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Autistic Man Found in Utah After Three Weeks; Losing A Job; Two Escape Great White; New HBO Show; Drug Tunnel Explored; Visiting Comicon
Aired July 14, 2012 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
An autistic man is recovering after wandering for more than three weeks in Utah's Escalante Desert. Rescuers found the 28-year-old man yesterday starving and dehydrated but alive. He says he survived on frogs, roots, and river water.
CNN's Nick Valencia is here with more on this journey.
How did it begin? How did they find him? So many questions.
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is shocking would he would even survive something like this, Fredricka. 28-year-old autistic man, lost in the wilderness for three weeks. What we know what happened to William La Fever. It was about June 6 or June 7, he called his father from Boulder, Utah. Originally, from Colorado Springs. Somehow, some way, without a vehicle he gets to Boulder, Utah. From there he called his father and said he was robbed of his camping gear and needs money to get to Page, Arizona to get to his sister.
Along the way he is detoured and ends up deciding to take this 15-mile long Escalante River hike and he gets lost. By himself. He was with his dog. His dog, his trustee companion, took off on him. And he was by himself when the Department of Highway Patrol and Highway Patrol from Utah found him.
WHITFIELD: How did they find him?
VALENCIA: That is a great question. The pilot that was along for the ride, one of the authorities was along with a pilot, they were recently trained on how to deal with autistic people. They say autistic people are drawn towards bodies of river. So they started along the Escalante River. They spotted him, in fact, the pilot was on earlier today with Randi Kaye on Early Start and this is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHANE OLDFIELD, PILOT, UTAH HIGHWAY PATROL: He was more interested in the little human contact and conversation and a snack. So we convinced him to eat a granola bar or two. Gave him some liquid. Of course after assessing he wasn't in any immediate danger, and let him take his time getting in the helicopter. (END VIDEO CLIP)
VALENCIA: So they say when they found him, he could not even crawl. He couldn't walk. He was rolling around to get around. He was just emaciated, exhausted. He didn't know where he was. He was more interested in the human contact and slowly eating his granola bar than he was on getting into the helicopter and being saved.
WHITFIELD: So sad, but at the same time a great ending to this. What about the family and reporting of him being missing and all that? There seems to have been quite a delay?
VALENCIA: There is a lapse of time here. This is a question where we want to know and I think a lot of people want to know why his family waited so long in reporting it to authorities. It took his sister to call on Monday to the Utah authorities to get them to start the search. He was gone for about three weeks, no contact that we know of with the father or anyone else in the family. But they eventually found him. Thankfully there is a happy ending to this story.
WHITFIELD: Oh gosh. OK. So now he is back at home?
VALENCIA: In stable condition, last check yesterday he was in a Utah hospital in St. George. In stable condition. We checked with the hospital today and couldn't get an update on his condition but we know as of yesterday he was in stable condition.
WHITFIELD: Wow, we wish him the best, what an incredible survival story. Thanks very much Nick Valencia, we appreciate that.
Visa, MasterCard and some of the country's biggest banks have agreed to a massive settlement with retailers that total 7.2 billion dollars. The lawsuit is around credit card swipe fees, merchants allege credit card companies were fixing the price on those fees.
An attorney for the National Association of Convenience Stores told CNN earlier today that his organization isn't supporting the settlement, even though the credit card companies are suspending the fees for eight months.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG KANTOR, ATTORNEY: Well, you have to read the fine print when you deal with credit card companies and that's true here too. When you read the fine print it is eye-opening. They are not going to reduce the fees even for the eight months. What they are going to do is give merchants the equivalent of that amount of cash and keep raising the fees.
The cruel joke is, by the time any merchant gets some of this money, they will have raised the fees on the merchants more than what they paid out in the first place. So merchants are paying for it themselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WHITFIELD: The settlement is still subject to court approval. The family of a Massachusetts man kidnapped in Egypt is making an urgent plea for his release. A tribe captured Pastor Michelle Louis along with an American woman and her Egyptian tour guide yesterday. The three were taken off a tour bus in the country's Sinai region. The kidnappers are demanding Egypt release a family member detained on drug charges in exchange. They are holding negotiations with Egyptian authorities right now.
