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Unemployment Rate Steady at 9.8 Percent; Hurricane Tomas Swipes Haiti; Snake Bites Child at Halloween Party; Soldier Surprises Daughter at School Assembly; United Airlines Honoring Oprah With "Oprah Plane"; Man in Disguise Boards International Flight; President Obama to Speak On Jobless Report; Janet Jackson Talks About "For Colored Girls"; Job Gains in Private Sector Helping Markets; Board Game Inspires Survival; Hall of Fame Manager Dies

Aired November 05, 2010 - 09:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: I know how that feels. You don't get much sleep. You want it to be the weekend so much faster. Have a great weekend, Kiran.

All right. Here's what we're talking about this morning. No relief for the people of Haiti. Hurricane Tomas making a powerful pass by the island. Winds up to 80 miles an hour and as much as 15 inches of rain. The January quake left about a million Haitians homeless. They've been fighting a cholera outbreak as well.Now they're desperately seeking shelter from the storm.

And there was no survivors from a plane crash in Cuba. Sixty- eight people on board this AeroCaribbean flight. It was headed to Havana when it went down last night in the mountains near the village of Guasimal.

And an old man boards a flight in Hong Kong but gets off in Vancouver as a young man. Either some sort of Benjamin Button-type miracle or he was wearing a disguise. He was escorted by Border Service officers but we can't get enough of this story so we're going to dig deeper at the bottom of the hour.

All right, those monthly jobless numbers for October are just in. We added 151,000 jobs last month. That's better than expected. Still the Labor Department says that the unemployment rate held steady at 9.6 percent. That's nearly 15 million Americans who can't find work.

Chief financial correspondent Ali Velshi here to talk about how we've been stuck at a jobless rate of 9.6 percent since the spring.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CHEIF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

PHILLIPS: So why are stalled?

VELSHI: Well, what happens is that 150,000 jobs a month. A lot of economists say that's what you need just to keep your unemployment rate level. So at this point, we've been in this for so long, I almost want people to ignore the unemployment rate. What we need to look at is how many jobs we gain or lose on a monthly basis. As you just said, 151,000 jobs were gained. Here's the good news. More than that came from the private sector. There were some government jobs lost but you don't want the government, you know, adding your jobs.

Let me take you over to the wall here and show you what the job look -- the job situation looks like since this recession began at the end of the 2007. Remember, December 2007 was right before the recession, it's when it started. And we actually gained jobs that month. Then we started to lose them in January all through 2008. The end of 2008.

That was the election of President Obama. We were losing about 700,000 jobs a month for about three months. Then in 2009 we started to gain fairly substantially toward the end of 2009. We had one month where we gained jobs and we get down a bit. Then 2010 was looking fantastic.

We were gaining all the way through and then losing for the last three months. Now we finally got another gain.

Now, Kyra, where are those job gains coming from? I just want to break it down a little bit for you. Temporary help added 35,000 jobs. Health care, that's been adding jobs the whole time. Retail. Trade was up. Food services were up. Leisure and hospitality were down.

Local government was losing jobs. Obviously that's going to happen, right? As we start going down further. The other thing I want to tell you about is that 6.2 million people have been unemployed for more than six months so that's a difficult one.

PHILLIPS: All right. Staying on the topic of jobs, the president's heading out to India.

VELSHI: Yes.

PHILLIPS: You know we got talking about this this morning. You know, a lot of people when they think of India, they think of whoever's at the end of that call.

VELSHI: That's right.

PHILLIPS: Right?

VELSHI: Right.

PHILLIPS: Whether it's the airlines or fixing your computer.

VELSHI: Right.

PHILLIPS: And they have a hard time understanding and it's really frustrating because these jobs have been outsourced to India, right? So -- and it's even the center of a new sitcom on NBC called "Outsource," which is a very controversial.

By the way, have you seen it? Is it -- VELSHI: I haven't seen it yet. I've heard about it.

PHILLIPS: No? OK. Because I'm curious if it's offensive to you.

VELSHI: Yes.

PHILLIPS: But that's another discussion. But, you know, are these jobs still taking away jobs from Americans?

VELSHI: Yes --

PHILLIPS: Or do we have a misconception about where this stands right now?

VELSHI: No, it's -- look --

PHILLIPS: And is this why he's going to India?

VELSHI: We continue to lose manufacturing jobs to the Far East, and China and countries like that. And we continue to lose service jobs.

