good evening. i'm ali velshi in for erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, a major sign that the economy may be improving and lifting president obama's re-election chances along with it. consumer confidence is now at its highest level since october of 2007. that's before the recession started. during good economic times, numbers are often upwards of 90. during the recession, they've hovered in the mid-60s. today's number came in at 79.3 and it is the ninth straight increase. optimism about the future, which is included in this survey, is also at a nearly four-year high. but what's driving the surge? rising home prices, which just made their biggest monthly jump in two decades. continued job creation, 19 months in a row, and falling gas prices averaging $3.67 a gallon

today. that's down 27 cents since the first week of april. they're all good signs, but are they good enough to keep president obama in the white house? "outfront" tonight, megan carberry, former communications director of rock the vote. alice stewart is a republican strategist. and michelle goldberg is a senior writer for "newsweek" and the daily beast. welcome to all of you. megan wi megan, let's start with you. what's your sense of how much of this is coincidence with president obama being president and how much of it he's able to take credit for? >> i'm sure he can take credit for a lot of it. but what's really important is that voters don't hang on every single number that comes out. it's going to be a sense of what they feel, as we get closer to the election. and the fact is that president obama is not just running an economic race against mitt romney. he is running against himself in 2008, which was such a national moment, and he's really got to show people, you know, how we're -- where we go from here. how do we pick up from that moment. >> but, alice, not just romney's campaign, but the republican

campaign for so long has been about a failed economic presidency. how does this -- how do they have to retool to deal with this? >> well, first of all, and you know this like the back of your hand, ali. it's six solid months of a solid, consistent, stable growth in the economy. for americans across the board, to have true confidence and feel that things are good. this is a good standard, but as you know, the gas prices, the volatility of the gas market, that could change. the jobs report could change. and what we're seeing right now is that right now many polls show that they don't have confidence in obama and his policies to turn the economy around. more people trust governor romney to fix the economy, create jobs, and help get our economic stability back on track. and as you know with this michigan consumer confidence poll, historically, an incumbent president, in order to win, needs this index to be around 90. so currently at 79.3. our president has a long way to go. but we'll see. it's a long way until november. but right now, with we're

looking at more trust in the american people with governor romney in terms of turning the economy around. >> well, you make some interesting points. these polls are sort of all over the place in what people think. but here's an interesting one that we saw and michelle, i want you to look at this. abc news/"washington post" took a poll may 17th and 20th. here's what it shows. when polled, white voters who say that they are struggling, who describe themselves as struggling, 55% of them prefer romney over obama. what do you think of that? >> well, obama -- i mean, white voters who are struggling are by and large white voter who is don't have college degrees. i think seven in ten of the white voters in that survey were people who didn't have college degrees. that's the republican base. you know, white people who feel like they've been left behind by the modern economy and by modernity more generally, but that's the conservative heartland. and they always vote republican. you know, obama lost white voters without college education by 18 points in 2008. kerry lost them by similar margins. gore lost them by similar margins.

so although certainly obama does a lot better when less people are struggling and it looks like we're moving in that direction, i don't think you can make too much of the fact that a republican-leaning demographic is leaning republican. >> very good point. maegan, let me ask you this. you made the point that obama may be running against him. so when times were tough, when unemployment was high, when gas prices were high, he was quick to point out that these things are not necessarily about the presidency or they're holdovers from the last administration. now does he get a chance to make hay out of this? >> i'm sure they'll be taking some credit for it and those comments from earlier will make some great attack ads for the rnc at some point. but the fact remains that it's a really big moment, 2012, and most people are underestimating the sort of spirited cultural, what is the vision of america in the 21st century, that so many americans want and crave. most of the conversations i hear about the election are just, wow, 2008 was so cool. what has happened all along? and i think the president is going to have to explain, you know, why we were soaring four

