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Sex Scandal on the Hill

Aired September 30, 2006 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: A sex scandal on the Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: None of us are very happy about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Explicit e-mails supposedly sent from a top congressman to a 16-year old boy. The biggest shock, who knew about them and what did they do or not do about it?

Also, up at the crack of dawn, ready to take orders and run errands, but they can't even cast a vote. Inside the life of a Capitol Hill page.

And sex for guns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It's been a little difficult for me, but I think it's more difficult for a guy because sex is everything to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The men aren't thrilled this time. What's driving all the women in one country to keep their legs closed. Plus, minding the gap. Republicans hear wedding bells.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Married people tend to attend religious services more often than unmarried people, tend to have higher household incomes, higher levels of employment, and children in the household -- all big lifestyle changes that tend to make people think more conservatively and vote more Republican.

ANNOUNCER: But Dems stay single. How your marital status could affect the November elections. You're in the NEWSROOM.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to the NEWSROOM, your connection to the world, the web, and what's happening right now. I'm Carol Lin. You've been busy today, so let's get you plugged in.

And let's start with the headlines. Bad press for the GOP. At least one Republican House leader is accused of knowing about the Mark Foley situation and doing nothing. Foley resigned yesterday after some suggestive e-mails to a teenager went public. The latest in the Foley fallout coming in about two minutes.

And caught on tape. Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. Britain's Sunday Times newspaper says it will release a video tomorrow that shows Atta and another hijacker in the year 2000. We're going to bring you more on this developing story later in just a few minutes with terrorism expert Laura Mansfield.

It's the worst imaginable news for distraught families in Brazil. Emergency officials now say nobody survived the crash of a commercial 737 yesterday in the Amazon. Still, no definitive word on why the airliner went down. There were 155 on board.

A commuter's nightmare north of the border. Part of a highway overpass suddenly collapsed today near Montreal. Slabs of concrete fell onto cars below, seriously hurting at least five people. Officials are deciding whether to tear down the rest of the overpass for safety's sake.

Israeli troops, they're out of Lebanon. That's what the Israeli military tells CNN. It's before dawn there now on deadline day, when a U.N. resolution required a total Israeli pull-out from Lebanon. Hezbollah and Israeli forces waged a deadly 34 day war across the border over the summer.

And meet Isaac. Now the fifth hurricane of the season and churning up the Atlantic Ocean east of Bermuda. It's current track keeps it away from landfall, but you know how unpredictable hurricanes are. Forecasters are watching.

And now it's your turn to choose the news. What stories do you want to hear more about? E-mail us at weekends@cnn.com. And we're going to get you flash feedback within the hour.

Our top story tonight, though, Florida Republican Mark Foley's resignation from the House. He is facing allegations he sent explicit computer messages to a teenage boy, who once worked on Capitol Hill.

Well, tonight, Foley's resignation might only be the beginning, not the end of the story. Now there are questions swirling about when the House leadership first learned about Foley's communications with the boy, and why nothing was done to stop him.

We begin our coverage with congressional correspondent Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: House Republicans are now mounting an extraordinary effort to explain their own conduct in the Mark Foley scandal and are suggesting there should be a criminal investigation of his. A strongly worded statement from the top three house Republican leaders came on a day they tried to answer key questions. What did they know, and what did they do about it? We got some of those answers Saturday, including a correction of sorts from House Speaker Dennis Hastert. He and his top aides insisted to CNN Friday that Hastert knew nothing about any questionable Foley conduct until late last week,

But on Saturday, Congressman Tom Reynolds of New York revealed he actually knew months ago about one e-mail exchange between Foley and a former page and brought it to the Speaker's attention.

Hastert says he has no reason to dispute that, but insists he does not explicitly recall this conversation. Hastert's statement released late Saturday does go into detail explaining how at the end of last year, several of his top aides were aware of one questionable, but non explicit e-mail exchange between Foley and a former page and set in motion what Republicans insist was an investigation.

That inquiry, which was nearly a year ago, consisted of two Republicans on the House page board confronting Foley, telling him to immediately cease contact with the young man and be mindful of conduct with other pages. Yet late Saturday, the only Democrat on that three- person page board released his own statement saying he knew nothing about this.

"I was never informed of the allegations about Mr. Foley's inappropriate communications with a House Page and I was never involved in any inquiry into this matter". That from Democrat Dale Kildee.

