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Dr. Laura's On-Air Rant; Man Dies After Donating Part of Liver; Border security Among Likely Topics in White House Briefing; Sex Offender Worked in the Gulf; Big Belly Increases Risk of Death; Spending vs. Saving

Aired August 13, 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: Good morning, everyone. Live from Studio 7 at CNN world headquarters, the big stories for this Friday, the 13th of August.

Outrage today fueled by radio personality Dr. Laura. Her on-air language sparks new debate over racism in America.

And a family triumph leads to a heartbreaking tragedy. A man gives his dying brother the gift of life, but it costs him his own.

And good morning, everyone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Ryan is gone, but we still serve a good God." I think I couldn't have said it better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Boy, this is a really heartbreaking story.

Those stories and your comments right here, right now in the CNN NEWSROOM.

The explosive issue of race again. Radio host Laura Schlessinger uses the N-word repeatedly live on air. Her conversation with a black female caller complaining about her white husband's racist-sounding friends disintegrated into this --

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

LAURA SCHLESSINGER, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Yes, I think you have too much sensitivity and not enough sense of humor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So it's OK to say (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

SCHLESSINGER: Oh, it depends how it's said.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it OK to say that word? Is it ever OK to say that word?

SCHLESSINGER: It depends how it's said. Black guys talking to each other seem to think it's OK. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But you're not black. They're not black. My husband is white.

SCHLESSINGER: Oh, I see. So a word is restricted to race. Got it. Can't do much about that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't believe someone like you is on the radio spewing out the (EXPLETIVE DELETED). And I hope everybody heard it.

SCHLESSINGER: I didn't spew out the (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Right. I said that's what you hear --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope everybody heard it.

SCHLESSINGER: Yes, they did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope everybody heard it.

SCHLESSINGER: They did, and I'll say it again. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is what you hear on HBO.

Why don't you let me finish a sentence? Don't take things out of context. Don't NAACP me. Leave them in context.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know what N-word means, and I know it came from a white person, and I know the white person made it bad.

SCHLESSINGER: All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Can't have this argument.

You know what? If you're that hyper-sensitive about color and don't have a sense of humor, don't marry out of your race.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

HARRIS: Laura Schlessinger used the N-word 11 times over the course of what, five minutes? Next day, the apology.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SCHLESSINGER: I talk every day about doing the right thing, and yesterday I did the wrong thing. I didn't intend to hurt people, but I did. And that makes it the wrong thing to have done.

I was attempting to make a philosophical point, and I articulated the N-word all the way out -- more than one time. And that was wrong. I'll say it again. That was wrong.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

HARRIS: This is not the first time the conservative radio show host has had to apologize for hot statements.

Let's bring in our Josh Levs -- Josh. JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, she's been the subject of controversy before. And this one particular example I'll tell you about in a second.

Let's do some basics on who she is though. We all know the name, right? I'll just remind everyone, she goes by "Doctor. Not technically a doctor in the traditional sense. She does have a Ph.D. in physiology from Columbia, and she also has a certification in marriage family and child counseling from USC.

Now, what to know about her when it comes to comments like this is how huge her show is. Her show is heard on more than 400 stations across the country. So, you've got a lot of people hearing these clips now in the news, but a lot of people listen live. In fact, check this out -- she has nine million listeners weekly, so obviously at the top of her game in terms of reaching massive numbers of people.

We have over the years seen controversy with her, some comments she made, in some cases about women, but in a particular case here, the most well known controversy that she was at the center of involved homosexuals.

Here is what our Jane Velez-Mitchell said referring back to that last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN: Here are some of her greatest hits.

"A huge portion of the male homosexual populace is predatory on young boys." "If you're gay or lesbian, it's a biological error." "I call homosexual practices deviant."

And in the past, when there were protests after she said these inflammatory things, she also apologized. In fact, she put a full- page ad in a magazine.

