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Mystery Tics Outrage Parents; Hundreds Sick On Cruise Ships; Mitt Romney Wins Nevada; Reports: 30 People Dead In Syria; Heavy Snow Socks London; Rivers Burst Banks In Australia; Church Works To Drop Abuse Cases; Preventing Priest Sex Abuse; Unemployment Fell To 8.3 Percent; $25 Billion Foreclosure Settlement; Campaign Issue: Birth Control; U.S. General Dies In Afghanistan; Favorite Spot For Sweets

Aired February 05, 2012 - 14:30   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. This Sunday, February 5th. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

Angry, frustrated parents in Western New York take a stand and demand answers now almost four months after more than a dozen teenagers and an adult from Leroy developed uncontrollable twitching and verbal tics.

Last night at a community meeting organized by the school district, outraged residents didn't hold back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELISSA CIANCI, PARENT: I'm done listening to you. You guys need to do something. My child, my children, all of them, I run a business in this town. It is not safe. Why is it? You need to prove to us that it is safe to put our children in this school.

As a community we need to come together, we need to pull our children out. There are other places we could take them and give them the education they need. You are not doing your job. You are not doing your job at all -- fight for the rights of our children. You're not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: That was Melissa Cianci and she actually joins us on the phone right now. So Melissa, what kind of response did you receive after directing your questions and your outrage to that panel?

CIANCI (via telephone): I really did not receive a response. I ended up walking out.

WHITFIELD: What do you want the city or the school district to do?

CIANCI: I want them to do soil samples, water samples. I want to see everything in documents showing us exactly what they tested and what the results are.

WHITFIELD: Because you think they have not done a good job of publicizing those results?

CIANCI: No, they have not. They have only done air testing. They have not done any other testing.

WHITFIELD: Are you encouraged at all that activist, Erin Brockovich, has been leading an independent investigation, taking soil samples and water samples from the area? We don't know what those results are as yet, but are you encouraged at all there would be this outside entity to do this?

CIANCI: Yes, I believe they are doing their job and they should come in and do it because they will do it for free and we won't as taxpayers have to pay for it like the school wants us to do.

WHITFIELD: So Melissa, you have kids in school. You also run a Daycare business. How has this impacted your day-to-day life? Are you drinking tap water, you and your family? Are you bathing with tap water? Are you trying to avoid touching the soil? How has this impacted you?

CIANCI: I could depending on the testing that comes back on my property could shut my business down. Right now, we still are living our life like we have done using the tap water, drinking the tap water, bathing in it. But we've got to have testing done. I've do make sure it's a safe environment at my home not only at the school but at the home.

WHITFIELD: So you haven't necessarily changed your habits. What about your kids attending school? I understand that one of your kids has had some headaches recently. Do you think there's a connection?

CIANCI: I think there is, but I'm not 100 percent sure. We don't have any proof, so we don't know.

WHITFIELD: All right. Melissa Cianci, thanks for your time. Of course, keep us posted on what you, as resident, learn as people continue to investigate.

CIANCI: I will, and thank you for your time.

WHITFIELD: Meantime, an illness now sweeping through two ships belonging to the Princess Cruiseline leaving nearly 500 people sick. The vessels returned to Port of Florida.

The cruiseline says all the people who got sick are suffering from what's called "norovirus," something like a stomach flu. Inspectors from CDC are involved making sure both ships are thoroughly cleaned.

Onto politics now, Mitt Romney is coming out of Nevada with two wins in a row in terms of primaries. In this GOP primary season, that's a pretty big deal because it is the first back-to-back win in this election cycle.

Romney captured 48 percent of the Nevada vote. Newt Gingrich came in a distant second with 23 percent. Ron Paul got 18 percent. Rick Santorum came in last with 11 percent of the vote.

The candidates hit the ground running today after last night's results. They took to the Sunday talk show circuit this morning. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, this is not the first time you gave me your vote of confidence. This time I've got to take it to the White House.

RON PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But also on the positive side, we will get a bloc of votes. We will still get some delegates and we still will pursue, you know, our plan to go into the caucus states. We'll have to wait and see how things go.

NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am a candidate for president of the United States. I will be a candidate for president of the United States. We will go to Tampa.

RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I expect to win the nomination. I feel very good about it. You may be able to win a nomination, but that's not what Republican voters are looking for.

GINGRICH: I didn't have any good mechanisms to turn to somebody who was being completely blatantly dishonest to the entire country as a candidate for president.

ROMNEY: This election, we must fight for the America we love. We believe in America. Thank you so much and God bless you. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right, there's another round of primaries this week. Want to check in with CNN on Tuesday night. We'll have the results. Our entire political team will be here bringing you the latest results from primaries in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.

Our coverage begins Tuesday evening 6:00 Eastern Time. Join me in about 90 minutes from now at 4:00 Eastern. I examine the 2012 contenders and talk about central issues in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.

