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Tornado Damage and Baby Rescued; Georgia Drought Causing State of Emergency; President Bush Goes Fishing in Maryland; Superbug Kills, One Survivor's Story
Aired October 20, 2007 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Mike Forbes isn't the only obstacle standing between Donald Trump and his Scottish dream. Other locals have formed action groups to fight for the conservation of this area. And Trump must still follow a long, complicated process to receive final approval for the development. The battle for these hills still has a long way to go.
(voice-over): Trump says he loves this location because his mother was Scottish born. He's now learning a little more about the Scottish character.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Forbes clan's known for being stubborn.
(LAUGHTER)
BLACK (on camera): And that's not going to change?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no. The more he pushes, the worse I get.
BLACK (voice-over): Two very different men with one thing in common -- they don't like being told what to do.
Phil black, CNN, Balmedie, Scotland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN NEWSROOM continues with Fredricka Whitfield.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello to you, Fredricka.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Hello again, you all have a great day.
NGUYEN: You too.
WHITFIELD: All right. Right now in the NEWSROOM ...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was very scary. I mean, to not know where he's at. You know, I didn't know, you know, trying not to think the worse, but I didn't know if the tornado had taken him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Lucky, lucky, lucky. He is being called a miracle baby, nearly taken by a tornado. Somehow, this toddler survived the storm, more from the family straight ahead.
Also...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. SONNY PERDUE, (R) GEORGIA: I've declared an emergency in 85 of Georgia's counties due to the threat of the water supply in the northern part of our state. Drought is a natural disaster.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: A water crisis turns critical. The governor of Georgia says his state could soon run dry. This morning, a desperate plea for help.
Plus, superbug survivor. You probably heard about that deadly infection going around. Well, I'll talk to a woman who not only recovered, well now she's helping others. It's all ahead in the NEWSROOM.
A savage storm, a suspected tornado, a baby in a crib -- those may sound like elements of a tragedy. Instead, the folks are calling it a miracle. Randy Conat of CNN affiliate WJRT reports from eastern Michigan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE SOYRING, HOMEOWNER: Next thing you know, the house started shaking. Both of us thought it was an earthquake, we started shaking. The next thing you know I got sucked down in the basement and I opened and watched the tornado go that way.
RANDY CONAT, WJRT REPORTER (voice-over): That's when Joe Soyring remembers the tornado struck his Arbela Township home. He and fiancee, Nicole, found her 3-year-old daughter alive and well right away, but they couldn't find 15-month-old Blake. Their screams brought next door neighbor Jeff Hawks running to help.
JEFF HAWKS, NEIGHBOR: We're looking all over for the baby. I mean, we scoured the whole three acres over here, the whole three acres on my side, and we couldn't find the baby. And all of a sudden, I heard this little whimper, and I told everybody to be quiet so we could hear it and the baby was under this huge pile of debris.
CONAT: He pulled apart the pile and found the baby was very much alive.
HAWKS: And the crib had flipped over, and the mattress was the only thing that saved the baby. The mattress was on top of the baby, but I mean, there was thousands of pounds worth of stuff wrapped over this baby. I don't know how he made it.
CONAT (on camera): They're digging through the rubble trying to salvage whatever they can. Every item they find is precious.
NICOLE OPPERMAN, MOTHER OF 'MIRACLE' BABY: Blake, that's our, that's what everybody keeps calling him, "miracle baby."
CONAT (voice-over): Blake had some scratches and bruises on his head, but was otherwise not hurt. He was checked at Covenant Saginaw and released a few hours later. In the daylight they could see Soyring's house was destroyed and Hawks' was heavily damaged.
SOYRING: We're lucky to be alive. I mean, look at it. That's where the house set. It's a year-old house. I mean, just got it built a year ago. So, now I'm going to have got to start all over again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: All right, earlier today the parents were interviewed right here on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OPPERMAN: I just started screaming and Macala actually came out and I couldn't find Blake. Joe, actually, was the one who found him, and our neighbor.
SOYRING: Yeah, my neighbor, my neighbor Jeff and I, we ended up finding him under a pile of rubble about 45, 50 feet from the house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Well, Joe Soyring and Nicole Opperman, whose infant son survived a suspected tornado in eastern Michigan, talking to CNN earlier this morning.
