Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Debby Drowning Florida In Rain and Threatens Another Foot of Rain; Weather Fuels Colorado Wildfires; Search Resumes At Collapsed Mall; Turkey Blasts Syria For Shootdown; Obama Urged To Rethink Executive Privilege; Veteran Lawmakers Fight For Their Jobs; Average Gas Prices Falls To $3.40/Gallon; Lochte Edges Phelps At Olympic Trials; Famous Auguste Rodin Bust Found; Big Ben To Be Renamed Elizabeth Tower; President Obama On His Way To Atlanta; Changing Your Facebook E-mail Status; Postal Workers on Hunger Strike; Hope for Home Sellers; High Costs of Hospital Care; Racism Claims in Bar Confrontation
Aired June 26, 2012 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.
Good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you for joining us this morning. We begin with Tropical Storm Debby, right now much of Florida under water including parts of Interstate 10 between Tallahassee and Jacksonville.
Tropical Storm Debby clinging the Florida's gulf coast dumping nearly two feet of rain on some areas and threatening to wring out another 12 inches before the storm moves on.
George Howell is on the phone from the panhandle near Tallahassee. What it's look like, George?
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Carol, good morning. And the reason we're on the phone, we're following this family as they got the order to evacuate, left on her own because the water was up to her knees and she was concerned that it would get into her home.
But she just came back and we're with her, she's very thankful the water did not get into her home. But that's really the story we're seeing around here finally people are coming home to see what's left over.
The story here is the flooding after the storm. That's basically parked itself over Appalachian big coast and what a difference a day is making here in the western part of the Florida panhandle.
Again, this area saw a lot of rain. Here in Wakullah County, this county saw at least 25 inches of rain over the last several days. Now we're just dealing with the remaining floodwaters.
A lot of the water is receding here, but in Lake City and Live Oak, in that area also looking toward the eastern part of the state, you are seeing flooding occurring as this storm slowly moves off into the Atlantic -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, George Howell reporting live for us. Let's head over to meteorologist, Alexandra Steele. The problem with this storm, Alexandra, it's so slow moving.
ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right. Well, see, in essence, Tropical Storm Debby was really stuck in this dead zone, between two areas of high pressure.
That area of high pressure, which is actually been the one scalding the west with record high temperatures and another area of low pressure by Puerto Rico.
But now, alleluia, finally it's responding to the jet stream. It was too high before, too far north, but it's now dropping south and kind of like a driver driving this thing and it is finally beginning to move.
Stationary Debby is now beginning to be on the move. Now it's east at 3 miles an hour. It will be at a slow go for sure, but it's moving. You can even see all the convection with this, meaning the rain, severe weather, thunderstorms, has been on this side.
Continuous to be, but look, you even heard George talking, he's driving. He's trying to find to get into the rain and all the rain and thunderstorms are pushing eastward.
So 45-mile-per-hour winds are still sustained, not expected to strengthen at all anymore today, anymore possibly at all. By tomorrow, we're going to watch this thing, the center of circulation make landfall, and as it does make landfall it will weaken.
But then as it moves into the Gulf Stream and into the Atlantic, will it re-strengthen, potentially, potentially not that's a little too far to call.
But we are going to finally see it again weaken as it comes ashore, which will be tomorrow. So this is what we have seen and this really has been the bull's eye, south of Tallahassee.
Where we're talking about Saint Mark 21, 22 inches, that was the bull's-eye with the rain and now we're going to watch the rain move farther eastward, Lake City, maybe Sea Inland, south east Georgia.
This is who will get it, but then it will move eastward, Carol, so finally, some momentum in the offing.
COSTELLO: Yes, get out of there.
STEELE: It's going, it's going.
COSTELLO: Alexandra, thank you.
In Colorado, the conditions are hot, dry and dangerous. You heard Alexandra talking about that. A dozen wildfires sweeping across the state, more than 140,000 acres have already burned.
That's mind-boggling. Right now, some of the most urgent efforts are focused on the Waldo fire, which is still keeping several thousand people out of their homes.
CNN's Jim Spellman is just south of there in Colorado Springs. Good morning.
JIM SPELLMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. We just got word from fire officials that overnight this fire grew, it's over 5,000 acres. There are 600 firefighters in there fighting in these difficult conditions.
What they call a red flag warning conditions. That means high temperatures, high winds and low humidity that we're really feeling the fire.
Just in the last hour or so, we have already seen the winds pick up a little bit and the fire start to get a little bit more active. They only have 5 percent containment on this fire.
They hope to get some more today, but it's really difficult for them to establish. These lines of fire made a run north last night. It's hard for them to establish these lines separating fuel from the fire with these conditions like this.
