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Bombs were Made in Tamerlan's Home, Sources Say; Collapse of Bangladesh Factory Sparks Protests; First Woman on FBI Terror List; Seeing The World Through Google Glass

Aired May 03, 2013 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Jake Tapper in Washington.

Let's get you up to speed on the latest developments in the Boston bombings.

The mayor's office in Worcester, Massachusetts, tells CNN, quote, "The funeral for terror suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev will be held in Worcester just outside of Boston. The hearse you see in this picture is believed to have taken the body to the funeral home.

Meanwhile, a law enforcement official tells CNN that the captured suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has told investigators that he and his brother decided to attack the Boston marathon only a day or two before the event.

Dzhokhar says, according to this source, that the initial plan was to carry out a suicide bomb attack at Boston's massive Fourth of July fireworks celebration, but their bombs were ready earlier than expected so they moved up the date.

A law enforcement official also tells CNN that the pressure-cooker bombs he used in the attack were built in the small apartment that 26- year-old Tamerlan shared with his wife and daughter.

The news that law enforcement officials believe the bombs were built in suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Cambridge, Massachusetts, apartment raises new questions about what his wife may have known.

Her attorney insists that Katherine Russell knew nothing about the bomb plot, that she was shocked that her husband was involved.

Erin McPike joins us from North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Erin, has there been any reaction from Russell's attorneys that the news law enforcement officials believe the bombs were made in the home that she shared with her husband and her young daughter?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jake, no reaction this week on that at all.

The only thing that Katherine Russell's attorney has said that even remotely broaches that topic is that, when she was living in Cambridge, she was working 75-to-80 hours a week, very busy. So in other words, as he says, of course she would know nothing about that because she was the one who was earning the money for their family.

Jake?

TAPPER: Erin, do we know if Katherine Russell has talked with investigators lately or whether she's stopped cooperating?

There are all sorts of conflicting reports in the media right now about whether or not she's cooperating at all. What are you hearing?

MCPIKE: Well, Jake, she was just at her attorney's office yesterday morning where investigators were.

And I spoke to her attorney this morning and he told me that investigators continue to question her ask that she will continue to cooperate and talk to investigators.

When I pressed him on this, he said specifically to me, Jake, that it's not as though she is just sitting across the table from investigators and they're staring at each other.

Yes, they're questioning her. Yes, she's answering their questions.

And the other thing he said is the investigators are showing her pictures and asking her to comment on them.

As best we know, she is very much indeed cooperating with investigators.

Jake?

TAPPER: And, Erin, as you and I have discussed in the past, the statement that she put out through her lawyer expressed regret and sympathy for the victims of the terrorist attacks, but there was nothing in that statement suggesting that she believed her husband was in any way responsible.

Erin McPike in Rhode Island, thank you so much.

New developments have been unfolding by the day, sometimes by the hour, even by the minute in the Boston bombing investigation.

So why the flood of information at this stage in the investigation?

Juliette Kayyem is a CNN national security analyst and "Boston Globe" columnist. Juliette, welcome. Good to see you.

We've learned this week that some very preliminary -- let me just emphasize that -- very preliminary talks are underway to possibly -- I'll stress that -- possibly take the death penalty off the table if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev starts cooperating with investigators as he did before he was Mirandized.

Could this be why we're seeing these new developments and hearing these new details?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think there's probably two reasons and, yes, one is clearly at this stage this is taking the death penalty off as an option is a great bargaining chip.

We should not do this as, oh, he's not going to get the death penalty, we're loosening up on him.

This is very common in serious cases when you want to get information out of the living defendant who everyone agrees, at least from the narrative, was probably the less powerful, the sort of follower, not the leader about his older brother, what he knew about his older brother and, of course, what he knew about his older brother's travels abroad.

So I would be shocked if the death penalty wasn't being negotiated. This is a common tactic, even in terrorism cases where you have in possession the person who may be guilty of a very bad thing, but may have information that can help us figure out sort of what happened and how do we stop it from happening again.

I would be surprised if this wasn't the story at this stage.

TAPPER: And Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's three friends from UMass Dartmouth who were arrested Wednesday, they're facing some pretty serious charges, including obstruction of justice, lying to federal investigators.

Do you think this is a way of putting pressure on them to come up with more information, to share more information? Or are these charges to be taken at face value?

KAYYEM: I think it's both. At this stage we probably don't know -- you know, for example Dzhokhar has a roommate which you sort of wonder why isn't he in the picture. He's not one of the three indicted.

So it is a message -- the indictment is a message to the world, to all of their friends, to these boys surrounding Dzhokhar, if you know anything, tell us, in particular about events leading up to the attack.

But also, you know, this is where people who have been in law enforcement sort of get a little "law-and-order-y" on everyone, is that, you know, lying to officials ought to get five or seven years. It's the only way that the system essentially can function, is that if, you know, they lied not once.

