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1.8 Million Still Without Power; Power Companies Face Growing Anger; Barclay's COO Quits Over Rigging; Western Wildfires Claim More Lives; Western Wildfires Claim More Lives; Air Force Grounds Firefighting Planes; Colorado Wildfire Now 70 Percent Contained; Woman Dragged Out of Truck By Hair; American Mauled By Chimps In South Africa; Pepco Chief Answers His Critics; PEPCO Chief Answers his Critics; New Details in TomKat Divorce; Ex-Union Town isn't in Love with Obama; Study: More Money Makes People Inhumane?

Aired July 03, 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: And good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining us. Just ahead in the NEWSROOM, when is the power coming back on?

Nearly 1 million people from Indiana to Maryland who have been without electricity since this weekend are asking that question. We're putting that question to a power company official.

Mauled by chimps, an American graduate student clinging to life after a couple of chimpanzees tore him up. What doctors are doing to save this young man's life?

And take a look at this. This is a 16-foot shark. This pair of great whites have been swimming along the Cape Cod shores. Could they ruin Fourth of July beach celebrations?

But we begin with this, our top story. For much of the country this will be another day of blistering temperatures. It will be stifling and oppressive, but for some 2 million Americans it will be downright dangerous.

They still have no electricity and few ways to keep cool. The outages are still massive scattered across 11 states and Washington, D.C. For some this begins day five of sweltering misery and relief could still be days away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Been very, very hot. Not getting relief in the liquid form. And people are in dire straits really.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All these people don't have nothing, it makes you want to sit down and cry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to just rough it the best way you can. You have to -- to go buy water, if you can find it. Everyone was out of everything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hate it. It's horrible. We can't -- all our phones are dead right now. In case of an emergency, we can't make a call or anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Power companies are facing some heat, as you might expect from customers who say their response has been woefully slow. Another common complaint is that the companies don't provide updates.

So people can't make informed decisions like should I go to a cooling shelter? Should I stay home? Will the power be back on tomorrow or days from now? Last hour, I spoke with one power company official.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT GOULD, V.P., BALTIMORE GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY (via telephone): We don't want to give our customers false expectations. It does no good to say we're going to restore "x" percent or individually we'll restore your power by "x."

Only to find out that because of the circumstances we can't control we -- we dash your hopes. We can't meet that deliverable, and that only creates more frustration and more anger with -- with the utility companies and everybody else involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That was Robert Gould, by the way, the vice president at Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. Baltimore's mayor is taking BGE to task saying it's putting the elderly and poor at risk because it's restoring power more slowly in the city than elsewhere.

Gould says this company has worked with the city to prioritize public safety concerns like restoring power first to 911 and emergency operations along with water treatment plants.

Lizzie O'Leary is our regulation correspondent. She is looking into the many, many complaints this morning that people have with the power companies. Good morning, Lizzie.

LIZZIE O'LEARY, CNN AVIATION AND REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So the power companies, they don't want to be held accountable for this. Some say they should not be held accountable, but are they doing enough?

O'LEARY: Well, enough is really the key question here. Look, if your power is out and you're going on day five, I think no one would say that things could be done soon enough and maybe that enough could be done to get the power back on.

You have to think about this in a couple of different ways. There are multiple different companies here and multiple different kinds of companies.

The industry was more or less deregulated back in the '90s so you have some public companies that answer to their investors. You have some more sort of traditionally integrated utility companies, and some local governments do have the power to impose fines.

I know that's something that you were talking about with electric company executives. So back in 2010 the power went out around here in D.C. Pepco, the company that's responsible for D.C.'s power, most of it, was fined about $1 million.

So some local governments can do that, and they also have to abide by codes of conduct set by federal regulators, but those are more guidelines in terms of how the companies operate.

But certainly on the bottom line basis, on a local and state basis, yes, actually your government can step in and say, all right, this wasn't soon enough by our standards. You've got to cough up spot cash for it.

COSTELLO: I know and governments always threaten that and when it comes right down to it they don't really institute any sort of law to find these companies.

Another question for you though, the big problem is trees coming down on top of power lines. Why don't just they bury the power lines and like leap into modern times?

O'LEARY: And this is one of the big questions particularly when you have say a big area where some people live in a more leafy suburban area, trees, much more likely to fall on lines.