years ago on this eager high to move forward and where we're at now. and mitt romney is going to have to explain why his party was full of obstructionists. i don't agree with allison. i think people are kind of not sure what he's about and how he's going to lead a party that also doesn't really seem to get what he's about, based on their primary. >> but to alice's point, alice, let me show you another piece of that abc news/"washington post" poll, forget the white voters who are struggling, let's talk about voters who feel the economy is not good, and that spans racial lines. 58% of them support obama, 36% prefer romney. so you see how you can parse these polls a little bit and then they start to say different things. >> oh, sure. the cross tabs on all the polls are going to show different things. but time after time and poll after poll over the past several months, since romney has become the more presumptive nominee, we're seeing that people trust him to turn the economy around. and i will match his record as a successful businessman against

president obama's record of broken promises and the presidency any day of the week. we're looking at 23 million americans out of work, we're looking at the median household income has dropped $4,000. we're looking at -- fortunately, gas prices are down, but we're looking at a tremendous debt and deficit in this country. and people trust that romney has the business experience to do something about it. >> let me ask you this, as a strategist, your jaw must have dropped when you heard mitt romney say that under him, the unemployment rate will be 6%. i would have thought nobody running for office would ever repeat the mistake that president obama and his administration made in putting a number to an unemployment rate. >> well, right now we're looking at above 8% for the longest time in recorded history, but what romney is doing, he's not just throwing a number out there, he's also outlining policies that will help create an environment that will help to make that possible. first and foremost, repealing obama care and creating incentives for businesses to grow and prosper and to create jobs. >> right, but, alice, there's no obama care right now, so how can he use that as a reason why there's high unemployment? >> well, we're already seeing and hearing from businesses across the country where this is

affecting how they go about doing business. >> have you heard any reports, because wie cover this very closely, have you heard any reports of any business in america that has already laid a person off because of what you call obama care? >> what we're hearing from businesses across the country -- i've been on the campaign trail for the past year, i can assure you, we've heard from business owner after business owner who have had to watch what they're doing very closely in terms of business. many people have wanted to expand and hire new people and they're not able to do that with the uncertainty of obama care and the uncertainty of the economy overall. so it is having an impact. and i know, ali, you're brilliant on the economic issues, but i'm telling you, talking to people across this country, they're hurting. >> yeah. >> and obama care is a big factor in that. >> it's a very interesting phenomenon that we've got going on, michelle, because people are hurting across this country. unemployment is high. there are lots of people out of work. and yet, we then see these other numbers that say people are more confident. >> except, of course, the people who can now have insurance as a

result of that policy and are not able to get it, they're not hurting. they're being helped by the health care system. >> i mean, there's something absolutely ludicrous about the idea that unemployment, which has gone steadily down since the passage of obama care, is somehow a crisis because people are going to have access to health care in 2014. i mean, it's such a ludicrous argument that i seriously doubt even your guest or even mitt romney actually believe it, although it's the kind of thing that people have to say during a campaign. and it also, it makes sense. it's not that surprising that people on the one hand can be suffering, but on the other hand can see a light at the end of the tunnel as the economy very, very slowly improves, but improves nonetheless. and you know, people also realize that this economic crisis did not start with obama's election. you know, despite kind of the romney campaign's desire to act as if the economy -- >> on my twitter feed recently, apparently a lot of people don't realize that. >> it's really astonishing.

right now unemployment is as low as it's been since january of 2009, i believe. >> yep. >> so obama's basically gotten it back down to where it was when he took office, or he hasn't gotten it back down, but it's gotten back down through a kind of whole series of policies. so, yes, people have a reason to feel like they've been really hurt by this economic crisis that obama came in in the absolute depths of and had to clean up. and i think that if people see that he's doing that, and they see that their lives are getting a little bit easier, that things are getting a little bit less desperate, you know, people don't want to elect mitt romney. all the polls show that obama's more popular than the underlying economic numbers should suggest. >> michelle, thank you so much for that. maegan carberry, alice stewart, and michelle goldberg, senior writer at "newsweek" and the daily beast, excellent discussion, which you're all right, we'll have many opportunities to have many more times over the course of the next few months. next on "outfront," 33 years

to the day after etan patz disappeared, a man is now charged with murdering the 6-year-old. but a lack of physical evidence, is that going to be hard for prosecutors to deal with? a scare aboard an american airlines flight. a passenger restrained and now charged after a frightening outburst. and another rough day for facebook. how much will that fumbled ipo end up costing? last season was the gulf's best tourism season in years. in florida we had more suntans... in alabama we had more beautiful blooms... in mississippi we had more good times... in louisiana we had more fun on the water.

