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Plane in Pieces After Crash in Colombia; Ground Zero's Other Mosque; Repairing the International Space Station; Karzai's Deadline; Actors Bring Theater to Children

Aired August 16, 2010 - 13:58   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Now hour, new "Rundown" for you. I'm Ali Velshi in New York today with you for the next hour. Here's where we're headed.

A 737 with more than 100 people on board breaks in half - actually, in three pieces as it lands in a storm over Colombia's San Andreas island.

A fight over an Islamic center and mosque in Manhattan shifts to Washington, where opponents pick apart President Obama's comments.

And a secret river revealed at the bottom of the Black Sea by a yellow submarine. Not making that up. Truly an amazing discovery. We'll tell you about that in a moment.

First, let's talk about what happened in Colombia. This happened late last night, early this morning in San Andreas, Colombia. An airplane, a 737 jetliner on approach -- it had taken off from Bogota, on approach -- this is what happened to it. I'm going to ask Karl Penhaul in a moment what he thinks led to that. But basically it was a plane that came in and broke apart into three pieces. Look at the condition of this plane.

Now, here's the miracle part. Only one person was killed. Two people are in serious condition. About 125 others -- they're injured, many of them, but not seriously. This plane went down short of the runway. About 260 feet short of the runway. Taken off from Bogota shortly after midnight local time. The crash happened about an hour and 45 minutes later.

Karl Penhaul is in Bogata joining us on the phone to tell us what he knows about this remarkable crash, the pictures of which you're looking at. Karl?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Crash investigators right now, Ali, as you might expect, are trying to piece together the final seconds of that plane as it came in to the runway on San Andreas island, which is a very popular holiday destination for Colombians and foreigners alike.

And in fact, on board that plane, there were at least six Americans, we're told by civil aviation, and a number of Europeans as well. The theories that both civil aviation and the police have been working on so far is that a lightning strike may have played a role in this, whether the plane was hit either directly by lightning or caused some other turbulence in the area. Civil aviation say there was rain over the runway at the time of the accident and storms had been reported in the vicinity, but everybody so far staying away from actually pinpointing a single cause for this accident right now. But as you can see from those very dramatic pictures, this plane breaks into three separate parts.

There was no report of any fires, but what the police say were that many of the passengers went back, scattered across the runway as that plane impacted. Now, the plane was operated by Aires. That's a Colombian carrier. And it was a nearly new Boeing 737 700. And the Transportation Ministry here said that they don't believe that any mechanical failure was at play here -- Ali.

VELSHI: Karl, explain to me how a plane in that condition coming -- and usually you hear of a plane crash of a plane of that size and you don't end up seeing a lot of survivors. Was this plane almost down? Was it almost down? Was it not going quickly?

What do you think led to the fact that there are all these survivors?

PENHAUL: I put that question to civil aviation, and they say that they don't know right now whether the plane actually had wheeled down or whether it was just a few feet off the ground. But if it was off the ground at the time of this accident, it was literally just a few feet. It was just about to touch down or had just touched down at the time of the accident.

But as I say, this is still part of the focus of the investigation that investigators are carrying out. But everybody is surprised that not more people were seriously hurt, even, because in addition to the one person dead, that a Colombian woman, she apparently, according to medical services, had died from a heart attack on the way to the clinic but didn't die in the accident itself.

Two people have had serious head injuries, we're told, but most walked away from this crash without serious injuries. And you would expect many more to have things like broken limbs and bangs on the head from being scattered across the runway, but certainly not the case -- Ali.

VELSHI: Yes.

Karl, thanks very much for the update on this. And we'll keep updating our viewers on it.

Karl Penhaul in Bogota, Colombia.

All right. You need to pay attention to this one. Partying one minute and then screaming the next.

This weekend's off-road tragedy in California was caught on tape. It was a scene of utter chaos. It starts with a lot of fun, and then things get bad.

It's today's "Sound Effect."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, everybody off the track!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wave him down. Wave him down!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't go down there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're saying don't go down there, it's not good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone just crashed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he all right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone just flipped.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Eight people were killed, four others seriously injured, when that truck lost control, flipped and rolled right into the crowd. The driver was unharmed. He's posted a message online saying he's devastated over the accident.

He's not facing any charges, because according to police, fans were much too close to the action. This was an amateur 200-mile race through the Mojave Desert in southern California. A very "Mad Max" atmosphere, some critics argue. No guardrails or barriers around the course, and no real enforced rules.

