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Troop Drawdown in Afghanistan?; Devastating Arizona Wildfire; Forensics Focus of Anthony Trial; Checking The Truth-O-Meter; Eating Healthy & Affording It; Stolen Laptop
Aired June 06, 2011 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. Want to get you up to speed.
Desperation now in Arizona. There are hundreds of people chased out of their homes by wildfires. The biggest is burning near the New Mexico border.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEIGHAYN GREEN, EVACUEE: We're all there to help whoever did lose his or her home. And I'm just hoping that it wasn't us.
WAYNE WHITBY, EVACUEE: Well, we feel bad if anybody loses their house. That's what I think.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think it could be yours?
WHITBY: It could be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: In the northern plains, people are keeping a wary eye on the bloated Missouri River. Heavy spring rains, melting snow packs are pushing the river out of its banks, and some people are even building makeshift levees. Others are packing up and getting out.
Protesters are celebrating in the streets of Yemen. Their president has left the country, at least for the time being. He is in a hospital in Saudi Arabia. That is according to Saudi state television.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh was hit by shrapnel in a rocket attack on his compound in Yemen. That happened on Friday night. He plans to return to Yemen after his recovery.
In Libya, NATO warplanes rocked Tripoli late last night, targeting Moammar Gadhafi's command center. Today, a Russian envoy will meet with rebel leaders in Benghazi. That is the movement's stronghold in eastern Libya.
Rick Santorum, he is the latest Republican to join the 2012 presidential race. The former Pennsylvania senator officially kicked off his campaign in Somerset, Pennsylvania. That happened just within the last hour. Santorum says is he running to oppose President Obama's policies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm ready to do what has to be done for the next generation with the courage to fight for freedom, with the courage to fight for America. That's why I'm announcing today that I'm running for president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
SANTORUM: Join the fight! Join the fight!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Protesters from a hotel housekeepers union chanted, "Shame on you!" as Dominique Strauss-Kahn arrived at a New York courthouse today. Strauss-Kahn is accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. He entered a plea of not guilty during the arraignment.
More on today's court appearance ahead in a live report.
Well, initial tests at a German bean sprout farm find no traces of the deadly E. coli bacteria that so far killed 22 people. Over the weekend, officials said that German-grown sprouts were the likely source of that outbreak. Now, they say E. coli may have affected only one batch of sprouts, but the testing will continue.
More now on the wildfires that are raging across parts of Arizona. The biggest is the Wallow fire. It has already burned almost 200,000 acres, if you can believe that.
Hundreds of families have been evacuated, including Jesse Walker and his wife.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSE WALKER, WORRIED HOMEOWNER: A person doesn't realize just how hard it is to face something like that. You think you're prepared for it. You think you're mentally prepared for it, physically prepared for it. You're not. I cried all the way to town.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You did?
WALKER: It's hard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: On the phone with us right now from Eagar, Arizona, is Jesse Walker's wife, Holly. And, first of all, Holly, we saw the very emotional interview that was done with the two of you. How are you holding up? How is your husband doing?
HOLLY WALKER, FIRE EVACUEE: He's better this morning, Suzanne, but we're all over the place, and it's very hard.
MALVEAUX: I know that he built that home with his own hands. Is there any word at all on what has happened to your house?
WALKER: It's still there as of this morning. He talked to his brother who lives up there also, and things are all right, right now.
MALVEAUX: Do you have any idea when you might be able to go back and to check on it?
WALKER: No, but we'll have notices telling us the updates of the condition of our property.
MALVEAUX: And where are you now? How are you getting along? Are you staying with someone, with relatives?
WALKER: Yes. We have our horses at his other brother's in Eagar, and friend of ours has us and our dogs at his house. So we're here and there.
MALVEAUX: And we understand your brother-in-law -- is he still at the home?
WALKER: He has a place up by us and he's still there.
MALVEAUX: Can you give us a sense of what you are going through at this time? It seems like it's heartbreaking to imagine such effort and love that went into your home, for it to be at such risk right now.
WALKER: Yes, it is. It's very hard to be upset like this, and the animals suffer. And we don't know if we'll have it to go back to.