And there's always the chance with these conditions that a new fire could break out. Just yesterday two fires popped up in Colorado.
They were able to get them knocked down quickly, but with these conditions like this and no real end in sight for at least a few days. In these conditions, new fires could break out anytime -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Jim Spellman reporting live for us this morning. Now let's cross the border into Southern Ontario. Rescuers are venturing back into the ruins of a collapsed shopping mall.
A short time ago, we have confirmed that one person is dead, at least one other is believed trapped. Search and rescue teams say they've heard possibly sounds of breathing.
But crews are moving cautiously because they fear the entire structure could collapse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are moving to more extreme measures to move this forward. Those drawings and plans are being drafted now as we're talking. What this will do, it allows us to take a little bit more drastic measures than we were able to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Rescuers say those extreme measures could include using heavy equipment to demolish some of the structure that's still standing, some of that mall that could produce the risk of a catastrophic collapse.
Also this morning, tensions are ratcheting up after Syria's shoot down of a warplane. Turkey says it will now treat any future approach from Syria's military as a threat and it will take action accordingly.
Also new this morning, NATO has condemned Syria's attack. The military alliance met to discuss the dangerous flare up between the two heavily armed regional powers.
There's a new chapter in the showdown in the government's controversial "Fast and Furious" gun running sting. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has fired off a letter to President Obama.
Issa is asking the president to reconsider his use of executive privilege, which allows the Justice Department to withhold some of the documents pertaining to "Fast and Furious."
The House will vote Thursday on whether to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for not turning over all requested documents.
Two veteran Capitol Hill lawmakers face bruising primary challenges today as they try to hold on to their seats. Six-term Senator Orrin Hatch appears poised to win against Dan Lingenquest (ph).
Hatch has Mitt Romney's support. And in New York, Harlem Congressman Charlie Rangel is hoping to be re-elected to his 22nd term. Rangle thinks voters will come out and support him despite the fact he was found guilty of ethics violations by fellow lawmakers.
Here's what he told Soledad O'Brien.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPRESENTATIVE CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: I got 83 percent of the vote the last time out, but the most important thing, if people would read the website of the ethics committee.
Read the "New York Times" about a month ago, we're seeing an expose out against the conduct of the committee that right now as you and I talk.
That committee is under investigation by private counsel for wrong doing. That's behind us, I have been elected overwhelmingly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: We'll keep you posted. President Obama heading south right now to raise some campaign cash. One of his stops, Atlanta, I'll talk with the city's mayor, Christine Reid, a big Obama supporter. That's coming your way.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: It's 10 minutes past the hour. Checking our top stories now this morning, parts of Interstate 10, east of Tallahassee are closed due to flooding from Tropical Storm Debby.
Debby could dump nearly another foot of rain on Florida's Gulf Coast. Some areas have already received 20 inches of rain. Floodwaters have trapped some people in their homes since Sunday.
Also in weather, extreme heat hits South Central Texas. Austin and San Antonio could see afternoon highs of 102 to 107. But it will feel more like 110 degrees in some spots. Rolling power outages might be necessary if demand for electricity gets too high.
In money news, the national average for a price of a gallon of gas has dropped to $3.40 a gallon. Triple A says that's a plunge of 10 cents in a week down 14 cents from a year ago. And it says we can expect lower prices in the coming weeks as oil prices continue to fall.
In sports, it was Florida's Ryan Lochte locking up the first spot on the U.S. swim team. Lochte edged Michael Phelps in the 400 meter individual medley at the Olympic swimming trials in Omaha, both swimmers though heading to London.
In Central France, a bust of the famous French sculpture Rodan was discovered and recovered in the back of antique dealer's truck. It was originally stolen 13 years ago from the Art and Archaeology Museum.
It's good to be queen. You get things named after you. When the Olympic games are over, the area will be called Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Well, now she's moved in on Big Ben. The House of Commons confirms the iconic London landmark will be renamed Elizabeth Tower. Let's go to Max Foster live in London. I'm going to miss the name Big Ben.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you needed, Carol, because this is -- a calling confusion, caused all the problems here really. The tower itself is called Clock Tower and the bell inside is called Big Ben.
But this caused huge amounts of controversy when it first came up because everyone thought we were renaming Big Ben. And actually the whole thing many thought was a joke initially.
But it has been confirmed today that the tower will be renamed Elizabeth Tower rather than the Clock Tower. But I think, you know, largely academic, probably, Carol, because like you, many people will still know it as just Big Ben.
COSTELLO: I can't imagine calling it anything else. I cannot. Max Foster, thanks for clearing that up. We appreciate it.
President Obama is on his way here to Atlanta to raise money for his re-election bid. It's one of two planned stops after fundraising yesterday.
