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Tainted Eggs Recalled; 'Building up America'; 'Off the Radar'

Aired August 23, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. A new hour, a new rundown. Tourists are taken hostage on a bus by a gunman. Police swarm to the scene, sparking a deadly shootout. I've got the details of that.

Plus, did you know the oil that cooks your French Fries can also run a train? Step aside diesel fuel.

Also let the good times roll. It takes more than a hurricane, an oil spill, and a recession to keep the people of New Orleans down. And they have a message for you.

But first, let's start off with that story of the eggs. A recall of more than half a billion eggs, 550 million eggs are being recalled. You can trace these eggs back to a couple of farms in Iowa. The Wright County Egg and the Hillandale Farms. Those farms, the eggs from those farms went out to 16 other states. And you'd think that would just be the story. But the places they went out to, well, they weren't going out to retailers. They were going out to wholesalers and warehouses and distributors who then sold those eggs across the country. So we now have tainted eggs all over the country, all 50 states. It's a big issue and it does seem to come back to eggs that were infected with salmonella in Iowa.

Casey Wian is there with the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This modest building in Iowa farm country is at the center of one of the largest food safety scares in recent history. Wright County Egg is based here.

We met the chief operating officer inside, but he declined to speak with us about the company, its related businesses, and their long history of fines for health and safety violations. They include animal cruelty, sexual harassment of workers, even rape, and the hiring of illegal immigrants.

This undercover video obtained last year by the group Mercy for Animals shows how chickens were treated at the company's farm in Maine. The owner agreed to pay more than $130,000 in fines. We met several local residents who are not happy with Wright County Eggs' expanding presence.

RON ZIN, WRIGHT COUNTY RESIDENT: People moved away, because who wants to live by a mega site?

DAN BRIDGES, WRIGHT COUNTY RESIDENT: We've got more migrant workers than we have our own workers. Wages are low.

WIAN: In a statement, the company said, "When issues have been raised about our farms, our management team has addressed them swiftly and effectively." It also said the company is cooperating with the FDA investigation into what caused the outbreak of salmonella and led to the recall of more than half a billion eggs. About a thousand people have become ill this summer, including the Danielson family in Minnesota.

TODD DANIELSON, TAINTED EGG VICTIM: Everybody had diarrhea. That was kind of the first thing, and then headaches, and then throwing up. And then it was body aches.

You couldn't even move. I mean, it was like in your joints. It hurt so bad. I mean, it was worst than any flu I've had.

WIAN: Already, lawsuits are being filed in several states by people who say they became sick eating eggs from Wright County Egg.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: And Casey's headed into a briefing with the Food & Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control. We're going to bring you an update to whatever he learns as soon as he gets out.

All right. A dramatic and deadly day in the Philippines. Police say a former police officer armed with an M-16 assault rifle forced his way on to a tourist bus in Manila and held 25 people hostage for hours. At one point, the bus driver escaped, and he told police and journalists there that the gunman killed everybody on the bus.

Minutes later, gunfire erupted. It's today's "Sound Effect."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Get down! Get down! Get down! Get down!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay there. OK?

COREN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is that gunfire (ph)?

COREN: Yes. Yes. Lisa (ph), we're fine. Yes, I can stay. I can stay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got to move back.

COREN: OK. OK.

Christine (ph), we have to get behind the car. There's been M-16 fire, which you would have heard. That would have been coming from inside the bus, and we can actually smell it. We can actually smell it.

So it would appear that the gunman is still alive?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: That was CNN reporter Anna Coren on the seen. At least eight people held hostage on the bus were killed. The gunman was killed by a gunshot to the head.

We'll have more on this story in just a few minutes.

And since this egg scare isn't going away anytime soon, what should you do? Should you toss out all the eggs, stop eating them altogether? Or is there a less drastic way to avoid getting sick?

We're going to help you avoid the shell shock after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. As we've been telling you, this salmonella outbreak that's linked to bad eggs has already made about 1,000 people sick. Health officials expect that number to grow. Five hundred and fifty million eggs have been recalled. Our Casey Wian is in a briefing right now to find out more about it.

But how do you avoid getting sick from salmonella? Well, if you know some facts, you can actually avoid it fairly easily.

Let's first talk about what salmonella is.

