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Egyptians Angry about Choices; TSA Wants to Double Security Fees; Edwards Jury Gets Back to Work; 40 Shot and 10 Dead in Chicago; New Poll Shows Europeans' Conflicted Views on Euro; Pieces of Airplane Fall from the Sky

Aired May 29, 2012 - 13:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Suzanne Malveaux, let's get right to it. It's a chilling scenario involving snipers, car bombs and a hit list that included U.S. diplomats. "The Washington Post" reports it was part of a series of assassination plots linked to Iran.

According to the paper the plan was to kill foreign diplomats in at least seven countries over a 13-month period. "The Post" says the alleged plot leader told investigators the plan was intended as revenge for the deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists.

In Egypt, there doesn't appear to be any letup on the protests over the choices for president. This is what remains of the headquarters of Ahmed Shafiq. Now he was the prime minister under the ousted leader Hosni Mubarak. And protesters set fire to the building, they're calling for demonstrations. Egyptians are also unhappy with his rival, Muslim brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi. The run-off is in June.

These days when we fly, we don't pay for the seat, we've got to pay for our snacks, the baggage, even the carry-ons. Well now, you could pay another fee, it's about to double if the TSA gets its way. Lizzie O'Leary, she explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIZZIE O'LEARY, CNN AVIATION AND REGULATION CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Take two things that many travelers love to hate. The TSA and ticket fees. Now, add them together.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is it that's prompting them to ask for more money?

O'LEARY: The agency, backed by Democrats in the Senate, wants to increase the security fee everyone pays for the ticket, from $2.50 a flight to $5 per one-way ticket, $10 round trip.

MOIRA JEWELER: Ten's kind of pushing it to a limit. I mean, I guess it's only $5 more, but I'm wondering, you know, how that fits in, you know, if they already have a budget.

O'LEARY: TSA's budget, like many in Washington, is set to be cut. And the agency says boosting this fee would help cover the increasing price of security like the costly scanners. The fee hasn't been hiked in 10 years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Through to here. Have a great flight.

O'LEARY: But a powerful lobby is pushing against it. Airlines, they don't want the cost shifted onto their customers.

SEAN KENNEDY, AIRLINES FOR AMERICA: Air security is a national security function, and it's something all of us need to be behind as Americans, and the government should be picking up the cost of that.

O'LEARY: Many travelers we talked to didn't mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say it's like using a toll road. If you use a toll road, you pay the toll.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As long as it makes us secure.

O'LEARY: But they want to know it's money well spent.

(on camera): Does increasing the fee increase the level of security TSA can provide?

STEWART BAKER, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: It means that TSA's budget will be a little less likely to get cut just to save money in the overall deficit reduction effort. So, in that regard, it's useful. It's also useful -- if you can tell where the benefits go for a particular program, then the people who get the benefits generally should pay for it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: I want to bring in Lizzie. Lizzie, what happens if this fee is not increased?

O'LEARY: Well, this has been a battle for about 10 years, Suzanne, and their allies have always fought back the increase in fees. So, a lot of what would happen would be pretty much what you see right now. You would see some small cuts to the TSA budget. They essentially say they would be able to do more with less. But you also know that a lot of airports don't have the highest tech stuff. Only about 36 percent of airports have what government auditors call optimal screening, really the best things, the best processes. That's in some cases, because those airports are small. They can't fit all those high-tech machines. But there is a question of whether having a little more money would help those airports do that.

MALVEAUX: All right, Lizzie, thank you.

Now to North Carolina, jurors back at it again. We're talking about the John Edwards trial on federal corruption charges. Diane Dimond, she is joining us. She is a special correspondent for "Newsweek" and "The Daily Beast." And Diane has been following this from day one. Good to see you, Diane. I know everybody had a break over the Memorial Day holiday. What's the sense now of the mood of the jurors, the mood of John Edwards, now that everybody is back on board and looking forward? DIANE DIAMOND, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, "NEWSWEEK" AND "THE DAILY BEAST": You know, there has been a wave of, oh my gosh, do you think there might be a hung jury here? Going through the media section mostly I think it's way too early to say that. You know, when you look at the history of other major cases, other headline-making cases, it's been six and now a half day. You know, it's 36 hours, I think I had at last count. I don't think that's too long for such an important case or six-count indictment.

