it, why? >> one of the moments, when the ship was listing and we had to climb up and form a human chain to pull ourselves up into a stairwell, and a couple gave me their baby sxdz, take my baby. and i held a 3-year-old, and i was afraid the child was going to go down the stairwell, and i looked at my husband who was in the navy, and he said, this is it, and i handed the baby back to the parents and said, be with your baby. >> wow. what is -- what is that like to be with your family -- i can't imagine. >> it's an out of body experience, hard to believe. everything you would see on the titanic and worse. it was unbelievable. that was one incident. there were four incidents of that in the 5 1/2 hours, and not one person from the ship assisted in any manner. not one officer. we got on a life boat that wouldn't function, thrown against the walls of the ship, crawled down under, tried to get on the other side of the ship, they said if we got on the other side, we could get in a life boat, and at that time, the ship shifted again, we had to crawl back out, crawl a 20-foot ladder, blood falling down and people, the real heroes were the people, the other passengers onboard who lifted us up. we had to go through creates, and then we get to the top of the ship, and there were about ten people, the rest of the people left the ship. the coast guard and flashing lights. you think they're coming for you, and the next thing you know, they're taking somebody from the bridge and air lifting them out and we're standing there with our lights flashing and yelling, save us. >> you saw that? >> yes. >> and when you hear that the captain -- the captain now claiming that he tripped and fell into a life boat and got stuck in the life boat for an hour, does that make any sense to you? >> absolutely ridiculous. it's insulting to us, insulting to the people who died, insulting to the people like us that went through 5 1/2 hours. >> what i think a lot of people don't understand about the cruise ships is the ability to actually sue is very, very limited. especially if the ship hasn't been in a u.s. port. that the passenger takes a contract, which is an apparen y ly legally binding contract, it says any legal action has to take place in the courts in italy, in genoa, right? >> right, you make a good point, and the remedy, the rights and remedies of every passenger is governed by the document, which we printed one out. it's eight pages of about eight-point print. this is print that is much finer than newspaper print, and i seem to have lost my earpiece, but the right -- passengers do have rights and remedy, it's just that they're governed by this. in this particular case in this cruise line, the rights and remedies are to bring a claim in genoa, italy, only because this particular cruise did not touch a u.s. port. but there are rights and reme remedies, and the rights and remedies are different for other cruise lines and other cruises. >> if you're on a cruise that does not go to a u.s. port, you can't sue in the united states? >> no, that's not true. that is true with regard to costa, because costa happens to be based in italy, so the ticket contract provides that. with carnival, no matter where the accident is or where the cruise is or where theparage lives, you must sue carnival cruise lines in miami in federal district court in miami. so a lot of people don't know this. >> also under maritime law, aren't there very small numbers that you can actually -- the ability to win a large sum of money, you don't have that ability in maritime law. is that correct? >> no, that's not 100% correct, i'm sorry to dispute it. >> let me know what's going on. >> here is what is real. if the cruise does not touch a u.s. port, yes, there are limitations which apply, and that's the athens convection, and that's in the ticket. if the cruise does touch a u.s. port, there are no such limitation. there is an exception to the athices convectintion is one is there is intentional conduct. so in this case, even though you have to bring action in genoa, italy, and that can be done, and we are working with italian lawyers, but even if you bring an action in italy, if they raise this athens convention, certainly, this exception will apply here. i mean, the captain of the vessel, we have heard this incredibly, one of the most touching accounts of what happened, one of the most powerful accounts is that woman that just -- just recounted what happened. >> let me bring georgia bang in. how was it you were finally able to get off the ship? >> once we went up the 24-foot ladder, there were hardly any of us left. one of the cameras -- photographers from the ship and another journeyman had a rope, and we had to sit on our knees, hands and knees, all the way to the rope, and then go down from deck -- i want to say 7, 8, 10, i don't know which one, and we had to shimmy ourselves all the way down and that was like, you know, a chain. if one of us would have slipped and fallen, everybody would have gone down. we thought, we're safe. we're going to get in a life boat. what ended up happening is that the water shifted. so we had to time it to save our lives to jump onto the life boat. i and my younger daughter, we jumped to the top of it. and we saw another german lady with us who was left, she was before us, and my husband and daughter jumped. >> yet again, time after time, we see strangers reaching out and saving other strangers. and as you said, a lot of credit goes to them. georgia, thank you so much for being with us. i'm so glad your family is safe. >> my pleasure. >> jack, thank you so much. let us know what you think, we're on facebook, google plus. follow me on twitter. we're going to tweet right