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American Morning
Number of Autistic Children Growing; Questions over Afghanistan Strategy Mount; Chicago Loses Olympics Bid; Full Plate President: Taking on too Much at Once; Markets Caution Ahead; Violence at Work on the Rise: Co-workers Over the Edge
Aired October 05, 2009 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: That brings us now to the top of the hour. It's 7:00 eastern on this Monday. It's the 5th of October. Thanks for joining us on the most news in the morning. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us. Here's what's on the agenda. These are the big stories we are going to be breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes.
More children than ever are being diagnosed with some degree of autism, and the new government numbers are staggering. Alina Cho is following the story for us this morning.
ROBERTS: Plus a daring attack by militants in eastern Afghanistan, eight American troops killed. This as President Obama's national security adviser says, quote, "I don't foresee the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan." Will this affect the president's war strategy? We're live from the Pentagon just ahead.
CHETRY: Also, the brutal murder of a grad student at Yale University putting workplace violence in the spotlight. Harassment, bullying, fights, the numbers show that these problems are only getting worse. Our Carol Costello is taking a look in our special series "When Co-workers Kill."
But first we start with some alarming new information about autism and U.S. children. According to a new report the number of cases in the U.S. has been severely underreported.
ROBERTS: And the real figures are staggering. One out of every 91 children has got autism. That's a dramatic increase from just a few years back.
Our Alina Cho now is here with details. Hey, Alina.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys.
The number that's floating around for the past several years is one in 150 children. Today the CDC is releasing new numbers, and they are staggering -- one in 91 children in the United States, one in 58 boys diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. That amounts to more than 1 percent of the population of children.
Pretty scary stuff. And what's worse, many say we as a nation are wholly unprepared to deal with it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHO: If there was any doubt about the extent of autism, look here -- 27,000 families, all affected by autism, walking for a cause.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty soon there won't be anybody that doesn't know somebody that has a child with autism. We're everywhere.
CHO: A new comprehensive government study says one in 91 children in the United States has autism spectrum disorder, 673,000 children, more than 1 percent of the population of kids aged three to 17. Boys are four times more likely than girls to be diagnosed, one in 58.
The Centers for Disease Control calls the study significant, autism a serious issue that warrants urgent attention.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is staggering. It's quite amazing, and I wish we had the answers for what's going on.
MARK ROITHMAYR, PRESIDENT, AUTISM SPEAKS: Is there a better diagnosis? Yes. Is there a wider diagnosis? Yes. But it doesn't act for the striking numbers. Something else is going on. There's something else that's going on is we don't know.
CHO: A medical mystery. The study's authors say part of the increase can be attributed to more awareness. Doctors are more willing to make the diagnosis than even three years ago. Parents are more willing to talk about it.
But that doesn't explain everything. Buried in these numbers, they say, is a true increase.
Ari Cantor is moderate to severely autistic. He can read, write, even cook, but only with the help of his parents. At 13 he's still a child, but soon Ari will grow up. Then what?
CHO (on camera): They really have nowhere to go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nowhere to go. And we are wholly unprepared to help them. They made need different supports.
CHO: Such as?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Such as they may need a job coach.
CHO (voice-over): Ari's father's great hope?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That he finds a place in society and society finds a place for him. I'm not smart enough to know what that place is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's the greatest fear. What will happen to him when we're gone? Who will love him? Who will watch him to make sure he's OK? Who would take care of him? (END VIDEOTAPE)
CHO: That is the challenge of all parents of children with autism.
The authors of the study say if there were 673,000 children on the spectrum right now, it simply won't be too long before there are 673,000 adults with autism. And that presents special challenges with respect to housing, employment, social services, and education.
The study's authors say that's why this report is so significant and the mandate now, guys, is to look very closely as how well prepared we are as a nation to do deal with this. And even the authors of the study say we're just not there yet.
CHETRY: It's very eye-opening to say the least. Alina Cho, thanks so much.
ROBERTS: One in 91 is a staggering figure.
To the war in Afghanistan now, and the deadliest day there for American forces in nearly 15 months. Eight U.S. troops were killed after militant attacked a pair of bases near the Pakistan border over the weekend.
The attacks coming just as the president's national security adviser says Afghanistan is not in immediate danger of falling back into the hand of the Taliban.
For more let's bring in our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. And Barbara, what do we know about this attack over the weekend?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: John, as you say, this was a very remote area in northeastern Afghanistan right up against the Pakistani border, a remote combat outpost. Militants had the advantage. They were on the high grounds firing from mountain ridgelines down into in this combat outpost area.
The firefight raged, we are told by sources, for nearly 12 hours, U.S. troops throwing everything they could at the militants, but the militants had mortars, rockets, heavy machine guns. The weather was bad and made it tough to get air power into that area, a very tough firefight.
You know, these remote combat outposts are pretty much scheduled to be abandoned because they're very tough to defend, U.S. troops very vulnerable. And right now there aren't enough U.S. troops to man them all.
So a very tough day for the U.S. military, once again, when this is all in the headlines, John.