Joining me now is Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. Welcome, Mayor Reid. We're happy you're here.
MAYOR KASIM REED (D), ATLANTA: I'm glad to be here.
COSTELLO: OK, so are you going to be meeting with President Obama at his fundraisers?
REED: I will. After I visit with you, I'm going to go and welcome the president at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
COSTELLO: Go through all the traffic. I know that you have a special car to get you there through all the traffic.
So President Obama has been collecting donors from smaller donors this year. The big Wall Street donors have sort of abandoned him. And Mitt Romney is raising a lot more money than president Obama is right now.
President Obama has turned to all what some people called gimmicks. You know, he's auctioning off lunches with Sarah Jessica Parker and even with himself. Some say that seems kind of desperate.
REED: I don't think it's desperate at all. If you look at the president's first campaign, ordinary people, small donors were an important part of what launched him into the presidency.
So I don't think that's different from 2008. I think the fact that many on Wall Street are turning to Mitt Romney isn't shocking at all because he wants 20 percent across the board tax cuts if he's elected president.
He's already said that. He wants to continue the Bush policies of the previous eight years so that's not shocking to me.
COSTELLO: Doesn't President Obama need those kinds of donors, though, because they say money wins elections.
REED: You know, I don't think so. I don't it doesn't matter how many millionaires and billionaires Mitt Romney has propping him up. The fact of the matter is he can't sell it and the American people are not going to buy it.
President Obama is a better candidate than Mitt Romney. He has a far is superior record and I think at the end of the day, he's going to win.
COSTELLO: OK, so President Obama sort of using this as a talking point. He talked about the money Mitt Romney is raising and what it means in Boston yesterday. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They will spend more money than we have ever seen in American history and their message is very simple. They will just tell you that the economy is not where it needs to be, the economy is bad, and it's all my fault.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: OK, if you look at the economy here in Georgia, the housing market is not that robust, right? It's suffering.
REED: It's improving.
COSTELLO: It is, but it's not exactly robust. The unemployment rate is at 8 percent. It's improving too, but it's not great. It was at 10.1
So what plan does President Obama have, though, to, like make that unemployment rate go down farther? I mean, what specific plan does he have for the people of Georgia to say, your life's going to be look better in the next four years?
REED: You know what, Carol? I think what the people in Georgia really understand is that when this president took office, the unemployment rate was higher than 10.2 percent.
What people want is the right direction. We've moved from 10.2 percent down to about 8.3 percent. But the fact of the matter is that we're moving in the right direction.
What the president is going to fight for are investments that make a difference in real job creation and that's in infrastructure.
COSTELLO: That message isn't getting through because you could talk about Ohio in the exactly the same way, but the people of Ohio don't feel like it's getting better economically, and they're still blaming President Obama.
So what part of his message needs to be said clearer and stronger to make people believe that it really is getting better.
REED: Well, you know what, Carol, you have to say it over and over. The president also needs an advance partner. You know that Congress is not active in major infrastructure investments in the United States.
That would have brought down unemployment a point to a point and a half. American people are very smart. They are watching this and they know that if the president had a partner in Congress, as opposed to a Republican-led congress that's doing everything they can to stifle growth and recovery. We would have unemployment below 8 percent.
COSTELLO: Yes, but to make up -- it could change for the worse for the president in the next couple of months.
REED: Yes, but the fact of the matter is the American people is going to force Congress and the president, whoever that is, I believe it's going to be President Obama to get on with it and get a deal.
Historically, we have been able to have bipartisan cooperation around infrastructure and that's where the real opportunity is to bring down significant unemployment.
And I'm confident that after President Obama defeats Mitt Romney in November, we will get some kind of meaningful deal done to bring down these tough unemployment numbers.
COSTELLO: Let's talk about the health care law. The U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to hand down its big decision on Thursday.
REED: Everybody's waiting.
COSTELLO: Care to make a wager or guess on which way the court will come down?
REED: I'm going to wager that the court is going to uphold the law and shock that the country.
COSTELLO: Do you think so?
REED: I think so.
COSTELLO: A lot of people think that the court will strike down the individual mandate, the requirement that most Americans buy health insurance. They think that will go away. If that happens, what does that do to the health care plan?
REED: Well, you know, it's significantly weakens it. The fact of the matter is, when Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he put forth an individual mandate because it's essential to bring costs down.
You got to have healthy people as a part of the system, that's what Mitt Romney thought when he was governor of Massachusetts and that's what we need in the United States of America.
COSTELLO: So if the U.S. Supreme Court does that, how will it affect President Obama, that's his big signature legislation?
REED: I actually think it's going to energize the American public. Because while people have challenged with what's called Obama care, they like specific parts of the health care act.
