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Major Snowstorm Forecast for East Coast; New Development in California Manhunt; Bush Family E-Mails Hacked; Grammys Could Be "Year of the Dudes"; Why Women Miss Heart Attack Signs
Aired February 08, 2013 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM, manhunt in the mountains.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't know what he's going to do. We know what he's capable of doing and we need to find him.
COSTELLO: New twists and clues this morning in the search for an ex- cop accused of going on a murder spree in L.A., even mailing a bullet- ridden disc to CNN.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The suspect, Christopher Dorner, also reached out to me directly, mailing a parcel to my office that arrived on the first of this month.
COSTELLO: Plus, blizzard warning from Maine to Maryland, a superstorm taking almost the same path as sandy about to batter the region with almost three feet of snow. This morning, as millions try to escape the storm, gas becoming in short supply.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are several stations up the road that are out of gas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I kind of wanted to get gas real quick before it runs out.
COSTELLO: Also, Grammy weekend.
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COSTELLO: Getting ready to hit the stage Sunday.
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COSTELLO: This year, the power players of music, Springsteen, U2, getting pushed backstage. It's the younger groups going for Grammy gold.
NEWSROOM starts now.
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(MUSIC) COSTELLO: Good morning. Thank you so much for being with us. I'm Carol Costello. A potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast. It's expected to hit starting in a few hours. From New York to Maine, we have team coverage of the storm. More than 3,200 flights already have been canceled. Boston bracing for as much as three feet of snow by tomorrow morning.
Meteorologist Indra Petersons is there. Indra, Boston schools are already closed, the subway set to shut down at 3:30 this afternoon. It sounds like the message is stay home?
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely, that's exactly what the mayor asked everyone to do. As of noon today, this town is expected to be at a complete standstill. Currently, right now, you can see generally mild, considering what is expected to come. Temperature about the freezing mark. We've started to see the winds picking up and just a few snow flurries are now just starting to fall. But we know by the afternoon today this could be an epic storm. We could break the record of 24 inches of snowfall in 24 hours.
Let's talk about how this is expected to form. There are two systems we've been talking about the last several days that are expected to merge. The first one, a little colder over in Ohio Valley, and the second one that yesterday was in Atlanta. We saw that severe weather, the thunderstorms, that were building. Now that it's made its way up the Atlantic Coast and right to the Mid-Atlantic. So those two are going to merge and what we're going to be looking at here is this one large nor'easter, our coastal bomb as we call it.
As expected by afternoon, we're going to be talking about, between 2:00 and 5:00, two to three inches of snowfall per hour. You add to that 50, 60, even 70 mile per hour wind gusts, and visibility is expected to drop to zero. So that's what we're going to be monitoring.
Right behind me, if you take a look outside, we're going to be able to show you that we have the Customs Tower. That is less than a quarter of a mile away. With that, we're going to know as we track, as we go through the afternoon, we're going to see visibility near zero. We'll keep tracking it for you and of course snowfall here could be as high as three feet. And we'll be right here through it all to give you the latest.
COSTELLO: I don't know whether that's good or bad for you, at least. Indra Petersons reporting live from Boston this morning.
Now to New York City where wind gusts of 50 miles per hour could cut power to thousands. A foot of snow and coastal flooding also predicted. This blizzard on the exact same path as Superstorm Sandy. That could mean more misery for people still trying to recover from that storm.
Alison Kosik is at Columbus Circle in Manhattan. So what's New York doing to prepare?
ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now we certainly are feeling a nice steady flow of snow coming down and not really sticking except for one or two snowballs we're making on the side here. You look out here, everybody's going to work as usual. It's just like a normal sort of bad weather day. But everybody knows what's coming later and that's actually the tricky point.
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is concerned about the cleanup because this storm is expected to really hit around rush hour when everybody's trying to get home. That could make it difficult for those salt spreaders and those plows to get through the streets. But also extra trains are coming out for those who live on Long Island; the LIRR is adding extra trains to get people home as fast as they can before the big part of the snowstorm hits. Carol?
COSTELLO: So, do you have your flashlight and your toilet paper and your bread?
KOSIK: Oh, yes, you know, speaking of Long Island, I live there and the gas lines are already there. It's reminiscent of Hurricane Sandy because after Hurricane Sandy, we all went to rationing gas because of -- everybody thought there was a gas shortage. So you see that sort of mini-panic going on, even on Long Island. People waiting in line for gas. I mean cars, 20 cars deep lines, which is pretty startling and pretty unnerving because everybody is sort of running around trying to prepare. I even went to the grocery store. I got the last apple on the shelf, Carol.
