possibility of a debt limit wrangle and syria, of course. and we will have tomorrow jason just reminds me, that big new apple product announcement. >> that's right. >> 1:00 p.m. here on "power lunch." that does it for this edition of "power lunch." >> sue? >> stre"street signs" begins wi triple digit advance in the dow. have great afternoon. welcome to the aforementioned program "street signs." we have the what'sest on syria with the breaking developments crossing and what may be the next battleground in this conflict? countdown to apple. will they finally unveil the blockbuster new product that investors are hoping for? we're going to lay some odds. an inside look at nbc's new show "the million second quiz" and our investigations ink team takes a scary, serious look at some of the problems that america's va hospitals it's a story you cannot miss, all this,

mandy, as the market takes off to begin the week. >> it does. hello, everybody. i'm mandy drury. blue skies outside and in the markets with its gains so far in september the s&p 500 has recovered 62% of its august losses. the dow recouped 31% of august losses this month and looking good so far today. as for the nasdaq, a trading at multiyear highs. good gains as well. it's more than a raised slim august losses. this is the third straight month the nasdaq composite has outperformed the dow and s&p 500. let's get down to the people in the know, bob pisani at the nyse and rick santelli in chicago. bob, lots of stuff going on. what do we focus on? >> focus on asia and on lower yields and some of that syria talk. take a look at the s&p 500. we had nice move to the upside at the open. positive data out of asia was certainly helping. around 12:00, we moved up, couple traders said this may be due to talk that syria may

surrender its chemicals weapons. we hit the 50 day moving average at that moment 1666 on the upside. that usually results in technical buying. that did happen. we're at the highs for the day. the asian buying has helped us throughout date. a nice move up in some of the stocks. regional banks have been weaker because yield curve has been flattening. the banks have been weak for the last two days since that lousy jobs data we had on friday. disappointing jobs data. home builders, though, have been beneficiaries. interest rate sensitive groups like utilities and home builders, kb home a disappointment on the earnings but positive talk on the conference call. finally want to note those economically sensitive sectors on the asian news, materials are at a five-year high. if we close right here at 261 tech industrials and energy also helping as well. mandy back to you. >> bob, thank you very much. >> rick santelli, hope you had a good weekend. the trading day under way, what

do we need to know? >> i'll tell you, i think the next chart says all you need to know. bob talked about asia. specifically, japan had a great, great, great number on gdp revision and how did it play out in their ten-year jgb. look at the 4 hour chart. rates went down. so counterintuitive. i think that really speaks volumes. if you look at the u.s. and europe, since may it has been rates going higher. throughout all the day bait it's a symmetric chart. rates up. we have to monitor how this plays out and when we get a close above 3%. >> rick, thank you very much. appreciate that. we have new developments in the ongoing crisis in syria. syria's foreign minister says he welcomes russia's proposal to place its chemical weapons under international control. it is all in an effort to avoid a u.s. strike and it's not only a high stakes game for the world, it's a high stakes political game for the president

who faces key votes on his plan. let us begin with john harwood. john? >> brian, it's interesting, the administration, with good reason, regards with skepticism the proposal that the russians and syrians have both been discussing this morning to place syria's chemical weapons stockpiles under international control. carney, the white house press secretary, briefing just now does not dismiss it. we are going to listen and talk to the russians, we are talking at high levels to the russians. we have to wait a few hours at least to see whether or not this could materialize as something that would forestall the action the administration otherwise seems set to take. in the meantime the president's got a very aggressive sales agenda. he's going on with all three networks tv anchors tonight to sell the need for a strike against syrian response to chemical weapons use. he's going to the hill tomorrow. have lunch with democratic senators. he's going to give a national address at 9:00 p.m. last night. and tony blincon the deputy national security adviser who opened the briefing at the white

