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Maine Town Fights Flood; Fewer Vaccinations Causes Measles Resurgence; Protesters Rally Over Immigration Concerns; D.C. Madam Suicide
Aired May 01, 2008 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: May Day in America. For the third straight year, a day of rallies, marches, and demonstrations for immigrant rights. We're live from coast to coast.
MELISSA LONG, CNN ANCHOR: And a breakout story: measles. Health experts are seeing spots -- way too many spots -- and maybe not enough shots. You need to hear the details, coming up this hour.
Hello, I'm Melissa Long at the CNN World Headquarters here in Atlanta. I'm in today for Kyra Phillips.
LEMON: And I'm Don Lemon.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
LONG: And we really have a bit of everything today on this first day of May. A river in Maine spilling into the streets of a small town. It is still winter in parts of the Rockies and the Black Hills. We have snow and a lot of it. And, yes, it is May 1.
Check out the snow. Look at that, I-70 there, heading west of Denver. We're going to talk about that in a moment.
And also in the southwest, it is fire season. And this one is burning near the Grand Canyon. Plus, the earth has been shaken again and again in Illinois and also in California.
LONG: You know, Melissa, we're going to check in with Chad, because there's another spring storm bearing down on the Central Plains.
Chad, enough already, I'm sure these folks are saying.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I mean, there are all kinds of things going on today. I mean, things that are just kind of way out of the ordinary. Going to be a couple of feet of snow in parts of Wyoming.
It's snowing out west of Denver. I had a live shot. I don't know if we still do. We can pop it up. It's not the shot we had before, but the whole area west of Denver, especially through the foothills, is snowing now. There you go. This is the shot. There's the shot going westbound, I-70, trying to get into the Eisenhower Tunnel. Not going to happen, at least for a while. So many crashes there. The interstate is shut down. Obviously, you can use 40, but that's no picnic.
And that is going to be a rainy day across the plains, stormy day, snowy day across parts of the upper Midwest and also into the mountains.
And then the fire danger down across the Deep South. This is the same fire danger we've had in the past couple of days. And that fire danger is going to be from almost about Amarillo right back down into New Mexico in places that have already had fires, that have hot spots that have sparks. And now we're going to see those fires pop up again. Winds are going to be 60 or 70 miles per hour.
LEMON: Gosh. All right, Chad, we're going to be checking in with you a lot today. I have a feeling of that. OK, thank you, Chad. We'll check with you later and to talk about those earthquakes, also out west, in the middle part of the country. Should we be worried about that? Our Chad Myers is going to tell us in a little bit.
Thanks again, Chad.
But right now, let's go back to Fort Kent, Maine, a community on the Canadian border that's seen a lot of flooding the past couple of days. It could have been worse, though.
And on the phone with us now is Lynette Miller. She is Maine's emergency management agency.
It could have been worse and the reason it could have been worse is because you expected the St. John River to crest higher, but it actually crested lower, right, Lynette?
LYNETTE MILLER, MAINE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Right. We had a difference of almost a foot in what we expected, and although a foot doesn't seem like a lot, that was enough to keep it on the river side of the levee that protects the downtown and not flow over the levee. So that was good news for us.
LEMON: OK. Tell us about the damage there and the sense of just how expensive any structural damages are there and what you're dealing with as far as infrastructure, utilities, those sorts of things.
MILLER: It's a little early to put a dollar figure on the damages. Infrastructure-wise, what we're most concerned about is the international bridge that goes between Fort Kent and New Brunswick, Canada. That bridge is closed and will remain closed until at least the weekend, when the water should go down enough to -- to inspect it.
We think we may have in the neighborhood of 600 folks that have been displaced from their homes. And until they can get back to their homes and we can begin to assess the damage, we won't really have a handle on what the impact of this has been.
LEMON: OK. And the most important part, what are these 600 folks doing? How are you housing them? Where are they staying?
MILLER: Well, this is a part of our state that is a very closely connected community. So the vast majority of these folks are with family and friends. We do have a shelter opened at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, but only about 20 folks have taken advantage of that. Most everyone else has -- has family or friends to go to.
LEMON: All right. Lynette Miller, Emergency Management Agency in Maine, we appreciate you joining us now. Thank you very much. Best of luck.
MILLER: Thank you.
LONG: Well, the kids may not want to hear about this next story. We're going to talk about vaccinations, the nasty jabs in the arm, elsewhere perhaps. But of course, we all endure them in our formative years. They are necessary. And today, we're hearing some serious concerns about a preventable disease.