now. up next, the rescue operations are suspended because of the danger factor. and we have amazing new video of the work the divers have been doing despite the risk. we'll talk to butch hendrick a little bit coming up after the break. also later, andrew sullivan, president obama's accomplishments as he sees them and why that controversial title on his newsweek title reads are obama's critics so dumb a title that brings up a lot of controversy. bay buchanan joins the conversation as well. >> students in upstate new york want answers. they want to know why a dozen teenage girls at the same school developed a mysterial condition that looks a lot like tourette's syndrome. we have the story in 360 when we continue. ♪ [ woman ] when i grow up, i want to take him on his first flight. i want to run a marathon. i'm going to own my own restaurant. when i grow up, i'm going to start a band. 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[ female announcer ] discover what's next in your life. get this free travel bag when you join at aarp.org/jointoday. get this free travel bag when you join there is a platform built for the purpose of driving innovation. one that's transforming how companies from every industry-- and of every size-- are doing business. a platform built for now. and for what's next. this...is the cisco intelligent network. cisco. metamucil uses super hard working psyllium fiber, which gels to remove unsexy waste and reduce cholesterol. taking psyllium fiber won't make you a model but you should feel a little more super. metamucil. down with cholesterol. our breaking news tonight, word that not only did the "costa concordia" come dangerously close to disaster at least once before, the cruise line knew about it and approved it. that happened last august. we've also learned through precision tracking information from the shipping journal "lloyd's list" that on that occasion, the "concordia" came much closer to danger than the cruise line claims. 230 meters, not 500. in short, friday's disaster might just as easily have happened last summer. again, about two dozen people right now remain unaccounted for. as we said, underwater rescue and recovery was suspended today because of dangerous conditions. we've been talking about how dangerous this is for the divers for several nights now. as you can see in this kind of video, getting around the inside of an ocean liner is tough, even under the best conditions. that video, by the way, newly released by the italian coast guard. there is more, and to an expert eye, it shows just what these divers are up against. we're joined by veteran rescue diver, butch hendrick. he's been guiding us through the rescue operations all week. he joins us again. butch, what surprised you most about this new video of the underwater search and rescue mission? >> the thing that surprised me the most, anderson, was the amount of visibility they have. i was not expecting them to have that much visibility. >> and what do you attribute that to? is it not very silty down there? >> well, they're midwater at that point, so they're not on the bottom where they have the silt, but the water conditions are just very clear. they've got good 50 to 100-foot visibility, while they have light. >> and good visibility, that would seem like a very good thing, correct? >> yes. having good visibility is definitely a good thing, because it allows them to be able to work a whole lot of that ship quite freely, especially, you know, reducing the ability to get disoriented. >> at one point in the video, i see something that looks like lines that are in a "y" shape formation. are those like the lines that you used tuesday night on this program when you dove inside the wreck to basically mark your course? >> i believe they are. i was looking at the "y" point of that. you see the way they're connected, and they're using, obviously, a larger diameter rope. we used a little rec reel, but yes, i believe that's exactly what they are. they're setting up to be able to get in, get out, and move product, or move items in and out along those lines with them. >> we can also see the divers using a sledgehammer. that's the kind of tool that you would use underwater in these circumstances? >> it's not the tool i would use, it's what they're using. i would actually try and use, if you watch video that i'm sure you have on fdny, new york city fire department, the officers carry what's called a hallogen tool. it's about 28 to 32 inches long. it has a pry bar, a very large hammer side on it with a claw. it's a multiusable tool, and you can use it well with two hands. that's what i would be having my guys use. >> it's got to be tough for the divers, who are obviously invested in trying to recover people from this, to have to suspend operations. >> it's a point where they've decided that now they have to -- they're probably setting up lines, getting ready for the salvage company to come in. and yes, it's very difficult for the men to say, just one more dive. just one more dive. but at some point, the dives are over for now. >> and how long might they be suspended for? or is that undetermined, because you've just got to wait on the conditions? >> the conditions aren't bad. i think they're probably going to lay tracer lines slowly. they're going to work one compartment at a time. and then they're going to be deciding how are they going to salvage, if they're going to try to actually float this ship. >> butch, again, i appreciate your expertise. coming up tonight, "raw politics." a controversial "newsweek" headlines asks, quote why are obama's critics so dumb? that's on the cover of "newsweek." andrew sullivan wrote the article that's inside. he didn't write that head liner, but he wrote the article. he argues that the president will outsmart all his critics who cannot see that he's using a long game strategy. i'm going to speak with andrew sullivan about that and republican strategist bay buchanan. it's an interesting conversation. also ahead, a medical mystery in new york state. this is incredible. 