COSTELLO: Thank god for that! Alison Kosik reporting live from New York City.
So the big question on everyone's mind in the northeast is who's going to get the worst of the storm. Meteorologist Jennifer Delgado is in thet CNN Weather Center with that side of the story.
JENNIFER DELGADO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hi Carol. Well, right now we're at the calm before the storm. And this is the time you really need to make sure you have everything prepared because conditions are going to go downhill, especially as we go through late this afternoon into the evening hours.
Here's the radar. You're looking at what's happening now --snow moving into parts of northern New Jersey, including Newark as well, into New York, into areas like Hartford as well as into Providence. They're picking up light snow there. Well, by 3:00 in the afternoon, we're expecting this all to change over to snow for New York City.
Now, what we're talking about in some location, again, three feet of snow. So certainly New England is going to take the brunt of it. We're expecting roughly about 12 inches or more for New York City. But when you combine the snow in with the winds, and some of these locations, those winds are going to be gusting up to about 70 miles per hour. We're talking virtually a whiteout out there. You're not going to be able to see anything.
The storm system moves out by Saturday and then you can see the blizzard warning in place from Newark all the way up towards Maine.
COSTELLO: Jennifer Delgado --
DELGADO: A lot to talk about.
COSTELLO: You got that right. Jennifer Delgado, many thanks.
Also this morning, in California, the manhunt intensifies and leads seem to fade. Police say the possible sighting of accused killer Christopher Dorner near an Indian reservation in San Diego County may have been a hoax. That leaves the fired Los Angeles cop on the loose and extremely dangerous.
Authorities say he has declared war on police and the military trained sharpshooter already turned the hunters into the hunted. They say Dorner gunned down three police officers in Riverside after killing an off-duty police officer and his fiance. The woman was also connected to the LAPD. She was the daughter of a retired officer.
Just days earlier, Dorner railed against his firing in a bizarre package he sent to CNN's Anderson Cooper.
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COOPER: Mailed a parcel to my office that arrived on the first of the month. My assistant opened it. Inside, he found this hand-labeled DVD accompanied by a yellow post-it note reading, in part, quote, "I never lied," which apparently is in reference to his 2009 dismissal from the LAPD. Now, the DVD shows testimony by a man who says he was kicked by an LAPD officer. According to Dorner, it confirms the story that Dorner told the LAPD, the story he says got him kicked off the force.
Today, by the way, is the eighth anniversary of his hiring.
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COSTELLO: CNN's Casey Wian is outside a police station in Hollywood, California. Good morning.
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Police throughout Southern California remain on high alert. You know, they are trying to both protect themselves as potential targets of Christopher Dorner, and also trying to find him.
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WIAN (voice-over): A possible break in the hunt for Christopher Dorner as authorities find his truck burning on a remote road in Big Bear Lake, California. Police fanned out, rifles drawn, as they searched nearby woods and go door to door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, we'll keep working on it until we're either able to locate the suspect or determine he's no longer in the Big Bear Valley. WIAN: Dorner, a former Los Angeles cop, has threatened to hurt L.A. police officers and their families, police say, in retribution for being fired in 2008. He allegedly laid out his plan in an online manifesto saying, quote, "I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours."
Dorner also attempted to contact CNN, sending a parcel to our Anderson Cooper. In it, a hand-labeled DVD with a yellow post-it note that reads, "I never lied", an apparent reference to his firing when Dorner claims he was forced out after reporting alleged police brutality. Also, a coin wrapped in duct tape, which was inscribed with "Thanks but no thanks, Will Bratton," a former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chances are he would have received it from me. It would have the custom I have of when somebody was activated into the military heading overseas.
WIAN: CNN is cooperating with authorities. Police say it began Sunday in Irvine when Dorner killed two people, Monica Quan, the daughter of a former LAPD captain who represented Dorner in front of the police board that eventually fired him, and her fiance.
Three days later in San Diego, police say Dorner attempted to hijack a boat. Then, early Thursday, Dorner fired at police officers in Corona, who were assigned to protect someone connected to Dorner's threats. One officer was hurt.
Later in Riverside, two officers are fired upon in what police call a cowardly ambush. One seriously hurt, the other killed.