Let's bring in our CNN medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, to help us understand more about some breaking news today.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Because measles, you don't really hear so much about that anymore. It was a childhood disease that you used to hear a lot about. But we are hearing about it again now, and much of the reason is because many people are choosing not to vaccinate their children because of autism concerns.
Let's take a look at how things have progressed over the years. In 2000, the CDC declared the measles was eliminated. But then in 2004, there were 37 cases; 2005, 66 cases; and then in 2008, in just four months, 64 cases.
Now in all but one of those cases, these people were not vaccinated. Some of them because they were babies under the age of 1, who were too young to be vaccinated, but some of them because the parents chose not to have them vaccinated.
Now again, since we haven't heard about measles, let's take a look at what things were like before this vaccine came along. Before the measles vaccine, three to four million people got measles every year. Four to five hundred people died every year; 48,000 people were hospitalized; and about 1,000 people developed chronic disabilities because of measles.
LONG: Zero cases in 2000.
COHEN: Right.
LONG: Eight years later, we're focusing on 64 cases.
COHEN: There you go.
LONG: All right. We look forward to hearing more about this a little later.
COHEN: Thanks.
LONG: Thanks, Elizabeth.
LEMON: All right. So if you're wondering who or what's to blame for soaring food prices, it's not just transportation. Take the price of bread. The owner of a family bakery told Congress today he's paying more for wheat because farmers can make more money growing corn for ethanol. He said he had to pass along the pain to his customers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD REINWALD, REINWALD'S BAKERY: In February we were forced to institute dramatic price increases across the board. Prices on bread items in particular increased significantly. A one-pound loaf of rye that sold for $2.65 in April 2007 today costs $3.45.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: All right. At that same hearing, the head of the farmer's union suggested the ethanol program is being unfairly singled out. He said much of the criticism comes from the oil industry.
And this one is not going to make you feel any better. Today, Exxon reported another earnings gusher: almost $11 billion for the first three months of the year. Believe it or not, that was short of earning expectations.
Exxon's earnings might have been larger, but the spiraling price of gas, which set another record today, isn't keeping pace with the rise in oil prices. Today, crude futures are down to under $111 a barrel.
Let's see what the Dow is doing right now. Right now let's see. The Dow is up 164 points. We'll check in with Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange with a -- in just a little bit for a full report.
LONG: Today is May 1 and Immigration Day, 2008, a colorful, passionate and divisive day. Marchers and their allies say immigrants, both legal and illegal, deserve better treatment and more legal protection.
Critics say people who came to the U.S. illegally have no business making demands.
You're looking at live pictures right now on both sides of your television of some marches that are already underway today in Milwaukee and in Chicago. And we will be covering today's events, really, from coast to coast from New York to L.A. and then back to our nation's capital in Washington.
Let's go to New York right now. And people are gathering this hour at Manhattan's Union Square for an immigration march and rally.
And that's where we find CNN's Jim Acosta -- Jim.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Melissa. Yes, protesters calling for an end to immigration raids and mass deportations will rally here in New York and in other big cities across the country today. Organizers launched these demonstrations back in 2006 to put pressure on the government to, as they put it, have a greater respect for undocumented workers. Not only undocumented workers but also legal immigrants.
Last year in Los Angeles, one of those demonstrations turned violent as protesters clashed with police. And because of that concern, as you're looking at live pictures of these demonstrations happening now in Milwaukee and Chicago, there will be a big police presence at all of these rallies from coast to coast.
Now, advocates for legal immigrants and opponents of illegal immigration have clashed over this issue for several years. Activists for the undocumented say that they serve a purpose in this economy, because they do many of the jobs that the Americans are unwilling to do.
But opponents of illegal immigration say that the undocumented are basically a burden on local governments, because they overwhelm local hospitals and local schools.
And against that backdrop of the immigration debate, the Bush administration has stepped up its immigration raids and deportations over the last year or so. But advocates for the undocumented say those raids are punishing on families, because oftentimes it's the bread winners of those families that are deported and sent out of the country -- Melissa.
LONG: Rallies, live pictures from Milwaukee; live pictures from Detroit, as well. Again, focusing on New York and the group you've been communicating with, what are they proposing in terms of a solution on not only the local but the federal level?