Now while there are still open questions about what GOP leaders knew and the action they took to investigate, one thing the House Speaker and other GOP leaders all emphatically deny is any knowledge of sexually explicit instant messages to young men that forced Foley's abrupt resignation. And that not only overshadowed a handful of legislative victories Republicans got before leaving town full time to campaign, it also kept Republican leadership aides at work all day on Saturday coordinating their public statements, trying to limit political damage.

And to that end, late Saturday evening, the House Republican leadership released a harshly worded statement, calling Foley's conduct "unacceptable and abhorrent" and calling for Foley's resignation to be followed by the "full weight of the criminal justice system."

Now the GOP leaders said they're taking measures to protect pages and setting up a toll-free number for pages and family members to call with complaints and concerns.

Dana Bash, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Now you may never have heard of congressional pages, but the program has been in place on Capitol Hill for more than a century. CNN's Gary Nurenberg has more on the life of a page.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The congressional page program begun in 1829 was reformed in 1983 after two congressmen were censured for sexual misconduct involving boy and girl pages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have not yet apologized to my colleagues in this body for the shame I brought down on this institution.

NURENBERG: Pages were moved from apartments and private homes to a new dormitory on Capitol Hill where boys and girls live on separate floors and are under constant supervision.

LUKE MOSES, FORMER PAGE: You have to go through a metal detector to get into your dorm every day. You are only allowed out with a buddy. NURENBERG: That supervision continues when the pages do their work in the capitol, running errands and delivering messages for representatives.

KARA FRANK, FORMER PAGE: There are definitely people on the House floor, especially in the cloakroom that definitely overlooked the interactions between congressmen and congresswomen and pages. They were sort of there to make sure that no lines were crossed.

NURENBERG: Kara Frank was a page in 1999, away from home for the first time, admittedly naive.

FRANK: I definitely think that more precautions should be taken and things should be monitored because you know you are a minor and you're 16, you know, you're still a kid.

NURENBERG: It's hard work. The pages are up at 5:30 every morning, go to school in the Library of Congress and then move to the capitol to help representatives with seemingly endless tasks. In 2002 for example, paying attention to the Australian prime minister when he addressed a joint session of Congress.

MOSES: Like half the members were there. So they let the pages sit in the seats to try to fill up the seats on camera.

NURENBERG: Luke Moses loved his time with Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

MOSES: She was very kind to me. We remain close today. She took me to briefings and lunches.

NURENBERG: And not unusual for a mentor/student relationship, he says, they remain in e-mail contact. He says the program gave him an appreciation of Congress that other former pages share.

FRANK: It really is the basis of, you know, how this country began and how it's continuing to grow, and I just think there's something really special about that.

NURENBERG: Gary Nurenberg, CNN, Washington.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE) (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The congressional page program begun in 1829 was reformed in 1983 after two congressmen were censured for sexual misconduct involving boy and girl pages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have not yet apologized to my colleagues in this body for the shame I brought down on this institution.

NURENBERG: Pages were moved from apartments and private homes to a new dormitory on Capitol Hill where boys and girls live on separate floors and are under constant supervision.

LUKE MOSES, FORMER PAGE: You have to go through a metal detector to get into your dorm every day. You are only allowed out with a buddy. NURENBERG: That supervision continues when the pages do their work in the capitol, running errands and delivering messages for representatives.

KARA FRANK, FORMER PAGE: There are definitely people on the House floor, especially in the cloakroom that definitely overlooked the interactions between congressmen and congresswomen and pages. They were sort of there to make sure that no lines were crossed.

NURENBERG: Kara Frank was a page in 1999, away from home for the first time, admittedly naive.

FRANK: I definitely think that more precautions should be taken and things should be monitored because you know you are a minor and you're 16, you know, you're still a kid.

NURENBERG: It's hard work. The pages are up at 5:30 every morning, go to school in the Library of Congress and then move to the capitol to help representatives with seemingly endless tasks. In 2002 for example, paying attention to the Australian prime minister when he addressed a joint session of Congress.

MOSES: Like half the members were there. So they let the pages sit in the seats to try to fill up the seats on camera.

NURENBERG: Luke Moses loved his time with Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

MOSES: She was very kind to me. We remain close today. She took me to briefings and lunches.

NURENBERG: And not unusual for a mentor/student relationship, he says, they remain in e-mail contact. He says the program gave him an appreciation of Congress that other former pages share.

