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Blagojevich Jury Hangs on Most Charges; Spike in Teen Hearing Loss

Aired August 18, 2010 - 10:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A chilling murder case in South Carolina has churned up a sad and disturbing case of deja vu. Shaquan Duley is going to court today accused of killing her two children; little boys, ages one and two.

Investigators say she smothered the kids with her hands in a motel room, put the bodies in the car and dumped it in the river. Here's a 911 call from someone who thought the kids might still be alive.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. Yes, I'm on Shillings Bridge road and a car ran in the pond and it's got kids in there. We need help fast, please.

911 OPERATOR: What county are you in?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shillings bridge road. That's the name of the road.

911 OPERATOR: What county?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What county? We're in Orangeburg County.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Now, Duley reportedly claimed she lost control of the car and that it rolled into the river but police say her story didn't add up.

Investigators say that Duley didn't have a job or a husband and couldn't take her own mom's criticism anymore. Apparently, Duley's mom had gotten on her for not taking good care of those children. This case in 2010 in Orangeburg sounds familiar, doesn't it? Stirs up memory of a case 109 miles and 16 years away. Susan Smith, remember that case that horrified the country? Smith rove her kids into a watery grave and lied about it to the nation. Think of the similarities. In South Carolina, a mom was supposedly wanted to be free. A story that didn't add up.

Two little boys found in a car in a body of water. Tommy Pope is the man who put Susan in prison. It's the case that he can't escape. Mr. Pope, by the way, is running for the South Carolina state house as a Republican. Appreciate you joining us. Question, when you heard about this case, did you just start to relive the Susan Smith case?

TOMMY POPE, FMR. SOLICITOR GENERAL, SOUTH CAROLINA: I did. It's happened a number of times over the years. We had Andrea Yates, out in Texas. It's almost gotten to the point when I see a call and it's maybe from a 212 number somewhere in New York or Atlanta, I almost know that either someone's taken their children's lives. It's become all-too frequent over the years but it brings it all back again.

PHILLIPS: Did you find this bizarre, and the similarities just eerie, the fact that the story was the same, that the method of the killings were the same and the fact that it happened so close to each other, both of these cases in the same state?

POPE: Right. I tell you, the biggest thing, initially, was the two children, the car, and when I first heard a little snippet of it, I thought, you know, here we go again. If there is any positive and not certainly lost life within Orangeburg circumstance, you didn't have the nine days that Susan Smith took the nation through and the community through where she was blaming somebody else.

This story in Orangeburg that quickly fell apart of a wreck, you know, that didn't add up. Susan Smith blamed it on someone else, had law enforcement searching for someone else and it was certainly an uncomfortable situation for that community and for the nation.

PHILLIPS: And it's been 16 years since you but Susan Smith behind bars. Does the case still impact you? Do you still think about it?

POPE: I think rightfully or wrongfully I'll always be the Susan Smith prosecutor. The one thing I noticed the other day I was talking to a young man that was in college and mentioned something about Smith and he was too young to remember. I got to thinking, I thought he was about the age Michael and Alex would have been. So a number of years have passed, but it always sticks with me.

PHILLIPS: Wow! Do you think that Susan Smith got what she deserved?

POPE: I personally don't. Obviously, I sought the death penalty. I respect the jury's verdict but I think the fallacy in that was that they believed she was sitting, contemplating what she had done with those boys. I think her conduct since in prison and the things she'd done shows that she's more worried about Susan as I believe she was back at that time.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Do you still, do you ever talk to her? Are you involved in the case at all or her former husband?

POPE: I really - her husband, I used to hear from time to time. You know, he's gone on and he's had a little girl. I think he's even had another child. He used to contact me. The trap there for me is I represent the worst part of people's lives sometimes when they face the horrors that he faced or you know, various victims. And so I rarely reach out to them. I always welcome hearing from them and hearing how they're progressing. So I hear from him from time to time but I don't intentionally seek him out.

PHILLIPS: You wanted the death penalty for Susan Smith. What do you think should happen to Shaquan Duley?