So, she apparently thinks that she can say anything she wants, and then there's going to be an uproar, and then she can just say, "I'm sorry" and it's going away. But I don't think it's going to happen this time around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEVS: Now, back in 2000, when that became a really big complaint, what happened was there were protests at the time, there were people standing outside of Paramount saying cancel what was going to be a TV show of hers. And actually, we don't know how much of it is because of that, but her TV show was cancelled.

And she did apologize at the time, and that's one reason it's so significant now. She says something that offended a lot of people, she apologized.

At the time, she took out a full page ad in "The New York Times." She said, "Some of my words were poorly chosen. Many people perceive them as hate speech." She went on to say, "I deeply regret the hurt the situation has caused to the gay and lesbian community."

So, what we're seeing now, today, Tony, there's some people saying, OK, she is repeating the process of offending people, then apologizing and thinking you can simply move on. The question Jane is bringing up there is, will that happen this time?

HARRIS: Let me say it here, and then we'll say it again in just a moment. Let's get some comments from you on this.

Josh, you've got everything loaded up, right?

LEVS: I do.

HARRIS: Ready to go, Twitter, Facebook?

LEVS: Yes. We've been getting so many comments on my Facebook and Twitter pages all morning at JoshLevsCNN. I'm going to be around several times during this show today to share your comments and get this conversation going.

HARRIS: And let's just -- whenever you get a stream of thoughts and comments from folks, let's just get to you. All right?

LEVS: You got it. I'll be right here.

HARRIS: That's the talk of the day.

There's another portion of the Dr. Laura call that we want to draw your attention to. At a certain point of the conversation she talks about race in the age of Obama. Here are her comments referencing the president.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SCHLESSINGER: Well, listen, without giving much thought, a lot of blacks voted for Obama simply because he was half black. It didn't matter what he was going to do in office, it was a black thing. You've got to know that. That's not a surprise.

All right. Chip on your shoulder. I can't do much about that.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

HARRIS: OK. You know what? It just occurred to me -- and Jen Cook (ph), I think this is a good idea. If jade is watching -- Jade placed the call to Dr. Laura that started all of this.

Jade, if you're watching the program, give us a call and let's have this conversation, or e-mail us. You can send a comment to our blog page. But if you are out there, if you're watching the program and you would like to weigh in on this discussion we're having here, feel free to do that.

Got to tell you, we have taken it as one of our missions on this program to attempt to simply frame out the discussion on race. We'll frame it out, perhaps what the headers would be, and then we'll give it to the folks here and we'll figure out what we do with it.

CNN contributor Donna Brazile told us recently that an honest discussion on what the election of the first African-American president means to you should be a part of that discussion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: And since the election of our first black president, I don't want to put this on the historic election of 2008, but clearly we can use that as now a milestone. We reached a mountaintop moment.

Now, what did that mean to you? I think we need to ask each other.

For me, Tony, it was a period of jubilation. I rejoiced for a long, long time, because it felt good to see America go past race and then to the promised land of the future that Dr. King envisioned when he gave his speech back in 1963. So I think that's another step we should take.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: OK. So a lot of you are responding, as you just heard Josh mention, already to what we're attempting to here on the blog.

Got a comment we want to share with you now. This is from Frank, who writes, "The problem is that it seems to be human nature to want to feel superior."

Let's keep the conversation going here. I don't think it will be difficult to do that.

You can still weigh in, of course. Just go to our blog page at CNN.com/Tony. We're also on Facebook and Twitter. You can hit me up, you can hit Josh up as well. And, of course, Josh is going to have an opportunity to track all these comments for us, and we'll get back to him in just a couple of minutes with your thoughts and insights.

A man expresses his love for his brother by giving him a portion of his liver.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is the ultimate sacrifice, but he'd do it again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: But sadly, the story does not end there.

And Rob is tracking weekend weather for us.

Doctor, good morning.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Tony. Yes, we have some thunderstorms that are rolling across the upper Midwest, including Wisconsin. The PGA championship, which Tony had to withdraw because of back problems, but that's happening, will be delayed. And we will talk about your weekend forecast. Slightly cooler air getting to some spots that have been suffering from this heat.

