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NEWS STREAM

Midwestern Tornadoes Kill At Least 18; Over 700 Egyptians Sentenced To Death In Latest Mass Sentencing; L.A. Clippers Players Hide Logo; Art of Movement: Human Powered Flight

Aired April 28, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. And welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet.

Now a series of tornadoes rips through the Midwestern U.S. flattening homes and leaving at least 18 people dead.

The captain of an oil tanker who was first on the scene to assist a doomed South Korean ferry speaks about his haunting ordeal.

And an NBA team hides their logos to hit out at their owner who was allegedly caught on tape making racist remarks.

Scenes of chaos and at least 18 people dead after brutal weather battered the central and southern U.S. Now tornadoes tore through the region on Sunday.

Arkansas was hard hit, and here is (inaudible) huge storm.

Now twisters wiped out entire neighborhoods, flattening buildings, uprooting trees, even flipping cars.

Now more than 100 people are now receiving medical treatment.

Now rescue teams work through the night in a desperate search for survivors.

Now the Arkansas towns of Mayflower and Vilonia were battered.

And CNN meteorologist Chad Myers filed this report in the wake of Sunday's devastation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): Scenes of devastation this morning after a series of deadly tornadoes ripped across the mid-south on Sunday.

The hardest hit, Arkansas. The massive destruction resulting in the most deaths. More than 100 people treated at various local hospitals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow, guys, my ears are popping. Yes, we're in it right now. We're in the tornado.

MYERS: A tornado as much as a half-mile wide with winds estimated up to 150 miles per hour demolished the area north of Little Rock, leaving the towns of Mayflower and neighboring Vilonia in ruins.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Downtown is like it's completely leveled. There's a few buildings partially standing that the amount of damage is tremendous.

MYERS: Civilians and rescue workers frantically searching the interstate, littered with crushed and overturned vehicles desperately trying to fee people trapped inside their cars.

Witnesses capturing this deadly twister slamming Quapaw, Oklahoma, a small town near the Kansas and Missouri border flattening homes. The brutal band of tornadoes barreling north into Kansas striking Baxter Springs injuring several people. Officials say the storms destroyed at least 70 homes and at least 20 businesses were leveled.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All at once we heard the sirens going off and everybody was told to get to the bathroom. And we did and we heard this cracking and breaking.

MYERS: First responders out in full force, urgently going house to house, checking on residents and setting up emergency shelters for those now homeless.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Things can be replaced or rebuilt. Family cannot be.

MYERS: That tornado was one of several tearing through parts of Kansas and Missouri, leaving trails of devastation in their paths.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: Now rescue teams, they have been searching the area. Let's get more now on these deadly tornadoes with Mari Ramos. She joins me from the World Weather Center -- Mari.

MARI RAMOS, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: How scary for people in that situation there with such a large tornado just barreling toward them.

Let's go ahead and start right now, Kristie, with what we have right now as far as weather.

This is that line of storms that we've been watching, this is the one that came across Arkansas and Oklahoma and southern parts of Missouri that Chad was referring to there in his report. This is that same weather system. It stretches all the way up from Indiana all the way down into even -- right now, let's see, all the way down into parts of East Texas.

So, this is a large area, millions of people are being affected by this, not everybody, of course, is going to get tornadoes. And these red boxes that you see here, that indicates areas that have tornado watches, that means tornadoes are potentially capable of appearing in these regions where we have these stronger storms.

Now, when we look at the area a little bit more widespread, national weather service is saying, yes, that's going to be the area where we have the potential for strong tornadoes like what we saw on Sunday, large hail and even the possibility of strong winds. So some people may not get tornadoes, but they could see those very strong winds that could down trees and down power lines, but of course the major threat -- lightning, hail, and of course tornadoes.

And of course as we head through the day on Wednesday that continues to spread farther toward the east as you can see here all the way back through the mid-Atlantic and the Carolinas. And much of the southeastern U.S. still included, but lesser -- to a lesser degree. We go from not having any red on the map. So that's a big, big difference compared to what we had before.

So there are several ways I can show you, Kristie, what happened here. This is one example. The tornado -- you have the scale there. And you can see all of these tornadoes that popped up in that one region. That is a long track tornado that they keep referring to, the one near Mayflower that caused all of that damage. That's one way I can show you.

This is another way that I can show you this picture that just -- it's amazing to see not even one house that was left standing in this area. Very scary. And you can see the trees snapped there in the background.

