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CNN Saturday Morning News

Outbreak of Tumors in a Missouri Town; Violence in Zimbabwe on Election Day; Obama and Clinton Campaign Together; Building a Playground

Aired June 28, 2008 - 09:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, there. Good morning, everybody from the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It is June 28th. It's Saturday Morning. I'm T.J. Holmes.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Randi Kaye. Betty is on assignment this week. Thanks for starting your day with us.

We're going to talk today about an outbreak of tumors in one small Missouri town. About a dozen people there have tumors. We'll talk to one of the town's officials to see why a manufacturing plant may to be blame.

HOLMES: The kind of outbreaks we're talking about with the disease, not tumors.

Also, we'll give you a live picture now and tell you what's going on here. You know, our Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the man is a surgeon, the man is an award-winning journalist, and he still has time to build a playground.

KAYE: Unbelievable.

HOLMES: He is really raising the bar. Here's the live picture there we're seeing. We're going to go back to that playground, see the equipment there. He's going to be putting himself to good use on all kinds of tools there we saw, supplies. They're going to be putting together a playground.

KAYE: Very important project.

HOLMES: Yes.

KAYE: Fear is spreading in a Missouri town. Residents worried about their health after an outbreak of tumors. Bev Chapman of our affiliate KMBC reports from Cameron in northwest Missouri.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're giving us nothing! We came here tonight because we're concerned! People we know are dying!

BEV CHAPMAN, KMBC REPORTER: She seemed to speak for so many of the approximately 150 people who filled the Board of Education Auditorium looking for answers, answers to why this is happening, why some in Cameron are suffering from benign brain tumors. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something's going on around here and I want to know what it is.

CHAPMAN: State environment and health officials say it isn't the water, but they do plan to investigate a former insulation factory three miles west of town for contamination.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hazardous materials have been trucked off the property into a quarry about three miles away.

CHAPMAN: These people say it is a slow and tedious investigative process and meetings like this are the beginning.

JESSICA DELACRUZ, CAMERON RESIDENT: They said the water's safe, but then they're saying there's something else wrong with one of the tests they did, so I mean, I'm not sure what they're actually doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're really not necessarily telling you anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, we want answers. We want them quick. We're mostly old people in there, and let's get the questions and answers and why can't we do that?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: The water has been tested and now they're looking at a manufacturing plant. What is going on in Cameron?

Joining us by phone is state representative Jim Guest, whose district does include Cameron. Sir, good to have you with us this morning.

VOICE OF REP. JIM GUEST, MISSOURI'S FIFTH DISTRICT: Good morning. It's good to be on.

KAYE: Thank you. First tell us, I guess, how many people have been found to have tumors, and what do you believe is causing this?

GUEST: How many? That number is growing. We know that since September of 2007 we have seven that were documented. Since then, we have a number of people that have come forward -- in fact, the night of the meeting, a young couple, they have a young son who the day before had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I had four people that evening at the meeting come forward and say I need some forms to fill out. I have received over 40 cancer inquiry forms not only from the town of Cameron, but surrounding areas. And --

KAYE: And how is it discovered and how did you come to focus on this manufacturing plant?

GUEST: Well, one of the gentleman there, he was a realtor who had a brain tumor, benign, and some very serious surgery, late 2007 came to me and asked for help on this. So first thing I did was ask for a water sample. In the meantime, I started looking around and asking questions what could be other environmental causes? And I did remember in the past this rock wall facility. And that seemed to trigger that that may be a possible cause to it.

And then we also, as we did some research, found out that a similar site in Texas did the same type work, and that's being cleaned up with the superfund right now, and I thought, you know, that just rang a bell. We need to do more investigation. So it's one of those things that seemed obvious that you want to explore that and either find out if that's the cause or rule it out so you can continue going forward.

KAYE: Right. And has anyone passed away as a result of these?

GUEST: Yes, they have. We had a young Spencer, a young boy five, about three years ago he passed away. Karen Kemper had a benign brain tumor after she had some complications after the second one. She passed on, and we had another one who had a malignant who passed on. So it is -- it's growing. It's very concern. The people in the community, you know, they want answers, and the investigation --

KAYE: How are residents holding up? I would imagine --

GUEST: Actually, pretty good. The initial shock wave that went through it, you know, when they said we had the test water, people wanted to know whether they should drink the water, if they should sell their house and move out. I want to assure the people that we will exhaust all leads in finding out -- if we can find the cause or rule out all possible things. It seems very remote that this would be a random occurrence with this many in the relatively small area there, either in the town or in the surrounding area.