house says the administration is not concerned with bashar al assad threats of repercussions if he is struck militarily. >> we take every possible precaution to make sure we can prevent and defend against anything that might arise against the use of military action. we've done that and will continue to do that and it is our judgment that president assad and syria would have very little interest in picking a fight with the united states of america. >> but brian, to repeat, i think it bears watching over the next several hours to see whether or not the initiative that the russians and the syrians have floated today, will be taken more seriously as the hours proceed and whether it becomes a potential out for the administration or an opening for the administration in -- as an alternative to military force. >> john, how important is this vote politically for the president? >> well, the vote politically is

very important. i think especially for the president's international standing and foreign policy over the next three years. he's got the potential for a vote in the senate where he's hoping to pass that. the house is a much more dicey. i think the effect on his domestic agenda and what he could or could not get done with republicans on the hill is much less significant than the international implications. >> john harwood, thank you very much. >> is the obama administration continues to make its case for strikes in syria they are turning to a new tool in diplomacy and warfare. social media. amman javers, what angle is this? >> call it virtual geopolitics striking the degree to which twitter and other social media are playing a role in the run up to this potential military strike on syria. take a listen to secretary of state john kerry in london talking about the impact that twitter and other social media have had on the u.s. decision that these strikes are needed. >> we know that within moments

of them landing in that territory, the social media exploded with videos that we also know could not be contrived. and we've done various means of ascertaining that. >> and that's the question here, whether those videos could have been contrived or not, anything you can believe or much of what you can believe on twitter is actually true. bashar al assad said in an interview with cbs news he doesn't believe some of the stuff he's seeing on social media and united states is relying on for its case for strikes. take a listen to the syrian president today. >> how can you talk about what happened if you don't have evidence. we're not like the american administration. we're not social administration or government. we are the government that deals with reality. >> so whose reality are you going to pick here depends on which side you come down on this. geopolitical social media tussle we're seeing playing out in real time but this to my mind, mandy, this is the first time we've

seen twitter and other social media play an influence a.m. role in the u.s. decision whether or not to use military force here. one interesting website to look at is a site called story full, based in dublin, ireland, where they're trying to do the forensics on the tweets figuring out where they came from and which ones can be believed and which ones don't come from reliable people. there's an effort to validate some of this but it can be difficult on twitter to tell what's real and what's not. >> let's bring in barclay's political strategist, tali in, a. does this by placing chemical weapons under international control reduce the possibility of an armed conflict with the u.s. or nato in syria? >> we just have to see. in 2003, the libyans did hand over their nuclear program, their nay sant nuclear program. there is a bit of a precedent for this. it's a question of is this a delaying tactic, a way assad can buy more time or a serious proposal? >> what do you think the chances

nothing militarily will happen and we'll see the status quo and if that is the case, how much would you see in terms of coming out of the price of crude? >> well, even if they hand over their chemical weapons, is that going to change the fact that it's a ruthless, bloody civil war that potentially destabilizes the middle east? no. what it will potentially do is take the u.s. strike off the table which in turn could see oil fall back a bit. again, it's going to remain a horrible civil war at the heart of the middle east and potentially destabilizing into neighboring producing countries. >> last time we talked about libya, right, we know syria just a rounding when it comes to oil production, iraq being a threat. how much spare capacity do you believe that saudi arabia has, let's say we get 2 million barrels taken off line with iraq, libya, et secetera could saudi arabia make up that gap? >> we had reports last week saudi is producing 10 million barrels a day. that's almost a near high. if we get another big outage it's going strain the spare

capacity margins. that's why we're concerned about countries like iraq. a situation where over a million barrels of libyan production is off-line. nigerian oil is at a four-year high. we do not want another supply disruption out of the middle east. all eyes are on countries like iraq right now. >> more of an argument for energy independence. thank you very much as always for joining us. >> and the president will be addressing america tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. eastern time right here on cnbc. we will carry that live. >> as for what's happening in the stock market, you've noticed we have a rally. the dow up by 137 points, still sitting higher at the start of the would ek. let's bring in jim, wells capital management chief investment strategist. it seems as if the stock market is not concerned about the various headlines coming out of the syrian situation and it seems as if they're very much focused on the good news from asia and elsewhere. is this what you're focusing on as well? >> i think so. i think the market has been for a while and will continue to

