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Nationwide Crackdown on Drivers Who Text; President Obama Wants Spending Freeze; The Stimulus Project; Help for Haiti

Aired January 26, 2010 - 11:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm just working every day to find some common ground. Honestly, trying to find people who are likeminded enough to get some stuff done. Trying to drive solutions here.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: You don't compare compassion and cruelty? Don't politicians know they're always being recorded?

HARRIS: Absolutely.

PHILLIPS: Tony, have a great show.

HARRIS: Yes.

PHILLIPS: OK.

HARRIS: Appreciate it, Kyra.

Let's get started.

It is Tuesday, January 26th, and here are the top stories for you in the CNN NEWSROOM.

A new nationwide crackdown on drivers who text behind the wheel. Is that you? You? You? But the new ban doesn't apply to everyone.

A tennis court gets spruced up. Why should you care? Well, you paid for it. Day two of the CNN stimulus project.

A year ago she was struggling. Today, a small businesswoman prospers. Yummy Spoonfuls turns the corner without help from Washington. I will talk live with the owner.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Tony Harris, and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And new this morning, the Obama administration assigned posting new rules of the road today for truck and bus drivers. The goal prevents scenes like this.

Watch as this bus driver in San Antonio decides to take out his cell -- you saw it there -- and text behind the wheel. Seconds -- yes, there you go. He feels the impact of that bad decision.

The new regulations announced last hour ban texting while behind the wheel of a big rig or a bus. Fines range up to $2,750. The Department of Transportation is also writing rules to ban the use of computers mounted on dashboards in a truck or bus while driving. Computers?

Texting while driving is against the law in these 19 states we've highlighted and the District of Columbia, but it is a law people are willing to ignore.

Stanley Roberts with CNN affiliate KRON in San Francisco shows us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OFFICER PATRICK ROTH, CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL: So you have food in one hand and you have a phone in the other. So what are you steering with?

STANLEY ROBERTS, REPORTER, KRON (voice-over): Officer Patrick Roth of the California Highway Patrol's Golden Gate Division is having a chat with a distracted driver. The driver shown here was on Highway 101 driving at 65 miles per hour, in the rain, talking, texting and eating.

The driver never noticed a CHP cruiser or my camera for several miles because he was a little distracted. He only noticed there was a CHP officer nearby when he was pulled over for his violation.

Two minutes later...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don' stop here. Pull forward. Exit the freeway.

ROBERTS: I found that if you ride around in an almost unmarked CHP cruiser, it is way too easy to spot drivers behaving badly. Like this man, also driving on the rain-slicked highway while talking on his cell phone without a hands-free device, or this lady totally unaware that there was a CHP officer riding alongside her.

Let's stop the video right here. She actually looks over at the cruiser. But does that stop her? Nope.

Texting and talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device is illegal in California. Doing it all while driving in the rain, on the freeway, with already limited visibility, you may call it insane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Federal research shows for every six seconds you text, your eyes are off the road for 4.6 of those seconds.

CNN's Tom Foreman took that statistic for a test drive on "ANDERSON COOPER 360."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The six seconds before an accident is a critical time in which you might be able to avoid it, but texting requires so much thought and action, it takes up almost all of that time. That's why this is a problem.

Researchers say people who are texting routinely take their eyes off of the road for nearly five seconds. And that's not to complete it, that's just at a time. So watch what happens.

Once again, here we go. Twenty-five miles an hour, right here I start texting. I do it for 4.6 seconds, and by the time I get on the brake, look where I wind up.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yikes.

FOREMAN: And I effectively drove this entire way blind, Anderson. Look at this.

There's the mark from where I was talking on the cell phone, trying to dial the cell phone. Back here is where I passed the one -- this is where we started, and then right along here is where I passed the one for loading the CD. So you get a sense of just how terribly far you can go with this, and that's traveling at 25 miles an hour.

COOPER: Yes. I mean, that is the interesting thing. You're only driving 25 miles an hour. Obviously, on the highway you'd be going much faster.

FOREMAN: Oh, yes. At highway speeds, in five seconds, if you take your eyes off the road, I want you to look at this because it's just mind-blowing.

If you take your eyes off of the road at highway speeds because you are texting -- look, here I'm waving down at the end down here -- and you keep going, in the five seconds that you're not looking at the road, you could drive the entire length of a football field and both end zones and, again, you are essentially driving blind the entire time. Think of how much can happen in that space.

COOPER: Five seconds, that's incredible.