Everybody seems to be plodding along, Suzanne. It's getting hot here in North Carolina, and how do I put this delicately? The courtroom odor smells of that. So, there's a lot of people getting up and leaving, you know, but staying close to the courtroom, because we're not going to get any sort of warning that a verdict has happened. They're not going to e-mail us. They're not going to make any phone calls. If you're not here, you'll miss it. So, that's why we're sitting so close.

John Edwards entered the courthouse today with his parents and his daughter, as usual, and then left quickly. So, we all surmise that he is a couple of blocks away over off Green Street at his lawyer's office waiting.

MALVEAUX: And how do the jurors look? How are they holding up?

DIMOND: Well, you know, we had that little brouhaha with the alternates all wearing the same color last week. First they wore yellow, then the next day they were red. And then, a couple of the jurors were wearing red. Oh, my gosh. Today, I noticed all of the alternates are in black or gray. They are very subdued. They're not kind of giggly and bouncy as they were last week. Maybe somebody said something to them. The main jurors, the 12, are engaged. They're still engaged. Especially number two, he is the foreman, I believe. He is the financial adviser and he is very affable. He comes in with a big smile every time we see him at lunch and then, again, when they are dismissed for the day.

But there are some jurors that are looking kind of weary, Suzanne. I wrote about this in "The Daily Beast" piece I filed overnight. Juror number nine looks like she is absolutely exhausted. Number seven still has that scowl on her face sometimes. Juror number eight, I think it is -- no, six, is the retired railroad worker, and he seems very engaged in everything.

MALVEAUX: And also, you write some interesting new details in your "Daily Beast" column here. You talk about the evidence of when the baby was conceived between John Edwards and Rielle Hunter. Can you tell us why that's significant and what you've actually learned?

DIMOND: Well, you know, it's one of those things, Suzanne. You and I have covered stories before that you get a piece of information and you go, hmm. We heard in this trial that the baby -- that Rielle Hunter's baby was conceived between May 25 and May 28, 2007. So, I've been trying to struggle to find out where was John Edwards during this time? And more importantly, where was Elizabeth Edwards? What did she know and when did she know it? Because the defense's whole case is he didn't misspend campaign money to hide his mistress. He was hiding it from his wife. Well, this jury has really not heard definitive testimony about what Liz knew and when she knew it.

So, I found in a Twitter feed that still lives on the Internet, a John Edwards Twitter feed, that he was in Iowa on those days that that baby was conceived, and according to one of his very own tweets, he is glad to welcome his wife, Elizabeth, and his children to Iowa. So, I wondered why that wasn't put into evidence, because that would certainly go to show that Elizabeth Edwards had no idea that her husband, while she was visiting Iowa with their children, was making another baby with another woman somewhere. But, for some reason, the defense did not --

MALVEAUX: Wow.

DIMOND: -- enter that Twitter feed into the record here. So, --

MALVEAUX: Wow, that's --

DIMOND: -- the jury didn't know about it.

MALVEAUX: -- is really interesting. And I understand that the jurors, too, have asked to see more exhibits. Do you think that indicates anything specifically that they are taking this seriously or there's some sort of point that they really are trying to get to here that they are struggling with?

DIMOND: Well, you know, they were coming in and asking for an awful lot of specific exhibits. And so, we -- with our big exhibit list, we could kind of follow along and see what they were looking at. Last week, the judge, darn it, said to them, well gosh, do you just want to have all of the exhibits back there in the room? It might make it easier. And they all, you know, bounced their head, yes, yes, please. Well, that makes it so we don't know what they are looking at now. I wish I did. There is something, or maybe more than one thing, that's hanging them up in that deliberation room. We know that they saw a lot of exhibits about Bunny Mellon and then about Fred Baron --

MALVEAUX: Right.

DIMOND: -- the two that donated all of this money. But after that, I don't know.

MALVEAUX: All right. Well, a lot of unanswered questions and again, what that verdict is going to be we don't know. We're going to be waiting, obviously, and Diane, if you've got anything more we're going to come back to you.

DIMOND: (INAUDIBLE.)

