Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Forest Fires Smother Moscow in Smoke; U.S. Places 12th in College Grads; How Rich is Rich?; Ethics Charges Filed Against Maxine Waters

Aired August 09, 2010 - 13:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Kate, what a pleasure to see you here on a weekday in Atlanta. Make yourself welcome. Come by any time you like.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, sir.

VELSHI: And as Kate says, I'm Ali Velshi. Here's what I've got on the rundown this afternoon.

Armed, dangerous and desperate. Two prison escapees spark a massive manhunt. We're expecting authorities to reveal a major development this hour. I'll bring that right to you.

Plus, she has been a passionate advocate for Afghanistan for decades. Julia Roberts played her in a movie. Now Joanne Herring says we must win the war in Afghanistan and win the peace. You do not want to miss my live chat with Joanne Herring.

Also, metal detectors, body scans, all designed to stop terrorism. Now you can add mind-reading to that list, believe it or not.

I've got a jam-packed couple hours for you. But first I want to start off with a story that has fascinated the world. It's not a good story. It's a sad story, but take a look at what's going on in Russia, in Moscow.

First of all, I want to show you this. I want to show you two packets of cigarettes, all right? Imagine smoking these two pack of cigarettes every hour. Well, if you're in Moscow right now and you're breathing in, that is the amount of carbon monoxide that you're taking in, the equivalent of two packs of cigarettes every few hours. It is remarkable. Why? Because of forest fires in central Russia.

There's a drought there. It's hot. And these fires are burning out of control. People all over central Russia have been asked to stay indoors. It's the worst pollution of the year. In fact, on Saturday, they had the worst day they had had.

Temperatures there are in the mid 90s. These fires, more than 500 of them, are burning. They're forest fires, and they're peat bog fires. As you know, peat burns -- burns quite a bit, and those are happening right outside of Moscow.

Fifty-two people have been killed directly as a result of those fires. That number may have changed. I'll get an update for you. But dozens have been hospitalized.

Optimistically, they won't have these fires dealt with for the next week or so. And until then, people are breathing in this terrible air.

And just to give you a sense of it, I want to go right to Moscow right now to Matthew Chance, our correspondent there, and if you've been watching him, you have been noticing the difference in the change of background. That is normally a crystal-clear background behind Matthew.

And in fact on Saturday, Matthew, when I saw you, it looked like you were standing in front of a white screen. What's going on in Moscow?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, about an hour ago, Ali, the wind had been blowing throughout the course of the day, which has actually cleared much of this horrible, thick smog behind me, has stopped, and within a few minutes, it just all comes back again.

Let me just take a step away out of the way of the window for a second. Look at this horrific scene. You can normally see the entire cityscape here, but you can barely see the buildings across the road at this stage. This is what it's been like all over the capital. It's 10 million people living here. They've all been forced to wear, you know, face masks like this, if you go outside, you want to be safe.

You mentioned there the death toll. It's 52 from the fires, but that belies what could be the real figure. Remember, health workers here, the health authorities here in Moscow are saying the mortality rates for the month of July are twice as high as they were for the same time last year. And so if you -- you know, quite back to the whole of this western central region of Russia, that could mean thousands of people have lost their lives because of these poisonous, noxious fumes.

VELSHI: And as I said, the reports indicate that authorities don't think they can have this under control for at least five or seven days.

CHANCE: Well, five or seven days, very optimistic estimate. At the moment, what everybody is waiting for, are for the weather conditions to change. We're in the middle of the worst drought here for nearly 40 years. It hasn't rained since May. We've had temperatures around 40 degrees centigrade. That's 104 degrees Fahrenheit. In a country which is used to freezing temperatures, that's quite a challenge. Until that changes, it's like even though there are tens of thousands of firefighters fighting the blazes around this part of Russia, they're not going to be able to bring them under control until the weather changes, Ali.

VELSHI: All right. And in Moscow, that's what it really looks like, but that is actually an improvement over what it was on Saturday and Sunday.

CHANCE: Yes. So we should be grateful, shouldn't we, for these small mercies? But it's still -- believe me, it's still pretty, pretty awful. And the smoke has permeated office buildings. It's permeated homes. In my apartment, it's just terrible when you wake up in the morning. Even in the metro system in this city, which is very deep under the ground, one of the deepest in the world, people are complaining that the smoke is still very pungent down there, as well, Ali.

VELSHI: Matthew, we'll keep checking in with you. Matthew Chance in Moscow, thanks very much. We'll keep on top of that story.