ROBERTS: On that point of not enough troops and how many troops there need to in Afghanistan, national security advisor Jim Jones appeared on "State of the Union" with John Kind over the weekend. He chastised General Stanley McChrystal for publicly promoting his call for more troops in the Afghanistan before the president has decided on what the strategy should be going forward. Let's listen to what the general said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. JIM JONES (RET.), NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Ideally it's better for military advice to come up through the chain of command, and I think that General McChrystal and the others in the chain of command will present the president with not just one option, which does, in fact, tend to have a forcing function, but a range of options that the president can consider.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Barbara, what's the reaction there at the Pentagon? Is there growing friction between military and civilian leaders? And do the generals feel pressure to come up with alternatives to McChrystal's plan?
STARR: I don't know if it's really open friction at this point, but let's say it's a little bit of untidiness for the White House that prides itself on no drama, the national security adviser giving a bit of a smack down to the top commander in the field.
We talked to sources very close to General McChrystal who say he is simply offering his opinion. He believes full-blown counterinsurgency, perhaps requiring tens of thousands of more troops, is the way to go, and that if he had another view, he would have offered it.
You know, General Jones there saying that General McChrystal will offer other ideas, so far General McCrystal's people say maybe not - John.
ROBERTS: Barbara Starr for us at the Pentagon this morning. Barbara, thanks.
CHETRY: Also new this morning, President Obama's national security adviser, General Jones, says the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" ban will be dealt with, quote, "at the right time." General Jones telling CNN's John King the president has an awful lot on his desk.
The hot button issues has been a lightning rod for gay rights groups and also top Defense Department officials who want the Obama administration to suspend the program.
ROBERTS: Dramatic new video of a fast moving southern California wildfire. The fire has scorched more than 7,000 acres and destroyed three homes. It's only 20 percent contained at the moment. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for San Bernardino County where thousands have been ordered to evacuate. CHETRY: It's a crucial week in the fight against the swine flu. The first doses of the H1N1 vaccine will be available today to people in Indiana and Tennessee. Those are the first state health departments getting it. Other states receive will receive their shipments later in the week.
They say that pregnant woman, health care workers, and people with special health care conditions including heart disease and diabetes are supposed to get the vaccine first.
ROBERTS: You ever gone bungee jumping?
CHETRY: Heck no.
ROBERTS: I tried to in 1999 in New Zealand, the place where they invented it. Sometimes it goes right and sometimes it goes wrong.
Here's some amazing video. Before you see it, we want you to know that the man you're about to see is alive and he is recovering. He is a British tourist who was visiting Thailand, Phuket island. He went bungee jumping, and things went horribly wrong. Watch. Whoops.
According to the U.K. paper "The Daily Mail," he jumps from 165 feet over this lagoon, but instead of the cord snapping him back up, his feet slipped out of the harness.
Doctors say he had injuries like a car crash victim. He landed on his chest -- a ruptured spleen and collapsed lungs and heavy bruises. But he hit the water chest first. If he hit it headfirst he might not have actually survived.
There's no good way to go in the water here with that...
CHETRY: You asked me do I go bungee jumping. There's exhibit A for heck no. How can you trust it? What if the cord is too long and smack down even if you don't slip out of the harness?
ROBERTS: The place I went, which was Hackett bungee, which was, again, the people that invented it. We were there on a presidential trip, and everybody from the White House was doing it.
CHETRY: Did the president do it?
ROBERTS: The president didn't do it, but Gene Sperling, his chief economic adviser, did. And I said to myself, if Sperling can go bungee jumping, Roberts can go bungee jumping too.
CHETRY: So you were the victim of a "everyone in the press corps is doing, mom."
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Exactly, exactly.
CHETRY: Wow. ROBERTS: It turned out better than that, which is good.
CHETRY: He's lucky to be alive.
ROBERTS: That was a year ago, too, and he's still recovering.
CHETRY: It's 11 minutes after the hour. When we come back, we're going to get our political panel talking about some of the big issues -- the president going all the way to Copenhagen, not getting the Olympic bid for Chicago, and some other questions about what's going on with huge challenges like Afghanistan. That's still ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
No matter what side of the aisle you're on politically, one thing that everyone pretty much agrees on is the president has certainly got a lot on his plate.
So in the spirit of true Monday-morning quarterbacking, seeing as how it's Monday morning, we're asking did the president waste valuable team and political capital in his quest to win Chicago the 2016 Olympics, especially when the city got knocked out in the first round or was it a prudent thing for the president to do?
Let's get some perspective from former communications director of the Democratic National Committee Karen Finney, also Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ed Rollins here with us. Good morning to both of you.
So if history is any guide, you don't pull out your big gun, Karen, unless you're reasonably assured of success here. so was it the right thing for the president to go to Copenhagen and lobby for Chicago considering how badly it did in the voting?
KAREN FINNEY, FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Politically speaking it was a risky decision. And I think there are -- there's a lot of questions about, you know, was that the right decision now that we know knocked out in the first round? That was a little bit surprising.
But I think you can't fault the president for going to advocate for America and for American jobs. And I do think that the Republicans are going to suffer a little backlash if they keep up this chant of cheering for the fact we didn't win.