I mean, in the affidavit if you read it, they lied once, a second interview, a third interview, and then finally on the fourth interview they realize we're in big trouble.

And so I actually think they may not get five or seven years, but some years is entirely appropriate.

And the hope is they will also bargain that length, right, to try to get information out of them about what they may have known beforehand. TAPPER: And, Juliette, where does the investigation go from here? What's the focus moving forward?

Are they continuing to just squeeze people they think might have more information like the three friends and the wife?

KAYYEM: Yes. So there's going to be, as you said, just a lot of that squeezing, in particular with the wife.

There are going to be questions about, at least in Massachusetts, were there detonations here? I think that's a big question. Did they test them out and is there any way to figure out how were they so successful?

Or as we learned today, how did they make the bombs so fast. That's faster than they even thought.

And then there's the second piece that is both the FBI and, of course, the CIA and the Russians, which is those six or seven months and what happened and what kind of foreign contacts did he have.

It is very possible -- or still possible, right, that he learned -- the older brother learned techniques abroad that may have been for attacks in Russia and then brought them here.

We're still not sure. Those are the pieces that are still being put together.

I would say the haphazard nature of the attack, the fact they changed the target, you know, right beforehand, their lack of exit strategy that you and I have been talking about suggests that at least on the operations it was these two brothers who really did not have sort of a master plan.

TAPPER: All right. Juliette Kayyem, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

A quick note on programming, this afternoon on "The Lead" at 4:00 p.m. Eastern, we're going to look at whether it's possible to self- radicalize.

Can someone just transform into a jihadist just from spending enough time looking at terrorist websites and social media?

Tune in for that on "THE LEAD" 4:00 p.m. Eastern, 1:00 p.m. Pacific, coming up.

That deadly building collapse in Bangladesh is raising questions about how and where our clothes are made.

Up next, we'll show you exactly why it costs four times more to make a T-shirt here in the United States. Stay with us.

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TAPPER: Welcome back. A high-profile political figure was shot and killed today in Pakistan. Chaudhry Zulfikar Ali was a prosecutor who was trying a case related to Benazir Bhutto's assassination in 2007. He was shot dead in his car in Islamabad.

The death toll from a collapsed factor in Bangladesh has now passed 500. And the recovery work is still continuing. Hundreds of people are still waiting near the site of the disaster, hoping for news about their missing relatives.

The collapse of the nine-story building sparked days of protests across the country and put an international spotlight on the deplorable conditions factory workers there are forced to work under.

Even Pope Francis weighed in. He likened their working conditions to slave labor.

The workers who died were making clothes for people here in the United States and in Europe. It's no secret that factories in Bangladesh can make clothes much cheaper than factories here, but how much cheaper are we talking?

Take a look. Our Richard Quest has a breakdown.

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RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL'S "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": The numbers are startling and they come from the survey from the Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights back in 2005.

They asked factories in Chicago and Bangladesh to quote to make a denim shirt.

Now, the USA factory said it would cost $13.22 to make the shirt. The Bangladeshi factory said $3.72.

Strip out shipping and all the other things and you end up with basically two major components, materials, of course, which in the U.S. were $5, in Bangladesh, $3.30.

And what a discrepancy in terms of percentage of total cost.

And now throw in that other big element, labor, $7.47, 57 percent of the cost in the U.S., but in Bangladesh just $0.22, six percent.

We see quite clearly materials are the big issue, labor minor when it comes to developing countries. But in the developed world and it's labor that becomes the big cost.

Factor it all in together and you start to see why until we are prepared to pay more, we start to see why more of our cheaper clothing is now made in Bangladesh.

Richard Quest, CNN, London.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: For the first time ever, there's a woman on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List. Her crime? Killing a New Jersey cop 40 years ago.

Up next, we'll take you live to Cuba where she's been hiding out since she escaped from prison.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Killing a New Jersey cop 40 years ago. Up next, we'll take you live to Cuba where she's been hiding out since she escaped from prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Jake Tapper.

It's long been a mystery, how did a Nobel Prize winning poet really die? Initial tests on the remains of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda confirm that he had advanced prostate cancer when he died in 1973. There had been speculation that the leftist poet was poisoned. After all, he was friends with overthrown Chilean President Salvador Allende and died just days after a coop.

For the first time a woman is on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list. She's Joanne Chesimard, who was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper four decades ago. The FBI says she's been living freely in Cuba since 1984, five years after she escaped from an American prison. Our Patrick Oppmann is with us now from Havana.

Patrick, tell us more about the crime this woman was convicted of and how she ended up in Cuba.

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it all started with a routine traffic stop 40 years ago on the New Jersey Turnpike that ended with a gun battle that left one New Jersey state trooper dead and Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, wounded. Now if her name sounds familiar, she is both the aunt and godmother of the slain rapper Tupac Shakur.