deal with the good old standoff here. there's too many unresolved issues that it's facing, the uncertainty with syria, tapering, another fiscal drama, of what the impact of a higher long-term rates will be, keeping a lid on the upside of this market perhaps, but at the same time, do you want to be out of this market when the data not only here in the united states but now globally is pretty good. last week we had great reports from claims, maybe the job numbers a little disappointing but the ism reports are strong, auto sales record highs and at the same time seeing a pick-up in europe and japan, better results from china. i think the data on the ground, mandy, is too strong to allow the market to fall very much but we have to get through some of these issues and resolved somewhat before we make another leg upwards so even with the jobs report, jim? all the negative nelly moles have suddenly popped their heads out of their holes and said, see, we told you things are weak? >> yeah.

you know i thought the job reports were pretty good last week. we have a decent adp report, good claims number all month long, we've got great employment reports out of the separate regional isms. huge increase in the small business employment component and then we had a bad friday's jobs number but i think even the internals of that weren't too bad in terms of hours worked going up. if you take a composite of the job market, i thought it had a fairly good month last month and that's why you see consumer confidence holding up. that's why you see auto sales holding up. that's why you see consumer stocks continuing to do well because i think the friday report being what it is, i think the read here is there's still some fairly decent momentum in the economy. >> we can always rely on you to find the glass half full here. you're seeing the good points around the world but if you had to weigh up the risk/reward here, would you go overseas as

opposed to the u.s.? go in to the emerging markets? >> i would right now. i want to be overweighted overseas ver us the u.s. the u.s. has been popular in the last year. the dollar strengthened a little bit. i think a supplies is going to be the fed will start to taper and the dollar will start to weaken against the yen and euro, for example, and i think both of those are making big moves from negative to positive growth. the u.s. is just going from positive to slightly more positive. and i think that's going to draw more flows overseas. if you look at the emerging markets they've been out of favor now for two years. they're relative position is the same as it was relative to the s&p now back at the bottom of 2008. their relative values are really attractive. and they've now formed a bottom. they're at the same position relative to the s&p that they were three months ago in mid june. so i think it's a good entry point and i think the emerging markets will be outperformers in the next year. >> that's well said and i think i speak for all of america outside of minneapolis when i say let's hope the markets are

more like the lions and less like the vikings. >> let's not go there. >> i had to get it in jim, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> on deck, ready america? t minus like 22 hours until apple's big announcement. will it be a new i phone, tv? we're going to guess. >> we are, indeed. later on, a million reasons to keep on watching. my interview with the producer of "the million second quiz" ryan seacrest. for what's happening with the markets we are up 140 points and counting on the dow. we'll keep watching what happens over the course of the hour. don't change the channel. ♪ [ female announcer ] you're the boss of your life. in charge of long weekends and longer retirements. ♪ ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future.

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a stock to watch today, alu, remember them? jim cramer thinks this could be a surprise takeover candidate. he also noted last week, that the company is a turnaround story. it's selling off assets, cleaning its balance sheet. this has been a heck of a stock over the last couple months. the last decade it's been el dog. >> less than 24 hours before apple's reveal. a lot of pressure on team cook for this event. how many new products and services are we expecting? john fortt has been counting them and a preview for us. how many have you got? >> i don't know if i have them all. the main event the iphone, two, the 5 s and 5 c. with these we typically get a