Here's another way that I can show you that same tornado. Well, this is -- as the tornado was moving through, this that you see right there, that is actually a debris -- a ball of debris that was picked up by the radar. All of that debris that came from all of those houses I just showed you in that picture, that's what happened.

And the last way I can show you with my last 10 seconds -- 10 seconds of video. Look at this, this is what it looked like on the ground as the tornado was approaching. We saw a little bit of this in Chad Myers' report. Very scary situation. If you ever encounter anything remotely close to this, take shelter immediately, a vehicle is not a good place to be.

And even though the U.S. gets more tornadoes than any other place in the world, I can also tell you that tornadoes can happen anywhere in the world. So please, please be weather aware. Back to you, Kristie.

LU STOUT: Wow, incredible and chilling video of that huge and deadly tornado system there. Mari Ramos, thank you.

Now Russia is facing new sanctions for its actions in Ukraine, but the United States and the European Union are preparing to impose travel bans and freeze the assets of several Russian officials.

Now meanwhile, the mayor of Ukraine's second largest city is now fighting for his life after being shot in the back. It is not known who is behind the attack.

Now the mayor of Kharkiv favored closer ties to Moscow, but more recently called for a unified Ukraine.

And in Slovyansk, pro-Russia separatists, they were holding a team from OSCE, that's the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. OSCE is set to hold a special meeting on Ukraine in the next hour.

Now one of the detained observers has been released on medical grounds, but not until after the team was paraded before the cameras. Nick Paton Walsh has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Perhaps his biggest catch yet, the self-declared mayor here wasting little time parading OSCE military observers that he says are NATO spies in front of the cameras. Their leader, German Colonel Axel Schneider says their diplomatic protection didn't protect them from being asked to do this.

AXEL SCHNEIDER, OSCE: We are not fighters, we are diplomats in uniform. He acts as a local commander, and that is when he said I want the officers to show up here for an international press conference. And we accepted that, because we wanted that our family sees us.

WALSH: They say they're treated well and not threatened, but even Moscow's calls for the situation to be resolved haven't been heard yet.

(on camera): The decision to put these observers, who say they're here freely mandated by the OSCE, on display like this marks a substantial escalation by the self-declared administration here in Slovyansk.

(voice-over): In the back, the real power here increasingly relaxed.

(on camera): Do they look like soldier to you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I have nothing to say about that.

WALSH: Where are you from?

UNIDENTIFEID MALE (through translator): I'm not local, but I am from Earth. I'm not extra-planetary.

WALSH: One of them tells me how they were detained just outside town.

HOLGER SCHMUCK, OSCE OBSERVER: Getting rid of all things that we own -- the clothes, slippers, everything, every personal belongings. There was not a single thing (inaudible) we had a lot of our private credit cards, we had pictures form our families, we have everything what we have when you are going on holiday.

WALSH: Then their captor announces another OSCE delegation has arrived to discuss release.

Outside, that appears true. There will be talks. But the new face of power here is emboldened (inaudible).

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Slovyansk.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: Let's get a view from Moscow now. Diana Magnay is there.

And Diana, the U.S. and European Union both set to impose new sanctions against Moscow. What can you tell us. Is it enough?

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, sanctions haven't changed the Kremlin's course to date in regards to Ukraine. And the EU's hands are pretty much tied when it comes to sanctions because of their far greater trade ties with Russia than the U.S. has. So even though President Obama has stood up and said we want to present a united front on the issue of sanctions so that it doesn't really look as though it's simply the U.S. versus Russia, there are divisions in the extent to which these two parties will go.

So what we expect to happen is that the U.S. will target key figures within Mr. Putin's inner circle, his cronies if you will, whereas the EU will limit its sanctions against again targeting individuals, but individuals who are specifically tied to the circumstances on the ground and the situation in Ukraine and Crimea. And that's where you'll see some kind of a difference.

As for its impact, well if you talk to analysts and economists, you know the impact of these sanctions so far has been limited. There has been capital flight out of Russia as a result, but perhaps not as much as you might have expected. Sure, investors are a bit worried about the business climate, but the economy in Russia is not doing well in any case. And sanctions don't help, but they're not the primary driving factor for the decline in growth.

So, we'll have to see, but it's really only when they ramp up sanctions to a level where they target specific sectors, if they ever do that, that you'll really see the Russian economy starting to hurt.

And for now, it doesn't look as through it's changing Mr. Putin's course -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: The sanctions that are ramping up as tensions continued to ramp up. We have these OSCE monitors being held in eastern Ukraine, and news out today of the shooting of a Ukrainian government official, a mayor who was shot in the back.