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our second story "outfront," the man police say killed 6-year-old etan patz was formally charged with second-degree murder today and denied bail. the arraignment was done over video conference because the suspect is on suicide watch in a new york hospital. police say pedro hernandez confessed to strangling etan in the basement of a convenience store 33 years ago today. hernandez is 51 years old. he was 18 when etan disappeared. he lives in maple shade, new jersey, with his wife and daughter and worked in construction until a recent injury forced him to stop. neighbors say he was quiet and belonged to a pentacoastal church.

paul keown joins us now, joey jackson as well, criminal defense attorney. gentleman, thank you. welcome to both of you. joey, let me ask you, they have -- they found this guy before, they've talked to him. they didn't arrest him the first time, years has gone by. that alone seems to give him something of a case. >> tough scenario. listen, manhattan d.a.'s office prosecution, my former office, top-flight prosecutors, but let's get to the facts. the bottom line is that the distinction between probable cause to make an arrest and the type of evidence you need to get a conviction. here's a guy, no criminal record to speak of, you speak to his neighbors, family man, they're so shocked that he might have done this, you have a confession, yes. but what you need also, ali, is you need independent corroboration. anyone can confess to anything. the reality is, is on that confession, there items that can back it up? that's what would be lacking in this particular case. >> including the lack of physical evidence, paul. what do you make of this case? >> well, it's -- iffirst of all

the importance of this case cannot really be overestimated. this goes back to 1979. kids used to be able to take the bus to school, take the subway to school, ride their bikes. >> that's what he was doing, he was going out on his own. >> he was the first can kid that got snatched and put the whole country in fear of predators and kind of created -- we've had helicopter parents ever since, guarding their kids, afraid of predators. this case was the case that started it. but getting to what i make of the case, i'm really shocked they've made an arrest at this time. you have a 30-year-old case. you have someone who now, i hear reports from bellevue, may have been diagnosed with a schizophrenic, certainly somebody with a serious mental problem, who confesses. there's no other evidence that they have in the case. they also, i would add this to the ledger, a civil suit was brought against the patz parents, against another man, a child predator who's incarcerated, and there's a court order and judgment saying that he's the killer in the case. >> and it's important to note that he was declared -- etan patz was declared dead in 2001 as a result of that civil case.

there's no physical evidence. >> oh, no, none whatsoever. in fact, as we know -- >> in other words, there's no body. >> that's right, there's not a body. but even in not even having a body, you would look for dna or other types of things that would make a connection between an accused and the actual event. now, as paul has suggested before, you have this gentleman, ramos, who was civilly found to be culpable for this. so you have someone who was determined to have been the perpetrator of this offense. but now you're prosecuting somebody else. >> so what is that? is that bad police work? bad prosecutorial work? how do you deal with these -- let's talk about john mark karr, who confessed to killing jonbenet ramsey. >> first, i'd like to know what the backstory is on this arrest. because what joey will tell you and what i'll tell you, because we're both former homicide prosecutors, prosecutors ride homicides in new york unlike the rest of the country. we have to go to the scene and it's the d.a. who makes the decision about make iing an arr or not. i want to know, was this authorized by cyrus vance, the

d.a. remember, ray kelly's man went down to camden, new jersey, put this guy in a police cruiser and brought him back to new york. so did the d.a. authorize this arrest? did he say there was enough evidence? or was this a police decision and now the d.a. has to put together a case. i think we'll hear backstory in the days to come. >> and there's a political twist. and what is that? when cy vance got elected, he gave the indication he was going to reopen this case. so certainly there's some type of political pressure to move forward and to get justice. we want closure, we want the family, certainly, to find the person who was held accountable. >> for our viewers who don't know, why if this guy worked at a convenience store along the way, why is this happening now? they have known -- police say they've known of this character for a while. >> well, somebody made a mistake, because when they were interviewing people in the neighborhood, they seemed to have overlooked him. he was one of the few people who didn't volunteer to look for