12 girls from the same high school all apparently have come down with the same kind of tics, including uncontrollable twitching and stuttering. it's unclear what's causing it. it looks like tourette's syndrome. we're going to hear from some of the girls and we'll talk to dr. sanjay gupta. what makes the sleep number store different? the sleep number bed. the magic of this bed is that you're sleeping on something that conforms to your individual shape. you can adjust it to whatever your needs are. so whatever you feel like, the sleep number bed's going to provide it for you. and now, the company that redefined sleep is redefining memory foam. save $400 on our all-new memory foam bed. and at our white sale, stock up and save on our exclusive bedding collection. only at the sleep number store, where queen mattresses start at just $699. my son and i never missed opening day. but with copd making it hard to breathe, i thought those days might be over. so my doctor prescribed symbicort. it helps significantly improve my lung function, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. with symbicort, today i'm breathing better, and that means... game on! symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. 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[ male announcer ] if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. in "raw politics" tonight, the "newsweek" cover story about president obama that has everyone talking. it's not hard to see why, looking at the headline. the cover asks "why are obama's critics so dumb?" the article was written by columnist andrew sullivan. i'll be talking with him in just a moment. in the article, he argues that the attacks on the president from everything from job creation to health care policy are, using sullivan's words now, empirically wrong. he says the president has already been very effective and that he's playing a long game. joining me now is "newsweek" columnist, andrew sullivan. his website is andrewsullivan.com, and also joining us, bay buchanan, republican strategist and senior adviser to mitt romney. wow, this has gotten a lot of attention, andrew. there you are, writing your blog, and then this happens. >> kaboom. >> first of all, the headline on the cover of "newsweek," did you write that? >> no. i found out monday morning. >> so you in your article are not saying that all of obama's critics, left and right, are dumb? >> not at all. i just say i think they're wrong, in my view, they're wrong, and here's why. and i make a pretty reasonable, i hope, fact-based argument for that. i love to have a disagreement about it, and i'm beginning to have that with people, but you won't find the word "dumb" or "stupid" in any of the text of the piece. >> essentially your argument is that president obama, sort of unbeknownst to his critics on the left and the right, has actually been waging kind of -- his version is more long-term. how so? >> i think from the very beginning he talked, and i think you could tell from the beginning, he was planning on eight years, rather ambitiously, rather than four. and part of that is also due to the scale of what he inherited. the month before he became president, the united states was losing 750,000 jobs a month. now, i don't think you can blame him coming into that kind of recession for all the jobs that have been lost, say, in the following year. i think that was baked in the cake. what you can judge him on is whether the policies that he put in action within a year made a difference? and yes, they have. we've been growing. we've been growing now for two years. not at a fantastic rate, but 200,000 jobs a month. >> where is this long game? because a lot of his critics will say, look, he handed too much over to congress, to let them decided how to go about things. you see in his -- >> the president isn't the congress. and he had to do it so quickly, the only way to get it through congress, because it was an emergency stimulus, because the economy was doing that, the global economy, he just said, it's better to get thus down now than have it perfect. so it was flawed in many ways, but a third of it was tax cuts, which the republicans will never tell you. they will never tell you that over his first term, he has cut taxes aggressively. they will never tell you that he's actually cut medicare. they'll never tell you a whole bunch of things that he done, that republicans used to support, including his health care plan, which is based on the individual mandate, heritage foundation, mitt romney, and free market exchanges for health care insurance policies. that's also a right-wing idea. so the idea he's this radical lefty, just not true, i don't think. >> bay, what about his argument about president obama waging a long game? do you think he's -- because andrew's coming at this from a conservative viewpoint. andrew is conservative, perhaps, i think you would agree with that, although i'm not sure. but that's -- he's coming at it from that viewpoint. do you think he's giving obama too much credit? >> yes. listen, if he's -- andrew makes his case, it's all about long-term, and we've seemed to have missed exactly what obama's all about. all i have to say is that if these reckless deficits he's running up, if the uncontrolled spending, if 25 million unemployed or underemployed americans is part of obama's