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Landslides Grows, Homes on Edge; U.S. Sends Bombers to South Korea; Zimmerman's Brother Explains Tweet; GDP Grew in Fourth Quarter 2012; Web Recovers from Huge Cyberattack; Teens Indicted in Baby Killing; Study: Bad Workers Love Their Jobs
Aired March 28, 2013 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thank you so much for being with me. I'm Carol Costello.
We begin this hour in Washington State where the minutes must seem like hours. Dozens of homeowners on Whidbey Island watching helplessly as their homes inch closer to disaster and their yards tumble into Puget Sound.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRET HOLMES, HOMEOWNER: It sounded like an earthquake. And I heard something really loud. And I looked out the master bedroom and noticed that about 20 tall trees were gone. I got out there with a flashlight and then just kept hearing rumbling and watching more and more of it fall away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Just unbelievable this landslide. Let's go now to the waterfront town of -- or Coupeville, rather, on Whidbey Island.
CNN's Dan Simon is there.
I just can't even imagine this. Is the landfall likely to get worse?
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's a good question. There are going to be some geologists out here today evaluating the situation. At this point, they think that there are really only two homes sort of in imminent danger. A lot of folks were allowed to return to their homes. This was a voluntary evacuation. And so they'd like people to stay away. But some people are coming back.
Carol, let me explain to you where I am. As you can imagine, a lot of this neighborhood has been sealed off. You see a lot of yellow tape like you see behind me. I'm about 100 yards away from where part of this landslide occurred. It stretches a full 1,000 feet across. So it's pretty unbelievable. Obviously, you are seeing the pictures there. But I want you to listen to some more homeowners as they describe the situation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you look up to the top, there you can see, it's constantly sliding. Hasn't hit that point of equilibrium. Still very steep. So it's going to continue to slide until it stabilizes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got up at 4:00 to see flashlights -- it was already down there and stuff. And found out the hill -- the hillside is sleek. We could still hear something coming down. I could see the whole trees down across the road and the road is gone, and took a walk down along the beach. Got up on the new part of the slide stuff, and I could see where the mobile home and garage had moved, dropped 20 feet, moved over 40 feet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIMON: So you do get landslides here. They are relatively common occurrence. But this is the biggest one anyone can remember. I have covered landslides for a long time here on the West Coast and I've never seen one this large, Carol.
In terms of what caused it, they're not quite sure. They didn't get a lot of rainfall in the days leading up to the event. But over the winter when the ground gets saturated, perhaps, you know, it retained moisture and that's ultimately what caused this to take place. But, of course, the engineers are going to be examining that and hopefully come up with a cause in the next couple of days -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Yes, and a way to stop it maybe. Dan Simon, reporting live for us this morning.
American stealth bombers have just finished practicing an attack on the Korean Peninsula. This comes as the North ramps up its threats. The B-2 bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons flew 6500 miles from Whiteman Air Force Base outside Kansas City, Missouri, all the way to South Korea.
Pilots dropped inactive bombs and then turned around and flew back home. In a statement, U.S. forces in Korea says the United States is steadfast in its alliance commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea, to deterring aggression, and to ensuring piece and stability in the region.
Just this week, North Korea puts its military units on combat status threatening a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States and South Korea. The rogue nation also cut off another communication hotline. The country's angry over the joint military exercise which will last until the end of April.
This morning in South Africa, former president Nelson Mandela is said to be conscious after being taken to a hospital with a lung infection. It is the second time this month the 94-year-old has been hospitalized and it's no secret he's becoming increasingly frail. South Africa's president is asking the world to pray for the human rights icon.
Two photos of black teenage boys are creating quite the controversy. Not because of the obscene gesture, but because of Robert Zimmerman Jr. tweeted out the photos. His brother is George Zimmerman, the man accused of murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last year.
You're going to see the tweet here. You're going to see Martin on the right. And on the left is De'Marquis Elkins, one of the two teenagers accused of killing a baby in Georgia. Sorry, we couldn't bring that image up for you. After the public cried foul, Robert Zimmerman did apologize and explain his action to CNN's Piers Morgan in an exclusive interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PIERS MORGAN, HOST, CNN'S PIERS MORGAN LIVE: I've read all the tweets that you sent carefully. And there's no doubt they were incendiary. And I want to draw in particular attention to two of them. One is one that you said here, alleged FB picks of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago's alleged killer and Trayvon Martin. The two pictures that we saw side by side, hash tag, uncanny.
Second one says, "Liberal media should ask if what these two black teens did to a woman and a baby is the reason people think blacks might be risky."
ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, JR., BROTHER OF GEORGE ZIMMERMAN: Right.
MORGAN: Now the first one I thought was very controversial. The second one I found, blatantly honest with you, I thought, was bordering on outright racism.
ZIMMERMAN: Right.
MORGAN: It seemed to me that what you were saying was, this is why young blacks are risky. In other words, that is why my brother George did what he did to Trayvon Martin.
ZIMMERMAN: Yes, certainly that's one way to read it. And that seems to be the way that a lot of people have interpreted it. And I don't think Twitter is the place to make points about what you recall a year ago. Because the recollections that I have or that we have as a family specifically are very different than what can be portrayed in 140 characters.
Now I realized those were controversial and offensive, and I did publicly apologize for them. I don't think it was the right thing to do that way. One -- the point about the pictures. It was a larger point on the media and their honesty in portraying the person who encountered my brother February 26th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: George Zimmerman's attorney told reporters the tweets were absurd and inappropriate, and that Robert Zimmerman does not represent his brother George.
Other top stories this morning. A Colorado woman is arrested, accused of buying the gun used to kill Colorado's prison chief, Tom Clements. Authorities say Stevie Marie Vigil gave the gun to Evan Ebel. As a convicted felon, Ebel was not allowed to buy or possess a gun. He was killed in a shootout in Texas and has been linked in the shooting death of Clements and a pizza delivery driver. A daring photographer apologizing for these breathtaking views of Egypt's pyramids. That's because he and his friends broke the law. Secretly scaled the pyramids at night. The images have lit up the Internet with everything from awe to anger.
Just out this past hour, the Commerce Department reports GDP at an annual rate of .4 of 1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. And today marks the end of the best quarter for stocks since 1998. So should you sell now or sit tight?
Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange.
Hi, Alison.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. So the news about GDP, that .4 percent growth is -- it's OK. I wouldn't be popping the champagne bottles just yet. The good news is that it beat expectations. This is the last revision of this number. It was revised higher from .1 percent. It was helped by an increase in consumer spending.
But look, the reality is with this number, the last quarter of last year, from October through December, you kind of saw the economy stalling out. This is anemic growth. It's not even half a percent and it's way down from the third quarter which was 3.1 percent.
What was worrying the economy? Remember the fiscal cliff? That uncertainty over taxes and spending cuts? The biggest drag that we saw from the last three months of last year was from government spending. Federal and local.
But here's the good news in all this, Carol. Economists are raising their forecasts for the first three months of this year. The first quarter, saying they expect GDP to show the economy accelerated, that it picked up steam in the first quarter, thinking it grew in the -- anywhere from 2 to 3 percent range. That's of course despite the government tightening its belt because people are spending more money, Carol. The housing market is improving and the thinking is that helped the economy.
But I'll tell you what, this is the last trading day of the first quarter and what a stunner of a year it's been so far. The Dow is up 11 percent already this year. The S&P 500, that's climbed almost 10 percent, it's within striking distance of its all-time high that was set in October of 2007.
And seeing that S&P 500 so high just in the first three months of this year, it's good news for your portfolio because your mutual funds most likely tracked that S&P 500 index.
Have you looked at your portfolio lately, Carol?
COSTELLO: No.
(LAUGHTER)
KOSIK: Go ahead, take a look.
COSTELLO: I will. I will especially now. Alison Kosik, thanks so much.
It's being called the biggest cyber attack in history. And if you were on the Web during the past couple of days, you probably noticed it. Web pages struggling to come up. So hackers targeted a company that tracks and blocks spam. You know all those annoying junk e-mails you get? Well, the hackers were able to crash that company's servers by flooding them with requests. The result? Slower Internet service for everyone across the globe.
Noah Shachtman is the contributing editor for "Wired" magazine.
Good morning.
NOAH SHACHTMAN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, WIRED MAGAZINE: Thanks for having me.
COSTELLO: I liked how you described it in our pre-interview, this --
(LAUGHTER)
As far as how big this was.
SHACHTMAN: Yes. It's completely huge. Look, it's about 10, 20, 30 times larger than a particular attack like this and that's a problem not just for this one company that got attacked, but it's a problem for everybody. Because they basically use the Internet's equivalent of the phone book, the thing that translates numbers into names, like CNN.com, wired.com, and they used that system to direct lots and lots and lots of traffic towards this one site, and it's so much that it's affecting everyone.
COSTELLO: So why did these hackers do this? This has been an ongoing feud between these hackers and this company that blocks spam?