Meantime U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Egypt to emphasize U.S. support for the country's democratic transition. Tomorrow she meets with the head of the country's military council and today held talks with newly elected president Mohamed Morsi. Morsi is in a power struggle with Egypt's military leaders, which dissolved parliament last month. Clinton says Morsi is ready to unify his country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: President Morsi made clear that he understands the success of his presidency and indeed of Egypt's democratic transition, depends on building consensus across the Egyptian political spectrum. To work on a new constitution at parliament, to protect civil society, to draft a new constitution that will be respected by all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Clinton is also expected to address two touchy issues during that visit, women's rights and equality for Coptic Christians.
Going months, even years without a paycheck? Many out of work Americans are dealing with that very tough reality right now but young people are finding it especially difficult to land that illusive job.
CNN's Sandra Endo explains why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANDRA ENDO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At 19 years old, Tegra Crudup has endured plenty of hardship.
TEGRA CRUDUP, UNEMPLOYED YOUTH: Our house went through foreclosure. And we had to go from house to house living with other people. And that's not comfortable at all.
ENDO: After three years of bouncing around to multiple homes with her single parent mom and three siblings, her living situation took a toll. Crudup was forced to drop out of high school in order to help support her family.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-old looking for a job has more than doubled the 8.2 percent unemployment rate nationwide. In this economy, they're competing against more experienced workers also looking for a job. For many young people, it's their first time entering the job market to gain experience and build a resume. With no job, Crudup is working toward getting her GED, taking classes at a Baltimore youth center.
The down economy coupled with the lack of federal funds for summer job programs is making it tougher for young people to find work. Many state and local governments that are also facing tight budgets are left to find creative ways to invest in their youth.
Twenty-one-year-old Tiye Lewis considers herself lucky. She was hired at Orthopedic Rehab Unit at Baltimore's Mercy Medical Center through a youth jobs program. 7,000 young people registered in the program. 5300 actually got a job.
TIYE LEWIS, YOUTH WORKER: This is what I like to do. So this gives me more experience to show me like how things work so when I get into grad school. If I didn't have this job, I wouldn't be able to pay for some of my bills that I have or for next semester, food, expenses, stuff like that.
ERNEST DORSEY, BALTIMORE EMPLOYMENT DEVELOPMENT: We are hoping that young people learn how to go to work. Learn the soft skills that employers say they want when they hire somebody in terms of being on time, putting in the work every day, being able to follow directions.
ENDO: Federal stimulus money for programs like there one ran out in 2010. But Baltimore partnered with the private sector to keep it going. Officials say investing in youth now will likely pay off in the long run.
Sandra Endo, CNN, Baltimore.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: The Penn State Board of Trustees is already making changes. The group met yesterday. Still reeling from the scathing report on the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. Among its first steps, reducing the time that board members serve from fifteen to twelve years.
Long-term, it must rebuild public trust in the group.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN FRASIER, SPECIAL INVESTIGATION TASK FORCE: We were put on notice of the Attorney General Sandusky investigation, however we allowed the former administration to characterize to us the issues and we failed it ask the right questions, the tough questions. Or to take definitive action. Put simply, we did not force the issue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: And reports said they didn't force the issue, mainly because Joe Paterno wielded so much power. According to "The New York Times", the coach privately renegotiated his contract while the scandal played out in public. Among other perks, he got a three million dollar salary and university forgave a $350,000 loan.
Up close and personal with a shark, a really big one. I talk to the man who lived through it and he says, in fact, he will do it again. He will get back in the water. He's not scared.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Two divers in Australia are counting their blessings today. They got an unexpected visit. Or was it unexpected? Anyway, it was from a 12-foot great white shark during a spear fishing trip about a week ago, and while they managed to escape it, one surfer not far from that same spot did not make it. He was killed by a massive great white earlier this morning near Wedge Island. It is the fifth fatal attack in Australia since September.
CNN International correspondent Jonathan Mann is here with me now, talking about the very scary encounters. It kind of comes with the territory when you are in Australia.
JONATHAN MANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It literally does. Because it is considered the most dangerous place in the world for human encounters with sharks. It is that often. It is not often fatal, which is the good news. But everyone who learns how to dive there learns what they are supposed to do when they encounter a shark because it happens so often.