Well, it's in the shadow of Ground Zero but away from all the controversy. We'll take you to a mosque that's been in lower Manhattan for decades, even before the twin towers were built.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: You couldn't have missed all the controversy surrounding the proposed plan to build an Islamic center and mosque near New York's Ground Zero. What you may not know is there's already a small mosque just a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero that's been there even before the twin towers were built.

Susan Candiotti takes us to lower Manhattan for a look around.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT : Here we are on the corner of Church and Warren Streets in lower Manhattan, and about four blocks in that direction is Ground Zero. You can see where that crane is, that's where construction is going on right now. And about halfway between there and here is the proposed site of that controversial Islamic center.

What most people don't know is about a half block from where I'm standing is the site of another very small mosque that has been here for about 40 years in the neighborhood, without one whiff of controversy. I went over there to kind of check things out.

(voice-over): This man worships at Masjid Manhattan and he thinks the new mosque should be built.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people got a bad idea of us because of what happened between the 9/11 and all that. They don't represent our religion. They don't represent the Muslim. We want to show to all the people that our religion can be like other people. We can mix with all others like Christian or Jew. Every religion got its problems, but there seem to be more eyes on us right now because of these things.

CANDIOTTI: His mosque has not taken a formal stand on the controversy but says it opposes terrorism and promotes peace.

LUCAS GONZALEZ, LOWER MANHATTAN RESIDENT: It's never been a problem. People at the mosque have always been very respectful.

CANDIOTTI: Lucas Gonzalez has lived next to the mosque since before 9/11. Unlike nearly 70 percent of Americans and more than half of New Yorkers in recent polling, he approves of the proposed cultural center.

GONZALEZ: It's been hard for us to rebuild. And as it goes up slowly, I think that there's some hope there that we can sort of rebuild and come to terms with what's happened to us and the differences that have set us apart.

CANDIOTTI: As time goes on, will both sides simply harden their positions, or is there -- can there be a compromise?

Susan Candiotti, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Now, Susan's talking about that other mosque. Let's talk about the location of the proposed mosque as it relates to Ground Zero.

Josh Levs joins us with a unique point of view.

Hello, Josh.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, Ali. Yes, missing you down here at headquarters today.

I'll tell you, we keep hearing this debate a lot. And now what we're hearing a lot of people say is, hey, it's not at Ground Zero and it's not a mosque. So what we need to do is just take a second here to take a look at where this actually is, and that's what we're going to do with Google Earth here.

So let's go to Google Earth. We're going to start off on a big perspective. We're going to zoom in. Let's start off zooming in to Ground Zero.

You all know what Ground Zero looks like. We all know what Ground Zero is. But I want to go in to that location first so that we can do a little trip here aerially. So that's where Google Earth is, and we're just going to lift our way up a little bit and go a couple of blocks, and we're going to work our way over to this proposed mosque, or proposed Islamic center, whichever one you want to call it.

So, basically, it's a couple of blocks away. It's around the corner.

Now, what you want to define -- and let's pull out a little bit. What you want to define as being Ground Zero and not being Ground Zero ultimate is a little bit subjective. The idea here is that what happened at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, affected that entire region, as we were just hearing in Susan's package. And it affected the entire section of Manhattan economically in a really important way, too.

So, ever since then, there have been these massive discussions about what to do to rebuild, to draw back economic activity in parts of that area. So, it is just around the corner.

Now, it is also the case that as of right now, because of the way that building is situated, if you were inside the building, you wouldn't actually be able to see Ground Zero itself. But it is just around the corner. And ultimately, as buildings rise up and are built in that location, you will be able to see those, they'll be so big.

Here's what I can do in a simpler way. I have Google open right behind me. The simple map is just this blue line, basically, from one to the other.

So this right here is the location of this Islamic center people are talking about. And if you go just around the corner, like that, that is how you get over to Ground Zero.

And I'm also able to show you a street view here. It's an old Burlington Coat Factory building. You might have heard that before. Basically, I can take you on to the street view and zoom it down here.

So, the idea is taking this building, turning it into an Islamic center that would include various things, one of them being a prayer room. And I know we have some video of the building as well. Let's go to that.

So, what some people are saying, do you call this a mosque, do you not call this a mosque? Well, the fact is, it is planned to be a center that includes a prayer room. So, again, ,ultimately what gets defined, Ali, as being a mosque or not a mosque is up to individuals out there.