FOREMAN: Yes, it is unbelievable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Haiti is fast becoming a tent city nation. Two weeks after the earthquake hit, the president now appealing for 200,000 tents for some of those left homeless by the quake. Many still living in makeshift camps. President Rene Preval vows to move into a tent on the lawn of his collapsed palace in a show of solidarity with his people.

The U.N. says the capital is generally secure. Banks, supermarkets and gas stations are reopening, but there are unverified reports of displaced children being trafficked.

Our Anderson Cooper discussed it with a child advocate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEB BARRY, CHILD SAFETY ADVISER FOR SAVE THE CHILDREN: What we are trying to do right now is to verify those reports, to go out there, find the real facts of whether or not these children are trafficked. But we know that they are at much greater risk right now because they are displaced, they are at new vulnerabilities.

COOPER: And Haiti has a long history of -- I mean, there's a lot of kids who are basically poor kids in Haiti who are sold to a little bit more well-off families in the cities who live, as some would say, slaves or domestic servants.

BARRY: That's right. Just before the earthquake happened, we had reports of between 250,000 to 350,000 children involved in domestic servitude.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: French lawmakers are recommending a partial ban on the burqa. It is the veil that some Muslim women wear that covers the entire body, including the face.

If the French Parliament passes the resolution, the ban will apply in public places like schools, hospitals, and on public transportation, but it will not keep women from wearing them on the streets. In addition, the proposed ban won't make wearing burqas illegal, but it will empower public officials to ask women to remove them.

We will go live to Paris later this hour for more on this controversy surrounding the wearing of the Muslim burqa.

$1.35 trillion, that is the new estimate out on the federal deficit, according to a source quoted by The Associated Press. That is a slight decline from last year, but still pretty massive.

President Obama is under pressure to rein in the deficit, and he is calling for a spending freeze. In his State of the Union speech tomorrow night, the president will propose a three-year freeze on discretionary spending. Will lawmakers warm to the idea? Can the president make it happen?

Congressional correspondent Brianna Keilar live now from Capitol Hill.

Brianna, how much support does the president have for this?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, and really, I think the question, Tony, has to do with how much support he has within his own party, because the president can ask for a spending freeze, but really the power of the purse lies with Congress. This is really Congress' ultimate power.

And so, after he lays out his budget, as he does, as the president does this time of year, Congress really comes up with exactly where the money is going to go, how it's going to be spent. And when you have Democrats controlling Congress and a Democrat in the White House, the general expectation is that they will follow the guidelines that the president has laid out, Tony.

But I've got to tell you, there's really a division among Democrats about exactly how to move forward with this because -- and we're expecting that maybe today we'll see some blowback from some liberal Democrats. They see it like, this Tony. They think that a lot of the programs that they think have been underfunded, education, housing, that kind of thing, a spending freeze, they feel, is essentially a cut to that.

And there are some more conservative Democrats, those Blue Dog Democrats who we've talked so much about in the months past, who think this is a good idea. And then you have Republicans, who say it's a little too late, isn't it? It's like spending a lot of money, they say, and then really trying to do something that's just a drop in the bucket. So that's how it's all laying out here on Capitol Hill.

HARRIS: No surprise.

Reining in spending obviously a big theme on Capitol Hill this week. Now, the Senate -- and I'm really interested in this, Brianna -- is going to vote today on forming a so-called debt commission, something we talked about with Jeanne Sahadi from our Money team yesterday, that would essentially force Congress to take steps to reduce the government's debt.

Here's the question. Will it pass?

KEILAR: It's expected to fail. No, it's not expected to pass, because it is lacking support from some Democrats and some Republicans.

Those Democrats and Republicans actually opposing this idea for different reasons. But that's really the bottom line. And the irony of this, Tony, is that it's part of a bigger debate on a bill that would increase the debt ceiling.

HARRIS: The debt ceiling, yes.

KEILAR: And, you know, we would liken this to you and I, if we have a credit card, and we have a limit on our credit card and we hit that limit, basically increasing the limit on our credit card. Well, the Treasury Department is running up against the ceiling where it can legally borrow money, and really to help out, Congress is going to be voting towards increasing that.

So, you know, it's really a tricky situation, because Democrats acknowledge to us, Tony, that one of the messages they took away from the Massachusetts Senate election where that Democratic seat went to a Republican was that they do need to rein in spending. But it just goes to show you how difficult it is for them as we watch these votes going on this week.

HARRIS: Difficult and frustrating for those of us who are watching Congress at this time. Our congressional correspondent, Brianna Keilar, for us.