SHACHTMAN: Right. So people don't realize this, but the Internet is really in a lot of ways run by volunteers. Is run by volunteer groups, like this one, Spamhaus, which basically tracks the worst offenders on the Internet. The guys that send you the most junk e- mail, the most come-ons for shady businesses. And tells the rest of the Internet, look, don't pay attention to those guys, don't accept traffic from them.
So basically when Spamhaus tells the rest of the Internet not to pay attention to someone, they don't. And so they got attacked for that.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: I mean, I can't think of a reason for these junk e-mail senders because nobody likes them in your inbox. But it is a free country. At least here. And people do have the right to free speech. If someone wants to send me an e-mail, I suppose they have that right.
SHACHTMAN: They've got the right to send it, but it doesn't mean that the rest of the Internet has the right to accept that e-mail. They can send all they want, but it doesn't mean you've got to take it.
COSTELLO: Right. Noah Shachtman, contributing editor for "Wired" magazine. Thank you so much for making things clear for us this morning. We appreciate it.
SHACHTMAN: Thank you for having me.
COSTELLO: The streak is over. The Chicago Bulls beat Miami, snapping the 27-game winning streak. The Heat fell six games short of the L.A. Lakers' all-time NBA mark. Where the Heat bombed they couldn't break the record? Well, listen to Dwayne Wade.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DWAYNE WADE, MIAMI HEAT: It didn't really matter to us, I mean, you get it, awesome. If you don't ,we still -- we won 27 games in a row. I mean, that's pretty awesome. So, you know, really, it really wasn't, man, we've got to get that record. Not at all. So -- you know, now it's over. Glad it's over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Man, I don't know if he's telling the whole truth there. The Heat last lost a game on February 1st. That was two days before the Super Bowl.
Just ahead in the NEWSROOM, Ashley Judd's major announcement about her future in politics. Find out what's ahead for the actress and activist.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: It is 15 minutes past the hour. Time to check our top stories.
Olympian and accused murderer Oscar Pistorius can leave South Africa provided he gives a week's notice. The track star can also go back to the home where police say he killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp and he can drink alcohol again. All this after a judge reset his bail term. Pistorius was not in court.
New court documents reveal suspected Colorado theater shooting James Holmes wants to plead guilty and spend the rest of his life in jail if he can avoid the death penalty. Prosecutors have not accepted his offer. Holmes is accused of killing 12 and wounding 58, in the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday.
A terrifying video shows the moment a security guard is swallowed by a massive sinkhole. This happened in southern China. The man was rescued but he later died in a hospital. Chinese media say the sinkhole is 52 feet deep and 16 feet wide, and heavy rainfall may have led to its formation.
After weeks of speculation, an attack ad by at least one potential opponent, Ashley Judd says she will not run for a Senate seat in Kentucky. The actress said in her Twitter account, quote, "I have decided after a serious and thorough contemplation, I realize that my responsibilities and energy at this time need to be focused on my family. Regretfully, I am currently unable to consider a campaign for Senate."
The newest airline will also be the world's largest. A federal bankruptcy judge has now approved the merger of U.S. Airways and American Airlines, but did not approve a $20 million severance for the CEO of Americans parent company. The merger still needs the approval of U.S. Airways shareholders and the Justice Department.
We have new details this morning in the tragic killing of a baby, shot in the head while his mother was walking him in his stroller. Two teenagers accused in the shooting have now been indicted by a grand jury. Some of their family members are in trouble, too.
Joining us now from Brunswick, Georgia, CNN's Victor Blackwell.
Good morning, Victor.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
And a bit of breaking news this morning, we have just learned that the sister of one of the suspects, the boy actually charged with shooting this baby, she has been arrested in connection with this crime. Now, five people as part of this 15-count indictment.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL (voice-over): Seventeen-year-old De'Marquise Elkins and 15- year-old Dominique Lang both now charged as adults in the shooting death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago one week ago. Each faces five felony counts, including felony murder and cruelty to children. Elkins faces an additional charge of malice murder for allegedly firing the shot at the baby's face.
SHERRY WEST, MOTHER OF VICTIM: I found an outfit that my baby was wearing before he was killed, and I can't seem to let it go.
BLACKWELL: Something else little Antonio's mother can't let go? A question. Why?
CHIEF MATT DOERING, GLYNN COUNTY POLICE: We believe that the location and the victim were both random.
BLACKWELL: Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering's department is investigating this as a botched robbery. Elkins' attorney does not buy it.