WHITFIELD: Oh my goodness, well in the case of these two fishermen, they were spear fishing. They say, that you know, they were not in an area that should be infested by great whites. One of the nearest attacks was like 200 kilometers away. But nonetheless, they were prepared, they knew what to do. Earlier I spoke with Nathan Podmore who described the encounter this way.
NATHAN PODMORE, DIVER: There are certain practices that you can follow to make it as safe as possible. Diving with a buddy, which I was and I'm very thankful I was. You never get out of sight of your buddy and not diving in murky waters.
WHITFIELD: So he said, had it not been for that kind of cooperation with that buddy and knowing what to do, they may not have survived.
MANN: Problem is, my buddy would be fish food because I would be going away----
WHITFIELD: You wouldn't abandon your buddy.
MANN: What is so interesting though, and you saw this in the video, the camera is on his head, and they have spear guns. And they could have tried to shoot or kill the shark. And they said, you know what, it's just going to make him angrier.
WHITFIELD: Mad, right.
MANN: That wasn't the word he used when he spoke to us, but they were afraid they would just get him angry. No sense trying anything with the shark, just get away calmly. WHITFIELD: Especially if you miss or nick a fin or something. Don't make that big 12-foot shark mad.
MANN: And we are looking video again from his own camera. Notice there are no bubbles. It is not like he is inhaling and exhaling in anxiety. But he is not even breathing hard. That's the amazing thing. You're not seeing him going --
WHITFIELD: Hyper ventilating.
MANN: Exactly, hyper ventilating. I would have been coughing up the pacific ocean. Up the nose, out the ears. They were so calm and so chill about it. Very Australian.
WHITFIELD: Is that it? That's a very Australian kind of thing. Just Chillie Willie.
MANN: I don't know. Because in my house, there is a bigger reaction from seeing a cockroach.
WHITFIELD: I can relate. All right Jonathan Mann thanks so much. We will be very careful as we go diving. I haven't done the Australian dive yet, and that's kind of why, the great whites. I'm like, nah.
MANN: Good reason.
WHITFIELD: Life in suburbs, what used to mean living the American dream. What happens to that dream when your job goes away and you can't find another job?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: OK, if you're one of those people who dreads going into the gym to get in that workout, tech experts, they come up with something for everybody. They create a solution for you. They put your full body workout in a video game. So, does that mean you can stop going to the gym all together?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jogging, lifting weight. Perfecting a yoga pose. Things you normally do in a gym. But thanks to Nintendo's new Wii Fit Platform, your gym, your trainer, even your yoga mat, are going electronic.
The Wii Fit balance board has several sensors that monitor your every move and keep track of your center of balance, weight and body mass index. You can do yoga, endurance and strength training and fun challenges like a hula hooping contest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel like I'm exercising, so that's the good thing.
GUPTA: Of course Wii Fit isn't the first video game that aims to get kids, even some adults moving. There is Dance Dance Revolution, The Sony I toy, and Wii's other fitness games like tennis and baseball.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is sort of weird.
GUPTA: But what do real life trainers think of their virtual competitors.
ROBERT DOTHARD, FITNESS EXPERT: I enjoyed it. As a professional trainer, I'm always looking for ways it introduce fitness into people's lives. Since the Wii is such a popular game and it is in homes already, it is a great attachment to bring fitness into the home.
GUPTA: Even Nintendo trainers agree the video games should not replace workouts in the gym.
HARLEY PASTERNAK, S FACTOR DIET CREATOR: This is a tool, in your fitness tool kit, just another thing to get you up an moving.
GUPTA: Robert is not concerned by the competition. In fact, he planes it buy the ninety dollar video game to use in his own fitness studios.
DOTHARD: You know, it is something I would use for people who are maybe skittish. Great under a public gym setting who don't want it make the total plunge.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Losing a job can cost you a paycheck. Not finding another one for two years can cost you so much more. Millions of Americans are facing the nightmare of long-term unemployment. Sometimes the challenge is greatest for those who thought they had it all -- a good career and home in the suburbs.
