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Obama to Address Attempting Bombing on Plane; Yemen Connection: al Qaeda Active in the Arabian Peninsula; Holiday Spending Up from 2008; New Credit-Card Rules to Aid Consumers; Crackdown in Iran on Anti-Government Protests

Aired December 28, 2009 - 13:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now let's quickly get you to the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM with Kyra Phillips. We missed you. Welcome back.

KYRA PHILLIPS, HOST: Thank you. Hope you had a great holiday, Tony.

HARRIS: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Good to see you.

We are pushing forward. It's a long way from Yemen to the outskirts of Detroit, but the landscape of terror is changing, al Qaeda's adapting, and the U.S. is watching.

After the clashes, the collars. Iranian reformers reportedly rounded up for protesting on a Shiite holiday. The government says it's undignified.

And a football coach with a brain cyst. Urban Meyer isn't stepping down just stepping away, but is stress what's making him sick? I'll ask a neurosurgeon.

We are pushing forward on these stories right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Three days now after a young Nigerian allegedly tried to blow a hole in a U.S. airliner, one line after maintaining the system worked, the secretary of homeland security says the system did not work, and the administration wants to know why.

We all want to know why a man on a terror watch list wasn't on a no-fly list and why his explosives weren't detected until he allegedly tried to detonate them. President Obama is expected to make some public comment sometime this afternoon from Hawaii, but a court hearing scheduled for next hour in Detroit has been postponed for reasons unknown until January 8. The feds were seeking DNA from the suspect.

Let's go ahead and start in Hawaii with a vacationing president and an uproar from critics who wanted to hear from him a lot sooner. Our senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, is out there, too.

So Ed, what's the president going to say?

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we expect him to speak for a few moments. It's not going to be for a few hours from now. And basically, this will be his first chance to address this attempted terror attack. He had been leaving it to others.

But as you can see, as you noted, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was on some Sunday shows, including CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" yesterday, and really did not necessarily help matters for this administration, first saying the system did work, then cleaning up that, essentially, today and saying it did not work, at least before the incident, which she meant yesterday when you look at her full quote.

She was referring to the fact that, once the suspect tried to detonate the bomb, the crew, the passengers of the plane, certainly sprung into action and did everything that would be expected of them to snuff this out.

But that's not what the public is looking for. The public is looking for answers to two big questions.

No. 1, how did the suspect even get these explosives on that airplane. And No. 2, why was he on the airplane in the first place when he was on at least some sort of a terrorist database with the U.S. government?

And so the president has ordered investigations into those two questions. We're expecting in the statement, he'll give us some sort of an update on where those reviews are, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. So why did it take him so long to speak publicly? Is it because of this criticism that he's been receiving?

HENRY: Well, in fairness to the president, his approach, generally, when you talk to his aides, is to not jump into something immediately. Just sort of let it play out and make sure that you don't sort of make the situation worse. Maybe even in the initial hours that you don't give the potential terrorists there even more attention.

But -- and I can tell you, when the incident first played out, aides were suggesting to us that the president didn't need to say anything. He could let others like Janet Napolitano do it.

But you're right: he faced a lot of criticism from Republicans like Peter King, saying, "You need to get out there. You need to reassure the nation that air security is safe."

Perhaps they heard some of that criticism, but also, perhaps, given the fact that one of the president's messengers, the homeland security secretary, didn't necessarily do a great job of explaining this to the public and reassuring them, now you've got to put out the president to sort of clean it up, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Ed Henry in Honolulu. Ed, thanks so much. Now the Yemen connection. Al Qaeda may or may not be on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is thriving.

Consider this: the suspect in the Christmas day airline scare claims his explosives and instructions on how to use them came from Yemen. Of the 198 inmates still detained at Guantanamo Bay, almost half are from Yemen. And the Muslim cleric who corresponded with the Army psychiatrist charged in the Ft. Hood rampage, yes, lives in Yemen.

Joining me now to shed more light on all of this, Thomas Hegghammer. He's a terrorism recruitment expert and member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University.

So Tom, are we missing the boat here? We're at war in Afghanistan. We're at war in Iraq. Should we be at war in Yemen?

THOMAS HEGGHAMMER, TERRORISM RECRUITMENT EXPERT: Well, I think it's fairly clear that Yemen has been ignored too long. I don't think it's an either/or issue here. We should be able to confront al Qaeda in both Afghanistan and Iraq and Yemen.