All right, news from Rome that's coming up next. Catholics gather tomorrow trying to stop sex abuse in the church.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, happening overseas this hour, another day of violence and death in Syria, at least 31 people reportedly died today in clashes with Syrian troops.

An enormous crowd also packed the city of Homs to mourn the hundreds of people killed in what witnesses call a government ordered massacre.

In the U.K. two to four inches of snow fell overnight. That's pretty heavy for London. Big fun for kids with sleds there, throwing snowballs, pretty big headache for travelers however. Heathrow Airport canceled about half its scheduled flights today.

Troublesome weather in Australia as well in the form of high water. Heavy summer rains pushed rivers out of their banks in the eastern state of Queensland. Officials are warning thousands of residents to brace for what may be record breaking flooding.

This week a federal judge will consider whether to throw out some priest sex abuse claims in the Milwaukee diocese. More than 550 people alleged they were abused. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy last January and these claims are part of that case.

The archdiocese is asking the judge to throw out up to 95 percent of the claims saying this, that many of the claims were filed beyond the statute of limitations.

The alleged abuse involves someone who wasn't a church employee and some victims already got settlements from the archdiocese. Many of the victims are furious at the archdiocese. It's trying to toss out those claims.

Pope Benedict XVI wants all catholic churches to have guidelines in place to prevent clerical sexual abuse and respond appropriately when allegations are made. That's the focus of an international conference happening next week in Rome.

More than 200 representatives from bishop's conferences and major religious orders around the world are invited. I want to bring our Vatican analyst, John Allen to talk more about this.

So John, good to see you. From what I'm reading about all this, this conference seems very focused on action, finding solutions for how to deal with this issue. Is that what you're hearing?

JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: Yes, Fredricka, that's absolutely right. These would be the people coming together who are representing these bishop conferences and religious orders would be experts in child protection.

That is people who are on the ground working for the church on this issue in various parts of the world trying to identify best practices in preventing, detecting and prosecuting abuse and trying to make sure that those best practices become a global standard.

One of the problems here with the church's response is that supervision of personnel is handled locally. That is it's handled sort of parish by parish, diocese by diocese, religious order by religious order. It's always been difficult to come up with uniform global approach, but that's what this conference is trying to achieve.

WHITFIELD: Is it also the case that some alleged victims are planning to attend this conference? If so, what is their role going to be?

ALLEN: Yes, in fact, one of the first major speakers is going to be a victim of clerical abuse from Ireland. Ireland, of course, has had one of the most massive Catholic sex abuse crises anywhere in the world.

This is a victim by the name of Maury Collins who has publicly talked about her experiences and has, in fact, been very sharply critical of what she sees as the church's failures to really get its hands around this.

She has been invited to make one of the first presentations because organizers say they want to hear the voices of victims and the way they go about trying to fight this.

WHITFIELD: And is the Catholic Church in large part publicizing that there is this conference about to be under way to address the fact that membership worldwide in some parts is dropping significantly in the Catholic Church?

ALLEN: Well, I don't think it's quite as crass as that. I mean, first of all, the truth is that globally the Catholic Church is growing significantly. I mean, it's true it's losing membership in some parts of the west.

But, you know, you take a place like Africa, the Catholic Church actually grew by 7,000 percent in Africa during the 20th Century. So I don't think trying to stem membership loss is the issue.

I do think the church, however, realizes that it's taken a massive blow to its moral authority and to its public image. I do think they want to try to turn that around.

But fundamentally, I think the motive for this conference is that church leaders want to try to make sure that the church is a safe place for children, and for everyone else for that matter, and try to put policies in place to make sure, as much as humanly possible that's the case.

WHITFIELD: John Allen, thanks so much for joining us from Rome.

And in this country more than half of voting Catholics backed President Obama in 2008. But a new law about birth control might change that this year. Details on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The unemployment rate takes a dip and could plunge further. Our money team has the financial look ahead. Let's start with Felicia Taylor in New York.

FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. The Labor Department released a January jobs report last week and it blew away Wall Street expectations. The economy added 243,000 jobs last week.

That means more than 1 million jobs have been created in the past six months. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. That's the lowest in nearly three years. Manufacturing, leisure and hospitality and professional and business services added the most jobs.

If the economy can keep adding 200,000 positions a month or more, the unemployment rate should keep falling. Poppy Harlow has a look at what's coming up in business news -- Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM CORRESPONDENT: Thanks so much, Felicia. Well, the upcoming week could bring a foreclosure settlement. State attorneys general have until Monday to agree to a deal with the nation's biggest banks that could be worth as much as $25 billion.

It would settle the robo signing scandal in 2010. That remembers when we learned that some mortgage serving companies signed off on foreclosures without checking all that paperwork was accurate.

If that deal does go through affected borrowers would get a portion of the settlement money. Some consumer groups are saying hold off and hold out for a bigger criminal investigation.

We'll keep an eye on that on Monday and all the week's business news on CNN Money. Fred, back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, ladies.