master plan, then maybe rush limbaugh is right. maybe he is trying to destroy america. this is all that's happening under obama. >> no. >> i like to believe he's completely clueless and he doesn't know what to do, and that's what's happened here. >> the vast majority of the unemployment, which is long-term, stem from that recession, which began in 2007 and was intensified the in 2008. i don't see anything that obama has done that has made that worse. if you look, once we got out of that hole, at the end of the bush administration, if you go into 2010, this is after the first year, you'll see there's been growth in jobs. and so the policies can be defended and should be defended. what i can't understand is why obama doesn't defend them in this way? it seems so straightforward. >> ezra klein saying you've actually defended the obama administration better than the administration has defended. >> well, that's very kind of him. but i think also, knowing obama, and watching him, he -- this is his strategy. he waits. he allows himself to be knocked around the ropes, written off, and then -- >> but you're giving him credit in this article for things which a lot of people point out that he doesn't even verbally support, gay marriage, for instance. >> because obama, from the beginning, if you look to him and read him said, look, i'm not a dictator. i'm a community organizer. a community organizer tries to build a consensus, opens up and reveals his opponent's hand, then tries to get a deal. that's his entire m.o. that's what he did in chicago. that's what he's always done. and if you look at the way he's done this, the way he's set up the republicans, for example, in this election, i think you'll see, he's going to win this election quite handedly, because he's framed the arguments the way he wants to. >> you know, andrew, i hope he keeps setting us up like he did there in 2010, and he got completely walloped, the democrats did, in the off year election. you can make a case, and i agree with you, going into that first year of his administration, a lot of things were happening that he couldn't control. they were set in place before he was there. but then in the opening days of 2010, and he was there for a while, going into his second year, the economy's percolating almost 4%. it slows up a little bit, he talks, though, he takes great credit for the big, the what he calls is going to be recovery summer. they're all excited over there at the white house. and things go straight downhill to where we're looking at less than 1% growth in 2011. he has to take responsibility for that. the recovery was there. his policies impacted it and we lost the kind of growth and the strength and the movement we were on. he changed the direction. >> i don't see where policies of his slowed the the recovery. what ones did? >> the huge, outrageous spending. the kind of -- >> spending actually helps growth in the short-term. it may be wrong in the long-term, but spending actually helps -- if you look at somewhere like italy, where they're cutting and cutting and cutting and seeing they're growth go down and down and down and their debt go up and up, he's avoided that debt trap, which is important. >> but he ran it up, that deficit. he runs it up and runs it up until it unnerves the market. it unnerves americans. >> he didn't run it up, bay. because in a recession, your revenues collapse. and revenues are currently at 50-year lows. of course you're going to have a deficit. the hard thing is to run a deficit in boom times. that's what your party did, adding $5 trillion to the debt under bush. $5 trillion. even the most expansive understanding of what changes obama will have brought bring t to something like $1 trillion in extra debt. i think that's too much too, but compared to bush, this guy is a fiscal conservative. >> andrew, thanks. >> you're so welcome. >> bay, thank you very much. >> sure, glad to be with you. a new "time"/orc international poll out tonight shows mitt romney with a ten-point lead in south carolina. gingrich is closing the gap. romney at 33%. gingrich's at 23%. santorum's at 16, ron paul at 13, rick perry at 6. it is coming down to the wire in south carolina. watch the debate tomorrow on cnn starting at 8:00 right here on cnn. we'll have an additional "360" from south carolina right after the debate tomorrow at 10:00. still ahead tonight, a mysterious illness striking 12 teenage girls at the same school around the same time, causing them all to develop strange tics. what could be causing it. sanjay gupta reports on that. also, a major winter storm pummeling the pacific northwest. we'll show you who's getting hit the hardest. you name it. i've tried it. but nothing helped me beat my back pain. then i tried salonpas. it's powerful relief that works at the site of pain and lasts up to 12 hours. salonpas. we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much, i appreciate it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ? 