And the problem in Yemen is that Yemen has been on the periphery. It's -- just by the way (ph) strategic oil interests and involved. And it's a poor and a country that's been relatively uninteresting to other countries for too long. So al Qaeda has been able to set up a fairly strong opposition there.

PHILLIPS: But here's what's interesting, is that al Qaeda started in Yemen. Right? And there's the connection to Osama bin Laden and the connection to his father. So why is it that we have ignored Yemen? Why haven't we kept eyes on this region?

HEGGHAMMER: Well, I'm not sure that -- we would consider al Qaeda started in Yemen. But certainly, many Yemenis have joined al Qaeda over the years, and many al Qaeda operatives have enjoyed a certain freedom of operations there.

And it has to do with a weak central authority in the country. And in recent days, that authority has been further weakened by a deep economic crisis and a large insurgency, Shiite insurgency in the north of the country and arrest in the south and in the mix of all this, al Qaeda has grown since 2006.

PHILLIPS: So what do we need to do, if you had the opportunity to advise the president? Because we haven't heard very much about Yemen until now, and we're seeing the connection between this alleged terrorist onboard this aircraft coming into the United States and how he talked about al Qaeda and Yemen and gave all these details to authorities. What should we be doing as a country right now with regard to targeting Yemen, which is obviously a threat?

HEGGHAMMER: Well, I'm afraid I don't have a very clear answer to that. We certainly we need multiple (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We need more development aid to the Yemenis and more assistance to the Yemeni government.

We also need more direct intelligence support so that the government can take out the most hardcore al Qaeda elements.

And perhaps most importantly, though, is to encourage regional -- countries in the region, in particular Saudi Arabia, to get more heavily involved because they can help in the counterterrorism effort much more discretely, than the U.S. can.

PHILLIPS: Point well made, because it is a Saudi national and former detainee at Guantanamo Bay that has been working side by side with AQAP.

Tom Hegghammer, I always appreciate your insight today. Thanks so much.

And before we move on, news you can use. The next time you're aboard an airline flight, you may see extra pat downs at security checkpoints, and for your final hour in the air you won't be allowed to keep items in your lap, and you'll have to stay in your seat. Changes will vary depending on your airport and the flight you're taking.

So what's your new year's resolution? Maybe it ought to be to fire your credit card company. Interested in lower interest rates? Yes, thought so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Those familiar words have been around in one form or another since 1892. But it wasn't until this day in 1945 that Congress formally adopted them as a national Pledge of Allegiance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Notice how the stores felt just a little more crowded this year than last? It wasn't just you. New numbers out today suggest that shoppers were more comfortable dropping some cash around this time.

Alison Kosik joins us from New York.

So Alison, these figures are, I guess, a bit of a belated gift for retailers, right? ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are. Although, you know, we may not be able to call it a turnaround yet. But you know, this is definitely an improvement.

The first hard figures on sales come from MasterCard's spending polls. They show holiday spending rose more than 3.5 percent from a year ago. Of course, what we're doing is comparing it to a horrible 2008, when we saw sales tumble by almost 2.5 percent.

Still, the bounce in spending is really great news for the retail sector, which managed to avoid repeating last year's disaster, despite tight credit, high credit card interest rates and double-digit unemployment.

MasterCard says online sales were really a hot spot, surging more than 15 percent between November 1 and December 24. We saw consumers buy consumer electronics, footwear and jewelry, both online and in stores. And fortunately, that major winter storm that blasted the East Coast the Saturday before Christmas didn't take much of a toll, with shoppers making up the lost day by hitting the stores before the storm came and immediately after. You know, they were truly determined shoppers, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. So how do you get those determined shoppers to keep coming through the doors well into January and beyond?

KOSIK: Yes, and that is really the big question. It's definitely going to be a big hurdle for these retailers, partly because many of them have kept their inventory so lean so there's not as much merchandise to put on sale.

There's another negative. It doesn't look like gift-card sales were very strong this year, and that's a big worry, since many experts consider gift-card redemption the lifeblood of the post-Christmas season, since shoppers typically spend more than the value of, you know, what's on the card.

Even this past weekend, which was a great time to find deep discounts, people just weren't redeeming them. There's a spokeswoman for one mall operator who tells the A.P. that gift-card redemption rates averaged just 10 percent on Saturday and Sunday. In good years, those rates run between 30 and 40 percent. So you see that difference there.