FRANK: It really is the basis of, you know, how this country began and how it's continuing to grow, and I just think there's something really special about that.

NURENBERG: Gary Nurenberg, CNN, Washington.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE) LIN: So coming up, will there be any legal fallout to the Foley case? Could he face charges? If so, what type of punishment could he face? Well, I'm going to talk with former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey in 30 minutes.

Also, we want to hear from you. Tonight's last call, do you think this is a political cover up? Give us a call at 1-800-807-2620. We're going to air some of your responses later this hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks to me that it was more important to hold onto a seat and to hold on to power than to take care of our children.

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LIN: He wants Congressman Foley's job. Tonight, there's a better chance he's going to get it. Just what are the consequences in in this possible congressional cover-up?

Also, there's another political storm brewing in Florida. Details in five minutes.

And later this hour, does a walk down the aisle determine what you do in the voter's booth? The marriage gap message ahead in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Florida may be nicknamed the sunshine state, but the forecast looks gloomy for homeowners. Property insurance has become the number one election issue there, after a devastating hurricane season. And in the race for governor, now the candidates sound similar, maybe too similar.

Here's CNN's John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dave Malone was absolutely stunned.

DAVE MALONE: Thank God was sitting down, but it was definitely a shock.

ZARRELLA: Malone, who lives in Hollywood, Florida, had just gotten his homeowner insurance renewal notice. He expected an increase for hurricane coverage, but not this.

MALONE: It was 250 percent on the hurricane premium.

ZARRELLA: From $1300 a year, the Malones premium just for hurricane coverage was going up to more than $4700. He is far from alone. Homeowners across Florida are getting sticker shock renewal notices. Some are so incensed, they formed grassroots organizations. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get rid of everybody!

ZARRELLA: And are taking their protests to the state capitol. Polls show insurance has become the number one issue for voters here and may determine who becomes the state's next governor. Republican Charlie Christ...

CHARLIE CRIST, REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR GOVERNOR: I want to lower your property taxes. And your homeowners insurance needs to go down.

ZARRELLA: ...or Democrat Jim Davis.

REP. JIM DAVIS, DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR GOVERNOR: I will be a governor who stands up to this very powerful insurance lobby.

ZARRELLA: The problem for voters is this pocketbook issue is terribly complex. There's no single silver bullet. And neither candidate is offering any news ideas.

Crist and Davis say they will push for a national catastrophe fund that taxpayers in every state contribute to, and would benefit from. And they both want to end the insurance industry's practice of setting up subsidiary companies in Florida that shield the parent company from losses.

CRIST: These companies should not be able to set up these Florida subsidiaries when the reality is they have a national company that's making billions after billions after billions.

DAVIS: These companies are making record profits and record prices. And the reason that I'm going to be elected governor of Florida is that homeowners, business owners have had it.

ZARRELLA: Insurance companies say it would be impossible to operate in Florida without this approach. And even with it, they claim to have lost $13 billion in the state since 1992.

(on camera): With Crist and Davis both on pretty much the same page, and neither promising a magic wand solution to the election's defining issue, the voters may be left to choose not so much on what the candidates are saying, but how they're packaging their messages.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Now you know it's a critical election year. Single versus married, how your marital status could decide who runs for Congress.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The marriage gap has been around for decades, but the explosion with which it exists now is really remarkable.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The marriage gap is men and women equally, but the big difference here is I think incomes.

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LIN: Well, single or married, Republican or Democrat, it's a debate you have to hear, coming up in about 20 minutes right in the NEWSROOM.

Now this election year, Americans have plenty to say. And CNN wants to give you the means to be heard. That's the idea behind the Election Express, a cross country bus tour that gives voters the chance to sound off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RODNEY NALL, CONSTRUCTION WORKER: I feel that a lot of the decisions that they have made have been pretty risky to the American just way of life. And I would like to see a change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: We're looking for feedback at the Los Angeles County Fair grounds this weekend. Next week, we move on to Albuquerque.

And of course, you know, that CNN is your hurricane headquarters. Isaac is now officially the fifth hurricane of the season. And come Monday, it could be bearing down on Canada.

Jacqui Jeras at the CNN Weather Center - Jacqui?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Carol, it's been a very active hurricane season for the folks who live in Bermuda. This is the third close call that they've had so far this season.