Now American companies have responded to the frustrations that people have had in getting somebody who doesn't speak English on the other side or speak English clearly. A lot of that has changed. So the frustration level with overseas call centers has been reduced, but the bottom line is it's still cheaper and more effective to do that out of Bangalore than it is to do it out of California.

We have over the last 10 years really struggled with how to deal visas for people who come in. So a lot of the Indian workers who came here during the tech boom -- software engineers, for instance -- went back and now they're software engineers in India because we have this education issue in the U.S. where we don't graduate enough people in the industry of software engineering.

So the problem we've got is long term. And there are two issues I want to tell you about.

PHILLIPS: OK.

VELSHI: One is globalization. Right? So we all trade with each other. Trade barriers have been reduced. So India is a great place for service software jobs and service phone calls. China is a place where we get manufacturing. And the benefit to us is our computers are cheaper and our bicycles are cheaper and our shirts are cheaper.

Technology is as big a problem in our economy and that is that we can do more with one person than we used to be able to because of technology and innovation. You put these two together and you have fewer jobs in America. What we need is something that takes advantages of our particular strengths here in America -- our strong education system, our versatile and mobile work force -- and provides the world with something for the future. I think President Obama in India is also trying to get a handle on what we can sell these Indians who are becoming more and more prosperous.

PHILLIPS: What can we sell the Indians that are becoming more and more prosperous? I mean what's this give and take that is -- that we are most likely going to see --

VELSHI: If I had that answer to that, I'd be a very rich man.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: I mean that is the question.

PHILLIPS: You should be traveling with the president.

VELSHI: We sometimes think that it's green energy. We sometimes think that we are better innovators than anyone else in the world, although China and India are showing that they can innovate. And they can engineer things. They can be design experts.

We are clamoring to see what it is that we can do but any opportunity we can have. I'll tell you the one thing we can do in America is we can start to deal with the fact that there will be outbound travelers from those countries coming to America over the next five to 10 years. That'll be the biggest source of tourism and business visits to America.

So the hospitality and leisure industry which lost jobs this month may be able to cater to that audience a little better. But as far as what we'll do to replace all these manufacturing and technology jobs, it's a big question.

PHILLIPS: Got it. All right, Ali. Thanks so much. We'll talk some more. Appreciate it.

Again, President Obama is expected to speak at the bottom of the hour, that's about 9:25 Eastern Time. You can catch it right here live when that happens.

Now after making those remarks, the president leaves on the trip to Asia that we told you about just there with Ali. The president's first stop will be India where he's going to meet with the prime minister. Then he'll visit Indonesia. That will include a speech to the people of the Muslim majority nation.

Then the president will travel to South Korea for the G-20 summit and talk with China's president. Now he'll wrap up the trip in Japan, the site of an Asia Pacific Economic Corporation summit.

We of course will follow the entire trip.

OK. After three days, the midterm elections results are still trickling in. Democratic incumbent Patty Murray now declaring victory in Washington state's Senate race. Her challenger Dino Rossi conceded after he was down two points with 82 percent of the vote counted. Murray's win gives Democrats 51 seats in the Senate. And there are two independents who caucus with Democrats.

After a long, contentious race CNN projects that Democrat Pat Quinn will win the election as Illinois's next governor. He served as lieutenant governor under the disgraced Rod Blagojevich.

Quinn beat Republican Bill Brady in a close race. So close that Brady says he won't concede until all those votes are counted.

Nancy Pelosi holds the House speaker title until Republicans take over in January, but she says she hasn't made any final decisions about what comes after that.

The California Democrat says that her colleagues are encouraging her to make a run for House minority leader but that's support isn't unanimous. A few representatives are public pressuring Pelosi just to walk away from her leadership position in the wake of Tuesday's election.

Haitian camp residents are pushing back against aid workers trying to get them to relocate. Hurricane Tomas is sweeping by Haiti today dumping up to 15 inches of rain. Flooding and mudslides could heavily damage post-earthquake tent cities and endanger a lot of lives.

But a lot of the residents as you see don't want to leave because they're afraid of losing their possessions.

On the phone now from Port-au-Prince is journalist Yvetot Gouin.

So, Yvetot, what exactly are the conditions like right now? And are the Haitians still fighting the relocation process?