phone with the same basic design but bigger upgrades in camera and wireless capabilities maybe improvements in screen quality and battery life. expect to see a new gold colored phone at the high end to join black and white and then the 5 c, five different shell colors floating around, blue, green, red, yellow and white. are these basically the iphone 5 in a plastic case or are these going to be priced more like the iphone 4s and 4. we'll see. updates on apple's history i expect there to be five basic ways the phone will be different from each other. the high-end phone a better camera and screen. faster wireless and access to more features like siri, voice recognition or fingerprint security. in china with china mobile, almost three quarters of the population is still using 2 g phones. the equivalent of the original iphone. china mobile needs probably a 3g iphone to appeal to them and see if apple delivers one that more of them can afford, guys. >> that's nice, jon, except

everybody suggests if you roll that out you're going to canal ballize all the higher margin sales. >> that's the trick. >> darned if you do, darned if you don't. >> that's the trick. apple has been good at this in the past with things like the ipad mini, but you want to have a lower tier that actually reaches into android and gets those users but doesn't cannibalize those who would have been a high-end phone. there will be criticism are they can ballizing at the high end or reaching down low enough to get into emerging markets. >> jon, well speaking of by the way over the past month, apple shares have regained a slice of their famous mojo. so aside from what we, you know, guess very educated guess by jon fortt apple will say what announcements does need to make tomorrow to keep shareholders happy to the core. joining us is stewart jeffreys. i apologize for the terrible pun on apple by the way. what do you want them to say?

what must they say to keep this little mini run going? >> well, i think for tomorrow as jon mentioned it's about the price and you say it's kind of a risk, if they can get the 5 c down to $350, that sounds pretty exciting for emerging markets but one would imagine the gross margin will be heavily squeezed at that point. how they manage that, tomorrow will be a big thing. i think a compelling new service will do a lot to try to get confidence back in apple's ability to innovate. might there be something along those lines. we hope there's one last thing and lots of rumors about iwatches and similar things. i'm not sure if that's enough to move the dial but might give a sense of how apple's innovation trajectory is ramping up and we can expect more exciting products next year. >> do you think the importance of the penetration or greater penetration into those emerging markets outweighs the fact a lot fear by getting out with a lotter cost phone it might diminish the premium niche that

apple has so covered? >> well, i think as long as apple focuses on having the best experience at a specific price point i don't think they have a big problem. if we look at the iphone it's hardware configuration than the galaxy s 4 from samsung and commands a 15% price premium. they have ways of keeping that brandt intact without undermining it. whether or not european or other emerging markets will ignore the 5 s and go for the 5 c. >> what do they do when they run out of number and letter combinations? >> there's always a 6, 7, 8. >> you get my point. if we just keep incrementally adding to these things, are people going to be that excited? i'm annoyed by the fact that the ipad 1 is not running certain applications because it can't go to ios 6. apple tweaking around the margins at what point do we get the revolutionary, giant thing we became used to under steve jobs and with all due respect to tim cook because he's following

a lejdsnd right, when do we get that that's going to say oh, my gosh, this is the next thing and everybody else can copy that? >> if you look back at the history of mobile phones there's always been rapid accelerations in innovation and then plateaus. right now the screen size and configuration is kind of plateaued. chip sets are starting to hit a plateau. i think really the next big thing is around services innovation and they did it with itunes before but i think you would argue that icloud and similar applications may have been disappointing from apple and the real innovation around driving interesting services and perhaps bringing together lots of sensor based information. google is going down that route to work out who you are, where you are, what you're interested in, search history typically is, and customizing the user experience on a continuous basis. i think google is probably in a better position to do that and i think it's some way off before we get something compelling there. >> i'm glad you mentioned google and android speaking of which over the last three months i think samsung's stock is down

3%, apple's stock up about 14%. had to choose one, samsung or apple, which would you pick? >> valuation perspective and everything else, samsung is the better looking company. as a firm that's where we're inclined to hedge our bets. you to have a lot of share buybacks from apple. we had $16 billion last quarter. we've got this dynamic with icahn as well trying to get more cash back. there still is calculuses around apple but longer term concerns about to innovate. >> thank you so much. fantastic graphics as well. thank you to our production team. >> speaking of apple, thanks to the magic of intercontinental air travel i will be live in california tomorrow for the big event. our reports will begin starting on "squawk on the street" tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. taking off on the landing. >> taking off on the cnbc blimp. >> we call ate deridgeble. >> blimp is so --