Nature's wrath not just in Russia. Here in the United States, in Minnesota over the weekend, a storm chaser catches a tornado destroying a farmhouse. Listen to his emotional reaction. That's today's "Sound Effect."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, it hit that -- oh, no! Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Look at the power of that. That's a storm chaser. That's someone who's used to seeing the devastation that a tornado can wreak. The farmhouse was empty at the time. There are no injuries reported from that storm. This tornado happened in western Minnesota in Wilkin County.

The National Weather Service says as many as seven tornadoes may have touched down in southeast North Dakota and in western Minnesota.

All right. The U.S. used to be on top, used to be the world's No. 1 when it came to the percentage of young people graduating from college. Not any more. We have fallen, we have fallen fast, and we have fallen hard. President Obama wants to change that. I'll tell you about it when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Welcome back, everybody. Good to be with you this afternoon. You know on this show how committed we are to discussions about education: public education, higher education. Well, higher education is our topic today.

College education, the U.S. used to be on top. I want to show you a map of the countries with -- the top 12 countries in the world with -- in terms of the proportion of young people who are college graduates. That's sort of a good measure of how many people are going to school. The U.S. is on that list, but it is flat-out last. It is No. 12.

Canada, by the way, has the highest percentage of young adults with college degrees at 56. But after Canada, it's Korea, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Israel, France, Belgium, Australia, and then the United States. As of 2007, that's the last full year for which we have these numbers, 40 percent of U.S. adults in the age 25 to 34 category, young adults outside of school, had post-secondary degrees. That is 12 out of all those nations that I have talked to you about.

President Obama is in Austin, Texas, today. He's there for a fundraiser. But he's going to be talking about -- about pushing this up, getting America back to the top in that percentage by the year 2020. Ed Henry is traveling with the president with more on this.

Ed, what -- what can he say to change this? This isn't the kind of thing a president can just wave a wand and all of a sudden everybody goes to school.

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're right, Ali, and you know, it takes a lot of time to sort of build a new foundation on this, as the president will note in his remarks here at the University of Texas.

This loss that you mentioned happened over the course of a generation, that the U.S. went from 12 -- from 1st to 12th in terms of college graduation rates.

So he wants to lay out a series of steps. These are things he's talked about before. We should stress there's no major new initiative here. But he's going to be talking about starting with kids going into kindergarten, for example, that you've got to start at the beginning, that he wants to set up a special fund to make sure kids going into kindergarten have all the tools they need to start out right. He's going to talk more about race to the top, which we've heard a lot about before in terms of making schools more competitive. This program initiative, the president just put in the last year-and- a-half and got through Congress. A lot of money going to schools all around the country.

But also, the president wants a heavy emphasis in this speech on actual college completion. He's going to talk about how one of the problems is a lot of people start college in the United States but don't finish it. And so he wants to attack that at a number of levels.

First of all, dealing with making sure community colleges are strong. It's not counting on all of the major, you know, Ivy League schools, for example, to bail the U.S. out here. That you've got to look all across the spectrum.

But also another important issue you've talked about before is college affordability.

VELSHI: Right.

HENRY: He's going to challenge administrators all around the country to lower some of those costs, and he's going to also talk about what he's trying to do to make college more affordable: cutting down the cost on student loans, for example, Ali.

VELSHI: Yes. And they've done that. This administration has done that. But as you point out, this has been going on for a while. These -- this decline in young adults going to college and getting college degrees can't just be pinned on the recession. So there's been an increase in the cost of education over time. The administration can deal with that part of things. But getting people into those professions that they believe will be careers for the rest of their lives, that seems to be a bit of a challenge. And I don't know how we address that. That may be better -- bigger than something the president can do.

HENRY: It is. I mean, the president is going to talk about it. He said this before. But again in his speech today, basically talk about how it should not be just seen as an education issue. As you just noted, it should be seen as an economic issue.

VELSHI: Right.

HENRY: And if the U.S. college graduation rates are sliding this far, it obviously raises deep questions about whether the work force is going to be competing with China, India, other emerging countries. And so he's going to talk a lot about that.

We should also note that he's going to be doing some fundraising here in Austin as well as in Dallas. So this speech is sort of wedged into that. It's the campaign season, and president in part coming back here to Austin, because this was the site of one of his major early campaign rallies early in the 2008 campaign before he had really caught fire. And so maybe he's hoping to maybe rally some folks here, as well, as he talks about some of these key education initiatives, Ali.

VELSHI: Well, it's a fun city. I hope you get to spend some time there. This isn't our Ed Henry segment, by the way. We do that later on, the stakeout.

HENRY: We get to come back later. All right.

VELSHI: Good. Ed is staking the president out in -- in Austin, Texas. We'll check in with him a little later on.