Filmmakers share those stories in the HBO documentary "Hard Times Lost on Long Island." I spoke with producer and director Marc Levin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNA: Being unemployed for two years is not just a financial loss, it's an emotional loss, a loss of friendships. People disappear. You can't socialize. It changes your every facet of your life. I'm panic- stricken. I'm feeling as if I have absolutely nothing.
I don't want to be helped. I want to just help myself. But what we want are jobs. What we need are jobs. In my next job, and I will have a next job, I will thank god every morning and every night for that job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: That was Anna in New York. More than twenty million people can identify with that feeling of losing that job and losing kind of that sense of purpose.
The man who brings us these images and very intimate thoughts, Mark Levin, producer and director of "Hard Times Lost on Long Island."
I think a lot of folks really do forget that your job is more than your source of income. It is kind of the social connection that you may have. It gives you purpose every day. And her loss of a job really kind of underscores that it's not just the job that you lose, but you lose almost a sense of self as well.
MARC LEVIN, DIRECTOR: Absolutely, Fredricka. That is one of the things that is most surprising. Obviously the financial loss is serious. But the loss of identity, the loss of a sense of where you fit in, as she said, it's almost like you disappeared. You're invisible.
And that's kind of one of the unique elements about people, I guess, who have been successful all their lives. Living what we would call the good life on long island, is that instead of kind of gathering together, they're isolated in homes that look nice, in neighborhoods that look beautiful, they look like our ideal. Behind them you see the psyche of people like this disintegrating.
WHITFIELD: You focus on Levittown. Why? You say in the piece that suburbs are experiencing the fastest growth of people who are losing their jobs, losing their houses, et cetera. But what is it about that place on Long Island that made you want it zero in?
LEVIN: Well, Levittown is iconic. You see in the sign in the film it claims to be the first suburb. It is the model for the post World War Two suburbia that so many of us grew up with. In that sense it is a symbol of the good life. The American dream. The social contract. And as you just mentioned, when I first became aware that after the census of 2000 that the fastest growing area of poverty in our country was in the suburbs, I was just stunned by that fact.
WHITFIELD: Among those you profiled, the chiropractor by the name of Dave and his wife, who is a teacher, Heather, she lost her job. He lost an awful lot of business. And they already had a lot to deal with at home with one child who is Down Syndrome and another small child. And they talk about how they thought education would protect them from the demise of unemployment or loss of income.
LEVIN: So many of us have grown up and we've heard, get a good education, be a responsible citizen. And you know, the social contract is that you are going to have a secure life. You don't have to be rich, but a secure life and hopefully give your kids even a better shot.
WHITFIELD: Was it difficult to get them to open up in the way in which they did and to take them back to the workplace? One gentleman back to Wall Street. in his suit and tie. He talked about looking for a job daily. I just wonder how difficult it was for them personally to reflect to be in the environment where they lost their jobs and to return to tell their stories to you.
LEVIN: It was very difficult. I give these people a lot of credit for their courage. Because we spoke to a lot of people. The majority of them didn't want to go on camera. You know, discussing the personal finances. It is amazing. That's like, the final privacy zone. I was stunned by how many people feel ashamed. Even if they're victims and casualties of this great recession that had nothing to do with their work or how they performed. There is still an amazing sense of shame and isolation and guilt.
WHITFIELD: Yes. There was a sense of shame for a lot of people and almost relief for being able to share it openly like that. Marc Levin, thanks so much. Director and producer of Hard Times, Lost on Long Island. Playing right now on HBO. Very powerful stuff.
LEVIN: Thank you. And yes, can you get it on HBO, HBO Go and HBO On Demand, thank you.
WHITFIELD: Thank you so much, Marc.
LEVIN: Thank you, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: You can have seen the stories about those underground tunnels that drug traffickers use for smuggling narcotics. But you have never seen one quite like this. We take you inside with the DEA, we see the most sophisticated tunnel yet.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: A check of your top stories. George Zimmerman, the man charged with killing seventeen year old Trayvon Martin, wants a new judge. His legal team have asked for Kenneth Lester to step down accusing him of bias. They filed a motion saying the judge made disparaging remarks about their client's character.
