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Three- to Four-Foot Hole In Jet; World Autism Awareness; Bomb Shelter Boom; Japan's Unknown Victims Mourned; Have Arthritis? Try Exercise!; CNN Hero Helps Homeless Women; Reality TV Star is on the Rise

Aired April 02, 2011 - 16:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Meantime now, top of the hour, 4:00 Eastern time, a terrifying ordeal on a Southwest Airlines flight. The Boeing 737 was headed from Phoenix to Sacramento when a big part of the roof simply ripped off. Many of the passengers thought they were doomed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENDA REESE, PASSENGER: All of a sudden there's a loud bang and the masks dropped and it's really, really windy and my ears hurt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The pilot of the damaged Southwest Airlines flight landed safely at a military base in Yuma, Arizona.

CNN's Ted Rowlands is there and so are NTSB investigators. Any word? Are they any closer to figuring out why in the world did this gaping hole appear?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, really they are at the infancy of this investigation which could theoretically take months. What they were doing today, we just talked to the man leading this investigation is, they're going to analyze some of the data in Washington, including the data recorders they have taken from the plane, and a piece of the aircraft that they have cut around, around the hole basically, to check the integrity of the skin of the aircraft. They'll do that in Washington in the next hour or so, they're going to board the aircraft and to do some initial assessments, if you will.

One of the things they're concerned about is is there any red flag here that they should alert the industry to. Basically to say, "hey, stop flying these planes." That said Southwest has taken a number of their aircraft off of the fleet right now and they are inspecting them for any problems with the skin of the aircraft. They say they're doing this just to be sure. It has resulted in some flight delays, about 300 flights have been cancelled today, but clearly people would rather be delayed at an airport than endure what the passengers of this plane had to deal with yesterday.

Let's listen to what a couple of those passengers said they went through. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was texting my sister to make certain that she told my kids that I loved them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was in back of me to the left, and I did hear it. It sounded like a shot and a lot of air decompressing. And it was quick and it was scary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: Now, this has happened before and it has happened with the 737 and to Southwest. In 2009, there was an incident with a football- size hole and the end result of that investigation was there was a problem with the integrity of the shell of the aircraft. So that's one thing obviously that they're looking at. I asked can you rule out terrorism and he said not at this point.

However, there's absolutely no indication that that's the case. At this point while they won't officially rule that out, it sure seems as though it isn't an issue at this point. So what they're looking is what caused this hole and they absolutely want to have a specific answer to it because clearly this could have been a catastrophic event if that hole was larger and could have brought that plane down.

WHITFIELD: No kidding. Thank goodness it turned out the way it did. Ted Rowlands, appreciate that from Yuma, Arizona.

All right. Meantime overseas now, workers at Japan's crippled nuclear plant are pouring concrete into a cracked shaft that's outside reactor two, highly radioactive water is leaking out of that basement into the ocean. They suspect one of the many pipes inside the reactors is leaking radioactive material. A nuclear expert in this country says this leak is not his biggest concern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES ACTON, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT, NUCLEAR PROGRAM: I actually think the radioactive water leaking into the Pacific is not the primary concern here, because radioactive water that leaks into the Pacific is going to become diluted. I'm actually more concerned about the radioactive water that's leaking into the groundwater supplies, and I still think the biggest concern here is what's going on in the reactor pools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Japan's prime minister personally thanked some of the workers today during a visit to the operations center. The center is about 15 miles from the plant itself, right on the edge of the evacuation zone.

An opposition spokesman in Libya says more than a dozen rebel fighters are dead, not from battling against Gadhafi's troops and tanks but from a NATO air strike.

CNN's Reza Sayah is in Benghazi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REZA SAYAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The opposition in Libya getting a taste of the ups and downs of war. Good news and bad news for the rebel fighters. First off, the bad news. Confirmation that a NATO air strike has killed civilians and rebel fighters. Opposition officials saying the NATO air strike took place on Saturday, hitting a convoy of vehicles with those fighters and civilians.

Officials say the convoy heard the air strikes on Friday and went ahead to check out the damage and that's when they were hit. Officials in the opposition calling this a tragic mistake. Of course, the Gadhafi regime has said over and over again that these air strikes are killing civilians, but this is the first time we're getting confirmation from the opposition that indeed an air strike has killed civilians. NATO saying they're investigating the incident.

Now for the good news. The opposition saying they have recaptured the key oil town of Brega and pushed back the Gadhafi forces, the front line. Now they say somewhere between Brega and Akilah. Of course, it was a rush stretch for the rebel fighters who were pushed eastward by Gadhafi forces, but the opposition saying they have turned things around because now leading the charge, leading the operation, defected army units. These are army units that were with the Gadhafi regime and have switched sides. They are now exclusively working with volunteer fighters who have agreed to be under their command and control.