And at 3 p.m. Eastern, when the president does deliver that speech on education, higher education, you can watch that here live on CNN during "Rick's List."

All right. This is a question that may have no answer. Do you think you're rich? Do you want to be rich? Do you know exactly how much money you need to be rich? Stay with us. When we come back, I'm going to tell you how much it takes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: People have different ideas about how much green you have to be to be Mr. Money Bags. Just how rich do you have to be to actually be rich? This is a very complicated question in today's economy. CNNmoney.com's Poppy Harlow joins me from New York with some take on this question.

It's hard to know. I mean, I remember when we were -- when we were kids we used to think of a millionaire as rich. POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: Right. Very rich. I liked Mr. Money Bags, though, Ali. That's my new -- that's my new nickname for you.

VELSHI: Nice.

HARLOW: But what we did is, we went out on the street and we asked folks here in New York City -- we know this is a very expensive city, but if you're rich depends a lot on where you live, how many money you spend, how much money you save. But I was amazed when we heard these very, very different responses as to our question, how rich is rich? Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would need, like, 5 or $6 million a year, which is a lot. But I feel like that would be -- really make me comfortable and feel free to do what I want to do and need to do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In this day and age, at least a billion. Millions don't do it anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Around $10 million, because that's what it would take to live off the interest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Enough money so my family and I wouldn't have to work anymore or worry about comforts or travel or necessities.

Let's just say in the ballpark of $10 million.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: All right. So from $10 million to Ali, did you hear that, a billion dollars?

VELSHI: A billion. Yes, I heard a billion in there.

HARLOW: A billion dollars. She said it doesn't cut it anymore. So a lot of different opinions when it comes to what it means to be rich, Ali.

VELSHI: All right. So let's talk about this. What -- what's some of your research pulled up on this?

HARLOW: Yes, I mean, you ask the experts. It's hard to identify what is really rich, but they say anywhere from $2 million to $12 million as your nest egg. The reason is, it really matters where you live.

I want to go through a low-cost city first, say, Des Moines, Iowa, Indianapolis.

VELSHI: Right.

HARLOW: Something like that. If you have $100,000 a year to live on in those cities, you're considered rich.

So what does it take to get $100,000 a year and not have to work? Well, if you want to retire at 35 -- wouldn't that be nice -- you're going to need 4 million bucks. But if you can wait it out until you're 65, you're going to need around $2 million.

But Ali, speaking to you from here is New York City where you used to live,...

VELSHI: Yes.

HARLOW: ... you know how expensive it is. And unless you're a New Yorker or someone that lives in L.A. or someone that lives in San Francisco, what the experts say is you're going to need about $300,000 a year to live on to become comfortable. What does that mean? It means the ability to pay your taxes, a $3,800 a month apartment, pretty pricey, and $12,000 a month to live on.

And the way you get that, Ali, is by saving up $12 million by the time you are 35, which we know you have done, Ali, even though you're not 35 yet, and then you can live on that. That's rich here in New York.

VELSHI: Now, so the issue here, of course -- it all comes back to politics and what we're talking about these days.

HARLOW: Yes.

VELSHI: Because I know we're going to get comments from people who say what are you talking about? I mean, this is a country where we've got 9.7 percent unemployment. And the administration -- the Obama administration seems to be using $250,000 a year in earnings.

HARLOW: Yes.

VELSHI: As some sort of a line between who should pay more taxes and who should pay lower taxes.

HARLOW: That's exactly right. They have said -- the administration has said, "Look, we're going to cut taxes for almost everyone in America, everyone that makes $250,000 or less a year. Obviously, you've got a lot of Republican outcry, because in New York City, for example, $250,000 a year really isn't rich.

VELSHI: Right.

HARLOW: You didn't hear any of those people we talked to say $250,000 a year. But the Census Bureau -- and that's what the White House is going by, the Census Bureau says, look, only 2 percent of Americans -- only 2 percent -- made $250,000 or more.

VELSHI: Right.

HARLOW: They're the only ones that are going to see their taxes go up. But it begs the question, and this is why you have a lot of pushback in the administration on this one, is really what is rich? From $1 billion to $1 million, all sorts of answers -- Ali.

VELSHI: Yes. Great -- great article to check out on CNNmoney.com.

HARLOW: Yes.

VELSHI: Poppy, good to see you. We'll talk to you again. Poppy Harlow at CNNmoney.com.

Be sure to watch "YOUR $$$$$" this weekend and every weekend for more of these types of discussions. Saturdays at 1 p.m. Eastern and Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

Well, it is a simple checklist, and it could save your life. We are making you an empowered patient when we come back. You're going to want to see this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We're following a developing story on Capitol Hill. The House Ethics Committee has filed some charges against long-time California Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Brianna Keilar has been following that story. She's on Capitol Hill with the latest -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Ali, this is it right here. This is the statement of alleged violations, ten pages, detailing the three different counts.

