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Shocking New Kenya Mall Video; Ted Cruz Rises In Shutdown; Manhunt For Convicted Killers; Toyota Recalling 800,000 Vehicles; Study: Sleep Cleans Your Brain; Felony Charges Follow Viral Video; Facebook Rules Draw Criticism; Elle's Cover Controversy

Aired October 18, 2013 - 07:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- in a supermarket, the massacre continues. Surveillance video shows the hostage roundup has begun. A mother and her two children push an injured child in a shopping cart, a bloody teenage girl follows, her hands in the air as the gunman points the way. Hours later, they're released.

The U.S. Embassy in Uganda is providing no specifics at this time, but are asking American citizens to be careful.

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ELBAGIR: To give you a sense of how broad and entrenched this terror network really is, we also understand that Ikrima, you remember that was target of the failed U.S. Navy SEAL gravitant in Somalia, he is now believed to be connected not just to the Westgate Mall attack here, but also to those terror threats that the -- the terror alert that the U.S. embassy is raising in Kampala. He is a Somali -- Norwegian of Somali origin and Norwegian intelligence are currently here in Kenya investigating that link -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Seems like the information that you have, there is good reason that the U.S. embassy is on high alert at this moment. All right, Nima, thank you so much for that. I know we have the video that Nima brought to us yesterday. It is so chilling to see the ruthless way that those men walk through that mall indiscriminately taking people out.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It reminds for all the righteousness of the talk about the cause, they are armed men going after innocence and butchering them. There are no bravery. There is no righteousness to their actions. It is a horrible reminder. Our thoughts and prayers go to the families of all those hit by these men.

BOLDUAN: Let's go to Washington. A story we have been talking about all week. If you did not know Republican Senator Ted Cruz before the shutdown, you sure do now. The junior senator from Texas led the charge against Obamacare and shot into the national spotlight. Even though many see the battle as a loss for Republicans, it could be a big win for at least Ted Cruz. CNN's Athena Jones is in Washington and has more.

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ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Failure has never looked so good.

SENATOR TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: This is a terrible deal.

JONES: Perhaps that's because Senator Ted Cruz does not feel beaten. The day after Cruz was defeated in his battle to defund Obamacare, he was out shaking the hands of World War II veterans.

CRUZ: The American people continue to rise up. We're going to turn this around.

JONES: Cruz has energized his base. A Pew Research Center poll released this week shows his popularity soaring among Tea Party Republicans, jumping to 74 percent from 47 percent in July.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out here in the real world, outside of New York and Washington, D.C., these people think Ted Cruz is a hero.

JONES: And donors are supporting him in a big way, to keep his fight going. Cruz has reportedly raised $750,000 these last few weeks. The president may think he silenced Cruz who famously spent 21 hours on the Senate floor railing against Obamacare.

CRUZ: I do not like green eggs and ham.

JONES: Cruz's Obamacare fight has not been without a price.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His colleagues in the Senate look at him as an adversary, a troublemaker, as a problem child. Not as somebody they want to cooperate with.

JONES: His hometown newspaper sharply critical of his performance since their endorsement last year. The Tea Party vows to fight on. The damage for Republicans is undeniable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He may end up leading a party, the question is, is it a party that can compete nationally either for control of Congress or the president?

JONES: The Cruz factor giving late-night comedians plenty of fodder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Obama has said that the day after the budget deal is made he's going to concentrate on immigration. Yes. He says he'll start by deporting Ted Cruz.

JONES: Athena Jones, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, time now for our latest headlines. A manhunt is under way in Florida for two convicted killers following a bizarre prison break. Charles Walker and Joe Jenkins were freed after prison officials received forged documents stating that their respective sentences were reduced and granting them release.

Investigators say it's not clear who forged the signatures of a prosecutor and a judge. Those inmates were serving life sentences for murder without the possibility of parole. We'll have more later in the show.

Attorneys say an Ohio man who confessed to dui deserves a reduced sentence for fessing up. The 22-year-old Matthew Portal admitted to causing a fatal wrong-way crash. His online video confession went viral. He pleaded guilty last month. Prosecutors are seeking the maximum, more than eight years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for October 23rd.