But overall, Kyra, you know, the picture is a lot brighter than it was a year ago, maybe even brighter than it was a few weeks ago. MasterCard compares the state of the economy between this year and last, saying we've gone all the way from critical to stable condition.

And, you know, as we talked about before, the reason this is so critical is that consumer spending is going to lead stores to restock their shelves, and that can prompt manufacturers to start hiring again. It's that good domino effect that we want to see happen -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Alison.

KOSIK: Sure.

PHILLIPS: Well, you may want to think about some fresh plastic for 2010. Let's talk about this with personal finance editor Gerri Willis.

Gerri, there will be new credit-card rules, come February, right? So how can people take advantage of them?

GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: That's right, Kyra. Credit-card companies will have to play by those new rules in 2010, but until then, it's likely you've gone through the wringer with your old card. It's estimated you've paid $110 in interest alone this year. And for all Americans, that number is closer to $10 billion.

The worst offenders here: Capital One, Citi, Discover. Card holders there were socked with a 32 percent rate increase since January. Fortunately, the end of those rate hikes is coming soon. The House voted to enforce tougher credit-card rules, with the Credit Card Act, by February 2010.

So what can you do now to get a better card? Well, local community banks typically have rates that are 1 to 2 percentage points lower than big-bank cards. Here's some things you should ask for before signing up for a new card. Interest rates below 10 percent. That's if you have a good credit score. Fees that are capped. And 25-day grace periods give you a little bit longer time to pay off that bill -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Well, what cards are at the top of the list for experts right now?

WILLIS: Well, we went to CardRatings.com to get a list of cards that have good terms. Here they are. Pentagon Federal Low-Rate Visa Gold. Yes, it has an APR of 12.49 percent and low balance transfer fees.

Simmons First Visa Platinum. The APR there, 7.25 percent. There is no balance transfer.

And IberiaBank Visa Classic. They have a 25-day grace period, low balance transfer fees -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Gerri, thanks for the tips.

Next hour Gerri's going to tell us how credit-card companies are trying to disguise opt-out offers as junk mail. Isn't that nice? We're going to talk about that next hour right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Well, that Christmas week storm that clobbered the Plains, it's not through yet, and it's keeping the emergency room busy. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: In South Carolina, four men face charges of first- degree lynching in the beating death of a 42-year-old man. Deputies say that Ronnie Gene Wallace of Charlotte died after he was hit in the head with 2-by-4 boards and sticks. That actually happened Christmas night.

First-degree lynching in South Carolina is defined as an attack by a mob resulting in death.

Taking a bite out of the Big Apple is a lot less dangerous these days. The NYPD is expected to announce a steep drop in murders and violent crime stats. So far this year, New York has had the fewest number of homicides since 1962.

Also down in New York City, iPhone sales via the Web. And it's not because folks don't want them; it's actually the opposite. AT&T suspended online iPhone sales a few days ago, and we're not sure why. No app for that.

More stories in 20 minutes.

Two days after Oklahoma City's biggest snow ever, they're pulling themselves out, but many people are slipping and falling and winding up in the E.R. Paramedics say that they're fielding even more service calls after the storm, as people hurt themselves on the ice. Nine hundred and twenty-five calls for help in a one-hour -- 100-hour span.

The Great Lakes and New England now dealing with what's left of the Christmas-Day snowstorm on the plains.

Meteorologist Karen Maginnis in the CNN severe weather center today.

Hey, Karen.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: All right. Karen, thanks.

Well, it's that time to reflect on the year that's about to close, and we asked our team of CNN correspondents from around the world which story this year made the biggest impression on them. From Baghdad, Beijing and London, CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom, John Vause and Paula Newton share their respective thoughts on the year that was.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MOHAMMED JAMJOOM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Mohammed Jamjoom in Baghdad.

The story that made the biggest impression on me in 2009 was when we visited Baghdad's DNA lab in November. Now we went to Baghdad's DNA lab in order to do a story about how DNA testing is being used here as the latest and most scientifically-advanced tool to try and identify human remains. The day that we went there, we met up with Mariah (ph). She's a 4-year-old. She and her family were there at the lab in order to try to find her father. He'd been missing at that point since twin suicide car bombings had torn through Central Baghdad in late October. Sadly, the next week they found his remains.

