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Biggest Star Discovery Ever; Tropical Storm Bonnie Hurting Oil Cleanup; Judge Weighs Blocking Arizona Immigration Law

Aired July 23, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I want talk to you about a monster star, a big, big star that's been discovered. Biggest star discovered in the history of -- as long as there's been history. This star is 165,000 light years away from the Milky Way galaxy. It was discovered by researchers at the University of Sheffield. It is--just to give you some sense of this, it's 265 times heavier than the Sun. And the sun is 330,000 times heavier than Earth.

The star is 10 million times brighter than the sun. And if it were anywhere near the Earth, it would just burn Earth up. That's how big it is. It's over a million years old, which in star age is kind of middle age.

I want to give you some sense of how big this star actually is, looking at this comparison. I'm going to start you on the right side there.

If Earth is the size of a basketball, the sun is the size of your typical sports stadium. And this star would be the size of Mt. Everest. That's how big a deal this star is.

It was discovered, by the way, through something called a very large telescope. That's actually the name of the telescope. It's in South America. It's in Chile. It's controlled by something called the European Southern Observatory. It's a little confusing because it's in South America.

It's the world's biggest eye on the sky. It's a 26 foot in diameter telescope. The pictures, by the way, of this crazy monster star were also captured by the Hubble space telescope.

All right. That takes us to a new hour, and that mean's I've got a new "Rundown."

A storm watch becomes a storm warning in the Gulf of Mexico, and that means oil cleanup work becomes oil cleanup work delay.

Plus, we're waiting on a judge to rule on the latest challenges to Arizona's tough new immigration law. But you can bet that ruling is not going to end the battle.

Also, her mother, father, brothers and sisters were slaughtered in Rwanda. But now she's learning tragedy into a lesson in tolerance. It's a story you won't forget and one that none of us should ever forget. You're going to meet someone very special this hour. Let's start with the latest on Tropical Storm Bonnie. Our man is covering it. Chad Myers is on top of this story.

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: Let's go over here, somewhere around there. Rob Marciano is on with us. He's in Gulf Shores.

So you're still within that cone of probability, Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And worse than that, I don't know if Chad mentioned this, but a lot of that convection, last I checked, was in the northern end of the storm. So we'll be in that northeastern quadrant, so to speak, and so the thunderstorms will probably start rolling in there pretty quick. And the problem really, Ali, is going to be more so that we'll have that onshore wind for any period of time.

Now, they've done a good job of cleaning up some of the more intense slicks that are out there as far as skimming goes. But as far as what's underneath, what's been dispersed, and smaller particles of oil, that's going to make its way towards these -- what are right now pretty clean beaches, and could be infiltrating the shoreline again.

So, some of the cleanup that's been so tirelessly done the past couple of months may have to be done again. And I had a chance to do just that the past few weeks, embedding with people cleaning the beach, people saving wildlife, and Coast Guard skimmers out there in the middle of it, just getting it done.

And we're highlighting some of their heroic work in a special this weekend. I hope you tune in, 8:00 and 11:00 Eastern Time, both Saturday and Sunday night. It's call "Rescue: Saving the Gulf."

And I just go along for the ride and show you the people that are really working very, very hard every day to clean up this Gulf of Mexico --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: And it's going to be good because we often think of this as oil and a spill. But there are thousands -- tens of thousands of people involved in actually trying to deal with this thing on a daily basis, sometimes under very tough circumstances. And you've got a lot of that.

That is Saturday night. And tell me what time this is on.

MARCIANO: 8:00 p.m. Eastern. I think they run it again at 11:00, and then Sunday as well.

VELSHI: All right. When you get back, give me the secret to this thing, because if I were out there doing a story and I hadn't shaved the way you haven't shaved, I'd be getting calls from management. You, on the other hand, look fantastic.

Rob Marciano, always --

MARCIANO: I'm curious. Which way would it grow? Would it grow here or would it grow here?

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Good question. Maybe I'll get to try it out someday.

Rob Marciano in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Look forward to your special this weekend, Rob. Stay safe out there.

All right. Both sides peppered with questions at those hearings on Arizona's immigration law. Just days now until that law, that very controversial law, takes effect, unless the judge agrees to block it.