And then you have folks in a downtown area, denser buildings, more population there and the lines are buried, so I want to kind of tick through some of the points here.

When you look at these, underground lines are protected. They are much more likely to stay fine during a storm. You see this in a lot of European cities.

They are underground, but the flip side there is that they are more expensive and more costly to install. The figure that power companies give you is that it's about ten times more expensive.

A little hard to know whether they are being entirely up front about the costs there, and they say that if there is damage to the underground lines it's much harder to locate and fix so that in their mind some of those costs outweigh the benefits -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Lizzie O'Leary, thanks so much.

Here's a look at some of the areas dealing with power problems in Washington, one in every four residents in the district still without power. Many traffic lights still out and that's made driving difficult.

Public transit is available, the metro system up and running, just a reminder. In West Virginia, more than 400,000 homes and businesses are still without power. The power company say their crews are working around the clock to restore electricity, but some areas could be in the dark until Sunday.

Even more are without power in Ohio, 428,000 in all. Franklin County in the central part of the state where Columbus is, that's the hardest hit area. Ohio's governor has declared a state of emergency.

State of emergency is also in place in Baltimore. The city's mayor made that declaration across Maryland. Six people are confirmed dead. Power has been restored though to two-thirds of the state.

Our last stop, Virginia, 340,000 customers there without power, but most should have their lights back on by tonight. Power should fully restored by Saturday.

OK, back to the bit of breaking news I told you about earlier. We're learning another top executive at Barclay's bank is stepping down.

Alison Kosik is in New York with more on this. This is the third official to step down now?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right, the third in a week actually. This is the chief operating officer. This follows the CEO of Barclay's stepping down.

And that, of course, follows another high-level executive. This is all happening as this scandal grows regarding interest rate manipulation with Barclay's.

Specifically I'm talking about the Libor rate, and what that is, is that the rate set every day as a worldwide benchmark for prices on financial products, that include everything from auto loans, to mortgages.

And what this bank is accused of doing, Carol, is manipulating these rates, submitting lower than actual figures on its intrabank borrowing during the financial crisis.

Regulators here in the U.S. and in the U.K., Barclay's is a U.K. bank, had fined Barclay's last week. Millions of dollars for this, and this isn't the only bank.

Regulators are also looking at more than a dozen other banks including Citigroup, UBS and RBS. Now Barclay's is the first bank to settle, but this investigation is going to be continuing.

And, of course, this is going to raise more calls as to whether or not these retail operations at these big banks should be separate from the riskier investment banking, this kind of echoes what happened with JPMorgan, you'll remember, Carol.

Who can forget, where the trading losses for making risky bets could amount to as much as $9 billion for JPMorgan, so you see the calls for whether or not you should have separate banking for each.

Just so you know, Barclay shares have actually fallen 11.5 percent since this investigation began. COSTELLO: Alison Kosik reporting live for us from New York.

Now the latest on those wildfires that have popped up across much of the western United States, so far 1.9 million acres have burned. That's equivalent to an incredible 3,000 square miles.

To give you an idea of just how huge that is, it's roughly the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. In Colorado Springs, Colorado, many evacuees have returned home to find their neighborhoods gone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHEILA CASTILLO, COLORADO SPRINGS RESIDENT: It looks like a bomb, dropped on our neighborhood.

CRIS CASTILLO, COLORADO SPRINGS RESIDENT: You get the sense of the power of that fire, of just how fast it came down and how devastating it was?

CASTILLO: Each lot has an individual pile or hole filled with nothing, but ash and debris and metal. It was like Armageddon. The most horrible thing we'd ever seen in our life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: More on the human toll. Two crew members are now confirmed dead in the weekend crash of an air tanker in South Dakota.

CNN affiliates say two other fighters aboard that C-130 were also killed. One victim identified by family members spoke to our affiliate WBTV just before he boarded that doomed flight.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul McKiel said he was anxious to help in the firefighting efforts. He was from North Carolina and this afternoon the Air National Guard there will hold a news conference. Of course, we'll keep you posted.

The crash has underscored concerns about the aging fleet of C- 130s equipped to fight the fires. Today, the Air Force has grounded all of them. That affects at least eight of those planes that were deployed to the western wildfires.

Jeff Berino is a wildfire investigator. He joins us via Skype from Frisco, Colorado. Welcome.