In essence you heard a number of stories about Rush Limbaugh was jubilant. That's not just rooting against Obama, but America.
ROBERTS: What about you, Ed? Were you cheering the fact that Chicago didn't win?
ED ROLLINS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: No. I wanted Chicago to win. And I always want America to win. You know, was it a wasted trip? Yes. It doesn't matter anymore. It's over and it's last week's story. And I think the bottom line is somewhere along the line he didn't have good a voter counter as you would normally think the White House would have.
ROBERTS: But could he ignore it, though, particularly when you consider that British prime ministers lobbied for the London Olympics, and other world leaders -- Lula Silva was lobbying for Rio de Janeiro -- did he have to do this?
ROLLING: I think his own instincts, which two or three weeks ago was I have too much on my plate, I'm not going to go, were right. I think he got talked into it at the end of the day. And obviously, it's a...
ROBERTS: He felt a lot of pressure.
It's a one-day story. It's gone. It's now about Afghanistan. It's now about health care.
FINNEY: But also, you know, having been on Air Force One and done work on Air Force One, I mean, the plane is equipped to do work, so we shouldn't get -- you know, think that he just got on a plane and focused on the Olympics and didn't have time to focus on anything else.
ROLLINS: He should -- he should have spent a little bit more time with McChrystal.
KINNEY: That might have been nice.
ROLLINS: I think a 25-minute stop to give his wife a tour of the plane was not quite sufficient considering what's coming up.
ROBERTS: Well, "Saturday Night Live" had a little bit of fun at the president's expense over the weekend. A little skit about what he promised to do and what he's accomplished so far. Let's roll the videotape and we'll talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, PLAYING PRESIDENT OBAMA: Take a look at this checklist. Now, on my first day in office -- on my first day in office, I said I'd close Guantanamo Bay. Is it closed yet? No.
I said we'd be out of Iraq. Are we? Not the last time I checked.
I said I'd make improvements in the war in Afghanistan. Is it better? No, I think it's actually worse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: It's comedy, but is there a shred of truth in there?
FINNEY: There's a shred of truth. But look, I do think a lot of the things that the president has started to put in place like the stimulus package are going to take some time to really, you know, sort of bear out the fruits of that. The Iraq decision, we're beginning to withdraw. He's about to make a decision on Afghanistan, so it's going to be a little bit of time.
ROBERTS: Yes. Let's talk a little bit about Afghanistan here. Let's go the real serious point here. Eight soldiers killed over the weekend. The worst attack in 15 months.
General Jim Jones seemed to dress down General Stanley McChrystal suggesting that that speech that he did promoting his position wasn't the wisest thing to do. Are you getting some -- picking up some friction here, Ed, or pressure from the generals in the Pentagon to have more than one option?
ROLLINS: I think the game has changed dramatically for the generals. I think under President Bush and Vice President Cheney who had kind of a war mentality, they were very much at the table.
I think McChrystal went into Afghanistan assuming he had that same premise that the president asked him to go, asked him to come up with an assessment. I think you now have other voices that aren't quite so pro-war, and I think to a certain extent I think McChrystal made a mistake by going out in public and advocating. I'm a big advocate of the military. I think this is a very capable man, but I think this president has made a very deliberate decision that I'm not making the decision for a while.
FINNEY: Well, look, I also think we have to realize we learned a lot from our mistakes in Iraq. And obviously there are significant differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. But we have to put some of those mistakes to use as we're making the decision in Afghanistan, meaning, you know, General McChrystal himself said it's not just about troops, it's about diplomacy, it's about development. So I think part of the argument you're seeing were the discussions you're seeing is what's the right complement of troops? What does success mean? What does winning mean?
ROBERTS: One quick issue I just want to deal with. The Dalai Lama is going to be in town this week. For the first time since 1991, not meeting with the president because the president doesn't want to upset China before his meeting with the premier, Hu Jintao.
Good idea? Bad idea?
ROLLINS: It's a very important thing because the Chinese right now are the most important potential ally that we have particularly in the...
ROBERTS: So you agree with putting this off?
ROLLINS: I would agree at this point.
FINNEY: I think it's going to disappoint a number of folks on the left, but politically speaking, it's probably the right decision.
ROBERTS: All right. Karen Finney, Ed Rollins, always great to see you. Thanks so much.
ROLLINS: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Eighteen and a half minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's almost 20 minutes past the hour. We're all here just, you know, talking -- you know, because there's a lot going on this morning.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That was a short break. I thought we had 25 more seconds. Sorry, guys.
ROBERTS: We're about to open a beer. Good thing we didn't.
ROMANS: So we're talking about the Dow this morning and what's been happening with the markets. And a lot of people have been asking you where do we go from here? Because we have seven months in a row of stock market gains, a lot of people are going to notice that in their quarterly statements from their mutual fund company or from their 401(k), but how now, Dow? Where does it go from here?
It's been down two weeks. The Dow has lost about 300 points. We've got a lot of problems here that are sort of flashing the caution signs. You've got regional banks failing, 96 now have failed. The big banks are reeling in the credit. They're not giving credit like they used to. And quite frankly, that means that companies and businesses have to adapt to this new normal, which means they can't borrow money to expand and hire people and that's holding things back as well.