We did have a cargo trailer which I stuffed full of everything that I could think of to take. I feel really bad for the people that just have a car and are unable to take very much with them.
MALVEAUX: What kind of animals do you have?
WALKER: We have three horses and three big dogs and two Chihuahuas.
MALVEAUX: I'm very glad that you're all safe at this moment. Is there something that you feel like you need from officials, from authorities, from your neighbors?
WALKER: We're being taken very good care of right now, and we have a place to evacuate to with our animals so we can stay with them.
MALVEAUX: Well, Holly, thank you so much for just spending some time with us and explaining your situation. We certainly hope that you and your husband are able to get your belongings, and also to return to your home, and that your home is -- survives this fire, this outbreak.
Thank you very much, Holly.
WALKER: Thank you, Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: Ahead "On the Rundown," a strand of hair found in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car. It is part of the forensics evidence in her murder trial.
Plus, some silver linings in this otherwise brutal economy.
And the woman who's accused Gadhafi's troops of raping her now out of Libya and in Malta.
Then, we are doing some fact-checking in the Truth-o-meter.
And finally, the plane that splash-landed gracefully on the Hudson River making one final trip.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Week three of the Casey Anthony trial is under way today in Orlando. The focus is on forensic evidence. Anthony is charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.
Now, over the weekend, jurors heard testimony about a hair recovered from the trunk of Anthony's car.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAREN KORNSBERG LOWE, FBI LABORATORY EVIDENCE TECHNICIAN: What I was looking for were any hairs that exhibited characteristics of apparent decomposition, and then that hair I compared to hair recovered from the hairbrush which is identified as belonging to Caylee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Prosecutors expect to finish their case in the Casey Anthony trial in about two weeks or so. Then the defense is going to get its turn.
Joining us from Las Vegas with some perspective on the trial is criminal defense attorney Richard Herman.
Thank you very much for being here with us.
RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Hi, Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: You're a defense attorney -- hi. And so far we've heard a lot of conflicting stories coming from this defendant, Casey Anthony.
Does she have a defense here? Is this a slam-dunk case for the prosecution?
HERMAN: Well, it's not a slam-dunk case, Suzanne, by any stretch of the imagination. There is a defense here, and it's based on punching holes in the forensic evidence case.
Here, this expert was on the stand and clearly said, I cannot tell you definitively that the hair that was found with that decomposition band on it came from Caylee Anthony. I can't tell you that, but it sure looks similar to those hairs found.
Well, similar is not exact. And here, this is a first-degree premeditated murder case where you're looking to put this defendant to death. So your burden is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
For many jurors, that's going to create reasonable doubt. Similar is not an exact match. However, Suzanne --
MALVEAUX: Yes, go ahead.
HERMAN: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
MALVEAUX: Has the prosecution linked Casey Anthony to the murder of her child in any way based on what they've presented?
HERMAN: No. It's a circumstantial case.
There's no videotape of this murder. So what they've done is they've battered her, they've put all those jailhouse interviews up. People see what a liar she is, that she was out partying 30 days after the child went missing. But the one thing they haven't shown yet is they haven't shown the manner of death, the means of death, the cause of death.
They haven't proven that Casey put the Duct tape on the mouth and nose before Caylee died, because they need to prove that in order to get premeditated murder. And they're not going to be able to prove that because the medical examiner doesn't know the cause of death in this case. That's huge for the defense. And if you had an even playing field, that's a great line of defense.
MALVEAUX: So, Richard, you know, you've said before that there's no way that Casey Anthony should take the stand. Why do you believe that?
HERMAN: I believe that, Suzanne, because I think it was preposterous in the opening for Baez to stand up and make a pronouncement of what happened here when he can't prove any of it. He has no obligation to prove this, but he told it to the jury. So now they're going to lose confidence in him, and credibility, because the only way they can prove this sexual abuse is now going to be through the words of Casey Anthony on the stand.