KEVIN GOUGH, ATTORNEY FOR DE'MARQUISE ELKINS: It seems odd, two individuals, whoever they are, so desperate to rob someone who wouldn't have appeared to have any money, and go into the trouble of shooting two people, would then leave the object of their attention at the crime scene.
BLACKWELL: Not left at the crime scene? The murder weapon. According to the indictment, Elkins sister Sabrina Elkins and their mother Karimah Elkins ditched the .22 caliber revolver in this marsh, miles away from the crime. Tests will determine if a gun pulled from the marsh was the gun used to kill little Antonio.
WEST: I had to watch my baby die, and I want him to die -- a life for a life.
BLACKWELL: That's West's wish shared with Piers Morgan.
But under Georgia law, not possible. Elkins and Lang are both under 18. If they are convicted of the new charges, these boys could spend the rest of their lives in prison.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: I understand we now have the photograph of Sabrina Elkins to put up on the screen for you. This, again, is De'Marquise's sister, who is charged with working with his mother to get rid of the so-called murder weapon. One other thing, De'Marquise Elkins was charged as part of this indictment with attempted armed robbery, using that same gun to try to rob a man a few days before the shooting here in Brunswick, Carol. >
COSTELLO: Victor Blackwell, reporting live for us this morning.
Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: do you think the highest performing employees at your office are also the happiest? Well, a new study might surprise you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: You would think the best employees at any company would also be the happiest. But a new study finds that is not always the case.
The report by Leadership IQ shows that in 42 percent of firms, low performers actually report being more engaged, more motivated and more likely to enjoy their work than middle and high performers.
I'm joined now from New York by Christine Romans.
So, I mean, is the secret to become a slacker at work?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Apparently, slackers are also more likely to tell people, hey, my company is really great. You should come work here, too.
And the high performers, Carol, the high performers are more likely to be really unhappy at work. One of the reasons why they are unhappy is because since they get stuff done, they get more work. And they have to pick up the slack for those really happy people who are the low performers.
It's such an interesting dynamic at way too many companies. One thing this study finds, high performers, if the economy gets better, maybe they're going to be willing to walk. So, that's the word for bosses, and bosses are spending so much time with the low performers, trying to help them and move them along on their way, that quite frankly, they are neglecting their best performers in the office.
It's so interesting. The solution they find, once a month, just once a month, bosses should chat with high performers are say, are you burned out? What's burning you out? How can we help you?
Just something as that will make high performers a little happier.
COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about the high performers because what should they do? I mean, they are still working at their job. They have the right to be a little happy, even if their boss doesn't pay as much attention to them as he should, or she should.
ROMANS: I say get another job. Go someplace else, get another job.
No, look, I mean, I'm not going to speak from any kind of personal experience here, and neither are you, Carol. But let's just say that isn't it kind of irritating when in the office you see that -- your boss doesn't spend much time talking to you, but you get all of the work, right?
This is a report that really tells bosses how to act rather than telling high performers how to act.
COSTELLO: I will have to think about that. I think you're right, Christine.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: Christine Romans, thank you.
ROMANS: I'm very happy here. Does that mean I'm a slacker? That's what I'm worried about. I'm happy with my job.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: OK. I won't force you to answer that question.
Thank you, Christine Romans -- because I know you're not a slacker.
Coming up in THE NEWSROOM: the Trayvon Martin case, doesn't head to trial until June, but tweets from the brother of George Zimmerman are sparking a new round of outrage. Why George Zimmerman's brother, Robert, says that outrage should be directed at the liberal press.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Good morning. Thank you for being with me. I'm Carol Costello.
Stories we're watching right now at THE NEWSROOM, with just about 30 minutes past the hour.
Markets on Wall Street poised to open slightly higher this morning after a new report shows the U.S. economy grew .4 percent in the last quarter of 2012.
The IRS says more taxpayers are getting it right, submitting tax returns with fewer math errors. New information from the IRS shows half as many returns last year had errors when compared to those filed in 2010. The tax agency contributes this to an increase in electronic filing.
The island nation of Madagascar has been hit by a plague of locusts. Look at that. This is the worse it's been there since the 1950s.
Wow. The insects have infested about half the island.
The United Nations said billions of locusts are a major threat to crops and could lead to food shortages.
Hundreds of Chicago public school teachers and their supporters are protesting what could be the largest school shutdown in the country. The city wants to close more than 50 elementary schools.
The president of the Chicago Teachers Union has some harsh words about that decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAREN LEWIS, PRESIDENT, CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION: When you close schools primarily on the south and west sides, that the children who will be affected are black. Let's not pretend that that's not racist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