YVETOT GOUIN, JOURNALIST: Well, at this point, I mean, most of the people have been relocated as of yesterday and the rain -- you know shortly in the evening. Today, it's a little hard to say because we're starting to get a little more rain and wind. So a lot of people have just sort of -- wherever they are, that's where they are. They're not moving. They can't move. They can't really go anywhere. And they expect in the next few hours it's going to get a lot worse.

PHILLIPS: So -- now -- so you said that pretty much everybody got evacuated. What about those suffering from cholera? All the people that we have seen on IVs, in these makeshift little hospital rooms, on cots. What about them and is there a fear that that could get worse as all of this rain comes in?

GOUIN: I'm sure there is. I mean, we were in St. Mark yesterday afternoon and it seems like people were trying to get organized. And so the people that -- at the hospital are staying there. They're not moving. And the people who manage camps are being asked to move or being forced to move in a lot of cases.

And the U.N. yesterday, we witnessed that the U.N. was relocating a bunch of people to much more secured people. And there are people -- refuse to leave and there's really nothing that can be done about that. And now that the rain is really coming down, it's sort of like we have to wait and see what happens in the next few hours.

PHILLIPS: Got it. We'll be watching. Yvetot Gouin, thanks so much.

And Reynolds Wolf, of course, is tracking Tomas for us.

You know, those poor people just cannot catch a break.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks, Reynolds.

Well, the weather sure kept Space Shuttle Discovery on the launch pad yesterday but it's a gas leak that did it today. NASA had planned to send Discovery up at 3:04 Eastern Time. Now it's looking like the launch won't happen until Monday at the earliest.

Whenever it happens, this will be Discovery's 39th and final voyage. More than any other shuttle, by the way, and it's gotten several other spots in the history books. It flew the first female shuttle pilot, the first African-American spacewalker, and it took the first sitting member of Congress into space.

Can you name him? It was Jake Garn of Utah back in 1985.

Well, a funny thing happened on a flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver. The old man who got on the plane -- Freddy Krueger there on the right -- well, he went into the bathroom and came out the young man on the left. Funny how that international date line changes people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Traveling "Cross Country," our first stop, West Jordan, Utah. A 15-foot long python scares the you-know-what out of a credit union Halloween party, and now a 10-year-old boy is recovering from multiple snakebites.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAREN BARKER, BITTEN BY PYTHON: It bit me two times but it tried to bite me a third and it -- but it fell.

SHANE RICHENS, OWNER, SCALES AND TAILS: It was not trying to attack. It was sort of a defensive mechanism.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: One tough little boy. Jaren's mother says that snake handler was negligent.

Now to Oklahoma, a second-grader, Hannah Linder, got the surprise of her life, this time during a school assembly. Her father, Private First Class James Linder, came home from Afghanistan. It was the first time Hannah had seen her father in four months. Mom says they planned the surprise because she had been crying every day since Daddy left to war.

In Chicago, United Airlines honoring talk show host Oprah Winfrey in her farewell season with a special plane. A Boeing 757 was repainted from nose to tail, carrying the Oprah logo. That plane will travel to several destinations along United's route nationwide.

Well, we picked today's story as the talker because it's just so bizarre, and it grabbed a lot of eyes here on cnn.com. An old man actually boarded a flight in Hong Kong, but gets off in Vancouver as a young man. Now, either a miracle happened over the International Dateline, or he was hearing a disguise. Josh Levs, I think we can probably figure that out. Nevertheless, it is definitely a talker.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is incredible. In fact, you know what? Let's get right to this video. Because, folks, if you haven't seen this yet, you are about to be stupefied.

Authorities are calling this an unbelievable case of concealment. The man on the left is who he really is. The man on the right is what he looked like when he got on the plane. And this is real life we're talking about.

CNN obtained a confidential intelligence alert from Canada that lays this out, and this alert is called "unbelievable case of concealment." Authorities say the passenger was observed at the beginning of the flight to be a Caucasian male who appeared to have young-looking hands. Then during the flight, he goes to the bathroom and comes out as a young Asian man, who appears to be in the 20s.

This is an Air Canada flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver. The Air Canada corporate security alerted authorities, who then had agents meet this passenger at the gate in Vancouver. And when that happened, he then made a claim for refugee protection, according to this alert from the Canada Border Services Agency.

And then, listen to this. According to this intelligence alert that was actually obtained by our Scott Zamost with the CNN Special Investigations Unit, this passenger initially claimed that he only had one bag with him. Then the flight crew comes along, tells authorities he had two other pieces of luggage.