Now, doctors tell us the reason that this testing is so important here isn't just because it brings dignity to the dead in Iraq but because it brings healing and closure to the families of the missing.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm John Vause in a poor neighborhood here in Beijing. And one story which seemed to get very little attention this year was a report done by the United Nations, analyzing how much money rich nations had spent bailing out the banks and other institutions: a total of 18 trillion U.S. dollars.

And then they compared that with how much financial assistance poor countries received over almost 50 years, and that total: 2 trillion U.S. dollars in all those years.

It was a staggering contrast, especially considering that those poor countries did not cause the global financial crisis but were now paying the highest price. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, more than a billion people are now on the brink of starvation.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So we're here at the space exploration exhibit at London's Science Museum to talk about a story that I think was the most underreported of the year, and that's the fact that NASA scientists now believe they've confirmed there's water on the moon.

You know, they tried this dozens of times over the decades, to try and confirm it. This time they shot a satellite onto the lunar surface and were able to confirm from the plume that came up that, yes, it did have water inside of it.

Now, what's so interesting about this is that explorers have said this is one of the most significant scientific discoveries since the '60s, and yet, we didn't really hear that much about it. You know, one editorialist in "The New York Times" went as far as to say that he thinks maybe we're too distracted, that humanity literally is too distracted to be inspired by this great discovery.

So anyway, it caught my attention. I'm just reminding everyone; apparently they have confirmed there is water on the moon. Paula Newton, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And we're going to hear from more of our chronic -- correspondents, rather, all around the world on their reflections, their favorite stories throughout the past year. That will be all this week and also coming up in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.

Also a story ahead, another big international story this year. Protests in Iran. That story is far from over. More protests in Tehran, triggering a government crackdown. I'm right here at CNN's Iran desk. We're going to talk with Reza Sayah right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: And we're pushing forward now on anti-government violence in Iran just one day after these deadly protests. The government continues to lockup political activists. That's the word, at least, from the opposition Web site. I'm here at CNN's Iran desk with international correspondent Reza Sayah. He's been following this for us.

Well, I've been watching you for the past 48 hours. What's the latest?

REZA SAYAH: And what an amazing 48 hours. What we've seen happen on Saturday and Sunday could be another turning point to the post-election turmoil. I mean, the protests, the clashes we saw turned parts of Tehran into what looks like a war zone today.

Let's go ahead and take a look at video coming into CNN today. This is video from Iran's state-run news agency showing Tehran Monday morning: debris littering the streets; security vehicles, their charred remains.

The protests over the weekend started on Saturday, culminated on Sunday. And based on amateur video, these were some of the most intense protests we saw. Witnesses telling us that security forces were out in force to deliver a harsh and brutal crackdown, and this was the aftermath. Protesters injured with bloody faces. Witnesses telling us oftentimes security forces were taking their batons and smashing protesters in their head. That could explain why a lot of these amateur videos we're seeing showed protesters with injuries.

But these protesters did not back down. In fact, there were times when they fought back, attacking security forces. Look at this dramatic piece of video. This shows protesters surrounding what appear to be terrified security officers in their riot gear. One of the security personnel telling the protesters, "We are sorry."

But you see the protestor, one of them, pointing the finger, demanding that these security personnel, in Farsi, to say that Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, is a bastard.

So Kyra, these types of pictures show how bitter, how nasty things have gotten in Iran over the past couple of days.

PHILLIPS: You were talking about a prominent name, actually the nephew, killed over the weekend. Did you confirm that? Let's talk about the significance of Mousavi's nephew.

SAYAH: Yes, that's been confirmed not from just Mir-Hossein Mousavi's website but now Iran's state-run news agencies confirming that Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader's nephew pictured there to the right, has been killed during the riots on Sunday. Let's go to video that purportedly shows his Mir-Hossein Mousavi's, Ali Mousavi killed -- moments after he was killed on Sunday in Revolution Square.

Now, Iran's state-run news agency saying all of these deaths, the eight deaths, have all been staged. Police are confirming that his Mir-Hossein Mousavi's nephew has killed but they are describing his death as staged. They say they are investigating.

Kyra, we should note that all of this is happening in major religious holiday on Sunday, Ashura, a day when Shia Muslims in Iran commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali (ph). Violence is considered ungodly, blasphemous on this day. So considering the fact that eight people were killed on this day look for opposition movement to use these deaths as another rallying cry in the weeks and months to come.

PHILLIPS: Reza Sayah, thanks.