They like that they can't be thrown out of a hospital or thrown out of their insurance coverage because they had a pre-existing condition, and they like having their children covered.
COSTELLO: Won't it be an enormous defeat for the president? Because he always says he is a constitutional lawyer. He always said it was constitutional.
REED: Carol, to be honest. I think it will be a worse moment for the Supreme Court. I think that it will be a powerful signal of the politicization of the Supreme Court.
I think that it will move a long way towards the decision that was so bad for America in Bush V Gore. You've seen the continuation of that in Citizens United.
And if the Supreme Court makes the judgement to intervene in this process, I think that it's going to be a more dark day for the U.S. Supreme Court.
COSTELLO: If this decision doesn't go President Obama's way, he'll start campaigning against the Supreme Court?
REED: I think every American citizen who cares about having adequate health care should care about it. The fact of the matter is, there are 30 million people who need access to adequate health care that we need to provide it.
And if you strip away the individual mandate, you know, that it's not an effective tool to provide broad health care. When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he agreed with that approach. But since he's been running for president, he's changed his mind.
COSTELLO: Thank you so much for being here, Mr. Mayor. We appreciate it.
REED: Thank you for giving me a moment, Carol.
COSTELLO: Yes, anytime and I'll let you get through the traffic now. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
What was your Facebook status stalked? And who changed your e- mail address? We'll talk about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Have you checked your default e-mail on Facebook? Well, you better because it's probably changed. Your e-mails will go to a facebook.com address unless you go in and change the settings.
And how close is too close with your Facebook friends? It seems the social network also quietly added and then dropped an app that let your Facebook friends know you're nearby.
Joining me now is Parry Aftab, executive director of wiredsafety.org. She's also an internet privacy and security lawyer. Welcome.
PARRY AFTAB, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WIREDSAFETY.ORG: Thank you very much, Carol.
COSTELLO: OK, so some of this is disturbing. Let's start with the e- mails, is this a brazen effort to build the facebook.com e-mail platform?
AFTAB: I suspect not. But Facebook is so important to our lives that any time anything happens, I think we panic. In this case what they did was they took our Facebook address and turned it into an e-mail address, but it's easy enough to fix it.
COSTELLO: You say, nothing is easy on Facebook to fix. AFTAB: Well, this one actually is. If you go to your edit profile page, you'll see the new Facebook e-mail address, plus your normal default e-mail address. All you do is click the drop down menu, hide the Facebook one and put your old one back up.
COSTELLO: So it bugs me that Facebook is doing this without my permission.
AFTAB: Well, they think they got your permission. So in April they did a number of disclosures telling everyone they were bringing e-mail addresses into alignment.
Whether we understood or not, I wish it was something they did better because frankly, until I got the call this morning, I didn't know they had changed mine.
COSTELLO: See and you're the expert.
AFTAB: I am.
COSTELLO: Let's switch to the second concern, this so-called stalker app. What's your take on the friends nearby app? It sounds creepy, isn't it?
AFTAB: Well, it sounds creepy, but it isn't creepy. It's not been released as an app yet. There's a lot of ways that cybergating and meeting people and finding new friends in your area have been active in the app space for about six years.
This allows you to find out other people who are in your area unless they're hidden from you. Facebook hasn't launched this yet, they tested it.
What they to do when they tested this, they opened a few accounts across the country generally in the United States to see if it works, when they test it, then they turn it off again. That was just a testing, not a product announcement.
COSTELLO: OK, so it's just a test, but everybody hears about it. Why not just be transparent and say, we're testing this, do you like it?
AFTAB: Well, they test thousands of apps all the time. If they did that, I don't think any of us would listen to them anymore. This one may be disturbing if you think -- they call it the stalker act.
But if you think about it finding friends with like interests, you're at a reunion football game and you want to see who else is around.
You're at a concert, and you want to know who's around. So it's a great way for adults to do this. If it's ever launched, I'm sure that my advice will be to make sure that no teens are using it. My guess is that Facebook is not even considering that.
COSTELLO: Interesting, OK, so some people say that the line is getting blurry on Facebook between connecting and invading. Should we be worried?
AFTAB: I don't think so because Facebook is all about choice. It's just complicated sometimes to figure out if we need to exert that choice.
But if you don't want to be a part of an app, you just opt out. You don't even have to be in the app platform, which is an opt out as well.
So you decide what people can see and how they can see it and why, and as long as we spend a few minutes trying to figure it out or find a local 14-year-old to help, you'll be able to do that.
So we'll put on Wired Safety the clear instructions on how to edit your e-mail address back to the one you wanted or you may like the one that Facebook gave you.
COSTELLO: Thanks very much. Parry Aftab joining us live this morning.