They said one bag had clothes and personal items, another one had a pair of gloves. And the third, this is their words, contained a disguise consisting of a silicone-type head and neck mask of an elderly, Caucasian male, a brown leather cap, glasses, a thin brown cardigan.

Then, he put it on for them. He got the disguise on, and the authorities said he very much resembled an elderly Caucasian man, complete with mimicking the movements of an elderly person. And Kyra, he's now being held for an immigration hearing. This is wild.

PHILLIPS: All right. So how did this happen? How did he get on the plane, and do we have any idea why he did this? LEVS: Yes. Well, you know, we know he's asking for refugee status, so maybe he was seeking some kind of asylum. We don't know.

What we do know about how he got on the plane, authorities say they believe that he switched boarding passes with, actually, a US citizen, and then used something called an aeroplane card as ID to get on the flight. An aeroplane card keeps track of frequent flier miles.

But still, who is this US citizens? We don't know. Authorities say the US citizen that he switched identities with sort of was born in 1955. Zoom in here for a second. Because this guy, the disguise looks a lot older than 55 years old. Someone who would have been born in 1955.

I can tell you this. I have a quote here for you from an Air Canada spokesman who told CNN, "There are multiple identity checks before departure at the Hong Kong International Airport, including Chinese government-run Hong Kong passport control, which Hong Kong originating passengers must undergo."

I've got to tell you, though, there are a lot of questions. How this happened, why, who is this man, what's his background? And the big security questions, who else can get on a plane looking like someone else and authorities don't know about it? What hole in the system needs to be fixed there, Kyra? We are all over all those questions this morning.

PHILLIPS: OK, we'll follow it. Thanks, Josh.

LEVS: You got it.

PHILLIPS: Janet Jackson says that she's lonely, but she's got a hot new movie and a book that she hopes will draw in the crowds. Ahead, the singer and actress sits down with our Larry King.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Live pictures from the Roosevelt Room, where the president of the United States will step up to the podium any minute now, actually. We will take it live. He'll be talking about those job numbers. Also, getting ready to head to India for a ten-day trip through India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan, hoping to talk about economic benefits for the US. We're following both for you.

In 1977, seven black women dressed in the colors of the rainbow talked about their lives in an effort to educate and hearten young, black girls. That Broadway play was called "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Was Enough." Now, that Tony- nominated show has been turned into a movie with a star-studded cast.

Janet Jackson plays the self-made and self-assured Jo Bradmore in the Tyler Perry production. Last night, she sat down with our Larry King and talked candidly about her sometimes lonely life and burgeoning movie career.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JANET JACKSON, SINGER AND ACTRESS: Jo, Joanna Bradmore, she runs her own fashion mag. She's very, very -- a very successful woman. She comes from the ghetto, where the rest of the girls reside. She has worked really hard to make her way out of that. She's very shrewd.

LARRY KING, CNN HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": She's the most successful of the group?

JACKSON: She's, yes, she is the successful one and will do anything to stay away from that life. She wants no part of it whatsoever. There's nothing worse than being lonely and having people around you, especially people that you love, people that you may be involved with. That's -- it was very, very sad for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well tonight, Larry King talks to actor Jeff Bridges. That's 9:00 PM Eastern right here on CNN.

There's a promising development in the fight against lung cancer. Doctors might have a better way to find the disease sooner and save more lives.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Live pictures once again from the Roosevelt Room there at the White House, waiting to hear from the president of the United States talk about those jobs numbers that came out about 25 minutes ago. Also, he's heading to India to open up an Asia trip. We're going to talk about that, as well. He's hoping to seek out economic benefits for the US from those various countries.

All right. Now, as we told you at the top of the hour, the unemployment rate is stuck at 9.6, but the economy added 151,000 jobs last month, and that's an encouraging sign. So, how are investors reacting? Let's check in with Alison Kosik at the New York Stock Exchange. Good morning, Alison.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra. I'll tell you what. Markets were definitely pretty nervous ahead of this jobs report that we got. We were watching Dow futures, they were in the negative column before this report came out. They were at negative 30 points. And then, bam, this report came out, and a 180. And then we hit the positive column up 30 points.

