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United Nations Tackles Ebola, ISIS; Massive Climate Change March in NYC; Loud Music Murder Retrial; Best Places to Live in America

Aired September 22, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, here's the other thing about bodily fluids -- and I don't mean to gross anyone out -- but the CDC says flight crews should treat all bodily fluids as if they are contagious. Is that practical?

TOM BLANK, FORMER DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, TSA: Well, again, they have been given protocols and training. They also carry kits that are meant to respond to this. So they will have certain antiseptics and containment vessels and other technology the CDC has provided by and trained them to use to really act as a first responder to the extent that it's possible.

The important thing to note here is what we're doing is reducing the risk but we can not eliminate the risk. What we have is wide open, an airline transportation system as we have in the U.S. coupled with hundreds of thousands of people who come in from international locations to Los Angeles, New York. They may not fly in the domestic U.S. system but they're coming in being processed through customs.

COSTELLO: Understand. Tom Blank -- thanks for your insight, we appreciate it.

BLANK: Nice to be with you -- thank you.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, John Kerry says climate change is as big a threat as Ebola or even ISIS. What the Secretary of State says the United States plans to do to confront the threat next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with world leaders at the United Nations in New York. Kerry will tackle a host of international crises from climate change to Ebola to ISIS and so much more.

In fact, this is a huge week at the United Nations. Think about every hot spot in the world, every conflict from disasters to epidemics. That's what's on the agenda for world leaders this week. CNN's Richard Roth has a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Inside this general assembly hall where the nations of the world are supposed to get together in harmony, people have issues, beef with other countries and capitals.

The United States will have beef with Russia over Ukraine. The United States will have beef with Syria which is here over the terrible violence that's gone on there for years. And often times it will have beef with either the Palestinians or Israel, whichever side they feel is not complying with Washington's wishes.

This will not come as a surprise, there will not be a Middle East peace agreement signed at this year's General Assembly session. However, Israel and the Palestinians will definitely verbally duke it out. Gaza, the big battle for Gaza really inflamed the situation, there are no current peace talks right now.

I'd say the big dispute is Ukraine and Russia. It doesn't seem to end despite whatever progress is made. I think you will see denunciations of Moscow from various Baltic nations and the West. And unless the situation drastically improves I think that's what you're going to find is the major contest here.

It's very rare for a health issue such as Ebola to dominate the headlines at the United Nations General Assembly. There is a real fear of it spreading and Western African leaders are going to be here. There's no doubt Ebola will be part of their remarks and will probably feature calls for help and global assistance to help fight the spread.

Hillary Clinton I believe once said that one week of a General Assembly can take one year off your life. It can be exhausting. Many diplomats told me that appearing at the general assembly for a world leader is like diplomatic speed dating. You've got five minutes with this president, two minutes with this foreign minister. Presumably they all come with a schedule and an agenda and goal of what they want to do but it's a real hurly-burly of diplomatic activity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Richard Roth reporting.

Also on the menu for discussion at the U.N. summit this week, climate change. The U.N. even put a celebrity face on this controversial issue, movie star and now producer Leonardo DiCaprio -- his title U.N. messenger of peace. This makes DiCaprio the U.N. voice for climate advocacy.

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LEONARDO DICAPRIO, U.N. MESSENGER OF PEACE: We are at a pivotal turning point. We are seeing the effects of rapid climate change happening every week in the news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: DiCaprio marched with more than 300,000 climate change protesters in New York City yesterday. People showed up from all 50 states and around the world to draw attention to this important issue. Yesterday's protests are being billed as the largest climate change demonstrations ever in the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Power to the people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Celebrities, political leaders and just regular people filled the streets of Manhattan. CNN's Alison Kosik ran into actor Mark Ruffalo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Why is it important for you to be here today and lend your name to this?

MARK RUFFALO, ACTOR: Because of my kids who I love dearly and I see the world changing very quickly already. And I want to see them -- I want to do my best to give them the best world that they deserve to have and that I was fortunate enough to come up into.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I want to bring in Alison Kosik who's joining us from Wall Street where more demonstrations are now getting under way and CNN political commentator Sally Kohn who tweeted from yesterday's march. But first to you, Alison, set the scene for us on Wall Street.

KOSIK: Ok, so we're at yet another demonstration, one of a series of demonstrations that are happening this week, Carol, because of the U.N. meeting this week here in New York City, especially because of a big climate conference that's happening on Tuesday. So at this demonstration what's going to happen is a couple of hundred marchers here are going to hit the streets in about an hour and a half, two hours, and their goal here is to march up Wall Street right to the New York Stock Exchange, the ultimate goal? To shut down the New York Stock Exchange -- they're going to have a massive sit in.

Here's the issue with that. They don't have a permit to march. They don't have a permit for that massive sit in so many who do hit the streets are expecting to be arrested. But they are getting ready for that march. You see they're blowing up inflatables.