AFTAB: Always a pleasure.
COSTELLO: Some postal workers on strike, but it's not just any strike. They're going on a hunger strike. They're not eating in protest. Why go to this extreme? I will ask one of these postal workers when he joins me live.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Just about 30 minutes past the hour. Checking our top stories. Parts of Interstate 10 east of Tallahasee are closed due to flooding from Tropical Storm Debby. Debby could dump another foot of rain on Florida's Gulf Coast. Some areas have already received 20 inches of rain.
Several Colorado wildfires are still raging out of control this morning. Hot, dry, windy weather, fuelling the flames will last through midweek. The largest fire has already destroyed nearly 250 homes.
The U.S. House set to vote this Thursday whether to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. Last week, Holder refused to hand over all requested documents in the government's controversial "Fast and Furious" gun running sting.
A New Hampshire Post Office is really feeling the sting of the U.S. Postal Services cost cutting measures. It is now opened only 30 minutes a day, Monday through Saturday.
Residents in the small town of White Mountains say they learned of the changes a few weeks ago with a sign on the post office door. City officials plan to challenge this decision.
In a related story, 10 current and former postal workers are also fighting back against cuts to the postal service. They're staging a three-day hunger strike on Capitol Hill so Americans won't lose a national treasure, their local post office.
Here are the changes ahead for the Postal Services. Plans are in place to close or consolidate 48 mail processing plants beginning next month. When all the changes are made by 2014, 229 plants will be consolidated or closed and 28,000 jobs will be gone.
Tom Dodge is one of the worker who's stopped eating to get his message across. He joins me now live from Washington.
Welcome, Tom.
TOM DODGE, POSTAL WORKER: Thank you. Good morning. How are you?
COSTELLO: I'm good. So you've taken your fight right to the heart of the nation's capital. You called the Post Office a national treasure. I'm sure many Americans really like their post office, but a national treasure?
DODGE: Well, I mean it's been around since the beginning of this country, since the Revolutionary War, where 13 colonies came together and fought against the British to form the United States of America. The first postmaster general was Benjamin Franklin. I mean it's been an institution. It's been a dependable service for almost 236 years now.
COSTELLO: But the day is probably coming when post offices will go away just because the world is changing. Is that an America you don't want to see?
DODGE: No. I mean there's a place for the Internet, there's a place for cell phone service. But we're not there yet. There's plenty of rural areas across the country that don't have access to high speed Internet and don't have access to cell phone service. Once you get about 40 miles outside the cities, they become spotty.
This is also affecting intercities, poor intercities, where they're the ones that least able to afford Internet service or computers and a 45 cent stamp to mail their bills, their car payments, their credit card payments, their mortgage payments. It's a heck of a bargain.
COSTELLO: Of all the things you could do to protest, though, why a hunger strike? How many days have you gone without eating now?
DODGE: Well, actually a little over a day, this is actually a four- day hunger strike. And we're going to be wrapping this up on Thursday around 6:00 or less activities, a rally at L'Enfant Plaza outside the U.S. Postal Service headquarters.
COSTELLO: So why a hunger stripe? I mean why choose that?
DODGE: Well, we've done marches and rallies across the country last September. We've got media coverage in local newspapers, local television. I mean it's to the point where if something isn't done soon, the postal service isn't going to survive. I mean you can only build up so much debt for a certain period of time before there's a point of no return, and we're getting close to that. Local rallies just hadn't got the job done.
So that's why we're in D.C., to ask Congress to stop the overpayment into a retirement and health care systems. Maybe Congress can come together right now on restructuring the postal service and come up with a bill, but at least stop the overpayment, $5.5 billion a year that's being overpaid into the retirement system.
COSTELLO: I think the postmaster general, though, say even if -- even if Congress moved to do that, it wouldn't get the postal service out of hot water.
DODGE: Well, a lot of the problem is, which came first, the chicken or the egg? The postal service has responded to what they say is less customer demand. But what I have seen over the last 12 years is it actually cut service and drove customers away. They've done that over and over and over again.
Give, for instance, 2 1/2 years ago, they took every stamp machines out of every post office in the whole country. Now a lot of post offices have lobby hours after hours so you can go in after hours and mail a letter, but you can't buy stamps there anymore. So what you have to do is get in your car, you can go to an Office Depot or maybe a Staples, or a grocery store and buy a whole book of stamps, but that's OK. What if you need just one stamp? So then you can go back to the post office to have to -- actually do the mailing. I mean they've made it very inconvenient to use the post office anymore.
COSTELLO: Well, I know you've gotten some attention from Dennis Kucinich. But he's going to be out of office soon because he lost his primary challenge. Hopefully you'll get more attention from other lawmakers, we'll see.