A better economy could mean more cash for indulgences. A tip for finding great deserts next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Catholic Church leaders do not like a new rule that forces employers to cover the cost of birth control. Religious and political analysts say that could hurt President Obama in the fall. Church leaders are railing against the policy from pulpits, 54 percent of Catholic voters supported the president four years ago.

A U.S. Army general is dead in Afghanistan. Brigadier General Terrence Hildner is one of the highest ranking officers to die there. He apparently died of natural causes. He was just 49 years old.

Let's check with our Jacqui Jeras, some strange weather out there as we begin a new workweek.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's been so warm, Fredricka. That continues to be the big headline this weekend, the winter that really never happened. We had our big blast in Colorado, Nebraska early this weekend.

But now we're really focusing in on warm rains across the south, looking at showers along I-35, along I-10 over towards Houston, moving to the Lake Charles area. It could be a little heavy at times.

We've had a lot of flooding in this area late last week and so things are still very moist. There's still some standing water out there and there are still some river flood warnings in effect. So keep that in mind if you're traveling today or tomorrow as well.

As we take a look at the big picture of the nation as a whole, very quiet across the northern tier. We've been tracking travel delays. The only place we had a delay in the last hour is Indianapolis, Fredricka, because of the Super Bowl, of course, taking place later on.

So that was a volume delay not a weather related delay. It's an indoor game. But if you're trying to tailgate outdoors, everything look great, temperature about 40 degrees at 6:29.

Now something very interesting speaking of a weird winter, take a look at this on the satellite picture. You know, if I didn't know better, you would think this was something happening in April, May or even pushing into June. That is a tropical system trying to develop.

The National Hurricane Center believe it or not is keeping a close eye on this thing to see if anything could develop in the next couple of days. Now don't take this likely because the winds are too strong for this.

But it will bring in some much needed rain across parts of South Florida that are in drought conditions. So this is actually good news as it moves in. By the way, we have had one other tropical system ever developing back in 1952.

There was a tropical depression but never got a name. It never made it to storm status. Tomorrow's forecast, a lot like today. We'll watch moisture head towards the southeast. We'll see that heavy rain in times in parts of Florida so there may be some travel delays here.

Very nice, sunny conditions across much of the west and we're looking at some cloudier conditions across the northern tier. But overall, Fredricka, it's a pretty quiet weather pattern that will stick that way throughout much of the week. We'll have to watch a few storms that will be slamming into parts of the west.

WHITFIELD: All right, well, that's good especially for today. People don't want interruptions with their Super Bowl watching.

JERAS: That's right.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks a lot, Jacqui.

All right, time now for travel insider, CNN reporters and producers often have great inside scoop on great places to go. Our entertainment reporter, Kareen Wynter shows us where she satisfies her sweet tooth or sweet teeth. She got more than one tooth in her hometown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Hi, everybody. Welcome to my neck of the woods, Sherman Oaks, California and L.A, San Fernando Valley.

All right, everyone who knows me knows I have the biggest sweet tooth ever. When I get those killer cravings, I just have to make a run here to Bliss Frozen Yogurts for some of my favorite treats.

Here in L.A, there seems to be a celebrity tie-in to almost everything and Bliss is no different. It's owned by Dr. Paul Massive, renowned plastic surgeon and husband to Beverly Hills' Housewife, Adrian Malou.

Bliss is known for its frozen yogurt, but crepes, smoothies and waffles are also on the menu. In fact, I'll give you a little taste. I'm no expert in the kitchen, but today I'm going to show you just how I like my crepes with a little help from Tom.

We use the spatula. All right, we got half of it. Perfect. Voila. Now we go in for the kill, some of my favorite toppings, chocolate, and of course, raspberry sauce. They are ready.

Let's go. This is my favorite part. Time to dive in. Delicious. Kareen Wynter, CNN, Sherman Oaks, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, a quick look at our top stories right now. Mitt Romney is the winner of Nevada's Republican caucus. This gives Romney his second straight win. He is the first of this Republican field to do so. Next on the GOP stop contest is Tuesday in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.

An illness sweeps through two ships belonging to the princess cruise line leaving nearly 500 people sick. The vessels returned to port in Florida. The cruise line says all the people who got sick are suffering from "norovirus," which is something like the stomach flu.

Massive crowds are packing the city of Homs, Syria, this week. These are funerals for some of the people killed there in the past few days. Witnesses say Syrian troops shelled residential areas of Homs at random killing more than 300 civilians.

And troublesome weather in Australia. Heavy summer rains pushed river out of their banks in the eastern state of Queensland. Officials are warning thousands of residents to brace for what could be record breaking flood.

I'll be back at 4:00 Eastern Time with a full hour of the political coverage we have for you. We'll be looking at Mitt Romney's big win in Nevada and how handling a loss speaks volume.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRICH: I'm not going to defend the outcome in a state where I was outspent five to one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: That's in an hour from now. Stay with CNN. "YOUR MONEY" starts right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)