And we didn't know that there were basically three charges that she was facing here. And all of it centers around an alleged conflict of interest involving Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who is a prominent Democrat from California, the third-ranking Democrat on the powerful House Financial Services Committee.

And she sought help for a bank. This is what this statement alleges. She sought help for a bank called One United. It's a community bank. And at the time that she was looking for help from the Treasury Department -- she actually called then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- this was the largest African-American-owned bank in the country.

So she called up Henry Paulson, and the issue here has to do, Ali, with the fact that her husband at the time owned stock in this bank, One United, $175,000 in stock. And so these counts center around what appear to be this conflict of interest, obviously.

It really points a finger, particularly, at her chief of staff, Mikael Moore, who is also her grandson. It says in this -- and I've gone through the entire thing now -- that the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, said to Waters, "Don't get involved with One United. I'll take care of the issues that they're facing," because this bank, along with a number of other community- owned banks at the height of the financial crisis in 2008, it was a very scary time for a lot of banks, including this one here.

And I just got off the phone a short time ago, Ali, with Mikael Moore, and he said that there's really nothing -- he alleges there is nothing tying Congresswoman Waters to the federal help that this bank got, which in the end was $12 million in federal funds. And he also says that the statement of alleged violation seems to say that Barney Frank warned her off of being involved in this bank, that really that was a statement that was kind of made after the fact, and it wasn't something that she kind of went against his advice.

So this is still somewhat of a developing story, of course, Ali, but she's facing an ethics trial that could play out this fall.

VELSHI: OK. That's the second one we've been reporting on in the past few weeks. Brianna, you'll stay on top of it for us. We'll check in with you. Brianna Keilar on Capitol Hill on the Maxine Waters story.

OK. One of the things that we always talk about here, "The Big I'". We come up with ideas -- big ideas, sometimes small ideas -- that can solve problems and make things better for all of us.

Well, listen, we've got a great one for you right now. Do you know how many people die when they are hospitalized, how many people die of infections that they didn't go into the hospital with? I'm always fascinated. I always hear this number, and I'm always fascinated by it.

And one of the things that we know from you, that you enjoy so much about this show, is when Elizabeth Cohen, our senior medical correspondent, is on this show, because she breaks these things down for us. She's got a book now. She's got a brand-new book out. And it is called "Empowered Patient," because this is what -- this is what -- we'll do it this way. This is what Elizabeth does. She gives some basic advice to people on how they can take things into their own hands.

We do a lot of the same stuff, because in the financial -- in financial reporting through the financial crisis, it was the same thing. Everything was happening out there, and people didn't know what they could do for themselves.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly.

VELSHI: And that's what you're doing for parents. So you've -- this book is coming out. I think everybody should read it. And as part of that, you've got a checklist, some very simple things people can do to stop themselves from getting sick by going to hospitals.

COHEN: Or to be even more dramatic, but true, to stop themselves from dying.

VELSHI: That's right.

COHEN: I mean, don't let a hospital kill you.

VELSHI: Ninety-nine thousand people a year in the United States die.

COHEN: Do you realize, Ali, you go in for -- to get your tonsils out.

VELSHI: Right. COHEN: You know, you're perfectly fine, except you need those tonsils out, and you get an infection in the hospital.

VELSHI: Right.

COHEN: The hospital gives you an infection, and you die from that infection. And that happens to way too many people. And most of the time, there's actually no reason why that should have happened.

VELSHI: So the point of this -- this book and this discussion we're having today is that you can arm people with a little bit of information. So if all of a sudden I have to go into the hospital for something unexpected, I just know some things to look out for to try and keep myself from dying or healthier.

COHEN: Exactly. I'm going to give you two examples. And this comes, when we talk about "The Big 'I'." There's this incredible innovator who we're going to meet in a minute, Dr. Peter Pronovost. And he came up with a simple checklist.

For example, when someone is on a ventilator in the hospital, if they're lying down flat like this...

VELSHI: Yes.

COHEN: If they're lying down flat, they're at -- like that, they're at an incredible risk for getting a -- pneumonia. However, if it you just elevate their head -- that's all you have to do. Elevate their head -- so actually, you can see...

VELSHI: There you go.

COHEN: There you go. Just elevate the head, and you can actually get those infection rates down. They tried it on -- just elevating the head, got pneumonia rates down by 66 percent. That's it. It doesn't get any lower tech than elevating the head.

VELSHI: And there are so many of these simple, low-tech explanations. You've got another one. This one fascinated me.