Dorner's manifesto states, "The attacks will stop when the department states the truth about my innocence publicly."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's told us what he intends to do. And so far, he's done it.
WIAN: Leaving the community on edge, wondering when the violence will stop.
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WIAN: Just to give you some sense of how seriously law enforcement is taking this, many police agencies have ordered their officers to travel in pairs until Dorner is found.
And here's some of the information we know about him: 33 years old, six feet tall, 270 pounds, also an expert with both a rifle and a pistol. He has been trained by both the Los Angeles Police Department and the U.S. military. Also said to be carrying night vision goggles. Carol?
COSTELLO: Casey Wian reporting live from Hollywood, California.
The Secret Service no investigating the hacking of Bush family e- mails. According to published reports, the unidentified hacker accessed e-mails, photos, and personal information about both former presidents.
White House correspondent Brianna Keilar joins us now with more. Good morning, Brianna. BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. I will tell you we only know certain information about this. Let me tell you, the Secret Service has confirmed that there is an investigation into these e-mails that were hacked, and this includes e-mails from both Bush presidents, from George H.W. Bush and from George W. Bush.
You can imagine if this was you and your e-mails have been hacked and they've published online, as they have in this case, just how violated you would feel and that's what the Bush family is dealing with right now. We're talking about private photos that were in those e-mails, family topics that were discussed, contact information for Bush friends and extended family, as well as scheduling matters that were discussed.
And obviously this is a serious breach, but as we understand it, this is something where you're talking about e-mails not just in one particular incident or one small chunk of time, but these are e-mails from 2009 to 2012, so over a considerable number of years.
The thing we don't know, Carol, is who is behind this and we're not sure if investigators at this point are sure who is behind this. On the part of the Bush family, a spokesperson for George H.W. Bush just saying they do not comment on matters under criminal investigation. But remember, Carol, George H.W. Bush was recently in the hospital. This was late last year that he was in a Houston area hospital and so some of this appears to have happened during the time that he was hospitalized, and some of the e-mails discussed that.
COSTELLO: Brianna Keilar reporting live from the White House this morning.
Still ahead, Facebook-mageddon: the computer glitch that crippled the Web. Plus -
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COSTELLO: Two years ago the lead singer of Alabama, Alabama Shakes, was working at the postal service. Now, she's at the Grammys.
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COSTELLO: Fifteen minutes past the hour. Time to check our top stories.
Michelle Obama will attend funeral services for 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton in Chicago tomorrow. The teenager was gunned down last week just days after she was in Washington, performing in the inaugural parade. The president called the family and offered his condolences.
The Northeast bracing for what could be an historic storm. Airlines are canceling thousands of flight. And meteorologists are predicting as much as two feet of snow in cities like Boston. In towns, Milton, Massachusetts, Public Works Department are already preparing for the storm.
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CHARLIE BOSWORTH, MILTON PUBLIC WORKS HEAD MECHANIC: Just check and make sure nothing's broken to begin with, cutting edges on all the plows, snow blowers are ready. It will probably be a long four days, you know, which is tough on anybody.
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COSTELLO: Storm is expected to begin this afternoon and last well into tomorrow.
Senate Democrats are working on a plan to avoid the deep automatic spending cuts set to kick in on March 1st. A source close to the discussions says potential plans include reducing tax breaks enjoyed by private equity funds and closing loopholes for companies that keep profits overseas.
A bug in Facebook's widget briefly took over parts of the Internet yesterday. Widgets are those little "like" and "share" bottoms you can click on. The error would take visitors trying to logon to sites like CNN.com and then redirects them to a Facebook error page. The problem only affected users who were logged into the site and trying to visit other sites. Facebook says it has fixed the problem.
It could be the year of the dudes at the Grammys where men are dominating some of the biggest categories.
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COSTELLO: Sunday night in L.A., the band "Fun" could walk away with the biggest awards of the night. It would be a huge departure from last year when Adele scored six awards.
Nischelle Turner looks at what else we can expect.
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NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: "We are Young" that could be the theme of the 55th Annual Grammy Awards.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been an incredible year in music. It feels like alternative music is back.
TURNER: This year, the spotlight isn't on veterans like Springsteen or Dillon. It's about Fun and the Black Keys and Mumford and Sons, and Frank Ocean and Jack White.
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TURNER: They're all nominated for album of the year and they're all in their 20s or 30s.