HARRIS: A bad back and no swing. That's a terrible combination.

All right. And let's take a look at the Big Board, New York Stock Exchange. We're trading in negative territory. We're down seven points.

We're going to follow these numbers for you throughout the day, right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: A truly heartbreaking medical story in Colorado. Boy, that's no understatement, too. A man donates a part of his liver to his dying brother, then loses his own life. He was only 34 years old.

Ginger Delgado with CNN Denver affiliate KWGN has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GINGER DELGADO, REPORTER, KWGN (voice-over): It's 5:30 a.m. in the waiting room at the University of Colorado Hospital. Ryan Arnold and his brother Chad are in good spirits. Their mom and dad and their wives all there for support.

They're quickly prepped for surgery as Ryan prepares to donate part of his liver to Chad, who is overcome with emotion --

CHAD ARNOLD, LIVER TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT: Yes, it's very humbling experience.

DELGADO: -- as he recalls the day he learned his brother Ryan was a match.

ARNOLD: He said, "I'm a match." And you feel a lot of things -- relief, gratefulness to God and to him. And I think after that, you wrestle with a lot of guilt.

I really don't want to bring him through this, but he shut me up pretty fast. He said, "Well, you'd do the same thing for me, wouldn't you?"

DELGADO: Chad, who is 38, has PSC, a disease of the liver for which there is no cure. His condition was deteriorating and he needed a liver fast. A living donor was his only hope, so Ryan stepped in.

RYAN ARNOLD, LIVER DONOR: You know, I love Chad. He's my brother, and he's got a lot of life left to live.

I'm healthy, and I know I'll stay healthy. I know I'm going to recover. And I want to see him do the things he wants to do and be able to spend this time with his family, and want to have him around for a long time.

DELGADO: There are few words as the brothers say good-bye. Ryan's surgery is first.

A team of doctors carefully removes 60 percent of his healthy liver while Chad patiently waits.

C. ARNOLD: I think the thing I learned through all of this is God writes the story. It's not my story to write. Ryan is the hero and I'm just playing my part. That's how it's coming to me. And he's just a hero.

DELGADO: Once the organ is removed from Ryan, it's carefully rinsed and carried next door to transplanted into Chad after his diseased liver is taken out.

Doctor Igal Kam performed the surgery on Ryan.

DR. IGAL KAM, TRANSPLANT SURGERY: I think it's this kind of generosity, it's a wonderful thing to see, because he probably will save his brother's life.

DELGADO: But the surgery is risky. While both livers will regenerate and grow back to their original size, if too much is removed or something goes wrong, it's the donor whose life is at risk.

KAM: It's still a very controversial surgery. I think that we are very careful selecting our donors, and I think the chances that this will happen here are very, very low.

DELGADO: While that may be so, it's not what happened this time. Just two days after surgery, Ryan went into cardiac arrest and was placed on life support. He died two days after that on August 2nd.

Ryan Arnold was 34 years old, healthy, active and strong, a husband and father of three little boys ages 1, 4 and 6.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ryan is the hero in this.

DELGADO: Chad is now recovering at home. He's tired and weak, but doing well. He describes how he first learned of his brother's death.

C. ARNOLD: My dad just leaned forward and said, "You know, I've got some bad news." You know, he was holding back the tears. And he just said, "I got some bad news. You know, Ryan's gone, but we still serve a good God." I think I couldn't have said it better.

DELGADO: Ryan gave Chad the gift of life.

C. ARNOLD: It is the ultimate sacrifice, but he would do it again.

DELGADO: A gift which lead to his own death. Because of that, Chad refuses to place the blame on himself.

C. ARNOLD: It's a story about a man who is deeply convicted by his faith, and because of that, what he did for me was sort of a normal thing that he did for people.

DELGADO: While there's a huge scar on the outside, there is also one on the inside. Chad is committed to living his life the way Ryan lived his, with faith, compassion and humility.

C. ARNOLD: He would get a glitter in his eye and he'd always say that, you know, "We can do this." I can do this because I know that's not only what he'd want, that's what he'd do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: He was 34 years old.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Perfectly healthy.