ACOSTA: Well, at the federal level, a lot of these advocates out here would like to see some sort of immigration reform bill passed through Congress. The Bush-backed immigration reform bill did not make it through the Congress. That would have established a guest worker program. That would have at least created some sort of path to citizenship for many of the undocumented -- millions of undocumented workers who are now in this country.
But many of these folks out here are also unhappy with what's happening at the local level. There are sheriff's departments from Virginia to Arizona where there are local law enforcement officials pressuring their officers and deputies to round up illegal immigrants and detain them based on their immigration status.
And because of that pressure, many of the folks out here today are calling for a rethinking of national immigration policy in this country so we don't see sort of that arbitrary enforcement of what is essentially federal law.
LONG: CNN's Jim Acosta live from that rally in Union Square, New York. Jim, thank you.
ACOSTA: You bet.
LONG: And we want to remind you, of course, we'll be covering, of course, the marches and rallies all around the country today here on television. You can also follow them all online today. Go to CNN.com/live. Our colleagues there from CNN.com unit, following it all for you, as well.
LEMON: Well, immigration reform may have failed but things are changing out there. We'll hear firsthand from the man in charge, Michael Chertoff, head of homeland security.
LONG: Days of sleeping out just to get a good spot. And no, we're not talking about concert tickets. Just ahead, the challenge of getting your child into the right pre-K.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right. Take a look at that. WLS of Chicago, our affiliate there, and obviously we don't have control of these pictures. But what's going on here, Union Park there, marching in Union Park and then through the streets of Chicago there. This is -- these are immigration marches.
Pro-immigration groups across the country today staging a series of marches today, pressing the White House and the Homeland Security Department to halt immigration raids, deportations, and to move -- and to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform.
On the right of your screen, that is the south side of Milwaukee where they're walking and marching, as well. This is happening -- happening all over the country, from the East Coast to the west. And we're showing you what's happening in the heartland now right in the Midwest.
Whenever talk turns to immigration, border security is sure to come up. Our Jeanne Meserve brought it up with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. And she joins us now from Washington.
Very interested to hear what he had to say, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we talked about comprehensive immigration reform. Despite the huge and heated debate over immigration, Congress has failed to grapple with the issue.
Last year, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was the administration's point man in the effort to craft and pass comprehensive immigration reform. And in an exclusive interview, I asked him what he thought it was going to take to develop a consensus on the issue and get legislation passed and signed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: ... the public. And a look back at 1986. They saw that there had been a package deal with an amnesty and promising enforcement. So that the amnesty was delivered, but the enforcement wasn't.
And so we came up with a comprehensive reform that involved some element of regularization, not an amnesty. I think the question was, how do we know you're going to enforce the law? Or are you just going to regularize these people and then more people will come in?
So really, what we've got to do is build that credibility with the American people. But I think in the long run the public has got to understand that the only real, enduring solution is one that deals with all elements of the problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MESERVE: Under Chertoff, DHS has increased efforts to find and remove illegal immigrants who have committed crimes. And there's also been an uptick in the number of raids on workplaces that employ illegal immigrants.
Some say it is absolutely the wrong approach. Others say the department should be even more aggressive. Chertoff says he is committed to enforcing the laws on the books and will do so, even if it makes some businesses unhappy or provokes lawsuits -- Don.
LEMON: OK. Well, part of the reason they are marching today is to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform, deportations and those workplace raids. Do those raids have any impact, Jeanne?
MESERVE: Well, clearly, they only raid a small fraction of the businesses who are employing illegal immigrants. And so some people say this is -- this is theater; it doesn't mean anything.
Chertoff argues that it does have an effect, that it is -- it's a warning shot across the bow to employers to tell them that they should not be hiring these people. Whether it really has that effect, the verdict is still out.
LEMON: All right. Homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve in Washington. Jeanne, thanks, as always.
So in this election year, where do the presidential hopefuls stand on immigration? Not a lot of differences, actually.
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama agree with John McCain on the big issues. All three favor increased funding for border security and better enforcement of existing laws. They also support a legal path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants. And all three voted in favor of a 700-mile fence along the border with Mexico.
Candidates Clinton and Obama, in fact, supported the immigration reform bill, co-sponsored by John McCain.
LONG: It is the worst neighborhood in a very dangerous capital. And U.S. forces on the offensive in Sadr City. We will be live from you from Baghdad, coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LONG: It is 20 minutes after the hour. Of course, we're a little bit more than halfway through the trading day. Yesterday at this time, we were talking about interest rates. Today, we're talking about earnings, big earnings. We'll talk about that coming up with Susan Lisovicz.