Along with thousands of others, a young Iranian woman took to the streets of Tehran earlier this year. Her only purpose was to protest the policies of her government, but when she fell to the hard pavement bleeding from a bullet wound in her head, a nation was stunned, the world was shocked and her death is a symbol of Iran's anti-government protests.

CNN'S Ivan Watson has more on Neda, her life and her death.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She became the focus of protests around the world, in New York, London, Berlin and amid the constant threat of government crackdown in Tehran. Neda Agha-Soltan had been an anonymous female face in the sea of demonstrators protesting the controversial results of Iran's presidential elections. Then, while walking with her music teacher, she was shot. Her last agonizing moments caught on camera and distributed everywhere on the internet.

TRITA PARSI, NATIONAL IRANIAN AMERICAN COUNCIL: She has now become a symbol, a symbol of the struggle of the people who are seeking to find freedom and democracy in Iran, because she was a bystander. Someone who was just standing on a street corner and she was brutally, cold-heartedly killed by a single bullet to her heart.

WATSON: From Iranian authorities, conflicting explanations for the death of the 26-year-old woman who loved music, aerobics and travel overseas. Security forces possibly mistook her for the sister of a terrorist one official report said. State media accused opposition leaders of murdering Neda on camera to spread anti- government propaganda.

Her mother said authorities refused several requests to hold mourning ceremonies. In a phone interview with CNN, Hajar Rostami called her daughter a martyr for her homeland.

HAJAR ROSTAMI, NEDA'S MOTHER (through translator): I always saw Neda as a martyr. Neda was a martyr for her homeland.

WATSON: Today, she remains a powerful symbol of defiance. Technology immortalized Neda Agha-Soltan. She is the first of several potent icons, their images a rallying point for Iran's beleaguered opposition.

Ivan Watson, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: He's known for his competitive spirit and tough outer shell, but is all of that taking a physical toll on one of the gridiron's top coaches?

And today we probably just say a child was born through IVF, but back in the day they were called test tube babies. And on this day in 1981, the United States saw its first test-tube baby born, a little girl who entered the world in Norfolk, Virginia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: More now on our top story, the face of a terror suspect. Key question right now, how did this man slip through airport security and how did he allegedly come so close to blowing up a Northwest plane on Christmas Day? President Obama ordered a security review of how people are placed on watch lists and how passengers are screened. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano now says the aviation security system failed. President Obama is expected to speak out on the issue later today.

"I freaked." Those were the words of a passenger onboard that Northwest Airlines plane, and thank God he did freak. His quick reaction actually helped overpower the suspect. In an exclusive interview with CNN's Fredricka Whitfield, he explains what he did as the chaos erupted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASPER SCHURINGA, HELPED SUBDUE TERROR SUSPECT: Basically, you know, I reacted on the bang and then suddenly like there was smoke piling up in the cabin and so people were screaming, "fire, fire." And the first thing like we all did was check where the fire was. So -- and then I saw the suspect and he was on his seat.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN PHILLIPS: How many rows back were you?

SCHURINGA: Sorry?

WHITFIELD: You were behind the suspect when this smoke...?

SCHURINGA: I was on the right side of the plane and the suspect was on the left, so there were quite some seats in between. So when I saw that suspect, he was getting on fire and I freaked, of course. And without any hesitation I just jumped over the seats and I just jumped to the suspect and because I was thinking he's trying to blow up the plane. And so I was trying to search his body for any explosives. And then I took some kind of object that was already melting and smoking out of him and I tried to put out the fire. And then when I did that, I was also restraining the suspect. And then the fire started beneath his seat so with my hands and everything -- you can see it's a little burned up -- I put out the fire and then other passengers helped me as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, Schuringa is from the Netherlands, he was on that Northwest flight en route to Florida to actually visit friends.

Checking top stories right now, nine people are dead after an apartment complex fire in eastern Mississippi, six of them children. The apartment complex is in Starkville, best known as the home of Mississippi State University.

Police in Northampton, Massachusetts joining forces with the ATF to look for an arsonist. Two people were killed after at least nine separate fires were set in houses and cars yesterday. Governor Deval Patrick is offering a $5,000 reward.

Health care reform coming back on the radar in just days. President Obama is optimistic that lawmakers will work out their differences between the Senate and House versions of that plan. Democrats don't seem as certain though. One big issue, the Senate version doesn't have a public option.

