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Army Sergeant to Admit to Afghan Massacre; Potential Bombshell in Jackson Trial; Mother of Autistic Child Confronted; Vendor Held over Disneyland Blast; Facebook Targets Sexist Hate Speech; Nasdaq Fined $10 Million over Facebook IPO

Aired May 30, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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


BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: The military traditionally has not accepted stress, combat stress as a causal single reason for being excused, if you will, from committing a crime. So it will be interesting to see if the attorney can convince them.

What is at stake here? The death penalty will be taken off the table. If the attorney can convince them, Bales will get life in prison with the possibility of parole. If he cannot convince the military jury and judge, Bales will go to prison for life without the possibility of parole.

So for Sergeant Bales, a lot at stake and for the troops, a lot at stake in the potential military legal precedent about post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I know you'll keep following the story, Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon for us.

Coming up next in the -- in the NEWSROOM social media outrage and I mean outrage after a salon owner kicks out an autistic toddler because he was crying during a haircut.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for being with us. Checking our "Top Stories", it's 33 minutes past the hour.

25 organizations now suing the IRS -- they claim their constitutional rights were violated when the IRS is targeting them for delays while seeking tax exempt status. The lawsuit is filed by the American Center for Law Injustice, which was founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he does not feel threatened even after letters sent to him test positive for ricin. The poisonous toxin was also sent to an anti-gun campaign that Bloomberg has largely bank rolled. Some emergency responders showed minor symptoms of exposure and conclusive reports are due out tomorrow. Investigators are now in Shreveport, Louisiana where the mail was postmarked.

It's a stunning piece of evidence that can help determine the outcome of the Jackson Family's lawsuit against concert promoter AEG Live. An e-mail from AEG Live's co-chairman says Michael Jackson's personal physician Dr. Conrad Murray needed to get Jackson in shape to perform on stage. And the e-mail went on to say, "We want to remind Murray that it is AEG, not MJ, Michael Jackson who was paying his salary." CNN exclusively obtained his deposition from December which was just shown in court this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on the assumption that AEG is your company and MJ is Michael Jackson. Do you have an understanding of what that means?

PAUL GONGAWARE, AEG LIVE CO-CEO: No, I don't understand it because we weren't paying his salary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So why would you write that?

GONGAWARE: I have no idea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then let's go on to the next sentence. When you say his salary, who are you talking about?

GONGAWARE: I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Dr. Murray was convicted of giving Jackson a lethal dose of the drug Propofol. AEG Live claims it was Jackson who hired Dr. Conrad Murray.

A Michigan salon, a Michigan hair salon is facing a very public backlash following the owner's treatment of an autistic 2-year-old who was crying, he must have been crying loudly. Here's how the mother Ashley Bays describes what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEY BAYS, MOTHER OF SON WITH AUTISM: The other had to come up to us yelling, telling me that my child was a little out of control and that -- that behavior couldn't be tolerated in her salon, that it wasn't fair to her other clients.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So they had to leave. They had to finish the haircut outside. Bays, her son Grayson, and the stylist as I said went outside. The incident may have ended there if it had not been for another customer who was so outraged by what she saw, she wrote about it on Facebook and guess what, that post went viral with more than 37,000 shares.

And now the salon's owner is under fire. Joining me now to discuss this is Kyra Phillips. She's the host of "Raising America" on our sister network HLN.

KYRA PHILLIPS, HLN HOST, "RAISING AMERICA": It's hard to raise America.

COSTELLO: It's hard to get a haircut evidently.

PHILLIPS: This is -- and look, I'm a mom of twins. Ok they're two years old. I know there is a reason to use a bowl in my back yard on top of their head and use scissors.

COSTELLO: You don't bring them to a fancy salon to get their haircut?

PHILLIPS: I do not. I mean it's interesting. This has created such a buzz on social media. And I think it's because there is an expectation of an adult environment, right. You go to a spa, a salon. You don't expect to have screaming kids. But there is the side of we got to have a heart for kids with special needs and wow, you should have -- you should have cut the -- the parent a break there. So there are two sides.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I know but a lot of people are saying, why didn't she just like take her child out immediately or why didn't she as you said, cut the kid's hair at home.

PHILLIPS: That's a great point. I asked her that. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAYS: It was no different than he had reacted during every haircut. And I don't think there is anything that I can ever do that has helped. We've tried distraction technique, snacks, it's just stressful for him. He is just terrified of people touching his head and his ears and the sound of the clippers. And there is nothing that I could do this instance or any other time that would have diffused the situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: I thought that's interesting. He doesn't like his head touched, right. So I guess my reaction as a parent, ok then, I'm going to be extra careful not to put him in a situation where he could freak out and cause a scene no matter where that is.