Salmonella Enteriditis is the bacteria. It basically infects the ovaries of healthy hens and it contaminates the eggs before the shells are actually formed. So, the salmonella is in the egg and the shell.

Now, infection, if you get it, if you get salmonella, it will manifest as a fever, as abdominal cramps, and as severe diarrhea. You'll find this within 72 hours of eating the egg, so please monitor that, be conscious of that.

It's especially dangerous to elderly people, to infants, and to those who are immune-deficient in the first place. And to them, it can actually be deadly without prompt treatment. To most people, it should just be fine.

How do you avoid getting sick from salmonella in the first place? Well, it's not all that complicated.

Keep your eggs refrigerated, first of all, which I think most of us probably do. But I know some people don't refrigerate eggs.

Throw away any cracked or dirty eggs. Just get rid of them altogether.

Wash your hands, wash utensils, wash everything around those eggs. Anybody who touches the eggs, you've got to wash your hands.

Now let's talk about how you cook them. Cook the eggs until the whites and the yolks are firm. No runny, no sunny side up. That kind of stuff will not help you. You have got to cook the egg until the whites and the yolks are firm, hard-boiled eggs if you like to boil them.

Do not eat raw eggs. Don't lick the cake batter, don't eat the cookie dough. There is a difference with some of the eggs that are used in commercial production because they're often pasteurized.

Avoid restaurant dishes that have raw eggs. Talk to the restaurant about what types of eggs that they use, whether they've done anything about this recall, and whether their eggs are pasteurized. But remember, Hollandaise sauce, Bearnaise sauce, Caesar salad dressing, steak tartar, all of those things have raw eggs in them, so be conscious about that sort of thing.

Now, the salmonella we're talking about involves only eggs that are in the shells. When you buy egg products like a carton of eggs, or egg whites or egg yolks, that is pasteurized. That is not actually affected by this. In fact, commercially produced ice cream and eggnog are also unaffected. But as long as you basically fully cook your eggs, you should be fine.

Now, to find out whether you have bought eggs that are part of this recall, go to eggsafety.org. There are too many brands for us to list them. Eggsafety.org is where you can find out whether you're brand or your batch of eggs has been recalled.

If you have the carton, there's always information on that carton. If not, eggs have numbers on them, too.

The city of New Orleans is coming back post-Hurricane Katrina. Now they want you to come back.

Tom Foreman is on the CNN Express. He's checking out how folks in Louisiana are "Building up America."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: In less than a week, it will be five years since Hurricane Katrina hit. And despite all of that, the Gulf oil spill, the recession, people in New Orleans are still saying, let the good times roll.

The city is open for business. Tourists are more than welcome.

Tom Foreman is on the CNN Express in New Orleans. He joins us live now.

It's really, Tom, got to be one of the finest cities in America. It was before anything went wrong. But when you saw what that town went through, and the fact that they can still smile and they can still welcome you, you've got to love New Orleans.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You do, Ali. As you know, I lived here years ago, and I just love this town. It's a beautiful town.

And I'll tell you something that everybody here knew right after the storm hit. They knew right away that if they couldn't bring tourism back, this whole place would be in trouble, because, frankly, I am standing in the French Quarter, where for 300 years, the steady flow of visitors is what has made the town work. So right away, they said we must rebuild that part of our economy as quickly as we can, because without that, nothing else gets better.

And I'll tell you, Ali, it's really working. Look at what they've done.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (voice-over): It may be hard to believe, but New Orleans has 300 more restaurants than it did before Katrina; 1,100 in all. And at the long-standing landmark Commander's Palace, Chef McPhail is not complaining.

(on camera): That's more competition for folks like you, but you don't mind?

CHEF TORY MCPHAIL, COMMANDER'S PALACE RESTAURANT: I embrace it. All these guys who open up these little tiny neighborhood funky spots, I tell you, it is really, really an exciting time to live here in the city.

FOREMAN: Because it brings the whole place back alive?

MCPHAIL: That's right. And the food is fantastic.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Ever since the storm, this city has been aggressively rebuilding its tourism business, which the year before brought a record 10 million visitors and almost $5 billion to town.

For the Super Dome, that has meant a $250 million makeover. $93 million for improvement at the convention center, and $400 million have been put into building up and repairing hotels all over town. And the return on that investment has been enormous.