But first, let's just check on the markets, how they're trading right now. The Dow is up 164 points, trading at 12,985. And don't forget to follow the day in business. Of course, we're following for you, leading up to the closing bell. But you can also follow it online at CNNMoney.com.
LEMON: Absolutely. Knowledge is power, and you already know that or you wouldn't be watching CNN.
Well, it's true for everybody, even illegal immigrants, and CNN's Dan Lothian explains that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This isn't from the evening news. It's actors playing out an illegal immigrant's worst nightmare: a raid by immigration agents. The scene shifts to a dark living room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Immigration Customs Enforcement. Open the door.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
GRAPHIC: Don't sign anything. It could be a deportation order.
LOTHIAN (on-camera): This might sound like a tip to stay one step ahead of the law, to remain in this country illegally. But the group that produced the DVD says everyone in this country, legal and illegal, has rights.
ANGELICA SALAS, COALITION FOR HUMANE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS OF L.A.: You have the right not to provide information to authorities that could then lead to your deportation.
LOTHIAN (voice-over): But immigration and customs enforcement officials say advice like that only complicates the government's job.
JOHN TORRES, IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENTS: When we knock on the door, people refuse to answer that door. And they refuse to cooperate with us. And so it requires us to potentially have agents spend the entire day there, waiting for the person to come out.
LOTHIAN: And more hurdles for law enforcement in this scene, when a driver fails to cooperate with a police officer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have a green card?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will not answer that.
LOTHIAN: The lesson here: don't give more information than you have to.
SALAS: Ultimately, it might mean that you still will be deported, but give yourself a chance.
LOTHIAN: That's why there's this DVD, handouts with cartoons and meetings with advice for illegal immigrants.
ALI NOORANI, MASSACHUSETTS IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE ADVOCACY: We're not saying run; we're not saying hide. We're saying know your rights.
TORRES: If they're teaching people as to their specific, individual rights, that is one thing. But it's entirely a different matter to teach people how to evade the law or to stay here in furtherance of violation of the law.
LOTHIAN: A tug-of-war between the government, trying to enforce the law, and advocates, fighting to keep immigrants from being deported.
Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LONG: You're probably not going to be surprised to hear that big oil is making big money. The world's largest publicly-traded company earned nearly $11 billion -- $11 billion -- in the first three months of this year.
Susan Lisovicz is live for us on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on the details of this earnings report from none other than ExxonMobil -- Susan.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Melissa. That's right.
ExxonMobil's first quarter profits are the second biggest corporate profits on record. Second only to itself, that is, from the previous quarter, which sets the all-time high. Nearly $11 billion, as we mentioned, Melissa. That's nearly $1,400 per second.
But believe it or not, Exxon's profits actually missed Wall Street's estimates. Why is that? Because gas prices, as high as they, are haven't kept up with the surging oil prices. Exxon makes more gas than it produces oil so it, too, has to pay more for oil. And in fact, Exxon is trying to become more energy-efficient as a result.
Exxon shares are down as a result. Right now down about three percent. Chevron, which reports tomorrow, shares are down two percent. But the Dow is up nicely, up 169 points right now. The NASDAQ is up 68 points. Why is that? Well, oil prices are down sharply, down more than $2. 50. And Melissa, this is a trend we've seen all this week. The dollar has been strengthening. We talked a lot about that yesterday, with the Fed's signal or hint, perhaps, that they may pause in cutting interest rates. Oil prices have been coming down. Dropped $2 yesterday, $3 the day before.
But ten years ago, I just wanted to throw this out. I just found this out on the Energy Information Agency website. Oil prices were trading at under $15 a barrel in 1998, Melissa. Chew on that for a while.
LONG: Fifteen bucks a barrel? That's amazing.
LISOVICZ: And that's what Exxon says, you know, these things move in cycles just like the economy, that there are times that oil is too cheap for it to make a lot of profits. And right now it's benefiting from the oil boom.
LONG: I'd like to go back to the cycle when they were $15 a barrel again. I'm sure a lot of people would, too.
And let's go back to something else you said. You said that gas prices have not been keeping up with oil prices. But people may say, how is that possible? We have yet another record high.
LISOVICZ: That's right. And for those of you keeping count at home, it is the 17th straight record. AAA says now the nationwide average gallon of gas is $3.62.