COHEN: Right. This one has to do with washing hands.

VELSHI: Right.

COHEN: When doctors put in what's called a central line, it's a catheter that's put in sort of around in this area.

VELSHI: Right.

COHEN: It's very invasive. What they found is that only 30 percent of doctors were washing their hands before they did it, all right? You're talking about hands going...

VELSHI: Right.

COHEN: ... right into the body. So what they did is, they said, "Hey, docs, how about washing your hands?" And they made it part of a checklist. When they did that and coupled it with some other innovations, infection rates went down 70 percent.

VELSHI: Well, let's meet this guy who's got the simple solutions to some big problems.

COHEN: That's right, very simple solutions to big problems. There he is, Dr. Peter Pronovost, who's here with us from Johns Hopkins.

Welcome to our show.

DR. PETER PRONOVOST, JOHNS HOPKINS: Thanks, Elizabeth.

Hello, Ali.

VELSHI: Hello.

COHEN: So the first question I think everybody is wanting to know is, like, why do we have to tell doctors to wash their hands before doing an invasive procedure?

PRONOVOST: Well, you know, Elizabeth, medicine has gotten so complicated. And there's hundreds of thousands of things we have to do, and sometimes we forget the basic things. And part of our checklist was really this effort: go back to basics and make sure we do those really simple things that matter greatly.

COHEN: Now, Doctor, on the phone you said to me that you empowered nurses to say to a doctor who's not washing his or her hands, "Hey, Doc, wash up." And then you said that that caused World War III when you did that. So tell me about that.

PRONOVOST: Elizabeth, it was amazing. When we used our checklist, compliance with the steps went up, but it wasn't perfect. So we asked the nurses to work with the doctors, and if they saw the doctors not complying with the checklist, they were in power to stop it.

And when I said that, the nurses revolted. They said, "It's not my job to police the doctors," and if they do, they're going to get their head bit off.

The doctors, on the other hand, Elizabeth, said, "Hey, you can't have a nurse question me in public. It makes me look like I don't know something."

And you know, what we saw was, nobody debated the evidence. The barrier was our egos and politics and culture. Not science. So we pulled people together and said, is it tenable that we knowingly harm people here? And, of course, everybody said no. And I said to the nurses, "I need you to speak up. Your patients need you to speak up. And doctors, it's OK to make mistakes. But it's not OK to put patients at risk. So if you forget, it's OK. But if the nurse sees you, they're going to correct it."

COHEN: And isn't it amazing that in business -- your field, as well as in medicine, it ends up being all about the egos? VELSHI: Yes. It's the same thing. It's people not telling their boss, "Hey, listen, maybe that's not the right way of doing things. Maybe we should do it a different way."

So simple solutions, simple systems, to complicated problems. The book comes out tomorrow?

COHEN: That's right.

VELSHI: "Empowered Patient" by Elizabeth Cohen. You want to get this. It's a simple read, but it can make us all much better patients, and that alone can probably help us avoid some of these sicknesses and some of the -- and certainly these rates of death.

Elizabeth, thank you so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

VELSHI: We'll talk more about this. Elizabeth Cohen and Dr. Peter Pronovost. He's a critical care physician and a world-renowned medical safety expert.

All right. A woman you're about to meet, she is not a typical hard- line activist -- advocate of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. But this Houston socialite -- you know her, Joanne Herring -- has had a long involvement in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. She is convinced that the U.S. has to win this war, and she's going to tell us why, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Okay. I want to bring you some breaking news on a fascinating story. Mark Tremble with the Casper, Wyoming police department says the U.S. marshal's office has informed him that Tracy Province was captured in northwestern Wyoming. He has no other information. We'll get those details in a live press conference.

But let me just give you the background to the story. Police say three escapees and their accomplices hijacked a truck and drove it to Flagstaff, Arizona, where the driver and the truck were released. Then one of the escapees split off from the other two. He was arrested in Colorado.

The others bought a Volkswagen, and -- in Phoenix, and they have been sort of trekking along the United States. Police say that there is forensic evidence linking them to an Albuquerque, New Mexico couple found dead in a camper. They are -- those people were from Arizona. The truck then was found about 120 miles away.

Police say Tracy Province had been spotted in Casper, Wyoming. And that dragnet sort of moved in on her. She is the girlfriend of the man who still remains at large, John McCluskey. No word yesterday -- he is her fiance. No word yet on where McCluskey is or where police think he is.

McCluskey belonged to a white supremacist prison gang. Officials think he might be headed to Montana or Idaho.