In Texas, neighborhoods around Houston are flooded after getting slammed by torrential rain. Rescue crews in Houston scrambled to save dozens of people from the flash floods, including kids from a baseball day camp.
This amazing first to tell you about. Eighteen year-old Connor Boss is the first legally blind contestant in the Miss Florida USA beauty pageant. Boss suffers from hereditary eye disease that causes her vision to get progressively worse. Her chances are as good as anyone else's but she says she is competing to inspire people, not necessarily to win.
Now to Arizona where federal drug agents were shocked to find one of the most sophisticated drug smuggling tunnels yet. It is longer than two football fields connecting Mexico to Arizona.
CNN's Casey Wian and his cameraman went inside to give you an up-close look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the way agents first discovered this tunnel a few days ago, under this giant container of water. Over here, you can still see fifty five-gallon drums that contain the dirt that was dug out of this tunnel, stretching two hundred and forty yards across the U.S.-Mexico border.
DOUGLAS COLEMAN, DEA SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: This is the most sophisticated one I've ever seen in Arizona.
WIAN: And what makes it that?
COLEMAN: Because of the way that it's designed. It's not -- most tunnels we have in Arizona, those are just digging through dirt to get into the sewer system, using the sewer system and then punching out again. This one, I mean, when you look down that hole, you're going to see it is completely 4" by 6" all the way, plywood all the way around it, rebar in there, reinforced.
WIAN (voice-over): The tunnel is so narrow and so deep, CNN photojournalist John Torigoi (ph) and his camera needed to descend separately --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clear the shaft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clear the shaft!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
WIAN (voice-over) -- each with the help of a harness.
WIAN: It gets even smaller?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It gets smaller a little smaller toward Mexico. Yes, we'll actually have to crawl if you were to get a whole lot further.
WIAN: There is actually no dirt in here. It is very clean. And there is light. There is electricity. And there's a fan, even.
WIAN (voice-over) U.S. authorities have found 156 cross-border tunnels since the early 1990s. Lately they have become more sophisticated as drug detection technology above ground improves.
WIAN: Agents had this area under surveillance since January. The way the tunnel was actually discovered, Arizona public safety officers pulled over a pickup truck on the highway north of here, discovered 39 pounds of methamphetamine. After interviewing the occupants of the truck, they linked it to this facility and they now have three suspects in custody -- Casey Wian, CNN, San Luis, Arizona.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, ANCHOR, CNN NEWSROOM: And here is a question for you. Are you tired of seeing your smartphone die halfway through your day? Ways to extend your phone's battery life.
And if you have to go out today, just a reminder. You can continue watching CNN from your mobile phone. You can also watch CNN live from your desktop. Just go CNN.com/TV.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: Are you using your smartphones to text, listen to music, surf the Web, even watch CNN all while on the go? Well, that can take a toll on your phone's battery life. Our tech expert Marc Saltzman joins us now via Skype from Toronto with ways to extend your smartphone's battery.
All right, Marc, good to see you.
MARC SALTZMAN, TECHNICAL EXPERT: You too, Fred.
WHITFIELD: So there are a lot of dum-dums like me who have these smartphones and had no idea that there are all these features that we need to be manipulating better. So let's begin with a -- OK. I get the brightness of your screen. You say if you turn that down a little bit, that may be one tip to saving your battery.
SALTZMAN: OK. So you cut out for a sec, but I think you asked the first tip which is on dimming the brightness of your screen.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
SALTZMAN: So if you can hear me, then, great, we are back live again. And that's the first thing you're going to want to do.
You don't need your phone's screen on super bright, because the brighter the screen, the faster it will drain the battery. So that the first thing you are going to want it do is just to dumb it down a little bit, so you got maybe half brightness or quarter brightness and you are good to go for the day.
WHITFIELD: OK. Then, why do I not know what you mean, when -- what is a push notification? What is that?
SALTZMAN: Well, a lot of apps or software that we use on our favorite smartphones send you information. It could be, for example, a sports app that pushes live sports scores to your phone. Like if you're a fan of the Yankees, it will tell you when they've got another run.
Or an e-mail can be pushed to your phone instead of you logging in to pull it down. The more apps that push information to your phone, the faster your battery is going to drain. And not all of your apps need that push notification turned on.