We'll put that in perspective for you, too. Compared to other countries, though, gasoline prices here are downright cheap. If you look at a new study that was conducted on 155 countries, U.S. ranked 145th. The high end, as you see, Sierra Leone, $18 a gallon. Europe, $8 a gallon.
On the low end, look no further than OPEC, Venezuela, 12 cents. Saudi Arabia, 43 cents. Of course, this study doesn't consider different salaries, exchange rates and things like that. But one thing I can say for sure. This the reason why it hurts so much, is that we use a lot of oil, about three times more oil than Europe.
LONG: Of course.
LISOVICZ: So that's why it hurts so much.
In the next hour, we're going to talk about food prices. They've been rising, too. And we're going to put that into perspective for you, as well, Melissa. Back to you.
LONG: OK. Looking forward to hearing more about the congressional testimony today on food prices, as well. Thanks, Susan.
LISOVICZ: You're welcome. LEMON: Well, it's been five years since President Bush's speech in front of the big "mission accomplished" banner. We'll tell what a new poll shows Americans think about President Bush and the Iraq war today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon, live from the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta.
LONG: And, hello, I'm Melissa Long, in today for Kyra Phillips.
You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.
LEMON: All right. We have some developing news that is just into the CNN NEWSROOM. And reading this. It's a release actually from the police department and it involve the D.C. Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey.
It's believed by the police department in Florida, and I'm going to read it now, that she has committed suicide. The Tarpon Springs, Florida, police are saying that they believe, no positive ID has been made yet, that they found the body of what they believe to be Deborah Jeane Palfrey there at her mother's home.
Now here's what they are saying. They said that the body, believed to be 52-year-old Deborah Jeane Palfrey, was found in a shed near her mother's mobile home. It happened this morning. She left a suicide note but police would not disclose the contents of that.
She was staying with her mother there. Located on the west side of the mobile home is where they found her. And they also said a handwritten note found on the scene described the victim's intention to take her life and foul play does not appear to be involved in that.
The body, they say, is believed to be a woman in her 50s, that is the same sort of type of body, weight, and age and looks like it could be that of Deborah Jeane Palfrey. But again, the police department there not saying specifically that it's her until they do an investigation and, obviously, an autopsy and identify the body.
Just to give you some background on this. Palfrey was convicted on April 15th by a federal jury of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington's political elite. You may remember this, including Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, a Republican senator there, he was caught up in that. Other names came out of that. And then she went to court and then was convicted on April 15th.
But, again, a body believed to be that of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, a.k.a the D.C. madam, found in Florida at her mother's home, near her mother's mobile home. And again, they described the victim's identity there or identification or intention to take her life in a suicide note and they believe no foul play in all of this.
We'll continue to investigate and check with our source there in Florida to bring you some absolute confirmation on this and other details as we get them here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
LONG: I've got some other breaking news, but this time out of Iraq. A suicide bomber striking a wedding party. CNN's Arwa Damon joins us now live with the latest.
It's now 8:30 in the evening in Baghdad -- Arwa.
ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Melissa, and that attack took place a few hours ago and it was, in fact, a double suicide bombing.
Here's what happened. This wedding convoy was traveling in the city, a town known as Balad Ruz. It's north of Baghdad in the volatile Diyala province. And as this convoy was driving on the main road through a marketplace, one suicide bomber detonated.
And then as people in the market gathered around, as security forces arrived on the scene to try to secure the site, emergency workers, the second suicide bomber detonated. And one of them is said to have been a female. And we have been seeing a fairly disturbing trend with more and more female suicide bombers coming out and targeting the Iraqi populous.
This is an attack that -- of the same nature that the U.S. military tends to blame on groups like al Qaeda here and is one that really reinforces to the Iraqi people the fact that there is quite a long way ahead before the country is truly safe.
LONG: Arwa, one other thing, one other developing story right now, there's a delegation of Iraqis in Iran. They want some answers about violence in their country.
What can you tell us about that?
DAMON: That's right, Melissa. In fact, they are going to Iran with what they are saying is concrete evidence of Iranian influence on a Shiite militias here. Many here are calling the government's new confrontation, military confrontation with Shia militias on the streets of Iraq and these stronger -- the stronger rhetoric towards Iran as Iraq's new chapter.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAMON (voice-over): In Baghdad, the standoff continues. The Mehdi militia, loyal to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on one side, U.S. and Iraqi government forces on the other. And in Tehran, Iraqi officials present what they describe as hard evidence of Iranian involvement in the fighting.