HARRIS: Perfectly healthy.

What happened here?

COHEN: You know what? In these cases, it takes a lot of work to know what happened.

It could be anything from maybe they didn't screen him as well as they should have and he shouldn't have been a donor to begin with. It could be, for example, that something happened in the hospital, maybe he acquired an infection. Maybe something went wrong in the surgery and he had what's called a bile duct leak, where there is leakage that shouldn't be happening.

Donating a portion of your liver is a risky operation. It is risky. And these things unfortunately do happen. This is not the first case that we've heard of.

HARRIS: How often does this kind of thing happen? And I guess at this moment I'm thinking about how often we have this kind of procedure take place, and then we can talk about this bad outcome, obviously.

COHEN: Right. OK.

Well, there were -- between 1996 and 2006, there were about 3,000 surgeries like this where someone donated a part of their liver while they were still alive. And if you take a look at the statistics, what you see is that for every 1,000 donors, two will die. So that's actually high when you think about it. For every 1,000 donors, two will die. And those statistics are made known in all sorts of release forms that someone's supposed to show.

Also, look at this, because this is pretty high, too. For every seven people who donate a portion of their liver, two are going to have complications. They might be minor, but two are going to have complications. That's also pretty high. So there's a pretty high risk of something going wrong.

HARRIS: Wait a minute. But Elizabeth, they took 60 percent of his liver. Now, we should point out here the liver regenerates itself.

COHEN: It does, but it doesn't happen immediately and it doesn't happen completely, necessarily. So, what happens is they take between 25 and 60 percent of the liver when you're donating a portion of a liver to someone.

It's interesting. Donating a kidney is much safer than donating a portion of your liver. It's interesting. So when they cut that off -- there are a lot of reasons why you might give 25 percent versus 60 percent. And in this case, apparently he donated 60 percent.

HARRIS: You've got two kidneys.

COHEN: Right. Exactly.

HARRIS: Yes.

How much of your liver do you need to live?

COHEN: I mean, you can certainly live with 40 percent of your liver.

HARRIS: You can live with 40 percent of your --

COHEN: You can. I mean, people donate 60 percent of their liver and survive. This man was the exception, a very sad, terrible exception, but he's the exception. Most livers do live when they've donated 60 percent of her liver.

It's horrible.

HARRIS: It really is.

COHEN: You go in healthy and --

HARRIS: Yes. And you don't come out of the hospital.

All right. So when we see you next hour, are we going to talk about your book burning up the charts here, selling like crazy, hot cakes, as we like to say in the biz here? Can we talk about that?

COHEN: Absolutely.

HARRIS: And the "Empowered Patient" segment, you brought it back, right?

COHEN: Right, answering viewers' questions.

HARRIS: Perfect. All right, Elizabeth. Appreciate it. Thank you.

COHEN: Thanks. HARRIS: This story happening right now. The man accused in a multi-state stabbing spree goes to court this hour in Atlanta. In fact, we believe he's in court right now.

Elias Abuelazam will be extradited to Michigan to face murder charges. OK. That's a new development right there.

The Israeli citizen was arrested in Atlanta, where he was trying to board a flight to Tel Aviv. Police link him to knife and hammer attacks on at least 18 people in three states.

A judge green-lights same-sex marriages in California. Gay couples who want wedded bliss, hold on for next Wednesday unless an appeals court steps in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

HARRIS: Border security, along with the wounded economy, both possible talkers at the White House briefing this hour.

CNN's Ed Henry is with us, and he's our man at the White House, of course.

And Ed, I've got to tell you something. In a morning meeting this morning, I just had a hunch that this could be kind of a news- packed briefing today. Case in point here, we just got word Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will join Robert Gibbs at the briefing.

ED HENRY, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Tony. We've just confirmed that, and also that Robert Gibbs is moving it back a little bit. It's going to actually start at noon Eastern now.