POPE: I tell you. You know, the prosecutors got a lot to weight. One factor he has in his favor now that we didn't have then is life means life in South Carolina. That was something, (INAUDIBLE) Smith, it didn't. She'll be eligible for parole, and, b, we couldn't tell the jury those facts. And so there's a lot of factors, you know, because what you look at is the nature of the crime. Certainly, it qualifies for the death penalty but you need to look at the factors.

What always concerns me is you are trying to look at the character of the defendant, and you know, wanting to be free is a pretty cheap excuse for taking two children's lives. And so, you know, we've all got a lot of strife. I have kids at my house, and there's good days and bad days, but that's the ultimate in selfishness. I think when you would sacrifice them.

I noticed that if they're really this far in despair whether it's Susan Smith, you know, they tried to say, botched suicide, but, you know, they sure effectively killed the kids. And I'm not being crass, but if it's really that desperate, it's always ironic that the mother kills the kids but doesn't take her own life.

PHILLIPS: From - let me ask you, then, what does that tell you about the mother? Because obviously, you've got to go into the whole psychological aspect of this, as well.

POPE: Sure. I always saw, at least, in the Smith case - I have to be fair. I don't have all of the facts before me in Orangeburg. But in the Smith case, she was very shrewd in her decision making and she had her wedding items in the car and she had the kids in the car. Basically she had everything but David Smith. And I've been asked over the years, what was your theory of the case. What was it really? You know, it was exactly what I said, that she was getting rid of that entire scenario, the marriage, to be able to have the new boyfriend.

And the subtlety there is why not give the kids away. If you give the kids to David or in the Orangeburg, you've forgiven the mother, then you're a bad mother. You're less desirable. But if you kill the kids, they're out of the way, you got your freedom and you're a victim, which sets up the opportunity for a prince charming to come in and rescue you.

So as macabre as that sounds, I think that's the psychological aspects, at least, from the outside, looking in, they're at play in many of these types of circumstances.

PHILLIPS: Final question, you wrote on your Facebook that you've gotten tons of calls since this case came forward and you wrote, you seem to be the go-to guy on moms killing their kids. POPE: Right.

PHILLIPS: Does that bother you?

POPE: I accept it. It's like we were talking earlier about being the Susan Smith prosecutor. That's kind of the hand I was dealt as a prosecutor. I tried to do, you know, what I thought was right. I think the strange interest in this type of case comes from the fact that it's not the bad guy. It's not the boogeyman. It's not the gang guy that gets us.

It makes us uncomfortable when it's our mother, it's our sister, it's our wife. When I think that's - when I left today, you know, my little girl was with my wife. I don't have a concern that when I get home, you know, that everything's going to be OK. But once we start shaking that foundation, it makes all of us uncomfortable and I think that's what has made this unique and probably singled me out as the Susan Smith prosecutor.

PHILLIPS: Yes, and it's hard. It's hard to understand how a parent could ever do that to their child.

POPE: Absolutely.

PHILLIPS: Tommy Pope, great talking to you. Thanks for sharing time with me today.

POPE: Thank you for having me on.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

Let's go to Chicago now, on the corruption trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Jurors have returned a verdict on only one count, finding him guilty of lying to the FBI. They deadlocked on the other 23 counts of his corruption trial. Prosecutors had barely heard the verdict before they vowed to retry him.

A defiant Blagojevich (INAUDIBLE) against that breath.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROD BLAGOJEVICH, FMR. ILLINOIS GOVERNOR: The federal government and this particular prosecutor did everything he could to target me and prosecute me, persecute me, put pressure on my family, try to take our home, take me away from our kids, arrest me in the early morning hours on December the 9th with Patty and me in our bedroom and our little Annie in bed with us, a sitting governor.