Suzanne, can you imagine if this woman puts her hand on a bible and swears to tell the truth before this jury? She has told more lies than anybody in the history of criminal defendants. The jury has heard so many lies. She has no credibility. It's not going to stand to help the defense if she gets up there. They're only going to hate her worse. And if a jury hates a defendant, and has no credibility with the defense attorney, they're going to convict.
MALVEAUX: All right. Richard Herman, thank you very much for following all of the twists and turns of this very interesting case. Thank you, Richard.
HERMAN: The defense case hasn't even begun yet, Suzanne. A lot more to come.
MALVEAUX: All right. Great. Thank you.
The former head of the International Monetary Fund pleads not guilty to sexually assaulting a hotel housekeeper. Dominique Strauss- Kahn was arraigned earlier today in New York. When he arrived at the courthouse, he was greeted by chants of "Shame on you!" from members of a hotel housekeepers union.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: CNN's Deborah Feyerick, she is outside the courthouse in New York. She is with us live.
Deb, walk us through what happened outside this courtroom today.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Suzanne, I can tell you that the look on Dominique Strauss-Kahn's face when he heard those chants from the hotel workers, I don't think he even realized that they were hotel workers. But when he heard those chants, and he looked around and saw all the media attention focused squarely at him, he looked almost startled, a little bit taken aback.
He walked up the courthouse steps with his wife, Anne Sinclair, her arm hooked through his. And they made their way about 100 feet past many, many, many photographers. Certainly the most I have seen in a very long time.
He did not say much once inside the courthouse, but made it very clear through his lawyers that he's going to aggressively fight the allegations against him, including attempted rape. His lawyer later saying that the not guilty plea, in his words, was very eloquent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN BRAFMAN, DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN'S ATTORNEY: Once the evidence is reviewed, it will be clear that there was no element of forcible compulsion in this case whatsoever. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply not credible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FEYERICK: And it's interesting. While the lawyer is avoiding the term "consensual," he is also making it very clear that it was not forced, that whatever may or may not have happened in that room, it was not forced -- Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: Deb, what do we know about the lawyers for Strauss- Kahn, their plan to go after the credibility of the alleged victim?
FEYERICK: Well, you know, that seems to be a big part of this case. The alleged victim, a 32-year-old West African, she was working at the Sofitel hotel as a housekeeper when this incident occurred a couple of weeks ago. Her presence was really felt very strongly outside the courthouse, represented by those hotel workers making sure that she herself is not forgotten. Her lawyer says she is too traumatized to go back to work, but she is eager to take the stand, to testify and say what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN THOMPSON, ATTORNEY FOR ALLEGED VICTIM: What she wants is justice. What she wants is for her voice to be heard. What she wants is for the world to understand that she's a woman of dignity and respect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FEYERICK: But it is interesting to see both sides coming out so strongly in this. Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyers basically saying we're going to show there's no evidence, while the alleged victim saying in fact she wants to say what happened -- Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: All right. Deb, thank you very much.
Well, despite the gloom and doom, the economy, it's not all that bad. We've got the positive economic trends.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Here are today's choices for "Choose the News."
First, adapting after a nuclear crisis. Japan relaxes its strict dress code, allowing workers to wear sandals and shorts to the office. Why? Because the government's energy-saving campaign, "Super Cool Biz," sets office thermostats at 82 degrees.
Second, finding a computer thief. A program hidden in a stolen laptop sends pictures and location back to the owner. Police don't help until the owner leans on them through social media.
And third, spending their lives in the clouds. Former military and airline pilots come together to write messages in the sky from the cockpits of World War II fighter planes.
You can vote by texting 22360. Text 2 for "Super Cool Biz"; 2 for "Nabbing a Thief"; or 3, "Air Show Skytypers." The winning story is going to air later this hour.
Rick Santorum officially kicks off his run for the White House. The former Pennsylvania senator announced last hour that he is running for the 2012 Republican nomination. Santorum is popular among social conservatives, but recent polls show him in the single digits.
In announcing his candidacy, Santorum took aim at President Obama's policies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANTORUM: We are facing a time when we have a group of people led by President Obama who believes that America's greatness is in government, not his people. And there is one singular act that to me is the linchpin, and that is Obamacare.