Well, it's been a wild week for extreme weather. A camera on the dashboard of a sheriff's department patrol car caught these scenes in Pensacola, Florida. Look at that. Wow! That flying debris. Storms damaged a shopping mall and a Baptist church.
And this was the aftermath in Nappanee, Indiana, where a tornado wrecked dozens of homes and three factories. Let's check in with Reynolds Wolf.
I hope you're able to tell us that the worst is over and now it's just time to focus on the cleanup.
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's basically going to be it. And I'll tell you, as bad as it was over the last couple days, it could have been far worse. I mean, I know we can always say that, always sounds like just a trite expression, but it's not. I mean, it always could be far worse.
(WEATHER REPORT)
WOLF: Fredricka, a big story we're watching today is not East, but rather out West. We're talking about Santa Ana winds that will be very strong, some possibly topping 60 to 70 miles-an-hour, later this afternoon. We're talking around 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 Local Time in southern California. Right through the San Gabriel Mountains, winds will roar and the dry conditions out there aren't going to help matters, either.
This is going to be a big, critical fire danger not just for today, but possibly into early next week. So this is something we're going to focus on very carefully throughout much of the day. Bonnie Schneider's going to be in this evening to keep a sharp eye on this. That's the latest, let's send it back to you.
WHITFIELD: All right, is it that time of year again for the folks out West? I don't know why I thought these dry winds -- Santa Ana winds were the biggest problem in the Springtime.
WOLF: Very much so. Well, I mean, whenever you have the dry conditions, the high pressure setting up over parts of the Southwest, you're going to have these kind of conditions. Normally, the wet time of the year for southern California is in the winter months when you get into January, February, March. Many of the hills out there get almost like a greenish hue, but this time of year, pretty dry for this time of the year.
WHITFIELD: Wow. OK, thanks so much, Reynolds.
WOLF: You bet.
WHITFIELD: All right, well a major U.S. city is facing the very real possibility of running out of water, facing a drought of historic proportions. It's drained area reservoirs. Georgia governor, Sonny Perdue, has just declared a state of emergency in 85 counties. That includes the entire Atlanta metropolitan area. The governor made his announcement just 90 minutes ago, and he says Atlanta could run out of water in 80 days.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PURDUE: That's why that we filed an injunction yesterday in the middle district of Florida to immediately restrict water flows from leaving our reservoirs. That's why this morning I signed an execute order declaring a state of emergency. And that's why just this morning I've sent a letter to President Bush asking him to declare a major disaster area in this section of Georgia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: And this is what it looks like just west of Atlanta, in Douglas County, Georgia. Outdoor water use has been banned and violators can have their water actually cut off if they do use it.
CNN's T.J. Holmes takes a look at these pretty desperate measures.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL GRIGGS, DOUGLASVILLE-DOUGLAS COUNTY: They come out and put pesticides on your lawn.
HOLMES (voice-over): Michael Griggs is on patrol. He's on the lookout for green grass, a sign that people are watering their lawns.
GRIGGS: It's like this yard right here, really, really green.
HOLMES: He's also checking water meters.
GRIGGS: There should be no use on your irrigation (ph) meters.
HOLMES: Douglas County in suburban Atlanta is under a total outdoor watering ban. It's Griggs' job to find violators and take action immediately, shutting their water off. So far, nearly 20 households have had their water turned off.
PETER FROST, DOUGLAS COUNTY, GA WATER AUTHORITY: If property owners want the water back on in the morning, it's a thousand dollars. If not, if they want to wait until we were able to schedule for the turn on, then they'll only have to pay the trip charge, which is $25.
HOLMES: Future violations only get more expensive. A second violation is at least $350 and a third is $1,000. Peter Frost, the executive director of the local water and sewer authority, says these drastic steps are necessary.
FROST: We're trying to stop the -- our reservoir from getting into a critical condition.
HOLMES: This is the county's reservoir or what's left of it. And like most in the southeast U.S., it's drying up. Because of the low levels, the water district is now piping in 60 percent of its water from a neighboring county, but that water supply is also nearly gone. For now, authorities are making plans and doing what they can to keep the water they have going from going down the drain.
GRIGGS: It's really pretty when it's on, but it don't need to be on right now.
HOLMES: T.J. Holmes, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And conservation is also on President Bush's agenda today. Mr. Bush visited a wildlife refuge in Maryland this morning where he got a little fishing in. Later the president announced new steps to help protect the nation's fish and birds.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to sign an executive order today to protect our striped bass and red drummed fish populations, that's what I'm here to do.