JEFF BERINO, WILDFIRE EXPERT: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. I want to talk to you a little bit about the C-130s. The whole fleet has been grounded now. You know about the crash in South Dakota that killed at least two firefighters.

When you hear things like that, what goes through your mind as someone who is out there on the frontlines?

BERINO: Fighting these wildfires is a huge battle and it's a tremendous assistance to firefighters. It is an aging fleet and they need to come to a solution quickly.

COSTELLO: We don't know why that C-130 crashed in South Dakota, but you've looked at those planes close up. Should they be in the air?

BERINO: They are many, many years old with a lot of miles on them. They take a lot of stress as they come in to drop a security load. The pilots are highly skilled, but I do hope we modernize our system quickly.

COSTELLO: I'm sorry, Jeff, we're having trouble with your Skype transmission. It's very difficult to understand what you're saying. We're going to try to get that fixed, and if we do, we'll get you back on the air. Jeff, thank you so much for your time.

An American student recovers in a hospital after a brutal attack at a chimpanzee sanctuary in South Africa.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Just about 15 minutes past the hour. Checking our top stories now.

The U.S. Air Force grounds its fire fighting C-130 planes after two crew members died at a crash in South Dakota. We're expecting an afternoon news conference to provide more details on this.

There is encouraging news out of Colorado though. Wet weather is helping crews get more control over the deadly Waldo Canyon fire. That fire is described as the most destructive in the state's history. Fire now 70 percent contained.

In weather news, get ready for another scorcher. Extreme heat warnings are up for parts of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan. The National Weather Service is warning temperatures near or above 100 degrees.

And a wild police chase ends with police dragging a woman out of her truck by her hair. For some reason this woman tried to get back into her vehicle after appearing to surrender to police.

Our affiliate KATZ reports the chase started when police responded to a call about a bizarre acting woman. She hit at least two cars, a power pole and a fence before she was finally cornered by police and arrested.

In South Africa, U.S. graduate student Andrew Oberle is recovering in a hospital after being mauled by two chimpanzees. What we know is that Oberle was leading a tour at a sanctuary for abused animals when he ended up in a restricted area.

For whatever reason he ended up there, it almost cost him his life. CNN asked Oberle's friends if the chimpanzees were provoked.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY REIMHERR, FRIEND OF CHIMP ATTACK VICTIM: I don't really know the full story about what happened in that aspect, but he had been working with chimps and studying them for a very long time. And he knew what he was doing out there, so without knowing all the details, it's really hard to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Nkepile Mabuse is live outside Chimpanzee Eden in South Africa. What's the latest on Andrew's condition, do you know?

NKEPILE MABUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Carol, while we've been out here, we've heard chimpanzees playing and making noises and a lot of experts say that's how people fall in love with chimpanzees, but they are so human-like.

They are laugh sometimes and, of course, when you get too close you realize, like Andrew Oberle did, that they are wild animals and they can attack human beings.

We understand from experts that one male chimpanzee could have the power, equivalent to seven men, two male chimpanzees attacking Oberle last week Thursday. That's the equivalent of 14 men attacking him.

Today, we heard from the hospital that he's still in intensive care, that doctors are quite optimistic about the progress that he's making, but he's still very, very heavily sedated, as you can imagine, after undergoing or experiencing such a serious injury. He's still in a lot of pain -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Can you be more specific about some of his injuries?

MABUSE: Well, you know, we must be honest. We've heard most of the information that we're getting is from the sanctuary themselves and, of course, and investigation that's being conducted by the local tourism and park agency.

They haven't seen Andrew. They haven't interviewed him. Of course, he's sedated in ICU, so this is the account from the sanctuary themselves that he sustained injuries to his head.

We understand from some sources that parts of his body were ripped off, that the hospital not confirming any of this, actually telling us today that Andrew's parents do not want the extent of his injuries told to the media, or they want that information to remain confidential -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Nkepile Mabuse, thank you so much for -- for reporting from South Africa for us this morning.

We don't know for sure what, if any, role scientology played in Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes divorce or pending divorce, I should say, but we do know Cruise's commitment to his faith. His devotion to scientology in his own words.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Now is your chance to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. The question for you this morning, should utility companies be penalized for prolonged power outages?