MALVEAUX: It was on the world stage just a week ago when President Obama hosted leaders at the NATO summit. But today, Chicago is making headlines because of a long weekend of killings. Police say 10 people are dead, more than 40 people were shot over the Memorial Day holiday including a seven-year-old little girl. Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel talked about the violence in a press conference just a few minutes ago. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL (D), CHICAGO: There are a set of economic issues we're not even talking about. There are a settle cultural issues we're not talking about that also feed into this. And when I say that, at a certain point, a community gets -- I don't want to say -- is it almost immune where there should be more outrage by a community?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Most of the violence happened on the city's south side in the area represented by alderman Willy Cochran. He sits on the Chicago City Council representing the city's 20th ward, and he joins us by phone.

First of all, Mr. Cochran, thank you for joining us here. I want to ask you to respond to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's comment. He said something about the culture here, and that people have become immune to this, that there's not more outrage. What do you make of his remarks?

WILLIE COCHRAN, CHICAGO ALDERMAN 20TH WARD (via telephone): Well, I think that the mayor hit it directly on the head. I think on the communities that are plagued with this are suffering from a youth that has grown up in an environment where And that people have become immune to this, that there is not more outrage. What do you make of his remarks?

Well, I think the mayor hit it directly on the head. I think the communities that are plagued with this are suffering from a youth that has grown up in an environment where normal is not normal. Where you hear gun fire, where you see people being shot, and killed, and that you adjust to that environment, because if you look at the economic balance in the communities where these things are happening at, you'll look at a community where education has been a challenge, where employment is a challenge, where disinvestment has occurred and parental or non-parental presence, many times when we talk about parents. But the fact is many of these young adults or teenagers are homeless. And they are staying wherever they can with friends who allow them to come in. And so, they're -- we look at social and emotional issues that are going unaddressed. We have to turn that around. We have to make social emotional education and character building part of our strategy to make our community better.

MALVEAUX: Do you think the mayor was addressing race? Do you think he was being specific about it being predominantly in a black community?

COCHRAN: Well, no. I think, when you look at -- a recent statistic revealed that 53 percent of the Midwest have low literacy rate. Well, if you have a low literacy rate, you have -- on comprehension problems. If you have comprehension problems, then you have challenges in education and you go away from being educated. You drop out of school, and that just perpetuates the system. And that's in the Midwest. And so, what I -- I say that to say that that literacy rate may be lower, maybe even higher in some of these communities that are in Chicago.

MALVEAUX: Yes.

COCHRAN: It has become popular to join a gang than it is to become part of a sports team.

MALVEAUX: Let me ask you this, because we are seeing the violence this year at this time, it is now 50 percent higher than it was this time last year. Why is this getting worse in your community? What is happening?

COCHRAN: Well, it's become popular -- it's a popular trend to have a group of young adults become gang affiliated and they make their own gangs. We have identified about 600 different small gangs now and we're talking three, four, five-block area that these groups of men -- young men, 13, 14, 15, have decided that this is our gang. Rather than it being a club when I was growing up, rather than it being a sports team when I was growing up, and what they do is they lock themselves into an area and the idea of making those gangs violent seems to be perpetuated. They get a gun, they feel the power from that gun and this is the way they react.

MALVEAUX: Do you think that --

COCHRAN: (INAUDIBLE) --

MALVEAUX: Sure. Do you think that this summer -- as people are out of school and you talk about this poor 7-year-old girl who was killed caught in the crossfire, do you think the kids in Chicago are safe this summer?

COCHRAN: It depends on the economics of the family, the location, the education, and the social setting. That's what it all hinges on. You can (INAUDIBLE) all this violence back to those communities that are challenged, that need to be lifted just like other parts of the community of the city that have investment in it.

MALVEAUX: And Mr. Cochran, finally, --

COCHRAN: As long as we disinvestment --

MALVEAUX: Sure.

COCHRAN: -- as long as there's disinvestment and no economic balance, then we are going to have these challenges. And as long as we don't address the social and emotional challenges that we have in our communities, then there is going to be a child that thinks that normal is not -- is abnormal and they are going to be adjusting to their environment that they live in. We have to do better, the system has to be improved that we work in and live in, and we have to have the better system or nation (INAUDIBLE) educate to help and police.

MALVEAUX: Before we let you go here, I mean, I really want to get to the heart of the matter. Is there one thing -- what is the one thing that can be done immediately to address this problem? Is there something that is just -- that can be done right now to address the kind of situation that you're dealing with in your city?