He said -- let me tell you what President Obama's team is telling me. He said, "Americans love entitlements, and once we get them hooked, they will never let it go."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't want that!
SANTORUM: They want to hook you. They don't want to free you. They don't want to give you opportunity. They don't believe in you. They believe in themselves, the smart people, the planners, the folks in Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: CNN Chief Political Correspondent Candy Crowley has a look at the busy week that's ahead in politics.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sarah Palin capped off the first week of her "this is not a campaign tour" aboard a "this is not a campaign bus" with a "this is not a campaign appearance."
SARAH PALIN (R), FMR. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What President Palin would do is cut the federal budget.
CROWLEY: Unclear is whether Palin's hide-and-seek tease tour will continue this week or not. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum is hoping not. Making his bid official Monday, Santorum could use some oxygen for his campaign.
SANTORUM: It's been great to be out on the husting I've been to New Hampshire, I think, it's my 15th time.
CROWLEY: Who knew? Not many. A recent survey by Pew Research found fewer than half of voters who lean Republican have ever heard of the former senator from Pennsylvania. Counting Santorum there are seven people known and not so much known know officially running for the Republican nomination for president. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty will outline his cure for what ails the economy this week in Chicago, Illinois. Need we say more?
TIM PAWLENTY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Obama's policies have failed.
CROWLEY: In the cycle of presidential elections, this is big dream season.
REP. RON PAUL (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am so delighted to see you involved in our revolution.
CROWLEY: And Texas Congressman Ron Paul is on round three. He first ran for president as a Libertarian 23 years ago, preaching lower taxes and less spending.
PAUL: Mainstream is moving in the direction that I have been talking about for a long time and, therefore, nobody knows what the outcome will be in this election. During the last campaign I knew what was happening. You know, they mocked me for my foreign policy and they laughed at my monetary policy. No more.
CROWLEY: And finally on Capitol Hill, where the campaign runs through it, this may be big miracle season.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: There is a bipartisan discussion going on that is civil and constructive and that they've come to some areas where they can possibly reach agreement but that nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.
CROWLEY: What the House Democratic leader will not agree to is cuts in Medicare which sounds like square one. Except Nancy Pelosi is not known for her sunny outlook on bipartisan deals. Time is running out to raise the debt ceiling and throughout Capitol Hill history, deadline pressure has always outperformed miracles. This could be the week -- or not.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: A week from today, CNN will host the New Hampshire presidential debate. Join us as Republican hopefuls take on the issues, as well as each other. That is next Monday, June 13th, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.
Well, with last week's dismal employment numbers and a new low in house values, you may have gone into the weekend pretty depressed. Well, it's not the complete picture.
Here are some positive economic indicators.
First, there's been a big drop in delinquent home loans. You can see it in this graphic. In the states with the biggest problems, the share of loans that are 90 or more days past due is actually falling. And you're paying less for gas compared to a month ago. It is now an average of $3.77 a gallon. That is down from $3.97 last month.
And this -- while stocks may have tumbled for the last five weeks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 8.8 percent for the year -- percent for the year. Right now the Dow Jones is down by eight points.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, CHIEF ECONOMIST, U.S. ECONOMIC RECOVERY BOARD: What you want to look at are, what are the recent trends? Because one month is not a trend. And the last six months, we've added a million jobs in the economy. The last 15 months, we've added two million jobs. Now, the president's the first to say that it is not enough, and if the unemployment rate's 9 percent, we've got a long way to go.
There is a plan. It has been working. We have been adding jobs significantly over the course of this year. We faced a stiff headwind, and this was a tough month, but I don't think that we should abandon the idea that what we need to do now is get the private sector stood up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: For more on what's going on with the economy, go to CNN.com/money.
She said she was raped by Moammar Gadhafi's forces, and she's been in danger ever since. Now, rushed out of Libya for her own protection.
Our Nic Robertson has the latest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Here are some of the stories ahead "On the Rundown" this hour.
First, the woman who stood up for her dignity in Libya finally free of Moammar Gadhafi.