The good news is the storm is going to stay off to the east of them. And here's why. Look at this big area of cloudiness just off to the west of them. This system is going to get caught up in that steering current. It's going to weaken with it a little bit and stay away from Bermuda.

Of course, they're still going to see some very high surf. So certainly that's not good, but we will see them certainly spared a direct hit. So that's some good news.

Well, where is it going? Do we need to worry about this thing in the United States? Well, we need to watch it. It could affect our waves up a little bit across parts of New England, but folks who live in Canada need to be concerned, across the Canadian maritime, especially into Newfoundland, the storm is going to start to move northward, and then curve on up to the north and east. It could be making a direct hit.

Now the waters up here are much cooler. So we think it will no longer be a tropical system, maybe extra tropical as we call it. But either way, whatever you want to call it, it is going to be bringing in some very strong, dangerous winds. Maybe strong tropical storm we think. Probably not a hurricane, but still 70 miles per hour is going to cause a significant amount of damage. And you certainly want to be prepared for this storm system.

We've also been keeping our eye on what's been going on on the other side of the world, into the tropics. There you can see what is a typhoon. This is called Xangsane. And now it's bearing down on Vietnam as a Category 2 storm. It was a Category 4 as it moved through the Philippines.

And we've had a ton of pictures coming in from our eye reporters on this one. And we want to show you a photo. There you can see it. This is from Jennifer Yu. She says that the storm knocked over utility poles. No one was injured in the car that you see here in this picture. And yes, they are insured she tells us as well. So that's some good news, that nobody was hurt, at least not in that system.

If you've got a picture that you want to contribute, go to CNN.com/ireports. Send us what you've got. And join the world's most powerful news team. Carol?

LIN: Our viewers have been sending us some really terrific photos from the scene.

JERAS: Yes.

LIN: All right, thanks, Jacqui.

Now as we mentioned earlier, there's a newly surfaced tape by 9/11 terrorists. Up next, our terror analyst Laura Mansfield joins us with more.

Plus, firestorm on the Hill. Questionable conduct. What is the legal fallout for Mark Foley? Well, I'm going to be talking with former U.S. attorney Kendall Coffey at the half-hour.

And don't forget tonight's last call. Do you think this is a political cover-up? Election's five weeks away. Give us a call at 1- 800-807-2620. We're going to air some of your responses later this hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: One hundred forty-nine passengers, six crew members, it appears none of them survived when a commercial airliner went down yesterday in the Brazilian jungle. What exactly caused the crash? Not known yet. And officials are now backing away from earlier reports of an inflight collision. Journalist Tom Hennigan spoke to us by phone.

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TOM HENNIGAN, JOURNALIST: The initial reports we were getting last night was that the Gol plane clipped a smaller commuter private jet, a corporate-type jet. That smaller plane forced into an emergency landing. And according to the Brazilian air force and defense minister, the pilot of that plane said out of nowhere, a large shadow whizzed by his plane, clipped and damaged his wings, and forced him into an emergency landing. And it has been speculated that that was that Gol Boeing that clipped his plane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: It is shortly after 6:00 a.m. in Baghdad, and people there are now allowed to emerge from their homes. The capitol has been a ghost town since Friday, when U.S. and Iraqi forces there imposed a total weekend curfew. No cars, no people. The goal, to break a worsening cycle of attacks and explosions and killings in Baghdad.

Now there were a few firefights during the curfew. And the U.S. Army says it uncovered a plot to bomb the fortified green zone.

Now President Bush today hammered home a message. The U.S. will remain on the offensive against terrorism. It was his latest rebuttal to a recently leaked intelligence report. That document concluded in part that the terror threat has been made worse by the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The only way to protect our citizens at home is to go on the offense against the enemy across the world. When terrorists spend their days working to avoid capture, they are less able to plot, plan, and execute new attacks on our people. So we will remain on the offense until the terrorists are defeated and this fight is won.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Democratic House candidate Tammy Duckworth responded to the president. She's an Iraq War veteran who's running for congress from Illinois.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, IRAQ VET & HOUSE CANDIDATE: After more than three years, more than 2,700 U.S. deaths, and tens of thousand of wounded, this administration still lacks a plan for securing Iraq. And the leaders of Congress still refuse to do their job of holding the administration accountable.