The opposition keeping back those so-called tourist fighters, those untrained fighters that were showing up to the front line with knives, machetes, sometimes no weapons. The opposition forces also keeping back journalists. It seems to be working, they say. They certainly look a little bit more organized and coordinated. Even so, this is a force that's heavily outnumbered and outgunned by the Gadhafi army.

Reza Sayah, CNN, Benghazi, Libya.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Hundreds, maybe close to a thousand, that is how many people the International Red Cross says are dead in the Ivory Coast. The victims of a massacre. A United Nations spokesman blames a political dispute and says there is photo evidence of the massacre.

Back in this country, NASA workers are inspecting the space shuttle "Endeavour" to see if that nasty weather that struck the launch pad this week did any damage. "Endeavour" is scheduled to be launched April 19th.

Our Karen Maginnis in the weather center. I wonder if all that nasty stuff in the midsection of Florida has dissipated, has it moved on.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It really has. And believe it or not, on April 1st,we saw snowfall across New England, in some cases as much as 14 inches. That was out of Millinocket in Maine, that's right near Baxter State Park.

The other big story that we have for you today is the wind. Take a look at what's happening in Albuquerque. High wind warning gusts possible, up to around 70 miles an hour. If you were to travel along interstate 70 towards Wichita or head on over towards Denver, some of those wind gusts equally as strong, so you'll be blowing around on some of those interstates. But it's very critical that we mention this because of the fire danger.

Fire danger because the humidity is very low, the temperatures have been fairly warm, and anything that could spark a fire is going to be carried along very quickly because of these very high wind gusts.

Let's tell you about what happens in our forecast. This is the severe weather season. We did see the damaging winds that moved across central Florida over the last 48 and 72 hours. Well, here comes a frontal system that in the next 24 to 48 hours is going to be the trigger mechanism for some of those thunderstorms in what is typically known as tornado alley.

Generally speaking, a portion of the midwest to the south central United States. But then as we head on in towards Monday and Tuesday, it's going to be this warm sector. This is where we start to get that return flow from the gulf. And as a result, the atmosphere becomes more buoyant. As it does that and this frontal system moves in, we're going to expect this collision of air masses, and that could produce the possibility of tornadic activity, hail damage, frequent lightning and heavy downpours, but we'll keep you updated on that.

WHITFIELD: Please do on that, thanks so much, Karen.

All right. As the world shines a light on autism awareness, families living with the disorder struggle for acceptance and answers. More on that right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Take a look at the most famous city skyline right there. Sydney, Australia, the Opera House. It is glowing blue to commemorate World Autism Day. Prominent buildings around the world, in fact, including the Empire State Building in this country, turned on the blue lights to raise autism awareness.

So this is what might be striking to a lot of people. Autism affects one in every 110 children. For boys, that number is even greater, one in 70 boys has some degree of autism. With numbers like these, you are more likely to know someone with autism today than perhaps you might have known just five years ago.

Joining me right now, the Moore family, Andre, Kimberly and 16-year- old Hayden. Hayden has autism. The family is here right now to kind of shed some light on what families are dealing with, what schools are dealing with, how the support system is either in place or what you see.

Andre, what do you see in terms of the support system? With these kinds of numbers increasing, do you feel like schools, the community, have a better understanding, a better way of embracing and helping to support families?

ANDRE MOORE, PARENT OF AUTISTIC CHILD: Yes, they definitely do. My first child was diagnosed in 1994, that was the same year that (INAUDIBLE) was diagnosed and they have come a long way. It used to be where they would put them in a room with just other special needs children that didn't give them any communication efforts or anything like that, and now most of them are mainstreamed and they're in regular classes. He's at Alpharetta High School where Mark Swanger (ph) and Elizabeth Hornet (ph) and Andy Deitsch (ph) have worked with him constantly to increase his speech, increase his community effort so that once he does graduate, he's going to have a place to go.

WHITFIELD: Before going to Alpharetta High School, a public high school here in the Georgia area, Atlanta suburb, was he going to a specialized school addressing the needs of others who were autistic?

ANDRE MOORE: When he was first diagnosed, he went through Emory University which had a clinic down in Decatur, so it was a trek every day from Alpharetta -

WHITFIELD: Very taxing on the family.

ANDRE MOORE: Yes. So it was hard, but we got through it.

WHITFIELD: You thought at that time it was a necessity?