It is very easy to turn them off. You can actually go to your options or settings menu and manually tick off which apps you really need to know about whenever there is a change, like a new level in a video game. I think you could probably wait until you log on to play before you read that there is a new level or someone beat your high score.
WHITFIELD: Oh my goodness. OK. And then if you have wireless technology on your phone, like a GPS, wi-fi, all that good stuff, you need to turn it off.
Uh-oh. Did we lose Marc? Uh-oh, well, I didn't mean to turn off our Marc, on our Skype there. But it looks like we lost that connection with him. So hopefully we can get him back and he can help us out and figure out how to navigate our smartphones so we can maximize that battery life.
So how about other tech ideas that you might have or even reviews from Marc Saltzman. You can always go to CNN.com/tech, or you can follow Marc Saltzman on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Hopefully, again, we can reconnect. But just in case we can't, that's how you find him.
All right. When you see the wound, you will wonder how this man survived. That's a knife blade right there, embedded in his neck. We will tell you how it got there and how lucky he is to be alive.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: A Massachusetts prison guard is lucky to be alive today. He is recovering after an inmate stabbed him in the neck with a homemade knife. Inmates call it a shank. Well, look at the x-ray right there.
Doctors say the blade barely missed his spinal cord by a half centimeter. The surgery to remove the knife took six hours. He and two other unarmed guards were monitoring 93 inmates when he was shanked.
In a terrifying car crash in New Jersey, captured by traffic cameras, set up to actually catch people who run red lights, well, the car driving towards the camera does just that, as you are about to see.
After running the light, hitting another car, then going airborne then crashing into that median pole. You will see it again. The driver suffered minor injuries and was arrested for drunk driving. Fortunately no one was hurt. Officials released the video to show the dangers of running red lights.
In post-apartheid South Africa, many hoped that life would improve for everyone. Well, unfortunately, some of the slums, such as Kliptown, have been left behind. Today's CNN Hero is doing everything he can to help the community's next generation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THULANI MADONDO, CNN HERO: Since the apartheid time, Kliptown has not changed. There is no electricity. People are living in shacks. Growing up in Kliptown makes you feel like you don't have control over your life. Many children drop out of school because they don't have the school uniforms and textbooks. I realized that the only way that Kliptown could change was through education.
I'm Thulani Madondo. I'm helping educating the children so that we can change Kliptown together.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Speaking foreign language).
MADONDO: We help the children by paying for their school books, school uniforms.
That's good lunch. Our main focus is our tutoring program that we run four days a week. As young people who are born and raised here, we know the challenges of this community. And we also do a number of activities. We've got to come together for fun, while we are also coming together for academics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The program gave me a chance to go to the university. (Inaudible) paid for my fees. That's why I also come back and help out here. A little can go a long way.
MADONDO: What's up (inaudible) that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Math and science.
MADONDO: Math and science? And English.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MADONDO: (Inaudible).
MADONDO (voice-over): I did not go to university . But being able to help them, I feel excited.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am going to be an accountant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to be a lawyer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm going to be a nurse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
MADONDO: The work that you are doing here is bringing change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: And remember, all of our heroes come from your nominations. So if you have someone that you would like to tell us about, go to CNNHeroes.com. All right, a little Internet problem. I can't stop our Mark Saltsman.
We were talking about smartphones, guess what, now he is on a smartphone which is why we are going to be able to continue talking with him next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, before the break, we were talking to our Marc Saltzman via Skype. He's in Toronto and talking about how to extend the battery life of your smartphone. Well, now Marc is back because, guess what? He is on a smartphone with extended battery life.
All right. We went through a couple of things that folks can do. Let's talk about these wireless radios. We are talking about wireless technology like GPS and wi-fi. You apparently want to turn it off. Don't keep it on all the time? SALTZMAN: That's right. So by default, most of them are on always on your smartphone like Bluetooth or GPS or wi-fi or something called NFC that lets you make mobile payments on a terminal at a retail store.
If you are not using many or most of those wireless radios that are under the hood of your smartphone, turn them off, because the more radios that have you on, the more -- the faster the battery will drain. So definitely go into your options or settings menu and check off the ones you do not need.