Doctors dreaded it would happen and now it has. A patient has a contagious aggressive especially drug resistant form of tuberculosis, the country's first. The 19-year-old Peruvian student actually came to Florida to study English. The good news is doctors cured him, but it took 19 months. His case is an example of the challenge of drug resistant infectious diseases that are hitchhiking around the planet.

He stunned Gator fans with talk of resigning, but now University of Florida head coach Urban Meyer says he's taking a leave of absence for health reasons. Myers has suffered from chest pains, which led some to wonder if he has heart problems, he also has headaches which are blamed on stress and arachnoid cysts.

Let's find out some more about this cyst from Dr. James Wilberger, he's head of neurosurgery at Alleghany General Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Doctor, a lot of speculation out there and a lot of people wondering if indeed they are getting the whole story with regard to his health. Why don't we go ahead and start with this arachnoid cyst and tell us how if it could be fatal or if it's just a very frustrating thing to deal with on the brain.

DR. JAMES WILBERGER, NEUROSURGEON: Yes, it's rarely a fatal problem. About 2 percent of the folks in this country have arachnoid cysts. They form sometime during infancy. It's a collection of spinal fluid that's normally inside the head, but it collects in a little pocket and it usually doesn't give significant problems. About 20 percent of folks with arachnoid cysts do have headaches, but they're kind of nonspecific and rarely do they require any specific treatment. One would suspect that with the stress Mr. Myers has been under he and a lot of Gators' fans would be having headaches right now.

PHILLIPS: And indeed, that's exactly what he says has happened. He's talked about two situations specifically when he was interviewed by "Sports Illustrated" and I just want to read what he told reporters last month that he suffered from these persistent headaches caused by this cyst. He said it became inflamed by stress, rage and excitement.

He then said that his chest pains became public after the Southeastern Conference championship game three -- or game just three weeks ago. That he actually fainted when he got out of bed and was rushed to the hospital for several hours of tests.

So I guess one question is, could there be a correlation between this cyst and his heart and can that all be stressed induced, or to you does this look like two totally different things?

WILBERGER: Obviously, I'm not taking care of him, but on the surface it appears to be two totally separate things. As I said a few minutes ago, typically we find the cysts by chance because someone has been in a car accident or maybe having some nonspecific headaches and rarely do they require treatment and there is no connection between a cyst and any type of heart symptoms.

You know, stress can cause a lot of different problems for folks. It can cause headaches, it can cause chest pain, it can cause all sorts of physical symptoms. So it's not unusual for folks under tremendous stress to be bothered by a variety of symptoms.

PHILLIPS: Do you find it unusual at his age that he is leaving due to this?

WILBERGER: It seems to be very unusual. I think the story has yet to be told. Little pieces of it come out every day. But it would be very unusual that something like this -- unless he does truly have a significant heart condition separate and apart from the cyst, it would be very, very unlikely that the cyst alone would result in such a lifestyle change for him as he's going to go through.

PHILLIPS: Well, he's got a lot of fans that are extremely concerned about him, that's for sure. We'll follow the story.

Dr. James Wilberger, appreciate your time.

WILBERGER: You're welcome.

PHILLIPS: Grocery store left unlocked, people getting inside, but if you're looking for a story about looting and bad behavior and plundered meat section, well, forget about it. Not this time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Pushing forward now on a brutal and bloody year in Mexico. All the drug violence that we've seen, the grisly gang murders, some new stats that just might shock you.

Plus, the homeland security secretary has been all over your TV the past few days and some of her statements on the Christmas Day terror attempt really raising some eyebrows.

You know, it's the end of the year and by now our "What the..." files are pretty much full of folks who have done the wrong thing -- cheated, lied, stolen cash from kids and crosses from churches. But today, we are thrilled to do a 180 and maybe even restore a little faith in humanity.

Here's Kevin Riggs with affiliate KCRA.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN RIGGS, KCRA REPORTER (voice-over): Customers outside this Roseville Safeway store couldn't quite believe it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The doors were open?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's crazy. How do they forget to lock the store up?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow. That's shocking actually.

RIGGS (on camera): The doors were unlocked. Did you know that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of here.

RIGGS (voice-over): In fact, according to Roseville police, they were unlocked on Christmas afternoon and that wasn't the only surprise when they arrived.

LT. MARK TOUPIN, ROSEVILLE, CALIFORNIA POLICE: When a customer inside said there was a lot of customers in the store, we went over there. There was actually a report of customers leaving money on the counter, purchasing merchandise.