ANDRE MOORE: It was definitely a necessity.

WHITFIELD: Yes, OK.

So now Hayden is in a public school. Hayden, you tell me what, you know, what do you like about being in high school right now?

HAYDEN MOORE, AUTISTIC CHILD: At Alpharetta High School?

WHITFIELD: Yes.

ANDRE MOORE: What do you like?

KIMBERLY MOORE, PARENT OF AUTISTIC CHILD: What's your favorite class?

WHITFIELD: Do you have great friends?

HAYDEN MOORE: My favorite class is -

ANDRE MOORE: What's your favorite class?

HAYDEN MOORE: Math.

ANDRE MOORE: Who's your teacher?

HAYDEN MOORE: Miss Underwood.

WHITFIELD: Fantastic. So it's wonderful being excited about school. And Kimberly, you know, being excited that the school is very much embracing Hayden and whatever special needs that he may have.

KIMBERLY MOORE: Yes, they really work well with us and us with them. One of his problems has been fire drills, and just the loud sound from that and how did he deal with that and you know, going forward. He has ear plugs that he'll put in to help silence it a little bit.

WHITFIELD: Yes. Is it your hope that other - that more public schools would embrace having people of all needs together? Is it your hope or feeling that you're seeing that kind of movement, that Hayden, you know, is not alone, that he has a lot of friends in the school system that have very similar needs?

KIMBERLY MOORE: He does have a lot of friends with similar needs, and at the same time they also have a friends club which has your typical students, your typical kids interacting with the special needs kids and that means a lot.

WHITFIELD: So I wonder to help encourage Hayden's confidence, do you refrain or do you speak openly as a family about autism, what it is, what needs come with it, how do you identify autism, or is it just simply, you know, he has certain gifts, certain things that need to be addressed or embraced that maybe some other kids don't?

ANDRE MOORE: No, we speak openly about it. We have a network of friends that have children and we also have our church, (INAUDIBLE) church, which has branched out and the youth group has accepted him and so he - Wednesdays, he has a caregiver at some points and Wednesday he says - or she'll say, you know, when are you picking him up because he's so looking forward to youth group. And I don't know if it's from the women cooking the food or if it's from, you know, getting the play time with the kids, but he's - he's definitely socially active. And we keep him that way with both adults and children. You know, there's not anybody that doesn't know him that hasn't fallen in love with him within a five-minute period. And so he's - he's an awesome kid, right?

HAYDEN MOORE: Awesome man.

WHITFIELD: Awesome man, of course. You're 16.

HAYDEN MOORE: (INAUDIBLE) is not a kid anymore.

ANDRE MOORE: You're not just a kid anymore.

HAYDEN MOORE: Just?

KIMBERLY MOORE: A young man.

WHITFIELD: I love that. Excellent. This must be -

Do you like this environment? Do you like this set? This is kind of cool, isn't it?

HAYDEN MOORE: Yes.

ANDRE MOORE: He has an older brother that is 18 who has autism.

HAYDEN MOORE: And (INAUDIBLE) good looking.

ANDRE MOORE: You're a go-looking young man and you're going to be a movie star.

WHITFIELD: I love that and you're even thinking about adopting, correct?

ANDRE MOORE: Yes, we've got thoughts of adopting. We had plans to do that and luckily for the boy, he was adopted just recently. But our options are still out there through Bethany Christian Services. So we're looking, you know, to possibly bring another child in. We have the resources, we have the teachers, we have all of the background, the Fulton County school system, I can't say more about them. They have been incredible.

WHITFIELD: And that really is the need. It would be great if all families with special needs, autism as part of the equation of the family felt like you did that, there is that support system in place.

ANDRE MOORE: Yes.

WHITFIELD: And that's exactly the point of awareness day like this, that perhaps it would be more contagious so that more families could feel as complete and whole as you all do.

ANDRE MOORE: The teachers even call us at home on the weekends.

WHITFIELD: That's great.

ANDRE MOORE: Great. He had an awesome week, so we're real excited about it.

WHITFIELD: Andre, Kimberly, Hayden, thank you so much.

ANDRE MOORE: Thank you so much.

WHITFIELD: Appreciate it.

KIMBERLY MOORE: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: And of course we have more health news coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM. Why choosing not to exercise could make arthritis worse in today's healthy living.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa and a potential nuclear meltdown. Those possible disasters have some people asking what's next? And that means they're also preparing for the worse.

Here now is CNN's Christine Romans. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN CAMDEN, HARDENED STRUCTURES: We got a new contract today. The name of the project is Sure Fire Survival Community.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you want to prepare for disaster, Brian Camden is your man. The 55-year- old civil engineer is the owner of Hardened Structures. He's been in the business of building bomb structures for 20 years, and right now that business is booming.