A jobless rate that's rising, we talked last hour about Alan Greenspan saying he expects the jobless rate to go to 10 percent or higher. All of these things are an issue going forward here.
So I asked two sort of pre-eminent thinkers about personal and personal financing in the economy, Terry Savage and Diane Swonk. I asked them specifically what you and I can do right now with caution signs in the stock market, with caution signs in the economy, but also we've been through a really horrible time and things are looking better. I asked them what we can do.
Diane Swonk said the number one thing to do is protect your job. This is the number one thing that any of us can do is protect our job. And if you don't have a job, please realize that there are millions of people just like you and that eventually it will turn around. You're just going to have to learn some strategies in the near term to try to make it through. That includes extended unemployment benefits.
We're expecting the Senate to take up this measure soon -- the Senate to extend unemployment benefits again, up to 92 weeks for some people. So you could see more unemployment benefits.
And Terry Savage of Personal Finance said if you have a job, keep investing in your 401(k) right now. I mean, if you do, do that. If you have a 529 for your kid's education, even if it's $25, put it away right now, because the longer time you have you're going to be happy that you were trying to find, scrape around and find some money right now to be working for your future instead of just playing -- playing defense.
ROBERTS: In the long term too, those 529s are really nice to have when your kid goes to college.
ROMANS: I know. I know. They really are. So those are some things you can do absolutely right now. But the number one thing is protect your job. Diane Swonk says you just got to protect the job.
CHETRY: All right. And as you said, millions of people are in the same boat right now.
ROMANS: Yes, they really are. They really are.
CHETRY: Christine, thanks.
ROMANS: Sure.
ROBERTS: So, here's a figure of you. It's a pretty stunning figure, too. 500. That's the number of people who were killed last year by their co-workers. We're taking a look at that, particularly in light of this case in Yale University where this researcher was killed allegedly at the hands of a colleague.
Carol Costello begin our new series. It's called "When Co- workers Kill." It's coming right up.
Twenty-two and a half minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. The co- worker of murdered Yale grad student Annie Le is due back in court tomorrow. Former lab technician Raymond Clark is charged with strangling Le and stuffing her body inside a wall. The gruesome crime shocked many people, but it's actually a lot more common that you know, might think.
According to statistics, more than 500 people were killed at work last year. Carol Costello joins us now for the first part of our series this week, "When Co-workers Kill."
Good morning, Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Workplace violence, it happens nearly every day but we don't notice it much unless it ends in death. When Annie Le was killed inside that lab at Yale University allegedly by a co-worker, it opened our eyes again. The problem, we close our eyes after the media attention goes away. It's frustrating to those who want to reduce workplace violence.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just had a shooting out here.
COSTELLO (voice-over): It happened at a plastics company in Henderson, Kentucky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A guy just killed himself and killed another employee at Atlantis Plastics.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
COSTELLO: And there is fear it happened at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not about urban crime. It's not about university crime. It's not about domestic crime, but an issue of workplace violence.
COSTELLO: And it happens in tiny towns, too, like Caribou, Maine.
JOHNA LOVELY, DAUGHTER MURDERED BY CO-WORKER: I said what happened? And she said, she was beaten to death.
COSTELLO: Johna Lovely lost her youngest daughter January 2nd, 2005. Erin, just 20 years old, was killed by a co-worker while working the night shift at a Tim Horton's (ph) restaurant by a young man she mentioned to her sister just days earlier.
AMANDA SYLVIA, SISTER MURDERED BY CO-WORKER: She said he was kind of creepy is all she said, but she didn't seem overly concerned about it, so it didn't really raise that many suspicions with me, either.
COSTELLO (on camera): When you found out it was someone she worked with, did it make it more difficult to deal with?
LOVELY: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It wasn't a random thing, you know. It was -- it was her. He wanted her.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Nationwide, 517 people were murdered at work last year according to government stats. And while that number is down 52 percent since 1994, an American college survey found things like bullying, harassment, even physical altercations are up.
LARRY BARTON, PRES., THE AMERICAN COLLEGE: The call volume to human resource officers, to their EAP programs, counselors is skyrocketing. We are absolutely in a period right now of among the highest periods of threats at work in certainly recent memory.
COSTELLO: Erin was first attacked by her co-worker Christopher Shumway in the store freezer. At one point, according to police records, she got out but was eventually overpowered. Like Yale student Annie Le, who police say was strangled by a co-worker, Erin ended up alone with her attacker.
(on camera): When you heard about what happened at Yale, what went through your mind?
LOVELY: I just cried and cried and cried. And so it just kind of brought everything right back.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Shumway was convicted of murder and sentenced to 45 years in prison. Lovely and her older daughter have set up a fund in Erin's name. For the past five years, they tried to convince companies to install panic buttons connected to police departments so employees in danger can get immediate help. They thought armed with Erin's story it would be a cinch. They were wrong.
SYLVIA: It's frustrating. You kind of want to look at the business owners and just scream at them, and say why, why? I don't understand why you wouldn't want to keep your employees safe.