Hear what went on behind closed doors after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. Next week we're going to get a decision -- it could be sooner than that, but we're expecting it from a judge in these two hearings about Arizona's very controversial immigration law. There were two challenges. One was by the Department of Justice. The other one was by a number of groups including the American Civil Liberties Union.

They were both seeking injunctions to Bill SB 1070. That is Arizona's controversial immigration law which is scheduled to take effect next Thursday.

Now, the law mandates that police ascertain a person's legal status as -- their immigration status if reasonable suspicion exists that they might be illegal. Here's the section in particular that is controversial.

It says, "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state, where reasonable suspicion exists, that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made to determine the immigration status of the person."

The Department of Justice, in arguing this, says that it violates the U.S. Constitution supremacy clause that federal laws are the supreme law of the land. The ACLU and other groups are arguing that it violates civil liberties.

Casey Wian is our man on the case. He's back in L.A., but he was in the court yesterday when these hearings were taking place.

What do you have for us, Casey?

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, what's clear after yesterday's federal court hearing in Phoenix is that Arizona's controversial anti-illegal immigration law is raising some very, very difficult legal issues.

The judge heard arguments from two groups of attorneys. As you mentioned, one representing the ACLU, Latino rights groups and some individual plaintiffs. She also heard from the Obama administration, the U.S. Justice Department. Both tried to persuade her to block the law before it takes effect next week.

Now, the federal government claims, as you also mentioned, that Arizona's law intrudes on what is its exclusive authority to regulate immigration. The civil rights groups claim it's unconstitutional because it might subject legal residents and even U.S. citizens to harassment by police.

Now, the state of Arizona counters those arguments by saying it's only requiring its police officers to comply with existing federal immigration law. And Arizona also says the civil rights claims are only hypothetical, no one has been injured yet, and not sufficient to block the law from taking effect.

Their attorneys, the state's attorneys, also asked the judge to dismiss those lawsuits. She did not immediately rule on either request. And so we're having to wait to see whether she's going to allow the law to take effect next week, maybe just portions of it. We're waiting for her decision -- Ali.

VELSHI: All right. You just answered the question I was going to ask you, what those options are, and that it might be portions of it go through, it might not be. You'll be on the case.

Thank you for that. Great reporting on this.

Casey Wian in Los Angeles.

All right. She is saving babies by building sisterhoods. What do I mean by that? You'll find out right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: The first year of a baby's life can be the most crucial. But too many baby, especially African-American babies, don't make it through that year.

Enter this week's CNN Hero.

Kathryn Hall-Trujillo trains volunteer sister friends to support new mothers through their pregnancies and their babies' first year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHRYN HALL-TRUJILLO, FOUNDER, BIRTHING PROJECT USA: What we're saying is, is that you don't have to have this by yourself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Birthing Project takes regular women in a community like me to work closely with the little sisters throughout their pregnancy, and after they have the baby.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Kathryn Hall-Trujillo joins me now from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Kathryn, thank you very much for joining us.

I want to know about why you started this effort. I mean, people have been having babies for all of human history. Why did you think this was important to get involved?

HALL-TRUJILLO: Well, thank you for having me.

And I started the project many years ago -- I'm almost embarrassed to say it now -- as a way of saving money for the state of California because we were just spending way too much money to take care of babies who were born too sick.

VELSHI: I guess the saving money for the state of California part didn't work out too well. But you went from this being a project into it being an organization. I'm always curious with people like you where that happens.

When did you realize that the need for what you were doing or the success of it was such that this became bigger? And how did you get bigger?

HALL-TRUJILLO: Well, when I began the project, I was very, very interested, as I said, in saving the state of California money because we were spending way too much money for babies who were born sick. And I started the project as just a demonstration to show the state how this might happen.

And I chose 10 women and matched them up with 10 pregnant women. And I also matched myself up as one of those 10 pregnant women.

And as it turned out, the baby of the woman who I was matched with died. And when that baby died, it really made me understand that saving money for the state of California was very important, but saving lives was even more important. So that baby helped me understand that the terminology that we use all the time in the profession about infant mortality really means counting dead babies, and we count way too many dead babies in this country.

VELSHI: Tell me materially what difference a sister can make to a pregnant mother. What are the things that can help that pregnancy go well and help that baby make it through its first crucial year that people in your project can help with?

