Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Is FAA Too Cozy With Airlines?; Smoking and Your DNA; Wall Street Rescue

Aired April 03, 2008 - 14:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: All right. So you've been hearing about the overdue plane inspections. You've heard about the angry inspectors, the outraged lawmakers. But have you heard this now, about the windshields on these planes?
CNN "SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT" spotlights the cockpit safety risk that's gone unchecked for years.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: First Aloha, now ATA. A second U.S. airline finds it can't bear the wake of a weak economy and sky-high fuel prices. And if you're holding a ticket, don't go away. We're going to help you navigate a rough climate.

Hi there. I'm Brianna Keilar at CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta.

HOLMES: And hello there, everybody. I'm T.J. Holmes.

And you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

KEILAR: And you are looking at live pictures here. Airline passengers, of course, depend on the airlines and government inspectors to make sure the planes are safe. But in troubling testimony to Congress today, two FAA whistleblowers say they were actually pressured to keep problems quiet.

In recent weeks, Delta, United, American and also Southwest Airlines have been forced to cancel flights to do maintenance checks. The chairman of the House Transportation Committee says it is time for the FAA to clean house.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES OBERSTAR (D), TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE CHAIRMAN: The only customer, if you're going to use that term, for the FAA is the air-traveling public. Airlines are not customers. FAA is not providing a service to them.

The bedrock responsibility of the FAA is to ensure safety for the traveling public. FAA needs to clean house from top to bottom, take corrective action, hire more inspectors and give them a safety mission.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Well, the critics say the FAA and the airlines just -- they're too tight, too cozy with their relationships.

Our correspondent Drew Griffin, of CNN "SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT," has been looking into another case. This one about cockpit windshields.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): By the time it made an emergency landing here in Palm Beach, Florida, just last January, the windshield on the jetliner's cockpit had shattered.

The pilot and co-pilot already wearing masks and goggles because the cockpit filled with smoke at cruising altitude. A half-dozen people had to be treated for smoke inhalation.

What caused the terrifying incident? The National Transportation Safety Board investigators are focusing on this windshield heater on the American Airlines 757, which apparently overheated. A one-time fluke accident? Not at all. It also happened to this pilot on another American Airlines 757.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My entire windscreen was shattered like a spider web. We donned our smoke goggles and oxygen masks for fear that the second pane on the window was going to fail. Between the airspeed and the force on the windscreen, I would probably have gotten a face full of glass, and then we would have had a catastrophic depressurization of the airplane.

GRIFFIN: This pilot wants us to protect his identity, because he says he fears retaliation.

But what he describes matches the emergency that took place this past January. But listen to this. His near catastrophe happened more than two years ago, and the NTSB says it's happened at least 10 times now, four times on American Airlines 757s.

Todd Wissing, a safety officer with the Allied Pilots Association, says both the American and the FAA have known about the problem for four years and, he says, have done little to fix it.

TODD WISSING, ALLIED PILOTS ASSOCIATION: In 2004, there were two 757 incidents that occurred. The NTSB investigated and made safety recommendations to the FAA.

GRIFFIN: The FAA has only now issued this. It's called a proposed airworthiness directive for inspections and fixes to windshield heaters not just on 757s, but also on Boeing 767s and 777s. And the FAA told us, "We will work with the manufacturer to provide a solution for operators if the existing solution is not adequate."

The FAA didn't answer our question, what took so long, but critics in Congress worry the FAA, the agency that oversees airlines, has become too cozy with the industry and too confrontational with the NTSB, which is supposed to investigate aircraft incidents. Case in point, Southwest Airlines, where an FAA inspections supervisor allowed the company to postpone required safety inspections. OBERSTAR: It reflects an attitude of complacency at the highest levels of FAA management.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We depend on the FAA to have oversight of our companies' operation. That is a role that they -- that we feel they take or they should take seriously. And we're disappointed when we see evidence that they haven't.

GRIFFIN: And there appears to be good reason for those fears.