CAMDEN: Right now it's probably a new project every other week. Our biggest seller is a six-person pre-fabricated steel shelter that sells for about $38,000.

ROMANS: Demand for all kinds of survival supplies is up. There's the ordinary, like these 55-gallon barrels, sold by Shelf Reliance for water storage, and the extraordinary, like this order for a 900-ton steel arc, which can hold 185 people and food for five years. This in the event there's, well, water everywhere.

CAMDEN: Obviously picked up with the earthquake in Japan. There's the unrest in the Middle East. I think the economy has a great deal to do with it.

ROMANS: Costco has seen a surge in sales of freeze dried food, and the company Underground Shelters has had inquiries jump by 400 percent since the earthquake in Japan.

(on camera): This isn't the first time there's been a boom in bunkers in the U.S.. During the cold war, there were no less than 200,000 bomb shelters across the country, many of them home shelters. According to the "Wall Street Journal," an article from 1961. One Chicago company received 1,000 orders in just one week for fabricated steel shelters.

(voice-over): Nowadays, Camden says he sees two types of clients.

CAMDEN: Some of the clients who feel like the threat is imminent and then you have the other clients who are starting to prepare and move forward.

ROMANS: It's impossible to predict if the current demand for bomb shelters will last, but for now -

CAMDEN: A hardened structure by nature is basically asset protection. Most people identify their family as their number one asset.

ROMANS: Christine Romans, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Their preparations remind us that it is probably a good thing to have a few things that are always on hand. A radio, charged batteries and some extra bottles of water and cans of food as well.

All right. A disaster is the subject of a new movie out this weekend. Our critic grades it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Jake Gyllenhaal is back on the big screen this week in a new science fiction thriller. Movie critic Grae Drake is back with us. She's with movies.com, joining us from Los Angeles. Good to see you again.

OK. So you have Jake in just about any movie and it's a hit. People love him. They just want to look at him. So let's take a quick peek. Oh, yes. Let's take a quick peek at "Source Code" first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you knew you had less than eight minutes to live?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. I'd make those seconds count.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would call my dad. I would hear his voice and I'd tell him I'm sorry. Tell me everything is going to be OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything's going to be OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. The new action thriller, but something tells me, I don't know, he's going to make us cry or something. So what do you think, Grae, did you like?

GRAE DRAKE, MOVIES.COM: Well, don't pull out your Kleenex just yet is all I'm saying.

WHITFIELD: OK.

DRAKE: "Source Code" is a movie about a military man played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who is forced to relive the same eight minutes over and over again until he can figure out who is the one that started a terrorist attack on a train heading into Chicago.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh.

DRAKE: So it's very intense. And the thing about this kind of movie is it's pretty tricky. You're watching the same eight minutes over and over again on the screen and this may be great if you're Obama watching himself win the 2008 election. It may not be so great when you're watching a train wreck literally.

Now, the good news is this movie is great. It's really fun and it's the kind of movie that I think Alfred Hitchcock would have made if he knew about things like computers and time travel.

WHITFIELD: That seems to be the trend, does it not? You know, this is making me think already "Inception" and these kind of, you know, "Shutter Island." This kind of putting you in the present and then you're in the past. All these different kind of, you know, states of mind. These kind of freaky playing with your head stuff.

DRAKE: Yes, you know, I think they may be capitalizing on the fact that there aren't a lot of people in the world that want to be exactly where they are so they're letting them go somewhere else.

WHITFIELD: That's it. Escapism. OK. So your grade?

DRAKE: I give it an "A" because I loved it. Are you ready for the summer? It's so much fun.

WHITFIELD: That's big. All right. Let's now go to a horror flick. "Insidious." Let's take a quick peek.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your son isn't in a coma. Falling off a ladder had nothing to do with this. His physical body is here, but his spiritual body is not. And the reason, these disturbances, they followed you to a new home, it's because it's not the house that's haunted. It's your son.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: No, no, no, no, no, no. I will not be seeing this one, forget it. No.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: No, I don't like. So what did you think?

DRAKE: OK. Well, "Insidious" is a horror movie and it is "Poltergeist" without the TV or the catch phrase. So now this time the child's soul is the thing that's been kidnapped and so demons are hovering in the house waiting to take over his empty shell of a body, similar to how I imagine Steven Tyler is backstage at "American Idol."

