it's been empty the whole time. another victim of arlington national cemetery. and the international space station makes contact to the outer reaches of pittsburgh, texas. let me tell you what. there's one ham radio guy that's pretty excited. i'm kyra phillips. you are live in the "cnn newsroom." mega church pastor eddie long has 25,000 church members but today all of the attention is on just a few of his former followers. a third man has come forward accusing bishop long of coercing him into sexual relationships. all three men said that they were teenages when long lavished them with gifts and initiating sexual encounters. long canceled a scheduled radio interview and news conference. a spokesman for bishop long denies the accusations saying that the lawsuits are, quote, a shakedown for money. the bishop issued a statement and we turn to ed lavandera first broke this story. ed? >> quick-moving morning. anticipated to hear from bishop long on the tom joyner radio show. that radio appearance was canceled. but the attorney for bishop long a man by the name of craig gillen talked about that he denying the allegations again, strongly. devoted his life to helping young men and allegations and hurt me deeply and what was interesting and we have the sown of the radio interview this morning, the tone that the attorney took and what he said about thesal gage allegations. let's take a listen to it. >> these false allegations are an attack on bishop long personally. they are an attack on new birth, the entire church and all of its 25,000 good people who attend that church. and it's an attack on the mentoring program that's helped thousands of young men. it is deeply, deeply unfortunate that these allegations have been made. they will be met. >> and that was an interview that was done with roland martin and attack word came up several times in the questioning with him so there was definitely that sense of rallying the troops behind bishop long. and initially we were told that the statement that he was going to make on camera today, there were supporters standing behind him so right now he is not talking publicly. although the attorney did say that he will speak from the pulpit on sunday morning. >> and here's what's interesting. you tell me what you think. you've been talking with the various sources but the attorney representing these young men that have come forward says there's e-mails, text messages, pictures. some of the other networks have released pictures of eddie long taking pictures of himself, allegedly sent to other young men in this ministry in tight shirts and all muscled out. you know, do you get a sense that this is just the beginning? that we are going to see more, hear more, possibly see new bits of evidence supporting these claims. >> it will be interesting to see how that plays out. we were told initially hearing about the story a while back there were four young men that would come forward. so far, we have only seen publicly filed three cases. so perhaps that is more the attorney has told us on the record that she believes that there are many more who will come out and speak like this. but we can only speak to the ones that have been filed and what we see concretely here in this paperwork but that is the concern at this point. >> okay. we'll keep following it. ed, appreciate it. we're 40 days from the midterm elections. about an hour from now, republicans hope to close the sale. they roll out the pledge to america basically saying this is what we'll do and undo if you put us in power. cnn congressional correspondent data bash is in sterling, virginia. dana, are we talking about contract with america 2.0 here? >> reporter: in many ways, yes, kyra, the whole theme as you said among house republicans is to try to convince voters just six weeks before the election that they do have some plans to actually run the government. however, just look at where i am and the images of people remembering in 1994, how different it is. the last thing in the world that republicans wanted to do would be to stand on the steps of the capitol as they did back then representing everything that some of the people that they're really trying to get can't stand. that's why we are here at a small business. that's the emphasis today. the whole question of whether or not anything is different in here, we see a lot of what we have heard. the fact that they want to trim spending, the fact to make tax cuts permanent, the fact to repeal the president's health care plan and there are some small pieces in here that i think are interesting and i should show our viewers and clearly bones, if you will, to tea party voters trying to placate. first of all, pledging weekly votes on spending cuts. also, pledging to cut congress's budget and a net hiring freeze of non-security federal employees. and a vote on every regulation costing more than $100 million. so that appeals to the idea that people are fed up with washington spending. but also, if there's some things in here about congress, people are fed up with the fact they have to balance their budgets and do the hard things and washington and congress isn't and that's what you see in here. >> talk about the ptea party in all of this. >> reporter: well, the tea party i think it's very interesting that they put some very clear things in here to try to appeal to the tea party candidates and more specifically tea party voters. but what is interesting and noteworthy about the pledge to america is that they're not asking, the republican leadership not anybody to sign on to it. you will see rank and file members in here. the idea that house republicans have are