COSTELLO: While she says most businesses did turn down the offer of free installation for new security systems, 18 did agree to install panic buttons.
BOB FRANK, STORE OWNER: I have no idea why more people don't want to do this. I really don't.
COSTELLO: They might say, oh, I live in a small town. Nothing ever happens here. So why bother?
FRANK: Yes. Well, they're wrong. I mean, crime is everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We bring stuff all the time.
COSTELLO: Erin's family says they won't give up.
LOVELY: I want people to remember her and to remember what happened to her. I want people to be safe at work because of her, and I want businesses to take notice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: A simple wish. Tim Horton's, Erin Sperry's employer at the time of her murder, stepped up after Sperry's death. They say they beefed up security procedures in all of their stores in the United States and Canada, that includes mandatory camera and recording systems in some restaurants.
But, of course, I don't know. Mrs. Lovely said she wishes more companies would do this, and as you heard, she wonders why they don't.
ROBERTS: Yes, because, you know, Kiran was pointing out here while you're watching your piece that, you know, these co-workers, they have all of your personal information, they know your schedule, when you come and go. They know where you live. So you can defend inside the workplace but how can you defend outside the workplace?
COSTELLO: It's a good pint. You know, talking specifically about inside the workplace, Erin was working alone with this guy at night.
ROBERTS: Right.
COSTELLO: Now Tim Horton's requires three employees to be on duty on the night shift. So there's always someone there to maybe protect the other person if need be.
Tomorrow, we're going to take a look at the signs in co-workers. You know, there are signs that something may be wrong, that a co- worker may be acting bizarrely towards you. Signs that you should watch out for. That's what we're going to explore tomorrow.
ROBERTS: All right. Carol Costello, this morning. Great story. Carol, very, very troubling one as well. Thanks so much for joining us.
Crossing the half hour now and here this morning's top stories. The number of children with autism in this country apparently higher than experts estimated. A new government study shows about one in every 91 children are affected by the disorder. Previous estimates put that number at one in every 150. Federal officials believe greater awareness and broader definitions of the autism spectrum disorder may help to explain that increase.
CHETRY: A developing story in Pakistan right now. The United Nations shutting its offices after a suicide bomber disguise as a security officer blew himself up in the lobby of the World Food Program in Islamabad. At least five people were killed. The attack came on the heels of a new threat by the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. He is promising to target the U.S. and Pakistan for attacks carried out along the Afghan border.
ROBERTS: And the seventh named storm of the hurricane season has formed in the northeastern Atlantic with 65 mile an hour winds. Tropical storm Grace is hundreds of miles off of the coast of Spain. And headed in the direction of England. It's coming nowhere near the United States. It's also not expected to get as far as England either. Instead forecasters believe that Grace will be absorbed by a low pressure area over the Atlantic sometime tonight or tomorrow morning kind of swallowed up in a meteorological black hole, if you will.
CHETRY: Well, it's 32 minutes after the hour now. You know, it's been a year since President Bush signed off on the $700 billion federal bailout known as T.A.R.P. The idea behind the program to buy toxic assets from faltering banks and to get them lending again to help struggling homeowners. So one year later how is it going?
Special inspector general Neil Barofsky is in charge of overseeing T.A.R.P. and joins us live from Washington this morning. Thanks for being with us, Neil. Good to talk to you this morning.
NEIL BAROFSKY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: It's great to be back.
CHETRY: So we've had a year since the crisis that brought our economy to the brink. Right now there are a lot of economists who believed that T.A.R.P. did help prevent a total meltdown, but we still haven't come as far as we'd hoped. I guess it's safe to say. We have unemployment at levels we haven't seen since about 1983. We still have a lot of people who are foreclosing on their homes. As you take a look at this, do you think T.A.R.P. has done its job?
BAROFSKY: It really depends on what the definition of T.A.R.P.'s job was. If the idea was to help prevent a systemic collapse of the financial system? I think when you look at what T.A.R.P. did along with the other programs announced at that time, we're certainly in a far better place than I think we would have been otherwise had there not been a T.A.R.P. and the related programs.
But as you point out, a lot of the other stated objectives of the T.A.R.P., things like increasing lending, helping homeowners, those types of restoring credit, a lot of those things haven't come to pass. I think it's a mixed bag at this point.
CHETRY: You know, it's interesting, you say that in a lot of specific ways the bailout goals have not been met. And one of the things, first of all is what T.A.R.P. stands for, and it's Toxic Asset Relief Program or Troubled Asset Relief Program. It was to take these toxic assets off of the bank's books. Instead what it turned into was really just an infusion, right, of money to the banks to do with what they wanted to. What happened there?
BAROFSKY: Well, I think we just issued a report earlier today that really tracks how that happened, the first injection of about $125 billion into the big nine banks about a year ago. And that certainly where it started. Since then though, of course, there's now been almost a dozen different T.A.R.P. programs announced. Only one of which really addresses the issue that you stated, which is buying toxic assets. And now it's just getting off the ground. There hasn't been a purchase made. So the program has changed significantly since it was first announced.