We've all been there, a monster storm, trees down, power out. Our friends in 11 states from Indiana to Washington, D.C. experienced that over the weekend and still 1.8 million are without power this morning, and they are angry. No, they are furious.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's ridiculous. It's really ridiculous.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. It's not very much longer that I cannot go without water.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Me and my husband rented a motel room just to get a path last night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The D.C.-area power company, Pepco says half of those who lost power in Friday's freak storm already have it back and 90 percent will have it restored by this Friday. What's that, I say, by this Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR VINCENT GRAY, WASHINGTON: This is not the first time. This has happened repeatedly. We've about power outage after power outage in the District of Columbia and frankly, the people are just fed of it.

KEN MALLETTE, DIRECTOR, MARYLAND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT (via telephone): We need that electricity. We have zero tolerance. Well, we want that power back on yesterday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In Ohio, where some 400,000 are still without power, officials say things could have been worse if utilities hadn't buried their power lines after the destruction of Hurricane Ike, but that's little consolation when you're living life in the dark blistering heat with no air conditioning.

I mean, how long is too long to be without power? Should you have to pay for electricity you're not getting or are we coming down too hard on utility companies?

After all, who can control Mother Nature's wrath on all those trees. "Talk Back" question today, should utility companies be penalized for prolonged power outages? Facebook.com/carolcnn. I'll read your responses later this hour.

So, what does the man in charge of the power company serving D.C. have to say about all this criticism? I will ask him when he joins me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's 25 minutes past the hour. Checking our top stories now.

Fire fighters have made progress against the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado. They have stopped the blaze's growth and they are working on putting out hot spots within the more than 17,000-plus acres that have burned. That's a big sign of hopeful news for 3,000 residents who remain under mandatory evacuation orders.

We just learned Barclay's newly appointed COO, chief operating officer, is quitting. Barclay's is one of the world's largest banks. The move comes shortly after the company's CEO resigned.

Both resignations are affected immediately. American and British regulators fined Barclay's $450 million last week for rate fixing during the height of the global financial crisis. Barclay's is one of several banks facing lawsuits over that scandal.

Navy officials say it's highly unusual to have both engines on an F-18 fighter jet go out at the same time. But that's exactly what happened moments before an F-18 crashed into an apartment complex last April. Amazingly, no one was killed in this accident.

Frustration is only building for the nearly 1.4 million people still without power in 11 states in Washington, D.C. It's been several days now since their power has been out.

After powerful storms rolled through, actually those storms killed at least 19 people. The extreme heat isn't helping matters with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees. Patience is wearing thin for those left to sweat it out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a pool, and we have a generator, but a lot of these people don't have nothing. It makes you want to sit down and cry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Been very, very hot, and we're not getting no relief in the liquid form, and people are in dire straits really.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Much of the blame for the continued outages in the D.C. metro area in particular is on Pepco, 117,000 customers are still in the dark and actually still without air conditioning because it's not dark right now.

Joining me now is Pepco Region President Thomas Graham. Welcome, Mr. Graham.

THOMAS GRAHAM, PEPCO REGION PRESIDENT: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So the D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray came out and said your response was agonizingly slow and unacceptable. How do you respond to the mayor?

GRAHAM: Let's talk about where we started from. We started with 443,000 customers out of service. We've been able to restore service to three out of every four customers.

So we're making some great progress. We've been able to secure mutual assistance crews from all over the country, Florida, Oklahoma and as far away as Canada. So we're working 24/7, as hard as we can, but a catastrophic event and our system was literally devastated by that storm.

COSTELLO: I know that this was a freak storm, but the mayor says, you know, there have been past storms and you haven't been prepared for those either, even though you got a warning those storms were coming.

GRAHAM: You know, storms aren't -- Mother Nature isn't something I can control. You can't control the storm, can't control the damage that takes place to our system.

Can't control the mature trees that crash down on the infrastructure on homes and cars, but what we can control is our response. To the extent we could be prepared we were prepared.

To the extent we can get resources from other utilities, we have. We have over 2,700 personnel working on the restoration for our customers on a 24-hour basis.

COSTELLO: Is there a point in your mind when a customer has the right to say, OK, my power has been out for too long and now it's really -- you're to blame, Mr. Utility Company person? I mean, is there a limit in your mind how long a person should be without power?

GRAHAM: Well, I think we have to start with the premise that a customer never wants to be out of service, and --

COSTELLO: But there's a difference between being out of service for one or two days and five or six days.