So instead of a plan or a strategy, we get shallow slogans like mission accomplished and stay the course. Those slogans are calculated to win an election, but they won't help us accomplish our mission in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Ouch. Duckworth is a former Army captain. Her Blackhawk helicopter was hit by a rocket grenade in Iraq almost two years ago. All right, now right before the program, we had heard that the Sunday Times, a U.K. newspaper actually has video showing one of the 9/11 terrorists, Mohammed Atta, and also a fellow 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah together, back in 2000. Why is this important? Both men died. Mohammed Atta was on American Airlines flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

The significance of this story is that this is the first known picture of Atta and Ziad Jarrah together. They were allegedly in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan at an Osama bin Laden training camp.

So we wanted to get some analysis of this. Terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield is on the telephone with me right now from South Carolina.

Laura, good to have you. Some people might look at this and say, well, big deal. Five years ago two men in an old videotape. What do you read into this? What are you looking for?

LAURA MANSFIELD, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, for starters, it gives - it fills in some gaps as to the whereabouts of Mohammed Atta in January of 2000. It's interesting in that -- I guess it's a little bit unnerving when you look at the still clip from the video, and you see these two guys, Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah, standing there -- sitting there basically smiling, laughing, just like, you know, the guys next door.

Kind of chilling when you stop, you know, stop and think about, you know, what they carried out a little over a year later.

The other thing is the video includes quite a bit of footage from bin Laden's compound near Kandahar. It includes photographic -- video footage of Ramzi bin al Sheib, as well as bin Laden's bodyguard. It's - and I think there's going to be quite a lot of intel that we're going to be able to gather out of this. There may be some other people we can identify as well.

Again, this is just breaking now, so it's fairly early.

LIN: So what would it tell you? What are you going to be looking for?

MANSFIELD: I'm looking for people. I'm going to be looking at this will that Muhammad Atta reads, to see if it gives us any more clues as to perhaps where he's coming from on this. We've got a pretty good idea, obviously, by now.

But what's going to be important is pretty much at this point to see who else is in this video. If we can draw any relationships. You know, obviously, these guys were together at least a year and a half before 9/11. Who else was there? What else was in the works?

LIN: And that they actually did train at an al Qaeda camp in Kandahar in Afghanistan, that they were actually physically there.

MANSFIELD: Exactly. LIN: Laura, when you look at the videotape, and you do. You see these young men laughing. I mean, they're talking about destroying American lives and executing one of the world's worst terror attacks on the United States. They look like they could be college students, though, after exams or something.

MANSFIELD: They look like the kids next door. You know, they could be, you know, your kids, your neighbors' kids. It's really chilling. And what's frightening is, you know, there are more people who still want to do the same thing.

LIN: So what does this tell you when in this mindset, in this videotape, they are laughing and joking? But when they actually get down to the videotaping of reading this will, they become very solemn. It's interesting to me how they can adopt two different mindsets, personalities and almost like identities.

MANSFIELD: Exactly. And they're trying to do that. It's almost like when they're talking - when they're just sitting there communicating as friends, they're totally relaxed.

But they're taking their mission very seriously. The 9/11 plot was one of the, you know, obviously one of the biggest plots al Qaeda has ever carried out. It's something that these young men were chosen for very carefully.

And I think from watching their personas a year, you know, and a half before, I think we're going to get some clues. Perhaps it can help identify others who may be planning similar acts.

LIN: All right. Osama bin Laden not seen in this videotape, though Laura, right?

MANSFIELD: That's my understanding.

LIN: OK, Laura Mansfield, thank you very much.

And we want to bring you up to speed on the headlines in case you're catching up from the day. These are the headlines tonight and tomorrow.

You can bet it'll be the hot topic on the Sunday talk shows. Florida Congressman Mark Foley giving up his seat in the face of some potentially embarrassing personal allegations. Democrats in Congress and Democrats who want to be Congress say Foley was protected by his own. Here's congressional candidate Tim Mahoney.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM MAHONEY: It's now clear from all the press reports that the Republican leadership team knew this was going on. And they had to make a choice. They had to do what was right for the children, that they were in the care of the government or they could try to hold on to a seat. And they decided to try to hold onto a seat.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LIN: Mahoney is Foley's competitor for the congressional seat in South Florida.

Now Canadian emergency crews and cranes still on the site of a bizarre accident near Montreal. Three lanes of a highway overpass simply crumbled, crushing several cars, two of which are still beneath the concrete.

Now rescuers fear the occupants may not have survived. Several other people are seriously hurt.