HALL-TRUJILLO: The most important thing that a sister friend does is she helps the pregnant woman take advantage of the resources that we already have in terms of health care and other social support. And in addition to that, she provides health education and guidance in terms of how to go through the pregnancy, how to go through the delivery, and actually how to be a good parent once the baby is born.

And so she's acting to help the woman take advantage of what there is, and also to learn how to use it and to be a social support person for her, to help her reduce the stress that all women have when they're pregnant and parenting.

VELSHI: And you say when all women have. How broadly can this be applied? Because it sounds like lots and lots of pregnant women outside of just African-American women can benefit from.

HALL-TRUJILLO: Well, that's true. We've put a lot of effort and money into doing research around how to have better birth outcomes in our country because we rank so low. We're number 45, we're number 46 in the world community. And what we're finding is the importance of social support and the importance of social support reducing stress, which is one of the primary factors in birth outcomes for all women.

VELSHI: Kathryn, what a pleasure to talk to you.

Kathryn Hall-Trujillo joining me from Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her great story about helping pregnant mothers have successful births, great birth outcomes, and a great first year for the baby.

Kathryn, thank you for joining me.

HALL-TRUJILLO: Thank you. Thank you very much.

VELSHI: Kathryn's project has welcomed more than -- I didn't say this, but this is a big deal -- more than 12,000 babies into 94 communities in five countries.

If you want to nominate someone like her who you think is changing the world, go to CNNHeroes.com. Nominations close only a few days from now, on August 1st.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: People in Biloxi, Mississippi, are no stranger to hurricanes. The city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. And as the city continues to rebuild, they're looking to their past to build toward the future.

My friend Tom Foreman is on the story.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, when a community is trying to recover from a massive hurricane, or facing a catastrophic oil spill, or maybe another big storm, many people say there's just no time or money for worrying about historic sites. But others say you must because those places convey stability, make people want to stay, reinvest, and build up again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (voice-over): The 150-year-old lighthouse is gleaming again in Biloxi, reopened just this year after a massive restoration. And other glimmers of hope are appearing all over town.

BILL RAYMOND, BILOXI HISTORIC ADMINISTRATOR: This is the Magnolia Hotel. It is the only surviving antebellum hotel along the Gulf Coast.

FOREMAN: Bill Raymond, historic administrator for Biloxi, is overseeing the revival of more than a dozen landmarks hammered by Katrina.

(on camera): How much damage did you have here?

RAYMOND: We had seven foot of water. We had water up to about there.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And he's sharply aware that with so many jobs lost to the recession and so many in peril from the oil spill, many citizens are asking hard questions.

RAYMOND: "Why would you spend money to save a historic structure? You need to help people get jobs."

FOREMAN (on camera): And what did you tell them?

RAYMOND: Think about the future. Think about just a few years from now, when you do have a house, you do have a place to work.

FOREMAN: You're going to also want a town with an identity.

RAYMOND: Exactly.

FOREMAN (voice-over): For three centuries, this town, one of the oldest on the Gulf, has had a deep identity rooted in fishing and tourism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a 103-year-old building right here.

FOREMAN: And in the newly restored City Hall, the mayor believes regaining a sense of that history is critical to convincing tourists to come back, business leaders to reinvest, everyone to believe his town will fully return from all of its calamities.

(on camera): You lost a lot of history in the storm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We lost a tremendous amount of history. But we want to bring it back as much as we can.

FOREMAN: Inside the lighthouse, the wall shows how high floodwaters have risen over many years. But sites all over show that this town has always built up, no matter how far it is beaten down.

RAYMOND: It is not our history, but it is the reminders and the markers of our history.

FOREMAN: And Bill Raymond is convinced with each bit of history he can save, the future, too, grows brighter.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: You know, it comes down to this, Ali -- these places are a living record, living proof that this community has survived many calamities in the past and it will again -- Ali.

VELSHI: All right. Tom Foreman in Mississippi with the CNN Express.

Pakistan, one of America's key allies in the war in Afghanistan. But how dependable, how trustworthy an ally is it? We're hearing now that Pakistan's intelligence agency trains, arms, finances and controls the very enemy that the U.S. is fighting.