>> so last century. >> the lotus pose and cheap ticket edition of "street signs." >> and facebook is making dramatic moves to keep up with the joneses. >> follow us on twitter. follow the show on twitter. >> but wait more ways to keep in touch. like us on our facebook page at facebook.com/streetsigns cnbc. >> you're watching "street signs" on cnbc. (announcer) at scottrade, our clients trade and invest exactly how they want. with scottrade's online banking, i get one view of my bank and brokerage accounts with one login... to easily move my money when i need to. plus, when i call my local scottrade office, i can talk to someone who knows how i trade. because i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) scottrade. awarded five-stars from smartmoney magazine.

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we'll help you get there. remember like one working day ago on friday, when the world was ending. the world was ending. today, stock having their best day in two months. >> clearly it didn't end. >> did not end. >> "street signs," everything is fine, there you go. by the way, investors are also high on the hog today because harley-davidson stock trading at levels not seen since 2007 and fmc corp trading at all-time high levels. who is fmc corp? they are a company that provides technology to the oil and gas industry. they were named fortune's most

admired company last year. >> for facebook making another dramatic move to keep up with the competition. julia bore ston has the story checking up with what the joneses are up to and facebook is too i believe. >> well, mandy, facebook has been on a roll and now doing what it thinks it needs to do to keep that up. facebook stock price nearing its all-time high of $45 per share. a number that we haven't seen since facebook's ipo day back over a year ago. today facebook announcing new tools to make it easier for people to participate in public conversations on facebook about entertainment news and politics using hash tags and trending topic loosic twitter. this -- topics like twitter. this moves into linkedin's territory rolling out a new professional skills category to user profiles to hold on to high net worth users. just yesterday, facebook's instagram announced it had hit 150 million users adding 50

million just in the past six months as it moves forward with plans to launch adds next year. now mark zuckerberg will be taking the stage here on wednesday. there's been a lot of discussion and speculation about what he will talk about. folks here want it to hear more about his long-term vision for facebook a and how he plans to deliver on certain promises like the delivering on search within facebook. and also perhaps about other things like video and video ads on facebook. and what that will mean for investors. >> thank you very much. look after your voice as well, sounds pretty loud out there, doesn't it? >> we'll find out tomorrow. >> up next a money manager's top three stock picks. there's a new way to play getting old. plus, on a more serious note our cnbc investigation. a big wig at one federal veterans hospital got a hefty taxpayer paid bonus while six veterans died under mysterious circumstances at a va hospital. an investigation of a story that

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we know what this is, you know what its is. we do it every day and it's called street talk where we hit five big stock stories. first up, certainly not under the radar it is travel website expedia. >> stock is up 2% upgraded to a buy at lazard capital. better than expected benefits after a marketing deal they made with a rival travelocity. they believe it could be a bigger earnings contributor than expected. hotel reservation data shows expedia's hotel share ramping up. still the stock a dog his year, down about 17% this year. >> take a look at what's happening with lu lu lemon at a buy by citi. >> stock up almost 2%. they were initiated by citi. cite long-term growth prospects

around the globe. the brand still cool and has what they call a competitive moat. it's hard to get into that business. web bush out positive saying the response to the new fashion is positive with good demand their earnings by the way are out on thursday. we'll see how transparent the company's earnings are. transparent. >> got it. >> stock number three. it is actually a triple play of discount retailers, we have costco, target and we have walmart. >> and all stocks -- we always over deliver here. noticed that? >> we aim to please. >> you order a six piece nugget we throw in a seventh. that's the way we operate. love from analysts at gold man sacks. goldman resumed walmart with a buy at 83 target. ten bucks of upside. target, the company, resumed with a neutral but a $71 target so about 7 bucks of upside. costco resumed with a neutral but with $124 target and the stock much lower. even though they have neutral ratings on target and costco the