CHETRY: All right. And critics also complain about the almost negligible pace they call it of the $50 billion that was supposed to go to help people modify their home mortgages so that if they turned up in a problem and they qualified specifically, if they didn't realize the balloon payments, et cetera, et cetera, that they were going to be able to encourage banks, give them money and help them modify these mortgages. There were also federal mortgage relief programs that have lagged as well. What's going on with this?
BAROFSKY: I think you pretty much summed it up pretty accurately. I think this program which was announced back in March, it's taken a long time to get off the ground. I think a lot of these - the program has really resolved the mortgage modification program providing payments to mortgage servicers. And I think that what we've found is they had been ill-equipped to have this new role of launching large-scale modifications.
With that said, the administration is taking a lot of steps in the past month or so to try to get this program off the ground. We're going to continue to monitor it. We have an audit pending to try to provide more detailed answers. But it has been slow going so far. That's for sure. CHETRY: You talk about needing detailed answers and the third issue that you seem to highlight and others who have criticized what's been going on with T.A.R.P. is the lack of transparency. In fact, you wrote something very interesting, you said about the bailout dollars, there are so few conditions on how they can use the money - you're speaking about banks and others, like AIG. They could use it so support A.C.O.R.N., They can make a million dollar contribution to the American Nazi Party or bet all the money on black. Have you made any progress in getting the government, the banks and the other recipients to disclose more about where this money is going?
BAROFSKY: Well, we've required - we've made numerous recommendations to the Treasury that they need to require the banks to report on how they're using the money. Treasury has refused to do that. They refused to do it last December and they've continued to refuse since then. We published an audit over the summer when we asked the banks, 364 banks at the time that we asked what at they did with the money, and we published a report.
In fact, on our web site we have 364 responses so people can go and see them. This is an on-going problem, and it's something that we continue to press for better transparency. As a whole, T.A.R.P. is really failing when it comes to basic transparency and letting the American people, you know, taxpayers who are the investors in this program know what's going on with their money.
CHETRY: Well, you said taxpayers or investors. Are these investors ever going to see a return, meaning are we going to get this money back?
BAROFSKY: I think we're going to get some of the money back. I think the idea that T.A.R.P. is going to turn a profit or there's going to be a dollar for dollar return is extremely unlikely.
CHETRY: All right. Well, a mixed bag of criticism and at least as you said we didn't go off the brink. So at least part of what it was intended to do happened. I know that you're still keeping a close watch. You have a lot of, as you said, investigations pending, audits pending, and you're trying to make sure that we keep on the straight and narrow with this. Neil Barofsky, special inspector general of T.A.R.P.. Thanks for joining us this morning.
BAROFSKY: My pleasure. Thank you.
CHETRY: So we want to know what you think. Is the program working? We want to know what you think about it? Head to our blog, cnn.com/amfix to weight in. Thirty-seven minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. The Supreme Court is getting back to work in a few hours' time. And on the docket, a case pitting religious expression against the separation of church and state. Our Kate Bolduan is looking into a controversy over a cross in the middle of a California desert. We're getting all kinds of response to this story from the first time that we aired it in our the 6:00 a.m. hour. So watch closely and tell us what you think.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, Kiran, behind these plywood boards stands what's at the center of a fight that's made its way all the way to the high court, all against this desert backdrop miles from civilization.
(voice-over): You could very easily drive right by or mistake it for a forgotten billboard in the middle of 1.6 million acres of desert. But inside is a cross boarded up by order of a federal judge, a cross creating a huge constitutional controversy.
(on camera): How many miles do you guys travel from your home to take care of the memorial?
HENRY SANDOZ, CARETAKER OF CONTROVERSIAL MEMORIAL: We don't really take care of it now because of the box, but we're 160 miles away from it now.
BOLDUAN (voice-over): Henry and Wanda Sandoz have been the unofficial care takers for what has for decades been known as the Mojave Memorial Cross, first erected in 1934 by their friend, a World War I veteran to honor fallen soldiers.
WANDA SANDOZ, CARETAKER OF CONTROVERSIAL MEMORIAL: We just love our veterans and we feel they should be honored. And this is right here in this little piece of our world, that's how we did it.
BOLDUAN: But it also sits in the Mohave National Preserve, government land and some now argue that cross is violating the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state.
PETER ELIASBERG, ACLU OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: What Mr. Buono want is neutrality here and complete (INAUDIBLE) here.
BOLDUAN: Peter Eliasberg is the ACLU attorney for a Frank Buono, a former ranger who worked in the preserve, the man who filed the original lawsuit. While Buono is Catholic and a veteran, he says the Mojave cross should go.
ELIASBERG: For the government to say we're going to each and every one of you veterans, this religious symbol even though for many of you it is not your religious symbol, that is not an appropriate expression of religion in public life.
BOLDUAN: Jewish and Muslim veterans groups support Buono, but attorneys for the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Sandozes say the cross is a historical memorial, not a religious symbol, warning the outcome of this case could have far-reaching implications.
HIRAM SASSER, LIBERTY LEGAL INSTITUTE: This is the first one that's going up to the Supreme Court. And they want to make sure that this one prevails so that all the veteran memorials with religious imagery across the country can be protected. BOLDUAN (on camera): Why not just take this memorial, same cross, same memorial, and just move it to a less controversial location?