And that very prosecutor said that he was stopping a crime spree before it happened. Well, this jury just showed you notwithstanding the fact that this government and the power and the resources they bring to bear, this jury just shows you that notwithstanding that fact that the government threw everything but the kitchen sink at me, that on every count except for one, and every charge except for one, they could not prove that I did anything wrong, that I did break any laws. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Jurors say that the outcome of the trial is not so much a statement of his innocence, but rather the product of a stalemate. They say that a single juror refused to budge and blocked his conviction on other counts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIK SARNELLO, JUROR IN BLAGOJEVICH TRIAL: There's a lot of emotions brought into it in the beginning. Once we kind of checked ourselves and realized that people are getting offensive and defensive, that wasn't really getting us anywhere, we realized, you know, we need to take it from a logical standpoint look at the evidence, take it slow and that's where we kind of started moving.

JAMES MATSUMOTO, JURY FOREMAN: I believe that they proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt. But to others, they didn't. And it's the same evidence. So it's just a matter of opinion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, prosecutors say that they will meet next week to plot their next move in this re-trial.

She used the "n" word and ignited a national firestorm and now Dr. Laura says she's ending her show and her broadcasting career. She made a bomb shell announcement on CNN suggesting that she was unfairly targeted for her on-air use of the offensive word.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. LAURA SCHLESSINGER, HOST, "THE DR. LAURA SHOW": I want to regain my first amendment rights. I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice dissent and attack affiliates and attack sponsors.

I'm sort of done with that. I'm not retiring. I'm not quitting. I feel energized, actually, stronger and freer, to say the things that I believe need to be said to the people in this country.

JOHN RIDLEY, FOUNDING EDITOR, THATMINORITYTHING.COM: The big reaction for me is when she talked about her first amendment rights being trampled. You know, the first amendment and a lot of people say this all the time, it pertains to the government impeding freedom of religion, freedom of speech. It has nothing to do with what I feel like, if you want to protest or things like that. No one is impeding her first amendment rights. If she wants to retire, that's fine but to say that for some reason because someone disagrees with her, that she is being maligned or in some way shoved off the air waves. To me, that's absurd.

That's her idea of an apology, to victimize herself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Dr. Laura has been on the radio for more than 30 years. She says she now plans to focus more on the internet with her web site.

President Obama is bringing his economics message close to home this morning. How close to home? Maybe in the backyard. The president is meeting with families from a Columbus, Ohio neighborhood. He's going to talk about how funds from his recovery act have helped keep a local business from going on the downturn.

We're going to be joining or actually, I guess, I'm trying to say keeping that business surviving during a bad economy. We will be joining that backyard gathering with the president's remarks to the nation. That's scheduled for around 10:50 a.m. Eastern time.

An American team wants to change the look of the demiltized zone, DMZ, between North and South Korea. He has got a plan for a children's peace forest. We're going to update his progress, coming right up.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Plus, heavy rains flooding out streets in Washington, D.C., the heat finally starting to move away. We'll have all of the details plus some travel news you might not want to hear coming up. That's coming up in your forecast.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: The humanitarian crisis in Pakistan is staggering. 20 million flood victims are desperate for help yet the U.N. says relief is falling short by hundreds of millions of dollars. While pleas for donations keep going out, the U.S. military is ensuring that it gets in. Sara Sidner has that story for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): We are here on the shores of Karachi on the USS Pelilu (ph) with the expeditionary strike group number five. It is their whole mission to make sure to be available when there is some sort of a disaster. They patrol these waters and they were in the area to help those in the flood zone in Pakistan.

They have been able to get about 5,000 people out of those flood zones, rescuing them with helicopters. They've also been able to drop about a half million pounds of aid. They say they will be here for as long as it takes. There are more helicopters coming in. There are more ships coming in. The U.S. says it has a humanitarian commitment they're going to make to Pakistan.

They have already given about $90 million in kind but the U.N. continually saying that there is simply not enough aid being offered to this country, and so about 460 million so far, less than half of that has been pledged. There is still a great deal of need here in Pakistan. The U.S. military says they'll be here. The United States itself said it will keep providing lots of help, as much as it can, but much more is needed here.