CNN obtained an e-mail from an American Airlines executive sent just after the most recent cockpit windshield failure. "This is the only internal window pane failure that I'm aware of," he writes. "We should gather the facts of how many failures we had in how many flights very quickly to counter the NTSB give us and the FAA some ammo to counter this."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His statement there seems to indicate that he's counting on the FAA to be a close ally with him.

GRIFFIN: But American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner says that is not what the e-mail means at all. He says it means: "Let's get our facts telling. We, American, believe this way, and it appears the FAA believes this way, too."

Boeing, which makes the aircraft, says it's looking into the matter. It sounds like a maintenance item, a spokeswoman said.

After 10 potentially catastrophic cockpit windshield failures in mid-flight, the pilots wonder why no one has done anything about it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And again, that was CNN's Drew Griffin reporting.

Well, another U.S. airline out of business today. ATA Airlines today canceled all scheduled flights, sending ticket holders scrambling and putting more than 2,200 employees scrambling as well, looking for new jobs. The Indianapolis-based carrier says its problems began with the loss of a military charter contract. It's the second airline this week after Aloha stopped flying passengers.

KEILAR: Should the government have put up $30 billion to help JPMorgan buy Bear Stearns? Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke says without the Fed's intervention, the domino effect from a Bear Stearns collapse could have severely hurt the economy.

You're looking at live pictures here of a Senate Banking Committee hearing. And the treasury under secretary for domestic finance put it this way at a Senate hearing...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT STEEL, TREASURY UNDER SECRETARY: The failure of a firm at that time that was so connected to so many corners of our markets would have cost financial disruptions beyond Wall Street. We weighed the multiple risks such as the potential disruption to counterparties, other financial institutions, the markets, and the market infrastructure. These risks warranted a careful review and thorough considerations of potential implications and responses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, the hearing is still going on. We're going to be hearing from the executives from both companies. And CNN's Allan Chernoff will have the latest. That's next hour in the NEWSROOM.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(WEATHER REPORT)

KEILAR: All right. We've got some breaking news coming into the CNN NEWSROOM.

I would say you're not going to believe this, but actually you might. Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been removed from a plane at Heathrow Airport, a British Airways flight.

According to the "Associated Press," there are Sky News Television reports saying that she was arrested there at Heathrow's terminal five for allegedly assaulting a police officer. So, what we're hearing from the Metropolitan Police there is that, yes, the 37- year-old woman was arrested there at Heathrow.

She was handcuffed and removed from a British Airways flight. This was at about 5:15 p.m. local time. That's about two hours ago Eastern Time, so about 12:15 -- two hours ago, 12:15 Eastern Time. So Metro police there not confirming her name. However, according to the "Associated Press" reports, that it was supermodel Naomi Campbell.

As you know, she's had other run-ins. She's been charged before and had to do community service in New York for episodes that she's had before. Known, of course, for her fiery temper.

We're going to continue to work on details. But, again, supermodel Naomi Campbell apparently removed by police for allegedly assaulting a police officer, removed by police from a British Airways plane.

HOLMES: That doesn't sound like her at all.

KEILAR: Yes.

HOLMES: It just doesn't. Terminal five, that's the new one, right?

KEILAR: I think it is, yes.

HOLMES: There's been some frustration there. Bags are being lost.

KEILAR: I know. Yes, that's right, 20,000 bags. I mean...

HOLMES: It can be frustrating...

KEILAR: Yes. It's a situation for sure.

HOLMES: If it is her, it could be frustrating at terminal five these days.

OK. We're going to move on though folks to some other news. We'll continue to keep an eye on that one.

This one we're going to take you to South America for. This one is where we're seeing dozens of deaths, and tens of thousands of people are sick there. The toll in Brazil as the mosquito-borne virus spreads.

We'll tell you what you need to know about this illness. We'll find out from an expert from the CDC.

KEILAR: And one smoker gets lung cancer, another one doesn't. What is the reason for that? We'll find out what researchers are saying.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: It's no secret, right, that smoking increases one's risk of lung cancer? But today researchers say there's also a genetic link.

And our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is back with more on this discovery.

So, I guess maybe this explains why one smoker might get lung cancer and another one doesn't.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This does help explain this, because we probably both know people who are in their 90s, have smoked three packs a day for decades, and they're still alive.