COCHRAN: Well, I don't want to sound like I'm a Gestapo or anything, but when terrorists are operating, terrorists have to be put away. Enforcement has to be taken on these people who are terrorizing and shooting. They are to be incarcerated and we'll work from there. And that -- but the penal system has to do what it's supposed to do, too. It has to reform and it has prepare people to come back out into the system.

MALVEAUX: Do you think the mayor's doing a good enough job, the police department doing a good enough job in enforcing that, incarcerating and taking on, as you say, the terrorists in your community?

COCHRAN: Well, we are deploying people into these communities. Wish we would hire more police officers. I think Chicago needs a lot more police officers than we have. We can deploy. But if your numbers aren't there, you're just putting a strain on the system. What we find is when we have a flare-up and we put policemen in there, two weeks we oversaturate an area, it does a great job of reducing crime.

MALVEAUX: OK.

COCHRAN: That just demonstrates to me that we need more police officers as well as all of these other technologies strategies, intelligence gathering and deployment issues --

MALVEAUX: All right. Thank you for your perspective. I know you have been a former police officer for 26 years now. I know you have, really, a good sense of the community and what is happening there. We certainly hope that it gets better there. We want to continue that conversation when we bring you back and find out what is taking place in the community there in Chicago. And hopefully that violence, what is being done, it will be abated. Appreciate it.

Here's what we're working on for this hour. Loving, hating the euro. Why a lot of Europeans are willing to keep putting up with the currency causing so many problems.

And then, new warning for women going through menopause.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: This might not be a surprise, but most Europeans not in love with the euro, these days. A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds the majority of people living in Greece, Spain, Italy, France, and Germany don't think that the euro has been good for their countries. But there is an odd thing, here. The very same people are in favor of keeping the euro and not returning to the old currencies. To break this down, explain it to us, Richard Quest. Richard, good to see you here. So, help me understand this. You got five countries that use the euro, including Greece, but say the euro has not been a good thing, and yet, they don't want to go back to their own currencies. Why?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You have put your finger on the core problem. It is basically schizophrenia, dysfunctionality. They have this complete contradiction of views about the currency. On the one hand, they love the fact that they can take their euros, and without changing money, go from one country to the other and spend, spend, spend. But, they loath the fact that with this comes (INAUDIBLE), the possibility of greater integration.

And that's why, with these surveys -- let's take Greece. Time and again the surveys show 70 percent want and like the euro. The Pew survey shows exactly that. But, if you then ask - do they want to extend (ph) the euro, 70 percent - but ask about austerity, and the opposite reflection is shown. It's schizophrenic.

MALVEAUX: Schizophrenic. Greece, in particular. You mentioned Greece because the folks there, they were most likely to say that their country has been weakened by the euro. It has not been good for their economy, and yet their support for it was the highest. What is going on in Greece?

QUEST: The same thing. They know the drachma was even worse. It was a weak, nebulous, poor, disrespected currency. Oh, no, it was not the euro, no. But when they got the euro, they have a currency that they can live with, they can travel with, and they can do things with. But they hate the strictures that come along with this.

I want to show you one other part about that survey. It's the stereotyping. Here is a question for you. Who do you think people think, which country do you think they believe is the most hard working country in Europe -- in the eurozone?

MALVEAUX: I don't know, Richard --

(LAUGHTER)

QUEST: I'll give you a clue.

MALVEAUX: Is it Germany? Is it, what --

QUEST: Exactly. Yea! Well done, well done. (INAUDIBLE) There is the Quest bell. Yes, that's right. Germany is the one. But when you then ask these countries who is the least hard working, you get Greece, Italy, Romania. Who is the most corrupt, Italy, Italy, Spain, Italy, Poland, The Czech Republic. Who is the least corrupt? And the answer is -

MALVEAUX: They say Germany again.

QUEST: Well done. You see. And you can do the same thing. I suppose you could do the same thing in the United States with hard working states, least hard working states. But the truth is, you have this complete contradiction. People love the fact they can spend the euros country to country. They hate the fact that it means national identity is going down the toilet. MALVEAUX: Richard, you know I have got to ask you this question. But, again, you know I've got to bring it back here to the United States. Should Americans care about whether or not the euro exists, it doesn't exist? What is the bottom line here on whether it's good or bad for us?