But you're right, the key to Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano being there is that they really want to have a push here on immigration reform and show what the president this morning signing into law, what both chambers of Congress just pushed through this week, $600 million, new money, to deal with the U.S./Mexican border. What it's going to focus on is basically hiring about 1,500 more law enforcement agents, some more vehicles along the border, also some important communications equipment.

But make no mistake, we shouldn't exaggerate this, that this is some sort of a major solution. Critics of this are calling it kind of a Band-Aid and saying look, what the president really has been pushing for, as you know, is comprehensive immigration reform that will deal with a lot more. Now, any people who really want to tighten the border would note that any bit of money, $600 million, is better than nothing, but this is not the final solution by any stretch of the imagination.

HARRIS: And Ed, what about the economy? We're talking about jobs, unemployment, of course, and the talk really of a possible double-dip recession here. HENRY: Yes, a lot of fears this week when you look at some of the unemployment numbers we saw yesterday, some of the gyrations on Wall Street with the stock market. And this was supposed to be "Recovery Summer." That's what the White House dubbed it.

Just last week, there was an op-ed piece from Treasury Secretary Geithner in "The New York Times" that had the headline, "Welcome to the Recovery." And this was going to be all about showing in the weeks ahead that we're pulling out of this recession.

But now, you're right, when you look at some of these poll numbers that have just come out, I mean, we had a CNN poll yesterday, the president's approval rating just at 47 percent; disapproval, 51 percent. There was this NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll that was basically saying that six in 10 Americans have a somewhat bit of confidence or no confidence that the president's economic policies are going to solve this.

And, you know, they realize that there are a lot of corporations sort of sitting on some money, not hiring people, hoarding cash, if you will, right now. There has been frustration back and forth between the administration and some in the business community, but they have to be wondering here at the White House what else they can do to kind of jump-start this economy. They've used a lot of tools in that toolbox, and yet a lot of Americans from these polls are saying they are not feeling any sort of recovery yet -- Tony.

HARRIS: He's our chief White House correspondent, Ed Henry with us.

Ed Henry, appreciate it, as always. Thank you.

We will be monitoring the White House briefing and bring you some of that when it happens. Ed mentioning at the top of the hour.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: In California, Prop 8 supporters are asking an appeals court to block same-sex marriages until their case can be heard. The federal judge who declared Prop 8 unconstitutional will lift his stay, but not until next Wednesday. The delay disappointed gay couples who had gathered at courthouses across California hoping to wed. Both sides claimed a partial win.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUKE OTTERSTADT, PROP 8 SUPPORTER: It undermines the definition of marriage, the institution of marriage in the same way a counterfeit dollar bill affects the dollar bill -- the real dollar bill in my pocket.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's life, and it will happen to us, so --

QUESTION: Like a one step forward and two steps back? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but you know, it's life and you have to take it through its courses. So we're not going to give up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: So if the federal appeals court agrees with the trial judge, same sex marriages can go forward in California on Wednesday. Otherwise, the court could restore the stay for the duration of the appeals process.

An oil cleanup worker is raped, her supervisor is charged and BP faces tough questions about the people working in the Gulf.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: This morning, there is new outrage over how BP has handled the Gulf oil disaster. A man who supervised oil cleanup workers in Mississippi is in jail, charged with raping another employee.

Now a CNN investigation uncovers his criminal history and raises questions about whether this incident could have been prevented by doing a simple it background check.

Special Investigations Unit correspondent Abbie Boudreau goes looking for answers from BP and the company who hired him.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBIE BOUDREAU, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT (voice-over): One of thousands of cleanup workers who descended on the Gulf Coast was this man, Rundy Charles Robertson. He was in charge of numerous workers on this now deserted Mississippi beach.

(on camera): The problem was all of these people who are coming to town were strangers and the residents here had no idea who they were or where they were coming from.

And apparently they had good reason to be concerned. Robertson was convicted of a sex offender, and he was breaking the law by not telling local law enforcement where he was living.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't understand how they can hire a man like that as our supervisor.