GRAHAM: Well, I can appreciate, that and I can appreciate the frustration of our customers, but we're doing absolutely everything we can on a 24-hour basis to make sure those customers, the service is restored as quickly and safely as possible.

COSTELLO: I think one of the frustrations is there's no definite date you can give people that their power will be restored, which leaves people like what do I do?

Do I stay in my house in the intense heat? Do I go to a hotel, what do you do because I have no idea when my power is going to be turned back on?

GRAHAM: You know, we're still going through various neighborhoods. The first thing we had to do was secure some of our substations. The supply lines were damaged by trees dropping on them.

Now we're starting to work in the neighborhoods, so you're seeing a stronger presence. We're able to make great progress, but there's a considerable amount of damage. So again, I can understand the frustration of our customers, but they can also see that we're out there and we're out there around the clock for them.

COSTELLO: For those customers who are going to have to do without power for oh, let's say a full week, will there be any, I don't know, a break in their bill perhaps.

GRAHAM: You know -- you know, right now we're focused on the restoration of service. There isn't a provision for that. Right now they're not receiving electricity unfortunately, but we're just working as hard as we can to restore service for them. That's the only thing that's on our mind right now.

COSTELLO: Mr. Graham, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

GRAHAM: Sure, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

COSTELLO: Sure.

Now to the TomKat divorce drama. The big question, how much of a role did scientology play in Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes split? Here's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When it comes to Scientology, Tom Cruise may well be the faith's most combative celebrity defender, famously tearing into NBC's Matt Lauer over the church's repudiation of psychiatry.

TOM CRUISE, ACTOR: Do you know what Adderall is, do you know Ritalin, do you know now that Ritalin is a street drug? Do you understand that?

MATT LAUER, TALK SHOW HOST: The difference is --

(CROSSTALK)

CRUISE: No, no, Matt -- Matt, Matt, I'm asking you a question. Matt I'm asking you question.

LAUER: The difference this was not against her will though. But this one is against her will --

CRUISE: Matt, I'm asking a question.

LAUER: I understand there's abuse of all of these things.

CRUISE: No, you see. Here's the problem. You don't know the history of psychiatry, I do.

FOREMAN: Although Cruise joined Scientology in the 1980s, over the past decade his public identification with the group has been much more pronounced. He's explained his beliefs on talk shows, in the press. And Scientology meetings featuring Cruise with his "Mission Impossible" theme playing in the background and the star giving a military salute to a Scientology leader have appeared in videos like this one posted by RadarOnline.

CRUISE: I think it's a privilege to call yourself a scientologist and it's something that you have to earn, and -- because a scientologist does. He or she has the ability to create new and better realities in improved conditions.

CRUISE: Many of Cruise's statements underscore a central lesson of the faith, that its followers can accomplish great things, again -- RadarOnline.

CRUISE: When you drive past an accident, it's not like anyone else. As you drive past, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you're the only one that can really help. And I won't hesitate to put ethics on someone else because I put it ruthlessly on myself.

FOREMAN: Such talk echoes teachings late out in the 1950s by the faith's founder, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. He created an outline for conduct and advancement. For example through counseling sessions referred to as audits, followers are supposed to be led towards positive thinking and achieving their goals, no matter how ambitious.

Listen again to that RadarOnline video as Cruise talks to fellow devotees about world leaders.

CRUISE: They want help and they are depending on people who know and who can be effective and do it, and that's us.

FOREMAN: That was 2004. By 2005 Cruise was expressing even more enthusiasm over actress Katie Holmes, most notably by jumping around on Oprah's sofa.

So what happened? Holmes, who was raised Catholic, is believed to have converted to Scientology as her relationship with Cruise grew, but in the wake of their split there are reports that she is concerned over their daughter Suri being raised in the faith. But for now neither is addressing those reports.

Holmes attorney called the divorce a private matter and said her primary concern is her daughter's best interests. Cruise's attorney did not respond to CNN inquiries but told the "Los Angeles Times" his client hoped the divorce would not be contentious.

Cruise has spoken dismissively what Scientologists called SPs, suppressive persons, a term used for people who tried to impede the mission of Scientology -- again, RadarOnline.

CRUISE: They said, so like, have you met an SP? And I looked at him and you know, I thought oh, what a beautiful thing because maybe one day it will be like that, you know what I'm saying? Maybe one day it will be that -- wow, SPs, like they will just read about those in the history books. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Tom Foreman reporting.