85,000 people worked in the tourist trade before the hurricane and 70,000 of those jobs have been recovered despite the recession.

(on camera): What do you want tourists to know about New Orleans who haven't been here since the storm?

WILLIE PICKET, NEW ORLEANS TOURISM EMPLOYEE: Keep coming. We love them and we want them to keep coming back. And everything that they like and love about New Orleans is just like it was before Katrina.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Beyond the tourist attractions, stubborn troubles remain in many neighborhoods. But Kelly Schulz at the convention and tourism bureau says for this key industry --

KELLY SCHULZ, NEW ORLEANS CONVENTION & VISITORS' BUREAU: Everything in New Orleans that was broken by Katrina is being fixed now. But not only back to where it was before, but even better.

FOREMAN (on camera): That's not just a tourism sales pitch?

SCHULZ: No, that's not a tourism sales pitch. That's speaking about the entire city.

FOREMAN (voice-over): There are still challenges, like convincing tourist that is Gulf seafood is safe following the oil spill. But in this town that has already built up from so much, there is a sense that five years after Katrina, the future is much brighter than the past ever was.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: And you know, Ali, that's what you hear throughout this town, this sense that you've got to pull together on tourism because they know they have serious problems in other areas that still will take a long time to grind out and solve -- insurance problems, housing problems, roads, bridges, all sorts of things they're still dealing with. But the key areas, the areas that you would see if you come as a tourist, are as good as I've ever seen them, and frankly, I'd say probably better. And there's big agreement on the importance of that all the way from people like Willie Picket, the guy we rode around with on the wagon there, and also with Chef Tory McPhail over at Commander's.

And I'll tell you, Ali -- I know you're something of a foodie -- you're going to hear more about Chef Tory McPhail down the line, I guarantee you. That's one hopping kitchen.

VELSHI: Well, I'll tell you, I love New Orleans, always have. I enjoyed Mardi Gras. I enjoyed the food scene. I enjoyed how warm people are. And I work with a lot of people who do a lot of traveling, and I've spent a lot of time on that bus over your shoulder.

But you really are one of the most traveled guys I know, particularly in America. And you love the folklore. And you have something to say about every place you've been to.

If you haven't been to New Orleans yet, what do you love about it? What's the great thing for somebody who hasn't been to New Orleans?

FOREMAN: Well, I'll tell you something, Ali, this is the way I describe it. It's a charming city, it's lovely people.

You're a tourist in other places, sometimes you don't always feel so welcome as a tourist. Here, people take you in and want you to be family right away.

And I'll tell you, for a long time, I had a paragraph that I clipped out of a newspaper many years ago that always said it to me. The paragraph said, "New Orleans isn't so much like another American city, as part of a foreign country that washed up on American shores." And it still feel that is way. And I love it here. I feel at home here. And most importantly, everybody here wants you to feel at home if you come down and visit.

VELSHI: Yes, they're extremely warm.

FOREMAN: Never more than now.

VELSHI: They always want to know your business, where you're from, and why you're there, and how many times you've been there. The food is fantastic. You can sit and eat for a long time.

But there's that little bit of -- that culture. You see the French signs on the street and plaques that tell you about the history. So, if you're a history buff, it's fantastic. It really is a unique city. It's the kind of place that you need to get to if you've never been to it.

FOREMAN: Oh, you know it, Ali. It's a wonderful, wonderful town. As we say down here, come on down.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: There you go.

Tom, great to see you. Say hello to the crew on the bus for me. I miss it a great deal. And great to see you, and we'll talk to you again later this week.

FOREMAN: Come on down, Ali. We'll go out to Commander's and we'll have some lunch.

VELSHI: Good. Good deal.

Tom Foreman, "Building up America," telling us all about those stories across America that really are meant to improve people's lives.

Listen, Hurricane Katrina, as you know, this was a major, major story five years ago, and continued to be for us at CNN. CNN's Anderson Cooper returns to the New Orleans -- to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, "In Katrina's Wake: Building up America," an "AC 360" special this Thursday night, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: A very interesting story at Disney. We've heard of biodiesel, right, using stuff to make your car --

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Sure.

VELSHI: I've even heard about people taking vegetable oil. They're now doing this at Disney, the used oil to power their little steam trains.