KAYE: Well, we know that the clusters sometimes can be hard to prove, but we wish you luck in determining exactly what is going on there in Cameron. Representative Jim Guest, thank you so much for your time this morning.

GUEST: Thank you.

KAYE: T.J.

HOLMES: All right, Randi, we do want to turn now to what's happening in the Midwest, and once again, we have storms and bad weather to talk about there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He started screaming "call 911!" and he started helping.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: The storm is being blamed for the death of two teenagers in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The front seat of their car was crushed by a falling tree. Then came the screams from the back seat, where a 15- year-old girl was pulled out and taken to the hospital. Her injuries described as not severe.

Also something we're watching out west, we've got wildfires out there that are continuing to spread this morning. Listen to this, though, there are 1,000 wildfires going out there. Most of them, I should say, started by lightning. Again, 1,000 fires. Granted, not all of these are huge fires. A lot of smaller fires. They're able to put out quickly, but still, 1,000 is a lot. They're going from San Francisco to the Oregon border. Dozens of homes have been destroyed as well. The governor there, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is asking the federal government to help out.

Let's turn to another extreme, a deluge in Detroit. A powerful storm dumped about an inch and a half of rain in the downtown area during yesterday's rush hour. Freeways and some surface streets flooded. The storms also knocked out power to about 15,000 customers in Michigan over a two-day period.

KAYE: And last we checked, the Midwest still water logged, just can't catch a break. Reynolds Wolf giving us the latest on that.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it could be a lot worse. We are seeing rain in parts of the Midwest, mainly Missouri, now moving into Arkansas, places like Tennessee. They're reporting mostly north of St. Louis, which may occur later on today. It certainly will be bad news for places like Old Monroe, where they've been dealing with again that levee that broke, especially near Winfield. Bad situation there.

But thankfully, the heaviest rainfall is now moving into parts of Arkansas, into Memphis. We're seeing the storms roll right on through, and we have a live shot for you from Memphis. Let's show you that one, compliments of WREG. Forget about radar for a moment. Those rain drops you see on the lens cap, that tells the story from this very location all the way down to Beale street. You've got water that's been falling from the sky. More of that possibly in store later on today, but it does appear for the time being the heaviest has passed.

Let's go a little bit farther out to the west. Central plains, sure, you've had a rude awakening this morning in Oklahoma City. You've been drinking your coffee, even feeling the house shake a little bit with the thunder. You could also be dealing with some stronger storms across parts of the central plains, into the Midwest, and south of the Great Lakes. Also eastern Great Lakes.

I would not be surprised if you have that chance of seeing some large hail and some isolated tornadoes from the swath that extends well over 1,000 miles from the parts of the northeast into the central plains.

That is a look at your forecast. Let's wrap it up and send it right back to you at the news desk.

KAYE: All right. Thank you, Reynolds.

WOLF: You bet. HOLMES: All right, back over here now to our international desk, where of course our editors and producers keep an eye on everything going on around the world. Something that's certainly been a big focus over here has been what's happening in Zimbabwe, where we have more allegations and more reports of just horrible, horrible violence associated with election day, of all days.

Opposition leaders are now saying that voters were herded to the polls, actually, on election day and forced to vote for the president, Robert Mugabe, who is also trying to stay in power. They say they were beaten, some even killed. Mugabe was the only name on the ballot. I should say, the only candidate on the ballot. The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, actually his name was still on the ballot, even though he pulled out of the race because of he said intimidation.

We want to go now to Johannesburg in South Africa, where our reporter, Nkepile Mabuse has been watching the events from Johannesburg. Hello to you. And tell us, now that the election is over, election day is over, does that mean a lot of this violence and intimidation is over as well for now?

NKEPILE MABUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, T.J., unfortunately, we continue to receive allegations of state-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe. The opposition in that country, the MDC, saying over 90 of its supporters have been killed since the first round of elections in March. Five of those people allegedly killed just this week.