(MUSIC) TURNER: In addition, Mumford and Sons, Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys, Frank Ocean and Fun go into Sunday's ceremony with six nods apiece, matching nominations earned by hip-hop heavyweights Jay-Z and Kanye West.
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TURNER: In this past year, attention was focused on the breakout stars, most notably Fun. The power pop trio from New York, and Frank Ocean, the New Orleans R&B singer who shot to stardom with this emotional performance on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" where he sang about an unrequited love with another man.
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TURNER: Both Ocean and Fun are nominated for best new artist along with country multi-instrumentalist Hunter Hayes.
HUNTER HAYES, THREE NOMINATIONS: Here we are my first record, my debut record.
TURNER: Blues rock group Alabama Shakes.
REPORTER: Two years ago, what were you guys doing? Won't you working at the Postal Service?
ALABAMA SHAKES, TWO NOMINATIONS: Yes, I was working. I was delivering postal mail.
TURNER: And folk rock trio, The Lumineers.
THE LUMINEERS, TWO NOMINATIONS: Went from sleeping in friend's houses, going six people to a hotel room to now like Grammy nominations.
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TURNER: On Sunday, look for Justin Timberlake's first Grammy performance in four years, Rihanna's first solo turn at the Grammy's since the psychical altercation with Chris Brown caused her to cancel in 2009, and collaboration featuring Bruno Mars, Sting and Rihanna.
Nischelle Turner, CNN, Los Angeles.
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COSTELLO: Talk ban question for you today: should President Obama speak out more about urban gun violence?
Facebook.com/CarolCNN or tweet me @carolCNN. I'll be right back.
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DEE ANDERSON, HEART PATIENT: How are you doing today? ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dee Anderson didn't think her extreme fatigue was a warning sign until a doctor told her.
ANDERSON: He said, Dee, you're having a heart attack.
COHEN: Like many, she'd been ignoring the signs.
ANDERSON: Pressure, slight pressure in my chest that ran across the chest, not in one particular spot, no pain, no stabbing pain, nothing like that.
DR. SUSMITA PARASHAR, EMORY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Take deep breaths.
COHEN: Men and women don't typically have the same heart attack symptoms. Often women don't realize they're having a heart attack because their symptoms can be much more subtle.
PARASHAR: So, women may have usual fatigue for months, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting. They may have chest pain, or discomfort or any abnormal feeling in the upper part of the body, stomach, back, arm or neck, or throat.
COHEN: Two weeks after her first bout of chest tightness, Dee's symptoms got worse.
ANDERSON: It wasn't just a pressure anymore or discomfort. It was an ache, like a bad toothache and suddenly I felt that same ache in my elbows, just in my elbows, in my chest and in my elbows and then I knew it was cardiac.
COHEN: Dee called her doctor who told her to get to the E.R., saving her heart and her life.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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COSTELLO: Now is your chance to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. The question for you this morning: should President Obama speak out more on urban gun violence?
First Lady Michelle Obama will be in Chicago this weekend, no speeches, only sadness, Saturday 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton will be buried, the honor student who twirled a baton in President Obama's inauguration was shot and killed last week. This was a child who fought against gun violence.
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HADIYA PENDLETON: Hi. My name is Hadiya. This commercial is informational for you and your future children.
So many children out there are in gangs and it's your job as students to say no to gangs and yes to a great future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Pendleton's murder happened one mile from Obama's Chicago home, a startling example of gun violence in urban America.
Jesse Jackson who led an anti-gun march in Chicago begged the president to visit his hometown and address real gun violence.
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JESSE JACKSON, ACTIVIST: Given the preponderance of killing and the explosive of this, we need federal intervention.
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COSTELLO: You might remember President Obama came to Newtown and Tucson after the mass shootings there and more than one critic has pointed out as tragic as these shootings are, they're rare. Most gun crimes are not committed with high-powered semi-assault rifles, but with handguns.
Before Newtown, the president was asked about the silent epidemic of urban gun violence.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've got to have an all of the above approach. We have to enforce our gun laws more effectively. We've got to keep them out of the hands of criminals. We've got to strengthen background checks.
I live on the South Side of Chicago. You know, some of these murders are happening just, you know, a few blocks from where I live. And, you know, I have friends whose family members have been killed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Still, why send Mrs. Obama to Chicago? Why, Mr. President, don't you go yourself?
Talk back question today: should President Obama speak out more on urban gun violence?
Facebook.com/CarolCNN, Facebook.com/CarolCNN, or you can tweet me @carolCNN.
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