Next, packing up and leaving before the wildfires arrive. Arizona homeowners worried sick now about leaving everything behind.
And then, kids injured when the wind catches those inflatable children's bounce houses.
We have devastating news out of Baghdad. Five U.S. troops were killed there in a mortar attack. That happened this morning. It is the worst death toll for U.S. forces there in more than two years.
And in Libya, after NATO warplanes battered Tripoli last night, a Russian envoy meets with rebel leaders to discuss how to put further pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Meanwhile, Yemen is on the brink of civil war. President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment after being wounded in an attack on his presidential compound.
And the Obama administration has made clear that it wants Saleh out of power. But Jamie Ruben, a former assistant secretary of state, says if Saleh leaves, it could open up a big opportunity for all Qaeda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES RUBIN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE BLOOMBERG VIEW": President Saleh has been such a complete ally for us in the fight against al Qaeda, actually letting us come into the country, use our military forces at will, coordinate special forces operations, all of the things you need to do to actually destroy terrorist cells from al Qaeda. And his departure therefore, might -- we don't know yet -- but it might make that battle against al Qaeda more difficult.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: So we're in a tough situation then because we have been exerting pressure to get him to step down as well, right? I think that we even had people sent by the president this past week to go talk about negotiating a way out for him. Why do we want to get rid of him?
RUBIN: Well, you're exactly right. We had John Brennan, who is the most senior terrorism official in the U.S. government who also happened to have served in the region go there because we concluded that Saleh's presence was going to cause some sort of civil war. And that an agreement had been negotiated by the Saudis. And this is a reasonable solution from the U.S. standpoint of having him step down but have immunity and have an orderly transition to a kind of government that, again, we could work with in the fight against al Qaeda.
This whole thing collapsed when he refused to sign the agreement, refused to leave the country, and now we've had these rather dramatic street battles in the capital and the resulting attack on his pals and him going off to Saudi Arabia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Saudi state TV reports President Saleh plans to return to Yemen after he recovers from his injuries.
Well, she captured the interest and sympathy of the world when she stormed into a hotel room full of reporters in Tripoli, screaming that she had been raped by Moammar Gadhafi's security forces. Since then, Eman al-Obeidy has been shuttled from Libya to Qatar and back. And after a stop over in Malta, she is now at a refugee facility in Romania.
Our Nic Robertson is live in Abu Dhabi. Nic, you've been covering this story from the very beginning closely now for months. First of all, why this back-and-forth? Why has this woman been brought from one country to the next to the next? Will she ever be able to come back home?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't think she's going to be going home if you call home the east of Libya where the rebels control, which is where her parents live. I don't think she'll be going back home any time soon. She really now sees her life being outside Libya. She doesn't feel safe there from Gadhafi's loyalists who might be able to get to her even if she was in the east of Libya.
So, she's got her sights now firmly set on getting to the United States if she can on some sort of refugee program. She's a lawyer. She wants to continue her legal studies, and she sees the United States as being the best place for her. She really wants to put this part of her life behind them, much as she's got family and friends back in Libya.
It's what she really would like as well is just to get over this horrible stress and strain that she's been put through. None of this -- none of it -- is what she wanted from the moment of that gang rape to all the sort of shuttling between countries.
It's -- she wants a normal life. She wants what all of us want. It is just eluded her for the past few months now.
MALVEAUX: Nic, how likely is it that she would be able to go to the United States? Does she have support?
ROBERTSON: She certainly seems to. We know that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has followed her case carefully. She is in a refugee processing center now in Romania. She's been told to expect to be there for several weeks. She will be presented with a number of different options of places she could go to. She's told CNN on several occasions her preference. And it seems that there is nothing standing in the way.
But of course where she's being processed, they may have other ideas, other options may come up and sound more attractive. Because at the end of all of this, she would like to have counseling and help to get over the trauma of the rape and for somebody to come alone with this sort of baggage and pressure that she's had into what will in the United States potentially be an alien environment without a good safety net around her, will be a very daunting prospect.
So, she's likely going to look to where she can expect to find good sort of support to support her through everything she's been through and people like her that she can relate to.