Tom Dodge, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
DODGE: Thank you for having me here.
COSTELLO: At long last, some signs for hope for the housing sector. Home prices bounced in April after seven months of decline.
Allison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange.
Good morning, Alison.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
So normally, you know, it's people who are buying homes that are getting all the good news. But today I've got an ounce of encouragement if you're a seller. A report from S&P Case-Shiller says that home prices rose 1.3 percent in April from March. It actually came in quite a bit stronger than Wall Street was expecting. Now when you look at the index of 20 cities, it shows the biggest increases in home prices in Washington, D.C., in Phoenix, in Cleveland and in Atlanta.
Partly then Seattle also had some decent gains. But of course here comes the bad news, overall prices are still down almost 2 percent from where they were a year ago.
Carol, you know this. It's going to take a long time to make all of that lost value up -- Carol.
COSTELLO: So, prices -- yes, and I hear you Alison, I do. So prices are finally moving higher, and does this mean we've hit the bottom, though?
KOSIK: Well, you know, one report doesn't make a trend, but we are starting to see, you know, more and more positive signs, a new survey from Zillow shows that most economists think prices are going to fall a little bit more this year before eventually bottoming out by 2013. Now we learned yesterday that new home sales jumped 7.6 percent in May. Permits to build new homes have also been on the rise. Those actually indicate future buildings, so that's a good sign.
But here's why we're not out of the woods just yet. There's still this huge massive inventory of unsold homes on the market. And even if someone wants to buy a home, it's still really tough for a lot of people to qualify for that darn loan -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Alison Kosik --
KOSIK: If it's not one thing, it's another.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: I know, exactly. Alison Kosik, thank you.
Were they booing or were they saying, Youk, Youk.
I think they were booing. During a fundraiser at Symphony Hall in Boston, President Obama could not help teasing Red Sox fans about the team's trade. A former all-star Kevin Youkilis to the White Sox.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you for Youkilis.
(LAUGHTER AND CHEERS)
OBAMA: I didn't think I could get any boos out of here but --
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: You heard the difference between Youk and boo. Yes, the president was booed because, you know, the president is a White Sox fan and Youkilis went to the White Sox. And by the way, he went 1 in 4 last night in his White Sox debut. Youkilis, that is.
No, you're not seeing double. Only one of the men you'll see is the real country superstar Kenny Chesney. The other man just get into trouble for looking like him.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: $1200 for a surgical stapler, $280 for an IV bag. It's part of the reason that health care costs are soaring. As we wait to see how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on Obamacare, CNN is going in depth this week on health care.
Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes us inside the operating room for an eye-popping look at how much hospitals charge for basic items and why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: One of the questions that comes up all the time is what about these hospital bills, how exactly do you break down, how do you make sense of it. There's no question, it leaves a lot of people scratching their heads.
So I want to give you a little bit of an example here but taking you inside this operating room. This is the hospital where I work where I'm a neurosurgeon. And just having an operation performed in a room like this costs about $3,000 an hour. That's for starters.
Come on in. I'll give you a couple of quick examples. If you look at a hospital bill, you might see an IV bag charge, so an IV bag like this, $280 just for the IV bag. That might strike people as very high.
A stapler. This is a stapler that's often used in surgery, something like this costs about $1200. This is a chest tube, if someone has compression of one of their lungs, they might need a chest tube like this. That costs about $1100. And you'll find examples like that really all over a room like this.
Suture. Something that's used in just about every operating room in the world. This type of suture over here costs about $200. And if you look at even devices like -- this is a needle that's used for biopsies. So if there's a concern that someone has a tumor, they would use a needle like this and this is going to cost about $800.
Now it's important to keep in mind, if you ask the manufacturers of a device like this, why so much money? They'll say well, it took years to develop something like this, the research and development costs are significant. Also they're guaranteeing a certain level of effectiveness of this needle. That cost money as well.
But something maybe you didn't know. When you look at a hospital bill, it's not just the cost of the supplies, there's also administrative costs that are built in. There's the cost of covering people who simply don't have insurance or can't pay. That's built into these costs as well.
And finally keep in mind that what is charged and what is ultimately paid are two very different numbers.
RICHARD CLARK, HEALTHCARE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION: The typical hospital collects about 4 percent of every dollar that they -- or about 4 cents of every dollar that they bill. So it's not coming out in massive profits, it's coming out as a result of underpayment from the government.
GUPTA: I'll tell you, you know, the cost breakdown like I just gave you on lots of these different supplies, a lot of people simply never see. And what we have found is a lot of people don't care as well. If you're insured, some people may not even open the hospital bill. But there are about 50 million people uninsured out there and they care very much about hospital bills like this.