Brianna, appreciate it. Thank you.

Boy, oh, boy, getting stuff done.

More than $1 billion tax dollars spent on stimulus projects. But is your money really helping the economy getting back on track? We are investigating on the CNN Stimulus Desk.

But first, here is the latest on stocks. The Dow up 33 points.

We are following these numbers for you throughout the day with Susan Lisovicz, right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: The government stimulus program, it is your money. Wonder where it is going? We are checking it out all this week here on CNN. So far, $158 billion promised or paid out for various projects.

T.J. Holmes is at our Stimulus Desk.

And T.J., your team has zeroed in on one project in particular, a big cleanup. Tell us all about it.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A big cleanup. Well, some people have a problem with it because this company seems to be getting money to clean up a mess that they made. We'll explain that more in just a second.

But in particular, we're talking about an area called Santa Susana. That's in Simi Valley, which is just outside Los Angeles here.

There's a site out here, Tony, we're talking about that has been used for years and years and years, essentially to test engines, to test nuclear energy. They call it essentially an old Cold War nuclear dump, if you will.

So Boeing, the company, is now going to get money to clean that up. In particular, they're getting about $15.9 million, I believe it is -- $15.9 million dollars. This is why they don't let me mess with this thing.

So this is the number we are looking at, all the projects we're checking out, including this one. This is the tally that changes every time we find a new -- so we're adding up now. Getting close to $2 billion that we're checking on at the Stimulus Desk.

Let me go over to Jesse (ph), who is -- again, you call this my team. This ain't my team. They just let me hang out with them, actually, Tony.

But we're talking about -- we hear the number, Jesse (ph), $15.9 million.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

HOLMES: So a lot of people wonder, what are we getting for that? How many jobs are created? And this thing is not as simple as it seems. So tell me about the jobs part first.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not. Yes, for the jobs, what we found on the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act is that right now they're saying there's only 11 jobs created.

HOLMES: For the $15.9 million?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, exactly. But to be fair, the project is only 50 percent completed. So we don't really know how many jobs are going to be created in the long run.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I have calls into DOE to find out. So we're going to see how many jobs this project may create for that $15.9 million.

HOLMES: And I'm not going to let you go yet.

But Tony, the DOE, the Department of Energy, they're the ones who are actually handing out this particular money to Boeing to clean up this site.

The other part of the controversy here has been whether or not Boeing should be getting money to clean up what some say is the mess they made. But this is a site that they own, but there's a little more to it than that as well. It's not necessarily all their mess.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly. Exactly. Yes, it's really complicated.

It's a very controversial site. So, Santa Susana has been used for decades to test rocket engines and other things there, so there is a lot of contamination. So that's definitely the case. But Boeing didn't acquire the land, they say, until 1996.

So, you know, who's really to blame for all of the contamination there? Not exactly sure.

HOLMES: All right. Jesse (ph), thank you so much.

And Tony, you see there the complications sometimes and why it gets a little tricky in that, yes, you hear $15.9 million, 11 jobs, and you might say, oh, I'm not getting my bang for the buck. And then you hear this controversy.

Well, you own the site, you messed it up. And why are you getting paid to clean it up?

Well, you have to dig a little deeper. And that's what Jesse (ph) and some of the others here are doing, and we're going to continue to get those answers. And as she gets more answers to it, we will continue to update that. We've got all week we're going to be doing this, and beyond, quite frankly, so we'll get more answers for you, buddy.

HARRIS: Right. You know, it simply is not always clear cut whether the program is saving jobs or creating jobs. It's just not that clear cut all the time.

HOLMES: It's not. And we've got 11 on this one. I mean, who's to say, quite frankly, is that a good investment? We don't know how many more jobs could come after this -- they still have half of the project to go.

And it's so tricky. And we know, Tony, it's a political football. I mean, some would look at those numbers on one side and say of course that's a bad investment. The other side would say, hey, this is my community, ask that one guy who got that job what he thinks about it.

HARRIS: Bingo. I wasn't working and, T.J., you know what? I just a call and now I'm working. The stimulus program is working for me.

Appreciate it. We'll talk to you again in just a couple of minutes.

HOLMES: Yes, you got it.

HARRIS: Thank you, sir.

We are asking you to share your thoughts and ideas on the stimulus project. Here is a sampling of responses from my blog page.

Alex says, "The idea of the stimulus is great, but what's the point of giving $5 billion for plant fossil research? How long will it be before we see the benefits from this research package?"