The auto bailout did not help the auto industry in Janesville, Wisconsin. Now President Obama might have a price to pay with their votes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: "Aiming for the Gold" -- here's a quick look at run-up to the summer games. Remember this photo finish from last month? U.S. sprinters Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix were supposed to have a runoff yesterday to break this third place tie. The winner would compete in the 100-meter dash in London, but at the last minute Tarmoh bowed out of the runoff. She did not give a reason. She will be an alternate at the event in London. Tarmoh had initially been given third place in last month's event before the judge's changed the ruling to a tie.

Forty-five year-old Dara Torres swam in the Olympic trials last night trying to make the U.S. team for the sixth time. Her first Olympics, back in 1984 competing in the 50-meter freestyle she missed out by less than a tenth of a second. Torres later officially announced her retirement with absolutely no regret. Torres is tied for the most Olympic medals by a female swimmer, 12.

The Olympic torch relay was nearly disrupted in the U.K. when two little kids tried to grab it. They ran up to one of the torch bearers breaking through the security bubble that surrounds the flame as it makes its 8,000-mile journey to the London Olympics. No one was arrested.

Tune in tomorrow night to see who is "Aiming for the Gold" in London. And Piers Morgan has a special Independence Day tribute to the pride of America, "2012's Rising Athletes" is a special July 4th "PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" show. That's tomorrow night at 9:00 Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: 41 minutes past the hour. The American auto industry isn't sitting this election out. Autoworkers could play a crucial role in this race, especially in the Rustbelt.

Our Poppy Harlow hit the road driving from Wisconsin, to Indiana, to Michigan and Ohio to take the pulse of voters in key auto towns. All four states elected Obama in 2008. Now Indiana is leaning towards Romney, and Ohio is a tossup. 55 electoral votes up for grabs in these states.

Here's Poppy Harlow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, this town and GM went hand in hand.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): How many years as an auto worker?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 30.7 when the plant closed in Janesville.

HARLOW: This GM plant is more than 4 million square feet. It was filled with thousands of workers until it closed just a few years ago. Some of them took buyouts. Others moved to GM plants in other states and others stayed here in Janesville trying to figure out their place, their job in this once auto town.

(voice-over): I first visited Janesville in 2009 right after GM shut its doors here. Three years later we found Janesville trying to build back.

ERIC KUHNE, FORMER JANESVILLE GM WORKER: It's a town without an identity. A town with more unemployment and more foreclosed homes and more people that want to work that just don't have that option anymore.

VIC GRASSMAN, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR: They want jobs, and they want good jobs.

HARLOW (on camera): Is it still a union town?

GRASSMAN: That's changed. This is not a union-center town anymore.

HARLOW (voice-over): Like it was in '08. It's a heavily Democratic town. You might think it would be a shoe-in for President Obama again but that's not what we found.

JOHN DECKER, FORMER GM EMPLOYEE: We believe that the country needs to change direction.

HARLOW: We met John and Sharon Decker at a Romney rally here. John worked at the GM plant for 36 years, a materials supervisor.

DECKER: Conservative Democrats will not vote for Obama. They're going to vote for somebody who can get this town and this country back on the right track.

HARLOW (on camera): What candidates provides you more of an economic opportunity to make it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's -- it's Mitt Romney no question. What he said today is I'm going to get back to work. I'm going to get you guys to work. I care about it.

HARLOW: We hear the same thing from President Obama.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you see Mitt Romney's proved in as governor. He's proved it when he was working with his company.

MICAH VOSE, ROMNEY SUPPORTER: I know plenty of people who voted for Obama in '08 and are not going to do the same in '12. Like I said there's just disappointment. HARLOW (voice-over): Disappointment that unemployment is still nine percent here, even though improved from more than 15 percent when the plant closed.

BRIAN FITZGERALD, ROMNEY SUPPORTER: I think Obama's real motive was to put union people back to work. It wasn't to save General Motors.

HARLOW: And it didn't save Eric Kuhne's job on the production line. Since the plant closed he's been mowing lawns at the local golf course.

KUHNE: I'm never going to make what I made at GM again.

HARLOW: Still, he supports President Obama and the auto bailout for the jobs it did save.