And what you can do is you can call the hospital and get a detailed breakdown. And while you're on the phone with the hospital, if the cost seems still too high or just hard to understand, you might be able to negotiate some of these prices down.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: I don't mean to smile at that, Sanjay. Negotiate prices down.
(LAUGHTER)
GUPTA: Negotiate with us. It's a laborious process.
COSTELLO: You're not -- it's like hell, actually. So those things cost so much because there is so many uninsured people in the world?
GUPTA: Yes, I mean, you know, in part, in part because the needle that used for biopsies is very different than the needle you'd buy at Home Depot. There's a lot more research and development. But also because, you know, people, they go to the ER who are uninsured and they get care, if they don't pay, that's called uncompensated care. That's how it works at a hospital like Grady. That cost is passed on to the hospital, it's passed on to your premiums, your and my premiums as people who do have healthcare insurance. So it comes from somewhere.
We did some analysis. You'd find that about half the hospitals in the United States are unprofitable, which I think is surprising to a lot of people and $56 billion a year, roughly. is what the price tag for uncompensated care. So this is part of the impact of all that , the consequence.
COSTELLO: So how does this connect to the health care bill that the U.S. Supreme Court will make a decision about on Thursday?
GUPTA: Well, it -- the whole thing regarding a mandate that everyone have healthcare insurance here. Now all of a sudden having this hydria (ph) of uncompensated care is really what's at issue here. In the past, in this country, at the state level, they've had laws into place where they said look, there's not going to be a mandate, but we're going to require all people to, you know, not be discriminated against based on preexisting conditions. They can get healthcare, you know, insurance for just the same price as anybody else.
And what they find is that eventually the premiums for everybody goes up. In Kentucky they went up 40 percent.
COSTELLO: Wow.
GUPTA: So in this country, if you passed a healthcare law without a mandate, it's possible that it will affect everybody, not just the people who don't have healthcare insurance. An important point to get the money.
COSTELLO: Do you think that many people understand about the individual -- the reason that there's a requirement for every, nearly every American to buy insurance is so that insurance companies can afford to take on people with conditions, preexisting conditions?
GUPTA: I don't think most people understand that. But you make a very good point, because, you know, in the end, insurance companies actually probably benefit from the mandate more than anybody else. Because all of a sudden they're getting a bunch of people into the coffers of the insurance industry. Many of whom are young and healthy and aren't using the healthcare system at all. So they're just getting their premiums for really no additional cost.
So I don't think most people understand that the insurance companies are using that mandate and all that extra money to help pay for people who are ill, who are being charged way too much for premiums or who are uninsured.
COSTELLO: Well, I will say many American probably don't care even if they did understands it. The government is forcing you to do something that you don't need to do.
GUPTA: But if the mandate doesn't go through, there's a good chance that all of our premiums will go up. And that's why people should pay attention to this. I think it's important.
COSTELLO: OK. The big decision comes down on Thursday. You'll be here. I'll be here.
GUPTA: I will be here. Right here probably.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: Thank you, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
What does your computer say about you? Well, according to one travel Web site, it may be saying that you will pony up more money for that hotel room and they're targeting you. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Forty-seven minutes past the hour, stories we're watching right now in the NEWSROOM.
More fallout from tropical storm Debby. Wildlife officials are hoping to rescue two manatee calves when weather conditions improve. Their mother died in the storm. Rescuers were able to tie her to a nearby seawall so her calves would not leave her side. When you log on to the travel Web site Orbitz you choice of hotels may depend on the computer you're using. The computer says users of Apple's Mac computers are wiling to splurge on costlier hotels so they'll show them more of those choices. The company says to keep this in mind, though, you can always choose to rank the results by price.
In sports, Venus Williams ousted in straight sets by Russian Elena Vesnina in first round play at Wimbledon Monday. It was the earliest exit for Williams since her Wimbledon debut in 1997.
It's not always a good thing to look like someone famous. Take it from Nathan Blankenship. He's the man on the right who was kicked out of a recent Kenny Chesney concert for supposedly --
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: He does look like him. Anyway, he was accused of trying to impersonate Kenny Chesney. Here's what Blankenship said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NATHAN BLAKENSHIP, ACCUSED OF IMPERSONATING KENNY CHESNEY: I thought he was just going to lead me back to my seat which I can find. But he grazed my arm and we started -- pulling me up the walkway to go to the very top. I said, because I'm wearing the hat? I said, I've seen a million of these hats here.
I think the way they handled it made it seemed worse because it's like they were really escorting Kenny Chesney through the crowd.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Maybe it was the shirt and the jeans, too. But that is uncanny. Isn't it? Chesney's label says it plans to reach out to Blankenship and resolve this matter.