Do this for me -- keep your comments coming. Just log on to CNN.com/Tony.

Much more ahead tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING" -- $5.5 million to fix up a resort town. How could that be a good use of taxpayer dollars? Find out why one woman is grateful the government is spending your money.

And tonight at 8:00 Eastern, Campbell Brown asks, is the program working for average Americans? An exclusive interview with Earl Devaney. He is the person President Obama picked to oversee the stimulus plan.

And at 10:00 Eastern, "AC 360" investigators why stimulus money is being wasted on unnecessary road signs.

"The Stimulus Project," all this week, only on CNN and at CNN.com/stimulus.

Got extra airline miles just sitting around? We will show you how your miles can make a big difference for people with desperate needs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: So, emergency supplies arriving in Haiti by the planeload. Much of it from charities. Now airlines and hotels are trying to spur even more donations, but is this the best way to help the relief effort?

Our Gerri Willis breaks it down.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: American Airlines is offering members bonus miles for cash donations to the American Red Cross through February 28th. Members can earn a one-time award of 250 bonus miles for a minimum donation of $50, or 500 bonus miles for a contribution of $100 or more. Visit AA.com for more information.

Delta Airlines is also letting you donate miles to help support relief efforts. And Spirit is giving customers who sign up for a MasterCard 15,000 bonus points good for three off-peak roundtrip flights. You'll also have to purchase something on the card, but in return they'll donate $75 to Haiti.

Hotels are getting into the action, too. Marriott Hotels and Hilton Hotels are contributing $25 to Haiti for every 10,000 reward points you donate. Starwood Hotels, donate your points and Starwood will donate to the American Red Cross. See StarwoodHotels.com for details.

As we've been saying, money is the best type of donation. That said, if you have a lot of airline miles that aren't being used, or if you have points that are going to expire, this may be something you want to look into.

The truth is that millions of miles go to waste each and every year. Keep in mind, too, that you can't deduct the points or miles you've donated on your taxes.

And, of course, if you have any questions, send them to me at Gerri@cnn.com. We love to hear from you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And still to come, getting medical help to the people of Haiti. Doctors in America answer the call.

And we found a unique tie to one of our own CNN contributors. That is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS: OK. We are tracking stimulus projects funded by your tax dollars as best we can this week. It appears some of it's actually helping private companies, one owned by the richest man on earth.

T.J. Holmes is back with us at our Stimulus Desk, investigating that.

T.J., look, we're going to talk about the Microsoft bridge here in a second, but we get nervous when we hear discussions about bridges, because many dollars, as you know, have been wasted on bridges to nowhere in this country and others, bridges tied, right, to stimulus projects.

So what is the story with the Microsoft bridge?

HOLMES: Yes, but this will help you sleep better. At least this bridge is going somewhere. All right? But people have a problem with where it's going.

It's going from one side of the Microsoft campus to the other side to help employees get back and forth from the east campus to the west campus out there on the West Coast, up in Washington, where this campus is.

Now, our Patrick Oppman, take a listen to him as he reports on, again, the Microsoft bridge to Microsoft.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK OPPMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Everyone hates to sit in traffic on the way to work but, but in Redmond, Washington, money from the federal stimulus plan is actually going to ease some of that gridlock and create jobs.

This project though has generated some controversy, not for what it's building, but for where. So what the project is going to do is connect Microsoft's newer west campus over here to the original east campus and go across a very busy highway.

So here's how federal stimulus money ends up paying for a bridge that connects two campuses at Microsoft. The bridge project behind me, this is all actually only supposed to have cost $25 million -- $17.5 million was going to come from Microsoft, $5 million from the city of Redmond, and $2.5 million from federal money during the Bush administration. The cost overruns raised the price of the project to $30 million, so the stimulus money essentially erased that $5 million shortfall.

Both Redmond's mayor and the governor for Washington State say this is a good partnership for the private sector that's going to create jobs and a bridge that anybody can use, not just Microsoft.

Part of the controversy over this bridge comes from the fact that to connect it to campuses, they had to build the bridge at a diagonal over the highway which adds substantially to the cost. And critics say Microsoft, not the stimulus plan, should have picked up the bill.

Patrick Oppman, CNN, Redmond.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And that's the part there at the end there, Tony. You heard him say people think Microsoft should be footing the bill because in people's minds, when you hear Microsoft, wait a minute, the richest guy in the world helped to create that company, right? They're doing OK. Why do they need government help to do anything? They could pull that out of their pocket and pay for that bridge. So that's why some people have an issue with it and that's why we're digging a little deeper.