And of course, CNN and other international media organizations are not allowed in Zimbabwe. We've been banned from reporting inside the country. But we managed to get footage of supporters of the opposition who have been brutally, brutally assaulted. We understand that these supporters, boiling water was poured on them, and that some of them were burned with melting plastic. So really, terribly disturbing reports coming out of Zimbabwe at this stage.

HOLMES: And also right now, a lot of criticism, people saying that other African leaders aren't jumping in, aren't doing enough right now. Tell us, what are other African leaders doing?

MABUSE: Well, the African Union is due to meet on Monday in Egypt, and we're expecting Zimbabwe to be a hot topic to be discussed. Many, many more African leaders are speaking out this time around. Since the violence in Zimbabwe and the instability started in 2000, many African leaders have chosen to keep silent, but the silence has been interpreted as support for Mugabe, and more and more of them are speaking out against Robert Mugabe and condemning his regime.

HOLMES: Well, we will wait to hear how much, again, the words might mean again in a couple days. We expect to hear more again. CNN Nkepile Mabuse. Thank you so much for your time and the report today.

KAYE: On the campaign trail here in the U.S., John McCain and Barack Obama are courting Latino voters today, both making back-to- back appearances at a Latino conference in D.C. in just about two hours. Live now to CNN, deputy political director Paul Steinhauser. Good morning, Paul.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Good morning.

KAYE: First of all, let's talk about this showing in Unity, New Hampshire, yesterday. Very nice appearance by Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, some suggesting maybe a little more behind the scenes going on there, but a lot of people asking, where is Bill?

STEINHAUSER: That's a good question. You know, our Candy Crowley, our senior political correspondent, she was up there yesterday and she called it a picture-perfect day, and it really was. The pictures were just what the Democrats wanted, unity in Unity, New Hampshire, and New Hampshire, of course, is one of those battleground states both parties are fighting over, but the question you asked is an important one -- where was Bill, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton's husband, former president?

We know there was a lot of bad blood, or at least there appeared to be during the primaries when Clinton and Obama were fighting it out. Bill Clinton was off in Europe this week on a trip. The big question now is, what does Bill Clinton do, what kind of role is he going to have in the campaign from here to November 4th?

Bill Clinton's office put out a statement the other day saying that Bill Clinton supports Barack Obama, 100 percent behind him, but the big question is, neither of these two guys have really talked since the primaries were over. What role will Bill Clinton have? And also Hillary Clinton, it was nice yesterday but how often and where will she campaign for Barack Obama? So lots of questions to be answered.

KAYE: And also, just to follow up there, both Barack Obama and John McCain today making a pitch for the Spanish-speaking voters. Lots of talk about the Latino votes, supposed to maybe swing this election. Why are they so important?

STEINHAUSER: Well, they made up about eight percent of the voting population, if you look back at the 2006 election. And they are very important, though, much more than eight percent in some crucial states like Florida, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, and a couple other states that both McCain and Obama are really going to be fighting over.

Hispanic voters, Latino voters make up a larger percentage of the population. That's why you're going to see John McCain and Barack Obama making their pitch today and again in about two more weeks when they speak to another Latino organization, to the Hispanic and Latino voters. Remember, illegal immigration is a big issue with these voters.

John McCain -- he hurt himself with conservatives, a lot of people say, when he was one of the leaders for immigration reform in the Senate. Now he's kind of changed a little bit, and he's emphasizing border security first. So immigration could help or hurt him, both ways, maybe, with Latino and Hispanic voters, but other issues are important to them as well -- education, health care, the economy, issues that the Democrats do well on.

KAYE: All right. Our deputy political director Paul Steinhauser, always a pleasure to have you weighing in. Thanks so much.

STEINHAUSER: Thank you.

HOLMES: It's June, but it felt like Christmas for a bunch of drivers in Miami.

KAYE: It certainly did. Just ahead, we'll tell you why so many motorists lined up early outside this South Florida gas station. Look at that line.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: So, you know what happens when you use the word free --

HOLMES: Yes.

KAYE: You say something's free, and of course, you draw a crowd.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ten gallons of gasoline absolutely free!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: There you go. There's the word free. That is especially true when you're giving away gasoline. Hundreds of drivers lined up in Miami when a local radio station gave away gas as part of a promotion. Well it looks like lots of people are struggling with high gas prices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I might have to get a second job just to take care of my gas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Some people ran out of gas just waiting for the giveaway. I know you have a problem with that car.