I'm sorry, I've given you some conflicting information. Tracy Province is a man. Mccluskey's fiancee is Caslyn May Welch. The person who's been arrested is Tracy Province. That's what we understand from police in Wyoming. We'll get you more information on that as soon as we can.

All right. I want to take you over to Afghanistan. Civilians have often been caught in the crossfire of war in Afghanistan. What makes the most recent killings different, well, ten victims were part of a medical team providing desperately needed aid to Afghan villagers.

Now, you can see photographs of the four of the six victims. Six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Britain, all shot and killed last Thursday. The Taliban says it carried out the massacre, accusing the victims of being Christian missionaries, trying to convert Afghans. It happened in the remote northwest province of Badakshan (ph), an area where the Taliban were not actually believed to be operating. The victims had spent several days in the mountain ours area, treating people for various eye conditions. One of the victims, Cheryl Beckett of Knoxville, Tennessee spent six years in Afghanistan, specializing in nutritional gardening and mother-child health. Here's what the associate minister of her church said about her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DWAYNE CURRY, ASSOCIATE MINISTER: Cheryl is like her parents, you know. They just have servants' hearts. And so she loved God, she loves people. And, you know, she just wanted to help people.

Charles and Mary, I think, had a little bit of fear that this kind of thing could happen. And, you know, we still -- we were all shocked that this might be Cheryl. And something that happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Two other victims, Tom Little and Dan Terry, had spent a total of more than 70 years between them doing aid work in Afghanistan. All of the victims worked for the International Assistance Mission. The mission says it's a Christian-based charity, but is not involved in. According to "The New York Times," the latest killings bring to 17 the number of workers killed in Afghanistan this year.

If you were to ask Joanne Herring her reaction to the killing of aid workers, you can bet she will say it's another reason why the U.S. must win the Afghan war. And in her words, win the peace, too. And there is a distinction there.

You may recognize her name. Joanne was played by Julia Roberts in the movie "Charlie Wilson's War." Wilson, the late congressman from Texas, along with Joanne's support, was responsible for getting much- needed money and weapons to Afghans who fought and eventually drove the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Now, this picture that you're looking at here shows Joanne with the late Pakistani dictator Zia al Huck (ph), who was in power during most of the Soviet-Afghan war. Joanne's roots go deeper in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. She said the U.S. made a big mistake by turning away from the Afghans after the Soviet defeat, and she minces no words in saying the U.S. must not make that mistake again this time around.

Joanne Herring joins us now from Houston. Joanne, good to see you again.

JOANNE HERRING, HOUSTON BUSINESSWOMAN: Hi, Ali.

VELSHI: Joanne, let's talk about this for a moment. First of all, we've got these reports of these aid workers in an area that the Taliban weren't even thought to be working in. And the Taliban taking responsibility for killing them. This is becoming a very, very hostile environment, more so than it's been even in the last decade in Afghanistan. What is the solution?

HERRING: Ali, actually, the solution is people like those that were killed. They are over there really doing the job that we wish our government were doing. They are actually helping the people. And the fact that they were killed shows how much they're feared by the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Hezbollah.

People don't understand, but those WikiLeak papers came out and definitely tied the Hezbollah of Iran to all of the terrorists in Afghanistan. These are terrorists. They're thugs. They're not Muslim leaders.

The Muslim religion is a lovely religion. These people are not terrorists. And the Afghans are not terrorists. And they're not killing these aid workers. The aid -- only successful aid workers that have ever really worked in Afghanistan have been the nonprofits. And they have been hugely successful. And so because of that, Ali, that's why they're killing them.

VELSHI: Let me ask you this, Joanne. You have often explained to me why we need to -- we in America have to look at the Afghan people differently. This isn't the same as any other war that America has been in. Partially because of the character and the history of these people. Tell me what your views are on that.

HERRING: They've been at war for 30 years. Right now, they are starving. They have very bad water, they're sick from it. Sometimes they have to go five miles on a mule with barrels to bring back water.

It's the polio capital of the world. A 50-cent sugar cube could help them so much. They have the highest mother -- death rate in the world. They have no schools. Ninety percent of them are illiterate. And they have no jobs.

And they see us as a people that came in -- we asked for help, they fought the Russians, not one American was killed in that war, we gave them a lot of good stuff to do it with, but they fought the war. We left, we gave them nothing. We just said, "Bye, guys, thanks a lot." And then after 9/11, we asked them to fight again, and they did. And they got rid of the Taliban again. And then we left. And the Taliban always come back.

VELSHI: All right. You have a solution that --

HERRING: And they always will.

VELSHI: You continue your work, you've got an idea. You've got a foundation that's working on this. I want to take a quick break. When we come back, you're going to tell us specifically what you and your foundation think the answer is to actually getting hold of this situation in Afghanistan.