There's also something else that has arisen amid this whole discussion, which is the Cordoba House. There's all this talk now about the significance of the name, Cordoba. It's named after a city in Spain, and there are various ways to read what that significance is as well.

Cordoba has a long and complicated history, as you know. There was a time when it was under the Romans. Ultimately, it was for a while the main seat of an Islamic caliphate, and there had been bloody battles in that area. So, some people look at the name and say, hey, no, that's offensive, it's a reference to --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Well, I'm going to dig a little into my history as a religion major. In fact, it was also a place where relations amongst Muslims and Christians and Jews were at their apex.

LEVS: And they flourished, right.

VELSHI: And they flourished, right.

LEVS: And there are many others who look back and say, hey, Cordoba is an example of Muslims, Christians and Jews all flourishing at the same time.

VELSHI: Right, exactly.

LEVS: So, it's another way in which the different perspectives that are brought to this one location are all clashing into each other all over this one spot there.

VELSHI: Why can't we just all get along?

LEVS: The ultimate question for all of us in this business, isn't it?

VELSHI: That's exactly right. Why can't we all just get along?

Josh, always good to see you.

LEVS: You, too.

VELSHI: I get along with you.

LEVS: Yes, we do.

VELSHI: In fact, I think we should go out for dinner next week.

LEVS: Well, hey, that's the plan, the last thing I heard. Right?

VELSHI: I always enjoy having you on the show.

Josh, thanks very much for giving us more perspective on this, although this is a discussion where all the perspective in the world doesn't seem to be actually helping get some of these flames put out. But we do what we can, right? That's our job, to try and just throw perspective on the fire like a little bit of water.

Josh, good to see you. Thanks, as always.

LEVS: Sure.

VELSHI: NASA is over the moon about today's successful spacewalk. We'll tell you why it was such a big deal with former astronaut and International Space Station commander Leroy Chiao, a good friend of our show. He's with us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Hey, we've been talking a lot about those repairs that were made to the International Space Station, a spacewalk, the first one -- it was supposed to take two spacewalks to fix this heating unit that had started to malfunction. It ended up taking three. It seemed like a bigger deal at the front end. Now that we're looking back at it, it looks like it was largely fixed.

But I want to tell you what happened.

Leroy Chiao joins me now. He's a former NASA astronaut, he's a former commander of the International Space Station, and he's been on what I learned last hour was an EVA, or what we call a spacewalk, an extra- vehicular activity.

They are not as unusual in and of themselves. The issue here was that on July 31st, an alarm went off disturbing the six astronauts who are on the space station right now and telling them there was a malfunction with this unit that deals with the temperature on the space station.

And Leroy, that's a big deal, because this isn't like your air- conditioning going out on Earth. The temperature extremes on that space station are very different from what we see, what we experience on Earth.

LEROY CHIAO, FMR. ASTRONAUT: Well, that's right. The cooling is one of the challenges that we have to overcome on the space station. The temperature in space can be plus or minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on whether you're in the sun or whether you're in the shade. And so the cooling system has to deal with that temperature extreme.

And the external cooling loop is the one that was affected by the failure of this pump module. And it basically took down half the cooling of the U.S. operating segment, which meant that about half of the equipment had to be turned off.

VELSHI: Now, since the last time you and I have talked, we've had confirmation now from NASA that this final spacewalk finished at 1:40 Eastern Time. It was about half an hour ago.

No ammonia leaks were found in the cooling supply new pump. So things should be back to normal right now and they can resume whatever it is they were doing before they were interrupted by this a little over a week ago.

CHIAO: That's right. And this is a critical -- this was a critical repair, because without that second cooling loop, very little research work or other things could have been done.

Basically, they would have been in a survival mode. And although conceptually simple, this EVA, basically you take the old pump -- you disconnect the lines, take the old pump module out, put the new pump module in, reconnect the lines. That sounds like something easy to do, but when you're out there in a spacesuit wrestling with these big ammonia fluid lines which are pressurized to about 300 pounds per square inch, and trying to get them on and off with the quick disconnects which become sticky because they've been up there so long, connected, it's no surprise to me that it became such a challenge.

But these guys -- these folks pulled it off. It looks like they did a great job.

VELSHI: Leroy, if you were up there -- let's just put ourselves -- I mean, this is kind of neat.

These are astronauts. They're walking around in space. What would be going through their minds as they did this?