Sunday morning in the Middle East, the day all Israeli forces must be out of Lebanon. That's according to the U.N. cease-fire resolution. An Israeli military spokesman tells CNN the remaining 200 troops are now out and the withdrawal is complete.

Well, it looks like Brent Bennett is a free man. He's an American locked up for two years in Afghanistan. He was convicted of running a freelance hunt for terrorists. No official word on his release, but this photo was taken of him boarding a plane out of Kabul.

And remembering Emily Keys for her kindness. Thousands turned out for a memorial service today in Bailey, Colorado to honor the murdered teen. The 16-year-old was killed Wednesday by a gunman who stormed her school and later killed himself after a police standoff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Emily will be with me in my heart forever. I'll live with what happened, I'll live with my decision, and it is mine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Isaac is now a full-blown hurricane, although the storm doesn't pose any threat to land right now. It's currently about 300 miles from Bermuda and expected to pass well into - well to the east of it. But come Monday, it could bring heavy rains to parts of Canada.

And major league baseball scores a new record. More than 46,000 fans turned out today for a game between the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox. That helped set a new single season overall attendance record for major league baseball. It pushes overall attendance this year to almost 75 million.

And this is when you choose the news. We asked you to send us your questions regarding stories you haven't seen covered in the media. Well, William in Manassas, Virginia writes, "Wasn't Miss World crowned tonight?"

Yes, she was William. And she is Miss Czech Republic, Tatana Kucharova. Now she beat out 102 other contestants in Warsaw, Poland. First runner up, Ms. Romania. Third place, Miss Australia. For the first time ever, viewers could actually vote by Internet and phone text messaging. Thanks, William, for writing in.

Now South American females take a swing at violence using their sex appeal. Later this hour, their plan to make men put down their weapons.

But first, Congressman Mark Foley's resignation. What are the legal ramifications? I'm going to talk to former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey next, right here in the newsroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: What's next for Mark Foley and his bosses? Well, as we've been reporting, the Florida Republican Congressman has resigned, but the story is far from over. Foley stepped down over allegations he exchanged explicit e-mails with a 16-year old former House page.

Now the House Ethics Committee is going to investigate, but is it possible that Foley also broke the law? Let's go straight to Miami and get some insight from former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey.

Kendall, good to have you.

KENDALL COFFEY, FMR. U.S. ATTORNEY: Hey, good evening, Carol.

LIN: So are criminal charges likely in this case?

COFFEY: Well, they're certainly possible. We heard a little bit about the first set of e-mails that apparently involved a 16-year-old from Louisiana, things that perhaps raised not so much concerns of criminality, but questions of impropriety.

Since then, Carol, there's another batch of e-mails that we've been seeing over the Internet. And some of those things are very explicit and could implicate criminal laws, not just federal, but the laws of some of the states involved.

LIN: All right, so could you be specific, because there's a lot of blurriness. You know, the e-mail was hey, send a picture of yourself, you know, kind of maybe overfriendly. The instant messages, though, being more explicit in one case, telling a teenage page that the congressman wanted to undress him. I mean, is that a crime?

COFFEY: Yes, absolutely it can be, especially when it's - if you look at it in context. There are a lot of different comments in there that go beyond undressing, that actually get into some kind of fairly explicit exchange that's ongoing during the course of e-mails.

That can certainly run into some of the laws that deal with enticing and soliciting a minor to become involved in sexual activity. Plenty of criminal headaches ahead for Mark Foley. Too early to know whether there are going to be charges, but plenty - for sure, an investigation.

LIN: Why didn't somebody call the police?

COFFEY: Well, that's a great question. And certainly since this is the season of intense politics, it's going to be the season of finger pointing. A lot of questions as to why as far back as late 2005 when there were, in fact, some allegations of inappropriate contact, why didn't somebody go further? What it appears to be is a matter that passed from one desk to another, a matter people didn't want to deal with and some questions that no one tried very hard to answer.

LIN: All right, so obviously, the big question in Washington right now is who knew what when? Do you see other members of Congress being implicated in this case?

COFFEY: I see other members of Congress being embarrassed, but not implicated in any significant way.

LIN: Or charged?

COFFEY: Or charged in any legal sense.

LIN: Why not?