Sara Sidner, CNN, off the coast of Karachi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: And here is how you can help Pakistan flood victims. Go to our Web site, cnn.com/impact. On the "Impact your World" homepage, we got a link to 20 charities that are responding to the crisis.

Hip hop star Wyclef Jean, well, he must wait until Friday to find out if he can run for the president of Haiti. The country's electoral commission actually postponed a decision on who can run in November's election. Jean was born in Haiti but is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The electoral board says the eligibility of several candidates still needs to be checked out.

For more than half a century, the DMZ separating North and South Korea has symbolized mutual distrust. Now a 13-year-old American teen wants to put a children's peace forest there.

Jonathan Lee traveled to North Korea's capital to push his idea. He hoped to meet with Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il. You know, we don't know what he was able to accomplish just yet but a CNN crew will meet him at the airport in Beijing when he arrives there tonight to pitch the idea to China's leaders.

All right. So much of the country is sweltering in the heat, but it looks like we're going to break away from that. Right, Jacqui?

JERAS: Yes, it was so much better in so many places better in terms of temperatures, Kyra, but you might not like the weather that you're going to get in exchange for that.

Look at this picture of Washington, D.C. that allegedly is the capital building in the background which is tough to pick out because of all the fog and all of the mist and rain that we have been seeing through the morning hours. We had some flooded streets and a few closings as a result of that. Thunderstorms keeping the temperatures down into the 70s though.

Washington, D.C., this is going to be the first day that you didn't hit 80 degrees since like mid-June. How about that? A little bit of a break for you. We do expect the rain to taper off a little bit by the noon hour, probably and then we're going to be watching the second wave potentially to come in, say by mid afternoon. And so the flood watches in effect through tonight. This could be really heavy, we're talking, at least up to three inches potentially here, and those flood watches extend down through the Appalachians, and then we've got another area down here due to the remnants of tropical depression number five. Where we are seeing some flooding in Louisiana and Mississippi as well.

There you can see those temperatures and how much cooler they are going to be 82 in New York, 83 in Chicago, 84 in Minneapolis. Man, that's good. 88 in Atlanta but still they do everything big in Texas, right? So still 103, unfortunately in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

If you're trying to travel which is really holding things up. We've got some clouds in San Francisco. Washington, D.C. just at Reagan National right now, 45-minute departure delays, some delays at La Guardia as well as Newark. I want to end things off with some amazing video, Kyra. Check out these pictures. If you haven't seen them yet. Wow! This is what I would call a land spout. It is a rotating column of air. It's like a tornado. It just kind of develops in a nontraditional way. It's not as much of a super cell thunderstorm. But you can see how it broke out. It caused a little bit of damage. A couple of outbuildings, this is in northeastern Colorado but no injuries. And just incredible pictures. You can really, really see that funnel and how it kind of bows out a little bit as well.

PHILLIPS: It's always amazing to me that people capture that video, too. What are they thinking? Well, it's on CNN. That's what they're thinking.

JERAS: Exactly. That's my video right there, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Yes. Thanks, Jacqui.

If your teenagers are ignoring you even more than usual, listen up. They may not be able to actually hear you. Looking at the alarming loss of hearing among the iPod generation, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking top stories.

Vice President Joe Biden and other dignitaries will attend the funeral for former Senator Ted Stevens today in Anchorage, Alaska. Stevens was Alaska's Republican senator for four decades. He died last week in a plane crash.

Embattled talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger says that her radio days are done. She won't renew her contract at the end of the year. Dr. Laura came under fire for using the N-word in an on-air conversation with an African-American caller last week.

And an Iowa company is voluntarily recalling some of its eggs because of a salmonella scare. The eggs are sold under a number of labels including Lucerne and Farm Fresh. The cartons affected have a three-digit code ranging from 136 to 225.

Say what? Well, next time your teen asks that question, maybe it's because they really couldn't hear you. More teens are having hearing problems than ever before.

We've got the study to tell you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

PHILLIPS: Oh, yes. You can play that funky music. Just don't play it too loud.