target prices were 7 and $10 respectively above where the stocks were when they opened up this morning. that's not super neutral. it's more optimistic. >> it is. >> yeah. street talk ended early. >> i believe it's over. >> remember the thing i said about over delivering that's complete garbage. >> promise and over deliver on street signs, possibly the opposite on other days. >> our old guest says gold, electric, power and senior housing are places for your money right now and let's hope the three stories are not connected somehow. robert luna, good friend of "street signs," joining us once again. all right. rbt robert not to be negative on a monday, freeport, down 12%, but trading at 11 times earnings, make the case for freeport. >> yeah. we like freeport a lot and that's part of it, brian. part of good investing to buy uncertainty and sell complacency. no more hated group than the min miners. the stocks had a huge amount of insider buying over the past

month, month and a half, big boy type purchases nots just monetary get me excited about the stock. the stock like you said, 10.5 times next year's earnings, paying a 4% dividend and based off next year's earnings that's only about 40% of those earnings. so what i'm thinking is there is going to be an opportunity for a special one-time dividend or increased buyback. the stock down because of the china story but that's turning around as well. we like the stock of these prices. >> it does seem to be stabilizing. i like the fact you're supporting the underdogs here. when i look at your picks they're significantly underperformed in the broader market. the other one is national grid, only been up 0.8% year to date. why do you like it? >> we like national grid here. it's a utility, uk based utility. a lot of what's happened with national grid, part of the underperformance of the european stocks. but this national grid actually owns niagara mohawk which delivers utilities through the northeast. because it's part of this uk

based adr, what's happened with national grid it's been part of the sell-off, trading at a 15 to 20% discount to most u.s. utilities and also yielding 5.3%. which is about 10% more. and the nice thing about it because it's a adr based out of the uk, there's no foreign tax withholdings. investors in the u.s. will collect that 5.4%, the full boat. >> and don't for your last pick just say we're getting older as a country because we are, but senior housing property trust shp your last pick here has not performed well. despite everybody knowing we are getting older as a country, robert. >> absolutely. and this is part of the indiscriminate selling we've seen with the yield trade. all are getting nailed. dividend paid stocks are getting beat up. this stock down 20%. all are not created equal. what you want to look at like when looking at your bond portfolio is the duration of the leases. senior housing is not a type of duration where you're locking in 10, 15-year leases. these are short term, 6, 12

month leases. they have the ability to increase those rents. so that's something you should be concerned about right now. it's paying 6.9% right now. senior housing properties trust over the past decade we all know it's been a bad decade for real estate has increased that dividend year over year. we like it right here at 6.9%, 80 billion baby boomers, plenty of customers to keep occupancy high. >> there's the picks. national grid and senior housing properties trust thank you very much for joining us. >> thanks, guys. >> still ahead on "street signs," a much more serious note. our cnbc investigation into the pittsburgh va hospital and a new concern about an outbreak of legionnaire's disease. >> first, though, a look what the dow is up to having its best day in about two months. today the start of the week, we'll be right back. i am today by luck.

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using data predictively to help power entire cities. so the turbines of today... will power us all... into the future. ♪ we now want to bring your attention to a story that has gotten much attention recently but perhaps not as much as it deserves. it has to do with issues with legionnaire's disease at the pittsburgh va hospital. it has resulted in six veterans'

deaths. today, in fact, there was a congressional hearing in pittsburgh that asked why during the outbreak, not only was nothing done, but why officials in charge of overseeing the facility received big bonuses. we dug deeper to bring you never-before-seen footage in this bombshell two years after the fatal outbreak in 2011, two years after the va said it would spend $10 million to fix things, cnbc has obtained an exclusive report water sample test results from patient care areas that continue to show the presence of legionala at the same hospital. take a look. >> reporter: what you see here is not water from a third world country. we don't know if this particular water has the potentially fatal bacteria. but we do know that this is water in the radiation therapy rest room at the va hospital in pittsburgh. an employee at that hospital with direct access to the