So it is - it's a fun movie but there's nothing new in it. We've seen it before. There's a family that moves into a house, a lot of boxes, crazy noises, she calls a psychic. So it's not - there's nothing new under the sun. They do try to go somewhere new at the end so I give them an "A" for effort but in reality it's an average movie so it gets a "C" from me.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh. OK. Let's talk about DVDs. You know, sometimes it's fun going to the movies, sometimes it's fun just being at home and watching something. So we've got "Tangled" and we got "Fair Game." Let's tackle "Tangled" first. You like?

DRAKE: "Tangled" was a very cute - is Disney's 50th feature film, if you can believe that. And it is the Grimm's fairy tale retelling of Rapunzel. So this time, Rapunzel isn't necessarily the one that needs saving in this movie. It's very fun, it's very cute, voiced by Mandy Moore. And although it is a little bit anti-brunette which I had a small problem with -

WHITFIELD: Yes, I'm going to have a big problem with that one. DRAKE: It's very cute and it's very light-hearted. It's a very fun movie that even adults are not going to be sad that they watched. Good music too.

WHITFIELD: OK. Good. And then "Fair Game," you know, something tells me that didn't - I don't feel like it stayed out on the screens very long in the theaters.

DRAKE: It didn't. And we were talking about escapism earlier. This one, although the facts of the movie have been disputed a little bit, it is based on Valerie Plame's memoir about how the White House exposed her identity as a CIA agent.

WHITFIELD: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts.

DRAKE: Exactly. I mean, so if you're going to have a movie about yourself, you want them playing you. So good go. But you know, he dispelled the myth - rather the theory of weapons of mass destruction and then things just went haywire. So the movie itself is great. It does walk the line between being very factually based as well as just being a good political thriller. So it's a good rental for sure. And also good to know kind of what's going on in the world even if it's from Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.

WHITFIELD: Yes, of course. Everybody loves that Washington insider stuff. Are you kidding me?

All right. Great Drake.

DRAKE: It's their third time together.

WHITFIELD: Yes. Fantastic.

All right, thanks so much.

And, of course, Grae, you probably heard about this -

DRAKE: Thanks a lot.

WHITFIELD: -- crazy thing happening over the skies of Arizona. This was kind of a real-life terror for more than 100 passengers on board a plane. It landed with a three-foot hole in the fuselage. The latest on what caused the roof of the plane to actually peel open. Pretty scary stuff.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The NTSB's initial investigation into why part of the roof fell off a Southwest Airlines flight cites structural failure. A hole appeared in the roof shortly after the Boeing 737 took off from Phoenix yesterday. The pilot made an emergency landing at a military base in Yuma, Arizona.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENDA REESE, PASSENGER: All of a sudden there's a loud bang and the masks drop and it's really, really windy and your ears hurt. It's like you never pay attention during the safety thing, so I wasn't sure how to turn on the mask, or put on the mask.

I'm holding the hand of the guy next to me and trying not to bawl my eyes out.

Nobody freaked out on the flight. There was one woman who got upset, but everybody stayed calm. The flight attendants were amazing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: An Atlantic Southeast Airlines jet was forced to make an emergency landing in Little Rock, Arkansas. That plane collided with a flock of birds.

You can see the damage to the plane's nose in the pictures there. No one on the plane was injured, thankfully.

Overseas, an opposition spokesman in Libya says more than a dozen rebel fighters are dead, not from battle against Moammar Gadhafi's troops and tanks, but from a NATO air strike. NATO is investigating.

Rebel forces also claim to have retaken the oil city of el-Brega, but that city has changed hands six times in six weeks.

Workers at Japan's crippled nuclear plant are pouring concrete into a cracked shaft outside Reactor Two. Highly radioactive water is leaking out of that basin and into the ocean. They suspect one of the many pipes inside the reactor is leaking radioactive material.

A nuclear expert in this country says this leak isn't his biggest concern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES ACTON, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT, NUCLEAR PROGRAM: I actually think the radioactive water leaking into the Pacific is not the primary concern here, because radioactive water that leaks into this Pacific is going to become diluted.

I'm actually more concerned about the radioactive water that's leaking into the groundwater supplies, and I still think the biggest concern here is what's going on in the reactor pools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The death toll from Japan's earthquake and tsunami rose today to 11,800 people. More than 15,000 people are still listed as missing.

Japan's earthquake and tsunami were so devastating, many victims may never be identified. CNN's Kyung Lah reports on a funeral service for unknown victims.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KYUNG LAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They came on foot, rode up by bicycle, from the elderly to the young, all clutching flowers and offering a prayer to 30 unnamed strangers. Buddhist monks chant a sutra to the dead outside the crematorium.