Here's what I thought was interesting, a lot of people responded to this and said, you know what I work in a salon, I work at a -- with a dentist. I work in a doctor's office. And we have special hours for kids with special needs. We give them the special care that they want if the parent doesn't feel comfortable doing this or that. I thought that was pretty brilliant as a business owner.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. Of course the most fascinating twist to this is the Facebook response, and now that salon is under fire. The owner is --

PHILLIPS: Oh they're being boycotted.

COSTELLO: They're being boycotted.

PHILLIPS: Yes.

COSTELLO: I mean this could close her business down.

PHILLIPS: Sure and you know and a lot of people are saying, that's so unfair that she shouldn't lose the business. She shouldn't be closed down. But she should have handled it differently. It's true -- if she would have handled the situation differently this woman would have never posted anything on Facebook and we probably would have never heard about it.

COSTELLO: Oh but we have. And it goes on at least for the folks in Michigan. Thanks very much Kyra for being here.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

COSTELLO: And your show airs at?

PHILLIPS: Noon Eastern, HLN.

COSTELLO: "Raising America" thanks so much Kyra.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

COSTELLO: You better watch what you post, and we're talking about social media again, Facebook censors are cracking down. We'll tell you what's no longer allowed and what could happen if you break the rules.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It has been one tough week for Mickey Mouse. On Sunday, a loaded gun was found on a dinosaur ride at Walt Disney's World Animal kingdom. It turns out that gun fell out of the owner's pocket. He later claimed it at Lost and Found and no, guns are not allowed in the park.

Also, a 22-year-old man who works at Disneyland in California is being held on $1 million bail in connection with a small explosion at the park.

CNN's Sara Sidner has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Disneyland's Toon Town turned into a ghost town after an improvised explosive device went off in a trash can on Tuesday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was loud, it startled us, you know. I kind of ducked and looked up and I looked a little higher on the ground to see what going on.

SIDNER: Crowds evacuated as the bomb squad responded. Not the kind of scene visitor ever expected to encounter. Police say no one was hurt but they did discover evidence of a small explosion.

SGT. ROBERT DUNN, ANAHEIM POLICE: When our officers arrived they found the remnants of a water bottle which is kind of indicative of a dry ice type explosion.

SIDNER: 22-year-old Christian Barnes, a vending cast member at Disneyland is being held on a $1 million bail on suspicion of possessing and detonating an explosive device.

DUNN: There is a potential any time this occurs for there to be injury. There is potential for someone to get injured to the point where they lose their life. And that's why the charges are so serious.

SIDNER: Disneyland officials say Barnes had the dry ice in his vending cart where he sells items that need to be kept cold. Police say that Barnes is cooperating.

(on camera): That's right, this stuff, dry ice, often used for special effects. It turns out exploding dry ice bombs is a popular form of fun in some circles. You don't believe me, just check out all the videos on YouTube.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to show you how to make a dry ice bomb.

SIDNER (voice over): And the results when they do. What the videos don't tell you is that creating and detonating an ice bomb is a crime. You could be charge with a felony if you're caught. Across the country in Disney World's Animal Kingdom, a grandmother found a loaded gun on the seat of the dinosaur ride as she boarded with her grandson.

The gun owner said he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon but told authorities he didn't realize that guns are not allowed in the park. The happiest places on earth turning scary for some visitors until both situations were under control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Sara Sidner is at Disneyland in California. So this dry ice incident. Why was this vendor allegedly trying to do this? Why did he do it?

SIDNER: Yes, that's what investigators are still looking into. They are actually still looking at the evidence. But I can tell you from the police officer that we spoke with that the gentleman is cooperating. The suspect is cooperating and has said that there were unintended consequences. For example, he never thought that there would be, for example, an evacuation of Toon Town, the bomb squad called in.

But as far as whether this was an accidental prank, police are saying, look, he had to have some knowledge, some research had to have been done as to how to make one of these fairly simple ice bombs. But you'd have to know what to do to put it together to make it explode. And so certainly there was some kind of intent there, according to police.

But again this is an ongoing investigation. And the suspect has not actually formally been charged by the district attorney. We are waiting to see what those charges might be -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Sarah Sidner reporting live from Anaheim, California.

NEWSROOM will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Surfing around Facebook, maybe you stumbled on pages with titles like "Kicking your girlfriend in the fannie because she won't make you a sandwich", or worse, "raping your girlfriends". Facebook is now promising to get rid of those pages and similar hate speech under pressure from women's rights groups along with Facebook's own advertisers.

Let's bring in Christina Warren. She's a senior tech analyst with mashable.com. Welcome, Christina.

CHRISTINA WARREN, SENIOR TECH ANALYST, MASHABLE.COM: Hi.