QUEST: Well, the only thing that Americans need to bear in mind is if the euro goes down the toilet, the sea wash will be so great it will go right across the Atlantic, the sewage will end up on your doorstep. That much I guarantee. This is not a one-way bet. 50 percent -- I mean, the sheer amount of trade between the U.S. and the E.U. is so vast, there is so much bilateral trade, tourism, that I guarantee you, promise you, if the euro is in trouble you had better get an umbrella out.

MALVEAUX: All right. Going to get my umbrella out. Richard, good to see you, as always. Thank you for putting it in only the way you know how to put it. Now I get it.

QUEST: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: All right.

All right, imagine this, driving along in your car when a hunk of an airplane falls out of the sky and shatters your rear windshield. That's right. It just happened to this woman in Ontario, Canada. We're going to have the very latest.

Don't forget, you can watch CNN live on your computer while you're at work. Head to cnn.com/tv.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: All right, I want you to look at this. Believe it or not, these cars not damaged by debris -- not the cars damaged in debris raining down from Air Canada. This is an Air Canada plane that had just taken off from nearby Toronto Airport. Now, the crew reported one of the engines had just failed, but the pilots didn't even seem to be aware that they were losing parts of the plane that fell on that car. Have a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TOWER: Air Canada 001 now climb up to 5,000.

PLANE: Climb up to 5,000 Air Canada 001.

TOWER: And apparently Peel police found part of an engine cowling at 410 and Courtney Park just so you're aware of that.

PLANE: Okay. Thank you.

TOWER: You just let me know if you want to start dumping fuel, that's fine. Just let me know.

PLANE: OK, we're working on that. TOWER: I know you're going to be heavy to land so just let me know what you want to do.

PLANE: OK. Yes, we're just working on some stuff here now. We will be dumping some fuel, vectoring in this area, we're working that through Air Canada 001.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The plane actually safely made an emergency landing and nobody was hurt.

Even Mitt Romney admits he doesn't see eye to eye on every issue with Donald trump. So what are they doing out on the campaign trail together? Today, we're going to find out in our political update.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Awful new details about the massacre in Syria and the government militia going after protesters on the streets.

These are protests in the capital, Damascus, and now the U.N. human rights office says government troops went house to house in Houla last Friday, gunning down entire families. More than 100 people died in the massacre, almost half of them children.

Eight countries including the U.S. are now expelling Syrian diplomats.

All they wanted was to get an education. Well, now 160 Afghan girls are lying in hospital beds after being poisoned at school. This is the second incident in a week in which female students were poisoned in Afghanistan.

Afghan officials blame the Taliban, but the Taliban are not taking responsibility. They are blaming the United States and NATO forces.

He has been the unofficial Republican nominee for weeks. Now, Mitt Romney is about to clinch the nomination. Today's Texas primary should give Romney enough delegates to seal the deal. After a stop in Colorado, Romney attends a big fundraiser tonight in Vegas.

Jim Acosta is there. Jim, first of all, what's his plan for today? What is the strategy moving forward now that he is presumably going to get that magic number?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I've got to tell you the strategy today for the Romney campaign was talk about jobs and the energy sector. He was in Colorado, you just mentioned that a few moments ago.

He just wrapped up an event in the tiny town of Craig, Colorado, talking about the coal industry and how he would like to see energy jobs developed by tapping into the nation's pretty large coal reserves, something that already happens right now, but he would like to develop that even further.

Unfortunately, that message is really being drowned out today because of these comments being made by Donald Trump. As you know Suzanne, Donald Trump is hosting a fundraiser in Las Vegas here on the Las Vegas strip, at the Trump Hotel and Trump was on TV earlier this morning.

He was on CNBC, sticking to his belief that President Obama may not have been born in the United States. He went on Twitter shortly after that appearance on CNBC and put out a tweet saying that Mitt Romney should use this issue to his advantage, that John McCain did not use this issue and that was a mistake, that John McCain lost because of that.

So Mitt Romney will be at this furniture company here in Las Vegas that I'm standing outside of in a few hours from now to hold an event and then head over to this fundraiser, but I have to tell you, Suzanne, the Romney campaign has really been inundated with e-mail questions from reporters asking about these Trump comments.