to try to show faces besides the house -- the house minority leader john boehner and others that people don't usually see but some of the candidates out there, we don't unless we go balk to them we don't know if they sign on to this. they're not asked specifically to. very, very interesting. this is an attempt certainly to tell voters they're for something but you talk to even the authors, i was talking to some of them behind this building just a short while ago, the authors say this is not the most important thing for them and think the best weapon against the democrats is the democrats themselves and making the argument to the voter that is the democrats just simply have the wrong policies and this is just one little piece of their election year argument. >> all right. dana bash, thanks so much. president obama's ready to address the u.n. general assembly. that should be just less than an hour. the president expected warn of bloodshed in the middle east. in an excerpt from the speech he says that israelis and palestinians must reach a peace deal and other countries must help the process along. we'll carry that speech live 10:00 eastern hour. what will he say and how t outrageous will the comments be? we're seeing how interesting iran's president will be later this afternoon. protesters are still outside. condemning iran's treatment of women and gays as well as ahmadinejad's past comments on israel. the holocaust and 9/11. even called out the hilton hotel for letting iran's leader and crew stay there. many other hotels in new york city won't even let them in the door. a warning this morning for parents and child care providers. making of similac recalling 5 million cans of formula and some provisions of health care reform going in effect today. dr. sanjay gupta will join me to explain what it means to you. 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they probably would have died. >> they refused to answer questions at the hearing. jack decoster said that he's been praying for those who got sick. >> we were horrified to learn that our eggs may have made people sick. we apologize to everyone who may have been sickened by eating our eggs. >> for years, state regulators in the northeast and the midwest have cited decoster's chicken and hog farms for poor conditions. new provisions of the health care reform act kick in today affecting your coverage and children's coverage. cnn's chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta joins us to talk about the changes. some pieces of legislation already started but what happens today? it's much more sweeping reform, right? >> i think so. i think that's one way of looking at it. obviously, a lot of people focused on the specific provisions for sometime now and waiting for them to go into effect. one thing, kyra, numbers, premiums for what it costs the average person to buy health care insurance gone up over the last year for an individual about 5%. $5,000 a year now and for families of four, that's gone up about 3% so it's around $13,000 or so. so premiums gone up a little bit an enpeople paying attention to that but when you talk about the provisions specifically, a lot of people waiting for this for sometime go through them specifically, for example, under the new health plans, you can use an emergency room anywhere that you are so if you're traveling, kyra, in new york or atlanta, you can use an e.r. without having to pay more out of your home city. that's one thing. preventive services. something that people talk about a lot. mammography, thing that is prevent diseases, they won't have any charge including co-pays underneath the new health plan and something that they talked about a lot was an idea of the young invincibles, kyra. people in their mid-20s, too healthy. i don't need insurance. one of the things that they can stay under the parent's health care plans up until the age of 26 so they're extending the time frames to make sure the people continue to have insurance a little bit longer. there's lots of different provisions, kyra. those are the big ones and no discrimination of children based on pretis existing conditions. a sick child gets insurance regardless of the illness in the past, kyra. >> are the insurance companies abiding by the provisions of too early to tell? >> i think it's early to tell. the things i was just listing, obviously, with regard to the consumers but if you look at the health care bill closely, a lot of this is more insurance regulation than it is health care reform, frankly. you talk about some of the specific things, someone gets sick. they have, you know, a lifetime worth of medical expenses let's say. in the past insurance companies say there's a cap on how much we'll pay over the lifetime. a few hundred thousand dollars and the insurance kicks out. those caps will be limited. you can't cap one's lifetime benefits anymore under the new health care plan and can't cancel a policy for a preexisting condition. unless there's fraud, a policy cannot be canceled. that's the way it's supposed to work under the plan. you can't deny a claim without some sort of appeal so say the claim is denied, you can always appeal that now under this new health care plan and again this idea of children not being able to be discriminated against. insurance companies say -- i'll give you an example. in the past they would have children only plans. but now they worry that a family will say i won't buy insurance until the kid is sick and then buy it. you can't discriminate so a lot of insurance companies say we're not doing children-only plans anymore. it has to be for the whole family and preventing