BOUDREAU: Do you think what happened to you could have been prevented?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And that's what makes me a lot of times so angry.

BOUDREAU: Well, this woman came to this town because she was looking for work. She wanted to help clean up the beaches and she needed a job. She has four young children and it was important for her to get hired right away. And that's exactly what happened. Rundy Robertson was her supervisor and she told us time and time again, I trusted him because he was my boss. I respected him. He was the person who was put in charge of me.

You just weren't feeling well that day and he offered to drive you home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

BOUDREAU: And you thought he was a nice enough person to make that offer, I guess.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. He was my boss, so I thought it was all right.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): She says Robertson asked to use her bathroom. And when he came out, she says he raped her.

She's represented by attorney Adam Miller.

ADAM MILLER, ATTORNEY: I find it unbelievable because BP and their subcontractors had relationships with all local law enforcement. They had the opportunity and the ability to clearly check all of these people that they were hiring and bringing in to ensure the safety of the public.

BOUDREAU: If anyone had checked Robertson's background they would have found a lengthy criminal history and he was still on probation for a felony. Instead, he was made a supervisor.

(on camera): We are in Pascagoula, Mississippi here to talk to the local sheriff.

(voice-over): Several weeks before this incident, Sheriff Mike Byrd says he met with BP's local head of security about why BP was not doing background checks on beach cleanup workers.

SHERIFF MIKE BYRD, JACKSON COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI: I asked them directly, I said, are you all doing criminal histories and background checks on these people. And his answer -- reply was no, we're not.

I said you are kidding me? He said no. He said there's so many of them, we were told to do drug screens and that was it. And I said, well, that's -- that's not good at all.

BOUDREAU (on camera): But you actually recommended that they get criminal background checks on their employees?

BYRD: Yes, we did. And I told them that we would do that for them, we would do the background checks for them, and they said no.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): Robertson worked for a company called Aerotek that hired workers to remove oil from the beaches.

(on camera): You'll come out and talk to us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will come out and talk to you. Give me a literally a about four minutes, OK?

BOUDREAU: So you're not going to shut the door and then never see you again?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I promise I'll come back and talk to you.

BOUDREAU: OK. He promises.

(voice-over): So we waited. But they only slipped us a note through the door referring us to the corporate headquarters.

(on camera): Did you realize you were hiring people who are registered sex offenders?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, ma'am.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): This is when the blame game begins.

First, we spoke with the general counsel for Aerotek by phone who says Aerotek wasn't the one who decided not to do background checks. Quote, "We are not liable for anything that happens. Once we deliver the people to be supervised by our client, we don't have anything to do with them anymore."

Miller Environmental Group, which oversaw the cleanup and hired Aerotek, did not return our phone calls.

Then BP, which was paying for the beach cleanups, told us in a statement it normally checks its own employees but, quote, "This was not done for all contractors in this response; the responsibility lies with the employing company for their own staff. The requirement on subcontractors to BP's contractors is one further step beyond BP's scope of control."

MILLER: The buck ultimately stops with BP. It was their site.

BOUDREAU (on camera): Robertson was arrested and he was then charged with sexual battery and failure to register as a sex offender. He tells police that the sex was consensual, but now he's being held on more than a $500,000 bond and he is sitting in jail.

BYRD: Yes, he's in jail, but you've got a victim here. What's she going to live through the rest of her life? It's just going to be pure hell for her. That's what it's going to be.

BOUDREAU: And it could have been prevented.

BYRD: And it could have been prevented, in my professional opinion.

BOUDREAU: And you warned them?

BYRD: Yes, ma'am.

BOUDREAU: How does something like this just change everything for you? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I go through anxiety. You know, I'm angry, I feel dirty. Scared, I'm scared.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOUDREAU: The victim did not go to police right away because she was afraid she would lose her job and couldn't afford to let that happen. So she took a couple of days off work and a month after the incident she was laid off.

Aerotek says she was one of many workers who were no longer need to clean up the beaches. It had nothing to do with what happened to her.