And I put in my own request for a statement from the Romney campaign and they have gotten back to me to say Mitt Romney still believes that President Obama was born in the United States, but clearly this is a distraction for this campaign.

MALVEAUX: So, Jim, why are they doing it? What's the upside to hanging out with Donald Trump?

ACOSTA: Well, obviously it makes a lot of noise. You're going to get a lot of attention when you make an appearance with Donald Trump. That is happening here in Las Vegas and Nevada is an important battleground state.

The Romney campaign is expected to raise around $2 million tonight. That is one of the numbers being floated out in various press reports about this fundraiser and, of course the Romney campaign is going to need every dollar it can get its hands on going up against President Obama, so there is a calculated risk that they are taking here.

Maybe it's a gamble here in Las Vegas, Suzanne, that that money that they are raising tonight is worth some of this bad publicity that they're obviously getting from Donald Trump today.

Now, Donald Trump ticking to his guns. He is saying he has a legitimate concern and issue here, but the White House, as you know, Suzanne, has put out that long-form birth certificate. They posted it in the White House briefing room.

And President Obama has even mocked Donald Trump at that White House correspondents' dinner back in 2011, so a lot of people thought this was resolved and put behind President Obama, but Donald Trump once again putting it out there to the chagrin, I think, of the Romney campaign, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: I guess appropriate, the gamble taking place in Vegas. All right, Jim, thank you. Appreciate it.

So picture this. Massive radioactive fish swimming thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean all the way from Japan to the shores of California. Might sound like science fiction, but no, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, we're actually going to tell you what it means for the cans of tuna in your kitchen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Voters in Texas heading to the polls today in the Republican primary. Latino voters are reshaping the political landscape in Texas. They will also play a big role in the November general election.

Juan Carlos Lopez joins us from San Antonio with an in-depth look at the growing political clout of the Latino community. First of all, tell us how does this community impact the congressional districts in Texas, the fact that the community has grown?

JUAN CARLOS LOPEZ, CNN EN ESPANOL CORRESPONDENT: Well, between 2000, Suzanne, and 2010, there was a growth of about 4 million new residents of Texas. Sixty-five percent of those were Latinos.

What did Texas gain from that? Four congressional districts and a big battle on how to redistrict the state. So, that's their main role now. Will Latinos be going into those districts? That's anybody's guess.

They might not even be Latinos taking these new congressional districts, but they are playing an important role in changing the landscape, not only in Texas, but in the Southwest. Remember, there is this big demographic shift going through the Southwest and Texas is one of those points.

MALVEAUX: Four additional districts in Texas? Talk a little bit about the fact, when you look at the general election here, Latinos, the fastest growing population in the country, what is that going to mean for the presidential race?

LOPEZ: Well, you're going to have key states. Texas is a red state and will be a red state, but you have Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and especially Florida. That's where Latinos can make a difference and can help decide who reaches the White House in November, so that's where most of the efforts of the campaigns are going to be.

But then you're going to have this continual shift, the growth of the Hispanic community and who knows what that will bring for the future? But for this year for November, those are the states that everyone is looking out to.

MALVEAUX: And we always talk about immigration when we talk about an issue that's important to Hispanic voters, but we know that's not their only priority. There are certainly other priorities dealing with the economy and jobs.

Specifically, when you talk to folks, what are they saying really matters to you?

LOPEZ: Immigration is not even in the top three. It's probably four or five. It could be six.

The main issue is the economy and I guess one thing to highlight, Suzanne, is that Hispanic voters aren't different from any other American voters. They care about the economy. They care about jobs. They care about health care.

An issue, a very important issue, for Latinos is education and access to good quality education.

But immigration is a wedge issue. Many feel bothered by the tone on immigration and it gets them involved in the issue and they feel that the debate on immigration sometimes is portrayed or felt as if a debate on Latinos, not only on undocumented immigrants.

So that's where it gets a lot of people involved or pushes them away, but it isn't the main issue for Hispanics. It's a very important, uniting issue, but like any other American voter, they want to know what's going to happen with the economy.

MALVEAUX: All right, Juan Carlos Lopez, thank you. Good to see you.