Diana, is it your sense that the crisis has reached another new and very dangerous level here?

MAGNAY: Well, I think for the last five days we've been seeing some very serious events. First of all, the discovery five days ago of these two tortured victims, the bodies of two torture victims, one of whom was a local politician.

Then you have the seizure of these OSCE delegates, diplomats effectively. And we've also seen video yesterday of some Ukrainian security officers who were detained by the pro-Russian groups and they have bloodied faces and straps around their eyes, clearly not treated as well as those OSCE delegates have been in captivity, paraded before the cameras. And now the shooting of the mayor of Kharkiv. We don't know the circumstances, whether it was an assassination attempt -- he was shot in the back.

All of these steps are extremely worrying. There is no way now that these groups, the pro-Russian groups, can describe themselves as self-defense militias. Clearly they have taken matters very much into their own hands. And it does appear, whether or not the Russians were involved, whether the FSB officers were there pulling the strings at the start, it seems as though these groups are very much taking matters into their own hands and that the situation on the ground is out of control -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: Diana Magnay reporting live from Moscow. Thank you.

You are watching News Stream. And coming up, powerful new images from the day of a ferry carrying mostly high school students sank off South Korea. We'll have the very latest on the growing investigation.

And Muslim Brotherhood on trial, an Egyptian court recommends the death penalty for hundreds, including the leader of the now banned group. We'll go live to Cairo.

And controversy in the NBA. L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling on the defensive after racist remarks he allegedly made to a female friend.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Welcome back. You're watching News Stream. And you're looking at a visual version of all the stories we've got in the show today.

Now we started with a series of tornadoes in the U.S. Midwest and the South. And in a few minutes, we'll be looking at how the Red Cross is helping victims of the long conflict in Afghanistan to rebuild their lives.

But first, to South Korea.

Now bad weather has hampered the recovery of bodies from a sunken ferry off the coast. 113 people are still missing as the nation mourns the 189 confirmed dead. The investigation into what went wrong is expanding.

Now prosecutors now believe that officials from a local coast guard office and an emergency call center may have failed to do their jobs. And three members of a shipping trade group have been arrested on suspicion of destroying evidence. Now the ship's captain and 14 crew members already faced charges related to the April 16 sinking.

Video has emerged of the captain being rescued by the coast guard on that fateful day. He is the man you see in shorts climbing off the stricken ferry.

Now coast guard officials say that they did not know that was the captain until later. And they also released new footage of the rescue operations from April 16. Here's a look.

(VIDEO FOOTAGE OF SOUTH KOREAN COAST GUARD RESCUE)

LU STOUT: No one has been found alive since the day of the disaster. And before the coast guard arrived, an oil tanker responded to the ferry's distress call. That vessel's captain says he is haunted by what happened.

And he spoke exclusively to our Paula Hancocks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is the first image of the doomed Sewol ferry. Calm seas belied the horrors unfolding within the ship. This is the view from Doola Ace an oil tanker that is first on the scene.

Captain Moon Ye-Shik receives a call to help a ship in distress at 9:06 a.m., 11 minutes after the Sewol says it is in trouble. He soon has the ship in his sights. I could tell the ship was sinking just by looking at it", he tells me. "The situation was so bad I assumed the evacuation was well under way."

It wasn't. This was the scene inside the ship around 9:06 a.m. filmed by a student who did not escape. His phone was retrieved with his body and given to his father. Joking and unaware of the danger they are in at first, they then ask "Why can't they tell us what's going on? The fact that they asked us to wear life jackets, doesn't that mean the boat is sinking?"

Then an announcement the third of its kind you hear on this recording saying, "Once again, please do not move from your current location. Absolutely do not move." So they don't.

Captain Moon and his men are on deck ready to deploy the life rafts to save anyone in the water. Moon tells CNN he is 200 meters away but the Sewol keeps asking over the radio where the rescue boat is. 9:14 a.m., Doola Ace talking directly to Sewol says people should escape. A full ten minutes later the Sewol crew member is still asking if passengers escape, can they be rescued?

"This person was inexperienced" says Moon. "In an emergency it should be the captain on the radio. You need to make decisions fast."

But it is unclear where the Sewol captain was at this point. He was one of the 174 people rescued along with 20 of his crews. Moon said he's angry he left his passengers behind.