WHITFIELD: All right. And sometimes you're on an app, you think you've exited that app but then come to find out you haven't. And that certainly eats up a lot of your battery juice, too.
SALTZMAN: Yes, so the iPhone is a big culprit for this one. People press that circle button at the bottom of the iPhone and they think that they've exited out of the app, when in fact it still might be running in the background.
For example, if you are using GPS and you get to your destination so you press the circle button to close it, you might hear a half an hour later, "Turn left in 500 feet," because it is still on, just running in the background.
So with an iPhone -- and again, this is where a lot of users experience it the most, you double tap the home button. You will see apps that are open at the bottom of your screen. Just press and hold to close those apps. And that way it'll preserve your battery life a lot more.
WHITFIELD: Wow. And then you say you need to lock your smartphone. I mean, is that just turning it off completely before you put it away?
SALTZMAN: (Inaudible).
WHITFIELD: Uh-oh.
SALTZMAN: (Inaudible) but a lot of us are guilty of it. When you put your smartphone away for a while, whether it's in your purse or your pocket, there is usually a hard button, like an actual button on the smartphone that you can press that will prevent you from accidentally calling somebody, you don't want to pocket dial someone. That could be embarrassing.
And for the purposes of our discussion, using the phone when you don't mean to, your pocket might be playing a song and now you have got your playlist playing for a couple hours and that will take a toll on the battery.
So the last tip is kind of an easy one but one that we often overlook, just press that little lock button, which should be somewhere around the smartphone. Then put it away. That way you will be able to preserve battery because you are actually turning off the phone from you accidentally touching it.
WHITFIELD: All right, excellent. Thanks so much, Marc Saltzman, thanks for dialing back in. And this time using that phone that you have the batteries charged on. So smart and clever.
(LAUGHTER)
WHITFIELD: So again.
SALTZMAN: Have a great weekend.
WHITFIELD: You too. So for more great high-tech ideas and reviews from Marc Saltzman, just go to CNN.com/tech, where you can follow Mark directly on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
In this week's "Human Factor," CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta introduces us to a social worker who always dreamed of helping cancer patients. But Richard Dickens never imagined that he'd have to fight his own battle with the disease.
RICHARD DICKENS, SOCIAL WORKER AND CANCER SURVIVOR: Would ask you first to just take three deep breaths. And I know --
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Richard Dickens is a social workers who works exclusively with cancer patients. Here he's using meditation to help patients cope.
DICKENS: It really is just calming the body and quieting the mind.
GUPTA (voice-over): Dickens knows all too well the emotional struggle of being sick. As he was looking forward to graduate school to become a social worker, he got devastating news.
DICKENS: I got the invitation to Columbia University, my number one choice on a Monday, and a cancer diagnosis the next day.
GUPTA (voice-over): At 37, he was diagnosed with advanced non- Hodgkin's lymphoma. He underwent six months of aggressive chemo and a bone marrow transplant. But he didn't give up his dream of helping others.
DICKENS: Without ever anticipating I would get cancer, I wanted to work with cancer and AIDS patients.
GUPTA (voice-over): During his illness he stumbled across CancerCare. It's an organization that helps people thru the emotional and financial maze that comes with cancer.
DICKENS: Riding on the New York City subway to my doctor's appointment I'm looking up at the advertisements and there was one for CancerCare. I got into a young adult group during that time and learned a lot from a lot of other people, and felt safe sharing that.
GUPTA (voice-over): Once in remission, he was able to start grad school at Columbia.
DICKENS: Well, we do have a very small grant. It is --
GUPTA (voice-over): After graduating, he began working for CancerCare and started to run the very support group he previously participated in as a patient. Today, he's CancerCare's mind-body project coordinator.
DICKENS: My life is definitely very rich, very rewarding and I feel I'm where I'm supposed to be. And people keep coming back. So I am confident that they are getting a lot from me. And I hope so.
GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
WHITFIELD: All right. Richard considers himself cured now. He shares his thoughts on his journey, his blog, which you can find at CNNHealth.com.