KEILAR: Sure.

COHEN: And you wonder, how could that happen? Well, DNA may play a role.

Let's take a look at some interesting findings from a new study.

What they found is that your risk of getting lung cancer just because you smoke is 15 percent. But if you smoke, plus have a specific genetic variant, that increases the risk to 19 percent. And if you have two genetic variants -- in other words, one from your mom and one from your dad, that risk goes up to 25 percent. So you can see that it's a big difference from 15 to 19 to 25 percent.

Now, you might be thinking, well, gosh, can I get a test to see if I have these specific genetic variants? And the answer is, no, you can't. There's not one that's commercially available. And in many ways, it doesn't matter. You shouldn't smoke no matter what your genes are.

But this certainly will help researchers as they look more and more into lung cancer and how best to treat it.

KEILAR: Do the genes influence how much you smoke, maybe how addicted you could become to nicotine?

COHEN: They do. They said -- one doctor said this is a double whammy gene, because not only does it increase your chances of getting cancer once you start smoking, it also seems to have an effect on the brain. So, folks with these variants, they get addicted more easily and they smoke more cigarettes per day. So this cigarette -- these genes, rather, they deal with nicotine addiction in various different ways.

KEILAR: And it's so hard for some folks especially to quit smoking. Why is that?

COHEN: You know why it's hard? It's hard because nicotine makes people happy.

I mean, it sounds like a strange thing, but nicotine actually can be seen in imaging to affect the pleasure centers of the brain. It makes you feel good.

And so when you take nicotine away, it can make you feel depressed, which is why sometimes they give people who are quitting smoking an antidepressant. But people with these genes, with both of them, may have an even harder time quitting because the nicotine has made them even happier.

So, it really is -- they're not good genes to have.

KEILAR: All right.

What did Ronald Reagan do? He used jelly beans I think instead of cigarettes.

COHEN: There you go. As long he brush his teeth afterwards.

KEILAR: Sure. Yes, that stimulates the pleasure center as well.

COHEN: Because sugar makes you happy, too, right.

KEILAR: Exactly. It makes me very happy.

COHEN: Right.

KEILAR: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks.

COHEN: Thanks.

HOLMES: Now that you ladies are happy, I will be telling folks about this now. You're going to be seeing new warnings on the label for a popular flu drug. Under pressure from the government, GlaxoSmithKline is adding a few more side-effects for its drug Relenza. Those include seizures, hallucinations, and delirium. Those psychiatric problems have been experienced by patients, but mostly children in Japan.

KEILAR: What should you know about a mosquito-borne virus that is sweeping through southeastern Brazil? Could it affect the U.S.?

A big question there. We're going to be finding out from an infectious disease expert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Did you know U.S. taxpayers are silent partners in the JPMorgan buyout of Bear Stearns? Now many in Congress aren't -- silent, that is. They've got plenty of questions about the $30 billion role of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Today, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee a Bear Stearns collapse could have dealt a terrible blow to the economy.

And CNN's Allan Chernoff has the very latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SR. CORRESPONDENT: Some angry senators are grilling the chairman of the Federal Reserve and other financial regulators about the shotgun wedding that the Fed arranged last month between Bear Stearns, the nation's fifth largest investment bank, and JPMorgan Chase, the giant bank that agreed to buy Bear Stearns when it was facing bankruptcy. Particularly contentious, $30 billion in taxpayer money that the Fed put out to back up potential losses in investments that Bear Stearns had made in risky investments.

Senator Jim Bunning said regulators should have seen the problem coming.

SEN. JIM BUNNING (R), KENTUCKY: Didn't they come and tell you that they were going to go belly up and ask for help?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER, PRESIDENT, FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK: Senator, let me just step back for one second. The people at this table and a bunch of other supervisors and regulators took a lot of actions over the several years to try to make the system less vulnerable to this kind of event.

BUNNING: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've been here too long to try to convince me of that.

GEITHNER: Well, I'm not claiming to convince you, but I just want to...