The volume cranked way up for teenagers, but they're hearing less. A new national study says that one in five teens has slight hearing loss, a big jump over numbers from the '90s. Some doctors blame loud music and earbuds.

We're going to talk more about that in just a moment.

But first, we just want to take a look at how loud is too loud?

The decibel level considered safe is around 85 to 90. Your dishwasher hits about 60 on the meter. A busy subway, well, that's right up there at 90.

But how about this? An ambulance siren hits 120. That's about the same as an iPod's max volume.

Dr. John House is the president of the House Ear Institute. He's joining us live from Los Angeles.

Doctor, have you seen that app on the iPod where you can actually measure the decibels? It's pretty fascinating.

DR. JOHN HOUSE, PRESIDENT, HOUSE EAR INSTITUTE: Well, it is very interesting, and I'm just glad you've mentioned that it can get up to 120 decibels, because that's incredibly loud and potentially very damaging within just minutes.

As you mentioned, the maximum -- I'm sorry. The maximum is 90 decibels for eight hours. And every time you go up by five decibels, that cuts the exposure time by half. So by the time you get to 120, that's incredibly loud.

PHILLIPS: So what's going on? Is it the iPods and the MP3 players, and is it all the new technology that's doing this to our kids?

HOUSE: Well, I think it's that. It's the trend to have these teens listening to MP3 players by the hour and turning the volume up too loud. It's a combination of those. Ten years ago, when the previous study was out, we didn't have MP3 players, so we didn't see as much of this high frequency noise-induced-type hearing loss that we're now seeing in adolescents.

PHILLIPS: And explain what exactly happens, say, ,when a teen has those earbuds in. They exceed the decibel that you say is normal, and they're doing that for, say, up to eight or more hours a day.

What actually happens in the ear canal?

HOUSE: Well, inside of the inner ear, inside of the cochlea, there are 15,000 delicate little hair cells. Their job is to convert vibration to a nerve impulse.

Well, they basically wear out, and they wear out first in the higher frequencies, which is above the conversational range. But as time goes on, this eventually erodes into the conversational range, and they began to have trouble hearing the consonant sounds.

So, a warning right now, we know that it's causing damage. We need to educate teens because this type of hearing loss is totally preventable, but it's not curable.

PHILLIPS: And how do we do that, Doctor? What are you telling parents? What are you writing about?

How do you get your teens to, you know -- if you walk through New York, everybody's got those earbuds in, and they have them in all day. And you can hear it on the other side of the subway car. It's going to be really hard to convince people that it's not good for them.

HOUSE: Well, at the House Ear Institute, we have a program to try to educate teens into what we call safe listening. It's how you hear the counts, and that is keeping the volume down.

There's nothing wrong with MP3 players. There's nothing wrong with listening to music through headphones. The problem is just the matter of the volume. We need to keep the volume at a reasonable level, which would be maybe half of the volume scale.

PHILLIPS: Dr. John House, president of the House Ear Institute.

Thanks for joining us.

HOUSE: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Well, we decided to blog about this today, and we put this question out to you about, you know, what are your ideas for convincing teens to really turn the music down? All right. Here's what some of you said.

Terence said, "Give them ear plugs to wear in their ears for a couple of hours to simulate impaired hearing, which will happen in years to come if they don't turn it down."

Cecilia said, "Tell them to take out their earbuds and play their music through speakers. It might bother you at first if you're not into their music, but it worked for my kids."

Mike said, "They should make manufacturers imbed a switch that goes off automatically when the music exceeds certain decibel levels. Sort of like mandating emission levels and mileage standards in cars and gasoline."

Dee said, "There is no way to get the kids to turn down loud music. Period."

Remember, we want to hear from you. Just log on to CNN.com/Kyra and share your comments.

Well, right now, more than a billion Muslims worldwide are in the holy month of Ramadan. But two bloggers are observing Ramada on the road: 30 mosques, 30 states, countless stories.