HENRY SANDOZ: It was put here by the veterans for the veterans of all wars, and that's where it should stay.
BOLDUAN (voice-over): In recent years, the Supreme Court has taken a case by case approach on this issue allowing the 10 commandments to remain on public property in a Texas case, the same day ruling a display of the 10 commandments in a Kentucky Court House unconstitutional. With its caretakers anxiously standing watch, it's now up to the high court to decide the fate of this cross.
W. SANDOZ: I hope it won't be too long before we can look at the cross again instead of a stupid box.
H. SANDOZ: We'll repaint it.
BOLDUAN (on camera): No matter the outcome, this case could be a major test of if and where the government will draw the line when it comes to any private expression on public land. John. Kiran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Kate Bolduan for us this morning. And again, we'd like to know what you think. Go to our blog at www.cnn.com/amfix, and ring in and tell us what you think about the cross controversy before the Supreme Court. It's 43 minutes now after the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Forty-six minutes past the hour right now. Let's take a look at Chicago this morning. Mostly cloudy, 45 degrees.
ROBERTS: Are those buildings, even - I think even the buildings look sad, don't they?
CHETRY: I think so. Well, it's going to be sunny today, 66 degrees. You may not have the Olympics, but you have some sunshine. So, it's not bad.
ROBERTS: It's a nice consolation prize.
CHETRY: I guess Rio has sunshine and the Olympics.
ROBERTS: And beaches.
CHETRY: And crime.
ROBERTS: Oh, yes. Huge crime - well, Chicago has got that, too.
CHETRY: Rio is worse. Look at the bright side.
Rob Marciano joins us this morning. What do you think? Were you surprised when you heard that they - we're eliminated in the first round? That kind of shocked me.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That early elimination was a little shocking, but, you know, there hasn't been an Olympics in South America, so that's not surprising. And the folks in Rio know how to throw a party, so kudos to them, and we look forward to that.
Hey, listen to this - speaking about a party, they have one out in the eastern Atlantic. Tropical storm Grace, named late last night - I mean, this thing was named north of the Azores and it's moving quickly to the northeast. It is really far out there and was named over some really chilly waters. Regardless, this is what the National Hurricane Center thinks it's going to do. It's almost hurricane strength and it's heading towards England, of all places, but it will probably die off before that happens.
Hey, I want to show you some cool video coming in to us out of Washington State. Some winds there yesterday. This is I-90 around Moses Lake shut down because of a dust storm. Winds out of the north there gusting 40, 50 miles an hour at times, dangerous cross winds and obviously visibility at a minimal there.
Heavy snow across parts of the - the west today, and also heavy rains across parts of the south, as you know flooding issues across parts of Northern Georgia. Most of the action right now is across Southern and Eastern Georgia, so this is - should be short-lived. And for the folks who live in the Carolinas, actually, it's beneficial. They're still officially in somewhat of a drought there. It will be 58 degrees, rain cooled in Atlanta, 68 degrees up there in New York. Another gorgeous day for you folks up there in the Big Apple, so make a pitch for them to - the Olympics to come to New York. How's that sound?
ROBERTS: Well, they tried that already. Didn't work out too well.
MARCIANO: Yes. Didn't work, did it? Yes.
ROBERTS: Thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: See you, guys.
ROBERTS: So, the problem of gangs in America, it's a growing problem, particularly among immigrant communities. There are some neighborhoods just, you know, like in suburban Maryland where people don't even want to go out at night because gangs are ruling the streets.
Well, there's a new program that we're going to take a look at to steer kids away from joining gangs. It's part of our "Latino in America" series, coming right up. Twelve minutes now to the top of the hour.
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CHETRY: Fifty-one minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Kids joining gangs - it's a cycle that's hard to break, and immigrant teens are especially vulnerable. But there's a federal program that's trying to help them stay off the streets. It's called "Safer Latinos." Elaine Quijano now with a new approach to an old problem.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Langley Park, Maryland, just outside Washington. Some 16,000 people live here in less than a square mile, most of them Latino immigrants. By day, families enjoy neighborhood barbecues like this one, but at night, the neighborhood turns. Police say the notorious Los Angeles gang MS-13 and others hold sway over the community, scaring most people into staying off the streets.
JULIANNI ARIAS, 17 YEARS OLD (through translator): They're very bad. To guard their territory, they don't care what they do. For me, I don't like to walk around there.
QUIJANO: Seventeen-year-old Julianni Arias and her 15-year-old sister, Arianni, came to Langley Park from the Dominican Republic two years ago. They learned quickly.
J. ARIAS (through translator): It's like the worst part of Maryland. Sometimes people are like, OK, you're Latino, you're in a gang. You're involved in bad stuff. Yes, we live here, but just because we do doesn't mean we're all like that.
QUIJANO: The Arias sisters steer clear of gangs.
J. ARIAS (through translator): I had a classmate at school. He wasn't a gang-banger, but they killed him anyway, just because he crossed into the wrong turf.
QUIJANO: The sisters have found refuge in a program called "Safer Latinos," started by college professor Mark Edberg who studied immigrants and youth violence.