Joanne Herring, more from her, someone who has been involved in this for a long time, right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Okay. I'm back with a phenomenal woman. You've seen her on the silver scene, at least portrayed. Maybe you've heard her in person. But Joanne Herring is a woman with a long history in Afghanistan and Pakistan. You know her. She was portrayed by Julia Roberts in "Charlie Wilson's War." But to this day, she still remains involved.

I want to ask you two very, very specific things, Joanne. One is, you have a foundation. You've got an idea, you've got a plan for Afghanistan. I want to hear about that, and the second thing I want to talk to you about this is this very complex relationship we have been talking about between Pakistan and Afghanistan. First, I want to talk about your plan for Afghanistan.

Joanne?

HERRING: Oh, I'm sorry.

VELSHI: You go ahead.

HERRING: Here's the plan -- the plan is, to do what has been successful. And that is that these nonprofit organizations have been working there for five years. Our lead organization is in 31 of the 34 provinces with no security except their success. And so this is working. And it's not my foundation. It's a group of foundations, made up of mostly Afghans, but Americans who are actually the organizers so we can do it in a businesslike way and save everybody's money.

But more than anything, Ali, we've got to realize that Afghanistan and Pakistan are virtually one country. And what happens in Pakistan or Afghanistan is the same.

And in Pakistan right now is the nuclear bomb. This is what is important. Why is this important to Americans? It's important, because there are 2 million illegal immigrants -- Middle Eastern immigrants, in this country right now. And they are a virtual army. They're coming across the border daily. And they are here for a reason. And they're being -- the leaders are being trained in Afghanistan. And if we don't keep them in Afghanistan, it will be like opening a spigot, and they will all pour in and all these plans -- and believe me, they have plans --

VELSHI: Let me ask you what the best method of keeping people prosperous in their own land. That's ultimately what this is about, right? Giving people either education or opportunity of some fashion of prospering in their land. What's the best recipe for that? Is it more schools, education?

HERRING: Food -- well, Greg Mortonson has done a terrific job. Everybody ought to read "Three Cups of Tea."

That's just part of it. If you're starving to death -- and they are. This is what people don't get. Our poor are their rich. They're starving. They don't have good water. They don't have any schools. They don't have any of the things that we take for granted.

Strengthen the Afghans! They'll fight! Of all the countries in the world, they'll fight. They're not like Vietnamese or Iraqis. Give them an army, build up their army, they'll fight the war for you. Our boys and girls can come home.

They need a police force, but they need, of course, to be able to read and write. They can't read street signs. So how can they build this up? And they need money.

Right now, the Afghan army, I've heard, can't even get gasoline. They have to beg it from the Americans. They don't have any money for their vehicles. Everything has been done the wrong way over there.

And right now, they have allocated about $58 million to go back to Afghanistan to rebuild it. But they're going to use the same, old methods that have failed over the years. Thirty years. And so, we have to start in another way. Let's use the guys who have made a success -- they already know that they will be successful. They'll win. Let's do it.

VELSHI: You know about that. You know about that from the last time it happened.

Joanne, great to see you again. Thanks very much for this, and if you want to learn more about what Joanne is doing, the organization that she is involved in, the Marshal Plan for Afghanistan, and, of course, just do some studying up on Joanne herself, who is fantastic.

Joanne, good to see you. Thank you so much.

HERRING: Thanks, Ali.

VELSHI: I want to bring you breaking news on a massive manhunt in the West. One of two dangerous fugitives has been caught. We'll have details on it straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Okay. We've got some breaking news I want to update you on. Dangerous escaped prisoner has been caught in northwestern Wyoming.

Let me tell you a little bit about this. One of three dangerous escaped prisoners who escaped from an Arizona prison on July 30th has been caught. Two of them remain at large. Police have just announced the arrest of Tracy Province, a man, in Casper, Wyoming.

The search continues for the other escaped prisoners, John McCluskey and his fiancee, Casslynn May Welch. Now, Welch is expected -- she is believed to have helped McCluskey, Province, and a third prisoner, Daniel Wrenwick (ph) break out of a prison in Kingman, Arizona on July 30. The men may have also gotten some help from McCluskey's mother, Claudia Washburn, who has been arrested for allegedly providing financial and other aid, according to police.

Now, police say the three escapees and their accomplice hijacked a truck near Kingman, Arizona, they drove it to Flagstaff where the rig and the truck driver were released. At some point, Wrenwick split off from the others. He was arrested the next day in Rifle, Colorado. The other three purchased a Volkswagen Jetta in Phoenix. Security camera recorded them in a grocery store in nearby Goodyear, Arizona.

