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Lowest Gas Prices Since 2010; U.S. Boosts Security; Google Working on a Cancer Pill; Female Kurdish Soldiers Among ISIS's Deadliest Enemies; Royals-Giants Meet in Game 7 of World Series Tonight

Aired October 29, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, $2.99 for a gallon of gas. It hasn't been that low since 2010. But while it's good for your pocketbook, it may not be good if your job hunting.

Plus, following concerns about terror attacks on the homeland, beefed up security at more than 9,000 government buildings across the country.

And there's Google Glass, Google Drive, Google Earth, Google apps and now a Google pill to detect cancer? Let's talk live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

It is a win/win for you. The national average gas price is about to fall through the $3 floor and there is a ripple effect beyond the pumps. CNN's Christine Romans is at a gas station in Jersey City, New Jersey, to tell us more.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: $2.99 right here. These drivers are paying $2.99, Carol. And it's probably going to keep ticking lower here.

And around the country, more and more states and more and more gas stations will be falling below the $3 mark. It's about 20 states right now where people are paying on average less than $3.

Is it going to last? If the experts are right, Carol, this could persist into next year. That's putting maybe $10 extra in your pocket every time you're filling up. Here's why.

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ROMANS (voice-over): Oil prices plummet, down 25 percent from the recent peak in June. Why? Demand is slowing in China and the United States is producing a whole lot of oil. It's good news for your personal economy.

First, gasoline prices. The national average down more than 30 cents in the past month, the lowest level since December 2010 according to AAA. Several states now have averages below $3 a gallon. That means every day Americans are spending more than $100 million less on gas than they did this time last year. Expect to see even lower prices across the country in coming weeks.

Second, heating your home. This winter, forecast to be warmer than last year, couple that with the drop in commodities like heating oil and the Energy Department predicts nearly everyone will be getting a break on their heating bill, including about half the country that uses natural gas.

The big drop in oil prices may save you cash on gas and heat, but don't expect to see cheaper flights. Airlines know that prices could rebound at any moment, so they'll use cheap prices to lock in cheap fuel for the future and boost their profits. Those savings don't get passed on to you.

But on balance, oil's plunge is a good thing. Consumers save on energy and put that money to work elsewhere, and that boosts the economy. Citigroup estimates that if Brent crude prices fall to $80 a barrel, it would add $660 billion to the global economy every year.

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ROMANS: It feels like a little tax cut almost, just a little tax cut. We don't know how long it's going to last. The experts think -- they are thinking that this could persist, these sort of levels, into next year, Carol, barring something unusual happening in the global economy. What's really interesting, too, Carol, is as these oil prices fall, it could have some interesting ramifications for other regimes like say Russia, for example. Vladimir Putin's budget depends on $100 a barrel oil to fund all of its operations. At $80, that's a big shortfall.

Carol.

COSTELLO: Christine Romans reporting live from New Jersey this morning, thanks so much.

Security at some 9,500 federal buildings across the country is about to get much tighter. The Department of Homeland Security taking what it says as a, quote, precautionary measure in the wake of last week's deadly shooting at the Canadian parliament. Daniel Bongino is a former Secret Service agent and author of "Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All." He is also a candidate for Maryland's sixth congressional district. Full disclosure.

Welcome, Daniel.

DANIEL BONGINO, FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Authorities aren't telling us which federal buildings they're talking about, but I assume they mean buildings where there are military personnel and politicians. What do you think?

BONGINO: I think that would be accurate. The whole purpose of terrorism is to inspire terror and targets like that tend to get, if they are attacked, the most media coverage and would frighten people. I think the precautionary release is appropriate. These lone wolf- style attacks have always made government security officials very anxious, Carol, and for a lot of good reason.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. Homeland Security tells us that increased security comes because of the Khorasan Group, that offshoot of al Qaeda, and because of just what you said, attacks on soldiers in Canada and Britain and we are talking about those lone wolf attacks. A question for you, though, can traditional increased security really stop such attacks?

BONGINO: It can, but I don't want to say traditional in the sense that what we're used to, uniformed security presence, magnetometers, those are all necessary. I'm not trying to minimize the positive impact of security measures like that. But some of the things we did in the Secret Service are very effective as well. Surveillance in public places by agents and officers who are not necessarily in uniform. They're trained to see and to notice things, Carol, that the normal average everyday American wouldn't see. You know, I said about the fence jumper attack on your network here, as a matter of fact, that, you know, the Secret Service doesn't advertise how many fence jumpers they mitigated before they even got to the fence. There are a lot of things we can do using surveillance techniques that we really should be employing right now to get those people before they get to the checkpoints.

COSTELLO: Right. I asked you that question because "Foreign Policy" magazine says it's actually a waste of time and money to go after lone wolves because they're virtually impossible to stop. Can you really track them down? In other words, can you really like keep an eye on them or investigate in any way and try to prevent them from attacking, or are they just so random that it's virtually impossible?