facility and all the mechanical rooms spoke with us on condition of anonymity we have altered his voice to protect his identity. for over four years he says he's seen. >> crumbling infrastructure, leaking pipes, mo >> reporter: this video also shot by that employee. >> we are in the mechanical space for radiation therapy. here we have a sewage pit. the room stinks. and we have a water leak. it's been leaking through the walls. >> reporter: we wept to the pittsburgh va and saw this. which often results in this. the bugs aren't the worst of it, though. >> where this leak is, i hope that isn't legonella. >> reporter: she knew nothing about lee go nel la until her father's death. >> we will miss you and keep you

safe in our hearts. >> reporter: two years after john passed away, maureen was finally told the truth about why he died. he had contracted legionnaire's disease at the pittsburgh va hospital. years for va to finally acknowledge he died of legionnaire's disease but only after the va inspector general opened an investigation with the help of the cdc. john wasn't the only one who died from this curable disease. >> six people died and then we look at the time they got the antibiotic. they either didn't get the antibiotic at all or they got it as they were dying. >> reporter: cnbc obtained e-mails that showed officials knew about the situation as far back as 2010. one knew there was a 60%

positivity rate of the bacteria which means it was present in the tap water sites tested. the cdc's acceptable rate ze rop world renowned scientist dr. victor hue tested for lee go nel la not just for the pittsburgh va but for all across the country. in the early 1980s until 2006. when doctor hu was fired and his long-time colleague dr. stout resigned a few years before this outbreak. >> when it gets that high, and then cases start occurring, the one most single terrible thing that they did, they withheld that information from the emergency room physicians, all the physicians in the hospital, and didn't tell the critical care people that legionela has come back into the water supply and in every one of your faucets. >> the word that comes to my

mind is catastrophic failure. >> reporter: for its part the va is saying nothing. our requests for interviews and comments were not returned. this va press release, though, from november 2012 says that the hospital is free of legionela because remediation efforts worked and individuals running the hospitals were reaping big rewards. mike moreland, regional director overseeing the health care system accepted the presidential distinguished rank award this year. that's the government's highest civil service accolade. that award came with a nearly $63,000 bonus. that's on top of moreland's yearly salary which as of last year was almost $180,000. and moreland's bonuses are just the tip of a very large iceberg. government data shows that the va paid about $408 million in bonuses last year alone. while hospitals across the

country were in desperate need of repair and improvements, according to congressional sources and hearings. and when employees brought up these issues with superiors, the answer was. >> there's no money to make the repairs and they never touched the infrastructure. >> reporter: one part of the infrastructure that moreland did touch, he shut down the special pathogens lab where dr. hu and stout worked and tested the water and after the outbreak in 2011, lawmakers have confirmed the pittsburgh va said it would spend $10 million on remediation efforts which the va said proved successful. but it looks like many of the problems still haven't been fixed. in fact, just days ago, the same va employee whom we interviewed and who shot this footage, took water samples from faucets in the hospital. including one from a patient care floor. an area where veterans recover post-operation to a special

pathogens laboratory where a micro biologist performed the water test at this independent lab. which dr. stout is the director of. the lab was not authorized by the va to conduct a test. they did so at the request of that va employee. the report we received from that lab showed that the sample tested positively for legionela. the same disease causing strain that was responsible for the initial outbreak. according to medical experts this means there are patients now at that hospital that could be exposed to the disease. two years after she lost her father, maureen wants to make sure other families don't suffer her fate. >> i understand, he understands. over and out. >> over and out. >> we also want to mention that dr. hu the medical director of the lab that conducted the tests and there's more. the american federation of government employees confirmed to cnbc that at least in five employees got sick as well.