The executive order is part of our commitment to end over fishing in America, and to replenish our nation's fish stocks and to advance cooperative conservation and responsible stewardship, and it's a good place to come and sign the executive order.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: State officials say the president's move will have little to no practical effect and likely will inflame tensions between sport anglers who don't fish for a living and those who do, commercial fishermen.
Well, on the international front now. Tough words from Iran warning it will meet any military attack with a quick and power retaliatory strike. A top commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard claims Iran can fire 11,000 rockets at an enemy base within the first minute of any attack. He doesn't mention a specific enemy or even position.
A mother's plea.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VERONICA BONDS, MOTHER: I was standing beside his bed, and I asked him, baby, we're supposed to be having a graduation this year. And I said you've got to come up out of this and get better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: An infection turns deadly. Now it is raising fears in communities across the country, that story, plus a live interview with a survivor, straight ahead in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: The latest report of a school-based staph infection comes from just north of New York City. Nine athletes and a coach at Iona College have MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant staph infection, first seen in hospitals and now being reported at a number of schools.
Officials say the Iona College outbreak is under control, and the one student who was hospitalized has since been released.
And we've been hearing a lot about this so-called superbug this week, with deaths reported in Virginia and Georgia. But this superbug may be responsible for thousands more deaths each year.
CNN's Jason Carroll digs deeper.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Cleaning crews descended on 22 schools in Bedford, Virginia. Disinfecting locker rooms and desks, trying to prevent a deadly superbug from spreading, this after it claimed a casualty, Ashton Bonds, a 17-year-old senior at Stanton River High School.
VERONICA BONDS, MOTHER: I was standing beside his bed, and I asked him, baby, we're supposed to be having a graduation this year. And I said you've got to come up out of this and get better. CARROLL: Bonds struggled for a week before dying from the infection called methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA, a mutated strain of a staph infection. Bonds' school had sent a letter to parents warning about the dangers of MRSA.
RYAN EDWARDS, BEDFORD CO. SCHOOLS SPOKESMAN: We have been dealing with MRSA for the better part of the last month and we have had cases that appear steadily since then. We have six confirmed cases and possibly seven within the county.
CARROLL: Late Wednesday, Westin High School in Connecticut confirmed one of their students was just diagnosed with MRSA. And officials at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland announced the same.
A new government study shows the infections are more widespread than once thought. The study says MRSA may have contributed to nearly 19,000 deaths in 2005, more casualties than those who died from AIDS that year.
(on camera): The study shows the majority of infections, 85 percent, occurred in hospitals and in medical clinics. But doctors are seeing more and more cases outside medical facilities.
DR. ROBERT DAUM, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: The communities where the epicenter is now, it's shifted from the hospital.
CARROLL (voice-over): For example, athletes involved in contact sports seem to be susceptible. But some cases seem to defy explanation, like the one involving Simon Marcario.
EVERLY MARCARIO, SON DIED OF MRSA: I remember when he turned one, I told my husband that I couldn't believe he had passed an entire year without having a sniffle.
CARROLL: But on an April morning in 2004, everything changed. His parents thought he had the flu. Doctors said he was fine and sent him home. Hours later, the one and a half year-old's breathing sounded odd. His mother called the emergency room pediatrician.
MARCARIO: I had her hear his breathing, and she said, hang up the phone. Call 911.
CARROLL: Doctors pronounced Simon dead early the next day. An autopsy later confirmed MRSA had infected his organs. Doctors still are not sure how Simon was infected. Ashton Bonds' mother also waits for an explanation but she may never get one.
There's still much doctors don't know about MRSA, only that for now the cases keep coming.
Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Wow, that is some alarming stuff. Now let's talk to a woman who survived the superbug. She lived this entire nightmare. Jeanine Thomas not only recovered from MRSA, she founded a survivor's network. Jeanine joins me from Detroit.
Good to see you, Jeanine.
JEANINE THOMAS, FNDR, MRSA SURVIVORS NETWORK: Thank you for having me.
WHITFIELD: Well, this was a horrific experience for you. However, you have also now been living with permanent nerve damage, is that right?
THOMAS: Yes.