KUHNE: I believe President Obama is working for the working man. I voted for Reagan twice, ok. I wish I hadn't. Trickle-down economics where we all wait for a couple of quarters to fall out of the fat guy's pocket. This is why we're where we're at.

HARLOW: At Sunset church league softball where we met Lynda Chitek.

(on camera): Who are you supporting?

LYNDA CHITEK, ROMNEY SUPPORTER: Mitt Romney.

HARLOW (voice-over): For two reasons, she says. His opposition for the auto bailout and what he did for the company where she works now.

CHITEK: What he's done for the Staples Store as far as that goes and how he has --

HARLOW (on camera): So his record at Bain Capital?

CHITEK: Yes. I -- I don't think that was a bad thing. He's part of the reason I have a job today.

HARLOW: Should we think of this as a swing state now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. Just look what happened in the recall. We've turned into a Red State.

GRASSMAN: You don't see it on the news, but I think it's going to be a swing state.

KUHNE: Our state is really divided, just like the country is divided.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Let's go to Poppy. She's live in New York City. She's back from her road trip. Poppy, this was a town that really leaned Democratic in the 2008 elections, so what radically changed to change people's minds?

HARLOW: Absolutely it has changed dramatically. What it is, is the UAW is not there anymore. This was a purely union town. They had a massive GM plant, the oldest GM plant in the country, and it's gone. And so is the union and so are those union jobs. And that changes things.

You know, I was talking this morning on the phone again with Vic Grassman, you saw him in the piece. He's head of the Economic Development Corp. He said I think we don't know yet if this county is going to lean towards Romney but it's certainly more split than it has been in a long time.

This is a county that voted for Ted Barrett in that recall election over Governor Walker just about a month ago. But, again, it's a town that is trying to redefine itself. For so long it's been about auto and auto jobs so you do have the people that are very thankful for the bailout but that bailout didn't save or create any jobs in Janesville, Wisconsin.

When you look at the numbers, Carol, there were about 16,000 auto jobs in 2007 in Wisconsin. And if you look at the latest numbers, end of 2011 for Wisconsin, there are about 7,600 auto manufacturing jobs. So they have been cut in half, and we have seen something similar really across the rustbelt.

Tomorrow we're going to take you to Kokomo, Indiana, which is -- it epitomizes an auto town and talk to folks there on both sides of the argument.

COSTELLO: Yes. I can't wait to hear your report from there. That will air tomorrow in the 10:00 Eastern hour of NEWSROOM. Interesting stuff. Poppy Harlow reporting live for us this morning.

Checking our top stories now at 47 minutes after the hour. A Colorado Springs neighborhood burned thanks to those intense wildfires. The fire destroyed nearly 350 homes and damaged dozens more in the city. 3,000 people still under a mandatory evacuation order. Forestry officials say it could be the middle of the month before the Waldo Canyon fire is fully contained.

In Benghazi, Libya demonstrators vowed to stay on the streets until this weekend's national elections, willing to risk their lives to protect polling places. On Sunday dozens of people attacked the electoral commission headquarters. The Saturday's vote to choose a Congress is Libya's first nationwide election in more than four decades.

Look closely. That's a bear in that darn tree. The black bear cub was spotted on the University of South Florida campus early this morning. The bear then moved on to an area outside of Busch gardens. Wildlife officers got close enough to tranquilize the bear. The bear hopefully is now running free and having fun in a national forest.

The heat wave in the upper Midwest is worrying dairy farmers. An extended hot spell last summer caused the deaths of hundreds of cows in Minnesota and Wisconsin. One farmer said his production dropped 30 percent. If something like that happens again this summer, you can expect to pay more for that gallon of milk.

A Berkeley study is a fascinating look at human nature. Does more money make you meaner?

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COSTELLO: Is money really the root of all evil? A fascinating Berkeley study tried to find out the answer to that question. To test the theory, researchers put two players through a game of Monopoly. One of them had no chance of winning, but it was how the leading Monopoly player acted as the game wore on that was shocking. He was described as stone cold as he even took the loser's cash.

So does money make us more inhumane? James Burnett is the news editor of "New York" magazine which published the "Money Empathy Gap", an article on the subject. He joins us live from New York. Hi, Kames.

JAMES BURNETT, NEWS EDITOR, "NEW YORK" MAGAZINE: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So a Monopoly game proved this?