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WHITFIELD: Comic book lovers, sci-fi and pop art fans are in San Diego this week. You know why. It is the annual Comic-Con convention. You see them here. A lot of them dressing as their favorite characters and of course they have panels of experts talking about lots of interesting stuff. Especially the all-important question, what is the future of comic books?
And you know, our movie critic, Grae Drake, is always out of this world. Well, today she is really taking it to the extreme. Grae -- or should I say Judy Jetson -- joining us from Comic-Con?
GRAE DRAKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I was so overjoyed when I heard a rumor that came true and I found Rosie! Come on in. A Rosie --
(CROSSTALK)
WHITFIELD: Judy Jetson at Comic-Con, San Diego.
DRAKE: This is why Comic-Con Is unbelievable, because I was here by myself and now I have my amazing maid by my side to clean up my mess and now I don't have to litter in San Diego.
WHITFIELD: So what is happening in general at Comic-Con? The characters are out from every genre of television, film, sci-fi, you name it.
DRAKE: Yes, everyone is here and walking the halls is like a feast for your eyes. Not only because half of them are half-naked, OK.
But you've got Superman, you've got guys from "Game of Thrones," you've got men in kilts, you've got people that are wearing crazy rainbow dreadlock wigs. Every character you can possibly think of and also people that just like putting on ridiculous costumes just for fun. It is fantastic.
Comic-Con is affectionately known as Nerd Prom, because we all come here and day-to-day maybe we feel like a little lonely. And we're kind of by ourselves because nobody else likes to put on pink PVC latex. But then you can show up here and you're among family and then you find people like this.
Oh, Rosie, I'm so glad you're here. Comic-Con is my dream come true, because I get all the movie scoops and it is super exciting. Like yesterday they had the -- they premiered footage from the "Twilight: Breaking Dawn" final film.
This is part two. It's like the fifth movie in the series. The cast was all there. We got to see footage from the film. It is going to be bonkers. I'm not even a huge fan of that series; if you recall, I don't review them very well. But I think this last movie might totally change my mind. Comic-Con wins again.
WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh! OK. Now let's talk about something else that may be at the theaters for a lot of folks this weekend: "Ice Age: Continental Drift." What do you think? Tell me about it.
DRAKE: Well, my positivity is going to be squelched just a little bit when I talk about "Ice Age 4." Yes, because we started out with "Ice Age," and I did like it on the level that it teaches kids that woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers do exist together in history, which is a bonus. Then it goes in kind of that back door way that they don't know they're learning.
But it was a pretty thin premise to begin with. And now, four films later, they haven't really taken it anywhere. So this most recent film, it's not very funny. And it really just ends up being a lot of action pieces followed by other action pieces, linked together by a couple lines of lousy dialogue. I was bummed out.
WHITFIELD: So it's a little frozen in time for you. So what was your grade?
DRAKE: Oh, as an adult watching a kids' film, I had to give this one a D. Your kids are going to be entranced by the action. It never stops in this film. But as an adult, you might as well skip the cost of the ticket. It is just --
WHITFIELD: Maybe it's something you have just got to find the kid in you to really appreciate it.
DRAKE: Umm, I generally don't have a ton of trouble finding the kid in me.
WHITFIELD: I realized that once it left my mouth. I'm like, who am I talking to?
She is so funny, that Grae Drake, I mean Judy Jetson and Rosie the Robot there. And remember, you can get all of Grae's, I mean Judy's movie grades at fandango.com and movies.com. So zany and fun.
All right. Negotiations to win the release of two Americans kidnapped in Egypt. Well, that's intensifying. We'll have the latest information, a live report from Egypt at the top of the hour.
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WHITFIELD: Now an inspiring story from Oklahoma City, a mother who lost both her arms and her leg to a bad infection is now regaining her independence. Dana Howard had her limbs amputated less than a year ago. Well, now she can drink water and use this prosthetic hand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) squeeze it a little tighter. OK. Good.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yay! You're drinking.
DANA HOWARD, AMPUTEE: Thank you, God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's good crying. Let it go.
WHITFIELD: Wow, what an incredible moment. Doctors say she still has a lot of recovering to do. Her family is hoping the donations will help them buy a special van to help her get around. All the best to her.