BUNNING: You're not going to be able to convince me, because the red flags have been waving long before you showed up at that table. CHERNOFF: Regulators say they don't plan to make a habit of rescuing investment banks. And they argue this was not a bailout of Bear Stearns; rather, they say, this was an effort to protect the financial markets, the economy and the average American.

Allan Chernoff, CNN, Washington.

(BUSINESS REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, hello there, everybody. I'm T.J. Holmes live in the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, sitting in for Don Lemon today who is on assignment.

KEILAR: And I'm Brianna Keilar in for Kyra Phillips. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

It is half past the hour, and here are three of the stories we're working on in the CNN NEWSROOM. Two FAA inspectors say they were pressured to keep quiet about safety problems at Southwest Airlines. A Congressional committee chairman says it's time for a top to bottom house cleaning.

The man arrested at the Orlando International Airport this week is scheduled to appear in court in about an hour. Authorities say he recently returned from a contract job in Iraq, and was trying to sneak bomb-making materials onto a flight in Jamaica.

Bad news about the future of the U.S. space program. A report says the project that is supposed to replace the shuttle is in disarray and may never live up to expectations. We'll have a live report from Chief Technology Correspondent Miles O'Brien.

HOLMES: Dengue Fever sweeping southeastern Brazil, more than 55,000 cases of the mosquito borne virus have been reported in Rio de Janeiro state over the past four months. Death toll is up to at least 67. The virus cannot be spread from person to person. Symptoms include high fever, sever headache, back ache, joint pains, vomiting, eye pain, as well as a rash.

Dr. Ali Khan of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is an expert on infectious diseases. We sat down for a chat a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ALI KHAN, CDC INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT: The majority of people who get infected by a mosquito, they won't even know they have it. But there is about 10 to 20 percent that will have this Dengue Fever with the fever and headache and the muscle aches that would occur.

HOLMES: All right. I know a big thing -- a lot of people here, our domestic audience, the U.S. audience is hearing this going on in Brazil and wondering can somebody bring this over here. So, explain to folks this is not something that's going to be passed from human to human.

KHAN: Correct. That's a really good point. So, this disease is not transmitted from person to person. So, that's really important. We get about 250 cases reported in the U.S. every year currently. It's probably a real underestimate of the real number of cases. There's over 22 million travelers outbound to Latin America every year. So, we do get case in the U.S. no person-to-person transmission occurring.

I think what's important for all the travelers in the U.S. who are going to Latin America is they really need to focus on prevention. That's the point here for them. So air conditioning screened areas as much as possible. When they do go out, wear long sleeves, loose, baggy pants, and make sure using good insect repellent like DEET, and the combination of those things will prevent them from getting infected by mosquitoes.

HOLMES: You say that's prevention there, but finally here once someone does have this and they realized they started getting some of them symptoms, what can they do?

KHAN: I think it's really important that if you've traveled abroad and you have a fever, that you see a health care provider who can make the diagnoses. Because it may be something besides Dengue. There's lots of other diseases, it's important for them to know what's going on. If you do have Dengue, then they can use the appropriate measures to make sure you don't get extremely ill.

Unfortunately, there is no specific treatment. So, it really has to do with good management if somebody does get infected.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: The CDC says about 1000 million cases of Dengue Fever are reported worldwide every year.

KEILAR: Still no official results from Saturday's presidential election in Zimbabwe. But the party of long time leader Robert Mugabe wants a run off. The opposition claims it won the presidency out right and the official results do confirm that it won a majority in parliament. Mugabe has been in charge since Zimbabwe declared it's independence from Britain in 1980.

For years this country flourished as one of Africa's brightest lights with a bustling economy and booming agriculture. Lately though, it has been crippled by food shortages, rampant unemployment and an inflation estimated at 150,000 percent.

HOLMES: Well, folks unfortunately you don't hear much about Somalia unless something bad happens there, something blows up. But you probably should be hearing more about it. Since 2006, battles between the U.S. that (ph) government and Islamic extremists have left almost 0.25 million Somalis homeless and hopeless.