MYERS: Steam trains, Mark Twain's -- easy for me to say.

VELSHI: Mark Twain.

MYERS: Mark Twain's little steam thing. And there you go.

So what do they all have in common with, let's say, a 1978 Mercedes-Benz turbo diesel? That -- cooking oil. Two hundred thousand gallons of cooking oil turned into 200,000 gallons of biodiesel.

VELSHI: Now, it doesn't actually reduce their costs because they actually have to convert this, as opposed to buy it. But it saves oil.

MYERS: It just smells better.

VELSHI: And it doesn't smell like French fries.

(LAUGHTER)

MYERS: No. It's a little bit sweeter. But people are following the train.

VELSHI: That's right.

MYERS: Where am I going? Where am I going? And yes, and it is not a cost savings, but it does take out of 80 percent of some of the ash that comes out of diesel.

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: Diesel is a high ash content thing. You don't put the ash in, you don't pollute the park. People can kind of breathe now.

VELSHI: Right. And plus you're using something that was used already. It's an interesting concept.

MYERS: Isn't that great?

VELSHI: I know some people in California who actually do this. They had their engine rebuilt so that somehow the could put old vegetable oil in it.

MYERS: Don't go to Kentucky Fried Chicken, ask them for oil and pour it in your car.

VELSHI: Right. You actually need to do something to your car.

MYERS: It doesn't --

VELSHI: But a lot of people do it. It's an interesting --

MYERS: Well, no. You must distill it a little bit, too.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Right. So, in California, I understand there are people -- so, these folks who have done it to their car, they don't generate enough oil themselves to do it, so you buy it. Like, they collect it from places that use too much oil and somehow it gets used to run your car.

MYERS: If it runs a fryer, it can run your car.

VELSHI: There you go.

All right, Chad. Good to see you. Thanks, buddy.

MYERS: You bet.

VELSHI: We'll keep an eye on all of those things that Chad was talking about, including that weather developing in the Atlantic.

A gunman -- I told you about this earlier -- seizes a tourist bus in the Philippines. Now, negotiations drag on for hours. The ordeal ends in gunfire. Eight hostages are killed.

I'm going to track it for you in "Globe Trekking" in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. It's time for "Odds and Ends."

I have to tell you, I have debated telling you this story because I got a sense that some of you don't like things changing. You like things the way they are. This is going to ruffle a couple of feathers, but I actually thought it was kind of neat.

And if you have any feathers to ruffle, go to my Facebook page, and Facebook.com/AliVelshiCNn, and tell me what you think.

OK. The dollar, money, American dollar, the greenback getting a facelift, theoretically. It's all part of something called the Dollar Redesign Project which is organized by Richard Smith (ph). He's a creative strategy consultant specializing in transforming brands into things that people want and desire.

Now, this is just a design contest. It is not affiliated with the U.S. Treasury. Nobody says the money's changing.

But one of the contestants in this contest grabbed our attention. Now, this is from Dally Duncan (ph). It's a graphic design studio. I think it's based out of the United Kingdom. And basically, the numbers would correspond to the -- something historical about one.

So, one dollar would have Barack Obama on it as the first president of the United States. Five dollars would commemorate the five biggest Native-American tribes. The 10 dollar bill, the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The 20 dollar bill, 20th century America, something that many Americans call -- or many people in the world call the American century. And the 50 dollar bill, well, the 50 states of America.

This is just one of the submissions. I've posted a link to the Dollar Redesign Project on my blog, www.cnn.com/ali.

All right. When the going gets tough, the tough get organized. That is one woman's philosophy, and you will meet her. Fascinating story, part of my "Mission Possible," on the other side of this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Every day we bring you "Mission Possible," somebody who's done something that might inspire you to follow their example or that could change the world. And I have this great story for you today. Val Marshall, she joins me now from Houston.

Remarkable story. Val's son got sick, and in learning about how to deal with that, she took her organizational skills, developed a methodology for her own family to deal with it and then went and spread that around.

Val, welcome to the show. Thank you for being with us.

VAL MARSHALL, PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZER: Thank you, Ali. Thanks for having me.

VELSHI: I want to first learn about your circumstance. What happened in your family?