MALEVAUX: Sure. And Nic, why is she in Romania now? Why Romania?
ROBERTSON: She's being sort of processed, if you will, through the U.N. High Commission for refugees. It is a normal procedure, and they have a center in Romania for doing this where she has her own facilities, where she'll have a room, where she'll very likely be able to watch television and have access to what the UNHCR can offer her in terms of sort of options and programs that she can get involved in, going to other countries. So, it's part of that program that she's sort of now part of, now she's got this refugee status.
MALVEAUX: Okay. Nic, thank you very much. Nic Robertson. And we obviously wish her the very best. Thank you, Nic.
Firefighters are desperately trying to get a handle on all of the wildfires that are happening in Arizona. Will they get any help from the weather? Well, that's what Chad Myers is going to help us with up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Disaster is brought on by flames. Several huge fires. They're burning out of control. The largest has blackened almost 200,000 acres.
Our meteorologist Chad Myers. Tell us what it is all about. What is happening here?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Today may be the worst day for the fires and the firefighters as well. They're trying to build a 30- mile-long fire line. And this fire is completely uncontained. Zero percent containment. Wind's going to be 30 to 50 miles per hour today. Firefighters are going to be in the way. Like if they're not always in the way. But today with winds blowing like this, the firefighters will be in the way of getting blown back, getting moved back. All of a sudden everybody's got to get out of the way.
Let me tell you, these firefighters do an incredible job. They work long hours in very tough conditions. It's very hot there today, and the wind is blowing again.
Let's get to it. Critical fire conditions, even extremely critical fire conditions here from Phoenix all the way over toward Albuquerque. The fire will be right in here, and that's where the circle is for the most extremely critical conditions. I actually can see the fire on the satellite. You can see the smoke on the satellite now. Phoenix would be way over here, and Albuquerque and Amarillo would be over there. But the fire line right here.
And as the fire grows bigger and bigger and bigger, the larger the ring, the more square footage and the more mileage that you actually have to fight. There are more than one fire -- a couple fires here that are still pretty impressive east of Phoenix, southeast of Phoenix, even southeast of Tucson. That's the one right there they are concerned about. Now that weather is not blowing toward Phoenix, so we're not worried about that, but certainly the smoke and fire across maybe the I-40 region all the way toward Albuquerque, all these red zones there is all about high, high winds and very dry humidity. That dry humidity again will fire up the storms, fire up the fire storms across eastern Arizona and also western New Mexico today.
Today is the worst day of the week, but today could be a really, really dangerous day.
MALVEAUX: We'll keep our eyes on it. Chad, I don't want you to go anywhere. I want you to check out this story I have for you. MYERS: What's that?
MALVEAUX: OK. This is a legendary stuntman. This is Nick Wallenda doing a high-wire act with his mom. It is the same high-wire walk that killed his great-grandfatehr Carl Wallenda. That ws back in 1978.
MYERS: That's the exact same spot. Those are the two exact buildings.
MALVEAUX: It is 100 feet high, it's 300 feet long. No safety net. They performed this walk together to honor Carl's memory. Wallenda says he's been haunted by the way his great-grandfather died since he was a kid. And so, there he goes --
MYERS: He was on a wire since he was two years old.
MALVEAUX: Really?
MYERS: Yes. Well, with nets. Right? But -- wow, what an amazing feat. That happened over the weekend.
MALVEAUX: Yes. And no safety net there. So, pretty incredible.
MYERS: Don't look down.
MALVEAUX: I could never do something like that. All right, thanks, Chad.
Politicians say a lot of things they expect us to accept as fact. Right? Well, it is our job to call them on it. Truth-o-Meter is up next.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: Stories our affiliates are covering around the world. Inflatable bounce houses fly away. With kids inside! Check out this amateur video from Ocean Side, New York. Three of them went airborne and rolled across a soccer field. Thirteen kids were injured! Witnesses say strong gusts of wind picked them up of the ground.
In Brentwood, Tennessee, a fire destroyed the home of country singer Trace Adkins. His three girls and their nanny were inside at the time but are OK thanks to the family's fire safety plan. They ran to a tree that was marked with a yellow ribbon.