We're talking to them next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: More than 1 billion Muslims worldwide are now in the most sacred month of the year. The holy month of Ramadan is now underway. It honors the month when the prophet Mohammed received the first of the revelations that make up the Koran. And the dates vary with the sighting of the new moon, but this year in the U.S., Ramadan started on August 11 and runs through September 10th. And during these days, Muslims abstain from food and drinks from dawn until dusk. They're encouraged to eat a meal before dawn, then break the fast right after sunset.

But when you think Ramadan, you probably don't automatically think road trip. But the co-creators of "30 Mosques In 30 States" are spending each night of Ramadan in different mosques across the country. They actually started the 1,200 trip just a few days ago in New York City and eventually will snake their way back to Dearborn, Michigan.

But today, stand-up comedian Mama Lee and filmmaker Asan Turiq are right here in Atlanta.

Did I say it right? Awesome -- Bassam. I keep telling my friend Bassam in Iraq. So, I might just have to call you Sam.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: We're going to go back to your high school days. Let's begin with you. And just -- how did you guys come up with this idea? what made you decide to do it?

BASSAM TARIQ, FILMMAKER: It started last year, actually, during the month of Ramadan where we were outside of a mosque and just broke our fast and thought, "Dude, wouldn't it be great if we went around New York City every day to a different mosque?" We're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." So, we just started doing it. And we blogged about it. I mean, I think it was like the third day --

AMAN ALI, STAND-UP COMEDIAN: And the thing is, we posted on our Facebook and Twitter, hey, we're going out. We're hitting up all these different mosques, and people were, you need to blog about this. Like, "Nobody's going to read this."

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: The way you write, believe me, people are going to be reading this.

ALI: "Nobody's going to read this." And we were just surprised by the response. We were getting e-mails from not only our family and friends, but all over the city and state and country. Then it became, "Hi, I'm here in the U.K., I'm reading your blog." "I'm in Luxembourg." "I'm in China." I'm like, "You're in China? Why are you reading?! You're going to get in trouble! (LAUGHTER)

ALI: "Don't! Don't! You're going to get in trouble! Stop." And it was just amazing, that response. Even this year, just the excitement and the energy behind it, by from Muslims and non-Muslims. We have a pretty good, healthy mix of both that are really excited about the project.

PHILLIPS: There is definitely some seriousness here. We will get to the serious parts. But I had to crack up on your first day when you were in New York, and you actually went to the Ground Zero mosque. That's been in the news, as you mention in your blog like every 20 minutes, right? And you actually went in there, Aman, and thought that you somehow were going to feel something different. You expected to feel transformed

ALI: Yes, because this is the place that is the lightning rod of controversy. There's all these protests back and forth, and these shout-fests. I was expecting to get some kind of tingling sensation. I'm praying, I'm like, "I didn't feel any tingling. What's going on?" And then I realized, dude, I'm just in a mosque. Like, I'd been in plenty of mosques and I didn't feel any different. I realized that all of that -- regardless of what you feel about it, all that strife ends at the door.

When you walk inside, you just feel like a mosque. It's like any other mosque with, you know, a ghetto sound system and there's no A.C. that works.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: And you actually thought security was hired, but actually as you say in the blog, "I was actually a bit of a moron, I actually was going in the wrong way." Want to explain that?

ALI: Yes, I thought security was tight. And so I walk in and he's like, "Who are you? What are you doing here? What are you doing here?" And I'm just like, "I'm trying to pray." I thinking like, "Whoa, this is really crazy. Security must be really tight. Do I need to show I.D.? And then he walks inside and then he's like, "Oh, no, you're going into the wrong entrance. You need to go through - "

PHILLIPS: This is the security guard right here. Basically, you were going through where the women enter, correct?

ALI: Right.

PHILLIPS: What did you think of Aman? You were like, "Oh, boy, this is going to be the beginning of a real interesting trip."