This confrontation on two fronts is one the Iraqi leadership hope to avoid. But its decision to take on Shia militia has forced the government to take a tough stance with its neighbor. For years, Iran has had a role supporting Shia factions as they vie for control over Iraq's oil rich southern provinces. Basra streets teamed with Shia militias, armed with weapons believed to come from Iran. The Mehdi militia, the most prominent of them. Government security forces, also Shia, were often bystanders, impotent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people who have running the city where militias and outlaws.
DAMON: With provincial elections set for October, the stakes became even higher. When the Basra clashes broke out in March between the Mehdi militia and Iraq security forces, Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki took decisive action and staked his office on the outcome. He ordered an offense against the militias.
The Mehdi militia responded by taking the fight to its other stronghold, especially Baghdad's Sadr City. From the sanctuary of Baghdad's allies and streets, Shia militants have fired more than 700 mortars and rockets, many aimed at the heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government and the U.S. embassy.
The crackdown on Shia militants uncovered numerous weapon caches with what U.S. and Iraqi forces say are Iranian markings. Some as fresh as February of this year. Last month, Baghdad confronted Tehran with the evidence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are trying to use our influence there and show them the proof. By the end of the day we told them, very plainly, we're not going to look into this (ph). We have enough information to convince us that Iranian institutions are involved in Iraq. Whoever they are.
DAMON: The U.S. military is now calling Iranian-backed Shia extremists the number one threat to Iraq's stability.
Iran has always denied any sort of military involvement in Iraq. On Wednesday, an Iraqi delegation went to Tehran, they say, to present further evidence of Iran's support for Shia militias in Iraq. Something al-Maliki says must end now.
And it is a moment of truth for Nuri al-Maliki. If he is to assert his authority and that of his government, this is a battle he knows he must win.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DAMON: Al-Maliki is arguably in a position of power right now that he actually has not enjoyed in the past. The clashes in Basra, the stand that he's taking against the Mehdi militia, and even the delegations that are going and directly confronting Iran have really served to unite Iraq's divided government behind al-Maliki. What he now knows he has to do is try to capitalize on his power. But everything is coming at a devastating civilian cost.
LONG: Arwa Damon live for us from Baghdad with updates on two very important stories.
Arwa, thank you. LEMON: Well, maybe President Bush ought to be thankful that he can't run again. Our new poll suggests he'd have a very, very hard time running. Senior political analyst Bill Schneider has the numbers for us.
And, Bill, what do they show?
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: They show the president is in very serious trouble and would have a lot of difficulty getting elected if he could run again. His latest job approval rating is 28 percent. Yikes. That's one of the lowest we've ever seen for any president.
Look at that disapproval figure. Seventy-one percent disapprove of the job that President Bush is doing in office. That is the record. It is the highest disapproval rating ever recorded for any president since these measurements started to be taken regularly under Harry Truman more than 50 years ago.
It's never been above 70 percent. It was 66 percent when Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974. Sixty-seven percent was the record. That's what Truman held at the beginning of 1952. Bush is the first president to have the, shall we say, distinction of having a disapproval rating of more than 70 percent.
LEMON: OK. And then, Bill, this poll also revealed how people feel about the war in Iraq. Tell us about that.
SCHNEIDER: Well, the war in Iraq is one of the reasons for that disapproval number being so high because right now only 30 percent of Americans say that they favor the war in Iraq. Two-thirds of Americans, more than two-thirds, oppose the war. The war, the economy, both are dragging down President Bush's approval ratings.
And interestingly, we're finding about 30 percent support the president, about 30 percent support the war, about 30 percent have favorable views of the economy. They all go together and it's a very bad report indeed.
LEMON: Bill Schneider, thank you.
LONG: Four thousand and sixty-five Americans, service men and women, have lost their lives in the Iraq War and we now salute our fallen heros.
Nineteen-year-old Marine Lance Corporal Jordan C. Haerter died last week during a suicide bomb attack in al Anbar province. A truck filed with explosives approached a checkpoint and ignored the orders to stop. Haerter shot the driver, causing the truck to swerve and miss several other soldiers at the checkpoint. But that truck blew up and Haerter and another Marine were killed.
Army Specialist Arturo Huerta-Cruz was born in Mexico as his family moved to the Clearwater, Florida, area when he was just 10. He joined the U.S. Army because he thought it would help with his education. He was killed April 14 by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Army officials are working to grant Huerta-Cruz posthumous citizenship.