My personal favorite at the moment is the carbon bubble. The point of that, they're saying remember the housing crisis? The housing bubble? We've seen stock bubbles? Well they say look, there's a carbon bubble forming and everybody has to take notice -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, stick around, Alison -- I'm going to get right back to you.

I want to bring in Sally Kohn right now. So, Sally, first of all I'd like to say there's nothing controversial about climate change. SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Exactly --

COSTELLO: I don't even know why I said that.

KOHN: 70 percent of Republicans believe --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: No, no. Climate change is real.

KOHN: It's an undeniable fact. And you know, it's one of those issues unfortunately like a lot of issues where the small fringe vocal minority that has trouble with reality has been able to have an outsized influence.

So it is undeniable.

COSTELLO: -- scientists say --

KOHN: People don't need to believe the scientists, they don't need to believe the Defense Department which has called it a major threat to national security. They just need to look around. They need to see the increase throughout, maybe see the (inaudible), they need to see superstorms like Sandy to see the evidence of climate change.

COSTELLO: I actually was enjoying your tweets yesterday and I want to show our viewers one of your tweets. You tweeted, "All these radical fringe extremists marching". And this is the picture -- a group of senior citizens. Your point?

KOHN: I mean, you know, this is -- look, if all that opponents to doing something can do is point to the people marching and try and sort of suggest that they're a marginal fringe or whatever then we're already winning. I mean this is just -- this is a bread-and-butter issue.

Yesterday the march was moms, dads, kids from affected communities; people from communities where they're seeing their life-styles decimated by the climate crisis. They're seeing -- they have exploding incinerators and factories causing their kids asthma. People want to see something done. This is very basic. This is very simple and we can do something about it. Good news is we can fix it.

COSTELLO: I must say that even though this was a huge march -- and it was -- hundreds of thousands of people, most of the national news networks did not cover this issue. And -- because I think one of the reasons is when you look at the gathering of people and you see some of the more colorful people in there -- and you tweeted about this, here's another one of your tweets, this picture.

A lot of people will look at the march and say it's another gathering of crazy liberals in New York City. Did we see the tweet and the picture? No. But some people were dressed as butterflies, others as trees.

KOHN: My kid was a tree. My kid went as a tree. She made herself a little cardboard tree. She used a fair amount of duct tape as a six- year-old in her costume. There was some irony there. Not the most resource efficient tree.

Look, you know, there's an irony here. I wrote a piece for the CNN Web site about why it is that ISIS which, by the way, was not in the Defense Department's quadrennial review of threats against our country, didn't even exist as a threat in March but climate change is mentioned eight times. But meanwhile, we have not hesitated to mobilize against this perceived threat of ISIS which actually there's no imminent planned attack or imminent threat and meanwhile we know climate change threatens us. It threatens the Great Plains with the droughts. It threatens all coastal communities, including New York which could start to be underwater. Why don't we address it?

COSTELLO: One concrete -- well, some people are addressing it. There's a big story in the "New York Times today", the Rockefellers who made their fortune in oil. They're dropping fossil fuel assets from their charitable investments. This is a move by the Rockefellers whose large fortune --

KOHN: Money comes from oil.

COSTELLO: -- right. It's insane. So let's head back to Alison Kosik on Wall Street. They want to close down Wall Street, these demonstrators, but will it matter, Alison? Will Wall Street care?

KOSIK: In the big scheme of things it probably won't make a big difference but to hear that the Rockefellers are doing this, I think that is a big deal. You look at John D. Rockefeller, he built Standard Oil. He was the co-founder of Standard Oil. He built his fortune on oil and now you see his heirs divesting that fund from any fossil fuel.

They're not the first to do it. We've seen socially conscious decisions being made in other ways. We've seen people divesting from gun stocks and from gambling stocks, from casinos, from certain drug stocks so the Rockefellers aren't the first, they most likely won't be the last.

What kind of impact does it make? I mean the reality is that Wall Street is in this to make money and the reality is, a lot of that money is in big business, including big oil -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Alison Kosik, Sally Kohn -- thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, prosecutors take another crack at a murder conviction in the so-called loud music trial.

CNN's Alina Machado is following that case. Good morning.

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Michael Dunn is back in court for the start of his second murder trial and one legal expert says the outcome of this trial could all come down to one thing. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Jury selection begins today in the murder retrial of Michael Dunn. Remember him? Dunn said he fired in self-defense after an argument escalated over loud music. Jurors found him guilty on attempted murder charges for shooting at three teenagers but deadlocked on the murder charge for the death of another teen, Jordan Davis.

Davis' mother Lucia McBath walked into the courthouse this morning with Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother. Fulton also showed her support for the Davis family by attending a rally.

CNN's Alina Machado is covering the trial in Jacksonville, Florida. Good morning, Alina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on the jury's inability to reach a verdict as to count one I will declare that mistried.

MACHADO: After 30 hours of deliberations, deadlocked Florida jurors could not unanimously convict Michael Dunn of first degree murder in the killing of 17-year-old Jordan Davis. The hung jury on that one count back in February also left the teen's family confused and heartbroken.