If you feel a little cramped in your tiny apartment or if you are just ready to move to a different house, we've got the most affordable places to buy a home.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: If there is a silver lining in the housing crisis, it's that, for anybody trying to buy a house ,things have become a lot more affordable.

The prices not uniformly cheap across country. You still have to dig a bit if you want to find a bargain.

Alison Kosik joins us with the list of the most affordable cities in the country. So, Alison, where are they? Tell us.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Let me walk you into this, Kyra. Think about it this way. These low prices that we're seeing for houses are a big factor, but you also have to factor in that you have to have the money to buy a home, so incomes are also factored into why this makes it the most affordable city, the most affordable place to buy a home and also mortgage rates are factored in.

OK, so, drum roll, please. The most affordable city to buy a home is Indianapolis. Because, look, your average house there costs about $100,000 and the median income there in Indianapolis is about $67,000.

And prices are low, partly because there is a lot of land to build out on there. Also, incomes are high because it has a lot of those higher paying jobs like in manufacturing and healthcare and pharmaceutical sales and the pharmaceutical industry.

Coming in at two is Dayton, Ohio. There, the houses are cheap. The median house there, the price for a home there is about $81,000. That's about half what it is nationally. Incomes there are also high, too, at $63,000. Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: That's great. Any trends that you're seeing actually in certain parts of the country?

KOSIK: It's interesting. You look at the top five and several of those are in the Midwest. Home prices there are low.

Also on the list, California and Florida. States there, of course, were hit hard by foreclosures, the housing bust, so they are nice and low. And also some great places to live. You've got a lot of sunshine there, as well, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Wall Street also has a report on home prices today, shows that it hit a new low. How bad are things looking?

KOSIK: There are two ways to look at this. There is improvement in this S&P/Case-Shiller home price index that came out today. It showed that prices fell, but the decline in these home prices, Suzanne, has really slowed down, meaning we may have just hit bottom.

Now, the silver lining is, of course, it's helping to bring in buyers. We saw this with numbers coming in last week with new and existing home sales up last week. Also some cities are showing improvement. Five cities hit new lows.

You compare to the last report where nine cities hit new lows in home prices, so nationwide, we're seeing prices still falling, but we're also seeing pockets of improvement. That's the good news.

Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: All right. A little bit of good news. Thanks, Alison.

A lot of menopausal women have taken hormones to avoid chronic disease. Now, a government panel is saying the risks outweigh the benefits. Hear why.

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MALVEAUX: It's been debated whether women going through menopause should get hormone injections to prevent chronic disease. Now, a government task force is adding its voice to the debate. The answer is no.

Elizabeth Cohen is joining us. And, Elizabeth, years ago, hormone replacement therapy was used for all kinds of, like, chronic ailments. They thought that this would help. Why the change now? What do we think?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, women were told to take these pills to stay forever young. Because what happens is at menopause, you have this very steep decline in hormone level, so the thought was, well, if we just give them more hormones then, hey, they will be like they were in when they were 30.

Well, that didn't work out too well and this has been known now for a while. And now this group, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is once again chiming in with what we've really known for a while, which is, do not take hormone replacement therapy with thoughts of staying forever young.

It's not going to keep heart disease at bay, it's not going to keep dementia at bay and, in fact, it could lead to all sorts of bad things. It puts you at higher risk for getting all sorts of bad things.

So let's talk about those things. It puts you at a higher risk for stroke, a higher risk for dementia, deep-vein thrombosis, urinary incontinence and gall bladder disease. So long-term, HRT, staying on HRT for many years, puts you at a higher risk for those things and it doesn't help you all that much with other things.

MALVEAUX: Is there any reason at all to take hormones then?

COHEN: Now, I said long-term. There could be reasons to take hormones, short-term, maybe for six months or a year or two and that is, when a woman's going through menopause and let's say she's having terrible hot flashes and she's uncomfortable and she really is having a difficult time getting through her day, going on HRT for a short, short period of time just to get through those symptoms may be useful.

Many women swear by it. They saying that it really worked for them.

MALVEAUX: Are there side effects?

COHEN: At that short-term, there don't appear to be the side effects that we're talking about here. When doctors saw the side effects, those were more with the women who were taking it for years and years.

It seems inconceivable now, but at one point, women were told to stay on hormone therapy your entire life. Start it at menopause around age 50 and just take it until you die at 80 or whatever.