CAPTAIN MOON YE-SHIK, CAPTAIN OF THE DOOLA ACE: Yes this is very strong current.

HANCOCKS: Moon had been tracking the Sewol earlier that morning as it was on his radar. He says the ship suddenly made a sharp right turn at a very slow speed. The ship's tracking system, the automatic identification system was off he said. Moon wonders if the ship had lost power.

He says he will never understand the actions of the Sewol captain and has decided that this is the last time he will speak about what happened hoping that not talking about it will stop the nightmares he still has about the children he couldn't save.

Paula Hancocks, CNN, on the Yellow Sea, South Korea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LU STOUT: You're watching News Stream.

And still ahead on the program, the victims of war in Afghanistan are getting some help as they try to rebuild their lives one step at a time. Their story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Coming to you live from Hong Kong. You're back watching News Stream.

Now years of violence and instability in Afghanistan have taken a very heavy toll on civilians. But for years, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been helping war victims as they attempt to rebuild their lives.

Anna Coren reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As light streams into a brightly colored room on the outskirts of Kabul, 13-year-old Sturai (ph) helps her father. She instinctively knows what to do. This has been her routine twice a day for the past seven years after her father's truck hit a land mind, severing his spinal chord.

Propping up against cushions, she pulls off his long socks that protect his frail, withered legs. Straps on his calipers before getting his walking frame.

And then, with all the strength he can muster, Mohammed Amin (ph) slowly shuffles up and down the room.

"When I wear them and walk outside, I don't feel like my legs don't work and that I'm disabled," he tells me. "I just feel like I'm normal."

Where to monitor his condition Raz Mohammed (ph), a home visit therapist from the orthopedic center of the international committee of the Red Cross.

He knows exactly what the 50-year-old father of five is going through. Back in 1997, he was standing in a market when a rocket exploded and he lost his arm.

"At the start, it's very difficult to accept your disability, but I tell my patients don't become hopeless, work hard, and you will have a good future."

The man responsible for transforming countless lives in Afghanistan is Alberto Cairo (ph), the Italian physiotherapist who came to this war-torn country more than 20 years ago, provides free prosthetics and calipers and only employs former patients in his workshop.

"He doesn't think about the disability of a person, but the ability of a person. He has given us hope and we try to pass that on."

JESSICA BARRY, INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS: The patients come, and they come thinking their life is over. When they go again and they have worked with peopel who themselves are former patients, they actually see that thee is a future as well.

COREN: The International Committee of the Red Cross has been doing this incredible work here at the orthopedic center in Kabul since 1988, treating more than 120,000 patients, both victims of war and people with disabilities. But this isn't just a short-term fix, it's a commitment for life.

Mohammed Sabir (ph) can't remember what it's like to walk. At the age of 3, a rocket exploded, severing both his legs from his lower torso.

"Since I started this job, I'm happy and proud that I'm helping disabled people," he says.

The 24-year-old Orthopedic technician is also one of the center's star basketball players. The team is off to Italy next month for the national championships before heading to Seoul for the Asian games.

"I want to become a hero and a great basketball player. I want to be the pride of my country."

But what Mohammed Sabir (ph) doesn't realize is that he and his team already are.

Anna Coren, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: You're watching News Stream. And still ahead Egypt continues its crackdown on supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsy. And it's not just targeting former members of the Muslim Brotherhood, human rights groups say children are also being detained and tortured.

Plus, growing outrage against the owner of the L.A. Clippers over comments he allegedly made about African-Americans. His players show their feelings on the court.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. You're watching News Stream and these are your world headlines.

Now the U.S. and the EU are both set to place new sanctions on Russia to try to curb what they call Moscow's interference in Ukraine. They are to pressure close associates of the Russian president and are intended to affect the Russian economy.

At least 18 people were killed when a band of tornadoes devastated the central and southern U.S. on Sunday. Arkansas was badly battered by the severe weather. Now CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, who was there, estimated wind speeds of up to 240 kilometers an hour.

Now some in South Korea are outraged by this video showing the captain of a sinking ferry rescued by the coast guard. No one has been found alive since the ship sank on April 16. Divers have found 189 bodies, but 113 people are still missing. Now prosecutors looking into the tragedy are now probing officials from a local coast guard office and an emergency call center, they are suspected of failing to do their jobs.

The United States has reached a new security pact with the Philippines. Now Mr. Obama is in the country on the last stop of his weeklong tour of Asia. Now the agreement will extend the U.S. military presence there. But Mr. Obama says it is not aimed at countering or trying to contain Beijing.