Whites only bar? One man says he was kicked out of a North Carolina bar because he was black. Now others are also saying they received the very same treatment. I'll talk to Jonathan Wall about his lawsuit.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Jonathan Wall from North Carolina claims he was put into a headlock and forced out of a bar in downtown Raleigh because of his skin color. He claims people who work at the downtown sports bar and grill are racist. Attorneys for the bar dispute that. They say the bar is a private club with membership and a dress code.
In an interview on an affiliate, WRAL, they claim that on any Friday night, 20 to 30 percent of the membership at that bar are minorities.
So who do believe? That's dismissed patron Jonathan Wall called the whole thing demoralizing. He and his attorney Alesia Vick are here to share their side of the story from Raleigh. Welcome to you both.
ALESIA VICK, ATTORNEY: Good morning.
JONATHAN WALL, CLAIMS BAR DISCRIMINATED AGAINST HIM: Hey, good morning.
COSTELLO: Good morning. Jonathan, why do you think that this was racially motivated, the way you were treated in that bar?
WALL: First of all, thank you for having me on the show. I believe that it was racially motivated mostly because in my vicinity I was the only African-American, and like I said, after my story was posted, the stories that came after my story kind of opened my eyes to the scope of the problem. And it wasn't just me that night.
COSTELLO: Well, let's start at the beginning. Let's start at the beginning. That night you were standing in line to get into this bar, and tell me what happened.
WALL: At the door, the first bouncer who was not the same guy, told us that we need a membership to get in. And we looked at him like, you know, a membership? This is -- we thought it was a bar. And he was like no, I'm sorry, you can't get in. And then eventually he let us in. He said, you know, go ahead once he saw a cop out of the corner of both of our eyes. So I was allowed into the bar. And then once I got in, the details of what happened are still posted on the letter online and because of the legal implications I really can't go into details right now.
COSTELLO: But can you give us a little bit of detail about why you feel you were discriminated against?
WALL: Yes, ma'am, as I said before, it has to do with what happened that night as in the other people who were in my vicinity. I was surrounded by white people who also did have drinks, their original argument was that I was being kicked out because I didn't buy a drink. But there were people all around me without drinks and I felt targeted.
And after he came in and approached me the first time, he kind of sat back at the bar and sized me up, I feel. And only approached me -- and then like I said, after I posted my story, it was the amazing response I got from others who had experienced similar treatment that opened my eyes to this scope of the problem.
COSTELLO: How -- how many people had a similar experience at that -- at that bar? How many people posted on Facebook?
WALL: Yes, it's -- Facebook, e-mail, tweets, over 100 right now. The stories are still rolling in as the story spreads and so like I said, that's what really helped open my eyes to what's going on.
COSTELLO: Alicia Vick, you're Jonathan's attorney. The bar says that Jonathan sneaked into the bar, past the bouncer at the door, and he was in there and he wasn't supposed to be in there. It's a membership only club, so they tossed him.
VICK: Well, first of all, he was allowed entry into the club, there -- I mean that's based upon information that we have from other individuals that were there at the time, part of his group. So far as this membership piece, I think it's important that we, individuals know that it -- they're just slapping a label on to the situation. I mean there are certain guidelines by North Carolina laws and statutes that say if you're going to be operating as a private club, saying that there's membership, there's certain things that you have to do.
And based on the information that we have, they haven't been operating in that realm of a private club. It's just something that they have put out there, in our opinion whenever it was convenient, whenever they wanted to say to an individual, hey, you can't come in because you have to have a membership.
I mean it's apparent on the social media that I mean -- the people are that were being asked membership tend to be those of African-American descent. I mean -- I mean it's just a pervasive problem, I'm not sure if you are aware of the fact that WRAL did a story about 10 years ago dealing with the same issues so --
COSTELLO: I thought so. Well --
VICK: I mean I think the whole membership fee is farce.
COSTELLO: What -- so have you filed a lawsuit or are going to find a lawsuit?
VICK: Well, We're in the early stages, we're still investigating. I mean it's not out of the realm of possibility, that's what I will say.
COSTELLO: Jonathan Wall, Alesia Vick, thank you so much for being with us this morning.
VICK: Thank you.
WALL: Thank you, Miss Costello.
COSTELLO: We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Nothing says we support you more than 30,000 Chicago style deep dish pizzas. The nonprofit organizations Pizzas for Patriots has been sending pizzas to our troops. For the past five yeas. This year the pizza pies will arrive just in time for 90,000 U.S. servicemen to enjoy on in Afghanistan to enjoy on the Fourth of July.
Just thought I'd leave you with a happy thought.
I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me today. CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Kyra Phillips.
END