And now they're saying that's really not such a great idea.

MALVEAUX: Bottom line, hormone replacement therapy not a good idea for the long-term?

COHEN: For the long-term, right, and, if you go to CNN.com/empoweredpatient, we try to really spell it all out there for you, sort of what are some OK uses and not so OK uses for hormone replacement therapy.

The key is to be smart about it. Don't say yes to it without thinking and don't say no to it without thinking and think of it as almost two different therapies. There's the long-term therapy that a lot of doctors are very worried about, including this group, and the short-term therapy, which many women have found very helpful.

MALVEAUX: All right, Elizabeth, thank you.

COHEN: Thanks.

MALVEAUX: Radioactivity soaked into everything from the concrete to the sushi after Japan's nuclear disaster. We're going to tell you what it could mean for the seafood sitting in your own local grocery store.

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MALVEAUX: The National Weather Service says Beryl could become a tropical storm again as it heads to South Carolina.

The storm, now a tropical depression, dumped more than a foot of rain in a town about 12 miles west of Tallahassee. Some parts of Northern Florida and Southeast Georgia could get slammed with 15 inches of rain today.

Fish for dinner tonight? You've got to listen to this. Scientists have found new levels of radiation traced to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in bluefin tuna caught off the California coast.

Want to bring in Casey Wian. He is following the story from L.A. and, Casey, I understand you were in Alaska last week and you saw a lot of the tsunami debris that's washing on shore there. This is another concern that we have now when we talk about the food supply. What do you know?

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Suzanne. When we saw the tsunami debris last week, people were saying there's no radiation threat from that, but now that it's been published in a prestigious scientific journal that they've actually found low levels of radiation in seafood off the coast of California, that raises a lot of alarm bells.

Now, scientists are saying that for now, at least in the immediate future, there is no real cause for concern for the public. That's because the levels of radiation that were found in this bluefin tuna caught by sport fishermen off of San Diego are only about 3 percent higher than the levels of radiation that naturally occur in the ocean.

Also, those levels are far below what is considered safe to eat by both the Japanese and the United States government.

However, they were very surprised by these findings because they thought with the amount of time it takes for these bluefin tuna, these large fish, to travel from Japan to the west coast of the United States, that the radiation would have dissipated by then and clearly, it has not, Suzanne. MALVEAUX: And, Casey, we talked to one of the scientists who did research earlier today on CNN. He said he was pretty surprised about what they actually found. I want you to listen to how he described it.

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PROFESSOR NICHOLAS FISHER, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY: We caught 15 bluefin tuna off San Diego in august 2011 and dissected them and analyzed their muscle tissue for cesium, radioactive cesium, knowing that these isotopes were released from Fukushima.

And we were quite surprised to find that these bluefin carried both of these radio-isotopes, cesium-134 and cesium-137, to waters off California.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, Casey, I imagine people are probably thinking, I shouldn't be eating bluefin tuna at this point.

WIAN: Well, there's probably people who are thinking that, but we should point out that most of the bluefin tuna that is consumed in the United States is actually farm-raised Atlantic bluefin tuna.

What we're talking about here is Pacific bluefin tuna, wild caught by recreational fishermen.

We should also point out that even when that tuna was off the coast of Japan, right after the Fukushima accident happened, the levels that were found when it was in Japan were below those considered safe for human consumption, but that doesn't mean that we're out of the woods yet.

Scientists are going to test the bluefin that are now just beginning to arrive off the coast of California because those fish were actually babies, born right around the time of the Fukushima disaster. so there could be different levels. They could be higher, they could be lower in those fish.

They're going to test those and make sure that those are safe. For now, all the government agencies say that the seafood, that bluefin tuna, in particular, is safe to eat. Even one of the scientists who conducted the study said he wouldn't hesitate to eat bluefin right now.

MALVEAUX: And do we know how much of the fish that they're actually able to test? Or is this just a very small sample?

WIAN: It is a very small sample. We're talking about 15 fish here out of tens of thousands that are caught and consumed in the United States and Japan every year.

MALVEAUX: All right, Casey Wian, I think I'll hold off on the sushi a little bit. But a good report. Good to know. Thank you.

CNN "Newsroom" continues right now with Brooke Baldwin.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Suzanne, thank you so much.