Police say they've got forensic evidence linking them to an Albuquerque, New Mexico, murder. The victims there believed to be Linda and Gary Haas of Oklahoma. Their truck was found was found 125 miles away in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Police say Province has been captured in Casper, Wyoming. Tracy Province is a man, no other information at the moment. They think McCluskey and Welch may be hiding somewhere in Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone, as you know, is a huge national park. It sprawls over 2 million acres of land, more than 2 million acres of land. It's full of visitors at this time of year. More than 900,000 people visited last month. So, you can imagine - it's big, but there's a lot of people around there.

Officials are warning staff and visitors to Yellowstone to be vigilant. Now, McCluskey, just so you know, belonged to a white supremacist prison gang. Officials think he may be headed to Montana or Idaho, where some white supremacist groups are located. We'll continue to bring you more information on that, the arrest of Tracy Province and the search for the others.

I think we're going to take a break now. When we come back, I'm going to give you an interesting approach to finding out where and how a terrorist attack might happen. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Josh, I think you're very capable of a lot of things. Don't tell me you can read minds now.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm working on it. VELSHI: Josh Levs, this guy can explain anything to anyone. Now I'm understanding that's because he can get inside your head -- this is interesting. This is about terrorism.

LEVS: Yes, this is about terrorism. I'm going to do my best to break this one down. It's kind of amazing. The idea here is getting inside the human brain. The question is, can we go way beyond lie detectors and actually get inside this thing and start to pick up brain waves that will allow you to find out things, including about terrorist attacks?

What we have now is some research coming out of Northwestern University that is pretty amazing. This whole idea, can you even get into specific, to the point where you're learning how, when, where there might be a terror attack planned?

So, here's what they did that they're saying is a big step forward. They had some students mock plan a terrorist attack. They said, OK, pretend to set up a terror attack in a certain U.S. cities. They had other students set up a vacation for themselves. They didn't know who was who. They take these students, they hook them up to these electrodes, and they start finding out by showing them the names of cities. They test what happened in their brain waves.

And what they're saying is that the students who had planned terrorist attacks had different brain waves responses from the students who were planning vacation. They were able to tell in 10 out of 12 cases which students were planning terrorist attacks -- mock terrorist attacks -- and where. And they're saying -- even further than that. After that, they got details, like specific types of explosives, specific types of weapons, specific sites. They tried all these specifics --

VELSHI: I'm assuming this means you have to ask them questions, like a lie detector test. You're not reading from their brain where they're thinking of going.

LEVS: Right. That part was what was tricky about this. You have to have a base to start with. But when they showed them those details, they got it right 20 out of 30 times. So, yes, look, it's not like putting someone down and reading (INAUDIBLE) inside that amazing brain of ours. But what they can do, and what is so amazing that they say they're accomplishing so far is that they're tracking these specific brain wave responses that apply when someone is planning a big, bad attack.

VELSHI: It sounds to me a bit like the concept of a polygraph, rigth? If I say, were you planning a terrorist attack and all of a sudden, you get kind of nervous and it has some response, is this kind of the brain version of that?

LEVS: It is. One of the reasons they're focusing on this brain stuff is that a lot of people are so dissatisfied with a lie detector test. Because if you're just upset or nervous about the test, it can show up anything.

What they're trying to find is if there's a way to get past that all that, past external emotions and see if you can just get way into the brain to find out what only someone could know by following brain waves.

Now, it's not 100 percent yet. A long way to go. But this is a big step forward in this ultimate process of what scientists are trying to achieve, which is jumping inside the mind and figuring out what people are thinking. Very interesting.

Big Brother, yes, but --

VELSHI: It's a "Big I." These are all the things we talk about that could - and beyond terrorism, this can have so many implications and so many issues about privacy and question. If this continues to gain ground, we'll obviously be talking about it a lot more.

LEVS: Yes, we'll see. Little while before "Minority Report" level. But it's definitely the way the science is looking right now trying to get inside that brain.

VELSHI: You know, our producers have a way of getting inside our brain with these little things here. They tell us exactly what we have to do so when I talk too much, Christina says, "blah, blah, blah," time to leave --

LEVS: That happens?

VELSHI: Yes, they always tell me I'm way over. Like -- we're heavy is what you say. Because I'm talking too much. So, now I've told them they now have to say "tomato" because I'm tired of hearing that I'm heavy.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: She's yelling "tomato" in my ear right now, which means that I have to tell you about what's coming up next, and this is an interesting one. The U.S. college graduation rate used to be the absolute best in the world. Now, it's not even in the top ten.

We're going to find out how President Obama plans to try to fix that just ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)