the, for etan patz when he was missing. and the other thing, the missing link in this that i'm really troubled by is you have a guy here who they say, when he was 19, he snatches a 6-year-old boy, murdering him brutally, puts him in a trash bag, throws him away, and then he goes to new jersey and lives a normal life? >> an entirely normal life. so we're not 100% here, you're not sitting here convinced tonight, i've heard you both be convinced about things in the past, you're not convinced this is necessarily a slam dunk. >> listen, we don't know where this evidence is. maybe they've got something we don't know about, but, boy, it better be good. >> i hope they do, paul. >> because we've got a mentally ill individual in bellevue hospital confessing to a 30-year-old crime with no physical evidence. >> and how reliable could the confession be? >> let's rate me as a skeptic on this. >> we'll have lots of chance to talk about it. guys, thanks very much. paul callan, joey jackson, pleasure. ahead, a new weapon in the battle against pirates. we show you how u.s. ships and

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our third story "outfront," a new weapon in the war against pirates. their attacks are a concern that has spread from africa to asia, costing the the global economy billions of dollars every year. just yesterday, we learned pirates tried to attack a u.s. cargo ship in the gulf of oman. it's hard to track the number of attacks, but a recent report found that there have been 102 attacks in just the first three months of this year. the same report found that pirates are becoming more violent. so we sent zain verjee out front to show us how a new private navy is keeping pirate-filled waters safe. >> reporter: the hope is that this can ward off pirates. it may seem laughable, but mannequins posing as guards in the dead of night could fool pirates and force them to flee. there are other tactics, as one nato commander tolds me. >> bashed wire, perhaps, around their ship. they have extra lookouts posted to look for somali pirates. they have a routine where they can fire flares, water hoses, et

cetera. >> reporter: i've been in the region, looking at pirate tactics. pirates will get close in the dead of night to a merchant ship like this one. they approach it, they look for one that moves slowly and is kind of low. they throw a rope with a hook or a ladder and climb up on to it. some of their skiff have powerful engines, weapons, gps navigators, extra fuel. the new convoy escort program will supplement the maritime program. it will have guns on board to protect vessels. and in case they do shoot, there's a clear command structure, a team that is trained together, knows the equipment. >> i didn't like that one! >> reporter: but critics say more guns means less control and a chance of more deaths. according to a recent piracy report, hijacks for ran some cost the world about $7 billion a year. piracy is big bucks, a threat to the world's supply chain,

insurers, consumers, but most of all the hostages, hundreds still in captivity. jane v zain verjee, cnn, london. still "outfront" in the second half of the show, the nfl being sacked by its own player. a former player who's suing the league comes out front. and why some in the john edwards courtroom think an alternate juror is flirting with the former presidential candidate. if you're one of those folks who gets heartburn

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welcome back to the second half of "outfront." we start the second half with stories we care about, where we focus on our own reporting from the front lines. a canadian man has been arrested after an incident on an american airlines flight in miami. the fbi charged ryan snyder with interfering with a flight crew. a source told cnn that the 24-year-old charged the front of the plane and began banging on the door. snyder was detained by fellow passengers and then he was handed over to authorities. the flight was heading from montego bay to miami. iran has enriched uranium up to 27%. that's according to a u.n. nuclear watchdog agency. the iaea says the uranium comes from a sample taken in february

at the fordo plant. the previous highest level of enrichment had been 20%. just so you know, weapons grade enrichment is 90%. a nuclear weapons expert tells "outfront," it is very unlikely it is finding out a part of a secret iranian weapon. the news comes days after iran failed to reach talks. a private spacecraft made history in outer space this morning. at 9:56 eastern, spacex's dragon linked with the space station. they will open dragon's hatch tomorrow and unload the booty, which is food, clothing, and equipment. jpmorgan's ceo jamie dimon has been asked to testify on capitol hill next month about his company's multi-billion dollar losses. today the senate banking committee formally invited dimon