I mean, is this kind of par for the course if you're stationed up there on the International Space Station that some things are going to go wrong, they're expected to, that's why there were spares of this unit, or are you stressed and tensed? How do you feel when you're an astronaut walking in space?

CHIAO: Well, you know, there's no question there's some pressure on you. I mean, when you go outside, you don't want to make a mistake. Of course any mistake could be life-threatening to you or your partner.

And so you need to be very meticulous, very careful. There's a heightened sense of awareness when you're outside. You're working inside this big balloon, so even moving your arms or closing your fingers to hold a handrail takes some energy. They're also very fatiguing because they last for about six and a half hours.

A spacewalk like this also marks the first time that we've done a major task that was not specifically trained for by a specific crew to go do. All the space station crew members were trained to do this kind of a remove and replace operation, but this is the first time it's been put in practice, and it went well, even though there were some problems that should not have been a surprise and probably weren't a surprise.

But these guys showed that we can operate this way. And it's important, because the space shuttle is going away probably sometime next year, and this is the way things are going to be.

VELSHI: OK. So let me ask you, when you say this is the way things are going to be, I think this is important for our viewers to know. What's the role of the International Space Station in the future of NASA and Americans in space?

CHIAO: Well, the International Space Station, one of the things that we put forward on the Augustine Committee report last year, and that was adopted by the new administration, is that the International Space Station will continue until at least 2020, and maybe longer. It is the world's premier microgravity laboratory, but after the space shuttle is retired from flight sometime next year, the United States will lose the independent ability to send astronauts into space for several years until we can develop a new vehicle. And so this is -- the operations on board, we will no longer be able to send a dedicated crew of specially trained astronauts to do a specific repair again. The astronauts on board who have been what we call generically trained -- that is, trained to do these kinds of operation but never practiced that delicate ballet to get maximum efficiency -- this is the way it's going to be. And it may take an extra few EVAs, as we saw.

VELSHI: EVAs, extra-vehicular what did you call them?

CHIAO: Extra-vehicular activities.

VELSHI: There we go.

CHIAO: Sorry. Even though I've been away from NASA for a while, it's hard to get away from those acronyms.

VELSHI: I hear you.

Leroy, always a pleasure to see you. Thanks very much for joining us.

CHIAO: My pleasure. Thanks.

VELSHI: And we're happy that had a good ending to it.

Leroy Chiao is a former NASA astronaut, former commander on the International Space Station.

Let me bring you up to speed with some of the other top stories that we're following here on CNN.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: All right. Tell me about this. Let's go "Off the Radar" for a minute, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

VELSHI: I don't know what this is. I know you're going to tell us about it, a river beneath the Black Sea studied by a yellow submarine.

MYERS: Yes. And I think my producer knew that I was in Vegas this week watching the Beatles show "Love," and they realized that I was -- so they wanted to come up with something kind of yellow submarinish here. But this has nothing to do with the color of the paint.

In fact, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea here, separated by a strait, that strait right there. Sometimes the water has gone both directions. And, in fact, when this possibly was the Black Sea, a very low-level freshwater lake thousands and thousands of years ago, some bible scholars believe that the water from the Mediterranean actually went backwards and flooded the Black Sea through the strait here. And if that possibly happened, that would have been the biblical flood that we know flooded that area.

But under this ground, under this water, even though most of the water usually flows out of the Black Sea into the Med, there are undersea currents and underwater currents that dive and dig and make rivers under the sea. Under the sea, because the salinity of the water is different, almost when you go and you go to Pittsburgh, and you see the Monogahela and you see the Allegheny come together to make the Ohio --

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: -- they're not the same color river. One's red, one's brown, whatever. Whatever the day is, right?

And so, the different salinities, or the different sediments in the water, could be making this river right there. Three thousand feet wide, 80 feet deep, and is cut through this channel into the Black Sea with water out of the Mediterranean, into the Black Sea.

They want to know this. These guys from Leeds want to know this, why does this happen, what does this look? Because what did the sediments do thousands of years ago? And if we start digging through these sediments, what are we going to find?

There it is. There's the yellow submarine, University of Leeds. They're down there for weeks at a time, and they're floating around in this deep sea river -- Ali.

VELSHI: Did they just think that was going to be funny, to have -- to paint that submarine yellow?

MYERS: I think so. If they can find it if it ever let go.

VELSHI: That's a good point. Very interesting.

MYERS: Yes, I know. It's good stuff.

VELSHI: Very, very interesting.