COFFEY: Because there is no evidence back then - clear evidence or even strong evidence of a crime. Again, we have to remember, the early e-mails from the 16-year-old in Louisiana may have been in the nature of what we might consider to be some form of sexual harassment. Certainly should have been investigated. Certainly not enough for someone to go to the alleged predator and find out that Mark Foley denied it and had some kind of self-serving explanation.

But dropping the ball in terms of an investigation of sexual harassment-type allegations is very different from cover-up of a crime.

LIN: So does -- do you think this behavior is the marks of a child predator? And if that's the case, how would a criminal investigation be conducted?

COFFEY: Well, let's shift back into the more recently disclosed e-mails. Those are explicit. And there are plenty of folks who are going to tell you those have some of the tell-tale signs of a potential predator.

First thing to do is get somebody to investigate it. There is a child exploitation in the section in the Department of Justice. And what you do, Carol, is you get the home computer of the target, because so many times whether they are going to be images, obscene images found inside that home computer, whether there are going to be other e-mails, so many times that's the key to the case. And that's the first starting point here.

LIN: So because with a predator, it's not just the known victims. If you find one, two, you're going to find others?

COFFEY: Usually whatever you've got from starting out purposes is the tip of the iceberg. And it's the pattern and a practice. It's not an isolated incident.

LIN: Kendall Coffey, thank you. We'll be watching with you.

COFFEY: Hey, thanks, Carol.

LIN: Now coming up next, politics and marriage. Your marital status may actually decide which party is calling you.

And then...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It's been a little difficult for me, but I think it's more difficult for a guy because sex is everything to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Girlfriends against guns. Why women in one country are on a sex strike. Details in 10 minutes. You're in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Well, there are many reasons why people choose to vote Democrat or Republican. And whether you have a wedding band or not is one of them.

A new "USA Today" report has this to say. Republicans control 49 of the 50 congressional districts with the highest rates of married people. And Democrats represent all 50 districts that have the highest rates of singles.

Well, earlier, I spoke with Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway and Democratic pollster Peter Hart, to get their take on the marriage gap.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Kellyanne, why do you think it appears that married people are attracted to the Republican party?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: Married people tend to attend religious services more often than unmarried people, tend to have higher household incomes, higher levels of employment, and children in the household. All big lifestyle changes that tend to make people think more conservatively and vote more Republican.

The marriage gap has been around for decades, but the explosion with which it exists now is really remarkable. The marriage gap has pretty much doubled among women alone from 1984 to 2004 presidential cycles, where in 2004 you saw a majority of unmarried men and unmarried women favor John Kerry significantly over George W. Bush, but a majority of married people favor George W. Bush over John Kerry.

LIN: Statistics bear out here that the Democratic party has a problem when it comes to married voters?

PETER HART, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: The big difference here is I think incomes. And essentially in a one-worker household, it's very hard to make ends meet. That makes them more Democratic. I think in a two-worker income and as well as the other factors, it works for the Republicans.

LIN: So how do the Democrats offset that?

HART: Well, I think there's a big story here, Carol Lin. And that is in 2006, what we've seen is men who are usually with the Republicans are now evenly divided. And the real story is going to be not the marriage gap, but what happened to the Republicans with the male voters in 2006.

LIN: So you're going after the -- the Democrats are going after the men. Kelly, what does that mean for the Republicans?

CONWAY: Well, that I think would be a little bit of an overstatement, just because people don't generally look at themselves as voters according to their gender only.

But they do look at themselves according to their stations in life, which include marriage. And it also includes whether they have children under the age of 18 at home.

And I think the family gap is just as relevant in contemporary politics as the marriage gap.

Look, the challenge for the Democratic party is to convince men in this country that the Democratic party has a good agenda on security, whether that's the war on terror in Iraq, but also kitchen table economics security and Social Security and health security.

The challenge for the Republican party is to take hold of these unmarried women who are marrying later or not at all, but becoming part of the investor society. So they're buying their first homes, their first investment portfolios. They should be more conversant with Republican policies and look upon the tax burden that befalls them as owners, and vested stakeholders in our ownership society as being disproportionate.

For these women, talk about abortion and guns is very meaningless many times, when they want to talk about taxation and regulation, many of whom want to be entrepreneurs. And that's a whole other opportunity for the Republican party to reach out to unmarried women.

LIN: So Peter, your party is getting advice from a GOP pollster. Do you agree with it?