to testify on june 7th. the ceo announced earlier this month that his bank lost $2.7 billion on risky trades. sources have told "cnn money" those losses may have grown to $6 billion or $7 billion. president obama and democratic lawmakers have called for more wall street reform given jpmorgan's situation. it's been 295 days since the u.s. lost its top credit rating. what are we doing to get it back? our fourth story "outfront," football is big business. if you factor in television deals and sponsorships, the national football league is estimated to be worth about $9 billion. but the league is under attack by former players. the threat, once again, coming to light after the high-profile suicide of retired linebacker junior seau earlier this month. studies have linked depression and suicide to repeated head injuries like the ones that seau suffered throughout his career. so far, some 2,000 former players have fired 80 lawsuits against the league.

they say they now suffer severe health problems, including chronic headaches, difficulty sleeping, depression, memory loss, and dementia, all from the hard hits they suffered during their careers. they say the league knew about the long-term dangers of concussions and did nothing to protect them. "outfront" tonight, i spoke to leroy jordan, a former linebacker for the dallas cowboys and one of the former players suing the nfl, and matthew mathiney, a lawyer representing former players against the nfl. i asked leroy what his symptoms were and how he knew they were related to his days with the nfl. >> well, you know, for the last two years, i've been having memory problems of, you know, forgetting things and not knowing what i came in a room to do and i've become very irritable with my family. my wife and my kids and friends. and that is really disturbing to me, because that's not my

personality. so i think we all have different degrees of this and i am lucky, compared to many of the players out there, that are suffering much worse than i am. >> how do you -- what's your sense? i mean, look, we all only grow old once, so we really don't know how it's supposed to feel. how do you know this just isn't age? >> well, i don't know. but what i'm asking is, are we going to do anything about the concussions of the past? are we going to improve the potential concussions of the future for our future nfl players? are we going to try to help take care of those guys who are suffering now from concussions back when they played football in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. and you know, are we going to just let them fall by the wayside? >> i want to give you what the nfl has said about this. the nfl has issued a statement. "the nfl has long made player safety a priority and continues

to do so. any allegation that the nfl intentionally sought to mislead players has no merit. it stands in contrast to the league's alaskas to better protect players and advance the science and medical understanding of the management and treatment of concussions." matthew, when you go to court, that's -- the nfl is going to say what they've said. what are you going to say? you know, if lere roy and other can't entirely defend what, you know, why they're experiencing what they're experiencing, how do you make the case in court? >> well, first and foremost, any individual plaintiff is not capable of linking the cause of their injury. that has to come from a medical professional. and fortunately, there are neurologists all over the country. there are several in dallas that are doing intense study on retired football players' brain function. the doctors at boston university neuroscience department have done a fantastic job of researching this issue, making the link and causation.

they have the appropriate neuropsychological studies that can be done on these individuals to help make the link for causation. and when it's time and in a court of law, those medical professionals treating neurologists from all over the country are prepared to come and testify that, in fact, these men have suffered a concussion, they've suffered subconcussions, they return to play before their brains had healed, and that repeated traumatic event through the course of their playing career is what caused them to have traumatic brain injury in their later life. >> lee roy, let's talk about that, getting players back into the game before they should have. you've said that they took the ankle injuries more seriously than they took head injuries when you were playing. >> well, they did. the doctors and trainers examined ankle injuries or knee injuries or knee strains, you know, much more than they did concussions or stingers or dinghies or whatever they called them back then. so, you know, it wasn't considered an injury as long as

you could remember the plays and get back on the field and perform. >> all right, matthew matheny, thank you very much. he's the plaintiff attorney who's filed a lawsuit on behalf of about 100 players and lee roy is a former linebacker with the dallas cowboys. thank you, gentleman. >> thank you. it's been six days without a verdict in the case against john edwards. he's facing six charges of conspiracy and campaign finance violations. if convicted, he could go to prison for up to 30 years. this afternoon, the judge dismissed the jury for the long week, mentioning that one of the jurors has a personal issue, but no indication of what the personal issue is. it's just the latest in a string of curious developments since the jury started deliberating edwards' fate last week. paul callan is back with me. what are you hearing about this, paul? a lot of people were saying, the jury won't want to sit through the long weekend. a lot of, you know, the old saw about how juries like to get out before a long weekend. >> i thought myself there was a good chance of a verdict this afternoon, and boy, they're coming back next week.