Two flatbed trucks arrived, carrying the 30 unmarked caskets from Natori, Japan, more than 300 kilometers away. Tsunami victims found, but their bodies unidentified and unclaimed.

FUSAKO ASADA, TOKYO RESIDENT: (SPEAKING JAPANESE).

LAH: "I feel so sorry for the victims," says Fusako Asada, who lives in this Tokyo neighborhood. "I just have to do something. This breaks my heart."

LAH (on camera): Why do you feel something so strongly for people you don't know?

TOSHIE KUSAMA, TOKYO RESIDENT: (SPEAKING JAPANESE).

LAH (voice-over): "What if this happened to me?" says Kusama Toshie. "I would want this sort of kindness."

But beyond random kindness, this is a nation's grief.

LAH (on camera): These residents who are paying their respects live far away from the tsunami zone. Many of them didn't know anyone who died or was hurt in the tsunami, but they say it's not just Northern Japan that's hurting, it's all of Japan.

LAH (voice-over): This image of mass graves being dug in the north has shocked the sensibilities of this rich nation, used to cremating its the dead in elaborate Buddhist ceremonies. But it's not possible in the wake of the devastation and the thousands of bodies piling up in makeshift morgues.

KAZUKO OHNO, TOKYO RESIDENT: (SPEAKING JAPANESE).

LAH: "I feel sad," says Kazuko Ohno. She adds, "People aren't normally treated this way, but this is all we can do."

The trucks leave empty, but the prayers continue, the flowers grow. The bodies may have arrived unclaimed, but their souls depart honored by a community.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Tokyo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, joint soreness and stiffness often make arthritis sufferers inactive, because it hurts to move. But a new Loyola University study shows that exercise can actually improve mobility, improve your situation. So in this week's "Healthy Living" Dr. Bill Lloyd is here to explain all of this because, yes, I mean, you've got arthritis, it hurts to be active and so you kind of feel like you want to be sedentary. This study is saying you need to do the total opposite. How and why?

DR. BILL LLOYD, SURGEON: Yes. The big danger of being sedentary, Fredricka, is the fact that inactivity weakens the muscles, the tendons and the ligaments that are supposed to support the joints. So if you're just sitting around because of pain, those joints are going to become instable - or unstable, I should say, it's only going to aggravate your symptoms.

And there's new information that chronic pain from arthritis is also linked to other problems, like diabetes and high blood pressure because you're not out there exercising.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my goodness. OK, so then let's talk about that, exercise. What sort of exercise are we talking about?

My mom has arthritis and I know she, you know, will go for swimming, some - and walking, but are there other things that arthritis suffers need to be considering?

LLOYD: Certainly, and let's break it down. Like always, you start with stretching. Now, healthy people stretch to protect themselves from injury, but stretching itself can be an exercise, Fredricka, for arthritis sufferers because it's going to work on the tendons and ligaments and strengthen those joints and make them more stable.

On top of that, strength training. Also, low impact exercises, like the treadmill or a bicycle or even swimming. No difference whether you do it in the water or on the land.

Low impact aerobics are great. Flexibility exercises, you know, like going to yoga, again, to keep those joints flexible. And, as you do it, the pain will diminish more and more.

And then, finally, a variety of balance activities, things like - like standing on one leg at a time or side-stepping will protect you from falls and keep you safe in the years ahead.

WHITFIELD: Well, and it really means doing all of these things very slowly, right? Don't try to rush your body because you certainly don't want to get injured while trying, say, something like the balancing?

LLOYD: Well, certainly. You want to go as slow as you can - start slow and then build up on it. You're not training for an iron man competition, you simply want to improve the flexibility and - and relieve the pain.

And it's important that you go forward with these exercises because when you have chronic pain, like you mentioned, you're going to become inactive. And, with that, there's going to be a weight gain. The more weight you gain, the more prone you are to other serious medical problems, like diabetes, high blood pressure and abnormalities with your lipids, all of which are just going to make you sicker and decrease your overall quality of life.

We know arthritis sufferers who are in pain, all right, have a decreased quality of life. They have depression and mood disturbances because they're sore all the time. This information now tells that by getting out and exercising and limiting that exercise by the amount of pain you have, we don't want you training hurt. Take it to the level of where you feel discomfort and you stop there, you'll have improved mobility and greater flexibility and you'll be able to get up and get around more often.

WHITFIELD: Yay! Excellent. All great advice. Thanks so much.

Dr. Bill Lloyd, appreciate that. How is that grand baby doing of you - of yours, now a week old or so?

LLOYD: It's the easiest job in the world. Being a grandfather, I haven't had to change a diaper yet.