WHITFIELD: In your ankle, but you still consider yourself lucky, even though this was pretty hellacious. Just how bad was this experience?
THOMAS: Well, I got infected during ankle surgery of 2000 and I came back to the hospital with an infection. It went into my bone marrow, and then it also -- I went septic and it went into multiple organ failure.
WHITFIELD: At what point did you learn you had this? Yes, you had just had ankle surgery, but did you feel like it was brought to your attention right away, that you also had been exposed to this bacteria?
THOMAS: I was told I had a staph infection, but I was not told for about two months that I had MRSA.
WHITFIELD: Wow. And you also have been saying, through your blog, through your network, that there is a sense of code of silence, if you will, within hospitals, and that, perhaps, may be a barrier as to why it took you so long to learn about what you had, and you think that may be the case for other people, too?
THOMAS: Yes. I believe there's been a code of silence. This disease has been a silent and secret killer for many, many years.
WHITFIELD: Well, why would they want to keep it secret, knowing that if you attack it in the early stages, that it's less likely to be lethal?
THOMAS: Well, there's been lapses in infection control in hospitals. So, it has spread from the hospitals now into the community. And that's why I do legislation in Illinois this year, and Illinois was the first one to enact the Illinois MRSA, the screening and reporting act.
WHITFIELD: And that it is so potentially lethal, that it is that much more dangerous because antibiotics don't seem to treat it, like perhaps it might treat other staph infections. What's your greatest worry about how much more blown up this bacteria could get?
THOMAS: I think that if we do not start screening and doing active detection isolation, all hospitals within the U.S., nursing homes and correctional institutions, that this is just going to continue to be a catastrophic public health disaster.
WHITFIELD: So, what do you mean? How would that be carried out, in your view?
THOMAS: In my bill that I had, in Illinois, all hospitals that have a patient coming in that is high risk or into the ICU will be screened and decolonized if they're found positive. So, the people who are the carriers are the ones who are spreading the disease, so they need to be decommonized.
WHITFIELD: All right, Jeanine Thomas, founder and president of MRSA Survivors Network, thank you for join us from Detroit.
THOMAS: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Well, how do events in a natural wonderland, such as the Amazon rainforest, affect the weather where you live? Straight ahead, Anderson Cooper takes you along to find some answers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Lights out San Francisco. Tonight at 8:00 Local Time for one hour, city officials will shut the lights off at landmarks all over the city, including the Golden Gate Bridge. It's part of a campaign to conserve energy, and street lights will stay on to keep traffic moving safely, however.
Well, just a few days away now from the premiere of CNN's "Planet in Peril." Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Jeff Corwin team up to explore the world's environmental issues. One thing they learned along the way is that some of the biggest threats to the planet are coming from places you would never expect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, AC-360 (voice-over): You're looking at one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, the Amazon rainforest. How is that possible? How is it that a forest covering nine countries -- home to 250 indigenous tribes...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is one of my most favorite...
COOPER: Holding 1/4 of the world's species, can be a major contributor to climate change? Because it is, quite simply, under assault.
The carbon naturally stored in trees is released when they're cut down. They're being cut down at a breathtaking rate. These are the men bent on stopping that. They're agents with IBAMA, a Brazilian government intelligence agency. This mission in a remote corner of Brazil has been in the works for over a year. The agents are heavily armed and heavily outnumbered. Their job is daunting, something you can only appreciate from the air.
(on camera): You really get a sense from the air just how enormous this is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know, it's incredible. It's just so expansive. Just in the Amazon basin alone, it's 2.7 billion square miles of habitat, and roughly 70 percent of that is right here in this extraordinary country, in the country of Brazil.
COOPER: 2.7 billion square miles, that's a little bit smaller than the continental United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly. Huge.
COOPER (voice-over): But all of that is in jeopardy.
(on camera): It's so disturbing to see this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just absolute utter devastation and destruction.
COOPER (voice-over): Twenty percent of the jungle has been lost in the past 40 years.
(on camera): It seems though, the problem is, once you get out to these remote areas, you can do just about anything. There are very few people watching over you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These regions, when you're away from any bit of infrastructure, can be pretty lawless, basically anything goes.
COOPER (voice-over): Anything goes. And the IBAMA agents know that. It doesn't take long for them to pick up one of the illegal roads made by poachers. There's no telling what's around these corners. In the distance, the agents spot something suspicious. Truck slows and guns are drawn.