Army Staff Sergeant Jeremiah E. McNeal was killed April 6 in Baghdad when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. He has served two deployments in Iraq as a National Guardsman. Now he joined the National Guard to help support his mother and three younger siblings. He leaves behind his wife, Nakina (ph).
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LONG: Well, if you're sick, you go to the doctor and you hope to get better. Of course, that's the idea. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Some people, in fact, leave hospitals worse off than when they actually arrived. Some people don't leave at all. Our CNN medical correspondent has some vital information on you and your loved ones on becoming an empowered patient.
We should all be empowered. Ask a lot of questions.
COHEN: Oh, absolutely. In hospitals, a lot of people don't know this, but 99,000 people a year die of infections they got in the hospital.
LONG: That's terrible.
COHEN: They came in fine -- I mean they came in sick with something else and they left with an infection acquired in the hospital. But, of course, there are times you have to go to the hospital and so you don't want to not go to the hospital if you really need to.
So what can you do to avoid becoming a victim of hospital germs? First of all, ask anyone who comes near you, if they're going to touch you, they need to wash their hands in your presence. Now this is sort of a hard thing to ask. You kind of feel uncomfortable telling a health professional to wash their hands. In our column on CNN.com/health, we have some fun and humorous ways to ask them to make it easier for everyone involved.
Also, ask if you really need that catheter. If you're going to be catheterized, we're talking about a urinary catheter or a central line catheter, ask if you really need it and get it out of you or have them get it out of you as soon as possible.
Also, remind the nurse about preoperative antibiotics. For many operations they want you to have an IV antibiotic put in right before they wheel you in for surgeries, but a lot of times they get forgotten. In fact, there was a study that shows that only 50 percent of time do people get preoperative antibiotics, the right antibiotic, and have it discontinued at the right time.
In other words, only 50 percent of the time it's done right, 50 percent of the time it's done wrong. Obviously a preoperative antibiotic is very important.
LONG: That's interesting. And it's good that you're outlining all those questions and items to keep in mind because I think a lot of people get intimidated when they go to the doctor's office.
COHEN: Oh, absolutely. And this is a very preventable problem. I mean, it's a huge problem, but there are some -- unlike other problems like world peace where you can't do anything, you can do something about this.
LONG: OK. We were talking about hospital stays. But what about a doctor's office? You can also pick up an infection there.
COHEN: You can and there's a couple of ways that that happens. It's much less common than infections in hospitals. First of all, sometimes doctors and nurses reuse syringes. It doesn't happen very often. Since 1999, 14 outbreaks of hepatitis because they reused syringes over and over again. The most recent one, of course, is the one in Nevada that we've all heard quite a bit about.
So you can say to the doctor, gosh, I read in the newspaper, I've seen on CNN that people are reusing syringes. You don't do that, do you? And hopefully they'll own up to doing it, right.
LONG: Put the blame on (INAUDIBLE).
COHEN: Right. Exactly. Blame me. That's fine with me. I'll take that blame. If you have children, when you go to the pediatricians office, they provide you often with toys and books. No. Do you know how many kids have had their grubby hands all over those? Bring your own toys and books.
LONG: Good idea. OK. So as long as we're going to place the blame on you, any other advice that we can place the blame on you for?
COHEN: No, I think that's about it. But on CNN.com/health, there are some other things that -- sort of ways to make it easier to ask health professionals to do the right thing.
LONG: OK, (INAUDIBLE) empowered patient and that's your ongoing page. You can find it here at the medical pages of CNN.com/empoweredpatient.
Elizabeth, thanks for empowering us.
LEMON: We want to update you on our breaking news here. Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who is the D.C. madam, and this according to the police department there in Florida, they believe that they found her body and that it is a possible suicide. They're still waiting for confirmation on a positive identification. And while we wait on that, we want to go now to our Washington D.C., producer, Paul Courson. He joins us now by telephone from Washington.
What can you add to this, Paul?
PAUL COURSON, CNN PRODUCER: Well, for those of us who covered the runup to her trial that led to her conviction in April 15, it surprises some of us that, if this winds up being true, that it should end this way. She's a fighter and the -- I guess the best example that comes to mind for myself is, when the telephone records came out from the business that she ran and the records themselves were pedaled in such a way to benefit her as a business woman.