WHITFIELD: Oh, yay!

LLOYD: But thanks for asking. We'll talk again soon.

WHITFIELD: I'm sure it's coming.

All right, Dr. Bill Lloyd, thanks so much. Many congrats on that.

All right, now to Boston, where more than 2,000 women are homeless. But this week's CNN Hero gives them something that they can count on - quality health care right in the shelters for free. Her name is Roseanna Means.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ROSEANNA MEANS, CNN HERO: You OK?

Every week I talk to women who are sleeping outside.

It's only 17 degrees out, so I didn't want you to get frozen.

There's so much pain and suffering right on the fringes of our perspective.

Do you need some help, hon?

In Boston, despite all the medical resources for the homeless population, I was seeing very few of the women using the services. For women who are poor, homeless or battered, to deal with a system of health care becomes overwhelming.

They don't have an address. They don't have a phone. There are lots of emotional issues, psychiatric issues.

I just didn't like the idea that they were falling through the cracks.

I'm Dr. Roseanna Means, and I bring free, high-quality medical care to women and children in the shelters of Boston. Good morning.

The women come into the shelters to get warm, to feel safe, and we're there.

Come on, Ellen (ph).

There's no registration. We're not charging anything.

If they want to come see us, we'll use that moment to try to build a relationship.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my safety net right here.

MEANS: The women learn to trust us as ambassadors of the health care system.

All right, hon. God bless. You're doing great.

Over time, we can teach them how to use the system as it was intended, and eventually they do move forward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I knew she really cared, I started wanting to take care of myself.

MEANS: I love these women, no matter what.

You're doing a great job.

That starts to get taken inside, that if I matter to somebody else, maybe I matter to myself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: So we always want to hear from you. Tell us about the heroes in your community. Send your nominations to CNN.com/heroes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: She's bold and brazen about saying exactly whatever she feels at any moment. You got to love that.

Well, Bethenny Frankel is the star of Bravo TV's "Bethenny Frankel Ever After" where her life as a new bride and a new mother have become public domain. Well now, in her third book, "A Place of Yes", she explains that the road to reality TV, books and her booming beverage business came from, well, saying yes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: You are, you know, very transparent. You're out there, just kind of tell it like it is. People see that on "Ever After." How many cameras do you have at any one time?

BETHENNY FRANKEL, REALITY TV STAR/ENTREPRENEUR: Usually two cameras. Sometimes, if it's a bigger event, there will be more. But usually two.

WHITFIELD: Do you feel like this is very authentic, this is very real, you really are saying what you feel?

FRANKEL: On "Housewives" I felt that some people were very aware of the cameras and acted accordingly. In real life, you don't really see people flipping tables and ripping people's hairpieces out. I mean, I - I've never seen that in my life, except for on television.

WHITFIELD: Is it ever uncomfortable for you?

FRANKEL: It's uncomfortable for me. Not - it's not uncomfortable for me when I'm living something, to be honest, because it's happening. I'm not - what can you do? I - you know, the truth is all I can do is be honest.

I am sorry that I sometimes act crazy. I'm sorry that I'm neurotic. Or I'm not sorry.

I - I am obsessive. I am neurotic. I don't always want my in-laws around. I don't want to go to church on Sundays with my husband.

WHITFIELD: Yes. You surprised me for a moment when you said I'm sorry, because I'm like, really? Are you really, you know, apologetic?

FRANKEL: I'm not -

WHITFIELD: But, no, because this is who you are.

FRANKEL: Yes, I'm not - I'm not really sorry.

WHITFIELD: You're not making excuses for that. But - so then, I wonder - you know, just recently watching an episode with you and your husband, Jason, you were talking about family and what he thought was normal, and you were saying, you know, family gatherings, Thanksgiving, holidays, it's not everybody's normal.

FRANKEL: It's funny. You know, Jason really is a genuine person, and I can't believe that I married someone who happens to just be kind of OK with all this. He really is about the truth.

He's a little bit less forthcoming. I mean, Jason's a great guy, but he's - he doesn't - we don't see all -

WHITFIELD: A little bit more private.

FRANKEL: He likes to be the good guy. Jason's a pleaser. So I think that translates on the camera.

WHITFIELD: So is most of this spontaneous or do you have discussions with the producers, with the crew that, you know, likely these things are going to take place over the next hour and a half, just roll with me?

FRANKEL: No, it doesn't work over the next hour, hour and a half. It would be, you know, OK, on June 12th I have to go to Vegas for a liquor conference and they'll be like - they'll decide whether they want to come for the weekend. Or I'm going on my speaking tour or I have a book signing.