Chad, good to see you.

MYERS: You're welcome. Good to see you.

VELSHI: We'll talk to you later.

Chad Myers at the Severe Weather Center.

All right. Justice, Taliban-style. They stone to death a man and woman who allegedly had an affair.

We're going "Globe Trekking" to Kabul after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. I want to go "Globe Trekking" with you right now to Afghanistan, where the president, Hamid Karzai, has said that he wants all these private security companies, these contractors, security contractors, people who are contractors of U.S. military and others, out of Afghanistan. He wants them to stop operating within four months.

Like they've been in Iraq, these private contractors are a big source of friction in Afghanistan. Jill Dougherty has more on what the story is about and the impact it's going to have on the struggles in bringing peace to Afghanistan. She joins us now from Kabul -- Jill.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, you know, the announcement came today from the president's spokesman. And he was having this news conference and announced suddenly that this formal requirement by the president ordered by the president is going to be issued.

He did not give a lot of details. He said essentially, as you said, within four months, all of these private contractors in Afghanistan are going to have to shut down. Now, we're expecting that that announcement -- and we want to take a good look at it -- will be coming out Tuesday morning.

But it is, according to the spokesman, necessary because he says that these private security companies have become kind of a power unto themselves. I can tell you, Ali, they're all over the place. And there are tens of thousands of these private security contractors.

We contacted the U.S. embassy. They said they wanted to take a look at this before they make any comment. But they do support the intent of President Karzai to transfer the security functions to the Afghan government.

And also we talked with another U.S. official who did not want to be named, but certainly knows about this issue. It's very sensitive. But this official did say that it's unclear exactly what they're talking about. Are these international companies? Are we talking about strictly Afghan companies?

And then also that time frame. Is it they all have to shut down in four months or the process begins in four months? And then the other thing, ISAF, the international force has said they've been tracking problems for quite a long time that their suggestion was to put everything under the control of the government with more supervision.

But they do admit that there is a problem. So the only -- I guess down bottom line of all of this, Ali, is whether it can actually happen in four months and there are very few people we've spoken with who believe that can happen.

VELSHI: Another matter that we're following is a report that this man and this woman who are alleged to have an affair were stoned to death by the Taliban, reminds us that the Taliban still have sway in vast areas, vast parts of Afghanistan. What do we know about this story?

DOUGHERTY: Yes, it's a very disturbing story that is coming out of Kunduz Province up in the north of Afghanistan. A young woman, roughly 20 years old, a man, 27, 28 years old. She was engaged to somebody else. He was married to somebody else. They had an affair.

And according to Taliban justice, they were in an area that was controlled by the Taliban. They confessed to their breaking the law, and they were stoned to death. They were taken out into a field and a number of people, unclear exactly how many, but supporters of the Taliban, stoned them.

And this is an example, a very worrisome example, number one, of the control of the Taliban in some areas, and also the justice that they are meting out.

This is one of the problems. Sometimes local people turn to the Taliban because the government itself can't provide justice. But this is a very cruel form, obviously, of justice by the Taliban.

VELSHI: Jill Dougherty in Kabul, thanks very much for that information.

Let's take you globe trekking to Pakistan now, more on the flooding that we've been telling you about for the last couple of weeks. I want to show you the situation as it stands now.

About 20 million people have been affected by the worst flooding in that country in some 80 years. The government says one-fifth of the country is under water. There's an urgent call for help as the death toll rises, now stands at more than 1,400.

What's needed most is clean water, food, shelter and clothing. Nine hundred thousand homes have been damaged. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon toured the hard-hit areas yesterday.

He said thousands of towns and villages have been just washed away. Ten of thousands of people remain cutoff, floodwaters all around then. Water-borne diseases, dysentery, cholera, diarrhea are now a major problem. They say up to 3.5 million children may be at risk.

To get more information on ways that you can make a difference and help provide relief for the flood victims in Pakistan, visit our "Impact Your World" page at cnn.com/impact.

Actors, Broadway actors take their show on the road to kids who can't make it to the show. It's our "Mission Possible" and it's just ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Let's check top stories now. China has apparently passed Japan to become the world's second largest economy. Annual figures won't come out until next year.

But China says, it had a $1.3 trillion gross domestic product during the spring quarter versus only $1.29 trillion for Japan. Both China and Japan still lag the U.S., which remains in the number one spot, but who knows?