Stocks right now are still positive ahead of the opening bell. We found out that 151,000 jobs were gained in the economy, and this number is especially big because these gains are mostly happening in the private sector. We really want to see the private sector hiring, because it is really the engine of growth for the economy, and it's how unemployment rate is going to be kind of chipped away at.

It's also more than Wall Street expected. But keep in mind the bulls are resting a bit after we had that powerful rally yesterday. And while job creation was good, it's still not enough to bring down the unemployment rate.

In fact, the unemployment rate really hasn't moved much since May. It's kind of stuck in that 9.6 percent range. It kind of makes the case for Wednesday's Fed action when it announced that more stimulus is needed in the economy. But let's look on the positive side. The Dow, the NASDAQ, the S&P 500 right now are opening at two- year highs right now. Let's take a check on the early numbers right now. The Dow Industrials just getting started. We are in positive territory. Same with the NASDAQ and S&P. Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right. Thank you so much, Alison.

Well, 9:30 Eastern time. 6:30 Pacific time. Here's what we're talking about this Friday morning.

No relief for the people of Haiti. Hurricane Tomas making a powerful pass by the island with winds up to 80 miles an hour and nearly 15 inches of rain. That January quake left about a million Haitians homeless. They've been fighting a cholera outbreak, as well. And now this.

And attention, Costco shoppers. Your Gouda cheese might make you sick. The Dutch Style Gouda made by Bravo Farms is linked to an E. coli outbreak. So far 25 people have gotten sick. Cheese was sold in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and the San Diego area. And we've learned that the stores were offering up free samples of the problem gouda.

And Monopoly celebrating 75 years of pass and go, collecting 200 bucks, buying up property and going to jail. Hasbro says that more than 275 million games have been sold over the years.

Early results from a big government study of heavy smokers are in, and they show when doctors use CT scans to look for lung cancer instead of chest x-rays, the number of deaths drop by 20 percent. That could mean 32,000 lives saved from the deadliest cancer every year.

CNN's John Roberts talked with the director of the National Cancer Institute about that in our "A.M. Extra."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DOUGLAS LOWY, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE: I don't think that we can yet be sure that the screening would be applicable to all of the people who get lung cancer. It is important to remember that the study that was conducted was really in a special group of high-risk people who had been smoking for many, many years. And although smoking occurs predominant -- lung cancer occurs predominantly among other smokers, there are other people that develop lung cancer that smoked less.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR, "AMERICAN MORNING": Dana Reeves being one of them. Could this be applicable -- in someone like Dana Reeves, how do you assess their potential risk? But if someone who's never smoked could die of lung cancer like she did, should everybody get screened?

LOWY: I think this is an excellent question, and it's the kind of question that's going to be addressed as more information from the trial becomes available.

The problem is that there are potential downsides or disadvantages to having the screening. Such as exposure to radiation, and there are also a lot of false positives because many of the abnormalities that are picked upturn out not to be cancer. And, yet, they may result in surgery or biopsies that have their own complication. So, as we go forward and get more information about the study itself, it will be then easier to try to make determinations. Who is most appropriate for screening, how frequently and how -- and for how many years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, Dr. Lowy added that insurance and Medicare don't cover screening CT right now, but he expects that will change as more research is done.

The election's not over yet. One Senate seat, nine House seats and three governor's races still up for grabs. Details ahead in our Political Ticker.

This is usually what our floor crew does on a regular basis. They enjoy Monopoly, and Josh always seems to dominate the game. He knows how to snag all that money. The special anniversary for the shoe, the horse, the car, the little green houses and little red hotels.

You can recognize that game, of course. It is Monopoly. Seventy-five years later.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Straight to the Roosevelt room and the president of the United States talking jobs and his trip to Asia.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- can open and expand so that people can find good jobs and so that we can repair the terrible damage that was done by the worse recession in our lifetimes.

Today, we received some encouraging news. Based on today's jobs report, we've now seen private sector job growth for ten straight months. That means that since January, the private sector has added 1.1 million jobs.

Let me repeat. Over the course of last several months we have seen over a million jobs added to the American economy. In October, the private sector has added 159,000 jobs. And we learned that businesses added more than 100,000 jobs in both August and September, as well. So, we have seen four months of private sector job growth above 100,000, which is the first time we have seen this kind of increase in over four years.