If you are driving a Toyota, pay close attention. The carmaker has announced a massive recall involving more than 800,000 2012 and 2013 Camry's, Avalons and Venzas. The problem is with an air conditioner part that could cause air bags to deploy without warning and a loss of power steering. Officials say in some cases, the problems caused by spiders, the bug, an actual bug.

A good night's sleep can clean your brain and slow down dementia. A study by researchers at the University of Rochester conclude sleep gets rid of the gunk that builds up in our brains when we're awake and may be critical in the treatment of people with Alzheimer's and other mind disorders. Subjects who didn't get enough sleep had trouble learning and making decisions and displayed slower reaction time.

CUOMO: Thank you, Michaela.

PEREIRA: You're welcome, Chris.

PEREIRA: Check this out, a 2 million-year-old boulder at the center of a criminal investigation. Three guys pushed over the boulder at Utah's Goblin State Part. An investigation is now under way. It starts like an ordinary tourist video, three Boy Scout leaders posing alongside a 200 million-year-old rock in Goblin, Utah. One of them starts to wiggle it.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wiggle it just a little bit.

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PEREIRA: But it's no laughing matter. These men could face felony charges for toppling that ancient rock. The sand stone boulders date back to the Jurassic period and it is against the law to deface them. A park official calls the video disturbing, sad and hard to watch.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obviously, we're very concerned and upset that somebody would come and destroy this natural wonder that took millions of years to be formed.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PEREIRA: But despite the high fives, the accused vandals said they thought toppling the formation was a good thing.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some little kid was about to walk down here and die and Glenn saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way.

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PEREIRA: Dave Hall, the man who shot the video told CNN affiliate KUTV, the Goblin rock was already unstable and he was afraid it would fall and harm someone.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That thing wobbled. I looked at the main path, and thought one gust of wind and a family is dead. I don't regret it one bit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you go do it again?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. Absolutely. So it's all about saving lives here in Goblin Valley.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: The park's deputy director says in his 22 years no one has ever been hit by a falling Goblin rock. Authorities are still looking at this. They say these guys probably would not have gotten caught if they hadn't boasted and posted the video on Facebook.

BOLDUAN: There's the moral of the story here. Come on, folks.

PEREIRA: You think that their defense is true.

CUOMO: I'm a little concerned. I want to know if they knew, that these rocks are different posted that these rocks are different from other rocks. Otherwise, you have to give them a fair hearing on it. I'm not joking around. This is a felony couldn't. You better prove they knew what they were doing, otherwise --

PEREIRA: They are investigating.

CUOMO: Why are they going so far down the road of explaining it?

BOLDUAN: You have to have an opinion. I can see you're holding it back.

PEREIRA: I think they were out there horsing around. I don't think they were trying to save people. I think they were horsing around and boasted about it on Facebook and got busted.

CUOMO: Was their intent to vandalize? That's the key question.

BOLDUAN: The intent. CUOMO: Science. Coming up on NEW DAY, Facebook is relaxing its privacy rules for teenagers. OK, it's national bullying awareness month. We keep hearing about how kids don't know how to use the new tools and parents can't keep up with it. Is this a good idea? We'll lay it out for you.

BOLDUAN: Also ahead, actress and comedian, Melissa McCarthy is featured in "Elle's" annual limited Hollywood issue. But this cover is creating all kinds of controversy. We'll talk about it.

But first this Sunday, Anthony Bourdain is exploring South Africa, "PARTS UNKNOWN" airs Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. Here's a quick look.

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ANTHONY BOURDAIN, HOST, CNN'S "PARTS UNKNOWN": This friend of mine is a great travel rider who I admire a lot. Said something I often refer to, the more I travel, the less I know. I feel that particularly strongly here in South Africa, a place I came in a state of near total ignorance leaded with preconceptions.

And I can't say I'm leaving any smarter. I guess what I do think is it's a hell of a lot more complicated here than I thought it was going to be. I do feel very much that if things worked out here, the human races capable of getting it right or even remotely close to right here, maybe there is hope for us all. But I just don't know. Do you?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Bruce can make even the rain feel right. Let's go over to Indra Petersons and see what's going on with the weather.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Because I'm getting teased right now because everyone is showing snow. I just want to remind everyone, I like snow when there are mountains. You can go snowboarding in this. This is Denver. We've been talking about flurries falling overnight into the early morning hours. Yes, right on time they're getting their flurries.