CNN's Barbara Starr reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Listen closely. Even the African wind can't drown out a child's cries. In Afgoye, Somalia just west of Mogadishu, nearly 250,000 Somalis live a heart-breaking existence in the huts made of twigs, garbage, bits of cloth.

ERIN WEIR, REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL: This is where families -- sometimes families with eight or nine children are living.

STARR: These extraordinary videos and pictures were shot by aid workers Patrick Duplat and Erin Weir of Refugees International.

PATRICK DUPLAT, REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL: This is simply the largest concentration of displaced people in the world. It's absolutely massive.

STARR: Technically, these aren't refugees. These Somalis are internally displaced persons trying to live inside their own country. And more arrive each day walking for miles escaping the fighting in Mogadishu. Already 60,000 people have fled the capital this year.

WEIR: Most of the people we interviewed said they had fled because their homes had been shelled, their family members killed. They had lost their livelihood.

STARR: The camp now stretches for more than ten miles. One woman arrived that morning.

DUPLAT: She had arrived with her eight children and she was holding a one-month-old little girl. Her husband had been killed the day before. He was crushed under the debris because a shell landed on the family's home.

STARR: The U.N. can't keep up with the desperate need for aid.

DUPLAT: The food is never enough. Water is never enough. If somebody arrives a day after food distribution, they have to wait until the next month to get food.

STARR: When Patrick and Erin finally climbed onto a roof, they were stunned.

DUPLAT: My most enduring memory is quite clearly, walking on the roof of that school and seeing the extent of displacement. It is the largest camp in the world. And all the people that we speak to want us to bring their voices and their stories to the international community.

STARR: 250,000 Somalis wanting the world to know they are here.

Barbara Starr, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Well, Somalia may be the worst country on earth to be a child. According to the United Nations, one in eight children dies before they are five-years-old. Malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world. Less than a third of the population has access to safe water. You know what? You can make a difference here.

Go to CNN.com to see how you can support the relief agencies working in that region (INAUDIBLE) and how you can impact your world. The address is CNN.com/impact.

KEILAR: Well, despite some of its failure -- despite some failures, pardon me, in its recent offensive in Basra, Iraq's prime minister is threatening similar raids in Baghdad. Nouri al Maliki spoke to reporters today, he called the Basra operation a success. He said that he plans other raids in other volatile Baghdad neighborhoods.

U.S. officials say the Basra operation caught them a little off guard. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said the U.S. had just two days' notice. A U.S. official tells CNN the U.S. command sent officers and dozens of American fighters to Basra when it quickly became apparent that Iraqi forces were becoming overwhelmed. Still though, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said today that the Iraqi-led offensive was positive.

A hometown hero returns from Iraq. Major Craig Masari (ph) met a group of pen pals, the second graders in Allentown, Pennsylvania who wrote him while he was deployed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm so glad to meet you. I will always remember you. Thank you. Love, Summer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So, what did these second graders think of meeting Major Masari? Well, one really summed it up by saying it was very, very cool.

HOLMES: Up next here folks, we'll be talking about a teacher with autism who has a lesson for the rest of us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not crazy. We're not dumb. We just have a different way of learning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: He grew up feeling different from the other kids. Now, a man with autism candidly shares his hopes and fears of living with the condition. That's right here in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, leading our political ticker, a new take on Hillary Clinton's infamous red phone ad. Her new ad says she's better prepared than John McCain to tackle the nation's economic problems. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: It's 3:00 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there's a phone ringing in the White House, and this time, the crisis is economic. Home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering. John McCain just said the government shouldn't take any real action on the housing crisis ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: They have got to get an answering machine at the White House. It didn't take McCain long to put an ad out of his own. It's on YouTube. His ad says McCain's economic policies are better than Clinton's or Barack Obama's.

Well, Bill Richardson flatly denies Bill Clinton's reported claims that the New Mexico governor promised he would not endorse Barack Obama. Reports say that a meeting with California superdelegates, the former president said Richardson made that promise five times to his face.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), NEW MEXICO: I never saw him five times. I saw him once when he came to New Mexico to watch the Super Bowl with me. And we made it very clear to him that he shouldn't expect an endorsement after that meeting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Well, Richardson, who served in the Clinton cabinet, dropped out of the Democratic presidential race earlier this year.