Egyptian TV reports a judge has recommended the death sentence for nearly 700 supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group, including its leader Mohamed Badie. In a previous case, the same judge has sentenced 529 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death. Now 37 of those death sentences have been upheld, the rest have life in prison. Now charges are related to violent riots last August. All defendants can still appeal.

Now the court also banned the activities of a movement that paved the way for the 2011 revolution and took down the government of Hosni Mubarak.

Now CNN's Reza Sayah is in Cairo. He joins us now live. And Reza, this mass trial, let's talk about that first. Hundreds of people sentenced to death today. What was the reaction to that verdict?

REZA SAYAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kristie, we've seen widespread reaction on social media among international rights groups, the families of these defendants were obviously distraught outside the hearing. But elsewhere in Egypt, the reaction, the response has been very muted.

But these are staggering numbers that we're talking about. Just to put things in perspective, the same judge today sentenced 529 defendants last month to death. And rights groups said that was the largest number of death sentences handed out at one time every anywhere in recent memory.

Seemingly, we've beaten that record today, that same judge handing down 683 best sentences, upholding 37 other death sentences, including the former supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie. These defendants were all accused of taking part in protests in August, attacking police stations and allegedly killing two police officers.

Incredibly, by most accounts, this hearing today lasted less than an hour. Many of the defendants weren't in the court room, they were tried in absentia. Many still insist they weren't at the protests. International journalists were not allowed in. And it's still not clear if defense attorneys were there able to present some sort of legitimate defense.

What happens now, Kristie, is these death sentences are presented to the Grand Mufti here, Egypt's highest religious authority, he decides whether to approve or reject sentences, many of them could be overturned, but still astonishing numbers today.

LU STOUT: Astonishing numbers. And again, all defendants can still appeal.

Now Reza, as the crackdown against Mohamed Morsy goes on, you've discovered that children are getting implicated and even thrown into jail.

SAYAH: Yeah, that's correct. According to rights groups, hundreds of children have been illegally detained, many of them claiming torture, since the ouster of Mohamed Morsy. Since their release, many of them have been reluctant to come out because of fear of reprisal, but we found one remarkably courageous teenager who did decide to speak out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAYAH: On February 10 this year, Islam Maghde (ph) turned 16-years-old. But in this birthday Islam says there was no celebrating, only a brutal beating by prison guards inside a Cairo prison.

"They knew I was turning 16 on February 10," he says. "They celebrated by beating me. They used to beat every part of my body."

Human rights groups say Islam is among hundreds of Egyptian children illegally detained and tortured in the crackdown that followed the ouster last year of former President Mohamed Morsy. When we met Islam, he was polite, soft-spoken, respectful. This is his family. His father, a university professor, says the worst thing Islam has ever done is fight with his brother.

But back in January, police arrested Islam here in this Cairo park. Police said Islam and his friends have broken Egypt's protest law that says groups of more than 10 cannot meet or gather without prior government permission.

Here inside this police station Islam says the abuse started right away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): They blindfolded us, tied our hands and legs down. Then they took us to a room for questioning. They stripped us naked. And...

SAYAH: When Islam pauses, seemingly unable to go on, his father steps in.

"Straighten up," his father tells him. "Try to speak as if nothing happened."

When he gathers the strength, Islam describes beatings, attempts at forced confessions and electrocutions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): After they stripped me naked, they hung me by my hands from a cell door, then they electrocuted me and sprayed me with water. They beat me and tried to sexually molest me.

SAYAH: Islam was detained for more than one month before being cleared and released. Authorities say they're not aware of his claims, but they deny allegations of torture and illegal detention of children.

MAHA MAAMOUN, POPULAR CAMPAGIN FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN: It's getting worse every day.

SAYAH: Children's rights activist Maha Maamoun says hundreds of miners are still in custody, many illegally held in adult prisons, many claiming torture.

What do you think when you see pictures like that?

MAAMOUN: It just shows what the reality is. And that there is no rights for children.

SAYAH: Rights groups say violations of children's rights sometimes extend to Egypt's highest authorities. On the army spokesman's official Facebook page, this boy is accused of plotting a bomb attack without any apparent regard for his privacy and his due process rights.

When you look at his face, what do you see?

MAAMOUN: You see fright.

SAYAH: He's terrified.

What do you think the strategy is behind what authorities are doing? What are they trying to do?

MAAMOUN: They're protecting themselves. They believe that these people are threatening them. And they're seeking revenge or...