I'm going to take you "Globe Trekking" after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. Time now to take you globe trekking. Our stop today is Afghanistan and its volatile neighbors, Pakistan and India.

The war in Afghanistan is now America's longest war in its history. The key ally in the war, Pakistan. Now, a new detailed report alleges that Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, trains, arms and finances at least -- maybe even partially controls -- America's enemy in the war, the Taliban.

Now, first, we need to emphasize, the Pakistani government strongly denies everything in this report. If it's true, however, why? Why is Pakistan financing the Taliban? Well, the author of "London School of Economics" report, Matt Waldman, and numerous others analysts, point to this long history of deep animosity between Pakistan and India.

We've made a time line to show you why Pakistan may be playing a double game. Let's take a look at that. Let's go back all they way, 1947, August 14th, 1947. India gains its independence from Great Britain and separates from Pakistan. The two countries, it's called partition. It wasn't a particularly peaceful partition -- India, a majority Hindu country; Pakistan, a majority Muslim country.

Between 1947 and 1971, India and Pakistan have fought three wars, mostly about the disputed Kashmir region. In once case, it was about East Pakistan, which then separated and became Bangladesh.

In 1974, the stakes were heightened when India tested its first nuclear device, becoming part of a nuclear world, a nuclear power.

1979 to 1989, saw the 10-year soviet invasion of Afghanistan, an unsuccessful invasion in the end. They were fought off. They were fought off by the mujahedeen people, fighters from Muslim countries who came in to fight off the Soviets and they were successful.

But after that, things changed a little bit. There was a -- there was a civil war in Afghanistan. In 1992, the government fell. But within two years, the Taliban had actually come to power.

1992 to 1996 was a civil war in Afghanistan. In 1996, the Taliban came to power and controlled, in the end, 98 percent of the country.

Let's go over to 1998, this is just after the fall of Kabul. Pakistan becomes a nuclear power itself. So, now, you've got these two countries with relatively hostile relations to each other and they're both armed to the "t."

2001, the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

The issue here is that India has a growing influence in Afghanistan and this is very worrisome to the Pakistanis who want to be the major influencer, the major power in the region. And that might be why they are doing something to help out the Taliban.

Again, the Pakistani government reject this is notion.

Last hour, I spoke to Matt Waldman. He's in the Afghanistan capital of Kabul. He's made numerous trips to Afghanistan for this report. He interviewed numerous Taliban field commanders and officials.

Here's what he told us:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT WALDMAN, INDEPENDENT ANALYST: Well, this is research that we conducted over six months. And as you say, we interviewed a very large number of individuals. All of whom have, you know, some experience or knowledge in the insurgency in Afghanistan as well as insurgents themselves. And what was remarkable about this research is that there was a great deal of agreement between the different interviewees about the level of support from Pakistan being provided to the insurgents.

Of course, it's in terms of sanctuaries -- so the fact that insurgents can cross the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan where they're relatively safe, where they can re-equip, where they can rearm, where they can prepare for future attacks. Or indeed in other respects, so in terms of the supplies that they have, or indeed the training.

VELSHI: What would be the point of this? Why would Pakistan -- even though they got this history with India, they were -- and this ongoing conflict with India, why would they be interested now today in continuing to help the Taliban when, in fact, official government policy in Pakistan is not to do so?

WALDMAN: Well, I think we have to appreciate the fact that there is -- if you like a sort of latent conflict. In other words, a sort of hidden rivalry and tension between Pakistan and India, and it is a very serious competition between the two states that, as you said, have been to war three times and have had numerous other skirmishes and minor confrontations.

And indeed, as you know, there was the attack in Mumbai in 2008 in India which killed over 160 India civilians and that has contributed to the tension between the two states because India believes that somehow, the ISI, as you mentioned, the Pakistani intelligence agency, was behind this.

So, we've got to acknowledge that there is real rivalry between these two countries and indeed, they see Afghanistan as somehow significant in terms of that rivalry. And it is one of the reasons that Pakistan, I think, seeks regional influence here. It sees an alliance between New Delhi and Kabul and it is concerned about the presence and the influence that India has here in Afghanistan. And I think it partly explains why Pakistan has taken the steps that they have done.