(on camera): They just found a truck with some people. Let's check it out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: You do not want to miss "Planet in Peril," which begins Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. And you may have noticed something different about the bottom of our screen today.
The CNN logo on the lower, left corner has turned green. That's because CNN is going green over the next week. We're digging deeper on environmental issues, covering stories that affect all of us from the air we breathe to the fuel we use. It all coincides with that premiere I talked about of "Planet in Peril," a special report from Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin. That's Tuesday and Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern only here on CNN.
Well, can one of the world's most famous illusionists make a police investigation disappear? The latest on David Copperfield's legal troubles, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: Time for another quick look at our top stories.
Folks in eastern Michigan call it a miracle. A tornado flattened a home, but a 14-month-old baby was found safe still in his crib with just a few scratches and bruises.
And Georgia governor Sonny Perdue has declared a state of emergency and he has asked President Bush to declare northern Georgia a major disaster area. He says the Atlanta area could run out of water in 80 days because of a prolonged drought.
Well, as one of the world's best known magicians, David Copperfield is accustomed to being under close scrutiny, but nothing like this. Authorities are investigating sexual assault charges, charges the 51-year-old illusionist denies.
CNN's Ted Rowlands reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first sign of trouble came when FBI agents searched the Las Vegas warehouse of magician David Copperfield, where he keeps his collection of magic props and more. The agents took a computer hard drive and camera memory chip, CNN affiliate KLAS reported this, as well as $2 million that had been stashed inside a safe. Federal agents also searched the MGM hotel where Copperfield has been performing.
DAVID CHESNOFF, COPPERFIELD'S ATTORNEY: He's dealing with it in the proper way. He even performed a show the other evening while all that was occurring, because he said he wasn't going to disappoint his fans. But he's very, very concerned in the sense that his reputation is being impuned.
ROWLANDS: Law enforcement sources tell CNN the FBI is investigating sexual assault allegations against Copperfield. His lawyer says he's confident that whoever is making the claims is making them up.
CHESNOFF: I mean, we haven't even been told officially through the law enforcement the name of anybody. But since it wouldn't matter really what the name is, because it's categorically denied as a false accusation, an impossible kind of claim.
ROWLANDS: Seattle police say a woman claims the incident took place this summer in the Bahamas. Police there say they have no record of a complaint against Copperfield.
(on camera): Copperfield lives part time here in Las Vegas, performing at the MGM Grand. His next performance, though, is scheduled for next week in Indonesia. But according to his lawyer, nobody has told him he can't leave the country during this investigation.
(voice-over): The FBI declined to comment on the investigation, saying only that the Las Vegas searches are part of a Seattle-based investigation. Copperfield's lawyer says he's confident that when the FBI concludes their investigation, the accusations will disappear.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, Las Vegas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Meantime, a judge in Thailand has agreed to keep a suspected pedophile in jail for 12 more days while investigators prepare their case against him. Christopher Paul Neil is a Canadian who was working as an English teacher in South Korea. He was the subject of an international search after he was identified as the man in 200 photographs posted on the Internet. Investigators say their case against Neil is based on information from three young boys who say he abused them in Thailand.
Police in Canada are investigating a possible murder-suicide involving at least six victims. The bodies of six adults were discovered in an apartment in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey. That was last night. A spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police says emergency workers arrived at the scene in response to a report of a gas leak.
And in another Vancouver suburb, investigators want to know what caused a private plane to crash. The twin-engine plane slammed into a 15-story apartment building in Richmond shortly after taking off. The pilot was killed, and at least two people in the building were injured.
And two dozen bodies have washed ashore in southern Mexico, apparently, the victims of a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean. A boat believed to be carrying Central American migrants capsized, probably because of rough water. Officials believe that an increasing number of illegal migrants are trying to use boats to get to the United States.
Many of the immigrants who make it to America find work as day laborers. Well, immigrant laborers in one New Jersey town claim they're being harassed by police.
CNN's Senior Correspondent Allan Chernoff reports from Fairview, New Jersey.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Manuel Estrano and other immigrants from Guatemala, many undocumented, line up every morning in front of the Anderson Mini-Mart, hoping a contractor will pick them up for a day of work at $8 to $10 an hour. Right across the street is a policeman watching their every move. Manuel says he recently got a ticket from an officer. For what? He has no idea.