RIGGS: That's right. No looting, no theft.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm surprised they would leave money. Yes, I'm surprised they didn't get ripped off.

RIGGS (on camera): People were in there getting groceries and just leaving money at the register because there was nobody to take the money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the Christmas spirit for you.

RIGGS (voice-over): The story gets stranger still. The night before, Christmas Eve, another Safeway store was found unlocked with no thefts. In both cases company spokeswoman Susan Houghton blamed the problem on a lock malfunction. These are 24-hour stores, she says, so they're not locked a lot. She calls the outbreak of honesty a display of Christmas spirit and shoppers today say it's the only thing that makes sense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's awesome.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll be darned. That was a nice Christmas gestures of them, wasn't it?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Safeway says the stores were unlocked and unstaffed for -- get this -- a total of four and a half hours.

CNN's John King, he is a whiz with the magic wall and all those cool state maps, but he's also traveled to the real places and talked to real people. We're tagging along on his American Tour.

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PHILLIPS: Where's Waldo? Well, CNN's John King isn't Waldo, but he has been popping up in every state of the union this year. That's right, 50 states, one promise -- to tell the story of the people outside the D.C. Beltway. In this piece that first aired back in January, John actually goes to Greenwood, South Carolina.

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JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Greenwood, South Carolina -- a monument to heroes but also a reminder of the dark days of hatred and segregation.

(on camera): That's you right there.

(voice-over): Edith Childs has lived here all her 60 years, knows the divide as well as anyone.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to know one thing, Edith.

KING: And as much as she celebrates the success of her new friend, knows just as well that making history doesn't erase history. She was six or seven when a noise in the night stirred her to peek out the window.

EDITH CHILDS, And it was actually people on a horse with white clothes and all. It was no question who they were. They were the Ku Klux Klansmen. That was a worse time, because I was so scared.

KING: On walks to school, taunting was common.

CHILDS: You could walk past cars and even children would say, you know, mom, those are niggers.

KING: And once in the classroom, more reminders of separate but hardly equal. CHILDS: We got the things left over from the white school. Our books were always secondhand books that came to us. Many times they weren't even worth using really, but we didn't have a choice.

KING: Edith Childs grew both precocious and defiant. At the five and dime, she waited for when no one was looking.

CHILDS: The white water fountain was nice cold water and our water was just hot. I would always get me some cold water -- always.

KING: Always the divide.

(on camera): And if you were black and you wanted to go to this theater, where would you be?

MATT EDWARDS, MUSEUM CURATOR: You would be up here in the balcony section. There was a separate colored entrance from the front of the building.

KING (voice-over): Matt Edwards runs the town museum. Segregation is a thread in the photographs. This, a late 1950s all- white snapshot outside a local mill.

EDWARDS: I haven't seen one yet that has any African-American folks in it. I know these folks worked at the plants and the mills, but they weren't in the shift photos that came out.

KING: Nursing school was the first time Edith Childs shared a classroom with whites. She's on the county council now and says things are better.

She first met Barack Obama when he visited in 2007. In the back of the room, she began to repeat an old civil rights chant.

CHILDS: Fired up, ready to go! Fired up, ready to go!

KING: Obama adopted the cheer. And even though he lost conservative South Carolina, Childs and Greenwood became part of his improbable journey and he a part of theirs.

CHILDS: The day after the election, it was so quiet in Greenwood it was unreal. I just could not believe it was that quiet. I mean the kind of quiet that you're saying, what is going on? But you know why it's quiet.

KING: A shocked quiet, Edith says, because while things are better in greenwood, they are far from perfect. The monument to Confederate soldiers still stands and even today in 2009, the stars and stripes flies over two American Legion halls in Greenwood. Locals know this one as the white post, this is the one for blacks.

CHILDS: There we go, John. There are still those that are not going to change no matter what.

KING: But Edith Childs is betting bets more minds and hearts will change now. She is off to Washington to watch her friend make history knowing it won't change Greenwood's past, but maybe its future.

CHILDS: I never thought that I would be able to see this day, so I just need to be there. Don't want to be nowhere near the front, I just want to be there. It means everything to me because I want to be treated as a person, not because I'm Edith Childs and black, but because I'm a person.

KING: John King, CNN, Greenwood, South Carolina.

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PHILLIPS: Next hour, John takes you to Michigan, a state in despair, hit hard by the recession.