And this is where the story really gets incredible. After she's taken and charged with the killing of this state trooper, then she manages to escape from prison and somehow - it's still a mystery -- end up years later here in Cuba where she's welcomed with open arms. She's not only living openly here as she has for the last three decades, Jake, she's living very comfortably here.

TAPPER: I remember hearing more about Chesimard a few years ago when the White House came under fire because they invited the rapper Common to the White House and he had one of his songs is an homage to - it's called "A Song For (INAUDIBLE)." He says that she's not guilty.

I understand that her lifestyle there is different from ordinary Cubans. You say she lives in comfort. What more can you tell us about that? OPPMANN: You know it's so interesting because, of course, she's not the only U.S. fugitive here. There are a number of people in the 1960s and '70s, you remember, who seemed to be hijacking planes all the time to come here to Cuba. And most of them had a tough time here. They lived with the same resources or lack of resources that regular Cubans do. Many of them would like to return to the United States, but, of course, they're facing long jail sentences there.

Not so for Assata Shankur. She's something of a celebrity here. The government, including Fidel Castro, has defended her. Said that the FBI was trying to assassinate her. And they've included her in official events, allowed her to teach and write a biography here, giving her a house. I met her here years ago and she seemed somebody -- like somebody who was very comfortable here. Not somebody on the run. Somebody that who had made a life here in Cuba and was very confident that she would not be sent back to face trial and prison in the United States.

TAPPER: All right, Patrick Oppmann in Cuba, thanks so much.

Still ahead, CNN gets its hands on one of the hottest gadgets on the planet. We will show you what New York looks like through the lens of Google's new glasses.

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TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN.

One programming note. This Sunday night, Anthony Bourdain heads north to Canada. He'll take us on a tour of the country by train. It's a show you will not want to miss. That's this Sunday at 9:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

Now to wearable technology. Glasses have come a long way. You will soon be able to record video, take pictures and ask your glasses questions. I'm not talking about these kinds of things. I'm talking about Google Glass. It's not for sale yet, but our Maggie Lake found a pair and she took a tour of New York.

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MAGGIE LAKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We got a pair of the Google Glass. We got some instructions. We're ready to take a test drive.

OK, Glass, directions to Times Square.

The glasses are actually very comfortable. You get used to them quickly. There's a little screen that you can look which is showing you a map of how to get to Times Square. So whether you're in a cab or whether you're walking, you just follow what's on the screen.

LAKE (voice-over): The glasses work with any Bluetooth enabled phone, through the best fit is with an Android phone running Google's My Glass Companion app.

LAKE (on camera): So here we are in Times Square. So the easiest features to use right off the bat on Google Glass are taking pictures and recording video. And what a better canvas. Now the camera's turned on the cameraman.

You can get some of the features of Google now with the glasses, but there are no third party apps yet, and that's where the real potential is. I would love, if I had an app that told me where the nearest Mexican restaurant was to Times Square, or something where I could compare prices for a shop that I was going to go into. And that is not far off.

So no restaurant app. I guess I'm going to have to rough it. Hey there, can I have a pretzel?

LAKE (voice-over): Some busy New Yorkers never noticed what I was wearing, but those who stopped us were very enthusiastic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are those the Google glasses?

LAKE (on camera): It is the Google glasses.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my gosh.

LAKE: What do you think? Do I look like "Star Trek."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

LAKE: Google Glass, how do you say hello in French?

Taxi.

We're at the top of the rock. A beautiful day. Now, you might want to have a bodyguard when you have these. They're about $1,600 a pop. But remember, they're just a prototype. They're actually very comfortable and fairly easy to use some of the simpler functions.

I have to say though, the setup is a little bit difficult and sort of working some of the connectivity issues. That's definitely something they're going to have to iron out.

OK, Glass, take a picture. Take a look at that view. This definitely feels exciting. I feel like I'm looking at the future, but there is a learning curve no doubt about it.

Oh, wait. Oh. This is -- is it still recording? Did I turn it off?

LAKE (voice-over): Maggie Lake, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Coming up in the next hour on CNN NEWSROOM, a Utah soccer referee is punched in the head by a player who didn't like being called for a foul. And now that referee is in a coma. And his daughter will join us live. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: It's been 43 years since the first female jockey rode in the Kentucky Derby. Saturday, Rosie Napravnik will try to become the first to win it. Napravnik is already the most accomplished female rider in the sport's history. Two years ago she finished ninth in the derby, which is the best finish ever for a woman. Last year she became the first female rider to win the Kentucky Oats, which is the second biggest race of the weekend. Napravnik will ride Mylute on Saturday.

Check out this video. Snow in Kansas City last night forced the Royals to postpone their game with the Rays, but it also gave the players a great chance to work on their tarp sliding skills. Woo!

This is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, D.C.

Investors on Wall Street are celebrating, and not just because its Friday and that Cinco de Mayo is coming up, of course.