you know, normally when a jury would be out this long, if you were a defendant, you'd be thinking, you know, maybe i'm going to catch a break here, maybe i'm going to be acquitted. >> in other words, day didn't go into the jury room convinced of something. >> that's right. if they were, certainly two, three days, they would have a verdict. so now they've got trouble with the evidence, that's what you would be thinking. however, there's the politician exception to this rule. and what i have found when i've looked back at jury deliberations in politician cases, you know, jurors look at, i think, three groups. lawyers, judas car salesman, and politicians in about the same category. they don't believe them, they want to believe the worst. blagojevich, do you remember governor blagojevich? first trial, two weeks of deliberations, they came back on one count, hung on the others. on the retrial, another two weeks of deliberation, and then they convicted him of everything. if you look at a lot of cases involving politicians, if the jury's out for a long time, a lot of times it means bad things for the defendant. >> so this jury, very interesting. first they ask for some 20-odd, specific exhibits. then they ask for everything,

and the judge actually sort of curiously asks them, you mean everything? and the foreman said, yeah, everything. >> well. >> what's that say? i mean, they went through a full trial. i understand saying, hey, we want to look at this particular document again. asking for everything? >> every group of jurors is different, but i'll the tell you a couple of stories about this. because i've seen this happen, many times in jury deliberations. a lot of times, you have, let's say you have eight or nine in favor of conviction or acquittal, and the others oppose. and they're whittling down. maybe they're down now to two jurors who are holding out for whatever the -- and refusing to vote for the majority position. the majority then says, we're going to make the judge send all of the evidence back in for you to look at it, because you're being blind to the evidence. >> right. >> so they try to browbeat the holdouts with the evidence to try to get them to change. so this says to me you've got a block of jurors, probably a large block going one way, conviction or acquittal, and you've got a couple of holdouts that are getting beat up in that

jury room. >> like you see in the movies. >> exactly. >> what are you hearing about this talk about a juror that might be flirting with john edwards? >> i don't know, this might be very disturbing. first there was a juror -- and then i thought, who are they to report that it's flirting? what do you mean by flirting? but several reporters said that she was actually winking and smiling at him and he was smiling back at her and it was clearly flirting. now, she's an alternate juror, she's not somebody that will be actually deciding the case, but that's very disturbing. and i'm wondering about the judge talking about a juror with a personal issue. maybe this is it. and the other thing that's been going on, ali, and this is very strange. the jurors have been dressing in the same way. they're all wearing yellow or orange -- >> and he's been wearing the same green tie all week. >> well, you know, sometimes trial lawyers wear lucky ties while juries deliberate. >> but juries aren't supposed to dress the same. >> no, they're not. and strange things happen with juries in long trials, though,

they tend to bond and they do strange things, but this is sort of off the reservation. i don't know what's going on. >> we'll see what happens next week. paul, good to see you. why are hundreds of single mormons heading to duck beach, north carolina, this weekend? hint, it's not just to catch some rays. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site.

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drudge report may have said it best today, zucked up. that's the week it was for facebook. the botched ipo has not only cost stock holders, it's also costing wall street. that brings us to tonight's number, 120 million. that is the combined estimated losses of four firms that execute trades on blehalf of buyers and sellers. the losses all stem from nasdaq's problems with getting orders through its system shortly after the stock started trading last friday. night capital, a major trader on facebook's opening day, estimates its losses between $30 million and $35 million. citadel securities' losses were in the same range. ubs says it lost about $30 million and citigroup, about $20 million, according to news reports. needless to say, it's been a