MANUEL ESTRANO, GUATEMALAN DAY LABORER (through translator): No, they didn't tell me why. They just said, go.
CHERNOFF: Two others were ticketed that day, say the men, one for littering -- he was feeding pigeons, another for allegedly blocking the sidewalk in front of the market.
MUSTAFA ABUALLI, MINI-MART SALES CLERK: I understand the immigrants, they don't have no papers, but you know, they're not doing anything wrong. They're just trying to get a job.
CHERNOFF: Fairview, New Jersey's police chief says the men have a right to work and he has the right to enforce quality of life regulations.
(on camera): Are you targeting the ...
CHIEF JOHN PINZONE, FAIRVIEW POLICE: No, not at all.
CHERNOFF: ...immigrants, the illegal immigrants, who are here trying to find work?
PINZONE: Targeting, no, we're not. If they're breaking the ordinance and it's a quality of life type situations that we're pursuing, they will be receiving a summons like anybody else would.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): Enforcement, Chief Pinzone says, has been stepped up following a recent crime wave, including a rape in this alley for which three illegal immigrants face criminal charges.
Fairview is split on the issue of immigrant day laborers, particularly if the Italian-American Calabria Club, located next door to where the men wait for work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the people that walking on the sidewalk, they don't look so good.
CHERNOFF (on camera): Don't look good? Is that a crime?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Retired people don't want to see this people on the sidewalk over here. They're hanging around all day long.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): One man's dislike is another's pleasure. Fellow Calabria Club member Rocco Calibrisi is a landscaper.
(on camera): Do you hire them?
ROCCO CALABRESI, LANDSCAPER/ CALABRIA CLUB MEMBER: Yes, I do.
CHERNOFF: Good workers?
CALABRESI: Great workers. We cannot do without them. Of course, they work, they never say no to anything you ask them.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): A microcosm of the national debate in a town of immigrants ambivalent about the newest immigrants, who are here trying to make a buck.
Allan Chernoff, CNN, Fairview, New Jersey.
(END VIDEOTAPE) WHITFIELD: Bill Cosby, one of TV's best-known dads and a real- life social critic. Right now, Cosby's traveling the country putting on public forums. Cosby's challenging people to discuss such hot- button issues as teen pregnancy, drugs, and urban decay, and then seek solutions.
This week, he talked with Larry King.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL COSBY, ENTERTAINER/AUTHOR: The whole pile-up of negative stuff that needs to be brought to the people so that they can begin to feel power and they can begin to make their move. Known fact, man, when the participation starts, things start to lift up, and this is what we need them to believe in and realize.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Cosby has co-written a new book titled, "Come On, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors."
Nooses, a symbol of hate and terror. Since the disturbing events in Jena, Louisiana, nooses have turned up in more than a dozen places around the country. A CNN "SPECIAL INVESTIGATION" looks into this. Listen to what one man had to say about being a victim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES HICKMAN, NOOSE VICTIM: One of the supervisors told me that someone was looking for me and he was actually, he was in the restroom, and I went in there, not knowing what was going on. I walked through the door. That's when they grabbed me, put the noose around my neck and started choking me with it.
And I -- I'm struggling trying to get free, and I -- I was about out of it. I couldn't, couldn't breathe. I just, I was choked out. And I thought, at that time I thought I was actually -- I wasn't going to make it out of there alive.
I think about it every day. Every day, because it should have never happened. I'm there -- I'm there working. Never -- I didn't know -- I want to cry, but I'm kind of holding it back -- I never knew that that was ever going to happen to me at the time, but it happened. And you can't turn it back. It happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Incredible. Well, you can watch "The Noose: An American Nightmare," CNN "SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT" report with Kyra Phillips Tuesday night, 8:00 Eastern, only on CNN.
Well, there are some pretty big problems at the airport. You probably know that if you've been traveling. So why are some lawmakers spending your tax dollars on low-priority airports in vacation destinations?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are security issues in terms of both of those airports and very inclement kind of weather. They were on the list, and I think they're well deserved.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What list are they on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the list -- on the comprehensive list.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Oh, really? Well, CNN's Drew Griffin is keeping them honest, straight ahead in the NEWSROOM.
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CHRIS MCGINNIS, EXPEDIA.COM: If you're booking travel for Thanksgiving now, you'll be lucky to get a seat, let alone a deal if you're traveling during peak days, so now's the time to book holiday travel, whether it's for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years.