So let's look at the numbers in particular. Let's show, again, how much government money, how much stimulus monies is being used for this particular project. We're trying to put a graphic up on the screen, but I can just tell you here as well. But about $5 million of stimulus money is going towards this project. About $5 million of your money.

So how many jobs are you getting out of that? You're getting about 1,250. Now that sounds like a good deal -- $5 million, 1,200 jobs. But, Tony, this is the update we've been getting as the desk has been calling. This is what we need to explain. That 1,250 jobs does represent -- that number represents 1,250 individuals who were working.

However, what we don't know, some of those were people who may have worked a couple of hours. Some of that is people who may have worked a couple of days or a couple of weeks or a month. We don't know that these necessarily turned into what many of us think when we think jobs. That means a full-time type of a job. So we're still working to get that number broken down a little better to find out how many actual full-time jobs may have come out of this.

Don't get me wrong, a couple of hours of work, a couple of days, a week, would help a lot of people out, but it's still not what people think oftentimes, taxpayers, when you say, hey, a job is created.

HARRIS: I think this is tough. It think it is absolutely tough, T.J.

HOLMES: That's why we're breaking it down, buddy.

HARRIS: Yes, absolutely.

T.J., appreciate it. Thank you.

HOLMES: You got it.

HARRIS: I've got to tell you the recession has hit all of us hard in the wallet, but it seems there are a few luxuries Americans just can't do without. Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange with details.

And, Susan, this isn't exactly a necessity. We're talking about some pretty hot-selling gadgets, aren't we?

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, but I think there are millions of people who would disagree with you, Tony, because in the digital age we all want to stay connected...

HARRIS: True.

LISOVICZ: ... and no one is a bigger beneficiary than Apple. It sold a record number of iPhones in the last quarter, nearly nine million iPhones in three months, Tony. And there's a sense that the positive momentum could continue.

Why is that? Because talk is escalating that Verizon may soon carry the iPhone. And you probably know some people yourself that, you know, are reluctant to make the switch because they want to stay with Verizon, which is the biggest network, it has something like 91 million subscribers. So that is also helping Apple, the sense that that could also boost those sales.

But also what did well for the bottom line, Apple sold three million Macs in three months. iPod sales fell, Tony, but still came in at 21 million. The end result, bottom line, revenue both at a record for Apple, Tony.

HARRIS: Barely getting by with those iPod sales. So Apple is known for -- look, a whole lot of hoopla when it comes to announcing new products. The next big event is tomorrow and what are we expecting, Susan?

LISOVICZ: Well, Apple is also a master at promoting, sort of fanning the flames. They put out a little tidbit and then you really wait for the big event.

Tomorrow, in San Francisco, the expectation is that there will be a tablet computer, a 10-inch screen. So think of it as a small, skinny laptop with a touch screen or a big iPhone. The reports say that it will retail for about $1,000 and there's been a lot of talk about this for awhile and that's one of the reasons why Apple shares have more than doubled in the last year. Right now we're up 2.5 percent and that's helping the market OK.

The Dow is up 45 points, the Nasdaq is up 5. And we'll have more on that event tomorrow, Tony.

HARRIS: OK. So we're going to actually see this thing tomorrow. Because we've got folks on our tech team running around here like crazy, oh, the tablet, the tablet, the tablet. You got to talk about the tablet. So we'll actually see it tomorrow.

(LAUGHTER)

LISOVICZ: Yes, we should see it. And hopefully Steve Jobs will be the person who will demonstrate it.

HARRIS: Boy, hope he's all the way back.

All right, Susan, appreciate it. Thank you.

Haitian doctors in America answering the call to go back home. We will check in with one just ahead right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Saving their own. Haitian doctors in the United States are flocking home to help treat earthquake victims. A member of CNN's extended family is among the returning doctors. Orthopedic surgeon Emmanuel Hostin is the husband of CNN legal contributor Sunny Hostin. There's Sunny and she's joining us from New York.

SUNNY HOSTIN, "IN SESSION" LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Hi, Tony.

So great to see you. Yes, it's great to talk to you, Sunny. And I know you're going to talk to your husband in just a couple of moments. Let's hope that connection works out for us.

But first a couple of questions for you, Sunny. What's been the personal toll of this earthquake on your family?