KEILAR: Maybe they won't be watching the Super Bowl together next year.

HOLMES: Maybe not. He could have said it five times in one meeting. Maybe that's what he meant.

All right, well, Obama is getting a boost from a media tycoon named Murdoch -- uh-uh, not that one. This one's Elizabeth Murdoch whose father Rupert owns News Corp. She's throwing a fundraiser for Obama at her London home later this month. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow listed among the chairs of the events. The younger Murdoch has her own television production company. Her father of course is a well- known conservative who owns, among other things, the "New York Post" and Fox News Channel.

KEILAR: Well, John McCain is calling it his "Service to America" tour and it has taken him to Florida. The presumptive Republican nominee is in Jacksonville retracing part of his military career.

On CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING," McCain sought to clarify some earlier comments in which he said the economy is not his strong suit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I said it wasn't my strongest because I spent 22 years in the military and I've been a member of the Armed Services Committee and involved in every major national security challenge in the last 20 years.

I've been involved as chairman of the Commerce Committee. I've been involved as part of the Reagan revolution where we cut taxes and restrained spending and embarked on one of the strongest periods of economic growth in the history of this country.

I know economics very well, certainly better than Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. So, let's clear that up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: After Florida, McCain's biography tour takes him home to Arizona.

And all of the latest campaign news is available right at your fingertips. Check it all out at CNNpolitics.com where we also have analysis from the best political team on television. Again, that is CNNpolitics.com.

HOLMES: Well, I want to bring you information we're just getting from the "Associated Press" about what's happening in Zimbabwe. We've been watching what's happening there after elections took place there over the past weekend.

Right now, the word from the "Associated Press" is that security agents and paramilitary police are in riot gear and have surrounded a hotel that has been housing foreign journalists. This hotel is in Harare, the capitol there in Zimbabwe.

Now, the votes are still being counted and no official returns have been released. But they were fierce on both sides, the opposition party saying that Robert Mugabe and the party in power would possibly try to rig this election. The opposition party has come out flatly and said that they would not accept anything but victory. And again, all of this before any official results were ever released.

So, right now, we're just keeping an eye on the situation. Don't know what this means, but according to a man who is there at the hotel telling the "Associated Press" that these police and the riot gear are preparing to remove four or five journalists from that hotel. Of course, foreign journalists are there trying to cover this historic election there.

President Mugabe right now is seeking his sixth term as president, the only president that Zimbabwe has even known in its young history. He's been in term there -- been in office there since 1980, seeking a sixth term. But some back and forth right now going on and some uncertainty about how the results are going to come out of that election.

But right now, the latest is that riot police for some reason right now have surrounded a hotel in Harare, are trying to remove some journalists. We'll keep an eye on this situation and bring you the latest as we get it.

KEILAR: A happy ending to a desperate race along a Florida causeway. Two parents thankful for a quick-thinking cop.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The smallest and most helpless among us -- we're talking little babies -- are suffering a lot more neglect and abuse than most of us could ever imagine. A government study conducted over a year found that one in 50 infants had somehow been abused or neglected. That's almost a third -- almost one third of those were no more than a week old.

Researchers say they saw everything from physical abuse to babies abandoned in hospitals to those who simply weren't cared for properly. They say most cases fall into the last category.

HOLMES: From the time he was little, Brian Heuring knew he was different, but doctors kept misdiagnosing him. It wasn't until he was told he was autistic that the pieces began to fall into place.

As CNN focuses this week on unraveling the mystery of autism, our own Don Lemon had the chance to talk with Brian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: What do you want to tell people about this disease and dealing with it and growing up with it and living with it?

BRIAN HEURING, AUTISM ACTIVIST: Is -- don't treat us like we're broken. I mean they're -- don't treat us like we're different or don't treat us like we're broken like -- of course, we have bad -- I'm sure there are times that it's hard for us. But -- that we're not crazy. We're not dumb. We just have a different way of learning.