SAYAH: So authorities believe these children are a threat to national security.

MAAMOUN: This is their belief, yes.

They don't want anyone to speak up.

SAYAH: Remarkably Islam Maghde (ph) is not afraid to speak out, a decision he knows could put him in danger, but one he says was never in doubt.

"Of course I have to say what happened," Islam says. "Maybe I could be 1 percent of the reason in making things better."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAYAH: That was Islam Maghde (ph). We've met a lot of courageous pro- Democracy activists here in Egypt ever since the 2011 revolution, but without question Islam Maghde is one of the most remarkable young men we've ever met here, Kristie, only 16-years-old speaking out despite of the dangers.

LU STOUT: Without a doubt, that young man very, very brave for sharing his story with you and the world.

Reza Sayah reporting live from Cairo, thank you.

Now let's move away from Egypt now and turn to the United States where there is this growing controversy that's rocking the National Basketball Association. Now the league is investigating racist remarks allegedly made by the L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

Now it all began over the weekend when the website TMZ released an audio recording of a man purported to be Sterling telling his female friend not to bring African-Americans to Clippers games. As you can imagine, the tape, it's provoked a stinging reaction from current and former NBA stars, including Michael Jordan, even U.S. President Barack Obama has weighed in.

Let's go now to our Dan Simon in Los Angeles with more. And Dan, there is growing anger over Sterling and his alleged racist comments.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi Kristie.

Donald Sterling was nowhere to be found during the Clippers-Warriors game yesterday. This is a best of seven series. It's now tied at two. The next game is in Los Angeles tomorrow night. But this is a game that is now being overshadowed by these explosive recordings.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON (voice-over): The L.A. Clippers took to the court on Sunday, stripping off their warm-up uniforms in solidarity. The team's red T- shirts with the logo invisible. A sign of protest against owner, Donald Sterling, after an edited audio recording surfaced on TMZ Sports over the weekend. A man purportedly Sterling making racist comments in a conversation with his girlfriend, V. Stiviano.

V. STIVIANO, GIRLFRIEND OF DONALD STERLING: People call you and say I have black people on my Instagram and it bothers you.

DONALD STERLING, CLIPPERS OWNER: Yes, it bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to? STIVIANO: You associate with black people.

STERLING: I'm not you and you're not me. You're supposed to be a delicate white or a delicate Latino girl.

STIVIANO: I'm a mixed girl.

SIMON: This fiery exchange allegedly erupting after Sterling saw this photo Stiviano posted on her Instagram feed posing with NBA legend, Magic Johnson.

STIVIANO: And I took a picture with someone I admire.

STERLING: Good.

STIVIANO: And he happens to be black and I'm sorry.

STERLING: I think the fact that you admire him. I've known him well and he should be admired. And I'm just saying that it's too bad you can't admire him privately.

SIMON: Magic Johnson outraged over Sterling's alleged comments.

MAGIC JOHNSON, FORMER NBA PLAYER: We're all upset, who are African- Americans, because if you're going to be like this, why are you owning a team in the NBA which is, what, over 70 percent African-American basketball players? So I think he should step down.

SIMON: The NBA now launching an expedited investigation as fans, players and officials express their disgust.

LEBRON JAMES, MIAMI HEAT: With comments like that it taints our game. And we can't have it. We can't have it from an owner. We can't have it from a fan, and so on and so on.

MAYOR KEVIN JOHNSON, SACRAMENTO, CA: There's absolutely no place in the NBA family for ignorance, intolerance, reprehensible comments that are unacceptable and not fitting for what this league is all about.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON: Well, at this point it's a bit unclear what the NBA could do in the short-term beyond a steep fine, but I'm not sure it would really make any difference. Forbes estimates Mr. Sterling's net worth to be $1.9 billion.

Kristie, back to you.

LU STOUT: So now the investigation begins, but what could happen to Sterling? What kind of discipline could he be facing?

SIMON: It's not really clear. The NBA isn't saying. As I said, you could see a fine. But I think the likely scenario is taht you would have all the owners come together, perhaps they could exert some pressure to force Sterling to sell the team, Kristie.

LU STOUT: All right, Dan Simon joining me live from Los Angeles, many thanks indeed for that.

Racism, it has been a problem in European sports for years. And on Sunday, Barcelona football star Danny Alves was the target. The defender was getting ready for a corner kick when someone threw a banana onto the pitch. He responded to the attempted taunt by casually picking it up and taking a bite.