Cheyenne, they got 5 inches of snow. The same system is still currently in place. We start to see the snow wind down thanks to a frontal system extending now really all the way back in through Colorado exiting off to the east and drying out as it does so. The reason I talk about that cold front we have a series of them.

Remember we had a little bit of drizzle in the northeast last night. That is the first one. I'll call this guy number one. That's exiting off the northeast tail end bringing in showers down through Texas and the gulf, especially, because a low spun off of it in the Carolinas. A little bit of rain. We talked about the snow there.

It is the third one, right here, that everyone will be focusing on as we go through the end of the weekend and in through next week. The reason for this, you'll start to feel the pattern change. The actual real cold air coming in from way up in Canada will start to dive down. Remember with each cold front that passes through we'll get a little bit cooler. Third one in the line got the biggest umph to it, the most powerful one.

This is what it looked like yesterday, upper 70s in D.C., 59 in Minneapolis. I'll drop you all the way in through Monday, the end of the weekend, notice the cool air that's in place after three cold fronts go through. Down to the 40s in Minneapolis, again, eventually, all that cold air spreads to the northeast by the end of next week. You'll feel the big difference and the change in the pattern.

Today, though, enjoy it, beautiful start to the weekend, Atlanta, 73. Cool in Denver. I think they are loving that flurries and 46 degrees for the high. Back to you guys.

BOLDUAN: All right, Indra, thank you so much.

PEREIRA: Of the many things that October marks it also marks the tenth anniversary of national cybersecurity awareness month and cybersecurity more crucial than ever for social media, companies like Facebook. The company is raising eyebrows over a recent announcement that they'll loosen privacy restrictions for young teens.

Let's bring in host of "Tech Bytes" Brett Larson. We want to talk today about bullying, a lot of it starts on these social media web sites. At first blush this seems like a terrible idea.

BRETT LARSON, HOST, "TECH BYTES": It really does. A lot of privacy advocates and children's advocates are saying this isn't a good time to do that. It's not a good space to do it. Basically what Facebook is saying if you're 13 to 17 and using their site, you can post things and they can be public so that other people can see them as well.

PEREIRA: You make a choice.

LARSON: It's a choice. It's not automatic. When you write your post you have to say, OK, I want this to be totally public. Facebook says they'll warn these kids that this post will be made public, which means everybody will see it. We're talking about teenagers.

PEREIRA: We were teens. We remember.

LARSON: Yes. I remember my lack of impulse control when I was 13 to 17.

PEREIRA: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Is Facebook explaining the reasoning behind it, not just the timing but why make this move?

LARSON: They're saying that it's to keep up with other social networking sites.

PEREIRA: Really? LARSON: Twitter and the ask.com, they're open to all that sort of thing and there's ad revenue based on this, the more that they share publicly, the more that they can target advertising to the 13 to 17 years old.

CUOMO: One subject of parental control, can you control it?

LARSON: If you do control your child's account you do have parental control.

CUOMO: What complicates the analysis here is the age group.

LARSON: Yes.

CUOMO: Because 13 to 17 --

LARSON: Vulnerable.

CUOMO: It's going to get dicey. My kids are younger. Younger kids you don't want them to have this discretion. As they get older it starts to become more their business. So it's going to -- it's a tough age range to monitor. It's they do. They are in complete control.

LARSON: And worse, they know how to hide all this stuff from their parents. We are definitely in the world now where the kids know more about the technology than their parents do.

PEREIRA: Shocking, shocking statistic and sobering and this was done out of Britain. They're saying 87 percent of bullied teens were first targeted on Facebook. That was a study done out of Britain but points to the fact this is a place where they shouldn't be loosening restrictions.

LARSON: No, clamp down. Facebook, it's a difficult thing for them to deal with, because if they lose these kids from 13 to 17, if they go somewhere where they have freedom, they're going to stay there.

CUOMO: Everything starts on Facebook because it's the biggest site.

PEREIRA: They've got to counteract with other security.