MARSHALL: My son was diagnosed with AL leukemia a year ago. And as a professional organizer, it was very overwhelming with all the information that you receive. So, I went home and created my own little organizational binder that I since have shown other cancer moms. And it helps you basically just organize the things that you really need to have at a moment's notice.

VELSHI: Let's put that up. Let's put that binder up on TV. We have a picture of it. Because it's fascinating to me, when something new happens in your life -- in your case, it was cancer in your family. But in many cases, something happens and then the paperwork for that starts piling up. You're not quite sure how it's going to turn out and how you should be filing it. So, you just have this blob of paper.

So, you created this binder. I'm going to show it to our viewers. Are we able to show that, Michael?

All right. Let's take a look at that. It's organized. It's tabbed, basically. You've got meds, you've got labs, you've got insurance, you've got diagnosis -- lower than that, you've actually got research on leukemia. So, where did you get this sense of organization? Where did you decide that this was the way to organize all the various information and documents that were coming in to you?

MARSHALL: Basically when we would take a lot of information home and you would have stacks of information that you would mean to read, you'd want to read, but there would be times like you really would need lab and meds information that you needed at a fingertip access. So, when things are in a stack -- and I know from my own personal business that whenever something, especially traumatic, happens in somebody's life -- it's just very easy for it to become a stack. And then you can't find anything and you become very frustrated. This gives you a little bit of control.

VELSHI: It's such a simple solution, but you're right -- the one thing people who get hit by a diagnosis always tell us is that they feel like they're out of control. They feel uninformed. They feel like it's not organized.

Tell me what you're doing now. This is the remarkable part. You're doing this for other families. Tell me how that came to be.

MARSHALL: Well, I guess a little bit about our story is we have had just tremendous community support. We've had fundraisers; M.D. Anderson bends over backwards. I'm involved in what's called a family advisory council. And they actually have parents like myself sit and they constantly are picking our brains as to how they can better serve the patients.

So, I've learned a great deal, and living in Houston -- you know, I'm a Katrina evacuee. And this is -- the heart of Houston is huge. And it's made me want to give back because when you have a diagnosis, especially with a child, you feel so helpless. And to be able to reach out to someone else with maybe just a little bit of help, letting them have a little bit of control in their life, really -- and it helps me develop bonds with other people.

It's just -- been a very natural -- because that is my profession. And I've always loved ever since I was little, I've loved to organize. It's a very natural fit.

VELSHI: What do those others who you connect with and help out get? You get the binder or do you show them how to organize it or -- what do you do? Do you organize their papers?

MARSHALL: Yes, what I typically do is I show them what I have. And then they maybe look through it. The beauty of something like this is it's, as you said, very simple. But it's also something that you can customize. And I think that's the most important thing. When someone's been traumatized, they almost need a little bit of guidance of what's important to you. I don't know in the picture of the binder that you have if it shows the question sheet in the front that I have --

VELSHI: Yes, it shows refills, appointments, calendars, counts, procedures, beads and questions. I don't know what beads means.

MARSHALL: Yes, I knew you were going to have that same question. When your child is diagnosed with cancer, there's a program that they give beads for every single procedure. So, Addison's beads right now are about eight-and-a-half feet.

VELSHI: Wow. MARSHALL: So, if I did not write down his procedures and go to the nurse every time, I would forget because sometimes I will get a couple of weeks behind. So, that's a very simple, very personal to us -- probably not my son, but one day, he may appreciate it.

So that's why I bring that up. These file folders can be customized - really, doesn't even have to be medical. I've done many of these. I've done these for soccer moms that are trying to keep hold of everything going on in their family --

VELSHI: Yeah, you know, I'm a business guy and you've got one for tax, you've got one as a hurricane survivor, you've got one for a hurricane. What do you - so it's the same concept. You're just trying to organize people in places that they feel powerless?

MARSHALL: Absolutely. And there's been studies -- the 80/20 rule is absolutely -- 20 percent is the jewels of our life that we really need, and we get so stressed out by that 80 percent. This is a way to hold on to your 20 percent.

I don't know if you have a picture of the child file that I make. But that was an absolute Godsend for us when we evacuated from Katrina. When I sat across from a superintendent and he said, "I'm sure you don't have immunizations, birth certificates, Social Security numbers," I had everything in that child file. And all their report cards.