And of course, we have to remember that Pakistan has very close links with the Taliban back in 1990s when they first came to power.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: That's Matt Waldman. Obviously, our coverage of Afghanistan is going to continue in great detail.

This is a story you're not going to believe. She was sent to America at the age of 10 after seeing her mother, her father and her siblings slaughtered. Now, 16 years later, Jacqueline Murekatete is making her mission: a peaceful and stable Rwanda. She is an amazing young woman. You're going to meet her next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: This hour's top stories begin with the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season -- meet Tropical Storm Bonnie. And what it lacks in size and strength, it more than makes up for in location. It has come ashore just south of Miami, but it's on a path that may take it across south Florida, then into the Gulf of Mexico, very near the site of the BP oil leak. It is expected to make a final landfall, a second landfall, somewhere on the northern Gulf Coast. We are tracking it very closely here.

Flooding in central China is being called the worst in a decade. The Xinhua News Agency says almost 300 people are dead. More than 300,000 homes are washed away. More rain and more floods are expected through the weekend.

And new advice for once and future moms. One c-section doesn't rule out vaginal deliveries in the future. For decades, doctors have feared complications not to mention malpractice suits. But the American college of -- OB-GYN now says vaginal births are safe and appropriate for at least 60 percent of women who have delivered by cesarean in the past.

All right. Here's an interesting story for you. She was sent to America at the age of 10 after her mother, her father and her siblings were killed in the war in Rwanda. Now, 16 years later, Jacqueline Murekatete is making her mission: a peaceful and a stable Rwanda. She's an amazing young woman. You're going to meet her right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for our "Mission Possible." We bring you this every day -- someone who has done something extraordinary that could influence you.

Jacqueline Murekatete is a Rwandan genocide survivor and she's an activist. I met her some years ago. We had some common work that we were both involved in.

Let me just tell you about Rwanda. And it's a possible thing to forget. But it's estimated that 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda in about 100 days, just a little more than three months. That's the entire population, for instance, of San Francisco. That's how many people.

Jacqueline was only 9 years old at the time. She lost her entire family. Her mother, her father and six siblings were killed in that -- in that genocide.

She was then sent to America to live with an uncle. She went to -- she went to the United States. She went to Virginia. She subsequently moved to New York and it was soon after that that I met her.

She joins me now to tell you a little bit more about not only her experience but what she's doing about it.

Jacqueline, good to see you again. Thank you for joining us.

JACQUELINE MUREKATETE, RWANDAN GENOCIDE SURVIVOR & ACTIVIST: Good to see you again as well. I want to be on.

VELSHI: You and I met when we were involved with Miracle Corners of the World. Tell me a little bit about your journey. How did -- how did you end up with that organization and what did you end up doing?

MUREKATETE: Yes. When I was 16, I started sharing my experience. When I was a sophomore in high school, I decided to start speaking out about what had happened in my country, about the fact that my family and all these people had been murdered simply because of who they were, that they were two seeds in a country that believe that being of two different ethnicities was a crime deserving of death. So, I decided to start speaking out about it.

Then I decided I wanted to start doing things to help genocide survivors in Rwanda. Although I lost my family in the genocide, I have always considered myself one of the fortunate ones in that I was given the opportunity to be able to come to this country and to be able to go to school. I always thought about my fellow survivors, my fellow genocide orphans back home. So, I decided to start something that would address some of their needs.

So, in 2007, after graduating from NYU, I teamed up with Miracle Corners of the World and I started the genocide prevention program, Jacqueline's Human Rights Corner, that aims to educate young people about the crime of genocide and also raises support in partnership with Miracle Corners to do projects in Rwanda to help survivors and to help the country in its ongoing rebuilding efforts.

VELSHI: So, you've got two things going on. One is, you want to make people aware of genocide and its dangers. And the other one is that you actually have projects. You have a project underway, for instance, in the Bugesera District in Rwanda. Tell us what you do there, what is the work that's being done.

MUREKATETE: So, in 2008, I teamed up with Miracle Corners of the World to start a community center in Bugesera District, which is about 30 minutes away from the capital city of Kigali. And the center is going to provide a variety of programs, including English education, I.T. education, microfinance, socio-entrepreneurship, programs aimed at helping genocide survivors to rebuild their lives, whether it be, you know, teaching them skills that they're going to use to get employment or teaching them a language that's going to enable them to get higher education.