BOLDUAN: We always say, where does the responsibility of Facebook -- it's a company, and the responsibility of the parents begin.

LARSON: What's interesting, though, why not -- why Facebook doesn't launch a side site for the 13 to 17-year-olds where there is some level of safety, there is a higher wall and there is more monitoring in place because you're absolutely right. Bullying online is inescapable, worse than in the classroom.

PEREIRA: It's different when we're kids. Brett Larson from "Tech Bites," love it.

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY, what do you think is wrong with this picture? Not this, this picture. Melissa McCarthy looks great on the cover of "Elle" magazine, so why are so many people talking about it? We're going to talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY, everyone. Actress and comedian, Melissa McCarthy is responding to criticism this morning surrounding her new "Elle" magazine cover. There's the cover right there. So what's going on? What's the controversy? Nischelle is here to tell us all about what's going on.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: You know, another day, another controversy, it's Friday. I'm going to call this flip- flop Friday. I have totally changed course on my opinion on this full story. Everyone is up in arms about her on the cover of "Elle" magazine. It's their women in Hollywood issue, this month. Look at her there. I think she looks gorgeous.

She looks sexy, chic, the hair is to us he willed, but the controversy is she shares with some other ladies in Hollywood, Reese Witherspoon and Penelope Cruz. Reese and Shalene are in various stages of undress, not naked, but they have far less clothes on than she does. Penelope doesn't even show her body on her cover because she was pregnant at the time. So the critics are saying why is Melissa McCarthy all covered up?

PEREIRA: Look at her.

TURNER: Right. She was pregnant so you didn't even see her. My thing here, yes, we know Hollywood has a fixation with weight. I don't think this is what it is here. I don't think you have to be, like, without any clothes on to look sexy. I think her cover is the most beautiful.

BOLDUAN: I do want to buy that coat.

TURNER: Thank you. I was thinking the same thing. I was like that's a bad coat.

PEREIRA: Work with these actresses and movie stars to find the cover --

TURNER: You saw that cover.

PEREIRA: Work with them to find a way they're comfortable.

BOLDUAN: I would assume and hope that Melissa would have the sign off on what she wanted to wear.

TURNER: She didn't have to hide behind --

CUOMO: She did tell them.

TURNER: Thank you, Chris. No, she did. She spoke to my good friend Kevin Frazier at OMG "Insider" and said she grew up with "Elle" magazine. She loved it. She was nervous, had never done anything like this and she thought it was amazing. We had this conversation yesterday, Chris. If the person who is supposed to be offended is not offended, why are we offended?

BOLDUAN: You know what we call that in the show?

TURNER: What's that?

BOLDUAN: A nontroversy.

TURNER: Friday fantastic. That's great.

BOLDUAN: A nontroversy. It has been ruled.

TURNER: Can I create a controversy, though?

BOLDUAN: In the break.

TURNER: It's this morning. You like the Tigers, John Berman likes the Red Sox and I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan.

BOLDUAN: Michelle is now not allowed on the set.

TURNER: Tonight, folks, game six. Let's do this.

CUOMO: We're taking a break here so that everybody can fight. When we return, speaking of fight, government workers shaking off the cob webs after a 16-day furlough. That's good. Could they be off the job again come January? Better not be, but we'll give the latest from Washington.

BOLDUAN: Plus, a pretty outrageous prison break to talk about, guards walking two convicted killers to the front gates and letting them go. Now a manhunt is under way and we'll tell you how it went down.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Nothing has done more damage to America's credibility in the world than the spectacle that we have seen these past several weeks.

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CUOMO: The battle ahead, the president looking to jump start immigration reform and budget talks, but just one day into the new normal, his new nominee for Homeland Security already drawing fire.

BOLDUAN: Prison break, two convicted murderers on the run after court orders called for their release. The twist, they forged the documents.

PEREIRA: Creatures from the deep. What is with the bizarre sightings up and down the coast? This giant sea serpent, we're on the case this morning.

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: What you need to know --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not enough to know that he's free on the streets. It's frightening.

ANNOUNCER: What you just have to see.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They seem kind of sea monsterish, so it catches a lot of attention.

(END VIDEO CLIP)