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Opening Bell on Wall Street; Race to Save Whales; Couple, Four Children Missing in Brutal Cold; Affleck: Stalker Used Paparazzi to Target Kids

Aired December 10, 2013 - 09:30   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. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

Checking our top stories at 31 minutes past the hour.

The nasty weather that's left much of the nation in deep freeze is expected to bring plenty of snow to several major East Coast cities today. This is what it looks like right now in Richmond, Virginia. A lovely mix of rain and snow. And it's about 35 degrees.

Live picture for you now from Philadelphia, where the snow is coming down a little harder. It's about 34 degrees in Philly. Philly and Washington could see up to seven inches of snow today.

Speaking of D.C., federal buildings are closed today because of the weather. It's snowing there, too. It's 34 now. And in Hartford, Connecticut, it's not looking much better, a balmy 33 degrees. And it will only get colder as the day goes on. Please, be careful.

Eighteen current and former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies have been indicted after an FBI investigation into alleged abuse and corruption at the nation's largest county jail. The FBI says they found, quote, "a wide scope of illegal conduct." A spokesperson says they uncovered a pattern of excessive force and unlawful arrests.

Opening bell just rang on Wall Street. Dallas based Southcross Energy Partners rang in the bell this morning. Stock futures a little lower after the S&P hit a record on Monday. Alison Kosik is following it all from New York.

Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS: CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Don't be surprised to see stocks stuck in a holding pattern. You know, there's been such a run-up this year so far. Investors are kind of catching their breaths, waiting on the next big catalyst. And that will be the Fed's next move. In fact, three influential members of the Fed spoke publicly yesterday, basically saying they're OK with pulling back on how much money that the Fed has been pumping into the economy.

In fact, they have a two-day meeting happening next week and a change in what the Fed's been doing. That could be decided then. And if it does, the market seems to be pretty comfortable with the idea at this point because lately the data that's been coming out on housing, on economic growth and jobs seems to be improving. So the thinking is, the economy may just be able to handle it when the Fed takes off the training wheels.

Carol.

COSTELLO: I hope you're right. Alison Kosik, thanks so much.

Joy, an unusual way to describe a beloved leaders' memorial. But in South Africa today, it was joyous. Even the pouring rain meant something special. It meant good luck. There was song, dancing and too many world leaders to count. Everyone from Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai to Cuba's Raul Castro to American Presidents Bush, Carter and Clinton. President Obama spoke to a standing ovation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land. And it stirred something in me. It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today. And while I will always fall short of Madiba's example, he makes me want to be a better man. He speaks to what's best inside us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Reverend Raphael Warnock is in Miami. He's a senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church and the author of "The Divided Mind of The Black Church."

Welcome.

REV. RAPHAEL WARNOCK, SENIOR PASTOR, EBENEZER BAPTIST CHURCH: Good to be here with you, Carol.

COSTELLO: I'm so glad you're here. I'd like to talk about Mandela's legacy and if that legacy will last. President Obama says Mandela speaks to what's best inside each of us, but many Americans don't believe politicians are capable of this. Still, it was wonderful to see Presidents Clinton, Bush, Carter and Obama all together, mourning the same man in the same way. Going forward, what do we take away from this?

WARNOCK: Well, we witness today, Carol, a moving tribute to a powerful and incredible man. The fact is, he was more than a politician. He was a politician with moral authority. And that is, perhaps, because he moved from the margins to the mainstream. We witnessed really one of the most transformational figures in the modern era. But I think if we are to pay tribute to President Mandela, while we stand in awe of his legacy, we must somehow move from awe to action. I think that's what he would have us do, to continue the hard work which he begun - which he began.

I was inspired as I watched people who don't normally stand in the same room, let alone on the same stage come together. He pitched a big tent in life and in death. And all of us are better because of it.