COSTELLO: You know, it seems like Facebook acted awfully quickly in this case. What was at stake?

WARREN: I think that what happened was a lot of these women's rights groups went directly to their users, women and said contact advertisers. Contact the advertisers that appear next to these pages and tell them what's going on and Facebook acted very swiftly. Any time advertisers are at risk, Facebook is going to respond.

COSTELLO: So Facebook has promised to take several steps, including updating its definition of hate speech and retraining its sensors, but also forcing users who have link pages with questionable content to link those to their personal pages.

So let's go back to updating the definition of hate speech. That's a tough thing to do. What is Facebook's definition of hate speech?

WARREN: Well, right now, it's been a little bit more murky. It's basically gone into some more traditional methods of hate speech, things such as, you know, racism, overt homophobia, Nazism, that sort of thing. And they're expanding it so it includes things such as violence towards women or advocating violence in general or towards certain groups of people.

COSTELLO: That's still a tough thing to decide. I mean let's say you tell an off color joke, let's say, that some might find offensive and others don't. Will that be under scrutiny?

WARREN: It will. But I think that the way that Facebook is probably going to approach this, they said they're going to be working with the organizations that brought the issue to their attention to come up with a definition that all parties can agree with. But, frankly, as you mentioned the names of some of the groups that existed earlier, I don't think there is a question of should those things exist on Facebook? You know, they're pretty vile. So I think it's just more about setting out, these are things that are not allowed on our network.

COSTELLO: Still, you know, Facebook -- what -- has a billion users?

WARREN: Definitely.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: A lot of users to police.

WARREN: Without a doubt. That's been the biggest struggle. Most of their policing takes place through algorithms. Computer programs search for patterns and that's what determines what they police or censor. So they said that they're going to retrain their algorithms to search for things that they weren't searching for before. So instead of just certain types of key words or certain type of images, it will be a little bit broader.

But as you said with a billion users and with as many languages that Facebook is in, policing this stuff is going to be difficult.

COSTELLO: Well, at least they're going to give it a try. Christina Warren thanks so much.

WARREN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: It seems severe weather season has its sights on the same section of the Midwest this year. More strong storms could pop up today across the middle part of the country as storm chasers plan for another busy day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's 53 minutes past the hour. It's time to check our top stories.

Just hours ago in London, the 22-year-old man accused of hacking a British soldier to death appeared in court. Michael Adebowale was handcuffed, his right hand wrapped in plastic. Adebowale acknowledged the murder charge. The judge then referred the case to a higher court where a bail hearing is set for Monday. A second murder suspect remains under arrest at a London hospital.

Think you had a rough day? Be thankful you are not on the Texas Rangers ground crew. Last night's game was postponed when a storm quickly moved in. The high winds had the ground crew struggling to keep the tarp under control. Look at that. It's amazing they didn't take flight.

That same system also caused this. Chad Myers is in the middle of that and our CNN crew is, too. They are out storm chasing in Oklahoma. And they captured these pictures yesterday. Now the same area faces the risk of severe weather again today. So pay attention to the TV and the radio. Be careful.

Motorola is coming out with the first smartphone ever made in the United States. Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside announced this at this week All Things Digital Conference in California. Mobile X will be assembled in Fort Worth, Texas.

It's been called one of the worst IPOs in history. We're talking about Facebook's botched debut last year. And now, Nasdaq is coughing up the cash for its role to the tune of $10 million. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange. Good morning Alison.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol. Gosh, with this IPO what didn't go wrong? Well the SEC boils it down saying the Nasdaq violated securities laws because its systems couldn't handle the anticipated trading volume. The SEC also says the leaders of the Nasdaq made a bunch of poor decisions regarding the Facebook IPO. It ultimately couldn't match the buyers to the sellers in the very crucial moment of the trade when Facebook went public.

So now what's happening? A huge penalty to the Nasdaq for messing up Facebook's public debut to the tune of $10 million. $10 million is a big deal because represents about 3 percent of the Nasdaq's net income in 2012. This is in addition to the $62 million Nasdaq set aside to investors who lost their money because of the exchange's screw-up. Plus, add up all the money it's spending to defend lawsuits brought by investors and trading firms that are still pending. It could go on and on not to mention the reputation issues for the Nasdaq -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Ok. Give us a quick look at the markets before you go.

KOSIK: It looks like stocks are higher. Investors look like they're shrugging off weaker than expected economic figures, economic growth came in a bit worst than expected in the first three months of the year. Government spending cuts were a big part of the drag on GDP, also a jump in first time unemployment claims last week but none of it getting investors down at this moment -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Thanks, Alison.

KOSIK: Sure.

COSTELLO: And thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello. CNN NEWSROOM continues after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield.

And coming your way this hour: is this devout Mormon and mother of seven --