TARIQ: Aman and I actually have a really interesting relationship because he's the more loud one, and he likes to speak loud. I'm like, "OK, great, I like to be behind the camera and take the photos." So, it's great. We work out really well. I think one of the questions of being with somebody for 30 days, it's like a small, mini-marriage. And we're going to make it work.

PHILLIPS: This is like the new "Eat, Pray, Love" to a whole new, different level. Yes, I'm loving it!

ALI: Not so much the first part.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Exactly! A lot of praying, though.

TARIQ: There you go.

PHILLIPS: On a serious note, this fascinated me and moved both of you, when you moved onto Maine. The hospices (ph). Not everybody understands how disciplined these guys are. They can basically recite the entire Koran, right? Tell me how this impacted you.

TARIQ: So, these guys -- the interesting thing about them is that they actually memorized the Koran at a later age. Most people when the memorize the Koran, they do it at the age of 8 to 10, but these guys did it after college. One of guys we actually highlighted, he embraced Islam just a couple of years ago in Buffalo. And it's this community in Buffalo, it's like this (INAUDILE).

So, just being around these guys - because even in the nights we were sleeping, they were still reciting all night and went to sleep after the morning prayers, so they went to sleep after 5:00 a.m. when they made their fast.

PHILLIPS: Did you find that had you gone into this, probably, stereotyping Muslims. I mean, you guys are Muslim - let me ask you this. Are you devout Muslims? How do you describe your faith?

ALI: I mean, I guess you could say we're practicing. We follow all the obligations of the religion. I mean, nobody's perfect, nobody's a saint. But you know, we're not ashamed of who we are or our identity. We wear it on our sleeves.

TARIQ: We just prayed the morning prayer at a gas station. We were like, "OK, we got to pray."

ALI: We actually came from Charlotte, so we actually left at, like, 4:00 a.m. And one of the morning prayers we had to pray, so we pulled over in South Carolina.

PHILLIPS: Did you pray for us, too? I was kind of hoping you would pray for the show, pray for me, for the interview.

TARIQ: Hope we don't suck.

PHILLIPS: No, so far you're doing very well. Did you find that you went in, kind of maybe stereotyping or thinking this was going to be a certain way, and then all of a sudden -- ooh, wow?

ALI: I think going into it we were expecting a little bit of the same stories over and over again. What's so amazing is every single community we saw, everybody has a unique story to tell. The African-American Muslims in Philadelphia are very different from the issues that the African-American Muslims are going through in D.C. And even the Indian and Pakistanis in Maine are very different from the Indian and Pakistanis that we visited in New York City.

PHILLIPS: How about the refugees? Faisal. This was interesting to me, right? You met Faisal in Portland, Maine. Tell me about him.

ALI: Faisal was a guy who came to the U.S. about three or four years ago. He was a translator and an interpreter for an American contractor company, and it was the U.N. that helped to arrange to escape the country because he wanted a better life for his kids.

And so, he came to Maine, having no idea like, why am I here in Maine? Didn't know anybody. And he took the initiative. Because of love for his kids, he wanted to raise money. He decided to open up a shop and the shop is doing very well, and he's there in town.

And it just that idea of pulling yourself up and seeking a better life for your kids. It's a distinctively American narrative. It's just so cool to see people even though they're in these small town, they still find ways of making their religion work.

PHILLIPS: Talking about stereotypes, I even thought you were playing a joke when I saw pictures from Philadelphia, and I thought, "Wait a minute. Those are all white people." You even said in the blog, "I never prayed with so many white people in my life." There was kind of a --

TARIQ: It is sort of widened my own horizons. Because I didn't realize how narrow my perspective of what Muslims in America was. And the community is actually located in a farm. There was (INAUIDBLE) and Sufi Muslim saint that came in the '70s, and he ended up dying there. So, they built a burial site for him. So, it's sort of a shrine.

And it was one of the first shrines in all of America. Because here is a huge shrine culture in Islam that happens all over South Asia and the Arab world. Now it's over here, and so people from all over the world and even just Americans come by to this shrine.

PHILLIPS: What attracted so many white people to this specific mosque?