More tough talk from North Korea as the U.S. and South Korea kick off 11 days of joint military exercises. The North says it will deal a merciless counter blow to what it calls U.S. imperialists and to South Korean traitors. U.S. military says it is fully prepared to respond to any potential provocations.

The husband and wife who crashed the White House party last November, the Salahis are in the news again. They're now on a TV reality show. This week's episode showed them apparently being escorted to a party by a Washington, D.C. metro police car. That would be against regulations.

D.C. police launched an investigation and now the producers of the reality show are admitting they made a mistake. They wrongly edited the D.C. police car into the episode. They say the escort was actually provided by the U.S. Park police. No comment yet from the park police.

All right, it's time now for "Mission Possible." This one's going to be a lot of fun. I have with me Joe Dipietro who is a Tony-winning playwright.

He is in fact responsible for "Memphis," which, as you know, is a major production on Broadway right now. Congratulations to the many Tony's that you won for that.

But you're not here to talk about "Memphis" or your playwrighting. You're here to talk about something called "Only Make Believe," which gets you and other big names from Broadway out into places to entertain kids who can't make it to Broadway.

JOE DIPIETRO, PLAYWRIGHT, WON TWO TONY AWARDS FOR HIT BROADWAY SHOW, "MEMPHIS": Well, "Only Make Believe" was started about 10 years ago by my dear friend (Dena Hammerstein) and her husband, Jamie (Hammerstein) who was Oscar (Hammerstein's) son, the great Oscar (Hammerstein).

Jamie passed away suddenly and Dena wanted to do something to honor him. And she had this idea of taking interactive theater to chronically ill children in various hospitals and medical facilities.

It was just someone with this idea. Dena had a passion for children's charities and Jamie had a passion for theater and she combined the two to form "Only Make Believe", and we've been around for 10 years now.

She called me up and some other friends and she said, I have this idea, taking performances to kids in hospitals and it sound like, you know, a sweet little idea and it's grown a lot in the last 10 years.

VELSHI: And what exactly do you do? Do you take plays or take parts of plays or do you take something entirely different?

DIPIETRO: It's entirely different. Dena and some of the other actors write the scripts. We take three professional actors to hospitals and over a six-week cycle, they perform small plays for kids.

But they're plays that the kids can participate in and act with. We also bring a trunk of costumes so it's about dressing up and the idea was really just to bring joy to kids in hospitals who face very serious challenges very early on in life.

VELSHI: Whenever you go to a Broadway play, what you get at the end of it is some -- you get some sense that Broadway actors are very, very involved in the community whether it's equity fight age or things like that. How do you recruit the actors who do this? What kind of response do you get from the actors?

DIPIETRO: Great response. We basically have auditions. We have professional actors. So we have really good talented people going into these hospitals and we're also a organization -- we don't have a religious agenda. There's no political agenda. We just want to bring joy to kids.

And I think the most - almost the most satisfying aspect of this, which has been a big surprise, is that not only are we entertaining these kids, but the performances wound up being very therapeutic too.

We've had kids who've been selectively mute started to speak during the performances. You see kids who are very - who have serious mental challenges, very sort of closed in at the top of it. By the end, they're up singing and clapping along like everyone else so it's been very gratifying in that aspect too.

VELSHI: How do you pay for this?

DIPIETRO: It's all self-financed, not only Dena started financing herself, but it's all through private donations. We have a big fund- raiser coming up in November at the Shubert Theater, home of "Memphis" with Sir Ian McKellen is going to be our emcee.

And so basically what we want to do is we go to a lot of hospitals that don't have a lot of financial resources. So we have a dedication to sort of poorer medical facilities. So we go in, we're totally self-financed.

So we come in with this trunk of costumes and actors, at the end of the six-week cycle, we leave the trunk of costumes and we don't take any money from the hospitals.

VELSHI: The actors when you go into these hospitals -- they're not just actors. A whole bunch of people are involved in all areas of production?

DIPIETRO: Yes, I mean, we have people who - you know, the costumes -- they're all volunteers. Everyone -- we pay the actors, but everyone else volunteers for the program.

VELSHI: They go in -- is it improvised or is it a planned production?

DIPIETRO: No, it's actual - I mean, it's improvised in terms of how the kids react and the kids get to play roles and participate, but it's actually written out stories.