But, Tony, she says to me, why did even bother going down to the beaches to try to clean them up? Why did I even try to get a job like this? She says it destroyed her life, it just was not worth it.

HARRIS: Yes, you can see how that's the case.

Aerotek, I love the statement. It's like, wouldn't we all like to have blanket immunity in our life. We're not responsible for anything.

BOUDREAU: That happens. Anything that happens.

HARRIS: A lot of other towns involved in the cleanup. What about those other towns, were they checking the background of their new hires?

BOUDREAU: We were able to contact police departments. Grand Isle in Louisiana, they were checking the background of the employees that came in and they said they did find three sex offenders. And they were hired, it wasn't a case of, oh, they're a sex offender they can't be hired. It's they -- but they supervised them and didn't have any problem.

Of course, the sheriff we talked to says, well, too bad we couldn't have done that here.

HARRIS: Yes. We'll offer to do the background checks and you don't have to pay? Well, come on.

BOUDREAU: You're exactly right. He said we would have done it for free. So this was not a cost-saving issue, not that it should have mattered.

HARRIS: Not that it should have mattered.

Thanks, Abbie.

A CNN hero came up with an idea in a pub in Scotland it helped change the lives of children all around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS: From a pint in the pub to the poorest places on Earth, this week's CNN hero turned a beer-fueled brainstorm into a program feeding hundreds of thousands of school kids.

Take a like at how Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow's single act of kindness took on a life of its own.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAGNUS MACFARLANE, CHAMPIONING CHILDREN: I never expected my life to change in this way.

My brother and I were having a pint in our local pub. We'd seen a news report about a refugee camp in Bosnia and we began saying, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just do one small thing to help. We gathered food and blankets and clothing and drove them out there.

I'm Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, and I gave up my job and I sold my house to try and help the people in Bosnia. Out of that has grown the organization which today feeds around 412,000 children every day in 15 different countries.

We buy the food locally and then we ask that the local community take responsibility for the daily cooking and the serving of the food. By far our biggest project is here in Malawi where we're feeding about 350,000 people every day.

Our part is to allow those young people to realize their potential through feeding them, through keeping them alive and through getting them into the classroom.

We begun working in Haiti in 2006. In addition to feeding children, we feed the elderly. Since the earthquake, we've been involved in providing health care and rebuilding of the schools.

When I think making these meals (ph) I think of it a series of lots and lots of little acts of love. I have learned every small act of kindness does make a difference.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: How about this? More than 400,000 kids in 15 countries are getting healthy meals thanks to Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow. To see how he is helping in Haiti or to help him deliver more meals, just go to CNN heroes.com.

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HARRIS: Checking our top stories right now.

Any moment now President Obama is expected to sign a $600 million emergency funding bill that will send 1,500 agent to the border with Mexico. It is being funded, in part, by raising fees on companies that bring workers from other countries into the United States.

Investigators have taken what's left of a small plane from the mountain side in Alaska where a crash this week former Senator Ted Stevens among five who lost lives. The NTSB is waiting to interview the four hospitalized survivors.

And work resumes today on the relief well meant to permanently seal BP's ruptured oil well. Officials thought a tropical depression in the Gulf would delay work for a few days, but that weather system fizzled.

Big waistline health hazards and increased risk of death, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has some information you need to hear.

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HARRIS: So, if you're like millions of older Americans who have a little, you know, belly bump, a little, you know, spare tire, a little bulge, listen up here, we have got something for you.

A new study says extra inches on your waist can increase your risk of death. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has our "Fit Nation" report.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's amazing. If you go to any hospital and you look at all the equipment they have to do all sorts of studies, one thing you may not see very often is simply a tape measure. But according to a new study of about 100,000 people aged 50 to 75, a tape measure can be a very good indicator of just what's going inside your body.

And even more so than that, when they found that someone's waist size actually increased by four inches, men and women alike, it increased their likelihood of dying from some sort of problem like heart disease or stroke and dying sooner than people who did not have those additional four inches, again, along the waistline; 18 percent in men, 25 percent in women.