And some drivers in New Jersey got to see this unusual scene. Trucks hauling a giant commercial plane through the streets. It is the same plane Captain "Sully" Sullenberger landed on the Hudson River, saving everyone on board. Well, it's being trucked to an aviation museum in North Carolina.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MALVEAUX: As the political season ramps up, so does the rhetoric. What is true? What's false? Angie Holan has been doing some checking for us. She's a reporter and researcher for politifact.com. It's the political website of "The St. Petersburg Times."
Angie, let's start with this one. Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schulz of Florida says, the Medicare proposal by Republican Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin would, in her words, "allow insurance companies to deny you coverage and drop you for pre- existing conditions." What do we know? True or false.
ANGIE HOLAN, REPORTER & RESEARCHER, POLITIFACT: Suzanne, we rated this one false. The Republicans do have a proposal that would change Medicare to a system where seniors buy their own insurance policies with some money from the government to help them pay for it. It's intended to reduce spending in the Medicare program. But the part of the proposal says that the insurance companies who participate would have to offer policies to all seniors regardless of pre-existing conditions. So, false.
MALVEAUX: So what about this from Sarah Palin. She said, "look at the debt that has been accumulated in the last two years. It's more debt under this president than all those other presidents combined." True? False?
HOLAN: This one got a false, too. We dug into the numbers and there is a couple of different ways you can calculate the public debt. But no matter how we looked at it, the amount of debt that's accumulated under the Obama administration is not more than all the other presidents combined. So this one got a false and the debt has been driven by more spending and also reduced revenues because of the recession.
MALVEAUX: OK. And, finally, Mitt Romney, who is running for president. He says, "we are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy."
HOLAN: We gave this one a "pants on fire." Again, we looked at it a number of different ways and -- but we're just not that close to becoming an un-free economy. And one of the metrics we looked at was from the Conservative Heritage Institution, which ranks countries by economic freedom. The U.S. is number nine on the list of economically free countries and we're very firmly in the mostly free category. So we gave this one the "pants on fire."
MALVEAUX: All right, Angie, thanks for holding them accountable. We appreciate it.
The government scrapped its food pyramid for the food plate with recommendations to eat more fruits and veggies. But if you're worried it's going to take a bigger bite out of your grocery budget, "Smart Is The New Rich" author Christine Romans explains how eating healthy doesn't have to cost a lot.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a message from the very top.
MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: Fruits. We're going to do some fruits here. We're going to do some berries.
ROMANS: A call to arms from the first lady. Her "Let's Move" campaign to combat high rates of childhood obesity and promote healthy eating and exercise.
OBAMA: We're all here today because we care deeply about the health and well being.
ROMANS: But many people think eating healthier equals spending more money. Not so says Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan.
KATHLEEN MERRIGAN, DEPUTY AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: I've been on a campaign, a crusade if you will, a myth busting exercise, trying to say that actually you can afford to eat fruits and vegetables much more than people think.
ROMANS: The USDA calculates --
MERRIGAN: A little bit less for vegetables, a little bit more for fruit. But if you boil it all down, it's 50 cents a cup. So that means for a 2,000 a day calorie diet, you would spend somewhere between $2.18 and $2.50 to meet that half a plate recommendation.
ROMANS: It's not always easy, but you can actually save money.
MERRIGAN: We know that in this country, on average, a family of four is spending about $185 a week on groceries. If you follow a healthy diet plan, as we propose, you can bring that cost down to $175.
ROMANS: Buy fruits and vegetables while they're in season. Frozen and canned are also OK. And have a plan when you hit the supermarket. And, of course, there's always your own back yard.
ROMANS (on camera): It's so interesting to see little first graders with their shovels talking about composting.
And running a household where you're healthy. I mean you pack lunches. You try to pack sustainable lunches where there's no waste.
JENNIFER MEYER, MOTHER OF TWO: Definitely.
ROMANS: Tell me about that, a no waste lunch.