Let's look at Thanksgiving first. The most crowded, highest priced days are the typical days, the Wednesday before and the Sunday and Monday afterwards. You're most likely to find the best deals and the smallest crowd if you're willing to travel on Thanksgiving afternoon when everybody wants to be home eating turkey and watching football, also the Friday after Thanksgiving is a good day.
For Christmas, the most crowded and pricey days to fly are the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before. If you're looking for a really good deal, you may want to travel on Christmas Eve. Also a very good time to travel is Christmas morning, but by the afternoon on Christmas day, it's actually one of the busier holiday travel days.
The week between Christmas and New Years is busy nearly every single day. Try to travel on New Years morning. This is when you'll find the smallest crowds and the best deals.
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WHITFIELD: Airport flight delays. Congress says it's trying to fix them, but are they focusing on the big problems?
CNN's Drew Griffin is keeping them honest about your tax dollars.
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DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For airline passengers, this was the summer of sitting, sitting on the tarmac in Atlanta, where the average flight delay was 43 minutes. In Philadelphia, nearly 50 minutes. And if you got stuck in Newark, your average sitting time was an hour. Newark had the worst summer, 12,885 flights delayed in just two months. Flight delays in the U.S. are the worst they've been since they started keeping records. The FAA says weather played a big part, but mainly because the skies and airports are so congested, any storm can spread a hurricane of flight delays across the country.
So, what is the Senate doing in its Senate transportation bill to fix the major airports? Keeping them honest, we found the senators from Massachusetts fixing the airports important to them.
Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry asked for and got $8 million earmarks to replace control towers at their airports, the tiny Nantucket airport near the summer home of -- remember this moment? -- wind surfing John Kerry and the small Barnstable Airport near the famous Kennedy compound in Hyannis.
(on camera): Can you make the case for some taxpayers sitting down in Philadelphia or out in California that this airport here in, basically Hyannis Port in Kennedy's backyard, needs federal money?
QUINCY "DOC" MOSBY, BARNSTABLE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT: Yes, and it does need federal money.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Quincy "Doc" Mosby is the airport manager at Barnstable. He says the control tower here is old, has become a safety concern and needs federal help. So does Nantucket's, he says.
MOSBY: We are a part of the National Transportation System, and none (ph) of the airports do play a very vital role in the air travel across the United States.
GRIFFIN: We asked the FAA if the tiny airports of Barnstable and Nantucket were on any priority list. We were told no, because the two largely vacation destinations are simply not vital to air traffic across the United States.
MOSBY: People think just because, you know, when you mention Nantucket, you mention Hyannis and you mention going across to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, oh, it's just -- you know, you're preparing (ph) an airport for rich people, but that's not the case.
GRIFFIN: But we were also told earmarks for Barnstable and Nantucket actually cut down on priority needs elsewhere. So keeping them honest, we went into the Senate office buildings on a hunt for answers. Why is so much money being wasted on low or no-priority airports? The chair of the
Senate's Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Patty Murray, said she'd tell us, then abruptly canceled our interview. Senator Kerry's press secretary told us, "We just couldn't make this work with scheduling this week." That was actually weeks ago.
We asked again, and again, Senator Kerry turned us down. Our last hope, Senator Ted Kennedy, was "totally booked," according to his staff, which is why we were caught off guard when the senator and his two dogs suddenly rounded a corner in the Russell Senate building. And the Senate rules say cameras can't chase senators inside these hallways, but reporters can, and I asked why he was wasting federal money on low-priority airports like Barnstable and Nantucket.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: There are security issues, in terms of both of those airports, and very inclement kind of weather. They were on the list, and I think they're well deserved.
GRIFFIN (on camera): What list are they on?
KENNEDY: On the list -- on the comprehensive list, in terms of improvement.
GRIFFIN: They're certainly not on any kind of priority list.
KENNEDY: I'm just telling you, there are -- we're dealing with safety, air transportation safety. And they seem to be (ph) testified, they made a very good case on it. And I'm glad they got it.
GRIFFIN: The airports made the case on it, sir?
(voice-over): Three weeks after this hallway conversation, the senator's office decided to give us a statement, repeating the senator's concern that, "Both towers are more than 40-years-old, outdated, and need to be replaced." The statement made no mention of the list the senator insists the two airports are on.