COSTELLO: To see so many world leaders who -- I guess there were 100 world leaders there, past and former, everyone from Hamid Karzai to Raul Castro to, of course, the American presidents. Also in attendance, the Tea Party Republican Ted Cruz. He attended today's memorial. He was sharply criticized, though, for writing this FaceBook posting last week. Ted Cruz writing in part, quote, "Nelson Mandela will live in history as an inspiration for defenders of liberty around the globe. We mourn his loss and offer our condolences to his family and the people of South Africa." Now, some are calling Ted Cruz a traitor of sorts because they feel Mandela was a communist and a terrorist, a racist even. Others on Senator Cruz's FaceBook page put it this way. And I'll going to quote one of those who posted. She said, "Ted Cruz's pander to the most vile racist elements in this country that they are now attacking him for the one decent thing he has said in recent memory. It just proves the old adage, that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Although that's probably a vile slur on dogs. Or as the Prophet Hosea (ph) said, for they sew the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind." What would Mandela have said about this?

WARNOCK: Well, I think we have to reflect on the life and the legacy of the man. Here's a man who always transformed his persecution into power. He went into a prison cell, but as a result of prison labor, his eyesight was dim but his vision was never impaired. He saw the world not as it was, but as it could be. And so I'm glad that Mr. Cruz has been inspired by Mr. Mandela. I think he ought to be instructed by President Mandela.

I think the fact is, if you play to the fringe (ph), if the mainstream goes out of its way to coddle the fringe, the fringe will become the mainstream and you'll find yourself sewn up in a bag that's difficult even for you to escape. This is not the first time we've heard these kinds of words, Marxist, socialist, communist, terrorist. We've heard these kinds of ugly labels, if you will, code words aimed at another black president, President Obama, who I think paid a moving and powerful tribute to Nelson Mandela, who inspired President Obama and inspires all of us.

COSTELLO: You said that you hope Senator Cruz is instructed by Mandela's legacy. In what way?

WARNOCK: Well, I think, as the president talked this morning about the fact that our work continues, I mean in a real sense it is not incredibly difficult to pay homage to a movement after the fact and certainly the work of making South Africa the strong and unified and democratic and nonracist society that President Mandela talked about continues. But this work continues as the president talked about the need to make sure that children do not go hungry and that we don't have run-down schools. Those are problems not only in South Africa, but in the United States of America.

And so I hope, Carol, that this will be for us a teachable moment, that we will raise the conversation in our own nation, that we will go to a higher moral plane, that we will focus not on the things that divide us, but the things that bring us together. When the people at the bottom have what they need, basic needs, basic things that make for human dignity, education, food, a living wage, that the whole society is made better. And if we cash in this moment, if we build monuments rather than a better world, we will not pay the tribute to Nelson Mandela that he justly deserves.

COSTELLO: Reverend Raphael Warnock, senior pastor from the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Miami. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

WARNOCK: So good to be here with you.

COSTELLO: Thanks. Thanks for being here.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Fears of a tragic ending for a pod of stranded pilot whales. In the last week, nearly half of the group, 22 whales, died in Florida's Everglades National Park. As authorities race to save the 29 survivors, they warn that some or all of them could die, too. Dr. Alistair Dove is the senior scientist at the Georgia Aquarium here in Atlanta.

Thanks so much for being here.

DR. ALISTAIR DOVE, SENIOR SCIENTIST, GEORGIA AQUARIUM: It's my pleasure.

COSTELLO: So why can't they save these whales?

DOVE: Unfortunately, this is a pretty typical pattern with pilot whales. Pilot whales have a tendency to all beach together. So whereas some other whales can come on to the beach one at a time, these guys have a tendency to strand as a group. And it's probably something to do with the very intense social structure that they have. They're all very closely bonded together. And when one of them goes on to a beach for whatever reason, the others are inclined to follow.

COSTELLO: That's just sort of like a mass suicide. It's very strange to think about.

DOVE: It is. And to be honest, we don't really understand completely why they do this. It could be that the lead animal gets sick and that causes all the other animals to follow them on to the beach. But the truth is, we really don't know a lot of the time. It's a bit of a scientific enigma.

COSTELLO: So I know that there was a morbillivirus and it was - it affected dolphins not so long ago. Could this virus be partially to blame for some of these whales dying?

DOVE: Probably not. We know that pilot whales can carry the morbillivirus virus that's currently infecting dolphins along the eastern coast of the U.S. There's been about 800 dolphins die between July and now. And most of those have tested positive for the morbillivirus. But we think that these two events, the pilot whales in the Everglades and the dolphin unusual mortality event on the East Coast of the U.S. are probably unrelated. It's a coincidence.