HOLMES: Leave that video -- it drives me nuts. That is at least a $19,000 vehicle. That's a new Mercedes Esquire.

KAYE: OK. He spent all the money on the car and now he can't afford gasoline.

HOLMES: They should be buying other people in line gas. Come on now, don't show up in that car talking about you need free gas.

KAYE: And looking for free gas.

HOLMES: Come on! OK, I'm done now. Let's turn to the economy, back to that. The struggling economy. Well, during these times, you need to go out of your way really to keep your credit in good shape. CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis now with some tips on how to improve your credit.

Plus, she's got a look at what's ahead on "OPEN HOUSE." That's coming our way at the bottom of the hour.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Hi there, T.J..

Establishing good credit is important. Everything from buying insurance to getting a mortgage or a car loan depend on your good credit score. Now, if you're looking to improve your score, there are a few things you can do right now.

First off, don't close credit card accounts. Your score takes into account the difference between the credit you have available and the credit you're using. If you close a card, your total amount of available credit is lowered, and the ratio will hurt your score.

Keep in mind, paying your bills on time accounts for 1/3 of your FICO score, but don't just pay on time. The amount of debt you have is critical to your score, so concentrate on paying more than just the minimum payments. And to really improve your score, you should only be spending within 10 percent of your credit limit.

Coming up on "OPEN HOUSE," while the rest of the country is reeling from the mortgage meltdown, one charity is reaping the benefits. How to save money on gas for your summer travels. And with electric bills going up, one family gets a little relief from the sun. That's "OPEN HOUSE," 9:30 a.m. Eastern -- T.J.

HOLMES: All right, Gerri, we always appreciate you. And for the latest on the economy, you can watch CNN's "ISSUE #1." That's all next week.

And if you think money is tight now, can you imagine if taxes go up after the presidential election?

KAYE: Lots of people worried about that. And Josh Levs has been looking into it for us.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, guys, whose taxes would go up and by how much, exactly? We have got the numbers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right, every presidential election, you hear of certain words in there at some point or the other. And yes, the dreaded "t" word, taxes is going to come up, no doubt.

KAYE: No doubt. Well, the question here is, will we all be paying more in taxes? Josh Levs is breaking down the numbers for us this morning.

LEVS: Yes. Hey, good morning, guys. We all do what we can in that respect. This is really interesting. You know, we're seeing the traditional breakdown between Republican and Democratic, in the sense that John McCain is saying hey, I won't raise taxes at all. Barack Obama is saying actually, he will be doing so, and then Americans are split over whether it's a good idea or not to pay for programs.

What happened recently, just yesterday, our folks at CNN Money put together something that I think that's pretty incredible. They broke down into specific dollar amounts how much more you would pay in taxes under an Obama administration. Let's go to this full screens here. Because what I've done is summarized some of the biggest points for you.

Who would have their taxes likely to rise under an Obama administration? First, married couples with $250,000 in gross income. It's a little different for singles though. In the next one, it will show you singles with about $200,000 gross income. That's according to an Obama adviser.

So if you're in any of those categories, you can expect your taxes to rise. Now, by how much? Here's the closest they could come -- "anywhere from several thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars more. According to estimates from the Tax Policy Center."

Now, why is it that broad? Because all you have are promises right now. You have to see how they ultimately play out, how it plays with Congress. Also want to show you real quickly, before I toss it back to Randi and T.J. over there, something else we have on dot-com.

This is from a couple weeks ago, but it's about John McCain's site here. As I mentioned, he is not planning on raising taxes. He did have a kind of question for a little while about something call the Alternative Minimum Tax.

People who care about this will be interested in this story and I'll show you one relevant quote. Those of you who are concerned about the so-called AMT, some people call it the wealth tax, we're saying that under his administration about four million households could continue to pay it and it would likely continue to exist after he's gone.

Now, if you would want to learn anything more about this, you can go to their Web sites. They have a lot about their fiscal plans. Johnmccain.com and barackobama.com. Also, there's some number crunching there. But the best that you're going to get from this full circle is right here at cnnmoney.com.