tough week for facebook and friends, who on this holiday weekend might be feeling a little zucked themselves. first round votes are still being counted in egypt's landmark election, but early results today suggest the country might be headed for a runoff election. the candidates so far, a former mubarak regime official and a member of the muslim brotherhood. hala gorani is in cairo watching the results come in. i asked her how egyptian voters are reacting to these results. >> reporter: as far as revolutionaries are concerned, this is a worst-case scenario result. on the one hand, the muslim brotherhooden candidate, and on the other, tex-prime minister under hosni mubarak in the dying days of the dictator's regime. this means that the center in this country did not make it to the second round if these nonofficial results are confirmed here in egypt. the voters are faced with a stark choice, either an islamist or an ex-regime member and some are asking today whether the

revolutionaries made a big mistake in some cases by boycotting this process and it appears as though many of them today feel as if they have lost. ali? >> all right. thanks, hala. nearly a decade after a pakistani teenager visiting england with her family was found dead, her parents are now on trial for her murder in a suspected honor murder case. atika shubert has been sitting in on the trial in london. i asked her how much evidence there is against the parents. >> ali, in the last few days, we've heard some powerful eyewitness testimony from her younger sister, alicia, who is now 23, but was 15 years old at the time. she told the court she was in the room when both of her parents suffocated her sister with a plastic bag. she described how both her mother and father held shafilia down as they stuffed a plastic bag down her throat. now, alicia was testifying from behind a screen to protect her identity, as she sobbed through her testimony.

her mother also broke down in tears. it was, as you can imagine, a harrowing account, but the trial is not over yet. next week, the defense will have a chance to cross-examine, ali. >> what a story. massive protests in young people with strong political views taking to social media. does that sound familiar to you? that's what happened last year in the middle east during the so-called ara spring. and now something similar is happening in mexico. i spoke earlier with cnn's rafael romo about the movement being called the mexican spring and the motivation behind it. >> ali, more than anything, these college students say they do not want to be taken for granted. the movement started after a presidential candidate dismissed the student protests when there was little media coverage of the event. the students from several universities in mexico city organized the march on social media and took to the streets. so far, the marches and protests have been peaceful, covering thousands of students in mexico city and other places. 24 million people between the ages of 18 and 28 are eligible

to vote and among them 14 million will go to the polls this year for the very first time. if they vote as a unified bloc, they may decide who the next mexican president is. ali? and in our fifth story "outfront," mormons gone mild. spring break is an annual ritual for college students around the country, and believe it or not, every memorial day weekend, single mormons converge on duck beach, north carolina, for their own version. >> it's interesting to be in sort of this concentrated social situation where you have fairly rigid limitations on how we express ourselves. >> you're not going to find alcohol. you're not going to find drugs. >> that was a clip from a film about duck beach. "outfront" tonight, two of the directors, steven francen and hadley arch join me. gentleman, good to see you. >> good to see you. >> all right. from the outside, if you were to just show up on duck beach on this memorial day weekend, would it look different than the gather ergs you see in other

parts of the country of young people, young single people? >> i think superficially, it would look very similar. kind of the, what we say, is they look drunk, but they're not drunk. they're partying and going crazy, but it's pretty tame. >> so these are young mormons, but some of them are older. >> absolutely, anything from 20 to 40, roughly, give or take, but what they all have in common is that they are still single. >> are they blowing off blowingr trying to find a mate? >> a combination of both. depends who you ask. a lot of people are pretty much there to have a good time, hang out, and there are plenty of people who are there to find that one because that eternal companion, as they call it, is pretty important. >> in the faith, if you don't end up with that eternal companion, you're not sort of completing everything you can get. >> correct. yeah. to gain the fullness of eternal life you need to be married in the temple. >> you are mormon. >> i am. >> you're not. >> nope. >> and your third director was a mormon. >> she was. lauren alley.