Alves says humor is the best way to combat racism. And he had the last laugh.

Barcelona won the match 3-2.

Now sadly incidents like this are not new to Spanish football. And part of the problem may be that authorities don't think there's a problem. In 2012, the Spanish football association said, quote, "there is no racism in Spanish football." And that quote, it come just months after it received a fine for racist abuse by the fans.

You're watching News Stream. Still to come, seven weeks without a trace. And now the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 is entering a new phase that could take months. We'll bring you a live report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Welcome back.

Now the ability to take flight like a bird has long been the stuff of dreams. But one man is turning that dream into reality.

Now Nick Glass caught up with Formula One engineer David Barford.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK GLASS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The dream is pretty much as old as time itself, but flying under our own power, the spirit, the endeavor has always been there, but seldom the means. Contraption after contraption left crumpled and resolutely Earthbound.

When Orville Wright took flight in 1903, muscles gave way to engines and our fantasy of powering aircraft by ourselves largely evaporated. Except, that is, for a few single-minded individuals. David Barford is living his childhood dream in his very own flying machine called Betterfly.

By day, he designs Formula One engines for Mercedes Benz, for Louis Hamilton and others, by night he plans his next David Barford powered flight.

DAVID BARFORD, ENGINEER: I'm like a caged animal. If I can't make things, you know, it's -- I can say you can probably put me in prison and I'll probably cope as long as I can create things.

GLASS: It began with a sheet of paper and a pencil at a table at his home in Northampton and with a dogged ambition to design a human powered aircraft that he could build himself in his garage.

BARFORD: I had some design objectives. So the first one was it had to fly and then it had to fly under my power.

Some people have said, oh, why didn't you put an electric motor on it and fly it with an electric motor, but that just completely misses the point. That's not flying as I wanted to experience flying.

GLASS: Betterfly is a kit of around 70 handmade parts. Assembling her is a long and delicate process. And it's become a family affair.

Dad holds the fuselage in place. David's wife Ruth steadies the rudder. Grandma Barford looks after the nuts and bolts.

Betterfly has a huge wingspan, 22 meters across, yet she weighs just 42 kilograms, around the weight of the pilot.

It took eight long years before she was ready for her first test flight. And even then, Barford wasn't absolutely sure she was air worthy.

BARFORD: We went to this in the first flight. We'll get 50/50 of it coming back in a bin bag. It really was -- I was prepared mentally for it to be a failure. Your bottom half has to just be an engine, legs going like crazy. But your top half and your control system needs to be quite astute and smooth and calm. So one half of you is going a bit like a swan, peddling, peddling away. All of a sudden, you get to a certain speed and you just rise up really smoothly, no dramatic effort involved if you like, feeling was beautiful, really was, very pure.

The day after our flight, I saw a buzzard just hovering as I drove to work. And I thought, yeah, you and me, mate, I can join you. And I think that's when you realize actually what you've done, that you can join the birds and fly under your own power.

GLASS: David now belongs to a very exclusive flying club. More people have been to space than have ever flown a human powered aircraft. David is turning that very dream into a reality one flight at a time.

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LU STOUT: Now for weeks, planes have been scanning the seas west of Australia looking for any floating debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370. But now, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Aerial searches will be suspended. He says that it is likely any debris would have sunk by now.

The underwater search will continue, however, but will enter a new and prolonged phase. And it is expected to be quite costly.

Now Miguel Marquez is following developments for us in Perth, Australia. He joins me live with the very latest. And Miguel, tell us more about the scope and scale of this new phase in the search.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's going to go from sort of smaller where it's been to massive all at the same time. The Bluefin-21 that is on its 16th dive right now will continue to search an area north of where it has been searching the most promising area where they heard the loudest and longest ping, or pings from what they believe are the black boxes of MH370.

At the same time, according to the U.S. Navy, it will move north to an area where the first pings were heard, which was also a very strong single. That area will be exploited and examined by, if not the Bluefin-21, then something else that will come online.

At the same time, they will start to prepare for a much, much grander search, 60,000 square kilometers they will be planning to search. It could take as long as eight months, if not longer, just to get that done, a massive, massive project if they cannot find it in the areas that they are searching right now -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: This new search, it will be immense. It could take as much as eight months. And the new search, it will focus under the water.

Now there are concerns out there, Miguel, that the wreckage could be buried under the silt in the seabed. If that's the case, how can any debris, how can any wreckage be detected?