So, it's a very simple concept that I find especially in times of trauma, whatever that trauma may be, it helps to have that fingertip access, that even in the world of computers is not always --

VELSHI: Well, I was going to say, I do everything on my Blackberry. But the fact is, when you're dealing with cancer or dealing with a hurricane and there's insurance or there's a lab printout, you can't translate that into your digital device.

MARSHALL: Absolut -- well, M.D. Anderson has a wonderful -- I can go online for so many of our things. But sometimes it's not as timely as I need it to be. And I need just one sheet. I need that lab value. Because that predicts whether we're going into the hospital or not.

VELSHI: Right. So, it gives that to you in a way that's easy to do that. I guess here's my question for you. Because I'm probably the opposite of you. I may be one of the more disorganized people I know. But I manage to get it done, and I show up for my show on time.

MARSHALL: Well, you know what that means?

VELSHI: What does that mean?

MARSHALL: You know what that means, though? It typically means you're an intellectual or you're very gregarious or you're very creative. So, I always tell my clients that -- that's across the board the case. VELSHI: I appreciate the compliment. But what is the threshold for which a guy like me should get a binder? What's the thing that says, "OK, you know what? This isn't just going to work to pile up your papers. This is one of those things that's going to turn into an event," whether it's a hurricane or your taxes or an illness. What's the threshold?

MARSHALL: I think the threshold is when you become very stressed and your environment really impedes on your productivity or your mental, emotional health. It's very personal. But that's the threshold is how much it stresses you out.

VELSHI: I'm going to go home and look through some of my files and make some decisions --

MARSHALL: And if you feel like you're a strong enough male to carry a binder.

VELSHI: There you go. Fair enough! Well, I'm carrying a clipboard. So, binder's not too much of a stretch.

Val, what a great conversation. Thank you for being with us. Congratulations on what you've done and our best wishes to you and Addie and all those families who you're doing something to help out.

MARSHALL: Thank you so much, Ali. Thanks for having me.

VELSHI: My pleasure.

By the way, if you want to find out more about Val Marshall and her family's story, go to my Web site, CNN.com/ali, and we'll link you to everything that you need to know.

Let me give you a look at the top stories we're following here on CNN right now.

A House committee has asked for documents from two Iowa egg producers as it investigates a salmonella outbreak. Over half a billion eggs, as you know, have been recalled. That is the largest egg recall in recent history. To stay safe, keep your eggs refrigerated, throw away cracked or dirty eggs, avoid raw or even slightly undercooked eggs altogether. Wash your hands and utensils that have come into contact with eggs.

In New York this weekend, hundreds of people for and against the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero staged rallies. Police made sure to keep the two sides a block apart.

And today was the first day of the class for the newly opened Barack Obama Elementary School just outside of Washington. The school is being touted as an environmentally friendly green building. It's not the only school with the president's name. It is the closest one to where he lives, though.

All right. You know all about this ongoing salmonella outbreak because we've been talking about it a lot. Now we're going to take a crack at eggs themselves. How are they produced? How do we consume them? All that coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: This story had me captivated all morning. A dramatic day-long hostage ordeal ended in gunfire and death today in the Phillipines. It happened in the capital of Manila around 10:00 a.m. local time. You can see it there.

By the time it ended ten hours later, at least seven hostages had been killed. Here's a timeline of the events. Now, police say a former police officer forced his way onto a bus, allegedly with a gun. He had 22 foreign tourists on the bus. Three other people were there. The suspect demanded that he be returned to his old job as a police officer, a job he lost about a year ago.

Nine hostages were released during the afternoon. Police S.W.A.T. teams surrounded the bus. And at one point, the bus driver escaped, and he told journalists and police that everybody on the bus was dead. So, police stormed the bus and the suspect was killed.

I spoke with CNN's Anna Coren last hour. She was at the scene throughout the ordeal. Here's what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, what I will tell you -- I think the British (ph) convoy is just leaving now -- is that president Benigno Aquino has literally just left the scene. He came and inspected it just a little while ago. He was asking police questions as to what happened, how the event of this hostage crisis unfolded. So I think that is a clear indication that this is going to be investigated quite thoroughly.

Now, Ali, I can confirm that nine people are dead, including the gunman, that being 55-year-old Rolando Mendoza, a former police officer here in Manila. Now, eight hostages were also killed. Seven of them, Hong Kong nationals, one of those being a local Filipino.