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[ male announcer ] one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. tonight, a bizarre medical mystery. what could possibly have caused a dozen teenage girls at the same high school in upstate new york to suddenly develop a mysterious condition that looks and sounds a lot like tourette's syndrome? their symptoms began last fall. stutters, uncontrollable movements, verbal outbursts. at first the girls didn't realize others were going through the same situation. now they're demanding answers together. here's jason carroll. >> it's very, um, heartbreaking to me. to be honest, i, um, knowing that, right now i can't do what i love. >> thera sanchez was a cheerleader, an honor role student, and as a senior in upstate new york, well on her way to planning her college future when she woke up from a nap last october, everything changed. >> i couldn't stop stuttering. >> the stuttering had -- i mean, it took over, you know, really contorting on the left side of you know, with her mouth and her neck. >> reporter: doctors told thera her condition was brought on by stress and she would get better. but once the stuttering ended, it soon gave way to uncontrollable twitching. and this goes on all day long, thera? >> yes. all day long. >> reporter: this video was taken in the hospital in mid-october by thera's mother, soon after she brought her daughter in for twitching. it was on that day that a nurse told her thera wasn't the only one that had been brought to the hospital with a condition. >> she had said, not to alarm you, you know, but somebody needs to contact somebody, because you're the fourth girl in the week to come in with us. >> reporter: in all, health officials say 12 girls from le roy junior/senior high school had exhibited similar symptoms. they were fraught different grades and some didn't know each other, but many did, including thera's friend, lydia parker. >> the last time i went to a neurologist, they said they're not sure and they'll keep looking into it, but besides that they haven't told anyone anything. >> reporter: hundreds of parents met with health officials who said tests showed no evidence of any environmental factors at the school. more tests ruled out infection or communicable diseases. what is going on? aldoctor who has evaluated 11 of 12 girls say it's conversion disorder. >> what happens is there traditionally is some kind of a stressor or multiple stressor that provoke a physical reaction within the body. this is unconscious. it is not done purposefully. and it's almost like thinking that the stress wells up in your body and it has to come out in some way, shape, or form. >> reporter: dr. jennifer mcgive couldn't say why the disorder typically affects women. or why it would happen in a group. thera doesn't think stress triggered her condition and her mother worries whether time is on her side. >> she does not have time for "i feel" or guesswork or anything like that. she's deteriorating. >> i don't think this is the in my head. i -- i don't think i can wake up from a nap and this just happened. >> reporter: until doctors can do something, thera says she hopes one day she'll just wake up and be herself again. jason carroll, cnn, le roy, new york. >> well, today a state health department officials released the results of an environmental test done at the girls' school. they all came back clean. and what makes this story so baffling, all 12 girls were apparently healthy before the tics started. some parents have wondered whether gardasil, the vaccine that prevents against hpv could be the cause. that hasn't panned out either. i talked about all of this with chief medical correspondent, sanjay gupta. sanjay, i find this story just bizarre. the fact that these girls could have the same symptoms in the same school, but so far, it seems like no real explanation. what factors have the state health department ruled out? >> well, they're looking for commonalities between all of these girls. we know they within the to the same school, but they're in different grades, they're not necessarily friends with each other. they don't all participate in the same activities. so, you know, those commonalities really weren't there as a starting point. then they start looking at things the girls may have been exposed to, air quality, some sort of environmental exposure. and they brought people in who were independent to the school to test, and they didn't find thing that could cause these sorts of symptoms. and then they look at things like medicines, vaccines, the gardasil vaccine, and they said that wasn't a causative factor. they start to tick off the list. so in the end, the answer may be not knowable for sure. they don't have a definitive answer, ever. >> how do they know that the gardasil vaccine is not at the root of this? >> well, simply because not all the girls got the gardasil vaccine. and this was, you know, a prominent theory. a lot of people saying, look, gardasil could have caused side effects like this and this is something they explored, but simply, anderson, there are girls who had these symptoms who did not get the vaccine. >> there are also been reports that the girls are being treated for stress and a health official told us their symptoms are getting better. can stress, though, cause these kind of symptoms? >> there's a specific sort of pattern of diagnosis in this situation. they look to see, does someone exhibit the specific symptoms? tic-like symptoms in this case? did these symptoms perhaps -- were they proceeded by stress? if you take away the stress, do the symptoms seem to get better? but mainly, i'll tell you, anderson, in medicine we call it a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning that after you have ruled out everything else, you're left with this as the probable answer. >> i've also seen this been referred to as mass hysteria? it's possible they're faking it or it's possible -- what does that mean, mass hysteria? >> when they talk about mass hysteria, it's a lay term. people refer to a mass psychosis as well. what i will tell you, though, and this is important, is that there are very good ways to determine if someone is faking something. you know, i think that's going to be the conclusion a lot of people jump to when they watch this. there's good ways to figure out if someone's faking it. in this case, they say they are not faking it. i