Now, that's not good enough. Unemployment rate is still unacceptably high. And we've got a lot of work to do. This recession cause add great deal of hardship and it put millions of people out of work. So, in order to repair this damage, in order to create the jobs to meet the large need, we need to accelerate our economic growth so that we're producing jobs at a faster pace. Because the fact is, an encouraging jobs report doesn't make a difference if you're still one of the millions of people who are looking for work. And I won't be satisfied until everybody who's looking for a job can find one.

So, we have to keep fighting for every job, for every new business, for every opportunity to get this economy moving. And just as we passed a small business jobs bill based on ideas of both parties and the private sector, I am open to any idea, any proposal, any way we can get the economy growing faster so that people who need work can find it faster. This includes tax breaks for small businesses, like deferring taxes on new equipment so that they've got an incentive to expand and hire as well as tax cuts to make it cheaper for entrepreneurs to start companies.

This includes building new infrastructure from high-speed trains to high-speed Internet so that our economy can run faster and smarter. Promoting innovation and creating incentives in growth sectors like the clean energy economy. And it certainly includes keeping tax rates low for middle-class families and extending unemployment benefits to help those hardest hit by the downturn while generating more demand in the economy.

It's also absolutely clear that one of the keys to creating jobs is to open markets. To American goods made by American workers. Our prosperity depends not just on consuming things but also on being the maker of things. In fact, for every $1 billion we increase in exports, thousands of jobs are supported here at home. And that's why I set a goal of doubling American exports over the next five years. And that's why on the trip that I'm about to take I'm going to be talking about opening up additional markets in places like India so that American businesses can sell more products abroad in order to create more jobs here at home.

This is a reminder, as well, that the most important competition that we face in the new century will not be between Democrats and Republicans. It's the competition with countries around the world to lead the global economy. And our success or failure in this race will depend on whether we can come together as a nation. Our future depends on putting politics aside to solve problems. To worry about the next generation instead of the next election.

We can't spend the next two years mired in gridlock. Other countries like China aren't standing still. So we can't stand still, either. We have to move forward. I'm confident that if we can do that, if we can work together, then this country will not only recover but it will prosper. And I'm looking very much forward to helping to pry some markets open and help American businesses and put people back to work back here at home during the course of this trip.

Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS; All right. President of the United States there at the Roosevelt room of the White House, getting ready to take off for his trip to India. Ten day trip through India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. Longest foreign outing, by the way, of his presidency. And as you just heard, he is hoping to seek out economic benefits for the U.S. We'll be following his trip.

Jobs also top priority for Congress and the president. Deputy political director Paul Steinhauser at the CNNpolitics.com Desk with the latest from the Political Ticker. Hey, Paul.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Hey, Kyra. You just heard the president talk about unemployment and jobs. You know, no surprise. Our exit polls indicates more than 6 in 10 who voted in those election on Tuesday said the economy by far the top issue facing the country. No surprise there.

Check this out, though. Also from the exit polls, we asked what's the highest priority for Congress when it comes to the economy? Look at that right there. Off the top, 39 percent saying reducing the deficit. Followed very closely at 37 percent by people who say spending more to create jobs. And then finally, at the bottom there but also important, 19 percent saying cutting taxes. Of course, the lame duck Congress coming back this month will be dealing with the possibility of the extension of Bush tax cuts.

Another big issue on the minds of Americans, it's something we're talking about on the CNN Political Ticker, as well, is health care. You have heard top Republicans just yesterday, the two top Republicans in Congress talking about doing everything they can to not implement the new health care law.

What do Americans think? Take a look at this, also from our exit polls. Thirty-one percent saying that the new law should be expanded with another 16 percent saying leave it as it is. That's about 47 percent of the country, and that's pretty much divided country. Because you can see another 48 percent say repeal the new health care law. So, it seems Americans are pretty much divided with that controversial new health care law, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And some updated results from Tuesday's election?

STEINHAUSER: It ain't over yet, right? I know earlier this hour you talked about Washington state. It ain't over. Exactly.

It is over in Washington state. But there are still some elections out there. We've got Alaska on the Senate side. That one is still unresolved and probably going until next week to count the write-in ballots up there. Nine House contests still remain unresolved. And three gubernatorial contests, Connecticut, Minnesota and Vermont all remain unresolved, although we may have resolution today in Connecticut.

Kyra, I promise you, until every race is resolved, your CNN political unit will be there for you.

PHILLIPS: Oh, my God, you sound like a used car salesman now, Paul.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: I'm glad you're always there for us. See you soon.