BONGINO: Well, they're not random. I call them sole proprietor terrorists because they are part of a network, even if they're not say sworn members of it. They're indoctrinated, usually self- indoctrinated. They find these videos out there. But they do make contact.

The problem with what they call lone wolves now, Carol, is they don't leave a lot of bread crumbs. Remember, interactions and contact when you think about cells are all bread crumbs that can be detected by law enforcement. If you minimize the cell to one person, that's less bread crumbs and less of a trail. But if we use surveillance techniques, like the NYPD was doing before I think political correctness got in the way of it, yes, we can mitigate some of these attacks. You're never going to mitigate all of them. That's not what security's about. It's just reducing the probability.

COSTELLO: Sadly that is true. Daniel Bongino, thank you so much for being with me. I appreciate it.

BONGINO: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, imagine being able to find out if you have cancer before you've got any symptoms. Google, yes, Google is working on a way to make that happen. CNN's Money's Laurie Segall is following that for us.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol.

A pill that searches your body for cancer. Well, certainly a different type of Google search. I'll have more details after the break.

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COSTELLO: Finding out if you have cancer could be as simple as swallowing a pill. Google is actually working on a pill that would look for cancer cells lurking deep in your body. Fascinating, right? Let's get more on this now from CNN Money tech correspondent Laurie Segall.

It's hard to believe.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: It is. It is hard to believe. But it's interesting that Google is taking it on. And I think the idea is preventative medicine as opposed to reactionary, right? So if we can find out if there are symptoms of cancer way before we go to the doctor, maybe we could treat it a little bit better. But there's a lot of science that has to happen in order to do that.

Andrew Conrad, who actually heads up Google Life, he described exactly how it would work at a conference recently. Listen to what he said.

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ANDREW CONRAD, HEAD OF GOOGLE LIFE SCIENCES DIVISION: You swallow a pill with the nanoparticles and they're decorated with antibodies or molecules that detect other molecules. They course through your body and because the core of these particles are magnetic, you can call them somewhere. You can -- if you look at your wrist right here, you'll see that there's these superficial veins. Just by putting a magnet there, you can trap them and you can ask them what they saw.

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SEGALL: And, you know, what's interesting and what he went on to say is, imagine if -- and the metaphor he used, he said imagine if you want to go look at a different country. You wouldn't just fly over it. You'd go in and you'd mingle. And that's the idea behind this.

Obviously, you know, this idea isn't necessarily new. Nanotechnology has been around for a very long time. I got on the phone and I spoke to someone who has been doing this kind of research for decades and he says, you know, they're saying that this could work in five to seven years, but there's the FDA, there's regulatory issues and there's a lot that has to happen. But the idea that Google has really sampled this, that they put their name on this, that they're going to bring in smart people and put a lot of money into it is very exciting for the technology and the medical community.

COSTELLO: It's just strange that Google is doing it. I know they had this secret lab. What else is coming out of that lab?

SEGALL: It's so interesting. If only we could get inside Google Life --

COSTELLO: I know.

SEGALL: Which is a super-secret division that no journalists -- they really don't allow many of us in. But what they're doing is all these crazy things that are different from search, driverless cars, project loon, which is essentially high altitude balloons that are beaming Wi- Fi into rural areas, Google Glass and also this one's interesting, glucose-measuring contact lenses for diabetic patients. So really interesting that they have almost -- it's like they have a wing of passion projects that they're also working on along with search.

COSTELLO: And they all sound really great, actually.

SEGALL: Yes.

COSTELLO: So go Google, right?

SEGALL: Seriously.

COSTELLO: Laurie Segall, thanks so much.

SEGALL: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, they're considered ISIS's most deadly enemy in Syria. Now a unique faction of Kurdish fighters is going head-to-head with terrorists as they battle against -- as the battle against ISIS heats up. CNN's Ivan Watson has more.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, did you know that some of ISIS's deadliest enemies are female Kurdish fighters? We traveled into Kurdish-controlled Northern Syria to learn more and I'll have that report for you after the break.

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COSTELLO: The Kurdish military is getting a major boost of help in the fight against ISIS. Earlier this morning, 200 Syrian rebels entered the besieged city of Kobani. Armed with weapons like mortars and heavy machine guns, they're expected to fight side by side with Kurdish troops.

In the meantime, Turkey says it will allow Iraqi Peshmerga forces to enter the city through its border to help reinforce Kurdish fighters. All of this as the unique faction of the YPG ramps up the fight against ISIS. We're talking about female soldiers. Let's bring in CNN's Ivan Watson; he's in Irbil to tell us more. Good morning.