I can tell you that seven of those hostages did survive. Seven of those hostages that were on the bus during that dramatic gunfire that we witnessed, seven of those have been taken to hospital. No word yet of serious injury.

But this certainly unfolded -- it began at 10 a.m. this morning. That is when Police Officer Mendoza, he boarded this bus. It was a tourist bus. It had 25 people on board, 21 of those Hong Kong nationals, who were due to fly back to Hong Kong this evening.

And he got on board, armed -- armed with an M-16 rifle, and dressed in his police uniform, or shortly after that that he took the bus hostage and demanded that he be reinstated as a police officer.

Ali, just to let you know, this is a man who was sacked last year following an investigation. So this is what this whole crisis was all about. This is a man who was trying to clear his name and trying to be reinstated to his job -- Ali. VELSHI: Anna, I want to just play for our -- our viewers what we played earlier, which was, as you were watching this all of a sudden this gun fight broke out. Let's just play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: Get down, get down, get down. Get down, get down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay there. Stay there, OK?

COREN: Yes.

Lay flat. Lay flat. Yes, I can stay. I can stay. OK, OK, OK. Christine, we have to get behind the car. There's been an M-16 fired, which you would have heard. That would have been coming from inside the bus, and we can actually smell it. We can actually smell it.

So it would appear that the gunman is still alive?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Anna, we were watching this unfold live today. It seemed like something went awry. They -- they thought the gunman was alone in that bus. It was unclear what happened. Tell me how that all went down, what we were just watching.

COHEN: Yes, well, Ali, from what we can understand, things were actually going quite well. Police were happy with the way that Mendoza was behaving. They said that he was cooperating. He had released nine hostages earlier.

And then his brother, who also happens to be a police officer, he had been involved in negotiations. But he approached the bus, and lay down on the road, begging his brother to surrender. Police apparently rushed over, and it was this scene that caused Mendoza to get upset. And that is when he started firing off his M-16. So this is when we heard those gunshots.

And I must commend my crew, and we've been (INAUDIBLE) my cameramen. (INAUDIBLE) We were here, and we had to take cover behind the van, along with all other journalists. We were working with producers, and what we had to do was basically hit the ground. Because we were pretty much in the firing line, 150 meters, if that, from where this bus, you know -- and this hostage crisis was unfolding. So the safest thing that we could do was to take cover. Hence, you heard that same sort of unfold.

But it was a situation that did get out of control. And it was something I don't think that the police were anticipating -- Ali.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: And that was CNN's Anna Coren, who was on the scene throughout the entire episode today in Manila.

All right, I'm going to tell you right now more about eggs than you ever thought you were going to know or even wanted to know. 550 million eggs have been recalled in the salmonella scare. A House committee is now investigating, checking into these two farms in Iowa that seem to be the root of where these infected eggs came from.

Let me tell you a little bit about eggs and America. The average chicken, which would be a hen lays about 300 eggs a year. We have about 280 million egg-laying hens in the United States. Don't worry about doing the math. That means we produce about 80 billion chickens - I'm sorry - 80 billions eggs a year in the United States. That's about 10 percent of all the eggs produced in the world.

Let me show you how that breaks down. Sixty percent of those 80 billion eggs go to consumers. They go to places that you buy the eggs at. About nine percent goes to the food service industry, and about 31 percent goes into manufacturing of other products that use eggs in them.

Now, even if you don't think you eat eggs, you probably do. It's in all sorts of things. It's in some obvious things. It's in cake batter, cookie dough, a lot of ice cream has eggs in it. Caesar dressing, Bearnaise, hollandaise, steak tar tar and chile relleno has eggs in it.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN HOST (off camera): Relleno!

VELSHI: Relleno. I got Sanchez in the room.

(LAUGHTER)

Chile relleno has eggs in it.

Lots of things have eggs, even if you don't think you eat them, you do.

You have nothing to fear, by the way, if you just cook your eggs properly. Wash your hands and utensils after you've touched it, particularly if kids get near it. Wash their hands. Cook your eggs properly. Runny egg, soft boiled, sunny side up is not going to work if your egg has salmonella.