TARIQ: It's love, and what's interesting is that the (INAUDIBLE) man that came didn't seen speak a lick of English. It was just that I guess his message was so great about love. It wasn't even about Islam. He introduced Islam toward the end of his time there. So, that was actually pretty fascinating.

PHILLIPS: Now, this is kind of eerie. You guys are going to wrap the trip up in Dearborn, Michigan. I know there is a large Muslim population there, but it's on 9/11. I guess -- that's pretty powerful. I guess I shouldn't any eerie. It's powerful.

ALI: Well, I wish there was no evil son conspiracy where a community got together and "OK, we are going to have the last day of Ramadan on this month."

(LAUGHTER)

ALI: There was none of that , you know.

PHILLIPS: That's right, the last day of Ramadan on 9/11. Oh, my God.

ALI: And the thing is, because 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam -- it was a bunch of despicable people that hijacked our religion, for lack of a better term. Why should we let coincidence - whatever you want to call it - why should we let that be a part of our beautiful day? So, I don't think any of us really think much of it.

PHILLIPS: So, it made your faith stronger -- so far? I know you just at the beginning?

TARIQ: Yes, we're six days in, but I like to think that - I mean, it's made our faith stronger. And for me personally, it's brought in the definition of what America is and what it can be.

PHILLIPS: I see the book, I see the movie. You guys are going to be so famous. I'm going to have you back on the show when you're building your own mosque.

ALI: Oh, God.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Well, I wish you guys the best of luck.

TARIQ: Thank you.

ALI: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Yes. Really great to have you. That was fun.

Well, Bell, California, should have been called Bank, California. We've got new information now about the city that you've got to hear. About how some fat-cat city employees were using the tiny, poor little town like it was their own personal piggy bank.

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PHILLIPS: Apparently right now, the president's having a little kitchen talk, but he's going to head to the backyard. This is in Columbus, Ohio, and it's a part of his economics road show that the White House has taken across country. And the president is actually going to come out and meet with other families within this neighborhood. He's with Rhonda and Joe Wiseman (ph) right in Columbus, talking about the economy, health care. And then he's going to host a similar discussion with other families from the area right there in the backyard. We are following that. We'll take it live. It should start probably in about six minutes or so.

Austin, Texas, is known as the city that helped launch careers of music legends like Janis Joplin and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Tom Foreman says that it was that community that actually helped renovate an aging auditorium. He shows us in today's "Building Up America."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is impossible to address the economy of Austin without noting the symphony of arts that flows through this town. And the long center downtown is evidence of how a vibrant arts community can be good for residence and business, too.

For 40 years, the multi-purpose aging Palmer Auditorium sat here. When the city decided to replace it in the '90s, the town was flush with dot-com money. A $125 million plan was developed. By 2002, however, many dot-comes were dot gone and the plan was, too. That is when the real ingenuity kicked in.

STAN HAAS, ARCHITECT: People were accustomed to come in here and knew what it was.

CLIFF RED, RUNS CENTER: It was so odd but yet it was also such a simple for the city.

FOREMAN: Cliff Red runs the center and Stan Haas was a key architect of its revival.

HAAS: So to give it a new life and new place if people's hearts in Austin was a really seductive project for us.

FOREMAN: Unable to afford an entirely new facility, the city, like many homeowners, remodeled. Really remodeled.

We began to investigate what's the idea of maybe taking the great bones of this building and make it more than it was. The eureka moment for us was finding a foe owe of it in 1958 and what it showed was this beautiful concrete perimeter.

FOREMAN: Striping the old building down to the bones, they reused every piece they could to create a state of the art new performance center. A hidden con sea ring beam came into the light and as a sweeping architectural element. Old weather beaten roof tiles were converted into stylish hip siding. Windows were made into decorative panels. Old light fixtures rewired, reworked, and re-hung for a retro- splash. Five hundred tons of steel were melted down and returned for use and in all, 45 million pounds of debris --

(VIDEOTAPE INTERRUPTED BY LIVE EVENT)