MARK EDBERG, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: The idea is to prevent factors in the community that contribute to violence.
QUIJANO: What's different, he says, is it takes on the problem from all angles, providing support and security, involving the families, school, and community.
EDBERG: One of the things that we hear a lot from youth that are in gangs are, you know, I joined the gang because the gang has my back. We try to understand what is it that we need to put in place in the community so that the community has their back.
QUIJANO: Like helping intimidated parents overcome language barriers with school officials, to keep better tabs on their kids' attendance, GED programs to help teens earn their high school diplomas, and activities like this neighborhood barbecue and a summer art program to keep kids and parents from feeling isolated.
For the Arias sisters, the program has also provided something even more valuable - hope.
ARIANNI ARIAS, 15 YEARS OLD (through translator): There are no limits. You can make your dreams come true in life - anything you set your mind on.
QUIJANO (on camera): "Safer Latinos'" $1 million federal grant runs out soon, but Mark Edberg says the Arias sisters are success stories and he's gathering information he hopes will show success on a wider scale. The goal - to get even more money and eventually bring the program to other communities - John, Kiran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Elaine Quijano for us. Thank you. And also a reminder, we are just 16 days away from "Latino in America." It's a comprehensive look at how Latinos are changing America, reshaping politics, businesses, schools, churches, and neighborhoods. "Latino in America" coming October 21st and 2nd, right here on CNN.
We'll take a quick break. It's 55 minutes after the hour. We'll be right back.
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CHETRY: Welcome back. It's 57 minutes past the hour right now, and there are some alarming new information this morning after a new study - a new report on autism and children in the US. According to this new report, the number of cases here in America may have been severely underreported for years.
ROBERTS: You know, the real figures are staggering. One out of every 91 children has autism. That's a dramatic increase from just a few years back. Our Alina Cho joins us now with the details on this new study. These - these numbers truly are shocking.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and the big question is why is this going on? I mean, there are a lot of different factors here. Is there a better diagnosis, a wider diagnosis? Yes. Does that explain everything? Not really. I mean - but buried in these numbers, as the authors of the study say, is a true increase.
You know, the government is releasing these new numbers today. They are eye-opening. One in 91 children, one in 58 boys, is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. That is 1 percent of the population of children in the United States. Scary stuff, and what's worse, many say we as a nation are wholly unprepared to deal with it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good job.
CHO: If there was any doubt about the extent of autism, look here: 27,000 families, all affected by autism, walking for a cause.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty soon there won't be anybody that doesn't know somebody that has a child with autism. We're everywhere. CHO: A new comprehensive government study says one in 91 children in the United States has autism spectrum disorder, 673,000 children, more than 1 percent of the population of kids aged three to 17. Boys are four times more likely than girls to be diagnosed, one in 58. The Centers for Disease Control calls the study significant, autism a serious issue that warrants urgent attention.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is staggering. It's quite amazing, and I wish we had the answers for what's going on.
MARK ROITHMAYR, PRESIDENT, AUTISM SPEAKS: Is there a better diagnosis? Yes. Is there a wider diagnosis? Yes. But it doesn't account for these striking numbers. Something else going on. The something else that's going on is we don't know.
CHO: A medical mystery. The study's author say part of the increase can be attributed to more awareness. Doctors are more willing to make the diagnosis than even three years ago. Parents are more willing to talk about it, but that doesn't explain everything. Buried in these numbers, they say, is a true increase.
Ari Kanter (ph) is moderate to severely autistic. He can read, write, even cook, but only with the help of his parents. At 13, he's still a child, but soon, Ari will grow up. Then what?
CHO: They really have nowhere to go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nowhere to go. And we are wholly unprepared to help them. They may need different supports.
CHO: Such as?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Such as they may need a job coach.
CHO: Ari's father's great hope?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That he finds a place in society and society finds a place for him. I'm not smart enough to know what that place is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's the greatest fear - what will happen to him when we're gone? Who will love him? Who will watch him to make sure he's OK? Who will take care of him?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHO (on camera): That is the challenge of all parents of children with autism. Now, the authors of the study say, if there are 673,000 kids on the right spectrum now, it won't be too long before there are 673,000 adults living with autism. So, what do we do about housing, employment, social support, and education? The study's authors say those are the big questions and the mandate right now guys is to look very closely at how well-prepared as a nation we are to deal with it.
A lot of smart minds say we are not prepared. You look at high- functioning kid like Ari, when he becomes an adult, he probably can live on his own. He may be able to hold down a job. The problem is, society needs to shift its thinking in terms of how do we deal with people with autism? There certainly are growing numbers of kids with autism and soon they'll be adults.
ROBERTS: Yes, and very worrisome for parents who, you know, want the best for their children, want to take care of them and know that at some they're not going to be here.
CHO: That's right.
ROBERTS: What happens then?
CHO: Absolutely right.
ROBERTS: Troubling story. Alina, thanks so much for that.
Coming up, by the way, our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is going to join us. She'll talk live about why autism rates may be rising. As we said, nobody knows for sure, but a lot of very smart people have some pretty educated guesses as to what might be going on.