BURNETT: Well, a Monopoly game that is part of a whole emerging field of research. I think it's worth stressing that they are still figuring this out and, you know, they are years away from really strong conclusions. But the patterns are emerging that yes, more income seems to make a person -- I should say, can make a person less ethical, less empathetic, a little bit more selfish, less likely to be generous.

In a different study they found that people of a higher status are more likely to take candy from a bowl meant for children. In another study, drivers of higher status are more likely to cut off other cars or even enter an intersection while a pedestrian is still there. The researcher says it's like they don't even see them, so it's very provocative stuff.

COSTELLO: It is provocative stuff, and I can hear many people who don't quite believe that theory thinking oh, this study was done at Berkeley and the number of studies are in "New York" magazine. This is a liberal elitist dream to say rich people are meaner than others.

BURNETT: Well, the Berkeley researchers do say that, yes, they have a certain ideological motivation or at least, not a motivation, their beliefs are what they are. But they also say the data is the data and the patterns are there.

COSTELLO: But money is power, right? I mean if you have power, let's say you're stronger than someone else and you can display power over another person, that might make you meaner, too, right?

BURNETT: Well, that is true. And there's an interesting sort of chicken and egg question here which is to say do you attain a higher status because you have certain attributes to begin with, or does the income change you? And there is another study, a separate piece of research that says that more -- among men, the more agreeable you are, the less money you make. So the least agreeable people make about $10,000 more on average than the most agreeable.

So that suggests that maybe some of these traits are there before or they are the driver and they are the reason you attain a higher status. But overall it seems like the status effect is real.

COSTELLO: It seems so -- I mean it's just like playing into a stereotype or sort of like saying being poor makes you kinder or lazier or something like that.

BRUNETT: Well, again, they want to be very careful that these are patterns, and in individual cases, you know, people's lives and careers and how much money they make are influenced by a whole host of factors. They are not saying that this is going to be true in every single case. They are looking at aggregate data and that's where the patterns emerge.

COSTELLO: Because obviously there are a lot of kind and generous wealthy people out there, Bill Gates, the Kennedys, George H.W. Bush is involved in a lot of children's charities so you can't paint a broad brush and say rich people are meaner because they have these qualities that make them rich and they are carrying them out and getting meaner through time.

BURNETT: Oh, yes, not at all. In fact, the sort of leading indicator of how much money you give to charity is how much money you make in the first place so that strongly correlates as well.

But there's another bit of research out of the University of Minnesota that takes a different approach. They -- they called -- it's called money priming. So you sit in a room and the screen saver on the computer is flashing dollar bills, or Monopoly money just out on the table while you fill out the questionnaire. You leave the room and you bump into somebody who is working for the researcher and the person drops all these pencils and they found out that people who were in the room with the money, that have been money primed pick up 15 percent fewer of the pencils. It just sort of becomes not their problem. Their focus is elsewhere, so, yes, it's interesting stuff.

COSTELLO: It is interesting, and the article is fascinating. It's in "New York" magazine. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

BURNETT: Thank you.

COSTELLO: We asked to you talk back on one of the big stories of the day. As you know it's pretty hot in much of the country and more than a million people still have no power. So, the question for you this morning, should utility companies be penalized for prolonged power outages? Your responses next.

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COSTELLO: In today's "Daily Dose" scientists are embarking on a three-month project that may help explain how genes cause changes in the body that lead to Alzheimer's. They plan to gather the genetic makeup of more than 800 people. That means they will determine all 6 billion letters in each participants' DNA. The plan was just announced yesterday and is being called the largest most complete genetic mapping project for a single disease.

We asked you to "Talk Back" on one of the big stories of the day. The question for you this morning, should utility companies be penalized for prolonged power outages?

This from Magda, "Instead of short sighted penalties let's use this as another reason the United States needs to upgrade all of its infrastructure. Focus on new energy sources that don't add to the global warming that's causing this extreme weather."

This from Dersan, "Absolutely they should be penalized. Every single service providers expects us to pay on time and if we don't they slap on late fees. Big business never cares about its customers so why should customers be sympathetic towards big business."

This from Christopher. "No way. Should we penalize the fire fighters in Colorado for not putting out the fire? There's only so much they can do in a condensed period of time."

Keep the conversation going, facebook.com/carolcnn, and thanks as always for your comments.

I'm Carol Costello. Thank you for watching today. "CNN NEWSROOM" continues right now with Kyra Phillips.