So, the vision of the center is really to provide services survivors in so much need of because whether it's been 16 years since the genocide, a lot of survivors continue to struggle with, you know, with what happened in 1994.

VELSHI: Yes.

MUREKATETE: And a lot of them are so much in need -- in need of hope and that's what we wanted to do there, provide hope.

VELSHI: We talk to a lot of people here, Jacqueline, who do great things for other people. Not a lot of them have been through your experience. You came to America. You went to -- you moved to Brooklyn. You went to NYU. You've graduated. Now, you're doing this.

How have you dealt with your situation? You lost your entire family. Your entire family was murdered.

MUREKATETE: You know, it was very difficult. I mean, for myself and for other survivors, the few of us who survived, it was very difficult to really come to terms to what happened in our home country. I mean, I remember, you know, being a child having my parents, my six siblings, aunts and uncles. And all of a sudden, I was an orphan and I had seen what I had, you know, seen and I was told my family had been murdered, you know, simply because of who they were.

So, it took me a very long time to even begin speaking about it because I was still struggling to understand, you know, what had happened. And then, you know, I came to a point where I decided that as one of the few survivors, I had the responsibility to talk about what happened and hopefully to use my experience as a way to prevent what happened in Rwanda from ever happening again, either in my home country of Rwanda or anywhere else.

VELSHI: Well, let's hope that that is what actually ends up happening.

Jacqueline, great to see you again, as always. Thank you for all the great work that you do.

Jacqueline Murekatete is a Rwanda genocide survivor and an activist. If you want to learn more about Jacqueline's human rights work or find out how you can help, go to www.miraclecorners.org. You'll find Jacqueline's Corner on the homepage.

OK. When we come back, my good friend, Ed Henry, White House senior correspondent, is standing by. He's actually staking out -- well, he's staking somebody out because that's what he does. It's the stakeout. The chase scene, everything, it's worth watching.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: It's about that time of day where I start getting a little bit hungry. And it seems that every time I introduce Ed Henry, my producer says, instead calling it the stakeout with Ed Henry, I've been calling it the steakhouse with Ed Henry. It shows you where my mind is.

Ed is at the steak house right now which we know is the White House.

ED HENRY, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I thought you were a Chick-Fil-A guy.

VELSHI: I'm -- I've got a lot of variety to my diet, Ed.

HENRY: Chicken's a little healthier. I know, you're a healthy guy.

VELSHI: Yes, exactly. You might have burned some calories this weekend -- this week -- running around chasing people down. A lot of people think the stakeout means you stand in one place and wait for something to happen. You don't. You were moving around this week. HENRY: You got to go -- you got to go get the story. We went yesterday to the Agriculture Department because there's still one mystery that hasn't been solved.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HENRY (voice-over): In the saga of Shirley Sherrod, there's only one mystery left to be solved: where is Cheryl Cook?

(on camera): Cheryl Cook works here at the Agriculture Department as a top aide to Secretary Tom Vilsack. And she's in the middle of this story because Shirley Sherrod alleges that on Monday when the story first exploded, Cheryl cook called her three times and demanded that she resign and that Cheryl Cook said it was at the urging of the White House.

Now, White House officials and Secretary Vilsack have denied that. But Cheryl Cook has not come forward to answer one single question on this matter.

So, we spent the day trying to track her down from here at the Agriculture Department, a few blocks away over at the White House.

(voice-over): In the afternoon, my colleague, Dan Lothian, pressed Robert Gibbs on whether the White House would make Cook available.

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I'd point you over to the USDA on that. I don't know if you talked to USDA.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right, but she's the person who supposedly said that the White House wanted her to step down --

GIBBS: Dan, if you want to reach the undersecretary or the deputy secretary, again, call the Department of Agriculture.

HENRY (on camera): You can hear on the overhead intercom that Robert Gibbs is still doing his daily briefing. He just told Dan Lothian that if you want to reach Cheryl Cook at the Agriculture Department, you should call the press office. We're going to try to track her down.