S. HOSTIN: Well, it's been very difficult. As many know, we lost several members of our family in Haiti. Some made it, some did not. And so we've been, along with I think most of the country, really watching CNN, calling back home and trying to reach our relatives. And it's been, you know, a tragedy of catastrophic proportions and it's been a very personal one for us.

HARRIS: When did your husband get the call and make the decision that he had to get back home to Haiti?

S. HOSTIN: Sure. Well, many people don't know that medicine is really one of the most prolific professions that Haitians go into because in Haiti medical school, graduate school is free. And so it's a competitive school and many of those doctors are practicing in the United States at the top of their field and there is an association called the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad, and I would say a conservative estimate is there are about 1,000 of those doctors working in the United States.

And so, my husband, as an orthopedic surgeon, got a call from the association. I should say that I married into a family of physicians. My father-in-law is a surgeon, my mother-in-law is an anesthesiologist, my sister-in-law is an OB/GYN. And so he got the call because orthopedic surgeons were needed. And it was a call to action, it was urgent and he left to go to Haiti.

HARRIS: Sunny, is your husband on the line with us?

DR. EMMANUEL HOSTIN, ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON AIDING IN HAITI (via telephone): I am.

S. HOSTIN: I don't know.

HARRIS: I think he is.

S. HOSTIN: Oh, he is.

HARRIS: Emmanuel?

E. HOSTIN: I'm here.

HARRIS: Terrific.

Sunny, let me turn it over to you. You talk to your husband and maybe get us an update on how the work is going on the ground there in Haiti.

S. HOSTIN: Well, thank you.

Hi, sweetie, how are you?

E. HOSTIN: Hi, sweetheart. I'm OK.

S HOSTIN: For our viewers...

E. HOSTIN: It's just a little rough here.

S. HOSTIN: OK, well, for our viewers, can you please describe what the conditions are at the hospital and what sort of injuries you're seeing.

E. HOSTIN: Well, there is everything. A gentleman just came in referred from another hospital with both his legs broken, open fractures with open wounds over the fracture sites. So this is new to us, although this has been going on for two weeks. This is normally an injury that requires care within six hours.

Many open fractures, many closed fractures, many soft tissue wounds. Just a little bit of everything. And even mixed in there are things you wouldn't expect, such as appendicitis, you know, open belly cases that need to be taken care of as well.

S. HOSTIN: Well, can you describe the conditions of the hospital? Because my understanding is that you're at the university hospital and part of the hospital did collapse. And so what are you seeing in terms of the condition of the hospital and how you're...?

E. HOSTIN: Things are devastated here. Just further background, within a six or seven-block radius there is the medical school and the university hospital as well as nursing school. I am told that there were two nursing school classes that were in session and their school building collapsed on them just two blocks from this university hospital.

Here there are two operating rooms, each of them split into two that are being used for surgeries, kind of in a semi-sterile environment. And the rest is going on in tents outside of those part of the building where people are being evaluated and taken care of also after surgery.

S. HOSTIN: OK. Well, you know, in terms of food, water and supplies, do you have what you need? Is there anything our viewers can do to help?

E. HOSTIN: Well, water is taken care of. Actually, the Spaniards took care of the water purification system that's providing water for most.

Food is in short supply, partially because it's hard to get here. The roads that come into the hospital here are very poor, so supplies getting here are difficult.

Also, getting the patients out. Some patients who need more extensive surgery are being taken to outside ships, including the U.S. Comfort. The military is being very instrumental in conducting some of that transport.

HARRIS: Well, Emmanuel, this is Tony Harris in Atlanta, thank you. Thank you so much for making the time to talk to us.

And, Sunny, thank you for making the connection for us. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

S. HOSTIN: Thank you.

HARRIS: And, Emmanuel, stay safe down there.

If you'd like to help go, we'd like to direct you to our website. Just go to CNN.com/impact. Once again, CNN.com/impact.

Let's get you caught up now on our top stories.

In New Haven, Connecticut, lab technician Raymond Clark today pleaded not guilty to charges of killing Yale Graduate Student Annie Le. She vanished, you may recall, from a Yale Medical School building on September 8th and her body was found behind a wall five days later.

President Obama plans to freeze federal discretionary spending. He hope that will save $250 billion over three years. The president will announce his plan during the State of the Union Address tomorrow night. CNN's primetime coverage begins at 8:00 Eastern, 5:00 Pacific.

Banning burqas. Why is France taking steps to do it? Does it trample on religious freedom? We are live from Paris.