people from gaming the system and seeing things like that in terms of what they're doing. >> got it. sanjay, thanks. heavy rains triggered flooding in the streets and walkways in parts of tucson, arizona. rob's watching for that in addition to the nation and the weather kicking in. >> this is from tropical storm georgette was out in the eastern pacific and didn't talk too much about. hit the baja of california and training up into the desert southwest and, you know, you don't need a lot. they didn't see much more than a half an inch and an inch in some spots. that particular particular part of world, boom, this is what you get. most of the rain moved out into new mexico. parts of the plains now and it's training bup the upper midwest. this is area that's seen a large amount of moisture not just the past couple of days but the summer. we have flash flood warnings and watches for the remainder of today. could see another two to three or four inches of rain on top of what they have already seen and minnesota, 9 inches of rainfall. minnesota lake, almost 8.5. you get the idea. they're saturated right now and more rain pouring into the area. this is the forecast computer models we think we might see anywhere from four to six. this little sliver in northern wisconsin right see another half a foot of rainfall and big story is the heat. first full day of fall. doesn't feel like it. yesterday, louisville, 99 degrees. pinson, alabama, 97. memphis, tennessee, also mid-90s and similar numbers today with this sort of searing heat. 92 degrees in atlanta. 91 degrees in washington, d.c. as far as what's going on tropically, we have tropical storm lisa. this thing's just a mess out there. actually it was a tropical depression and not going to do much for us. this is what we're concerned about here in the caribbean. this is a good chance of bomb becoming a tropical depression or storm in the next couple of days. flying in there i think today. they canceled it yesterday but, yeah, you can see even the weather amateurs out there see that the red in the red box never a good sign so this thing could track toward the gulf of mexico, kyra, towards next week and why we're watching it carefully. >> thanks, rob. deaf boys raped or sexually abused by the priest and headmaster of their school. now as adults coming forward and seeking justice. >> translator: i went into his office. the door was closed. and father murphy, said take your pants down. >> exclusive interview with one of the victims who's now suing the vatican. when i was seventeen, i was not good to my skin. long summer days, and not enough sleep. what i wouldn't do for a do-over. 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[ female announcer ] clinical skincare. neutrogena. #1 dermatologist recommended brand. vatican is talking more about those money launderingal gags yesterday we told you about. the italian authorities seized $30 million from the vatican bank now. apparently didn't provide enough information of big wire transfers and the red flags just went up. today, the church calls it a misunderstanding between banks and that this will be easy to straighten out. and a small school for the deaf in milwaukee, wisconsin, as many as 200 deaf boys raped or sexually abused by the priests and headmaster. today, a cnn exclusive. the first interview with one of those victims who's now suing pope benedict. it's part of a special cnn documentary examining what pope benedict did or didn't do about this crisis. our gary tuchman has the story. >> reporter: at a lakeside retreat in northern wisconsin. >> come. >> reporter: terry tries to escape his past. it isn't easy. 50 years ago, when he was just 10 years old, terry, who is deaf, sent to the st. johns school in milwaukee, wisconsin. what happened there to terry and up to 200 other deaf boys is now central to the sex abuse crisis in the catholic church. and to the question of what pope benedict then cardinal ratsen ger knew about it all. terry has never spoken publicly about the horrors he endured at st. johns until now. what did he do to you? >> translator: and then it was that afternoon i went into his office. the door was closed. and father murphy said take your pants down. >> reporter: father lawrence murphy was the headmaster and priest at st. john's for more than two decades. he was a fund-raiser and respected church leader but father murphy has also been identified by dozens of deaf men who say he raped and sexually abused them as children for years. father murphy a's abuse would come to the direct attention of the cardinal but the handling of the case would stun murphy's victims. >> i think what the murphy case shows is the deference that cardinal ratsen jer and pope would give to the priests. >> what actually happens in court -- >> reporter: today terry is suing the vatican for what father murray did to him today. the lawsuit first names joseph ratzinger now pope. until now, terry is named on as john doe 16. >> translator: yeah, i was confused as to why he was having -- here he is a priest. you know, i was trying to figure out -- i mean, i can't believe a priest would do that. >> reporter: the priest is believed to have picked out victims who were especially vulnerable or had been through tragedy already in their young lives. terry fit that pattern. >> translator: my brother was electrocuted. died when i was 10. and when i was 11 my father hung himself. and at 12 my favorite dog died and tore me up. i saw father murphy and i thought that he could be a second father. >> reporter: tell me why, terry, you have decided to file suit. what do you want to see happen? >> translator: i wan