Hey there. It's Ed Henry of CNN. We're working on a story about Cheryl Cook. And I just wanted to see if we can get an interview with her because Robert Gibbs just said in the briefing for the second day in a row that if any reporters want to talk to her, we should call over to the Press Office. Could you help us?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me see. I can -- let me take your information now.

HENRY (voice-over): Later in the afternoon, I got a call back from another press person who left me a voicemail shedding no new light on Cook's contact with the White House.

CHRIS MATHER, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, USDA (via telephone): I think we've been pretty clear about what the involvement was and wasn't. Obviously, we informed them of what was going on because that's what we do on a daily basis. And in terms of their request or anything else, this was our decision here at USDA.

HENRY: Then suddenly, a possible breakthrough.

(on camera): My producer, Shawna Shepherd, has just gotten what we believe to be the direct line at the Agriculture Department for Cheryl Cook as well as her cell numbers.

VOICE: Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system. The mailbox belonging to Cheryl Cook is full. To disconnect, press 1. To enter another number, press 2.

HENRY: She's getting a lot of calls. She's not returning calls.

(voice-over): So, we headed to agriculture headquarters to see if he could find Cheryl Cook there.

(on camera): Have you seen her? Have you seen this woman anywhere?

(voice-over): We tried to talk to Secretary Vilsack. But his driver spotted our camera. And the car was brought to a different entrance and the secretary left.

But just as we were about to leave, the secretary's car came back to the office and we confronted him.

(on camera): Ed Henry of CNN. Would Cheryl Cook be made available for any questions? There's an allegation that, you know, she said that the White House wanted Shirley to resign. Will she be made available to answer questions?

TOM VILSACK, AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: I addressed that yesterday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENRY: So, you can hear the secretary there. He clearly is saying that he dealt with this already. There are still some outstanding questions, on exactly what kind of contact there was between the White House and the Agriculture Department. I think the bottom line is: here it is Friday, the White House is hoping this story is done, Ali.

VELSHI: Yes. But it dominated the entire week and the White House didn't get to celebrate its victories like financial regulatory reform. That USDA bunch, a little crusty, considering that they didn't really have award-winning handling of the situation.

Ed, good work there. Thank you so much.

HENRY: I don't know if you saw a little press aide -- there was a press aide there trying to box me out.

VELSHI: I saw it. I saw it.

HENRY: And I was wearing your World Cup tie, though, so I felt a little stronger.

VELSHI: And he thought you were an athlete. He didn't try too hard on that.

Ed, have yourself a great weekend. We'll see you on the other side.

Ed Henry with the steakhouse.

I want to know what is in your pocket. I want to know and so two of the world's most renowned directors. I'm going to empty out my pockets -- straight ahead in my "XYZ."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ" of it.

Last hour, I spoke with Director Kevin Macdonald, who, along with Ridley Scott, is inviting you to share your life in a day, tomorrow, July 24th on YouTube. They want to take your extraordinary and ordinary moments and make a documentary for the Sundance Film Festival.

It's an incredible idea borne out of the most basic ideas. Beyond the video, Kevin and Ridley are asking you to answer questions such as: what do you love most? What are you most afraid of? And this one is interesting: what's in your pocket?

As Kevin said, if you saw the interview, what's in your pocket says a lot about you. So, I took a look in my own pocket. Not here because I put that stuff aside before the show starts.

But in one pocket, I carry my wallet. Obvious, yes. But what's not so obvious? If you look in my wallet, you won't find any money, just I.D., credit cards and photographs. The cash lives in the other pocket.

I am the chief business correspondent, so you could call the separation of plastic and paper my own way of diversifying. In another pocket, you'll find a pen. At home, in a bar, on the set, you never know when you'll need to write something down. So, I'm never without a pen.

And chances are, if you take the CNN tour, you see me on the street or a friend of mine -- you know my BlackBerry is rarely out of my hand. So, I keep in my pocket closest to my heart. It's a relationship that my wife, my boss and my executive producer love to hate but they've grown to understand.

And finally, I carry a real cloth handkerchief. I'm little old school that way. My dad carried them, my grandfather carried them. So now, I do. I guess what's in your pocket does say something.

So, what does yours say about you? Check in YouTube and see if you can do your own life in a day.

That's my "XYZ." Have a great weekend.

Time now for "RICK'S LIST."