HART: No, but it's nice of Kellyanne to give us a little advice. What it really comes down to is elections are about fundamentals. Voters are unhappy with the direction of the country. They're unhappy with the Iraq War. They're unhappy with the economy. And they're unhappy with healthcare.

So whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, a man or a woman, married or unmarried, what you want is a sense of change. The Republicans are offering the status quo. It's hurting them. The Democrats are being helped in this election year.

The longer problem and the bigger problem is yes, Democrats need to be able to talk to both married men and married women in a better fashion than they have in the past few years.

LIN: So you admit that your own party has had difficulty with that issue? Because there was a New York Times editorial by a Democratic housewife in Berkeley who said that she wanted to vote for her party, but that there was a disconnect, that she wasn't hearing from Democrats about education and healthcare, but a lot about gay marriage and abortion.

HART: And the point is you have to get back to the fundamental issues. Education and healthcare are two of those fundamental issues.

LIN: All right. Thanks very much to the both of you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: A reminder, check the CNN political ticker for the big political stories as they happen. Check the ticker every day, several times a day at CNN.com/ticker.

Wives and girlfriends waiting for men to put down their guns and return to the bedroom. A new way to stop the violence next in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: It's a place where young men try to prove their manhood through guns and violent crime. But now their wives and girlfriends have had enough. And the women recently realized they have a powerful weapon of their own. No more sex, they say, until the men put down their weapons.

CNN's Karl Penhaul reports from Colombia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You can look, but you can't touch. These girls are on strike. No more sex for their Colombian gangster boyfriends until they give up their lives of crime. Eighteen-year-old Marjuri lives with toting a mini Uzi.

MARJURI, GIRLFRIEND OF GANG MEMBER (through translator): I told him there's a group of girls who are keeping their legs closed until their boyfriends change and I'm thinking of joining them. He laughed, but then I told him I was serious.

PENHAUL: That conversation was three weeks ago and since then, she says, she's given her man no affection.

MARJURI (translated): It's been a little difficult for me but I think it's more difficult for a guy because sex is everything to them.

PENHAUL: Local D.J.s have busted a rhyme to promote the strike. "Close your legs, sex strike against violence, " it goes.

Pereira is one of Columbia's most violent cities. There were 550 murders here last year. It's the command H.Q. for the country's most ruthless drug cartel. Authorities say cocaine bosses hire gang members from poor neighborhoods, and when youngsters like Carlos Andre aren't doing the mob's bidding, they're involved in robberies, and vicious turf wars.

CARLOS ANDRE, GANG MEMBER (translated): This is an absurd war between gangs, between us here and another gang over there, and another over there. All for territory and power.

PENHAUL: He says the sex strike hasn't been very effective so far.

ANDRE (translated): Many of the girls around here like us because we're packing a gun. What good is having a woman around not having sex with her?

PENHAUL: That's the kind of frustration Marjuri and friend Almeida (ph) are counting on. They say at least 23 other women have joined the strike, and they hope it will spread.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Pereida, Colombia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And following up on the news you choose, every weekend we try to give you an opportunity to get flash feedback. An anonymous e- mailer wants to know about one small word uttered by Neal Armstrong back in 1969.

Well, we all know his line, "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Well, an Australian computer programmer says he discovered Armstrong actually said, "one small step for a man." Armstrong has maintained that he intended to include the "a" and believes he did. Now it appears he's been vindicated. The Australian programmer says he found the missing word by looking at a graphic representation of the transmission to NASA. Wow.

Check of the hour's headlines after the break. But first, your responses to our last call question. It has to do with Mark Foley resigning from the House in a scandal over suggestive e-mails to a teenage boy. Do you think this is a political cover-up? Here's what you had to say.

CALLER: Well, yes, I do believe that this is a cover-up and that Rep. Foley got a free ride for a year or more as he was -- continued to mess with underage pages. So yes, I do believe the Republicans are fully engaged in a cover-up and have been until they couldn't any longer do so.

CALLER: There's a big cover-up going up in Congress. I have a new name for the GOP, grand old party of pedophiles.

CALLER: I think it's very comparable to what President Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky.

CALLER: I think that the Republican leadership must have known about Representative Foley's problem. How else would this happen so quickly? And they should be ashamed. No parent in this country should ever vote for these people.

CALLER: This government is in the hands of pirates, perverts. They sit and talk about gay marriage. They talk about child pornography. And these Republicans are as much into it as anyone has ever seen.

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