now dr. robert petzell, undersecretary for health at the va testified at the hearing in pittsburgh and said that, quote, lessons learned from pittsburgh are being used to ensure water safety at all va medical centers throughout the nation. now in response to the bonuses, they are based on matching the director's accomplishments against the performance contract and quoting now, their ability to lead change and their impact on the organization's overall performance. but he also noted that, quote, there will be at some point most certainly be adverse events in their areas of responsibility. >> up next, back to this monster day for the markets. >> ryan seacrest on fame, fortune and nbc's new show "the million second quiz." my interview with ryan seacrest is coming up when "street signs" returns. don't go away. ♪ [ cows moo ] [ sizzling ] more rain... [ thunder rumbles ] ♪

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and fly you out to the prime time show where you could win over $2 million. i guarantee you at the end of ten nights we're going to change someone's life. >> do you think this is the way tv will go in the future? about the social media, big media and a lot of interaction from people at home? >> i think in order to break through and keep up with everything going on, we have to make shows like this. we have to break the walls down, have tentacles everywhere and all over the place as a television broadcast. and when you look at the moving parts and the caliber, the scale

of the show, it is like most shows. that's nike for a brand new show. it's a 24/7 program. so we're on the air for an hour but for 24, 23 other hours of the day there will be people playing and working on the show because they're competing 24/7. >> i want to pick your brains on this and take it one step further. do you think it's going to be about the person at home watching tv they're going to be on demand tv, no channels, no networks something you see as the future. >> i feel like i might get in trouble if i say no networks. >> i'm already in trouble for asking this question. >> i think those walls in which we looked at programming have obviously come down a little bit. we are trying to move something that creates the paradigm further. the contestants playing on that app will answer the exact question that i read to the contestants here and they'll see

if they get them right and beat these two. that's something them between these two. that's something in terms of synching with the show. >> you have your finger with a lot of pies. mixology coming up in the spring. what's after that? what would you like to do in the future? >> well, i think in the future i'd like to have this work. that's the future of the next ten days. it actually works. you know, we have a company that produces scripted/nonscripted shows. we want to do more than that and build a 21st century media company that moves with the times. this show is symbolic of that. >> dick clark mentored you from a very young age, i understand. what do you think was the best piece of financial advice dick clark gave to you? >> he was definitely one who would preach about being aggressive when it came to not just being in front of the camera. you want to be in a charge of a lot of these things. you want to come up with the idea. he said in a perfect world you want to make it look easy.

you want other people to do it. it's a show, business. >> do you watch cnbc? >> do i. i know exactly what you do. is today a good day. >> today is saturday. it's a good day. >> good day! >> you can watch the premiere of "million second quiz" on our sister show msnbc. you can download the app. i did download it. i was useless in the american history things like what's the fifth president of the united states. >> you don't know the fifth president? grant. it's as big as an egg, hitting the auction block. the biggest white diamond ever.

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story of their own crown jewel, robert frank. >> i wish i could have brought it. it's the size of an egg. going to be sold in asia, sotheby's is auctioning it off. this could go for between $28 and $38 million. >> if you crack it, does a chicken pop out? >> no, i don't think you want to crack this. largest ever diamond sold. >> incredible. >> hard assets, that's what it's all about. >> robert frank, thank you.

that's a big diamond, my friend. not as big as you. >> would make a lady very happy. thanks for watching "street signs". >> "closing bell" coming up next. we'll see you tomorrow from the apple event tomorrow in california. should be a big one. "closing bell" up right now. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm scott wapner in for bill griffeth. >> maria bartiromo is back tomorrow. we're in rally mode at the exchange. dow trying to close 15,000 since august 23rd. market getting a big boost when we heard maybe syria could strike a deal with russia to cease control of their chemical weapons. market got a big boost. >> market wants some certainty. you know we made back 65% of august losses. >> excellent. >> already in september. >> wow. >> here we are up $1.50 or something like that. market getting a lithe