She needed to raise money to help with her defense. And during the runup to the trial itself, she actually filed papers with the court that she be allowed to sell some of her stock investments that had been attached by prosecutors to possibly pay off any fine or other restitution that might have been involved because she said the value of the stock was going down. So this kind of nuts and bolts detail just struck us as someone that really had a handle on things.
LEMON: Yes. And here you talk about that and she's, you know, claiming that everything that she was doing was legal, the name of her business, Pamela Martin and Associates at the time, right?
COURSON: Yes. It ran for more than a dozen years in what was considered a ring around the D.C. area. Some of it was based at a telephone number in Maryland that then was forwarded to her primary business location in California. And apparently it involved quite a lot of people coming through the D.C. area.
LEMON: We've talked about a number of people, Paul, who were caught up in this. And David Vitter, who was a Republican senator from New Orleans, was one of them. And then also when these phone records came out, there were a lot of people in Washington who were concerned that their names might show up on this list as well.
COURSON: Yes. And we thought that was possibly part of her motivation in trying to, as I put it, it was my word, to pedal the telephone records around. Clearly she wanted the telephone records out there. But what existed was a tally of telephone numbers without the names or any other customers data attached to it. So she needed help and, of course, she turned to the media to try and track backward who those telephone numbers may have been linked to.
LEMON: OK. All right, Paul Courson, who is our producer in Washington, D.C. And just so we -- in case people are joining us, I want to reiterate what happened. If we can get her pictures back.
This is according to the Tarpon Springs Police Department in Florida. And this is a press release from them. And they're saying on Thursday, which is today, at approximately 10:52, officers from their department responded to the address which is in question here and they say that they are investigating an apparent suicide at that address of a white female that appears to be in her early 50s and her identification there has not been confirmed but detectives believe, believe -- and I stress that -- the victim to be Deborah Jeane Palfrey.
They give her date of birth here and they say the alleged D.C. madam, who was reportedly staying at that location with her mother. And they give her mother's name here. I don't want to put it here on television. Her mother who owns that residence. They said they found the diseased in a small storage shed located on the west side of the mobile home. Also, they say, they found handwritten notes on the scene that describe the victim's intention to take her life and foul play does not appear to be involved.
As soon as we get more information on this, we'll bring it to you right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
LONG: This morning, at the break of dawn, the big moment finally came. We're going to tell you what this crush of humanity is all about. The things that people will do for their children.
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LEMON: Well this week some folks here in Atlanta may have flashed back to camping out for concert tickets. They bundled up in sleeping bag, in an around the clock vigil. But for what?
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LEMON (voice-over): This morning, days of waiting in line finally paid off for some Atlanta parents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel pretty relieved.
LEMON: The state-run pre-kindergarten program in Atlanta Public Schools is free and holds enrollment on a first come, first serve basis. Many in this group had been waiting in line since Monday morning for the 20 coveted spots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been rough. It's been cold. It's been cold. We are fortunate we have a pop-up camper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're going to go camping, it's better to do it in the mountains than on the roadside, but it was all right.
LEMON: This is not the first year that tents, campers, and barbecue grills have gone up around this school, which has a reputation for strong test scores. But parents say it was the first time that the district tried to stop it. In a letter, the superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools called the practice of camping out unfair and asked the police help prevent it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just don't understand how you can like change your rules three days after people camping.
LEMON: Around the country, extreme measures to get into preschools and kindergarten classes have become more common. Some selected schools require essays from the parents with applications. Other stick to the first come, first-served plan.
Recently, some San Mateo, California, parents planned to camp out. But once they arrived, were actually given numbers to hold their place in line. And in some exclusive, private pre-kindergartens in New York, parents have reportedly made hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in hopes of helping their little ones get in.
Not the case for the parents here in Atlanta. Those who didn't get the spots they wanted for their kids will now have to move to plan b.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've heard there are two spots open at my next opportunity, my next choice. So we'll see how we do. And, if not, we'll move on to the third and so on.
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LONG: American war casualties. They were dropping and now they're not. We're going to have April's numbers for you and the Pentagon's response as well.
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LONG: May Day marches in the immigration nation. It is a day to stand up, join in and speak out on both sides of the fence. And we are watching all the rallies all over America.
LEMON: And also this, Melissa. We're tracking down the lost boys of polygamy. Male teens are few and far between in the group accused of pairing young girls with middle age men. You'll meet a former lost boy and a doctor who tries to help.