COSTELLO: Yes. And just one last question, because people always talk -- why can't we vaccinate this animal life and protect them from viruses like this?

DOVE: Well, it's true that we'd love to be able to do something like that for them, but we're a long way from understanding the diseases that affect marine life. We know that these diseases are telling us that the ocean is sick and that we need to pay more attention to the health of the oceans. But, unfortunately, we're a long way from being able to vaccinate dolphins.

COSTELLO: Dr. Alistair Dove, thanks so much for coming in today. We appreciate it.

DOVE: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: All new in the next hour of NEWSROOM, a look back on your year on social media. Miley Cyrus and the royal baby made the top 10 list. But find out who was the most talked about person of the year. And, no, it was not Miley Cyrus. All ahead at 10:00 Eastern Time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking our "Top Stories" at 49 minutes past the hour.

Rescuers are desperately trying to find a couple and four missing children on a snowy Nevada mountain. The search is taking place in Pershing County in northwest Nevada where the temperatures dipped to below zero. James Glanton and Christina McIntee disappeared Sunday along with Glanton's two children and McIntee's niece and nephew. Investigators say the six went out to play in the snow and they haven't been seen since.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF RICHARD MACHADO, PERSHING COUNTY, NEVADA SHERIFF'S OFFICE: The temperatures out here are very cold and we'd like to bring a successful end to this. We'd like to find them just as soon as we can.

JOAN WEAGANT, VOLUNTEER: We just got to find them. We've known them forever, you know. And those little tiny kids they can't be out there, none of them can be out there in the cold like --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: About a dozen search and rescue team members are helping in the search. A Navy helicopter is also involved.

Earlier today, Caroline Kennedy, the newest U.S. Ambassador to Japan, visited the Nagasaki atomic bomb museum. She's also meeting with survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing which killed as many as 80,000 people. Sarah Palin going back outdoors for a new TV series. The Sportsman Channel will air "Amazing America with Sarah Palin"; that starts in April. Former Governor hosted "Sarah Palin's Alaska" on TLC a few years ago. The new show will focus on stories about hunting, fishing and shooting.

Oscar winner Ben Affleck is opening up about a dangerous stalker who was threatening his family. Affleck says thanks to the gangs of paparazzi that follow his family around, this stalker was able to blend in and snap photos of his children as they were leaving preschool.

CNN's Nischelle Turner has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: An angry Ben Affleck is blasting the photographers who, he says, constantly follow his family, like in this Hollywood.tv video.

BEN AFFLECK, ACTOR/DIRECTOR: You can talk to me, don't talk to my kids. Is that clear?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. No problem.

AFFLECK: Ok.

TURNER: In a new interview with "Playboy" magazine Affleck says a man who is allegedly stalking his actress wife Jennifer Garner and his family for years, basically used a crowd of paparazzi as a cover to standout side his daughter's preschool. He says "They used to take pictures of our children, coming out of preschool. And so this stalker, who had threatened to kill me, my wife and our kids showed up at the school and got arrested. I mean, there are real practical dangers to this."

In the 2009 incident Steven Burke he was arrested for violating a restraining order when police caught him. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and later sent to a mental hospital by a judge.

Garner had been a major force behind California's new anti-paparazzi law, which increases the penalties for taking photos and invade a celebrity's right to privacy. She joined Halle Berry tearfully testifying in front of the state assembly.

JENNIFER GARNER, ACTRESS: I love my kids. They're beautiful and sweet and innocent and I don't want a gang of shouting, arguing, law- breaking photographers who camp out everywhere we are, all day, every day, to continue traumatizing my kids.

TURNER: She told CNN's Chris Cuomo she's hoping the new law will bring a change in her life.

GARNER: I'm looking forward to January 1st when the law will go into effect, but no, so far I haven't seen a bit of difference. The threat of it is not enough. There are ten cars outside my house every single morning.

TURNER: In the article Affleck says he can handle the attention but he says his kids aren't celebrities and they deserve a little privacy. He said, the tragic thing is, people who see those pictures, naturally think it's sweet. They don't see the gigantic former gang member with a huge lens standing over a four-year-old and screaming to get the kid's attention.