You think about fat, you think about the subcutaneous fat that everyone I think everyone has to some degree around their midsection, that's not really what is important here. It's not so much what's on the outside, but on the inside.

And here's a good way to visualize this. You have someone who doesn't have a lot of body fat over here, and over here, in fact, not just the body fat on the outside, but what's called visceral fat, fat that's on the inside of your body that is literally strangling your internal organs. That's the real problem here, as well.

You're going to get lots of different advice. One thing that people think about, I want to reduce this body fat, so let me do lots of crunches or sit-ups, for example. That's probably not going to help. You have to think about a whole body sort of workout. Aerobic exercise with anaerobic exercise to try and increase your metabolic rate.

If you do some strength training, resistance training, you're going to create more muscle, as well, and that muscle is going to help burn calories, even at rest.

And finally, it's not to say that you can't have fat, you just want to think about healthier fats.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: OK, Sanjay, appreciate it.

You can learn more about healthy living by going to CNN.com/fitnation, and be sure to tune in weekend mornings at 7:30 Eastern for "SANJAY GUPTA, MD."

How much did Americans spend this month? How much did you spend? We have the numbers on consumer confidence and the health of the economy.

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HARRIS: So CNN, of course, is your source for financial news. Let's get you here to CNNMoney.com.

Time to dump small cap stocks. That feels a little bit inside for a lot of folks, but maybe not. Maybe not, maybe that's just me. Stocks churn after mixed reports. Some good reporting here for our Money Team at CNNMoney.com.

Let's get you to the Big Board. New York Stock Exchange, we are down 22 points right now. It's been a down week, mostly. The Nasdaq is down 12 points. We'll follow these numbers throughout the day for you in the NEWSROOM.

Got to tell you, Wall Street's focus today is on you, the consumer, and how you feel about the economy generally, and probably even more specifically than that, it matters and matters a lot.

Felicia Taylor is on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with details on new economic reporting.

Felicia, good to see you. What do you have for us?

FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Nice to see you, too, Tony.

The consumer does make up two-thirds of the economy when it comes to spending and getting things back moving again. Retail sales did rise in the month of July, albeit just a fraction. So that was after two months of declines, so this is good news, but truly, if you look below the numbers, what it tells you is, people were spending, but they were spending on things like gas prices --

HARRIS: Right.

TAYLOR: -- autos, auto parts. So they're not really spending on goods. Things like furniture, other merchandise, clothing, electronics, home improvements, sporting goods, music.

But I will tell you, for those that are out there actually spending money, like two members of our own staff here at CNN, when they do purchase -- those are not impulse buys. They have been waiting and looking and searching.

And they're also taking advantage of timing. One person got 40 percent off on a discount on a piece of furniture recently. So people are being very methodical about their purchasing.

It's not really boosting the economy. We still have had so much bearish news, and that's portrayed here on the floor of the exchange. We've had a drop the in the Dow of 380 points in just the last three sessions.

HARRIS: Yes. What about this new report on consumer sentiment out today, and how is that factoring into this trend of you, of me, and a lot of people not spending right now?

TAYLOR: Well, consumer sentiment picked up, but not that much. It's still pretty low, considering. And when sentiment is low, obviously, people save. They don't spend.

Let's take a look at this chart, which is, you know, it's a good thing when people do save money and historically, we have not been a nation of savers. But take a look at this -- in 2005, we had about a 1 percent savings rate. Now it's above 6 percent.

So obviously, it's good to be saving, but the truth is, when people are saving their money, they're obviously not spending in the economy and helping boost the economy. So it's kind of a two-fold thing there, as well.

HARRIS: OK. Felicia, appreciate it. See you next hour. Thank you.

TAYLOR: Sure.

HARRIS: Speaking of next hour, catching up with Usher. Wow. He talks about his foundation, fatherhood, and his career. It's in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM. It's what matters today.

Plus, rescuing Youssif. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has an update on the 4- year-old Iraqi boy -- remember this story? -- who was severely burned almost three years ago and brought to the U.S. for treatment.

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