LEMON: You, probably at one point, you and your family probably thought, at least, that you would not be able to function on your own as an independent adult. But you are. And you live alone now , you live on your own ...

HEURING: Yes.

LEMON: ...and you now work with children. Tell us about that, Brian.

HEURING: It was like my dream in -- it was like my dream to work with kids. So it made me feel -- it made me feel happy that I -- proud that I work with children because it's like I achieved my goal to work with children.

LEMON: You describe yourself as an advocate. Why is that?

HEURING: Well, because I feel like I can speak up for others who have a hard time speaking up for themselves. I speak up -- I say what my needs are. I'm still working on that. I'm not -- I'm an advocate, but I'm working on being a stronger advocate.

LEMON: You know that sometimes people see you differently. Sometimes people might treat you differently. And you said you don't want them to treat you as broken ...

HEURING: Meaning as different.

LEMON: ...as different. OK. So then what -- what are your fears? What do you worry about when people look at you and they go, I wonder what's up with that person? People will say, what's wrong with that person? What is your fear -- what are your fears about that from other people when they see you?

HEURING: Probably of not being liked by that person or not being liked or that they're going to -- or always have that fear that they might do something about it.

LEMON: That they may sort of say something out of the way or harm you in some way?

HEURING: Right, exactly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: You can read more about autism online at CNN.com, share your personal stories with an i-Report. You can learn more about this mysterious illness. And we have a virtual resource center for those with autism. Go to CNN.com/autism.

KEILAR: He's learned life lessons. Now he's learning his ABCs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALESIA HAMILTON, TEACHER: And he said, do you know Mrs. Hamilton, that you can look up at the grocery store and there are signs that tell you what's in that row?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: A 70-year-old goes to school and teaches something to all of us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Some dramatic moments took place on a Florida causeway. A Melbourne policeman clocked a speeding car at a hundred miles an hour -- well, had a pretty good reason for going that fast. The driver was a desperate parent with a toddler that wasn't breathing.

Here now is the police officer, Sergeant Dan Lynch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. DAN LYNCH, MELBOURNE FLORIDA POLICE: I was not expecting to make a traffic stop and have a lifeless child shoved into my arms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Well, Sergeant Lynch was able to get the child breathing using CPR. Three-year-old Bruce Bailey (ph) survived. Medical officials say the child probably would not have made it to the nearest hospital.

KEILAR: That is a good story.

And we have another one as well. Proof that it's never too late to fulfill a promise or a dream. For a Missouri man that means making sense of the lines and circles that had befuddled him for 70 years.

Here's Amy Hawley of CNN affiliate, KSHB.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really smart and he helps me a lot.

AMY HAWLEY, KSHB REPORTER: There's a first grader in St. Joe. His fellow students can't stop talking about, nor can their teacher.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love him.

HAWLEY: And so do parents and grandparents.

ALFRED WILLIAMS, LEARNING HOW TO READ: You better get in line and study hard.

HAWLEY: Alfred Williams (ph) heard those words standing inside of his head two years ago, standing outside of Mrs. Hamilton's first grade class.

WILLIAMS: We have to get over here and go to work.

HAWLEY: Today the 70-year-old, who never learned to read, has gone back to class.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're so smart, Alfred.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

HAWLEY: The sharecropper's son, born in the 1930s, earned a living for his family working in the fields. He never got a chance to go to school so he put a promise in his mother's head, I'll one day learn how to read.

The sacrifices then and the sacrifices today have paid off. He's learning how to read.

WILLIAMS: But I couldn't move my eyes ...

HAWLEY: His worn finger helps him follow the words and follow the exciting new journey into a whole world opening around him. HAMILTON: He said, do you know, Mrs. Hamilton, that you can look up at the grocery store and there are signs that tell you what's in that row so you don't have to walk and walk? And I was like -- that was the moment I knew he's going to go and I'm dedicated to this guy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are special to us.

WILLIAMS: Thank you. You're going to make me cry.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Well, Williams' story has attracted national attention, obviously. And the school has even set up a fund to help with his expenses.

The next hour of the CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.voxantshop.com