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HARRIS: The fashion statement in France today that stepping on religious beliefs we told you earlier about French lawmakers recommending a partial ban on wearing burqas in public. Senior international correspondent Jim Bittermann looks at what's prompting the move.

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JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Critics say it's like using a cannon to swat a fly. Still, nearly three out of five French agree, according to opinion polls, that it should be illegal to appear in public wearing face-covering clothes like the burqa. Despite government estimates that less than 2,000 women in the country actually wear the full Islamic veil, lawmakers believe it's a growing phenomenon beneath which lies a not- so-subtle message of fundamentalism.

What's more, those who advocate the ban say women are often forced to wear full veils by the men around them -- husbands, fathers or brothers -- and that it's a sign of subjugation. But when you ask women who actually wear them, they deny it. Mabrouka Boujnah of Tunisian origin and her friend Ohm Kaiar (ph) from Algeria say they prefer to cover their faces out of piety. Ohm Kaiar, in her 40s and not married, says she even has friends who wear full veils against the wishes of their husbands.

The pair, both French citizens, insist they're only following their religious beliefs and France should respect that. Debruka, who at 28 who is about to have her first child, says she came to wearing a full veil gradually after wearing head scarves as a teenager. She believes a law like the one being discussed will take away fundamental rights of Muslim women.

MABROUKA BOUJNAH, LANGUAGE TEACHER (through translator): You're going to isolate these women and then you can't say it's Islam that denied them freedom, but that the law has.

BITTERMANN: Still, even some Muslims here think the full veil goes too far. An imam at a suburban Paris mosque says there is nothing in the Koran that directs women to cover their faces and says it is ridiculous to do so in France.

Other religious leaders are angry about the public debate, which they say once again casts Islam in a negative light.

Nonetheless, French parliamentarians seem ready to pass a resolution discouraging a full veil in public places. That could make it impossible for women who don't show their faces to receive any public service from buying a bus ticket to picking up a child at school. And some want to go further with a law that could be introduced as early as next month that might make wearing a full veil subject to a $1,000 fine.

JEAN-FRANCOIS COPE, PARLIAMENTARY MINORITY LEADER: You know that it's not only an article of clothing, it's not at all. When you just hide your face, I am sorry, it's a position. It's a choice which is not compatible with the rules of the republic.

BITTERMANN: But it's a choice that Mabrouka and Ohm Kaiar insist they will continue to make. The pair say they will willingly show their faces for identification purposes, but if it comes to it, they will break any law that runs contrary to their religious beliefs.

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HARRIS: Jim Bittermann joining me live now from Paris.

And, Jim, we're going to really take this on tomorrow in some depth and detail, but what's been the reaction to this recommendation from the parliamentary commission?

BITTERMANN: Well, Tony, it's mixed. I mean, if you talk to the average French person, they're basically for the recommendations that the commission made, but when you talk to Muslims, it's divided. There was an imam over the weekend, basically said he's in favor of the law, but I wouldn't say that is necessarily representative of the Muslim community. It's pretty divided.

One of the things is that the number of women involved here is quite small and so because of that, it's not really a vocal outcry against it. Also, this has been going on here, this debate, this commission, this is their report they came out with, they have been having hearings for six months now. So it has been telegraphed to some extent and the arguments have been made, so there hasn't been a great deal of outrage expressed today especially -- Tony.

HARRIS: All right, Jim Bittermann for us in Paris. And as I mentioned, we will talk about this in great detail tomorrow.

Jim, appreciate it. Thank you.

Are public recreation projects fair game for stimulus money? David Mattingly put that question under the microscope in Montana.

We are back in a moment.

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HARRIS: Your stimulus money at work. This time in Bozeman, Montana. Fifty thousand dollars in stimulus funds spent to restore a tennis court. David Mattingly took a trip to Montana to determine why.

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DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Winter in Bozeman, Montana, people don't play a lot of tennis.

(on camera): You had the court cleared off for us.

MAYOR JEFF KRAUSS, BOZEMAN, MONTANA: We did have the court cleared off. Watch it. It will be slick.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): I came to Bozeman to find a city on thin ice over how it's spending stimulus money -- $50,000 to erase all of these cracks and potholes in a city's tennis court.

(on camera): What was your reaction when you read the paper and saw that project?

GOV. BRIAN SCHWEITZER (D), MONTANA: I said to my wife, I'll be danged, look what they're doing in Bozeman.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer wants to make Bozeman an example of how not to spend stimulus money. Putting a rubberized surface on a crumbling tennis court was not part of Schweitzer's plan targeting roads, water and energy efficiency.