RON DAVIS, JORDAN'S FATHER: I feel like that we didn't get justice for Jordan.

MACHADO: Davis was shot and killed almost two years ago when an argument that began over loud music got out of hand.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god, somebody's shooting. Somebody's shooting out of their car.

MACHADO: Dunn fired ten shots at the SUV Davis and three friends were in outside a Jacksonville area gas station. Dunn testified that he feared for his life and thought one of the teens had a weapon.

MICHAEL DUNN, DEFENDANT: I'm looking out the window and he said you're not going to kill me you son of a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) and I shot him.

MACHADO: But no weapon was found in the teens' car. Jurors convicted him on three counts of attempted murder for shots fired at the other three teens but when it came to the first degree murder charge --

CRESHUNA MILES, JUROR: We could not agree. We just could not agree.

MACHADO: Creshuna Miles, juror number 8 in the first trial, told me she believed Dunn was guilty of murder but others on the panel did not so just hours after the first trial ended, prosecutor Angela Corey decided to retry Dunn on the first degree murder charge.

ANGELA COREY, DUVAL COUNTY PROSECUTOR: Retrying a case is something that we've all had to do and we will continue to have to do and we'll give it the same full attention.

MACHADO: According to some legal experts it won't be easy. The key for both sides could be jury selection.

MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: If the defense particularly -- and the prosecution as well -- but if the defense does not do what they need to do to vet out their jurors again through social media, through background work, it could be a devastation to the case.

MACHADO: The new trial will be tough on Jordan Davis' parents who will now have to relive their son's death all over again.

DAVIS: No matter what happens to Michael Dunn, whether it's a hung jury or whatever, I still have that loss that's greater than any other verdict.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACHADO: Now Dunn has hired a new defense attorney but she would not comment ahead of the trial. It is worth noting that Dunn is already facing decades of prison time because of the attempted murder convictions -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Alina Machado reporting live from Jacksonville this morning. I'm back in a minute.

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COSTELLO: Have you ever heard of McKinney, Texas? Well, you might want to check it out because "Money Magazine" just named it the best small city in all of America. This charming city with cobblestone streets topped out every other place in the United States with populations between 50,000 and 300,000. Donna Rosato is a senior writer at "Money Magazine". Good morning.

DONNA ROSATO, "MONEY MAGAZINE": Good morning.

COSTELLO: Ok, so McKinney, Texas. Why?

ROSATO: Well, this is a suburb -- a big city north of Dallas. You might not have heard of it but it's benefiting from a really strong local economy. Like all of our lists, places on our lists of the top ten, there's a real diversity of industries, medical devices, aviation. You have biotech, green energy. Raytheon is a huge employer there.

But it's got that other -- as you mentioned, a lot of southern charm, a historic downtown. Tech even reaches into the high school. Every senior -- every student at the high school is going to be getting a Mac Book Air.

COSTELLO: Awesome. But is there stuff to do?

ROSATO: There is tons of stuff to do. In the historic downtown you have art galleries, you have restaurants. You don't need to go to Dallas to get that kind of stuff. That's what really makes McKinney the number one.

COSTELLO: Ok. So number two on the list is Maple Grove, Minnesota, which sounds cold to me but I'm sure it's charming as well.

ROSATO: Well, that may be the one down side to Maple Grove -- the winter. But that doesn't stop folks there. It's a beautiful place. It has ten lakes which you can swim and fish in, in the summer and ice skate on in the winter. It's a very robust -- the unemployment rate there is less than four percent, well below the national average. It's west of Minneapolis and it's also really got a beautiful network of paths, 36 miles of trails.

One person we interviewed said when they were training for a marathon they ran 24 miles and only had to cross the street once.

COSTELLO: That's pretty awesome. I like that.

Number three on the list is Carmel, Indiana.

ROSATO: Yes, that's right. This is an Indianapolis suburb -- again, very strong economically. They have more than 50 companies headquartered right in town. But it's also a very charming town. The mayor -- over 10, 15 years ago it was a sleepy suburb. It is cosmopolitan, it's European, walking. There are tons of -- there's a symphony, theater, arts. So there's lots to do there, too.

COSTELLO: I'm going to have to start visiting these places. You also listed some best big city values. Number one on the list, let's just cut to the chase.

ROSATO: Well, we were looking at Charlotte. There were a couple neighborhoods in Charlotte, Plaza Midwood and we also mountain lakes. You probably have not heard of these things and this was a real challenge for us looking for big cities. We've seen home prices go up so much all over the country and especially in popular big cities so what we really tried to do is find places that were a combination of affordability in a large city and lots to do in economic strength. So for example in Charlotte we found two neighborhoods with median home prices for $160,000 for a home.

Yes, you're not going to find that in a lot of big cities.

COSTELLO: Wow. Compare that to any place in New York and you're not going to find that here anywhere.

Donna Rosato, thanks so much.

ROSATO: Thanks very much.

COSTELLO: It was a lot of fun.

And thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"@ THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" after a break.

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