You know, just like in "Memphis," the idea of when you do a Broadway show, is you want to entertain and you want to move people and at the end, you want them to come up on their feet sing and clapping like we do with "Memphis" every night - that's what we're trying to do --

VELSHI: I assume you're doing this in smaller spaces in the hospital. One of the things about Broadway is that it's so big. I mean, how do you make sure that you're not getting in there and scaring these kids? You scale things down a bit?

DIPIETRO: It's actually in the hospitals generally, you know, in one of their REC rooms. We'll serve anywhere from five children at a performance to 50 or 60. So it just sort of depends on the population of that particular hospital.

VELSHI: Good. That sounds like a lot of fun. Thank you very much for coming and sharing that with us. You've got "Memphis" is what -- your work that's on Broadway right now.

DIPIETRO: Yes, it is.

VELSHI: All right, I mean, it's a very successful run on Broadway and continued to do very well so congratulations on that.

DIPIETRO: Thank you.

VELSHI: And to donate or volunteer your time to "Only Make Believe" or to just learn about what they're doing, visit the "Only Make Believe" web site, onlymakebelieve.org. I was just there. It's a good website and tells you how you can participate in it.

We're going to take a break. When we come back, look, what time is it? It's time for Ed Henry and "The Stakeout." Where is he and why isn't he wearing a tie?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right, it's time now for "The Stakeout" with Ed Henry. Do we not wear ties on "The Stakeout" anymore, Ed?

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I thought I would go a little casual. I went to Wisconsin today and not everyone's all buttoned down like Washington.

Actually over the weekend, we were in Florida with the president. I got a lot of grief from my colleague of Mark Miller, of CBS Radio because he was complaining that I was wearing these sneakers that didn't have laces, you know, sort of those old Chuck Taylors without laces.

I thought they were kind of stylish. He started a little campaign on Twitter to raise money for me so I could afford laces. You're supposed to wear them without the laces. He's not up on fashion. You just took your tie off?

VELSHI: I just took my tie off. Who needs that junk?

HENRY: I hope you're not upset with me, but I was just talking to your new best friend, Richard Quest. He's doing great. He was asking me about the -- "Q & A," I thought it was "The Stakeout." Basically, he was asking me about the president's vacations in Florida and Martha's vineyard and he was wondering if the president would get in trouble for doing these swanky vacations.

And he started grilling me on whether I was going and I said, no, actually, my colleague Dan Lothian was going. And so he told that he's going to grill Mr. Lothian when he goes to Martha's Vineyard about -- give him a little grief about getting such a choice assignment.

VELSHI: Well, you know, while you're there. I mean, I know this is a (plum) assignments for you and you're getting around, there's little work getting done, the president was talking about the economy in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, which is where you are?

HENRY: You got it right, Menomonee Falls. That's right, you got it right. This is - what significant about is that they make batteries here, renewable energy programs are going on.

They got some money from the stimulus bill. Bottom line, they say here that they saved about 12 jobs and that in the months ahead because of work that's going on here, they think they're going to hire up to 80 new jobs.

Now, small number in the grander context of the American economy, of course, but the president's trying to go out here on the road and grind it out, project by project, that this is affecting real people.

But, of course, when people look at the big picture number of about 9.5 percent unemployment, it's hard to see the benefits of these little projects. So it's a tough case.

VELSHI: Ed, the president would like this sort of thing to be the focus, certainly for the next few months. We've got a new poll, CNN Opinion Research Corporation, asking, how important to your vote is the economy?

Fifty six percent say extremely, 36 percent say very. I mean, 1 percent of our polled population says the economy is not important. Take it over to unemployment, which is probably the biggest issue within the economy right now, same thing.

Forty eight percent, extremely important, 36 percent say very important, 2 percent say that unemployment is not important to them, which is very telling because more than 2 percent of the population is employed, obviously.

But this is the problem, we're all fearful about this. So the president -- how do they navigate this over the next few months, the discussion about the economy without it becoming something that they get blamed for not fixing?

HENRY: Well, I mean, they're going to try to make the case, the president was just at a fund-raiser for Tom Beirut who's the Democratic candidate for governor here in Wisconsin. He's in an uphill battle right now. What Republicans are making hay out of this that on this three-day five states swings some fund-raising, some economic speeches, some campaigning, presidents of states like Wisconsin here that he won in 2008, and yet the Democratic candidate for governor is in uphill battle.

The Democratic senator incumbent, Russ Feingold, he's in a tough race as well. So Republicans are saying this economic message he has is not resonating because he's having to come not to swing states, but to states where Democrats should be doing well.