mean, the girls really experience this, and we're getting to the point now, anderson, in the brain you can see changes as a result of this that you can measure. they don't do this widespread yet, but this is something that's coming down the pike. >> how severe are the symptoms? when i think of tourette's, i think of stuff from movies of people yelling obscenities or having tics? >> these types of tics, they can be quite significant, and some of the girls have talked about it quite openly, and it is -- it's shocking, i think, at least startling to watch them. but i will tell you, observing and hearing about these girls, you see sort of a wide range. and you know, so some have much more severe symptoms than the others, where they're literally having uncontrollable body movements and they utter involuntary words. but others have much more mild symptoms, and you know, i wonder, as well, anderson, if there's people at the very low end of the spectrum in the school, if you really started to examine all the girls, if girls have really mild symptoms that they haven't told anyone about. so it could be a little bit further ranging than just this dozen or so girls. >> interesting. sanjay gupta, thanks. >> thanks, anderson. >> i wish them best. we'll continue to follow that. up next, winter storms pounding the northwest coast of the united states. the heaviest snowfall in decades for the area. plus the giggle fit that landed brad pitt on the ridiculist, see for yourself. coming up. [ woman ] my boyfriend and i were going on vacation, so i used my citi thank you card to pick up some accessories. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪ ...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline, with no blackout dates. ewill be giving awayuse for passafree copiesrline, of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. more from anderson ahead. a winter storm is making for treacherous travel conditions in the pacific northwest tonight. seattle got about 4 to 5 inches of snow. high elevations in washington state, but 2 to 3 feet, an avalanche of flood warnings from northern washington to wisconsin. obama's bid has been declined saying the proposal didn't give enough time for review. it calls for an expansion to carry crude oil from canada to the u.s. gulf coast. they say the president is killing thousands of jobs. a major development in syria. this youtube video shows a crowd chanting in the street at the syrian army. they say those opposition forces now control the town, not the troops. >> 360 follows, two u.s. officials tell cnn the obama administration did not ask for negotiations, but suggested a direct channel of communication. it came off as the pentagon released this video of two snenlts earlier this month showing iranian speed boats coming close to u.s. vessels. >> and the world's largest emerald is hitting the auction block in canada. according to the cdc, the massive gem is about the size of a watermelon and appraised at about $1.15 million, but could sell for a lot more money. anderson? >> thanks. soledad anchors from south carolina and talks to the authors of "the real romney" the book. erin, what is up? >> we're going to be focusing in on a lot of things that matter a whole lot to mitt romney. we're going to get the final formal certifiable results for south carolina tomorrow, and it's possible rick santorum won. that might make a psychological difference, and also, mitt romney's tax returns. you know he's worth more than $200 million. there's one thing in there that may be legal and completely standard, in fact it s but it's really unfair. we get to the bottom line, break down the taxes, to explain one big issue for mitt romney and some of the wealthiest americans. a tax loophole that needs to go away. top of the hour. >> coming up, brad pitt gets a massive case of the giggles at work. the ridiculist. dit-score-dot-co♪ ♪ app that he had ♪ downloaded it in the himalayas ♪ ♪ while meditating like a true playa ♪ ♪ now when he's surfing down in chile'a ♪ ♪ he can see when his score is in danger ♪ ♪ if you're a mobile type on the go ♪ ♪ i suggest you take a tip from my bro ♪ ♪ and download the app that lets you know ♪ ♪ at free-credit-score-dot-com now let's go. ♪ vo: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com™. time for the ridiculist. tonight we're added brad pitt's laugh attack. the only thing that is ridiculist is how quickly it elevates your room. it was taken during the filming of pitt's movie "money ball." he's trying to make it through a scene. take a look. >> well, that's only the beginning. all we know is he's in the scene, and every time he looked up, he cracked up. we have no idea what jonah hill, because it goes on for like three whole minutes. here are just some of the highlights. >> oh, man. stop! >> this isn't the first time we at the cable news network have seen a different side of brad pitt. check out a clip in the late '80s talking about him getting a clip on the show dallas. >> a lot of the attraction before i came out was the lifestyle, the fame, i was like this. you know, i used to watch these people. i'm a little star truck to be honest. you know, six months ago, i was watching these people on tv. >> that was the search for the most entertaining brad pitt clip seen on, there yy. i'm kind of surprised a professional like brad pitt couldn't keep it together. it's not like you can't keep it together when you have a job to do. >> sorry. >> sorry, this has actually never hapanned to be. >> never going to live that down. the 360 staff is never going to let me live that down. listen, i know, i'm a journalist. i know i giggle like a 13-year-old girl meeting justin bieber for the first time.