MEYER: It gets a little dicey sometimes. At 7:35 you're trying to make all the snacks and all the lunches for the day. But I find the kids are actually watching over our shoulders going, oh, you want to make sure -- don't put that in a wrapper, put it in a container that we can bring home and wash again. And it means the food that you're packing is better too.
ROMANS: Christine Romans, CNN, New York. (END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: Well, you told us what you wanted to see. Your "Choose The News" story just moments away.
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MALVEAUX: New treatments for melanoma hold promise for patients with the deadliest form of skin cancer. Research presented at the National Cancer Conference this weekend shows that two drugs actually extend the life of melanoma patients. Now just last hour, the chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society told me that this is a much needed development.
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DR. OTIS BRAWLEY, CHIEF MED. OFFICER, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY: It's been 40 years since we've had something good to say about melanoma treatment. These two new drugs, one actually looks at a specific gene within melanoma. It's good for about half the people who have metastatic or melanoma that's spread throughout their body and it actually makes them live longer. It clearly makes them live longer. It's not a cure.
The other is a drug that actually modifies the immune system to help attack melanoma. That second drug's actually been FDA approved within the last several months.
MALVEAUX: So, doctor, whether you say live longer, what kind of life expectancy are we talking about?
BRAWLEY: We're talking about, in clinical trials where people got this drug, folks who you really didn't expect to live a year, you would see perhaps 30 percent to 35 percent live that one year to that one-year mark, maybe 15 percent living two years. And these are people who you really expected would have only lived for six to nine months at most.
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MALVEAUX: Also a drug approved to treat breast cancer has been found to decrease the likelihood of getting cancer. It's for women who are at high risk of cancer fueled by the hormone estrogen.
Well, you told us what you wanted to see. Here's your "Choose The News" winner. Dan Simon reports on how a California man got his stolen computer back with a little help from a smart piece of software and his online friends.
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DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A burglar ransacked his apartment and took his laptop. But Joshua Kaufman knew something the thief didn't. He'd installed a security application called Hidden. It secretly takes screen graphs, pin points the computer's location, and snaps photos. SIMON (on camera): When you saw that first image pop up, what did you think?
JOSHUA KAUFMAN: I was amazed and impressed that it was working. I never really tested it out, so I didn't know if it was going to work or not.
SIMON (voice-over): It worked. The app began streaming images of the man in possession of Kaufman's laptop. He could view the images by logging in to his hiddenapp.com account on any computer.
KAUFMAN: I was thinking, this sucks. Someone has my computer and is deleting all my stuff and there's nothing I can do about it.
SIMON: One moment he's in a car, shirtless in bed, or even sleeping on the couch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People sleep in front of their computers probably all the time, but it's -- they don't realize they're being captured on camera.
SIMON: Kaufman presented the sleuth data to an Oakland detective. But in a high-crime city like Oakland, stolen laptops are hardly a priority.
KAUFMAN: His first response was, you know, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but we just do not have the resources to deal with this right now. We're just too busy.
SIMON: After weeks of inaction, Kaufman put it all on a blog. Guy staring deliriously into my MacBook, read one post. Guy deleting my account, said another.
KAUFMAN: I set up the blog because I was frustrated and I wanted my story to get some more media attention hoping that it would cause the police to act.
SIMON: His strategy paid off. The blog generated thousands of tweets. Police started getting calls from the media. And just like that, they called to tell him they tracked the man down and made an arrest.
So, who is this guy? Twenty-seven-year-old Mutada Aldabashi (ph), an Oakland limo driver, booked on charges of possessing stolen property. He reportedly told the cops the computer had been given to him as a gift, but thought it may have been stolen and that he should have known better.
KAUFMAN: It was a relief to know that all my effort paid off. And I was just excited that it actually worked.
SIMON: It proved that security applications work and that sometimes a little public shame can work in your favor.
Dan Simon, CNN, San Francisco."
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MALVEAUX: If your choice did not win or just want to check out the runners up, I'll have links to them on my page at facebook.com/suzanneCNN.
CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Randi Kaye, who's in for Ali Velshi. Hi, Randi.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, there. Thanks, Suzanne.