(on camera): I've got no idea what list the senator is talking about, but remember, the list they make up in this building at the Federal Aviation Administration show no priorities for the Barnstable, Nantucket, or Akutan Airports. They're just not on the list.
(voice-over): Akutan Airport? Oh, I forgot to tell you about Alaska's Akutan Airport, out on the Aleutian Islands. You see, even though the Democrats are in charge, airport pork in the Senate flies on both sides of the aisle.
We keep Republicans honest, too, when we come back.
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WHITFIELD: So, before the break, we took a look at flight delays, Congress, and your money. It's not just the Democrats who were under fire for questionable airport spending.
CNN's Drew Griffin keeping them all honest.
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GRIFFIN: Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens is under federal investigation for allegedly steering federal earmark money -- your tax dollars -- to business colleagues, friends, and campaign donors, a subject he does not want to discuss.
SEN. TED STEVENS, (R) ALASKA: It's a nice day outside.
GRIFFIN: So you think he'd be careful about what he is now asking for in the Senate. Think again. The senior senator from Alaska asked for and got $3.5 million of your tax money to build an airport here, Akutan, Alaska, a remote island in the Aleutians where only a few hundred live year-round.
But the island also has one of the world's largest seafood processing plants owned by a Seattle-based Trident Seafoods, and according to Congressional records, Trident's owners have been generous donors year after year to Senator Ted Stevens.
The senator said no to an interview to CNN, but did send a statement, saying in part, "Because 70 percent of Alaska's communities can be reached year-round only by air, the funding for aviation projects, in particular, is an absolute necessity." Notice, he doesn't say who the project would benefit, his campaign contributors.
Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, he doesn't ask for earmarks, he rails against them on the Senate floor and says the Akutan, Barnstable, and Nantucket airport earmarks are not only a waste of your money, they represent the exact opposite of how a U.S. senator should conduct business.
SEN. TOM COBURN, (R) OKLAHOMA: Anybody who puts a priority for a local project ahead of the best interests of this country, I believe is not fulfilling their oath to the office, and that's whether they're Republican or Democrat.
GRIFFIN: With flight delays at their worst in 13 years, there is still a chance the three tiny airports won't get their funding, but chances are, the way most senators support one another's pet projects, you'll probably end up paying for a lot more unnecessary control towers and runways to nowhere, while the crowded, major airport you're stuck in goes begging.
Drew Griffin, CNN, Washington.
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WHITFIELD: And count on Anderson Cooper and the CNN Investigative Team, "Keeping Them Honest." Catch "AC 360" weeknights at 10:00 Eastern only on CNN.
So, these guys decided to take a flying leap -- whoa -- this weekend. And to think, it's an annual tradition doing that. Much more after this.
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WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh, whew! Nice dive, but no swimming pool. Hundreds of thrill-seekers instead are jumping off this famous West Virginia bridge today. Wow, they are thrill-seekers.
It's the only day of the year that they are allowed to actually parachute from this span, the New River Gorge Bridge. It stands at 876 feet above the water, so they have to hurry up with their somersaults before opening their chutes. The tallest bridge for car and truck traffic in North America, and maybe even for, hey, parachuters.
Parachutists must have 100 jumps under their wings to take part in today's festival. The festival draws about 100,000 tourists. Wow, that's something else.
Well, don't do that over a Georgia lake, because there may not be any water if -- maybe not enough water to soften the blow, right?
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WHITFIELD: All right, a look at the top stories in a moment. "YOUR MONEY" is next. Here now is a preview.
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ALI VELSHI, CNN HOST: Thanks.
Coming up, we've got a special green edition of "YOUR MONEY."
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: And $90 oil this week. We're going to tell you why it matters to you. Hint: you're going to see it at the pump.
VELSHI: And we're going to tell you how you can invest for your retirement in mutual funds that are good for the environment.
ROMANS: And shopping like there's no tomorrow. Are the so- called sustainable goods -- do they do any good on the environment?
VELSHI: And stick around, because we're going to tell you what this fancy gizmo's all about. All that and more after a quick check of the headlines.
ROMANS: What is that ...
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WHITFIELD: Just hours ago, Georgia's governor declared a water emergency in more than half the state and asked President Bush to help. Extreme drought has cut Atlanta's water supply to about 80 days left now.
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