We'll have the political update in just about an hour. And a reminder, for all the latest political news, you can always go to our Web site, too. CNNpolitics.com.

Well, Monopoly is the focus of the flashback history. Parker Brothers introduced Monopoly in 1935. It's the board game that brings families together. Listen to what some of the people who make the game in East Long Meadow, Massachusetts, have to say about 75 years of Monopoly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Monopoly is the quintessential board game. It's sold in 111 countries and 43 languages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Best game to play.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where Monopoly is manufactured. This is the Hasbro Games facility. It is the largest games and puzzles producer in the world. We produce up to 2 million Monopoly games a year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My job to make plastic parts for our games and toys. I'm sure everyone plays Monopoly. It's something that's just never going to go away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been here 25 years. I work on the Monopoly line. All Monpolys are different. This is only 30 pieces in each pack.

I think it teaches you part of life. You know? you make the right decisions in life. If you make your investments, how to save money, how to buy property. It's being a part of history.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More fun with the family. You get to talk with the family. Video games, you just sit there and do this all day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a final assembly line. This is where it all comes together. This is where the magic happens. Just a way to bring the families together. Teaches you about numbers. Teaches you about competition. Teaches you about relationships.

Life is just too hectic now. It moves at a pace that we're not used to. This slows it down a little bit. Perfect family game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Thanks to our photo journalist Bob Crowley for that. So, all these Monopoly memories got us thinking. We want to know your favorite board game and your favorite memory that may go along with it. Just go do my blog, CNN.com/kyra. Post your comments. We'll read some of them in the next hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right. Scanning the "Morning Passport," we begin in Jerusalem. We think of board games as simple family fun, a diversion. For two young boys trying to survive the holocaust, one game in particular actually helped them give the will to keep carrying on.

And it's a story about imagination, inspiration and the power of the human spirit to overcome your circumstances no matter how dire.

Here's CNN's Kevin Flowers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN FLOWERS, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): These are not your ordinary monopoly players.

(on camera): So this is -- this is the game?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the game, yes.

FLOWERS (voice-over): Brothers Micha and Dan Glass were happy school children in 1938 until the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia a year later turned their lives upside down.

(on camera): Your world changed.

MICHA PAVEL GLASS, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: Completely. Changed completely.

DAN GLASS, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: You can't understand it. Everything changed.

FLOWERS: The boys were sent to Terezin (ph) a Nazi-run Jewish ghetto and for tens of thousands of Jews, a first stop on route to the death camps further east. Amidst the horrors, a Jewish artist designed a makeshift version of a famed board game and the unofficial yet recognizable Ghetto Monopoly was born.

D. GLASS: The buildings, the huge building, the big building were named after German cities, so you have Hamburg, Magdeburg and so on and these other properties.

FLOWERS: Fashioned from cardboard and drawn by hand, the game was made as a distraction for Terezin's (ph) thousands of children and used as a tool to teach them about life and death in the ghetto. Transactions were conducted with worthless paper money, and the game's board pieces and properties served as a grim reflection of the reality faced by the camp's prisoners where over 35,000 died in subhuman conditions.

Sima Shachar is a researcher who has studied life in the Terezin ghetto. "The care and attention adult prisoner's paid to children," she says, "was an important way for them to maintain a sense of humanity and purpose."

SIMA SHACHAR, HOLOCAUST RESEARCHER: Maybe give some time of happiness, to create such a game like Monopoly. For a little bit, you can forget from everything. But, you're coming back to the reality at the end.

FLOWERS: The brothers Glass survived that reality, and with them, they took their game. Fifteen years ago, they donated it to Israel's Holocaust Museum Yad VaShem so the world could see and remember.

M. GLASS: Because there are many, many people that they think that it was not the holocaust. And we had a very happy family before the war. And after the war, there was nothing.

FLOWERS: For both brothers, the game brings up difficult and painful memories, but through it all, they're able to see the silver lining.

(on camera): What is it that was good about it?

D. GLASS: That was good -- that I'm standing here with my brother, and what I told you, that I have a family, a big, loving family.

FLOWERS (voice-over): To survivors who hope a game will help people remember.

Kevin Flowers, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And as we know the game lives on.