Or sometimes, you know, we're just going to hang out at the house today and we might take a bubble bath and, you know, whatever's going to happen.

WHITFIELD: Are there boundaries?

FRANKEL: There are boundaries.

WHITFIELD: Off limits?

FRANKEL: OK, we didn't want the cameras to be there when we got engaged. We have our own weird boundaries. It doesn't mean that something crazy happened when I got engaged, it just means we have our own decisions that we make about what we want to not be filmed.

WHITFIELD: So what's next for Bethenny Frankel? You've got this, you know, book, "A Place of Yes," you've been touring the country, talking about these 10 items and more and everything else that folks what to know about your - your life, your career, your margaritas. What's next?

FRANKEL: The SkinnyGirl Cocktail line will expand very soon to White Sangria, Mojito, Pomopolitans, all kinds of - like, Sweet Tea, Vodka, Lemonade, and we'll go global. We'll go international within the next year. So that's going to be a really big, big jump in - in business and things like that.

I have SkinnyGirl Shapewear, SkinnyGirl Daily, which is a cleanse. I've shut the store right now because I have a lot of really great products and brands and things that really are aligned with my ideals and my philosophy and I don't want to be bogged down and not be able to really give 100 percent to everything.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: So after this break, more "Face To Face" with Bethenny Frankel, who says she's got great advice for her daughter and yours.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: She's a natural food chef who has made the rounds on reality TV, from "Celebrity Apprentice," "Martha Stewart," to "Housewives of New York," to now "Bethenny Frankel Ever After."

Well now, a new wife and mom, she admits to many foibles and flaws. "Face To Face," Bethenny Frankel shares with me - and you - her advice for her 6-month-old daughter Bryn and yours.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: What are the lessons you think you want to teach your daughter? FRANKEL: I want to teach - I want to teach Bryn to be just nice. A nice girl. Nicer than I am. I mean, when she was born, the first thing my husband said was she's so pretty, and I just said she's a nice girl.

WHITFIELD: What are you hoping that she doesn't do that you did, or some valuable lessons you learned that you're hoping she might, you know, avoid?

FRANKEL: Oh, I'm hoping that Bryn - I'm hoping that Bryn never wants to date anybody because she knows that they're wealthy and that they can take care of her. I'm hoping that Bryn knows that being taken care of is emotional and not financial. It just took me a really long time to learn that, and that is a very difficult thing, and many women feel that way but just don't admit it.

I'm hoping that Bryn doesn't want to just look at labels and - and want to have all those labels. When I had no money, I was really consumed with labels and, ironically, now that I could afford to buy them, I don't care about them anymore.

I don't want her to have to go through all that confusion to get there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. Bethenny Frankel, telling it like it is and hoping - isn't that funny, to hear the mother say, you know, I'm hoping my daughter doesn't, you know, do all the things that I did, but instead - don't do the things that I do or did. Do something else.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Do something else, right?

WHITFIELD: Yes. I like that.

LEMON: Yes.

WHITFIELD: Good to see you.

LEMON: You look marvelous, by the way.

WHITFIELD: Oh, thanks. That's so nice.

LEMON: You look fantastic, as usual.

WHITFIELD: Thank you.

LEMON: All right. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Don Lemon's coming up next with more of the NEWSROOM.

LEMON: You've been reporting on this. There have been protests -

WHITFIELD: Yes.

LEMON: -- about the Scott Sisters in Mississippi, remember?

WHITFIELD: Yes.

LEMON: Yes. Well, now the two Mississippi women released from jail so that one could donate a kidney to the other. Fred, both are hoping for a pardon from the governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour.

There's been a new development that the sisters may not like, and next hour we're going to talk to both of them, Jamie and Gladys. They're going to join us in the CNN NEWSROOM. We're going to hear what they have to say.

I don't think it means that they'll go - have to go back, but why wouldn't the governor pardon them? I think the quote from the governor is, "Don't hold your breath."

WHITFIELD: And it will be interesting to just hear from them since -

LEMON: Yes.

WHITFIELD: -- their release and what life has been like.

LEMON: Yes.

WHITFIELD: I look forward to that.

LEMON: All right, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Don Lemon, thanks so much. Good to see you.

LEMON: Thank you. See you later.

WHITFIELD: All right.

That's going to do it for us for now, because Don's coming up next. But again, you know, we'll be back tomorrow, 2:00 Eastern time.

More of the NEWSROOM right after this.

LEMON: And I'll be watching.

WHITFIELD: OK. Thank you. I'll be watching you too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)