So, guys, based on all the figures that exist, that's what we know right now. Singles about $200,000 or more and couples about $250,000 or more likely to pay thousands more in taxes under the Obama administration to pay for programs.

KAYE: OK. Thank you.

HOLMES: We appreciate you, Josh. Well, adults are teaming up for a little child's play.

KAYE: Including our Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He joins us live from Louisiana, where he's helping volunteers rebuild a playground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Well, if you build it, they will play. That is the idea behind a project going on right now in Metairie, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans.

HOLMES: The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and his "Fit Nation" team are working with the community to rebuild a playground, and there is the architect, the doctor, the everything there. Sanjay, good to see you this morning, sir.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys.

HOLMES: So what's happening down there?

GUPTA: Let me tell you a little bit. We are pretty excited. This is pretty amazing. There are about 200 volunteers all around here, getting ready to actually convert this area behind me into a playground, T.J. and Randi. I don't think you can see this. Mike, I don't think you show them this.

But this is an area that's particularly hard hit after the hurricane and by the flooding. In fact, there's a big tree back there, and the tree back there actually has a water line on it, it shows you how high the water was. Five feet of water almost in this particular area. This area was just really, really hard hit by this whole hurricane.

We come down here doing so many stories about the health system down here and how bad it is and how tough it is for people to get health care. And people kept saying to us, yes, the kids can't get outside to play, you talk about childhood obesity. What are you going to do about that? So today, we're trying to actually turn our TV words into some action and we're going to turn this whole area back here into a playground.

This area that was devastated, going to turn it into playground. You can see about ten tons of concrete over here behind me. We have 200 cubic yards of mulch as well that's eventually going to go down, and ultimately, this entire area is going to be turned into this remarkable playground, guys. We're very excited about this. You can look at some of the volunteers all getting ready to work. It's hot. I'll tell you, it's hot down here.

KAYE: I bet.

GUPTA: It's going to get hotter, but everyone's ready to work.

KAYE: And Sanjay, from what I understand, about 10,000 kids use that playground -- did any of them sort of help maybe design it or are any of them out there working with you today?

GUPTA: They are working with us today. We've actually recruited them in. But I want to tell you something, because having kids of my own, it's funny, you never know exactly what the kids are going to want. So ahead of time, we thought, maybe we would have them draw their dream playground. So this, for example, is a picture of what a dream playground looks like by someone who is four years old, actually drew this.

KAYE: Looks like Disneyland.

GUPTA: This is what they want. It is. And it's got all these different things. And ultimately, what they wanted was something that costs about $100,000, and we had to raise the money along with our partners Kaboom and Cox Communications, recruit all these volunteers.

Let me show you this t-shirt as well. "My dream playground" it says here. I don't know if you can see that, but it has a picture of what the playground's going to look like on these t-shirts. Everyone's wearing these around here. Going to try to make this vision come to reality today right behind us.

HOLMES: How long? When might the playground be ready to go?

GUPTA: You know, we're hoping that we actually get everything up, you know, by the end of the day today. So, you know, look ...

KAYE: Wow.

GUPTA: ...behind me now, get a good look at that image because, you know, there was really nothing there except the supplies. So, check in with us later on today. Hopefully, we're going to have something pretty remarkable to show you. This "Dream Playground" as you pointed out that's going to serve about 10,000 people in this local community.

KAYE: Well, I know you're going to check back with us in our 10:00. So we'd like to see some progress by then, OK?

GUPTA: Yes, we'll try and give you like -- some rapid frames and helpings (ph) are actually progressing behind us. And a lot of people are working here, so they're all standing here waiting to get to work.

KAYE: You'll be half-way done by then, I'm sure.

HOLMES: By then. It's Sanjay, he gets stuff done.

KAYE: He gets it done.

HOLMES: All right, Sanjay, we'll see you again soon this morning.

GUPTA: All right. All right, guys, thanks.

KAYE: Cutting down the work week sounds like a good idea, but some state employees in Utah aren't exactly sold on a three-day weekend. We'll tell you about that next hour.

HOLMES: What's wrong with them over there?

KAYE: I know.

HOLMES: Well, but first, "OPEN HOUSE" with CNN's Gerri Willis starts right now.