>> what's the perspective you bring to this? sounds like you bring a whole bunch of perspective. what do you come out with? >> hopefully a balanced and entertaining film. we've had our disagreements and arguments through the process. but what we sought out to do was tell an interesting story in a world that basically very few people get access to and see and let alone understand. >> steven why is this interesting? why would i go see this film? >> well, i think it demystifies the modern mormon experience in an interesting and entertaining way. it's something that you don't get a lot with the way mormons are covered in articles and in the news. it's a chance to set the -- >> you're implying there's a nuance missing, perhaps. yeah. >> tell me what that is. let's be out front. what would you like to have people know about mormons that they don't know? where is the texture that's missing from coverage? >> well, i think mormons are individuals. everyone's different. and this gives us a chance in the movie to see the story of four different people as they go

down to this spring break experience and struggle to find a mate or struggle with not finding a mate, and it's -- it's a way to really understand what it means to be mormon and that it's not the same for everyone. >> mormons are not supposed to drink. they are not supposed to take caffeine or mood-altering drugs or narcotics and they're not supposed to have premar till sex. some sbrerptd it more strictly than that, there's not supposed to be general ka noodling going on. >> absolutely. >> is that the case? >> it is absolutely the case. in the film, we talk about that quite a lot, the laws of chastity and how they are strictly defined and how there is certainly some gray territory, and what people refer to as hooking up does take place at duck beach. >> what was the mormon church's reaction to this? >> no official reaction. we contacted them, their pr department for comment, and they declined. >> did you get other reaction from mormons? moo when we first started the film, we did a little kick-starter campaign, and there

was some negative -- >> crowd source funding -- >> crowd funding campaign to get money and we made a little video and put it out. there was some negative reaction from the community. and there was some great positive reaction from the commune, as well. >> what was the negative reaction? what was it centered around, that you were making fun of them? >> i think mormons -- we have a persecution complex born from years of outside misrepresentation. and so when people want to tell our story, we're very -- we push back on it. we don't like it to happen. and so we got a lot of that and we got a lot of -- you know, we showed some bikinis and hard rock music and they didn't like that as well. >> did you have a different sensitivity to this than steven did, by virtue of the fact he's mormon and you're not? >> absolutely. in certain ways, we had many discussions in the making of the film. for me it was very much about personal just understanding and seeing -- >> there is sort of an anthropological exercise. >> 100%.

>> who was sticking up for the mormons in this? did you fight or others say let's not exploit? >> it just depended. i mean, sometimes i kind of felt the need to -- because i was so worried about standing up for mormons that i kind of pushed it a little too far sometimes. other times i was on the defensive. >> absolutely. >> did you think you exploited it all? >> no. >> in the interest of entertainment? >> no. >> were you trying to entertain? >> absolutely. >> do you think you succeeded? >> yes, i do. >> what happened with your third director who's not here who is an ex-mormon? what baggage does that bring? >> a whole other level. that was another level of discussion brought into it. so you have a very sort of outsider perspective that just wants to understand and create an open and honest view of this, and then you have potentially two other agendas that may, you know, try and find their way into the film. i think it makes for a much more interesting -- >> if i get to talk to you guys and watch the film, what perspective won? whose perspective do i think i'm watching this movie from? >> mine for sure.

>> no, i think at the end of the film -- and from people who have seen focus groups, and from responses where it's -- the seattle international film festival where it's actually premiering in two weeks, we've had very positive responses from people who walk away fascinated by the characters but also with a lot of questions. and some things get answered for them, and some, you know, more fundamental questions about the faith are raised for them. so it intrigues and entertains. >> you think you were fair? >> i do. yeah. that was our main purpose was to set up and tell a fair and honest story. >> all right. look forward to it, guys. thanks for joining us. steven franzen and hadley arch. "duck beach: to eternity." why exactly is china kicking our butts? conan o'brien has a theory.

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well, you hear a lot of talk these days about how the chinese are teating us for lunch. you know how they own about $1.2 trillion of our debt, how their cheap labor force attracts jobs that should be ours, how they're building up their military to rival the u.s., and there are lots of economists and politicians and scholars who try to explain what is behind

china's meteoric rise. but one explanation caught my eye, and maybe there's a grain of truth to this. >> people ask the question, why is china so dominant in comparison to the united states? we tried to provide some answers to this question, a little segment that we call "why china is kicking our a-[ bleep ]." >> reason number 933. >> what is that dee jay? dance party friday? >> is it? >> how did that happen? ♪ >> why china is kicking our a-[ bleep ]. >> not going to see that over here. we try and keep it a little straighter at cnn. a special edition of anderson cooper starts right now. on the, a special report, arab spring: revolution