Nischelle Turner, CNN, Hollywood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ditka.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Eight degrees at Soldier Field, perfect weather for the Bears to honor a franchise legend.

MIKE DITKA, COACH OF BEARS: Thank you very much. Thank you. I can say thank you, thank you, thank you the whole night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Still recovering from the Lions' loss and now we've got to talk about the Bears because they bundled up and they beat the Cowboys on Monday night football. Andy Scholes, I'm going to cover my ears.

ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: Well you know what Carol this game is stuck with the all winter weather theme from the week and you know last night's game in Chicago, get this, it was the coldest regular season game ever for the Dallas Cowboys. All right. The temperature --

COSTELLO: And it showed, right?

SCHOLES: Yes it is they were miserable. The temperature was eight degrees with a wind chill of negative nine at kickoff. It was so cold that the water bottles were freezing. But look, didn't stop this crazy fan.

COSTELLO: There's always one shirtless guy.

SCHOLES: Always one at least. Right it doesn't matter if it's negative nine outside. And that poor guy didn't get to see a good game from the Cowboys. The Bears never punted in this game, they dominated winning 45-28, and they got the big win on Mike Ditka night. The Bears held a ceremony at half time to honor their legendary head coach and retire his number.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DITKA: I've been living the dream for 74 years. I hope it never stops. It will, but I hope it doesn't. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And go Bears.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That's awesome.

SCHOLES: I love it. I love the "Go Bears." Look out -- you can see he was definitely cold.

COSTELLO: I'm surprised it took this long for them to do that actually.

SCHOLES: Yes it was surprising to me too, he's a legend in the city but hey, it was good to see it happen finally last night even though it was very, very cold.

All right a record-tying six players have been chosen as finalists for the Heisman Trophy. Now Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston he's the overwhelming favorite to win the award now that he's been cleared of sexual assault charges. But who gets second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth that's anybody's guess. Last year's winner Johnny Manziel from Texas A&M will be at the announcement on Saturday night along with Alabama's A.J. McCarron, Auburn's Trey Mason, Northern Illinois' Jordan Lynch and Boston College's Andre Williams.

University of Oregon football player Farrell Brown has been suspended from playing in the Alamo Bowl for his part in a snowball fight on campus. This whole incident was caught on video. It shows students, including several football players, blocking the vehicle of a retired university professor. They were pelting him with snow balls as he exits the car.

Other student athletes have also been disciplined for their part in the incident and once the school actually concludes their investigation, further discipline could be handed down by the dean of students.

COSTELLO: They continued to pelt him after he got out of the car.

SCHOLES: Yes. It was just very inappropriate.

COSTELLO: Didn't they like this professor? Like what's --

SCHOLES: Well, he's a retired professor. They just -- they were all having a nice fun snowball fight and then they just turned on a pedestrian.

COSTELLO: It is ugly.

SCHOLES: Yes, it's really bizarre.

All right. Turning on BleacherReport.com, if you're going to the Super Bowl in New Jersey this year, Carol, better leave that grill at home. There will be no tailgating at this year's game according --

COSTELLO: That's un-American.

SCHOLES: Right. It's the biggest game of the year, you're not going to let people do what they do at every football game and that's tailgate. The CEO of the Super Bowl committee says you can eat and drink next to your car but you have to remain in the boundaries of your single parking space. You can't grill, but I guess if you want --

COSTELLO: What are they going to do? Like paste your body up against the car and drink a beer.

SCHOLES: You want to bring a turkey sandwich and hold your beer you can stand in between two cars and have yourself a nice little meal before you go. If you're going to the Super Bowl -- I mean, come on.

COSTELLO: You're eating at a fine restaurant.

SCHOLES: Yes. Joe Shmoe is not going to the Super Bowl.

COSTELLO: Joe Shmoes are so more fun, though.

Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for being with me. It's going to be another wet snowy and cold day across the mid- Atlantic and northeast. This is a live look from Philadelphia where it's above freezing right now. We just lost that camera because it's frozen but lots and lots of snow coming down. You can see from the radar.

Of course, it's affecting air travel. Philly's international airport is seeing ground delays topping four hours. Here's a live look from the nation's capital. D.C. and Philly could see up to seven inches of snow before the day is done.