WATSON: Morning, Carol. We traveled across the boarder to Kurdish- controlled northern Syria recently to meet America's newest de facto allies on the ground in Syria in its campaign against ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SINGING)

WATSON (voice-over): Don't be fooled by the pretty song. These women are part of a militia that is ISIS's most deadly enemy in Syria -- Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units, or YPG. They've fought ISIS on the ground in Syria for more than a year. Only recently, they started getting help from the U.S. in the form of air strikes and weapons drops, a surprising turn of events for this secular, Marxist-rooted movement, which includes many fighters who have long battled America's NATO ally, Turkey.

(on camera): An important part of this Kurdish movement's ideology is founded on gender equality, that means female fighters fight and bleed on the front lines. And that stands in sharp contrast to ISIS, which has been covering women up and hiding them from public life.

(voice-over): Addressing the crowd, a top Kurdish official who urges the fighters to protect their people from becoming slaves of ISIS. She is the co-president of one of three Kurdish statelets in northern Syria that have largely governed themselves for the last three years.

HADIYE YUSUF, CO-PRESIDENT OF JAZIR CANTON (via translator): Our dream is to build a democratic society that includes Arabs, Christians, and Kurds living together in unity.

WATSON: The Kurds call region Rojava, some of them clearly proud of their experiment in self-rule. Life in the town of Derek looks relatively peaceful and secular, unlike other parts of Syria taken over by Islamist militias. But the streets here feel empty: many of the town's Christian residents have fled and more keep leaving.

(on camera): This is a sad day for your family. Why?

PETER ISSA, RESIDENT: Yes, because they will go out from our country.

WATSON (voice-over): Peter Issa's tearful mother and sister waved good-bye from inside a 1954 DeSoto. Their destination, Germany.

The town's shirnking Christian flock can still walk peacefully through the streets to Sunday school, enjoy the protection of the Kurds. But the Kurds are paying dearly. At this memorial ceremony, mothers and wives of dead fighters, and this widow. She says ISIS killed her husband last year and mutilated his body.

"If I didn't have these children, I myself would go and fight," she swears. Her young son already wears the uniform of a future Kurdish fighter.

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WATSON (on camera): So, Carol, it's hard to find two more opposite ideological foes. You've got the hard line Islamist jihadis from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and then on the other hand these secular Marxist Kurdish nationalist fighters. And it may be the women that are helping give the YPG an advantage, or at least let them hold ground against ISIS even though they don't have the same weaponry that ISIS has. The rumor that we hear again and again and again is that ISIS fighters are afraid of getting killed by these female Kurdish fighters. If they do, they fear they will not get to go to paradise. Carol?

COSTELLO: Wow. Fascinating report. Ivan Watson reporting live from Iraq this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Game 7, bring it on. A Royals rout takes the World Series to the limits. CNN's Andy Scholes has all the highlights.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Yes, Carol, 162 games, a wild card game, a division series, a championship series, and it's coming down to one game. We'll discuss who has the clear edge tonight when NEWSROOM continues.

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COSTELLO: Bling then battle. The NBA reigning champion San Antonio Spurs got their championship rings last night, and then the Spurs began their quest for back-to-back titles. Tony Parker -- a late basket gave the Spurs an a one-point win on opening night. Congrats.

The two greatest words in sports -- Game 7. The Giants and Royals play it tonight, a World Series title on the line. CNN's Andy Scholes joins me now. Boy, the Royals had some kind of second inning.

SCHOLES: Oh man, they took it to the Giants. Usually these games are so intense, they go all the way into the ninth inning with everyone on the edge of their seats. Not last night. Second inning is all you needed to see in this one. The Royals really got things going; they got the bats going in the second inning, scored seven runs on eight hits. They just destroyed the Giants' pitching staff last night.

And their 23-year-old ace was on the mound, Yordano Ventura, and he pitched great as well, seven shut-out innings. If you check out his cap, he actually had the initials of Oscar Tavarez, the great prospect for the St. Louis Cardinals that died in a car crash just earlier this week. He dedicated his performance in last night's game to Tavarez. Very touching for them.

So the Royals, they won this game 10-0. Series all tied up coming into tonight, Carol. And I got -- I know you love numbers and stats, Carol. I've got a great one for you right here. It's all about the numbers, right? Since 1980, the Royals are the ninth home team to win Game 6 when down 3-2 in the World Series. All of the previous eight teams went on to win Game 7. So history definitely on the Royals' side coming into tonight's game.

COSTELLO: I never believe those stats.

SCHOLES: But the Giants do have the ace in the hole, as they like to say. Madison Baumgartner. They've already put it out there that if Tim Hudson, the starter, struggles or if it's a close game late, Baumgartner is going to come into this game. And statistically, another stat, he is the greatest World Series pitcher of all time. So you don't know where this game is going tonight but it's going to be exciting.

COSTELLO: You never know. I don't know, Andy.

SCHOLES: About to get on a plane. I'm so happy I'm going the game tonight. Although it's going to be chilly.

COSTELLO: I'm so jealous -- who cares? Are you kidding? Stop complaining. Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM in one minute.

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