MARQUEZ: Yeah, we've talked to several folks about this. And the Prime Minister Angus Houston also talked about this today. These sonar that they're using, the radar that they're using, it is so low to the sea bed and it is so good at picking up this stuff, even with very, very light silt that goes down very deep where things might be buried falling from the top, the sonar would be able to distinguish between metal and mud. And they feel -- and this was certainly the case in flight 447 when they found it -- they feel that once they find it, they will know that they have metal and not just mud, Kristie.

LU STOUT: Yeah, thanks to these sonar devices that will be joining the Bluefin-21.

Now Australian officials say that this new phase of the operation will cost some $56 million. So will other countries will help out with paying for the effort?

MARQUEZ: Certainly. I mean, this is what they're discussing right now. They're also discussing bringing on private contractors in order to carry out some of this work. The Bluefin-21 was brought in by the U.S. Navy. They offered it up. It's been searching -- Phoenix International that owns Bluefin-21, it's under contract with the U.S. Navy, they have other devices that they may be able to use and there are others out there.

So all of that will have to be the contracts for that will have to be worked out, private contracts will have to be worked out. Several countries, including the U.S., China, Malaysia and Australia, New Zealand all pitching in at this point and all a discussion among those principal players in order to figure out how they go forward and how they pay for it -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: All right, CNN's Miguel Marquez joining me live from Perth, many thanks indeed for that.

Now let's get an update on weather in the search zone. Mari Ramos is standing by fir that -- Mari.

RAMOS: You know, Kristie, even if they start searching only under the water of course there are boats above the water and weather always does play a part in all of this.

They did have some bad weather over the weekend, but that is beginning to clear up. Basically, what we're seeing along the search area. And even if they move it a little bit farther to the north, which is where those first pings were heard, as Miguel was reporting right now, early this week, we have a cold front that dissipating across the area, a few showers possible and seas about 4 to 5 meters.

And of course this can change depending on what location they are at, so this is a very general forecast. We're not expecting any significant changes in the weather over the next couple of days. Actually, it looks very fairly clear as you look out here toward the west.

There's that cold front that we were talking about that continues to dissipate.

And I know you probably noticed that right there. It is an area of low pressure that has broken off in that region, but we're not expecting that to develop into a full fledged tropical cyclone. that's a little bit of good news, that it's not expected to impact that search area as of now. But we will keep you posted.

There is a tropical cyclone farther to the north. So we leave Australia here and we head north. And I wanted to zoom out quite a bit to show you. And it's in this area right here in the Pacific Ocean near the Mariana Islands. This time of year, we begin to see the tropical cyclones form across this area and, you know, as we get closer and if this becomes an El Nino year, tropical cyclones can flare up very, very quickly across this region.

We're in the northern Mariana Islands and Guam, right in between, tropical storm Tapah has just formed. 95 kilometer per hour winds moving to the north -- north-northeast at about 11 kilometers per hour. yes, it is expected to cross the islands as a typhoon as we head through the next few days -- minimal typhoon, but definitely something to monitor and then continues to weaken and moves north into the rest of the Pacific Ocean.

Let's go ahead and stay in this part of the world, this general part of the world and head to east Asia. This is picture from Jindo in South Korea, the site where they are still working on that ferry that sunk, the Sewol, very bad conditions over the weekend here as far as the weather is concerned. They even have to suspend the search for awhile because the currents were so strong.

And here you see a policeman and another person standing on the pier overlooking the water, very rainy conditions even on Monday. We're starting to see an improvement, though, across this region. The cloud cover starting to move away. That is the location that we're talking about.

And over the next three days we're going to see high pressure settling in, that means sinking air, that means quieter weather conditions to -- whatever they decide to do, I think the weather will definitely be a lot better on Tuesday.

Still about a 50 percent chance of rain in the morning, but then clearing toward the evening hours. Wednesday and Thursday looking much better as you can see. And Kristie we begin to see those temperatures going back up, because it had been quite cold across this region.

Last but not least, going back to one of our top stories from -- throughout the day today and since yesterday, the aftermath of that terrible tornadoes that have been affecting portions of the U.S. We still have the potential for tornadoes forming across these areas, these boxes that you see here in Red, Kristie, that means that those are tornado watches with tornado possibilities as we head through the rest of the day today.

Back to you.

LU STOUT: Yeah, the extreme weather out there not over yet. Mari Ramos there, thank you.

And that is News Stream. But the news continues at CNN. World Business Today is next.

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