This is why on one hand, there are Democrats this weekend who are hand-wringing, upset about the president weighing in on this mosque controversy in New York because they think it's a destruction they don't need right now and they want to talk about jobs and the economy.

But on the other hand, it's not like the mosque controversy as controversial as it is, is going to become the dominant issue in November. I think some people sort of hyperventilating about that. You're right based on those polls that at the end of the day, this is going to be about jobs and the economy.

VELSHI: And it has been since 2007. So that's the interesting thing. Everything else that comes up somehow takes a backseat to jobs. Hey, listen, if you want to follow Ed Henry on Twitter, what is it? At Ed Henry, CNN?

HENRY: Ed Henry, CNN, yes. Are you still on Twitter?

VELSHI: Yes, and you know what? If you want to submit a question for "Q & A," Ed, we have a hash tag for that on Twitter, too. Hash tag CNN "Q & A". Put a topic on there, and Richard and I will discuss it.

HENRY: So you have a hash tag for Richard and not for me, is that what you're saying?

VELSHI: You and I have our own hash tags. Trying to bring you into the fold, Ed. You don't see what I've done, I've taken my tie off. I'm like a mini Ed Henry right now.

HENRY: That's pretty cool. I mean, do you have a Speedo?

VELSHI: I just got a very loud laugh from my producer --

HENRY: I don't think they want to talk about that.

VELSHI: Ed, always good to see you.

HENRY: I did not wear one in Florida.

VELSHI: Ye, whatever! That's Ed Henry in "The Stakeout" in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

Listen, it's not just jargon. It is our economic barometer. I'll tell you what it is and how it works when we come back on "Wordplay."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Earlier I told you that China has now taken the number two spot among the biggest economies in the world. How do we measure that? Through something called GDP. That's today's "Wordplay."

It stands for gross domestic product. It's the combined value of all the goods and services produced in that country. Everything, though you will find some countries using variations of the formula, this is the benchmark. It's a pretty broad measurement. So it isn't always going to paint a perfect picture of any economy.

But its real value is telling us the story of a country's economic health and how healthy it is or isn't compared to other countries. How do we know if America is in a recession or headed for what some called a double-dip recession?

Well, some economists say a recession exists when the country's GDP shrinks for a few quarters in and amongst some other measures that we take. The shortcomings of the GDP is that it may tell us what we already know.

Since most of these measurements come out well after the fact, but GDP is still our main economic yardstick and the best tool we've got. And that is our "Wordplay" for today.

Now, is china's skyrocketing economy a threat or an opportunity for Americans? I'll answer that in my "XYZ" coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ" of it. OK, you've heard the news. China's economy is bigger than Japan's, making it the second largest in the world and growing. I've just explained what GDP is. But is China's growth a threat or an opportunity for Americans?

In some ways, it's both. The threat is two-fold. First, China is the largest non-U.S. holder of U.S. debt. Your biggest lender can be your biggest asset until they start to worry about your ability to repay your loans.

And with a growing national debt, it is not impossible to imagine that China may start to see the U.S. as a bad risk. That said, the U.S. is China's largest customer, the largest buyer of Chinese-made goods and as any good retailer knows, you want to do everything you can to keep your best customer buying your stuff.

So the risk of China shutting down our credit card is low. The bigger risk is the one we've seen play out over the last 15 years or so, the loss of basic manufacturing jobs to China. America used to be the world's shop floor. But as wages and benefits increased in America, China's lower-cost manufacturing got the edge.

The result is cheaper goods on U.S. store shelves which is great, but a generation of factory workers out of work. That threat is played out already. All that's left is to turn it into an opportunity. What could America produce that the prospering Chinese could want or need? Estimates are that sometime between 10 and 25 years from now, China's economy will actually overtake that of the U.S. so the smart play would be to learn what they're going to be buying. Energy, for one, maybe health care, probably every kind of education imaginable.

Kids in schools and colleges across America are starting to learn Mandarin as a viable option to be prepared to understand and do business with the Chinese on their turf. As the Chinese prosper, they will do as Americans do -- travel, producing opportunities for Americans in the tourism and hospitality industry.

These are just small examples. The possibilities are more exciting than they are nerve-racking, despite the fear-mongering you may have heard about China. The bottom line is that China is and has been on an upswing. Who knows what will happen over the next few years, but it may serve us well to see China as an opportunity rather than as a threat.

That's it for me. Time now for "RICK'S LIST."