Now, the salmonella is sometimes in the egg and the shell. Go to eggsafety.org. It will tell you the brands and the lot numbers of all the eggs that have been recalled. The list is now too long for us to actually give you on TV. So, go to that Web site.

All right. Today's "Wordplay" is coming to us from Chile, where rescuers trying to reach those trapped miners are going on a wing and a prayer. I will explain in just a second.

Relleno.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: A little breaking news for you. We're just hearing this from counsel for - joint counsel for Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren, have announced that they are divorced now. They have divorced. They confirmed today that it was entered in the Bay County, Florida, circuit court. Their marriage is dissolved, and it provides for the shared parents of their two children.

Elin and Tiger issued a joint statement. I'll just read it to you. "We are sad that our marriage is over and we wish each other the very best for the future. While we are no longer married, we are the parents of two wonderful children, and their happiness has been and will always be of paramount importance to both of us. Once we came to the decision that our marriage was at an end, the primary focus of our amicable discussions has been to ensure their well-being. The weeks and months ahead will not be easy to them as we adjust to a new family situation, which is why our privacy must be a principal concern."

Tiger Woods and his wife announcing their divorce has been finalized. Rick will have more for you on that in just a few minutes when he comes on.

Speaking of Rick, by the way, he's just the first of people to have sent me information about my pronunciation errors. Stuffed peppers, relleno --

SANCHEZ (off camera): Very good!

(CLAPPING)

VELSHI: Is that good? All right, thank you very much. Stuffed peppers. We should have just said stuffed peppers.

Time now for "Wordplay." We're looking into doves in the context of Chile's mine crisis. Thirty-three miners are trapped in nearly half a mile underground, and their lives may depend on doves. That's the nickname given to narrow plastic tubes or capsules that are being lowered down a bore hole six inches wide. Now, rescuers are using them to send water down and high-energy glucose gel for the miners to eat. You may be familiar with that if you've done mountain climbing or athletic ventures.

It will take about an hour for each of these doves to get down to where the miners are. Half a mile. That seems like a long time. Consider that these 33 men have been down there for almost three weeks and may be trapped in this emergency shelter for three or four more months. This is a fascinating story. We're going to stay on top of it.

All right. It was a source of inspiration and peace for Anne Frank. I'll tell you about it in my "XYZ."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I want to bring you some breaking news that I just got you a few minutes ago. Tiger Woods and his wife have confirmed that they are divorced. It was finalized in Bay County, Florida circuit court. The judgment provides for the shared parenting of their two children. We don't have details of the financial settlement. But we do have this quote, issued jointly by both Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren. "We are sad that our marriage is over and we wish each other the very best for the future. While we are no longer married, we are the parents of two wonderful children, and their happiness has been and will always be of paramount importance to both of us. Once we came to the decision that our marriage was at an end, the primary focus of our amicable discussions has been to ensure their well-being. The weeks and months ahead will not be easy to them as we adjust to a new family situation, which is why our privacy must be a principal concern."

That's the information we have now. But Rick and his team are working on it to get you more information through the course of the next couple of hours.

Time now for the "XYZ" of it. I was reading through the news this morning and came across a story that probably won't make many headlines, but for me it was worth sharing. A monumental chestnut tree known as the Anne Frank tree came tumbling down earlier today. It received that moniker because it apparently kept Anne Frank company while she was hiding from the Nazis.

She referred to it several times in her now-famous diary. The 150-year-old tree had fungus and moss that caused more than half its trunk to rot. Two years ago, the trunk was given a steel support system to prevent it from falling.

The global campaign to save the chestnut started in 2007 after Amsterdam city officials deemed it a safety hazard and ordered it removed. The tree was granted a last-minute reprieve after a battle in court. But it wasn't the bugs and it wasn't the fungus or disease that brought the tree down. In the end, it was Mother Nature. Strong winds snapped the tree about three feet above ground and brought it crashing down. No one was injured.

Anne Frank wrote about the tree many times in her diary, including this entry. Quote, "As long as this exists and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts, I cannot be unhappy." End quote.

No one knows yet whether a new tree will replace the original one at the same spot. But luckily, many clones of the tree have been taken over the years, including 11 of them planted at sites around the United States and 150 at a park in Amsterdam. So, wherever Anne Frank is, her happiness can continue.

That's my "XYZ." Time now for Rick for "RICK'S LIST."