(on camera): What did Bozeman do wrong here?

SCHWEITZER: What they violated was that rule of common sense. There ought to be that little guy in your head that waves his finger at you and says, wait a minute, we might want to rethink this thing.

MATTINGLY: At one point, Governor Schweitzer even decided to pay a surprise visit on the Bozeman City Commission. So he showed up at their regularly scheduled meeting to tell them publicly and face to face, this is not how he wanted stimulus dollars being spent. But that meeting did not go well.

SCHWEITZER: Sir, I will explain it to you again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you do not need to explain it to me again. We heard your side of the story.

MATTINGLY: Bozeman Mayor Jeff Krauss says the state legislature decided public recreations projects were fair game for stimulus money. About a dozen other Montana cities are doing the same thing.

(on camera): Can you stand on this tennis court now and say to American taxpayers all over the country this was $50,000 well spent?

KRAUSS: Darn right.

MATTINGLY: The big picture of stimulus, though, was to create jobs, to maintain jobs. Are you doing that with this project?

KRAUSS: It is creating some instant jobs, some instant work for people all around the country. The product is manufactured in St. Louis, so it's putting Americans to work.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): We looked into that and contacted the Minnesota company contracted to do the Bozeman courts. We were told it will be hiring just two local workers to handle the installation, a two-day job.

(on camera): Two Americans to work from Bozeman.

KRAUSS: From Bozeman. Well...

MATTINGLY: And this is an outside company, a company that's outside Montana.

KRAUSS: This is federal money, OK. This is federal money. It's not state money. It's not Bozeman money. So if it's employing people in St. Louis, if it's employing a person in -- in Minneapolis, it's federal money. We're Americans. It's Americans going to work.

MATTINGLY: Where did you go wrong? Do you have any regrets?

SCHWEITZER: Well, I was nervous as a long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention when the legislature left town without putting each one of these projects line item and said we're just going to block grant it to the cities and counties. And so at that point, we lost control of $20 million of the $850 million.

MATTINGLY: Is this project a waste of the stimulus money?

SCHWEITZER: It's not a waste of money, but it is not the appropriate use of money.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Regardless, the Bozeman tennis courts and their new stimulus-funded rubberized surface are expected to be ready for use this spring.

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HARRIS: Wow. To recap, the tennis court project in Bozeman, Montana, cost $50,000 and created two local jobs.

David Mattingly, we're two days into this project and I'm telling you for every one of the projects that we have taken a close, hard look at, you can make an argument on both sides of the scale here that it is a waste of money, that it is money well spent.

It may not have been a top priority item, but it was an item, a project that created a job. Where do you come down on this? Was this a good use of the money in Bozeman?

MATTINGLY: That was the whole argument behind this.

HARRIS: That's a good debate.

MATTINGLY: Even the governor's saying this isn't money wasted.

HARRIS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: It's a question of should this have spent on something else? And we put those questions to everybody. The White House feels like the money should not be spent on recreation project. The governor feels like they shouldn't be spent on recreation project.

But when the Montana legislature is funneling all this money down the level, they put recreation in there as something they could spend the money on. So the city of Bozeman, very big on recreation, thought let's put it to the tennis courts. You saw they were in bad shape; $50,000 fixes them up.

From where they're standing, this is very good use of this money. If you're in Detroit and don't have a job, you're thinking, I think this money could be spent better somewhere else.

HARRIS: Sure. And the reality here, as we're learning, is that there are long-term jobs, short-term jobs in this stimulus program. That's just the reality of it. I mean, it just is. And so, I get that a lot of people may look at some of these projects and say, boy, you can make better use of the money than that. But you take a situation like Montana, that two people has a job for two days and there are companies in other cities that are benefiting as well, and then it becomes a little more difficult to make the argument that this -- a little more difficult -- to make the argument that this is a waste of money.

MATTINGLY: You get past the issue of the jobs, Bozeman still argues, this is part of our infrastructure, so we're doing what we're supposed to do with it. So...

HARRIS: Yes. It's a great story. It's a great discussion to have. Appreciate it, David. Thank you.

And here's what we're working on for the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.

Boy, we are focusing on the stimulus to be sure, but what about companies that didn't get stimulus money? I will check in with a small business owner we introduced you to last year to find out how she is doing.

And more boots on the ground. The first of the surge troops set to work in Afghanistan on a crucial mission to train Afghan forces. A live report from our Atia Abawi.

We are back in a moment.

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