Well, we're following lots of developments in the next hour in CNN NEWSROOM. Let's check in first with Sara Sidner -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Trade, equipment sales and education, some of the items that are on President Obama's agenda as he makes his way onto his Asian tour. His first stop, here in India. We'll have that coming up at the top of the hour.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: I'm John Zarrella at the Kennedy Space Center. The often delayed final flight for the space shuttle "Discovery" delayed again. I'll have that story coming up in the next hour.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Elizabeth Cohen in Atlanta. A young child actress dies. Her parents hope her death is not in vain. How you can save other children. I'll have that at the top of the hour. PHILLIPS: Thanks guys.

Also ahead, we're going to go live to Port-au-Prince, Haiti where they are bracing for a Hurricane Tomas and tent city dwellers are pushing back against aid workers to trying to get them to relocate to safer grounds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Tony, baby --

TONY HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, yes.

PHILLIPS: -- exciting end to last night's Virginia Tech football game. Here it comes. Ready?

HARRIS: Yes, yes.

PHILLIPS: All right, Virginia Tech's David Wilson returns a kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown. Boom, boom, boom. Beep.

HARRIS: That's a great play for Tech. Yes.

PHILLIPS: Tech went on to win 28-21.

HARRIS: Tech against Tech but not for the hometown Tech team not, well --

PHILLIPS: Yes, we know how it is. We live here and we see the rivalry.

HARRIS: And George Tech right around the corner for us. How are you, Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Hi. Great to see you. Sparky. I was so bummed to hear that news last night.

HARRIS: This really strikes home for me because in '69, the Orioles, my Baltimore Orioles lose in the World Series to the (INAUDIBLE) right, to the Mets. The following year, the Orioles get back to the World Series, and who do they play? They play the Reds. All right.

This is before they were the big red machine, but you had two iconic managers in that series. You had Sparky Anderson, who was everyone's best friend and Earl Weaver, who was a crotchety guy.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: Sparky got his nickname as we know, when he would get angry at the umps, they would say he'd spark.

HARRIS: Absolutely. They were both combustibles but they were larger than life characters managing two teams with all kinds of icons. In that series, for example, you had Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, just to name a few of the Reds. PHILLIPS: Wow. All the names we know.

HARRIS: Yes.

PHILLIPS: We traded those baseball cards as kids.

HARRIS: How about that. And on the Orioles, My beloved Orioles, look, just the infield you had Brooks Robinson, you have Mark Balanger, you had Dave Johnson, you have Big Boob Powell, you had Frank Robertson in right field. And my all-time favorite Oriole, Paul Blair in center field, Don Buford in left.

I mean you have amazing players, amazing --

PHILLIPS: Tony's got the entire line up from 1973.

HARRIS: Oh, yes. But he was a terrific guy. He was the only manager to win the world championship in both leagues, a terrific guy. There he is.

PHILLIPS: There you go. There he is in action.

HARRIS: You're out of here. No, you're out of here. You're out of order. No, you're out of order.

PHILLIPS: I wish you could hear the sound.

HARRIS: It's terrific stuff. Just to remember him, a great guy, Sparky Anderson, certainly a part of my childhood growing up in Baltimore and watching that series in '70.

You ready to go out on an upbeat note.

PHILLIPS: Yes, I hear we have a little dancing. This is right up your alley.

HARRIS: Well, I wish I could do this. I'm convinced -- first of all there are too many moving parts in this dance. This is the rookie John Wahl, the amazing rookie. Take a look at this. Have you seen this dance before?

PHILLIPS: No.

HARRIS: This is called -- kids help me here, young people in the room -- "the dougy". This is called "the dougy," right? It's a tribute to the great rapper Dougy Fresh. Old Dougy Fresh. We bring it back so that it makes sense for us. All right.

PHILLIPS: The days of the Sugar Hill gang, Dougy Fresh.

HARRIS: Six minutes, Dougy Fresh, you're on. This is the new dance sensation for the kids in sports. This guy is a superstar in the making. He is unbelievable as a player.

My only question now, is he obligated to do this dance every time he's introduced in a home game.

PHILLIPS: You know they're going to call on him for --

HARRIS: Do you want to roll it again?

PHILLIPS: Yes, I want to see you give me a little Dougy.

HARRIS: Again, too many moving parts, and I'm sure I would snap something. So, there it is, Kyra --

PHILLIPS: Happy weekend.

HARRIS: Happy weekend.

PHILLIPS: We could split screen it. We could do a little John Wahl, and a little Tony Harris.

HARRIS: You crazy kid. See you in an hour, Kyra.