Return to Transcripts main page
Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
A Crippling Storm; Jerusalem Synagogue Attack; New Cosby Accuser
Aired November 19, 2014 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A crippling storm. Preparations under way to send in the National Guard as a relentless storm paralyzes the Northeast, trapping motorists in up to six feet of snow. Parts of all 50 states now are below freezing.
Terror attack. New details this morning about the seven minutes of horror inside a synagogue in Jerusalem -- three Americans among the dead -- as Israel vows revenge with a heavy hand.
Another woman coming forward claiming to be a victim of sexual assault by Bill Cosby. The former super model details the night she claimed the comedian drugged and raped her. You will hear her in her own words, coming up.
Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. It's Wednesday, November 19th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East. John Berman has the morning off.
All right. Let's start with this deadly snowstorm bearing in Buffalo, New York, this morning, with more snow on the way, folks, upwards of five feet already on the ground in some parts of Erie County, with at least another foot expected. Abandoned vehicles are turning roads into parking lot.
County officials declaring a state of emergency, banning unnecessary travel, while crews try to clear those roads. At least four people now dead, one in an auto accident. Three others from cardiac arrest while shoveling snow. In at least one case, emergency crews unable to transport the 81-year-old victim because the roads are impassable this hour.
Twenty-four members of the Niagara University women's basketball team stuck in their bus on the interstate as they returned home from a game. They've been stuck on the bus without food now for more than 24 hours. Their coach estimates there are more than 100 cars trapped out there on the snowy roads with them.
And one bit of good news in all of this. Firefighters had to deliver a baby in the fire station because they couldn't get the mother to the hospital. The Buffalo fire commissioner reports the baby girl is safe and healthy. The giant snowstorm isn't finished with western New York state yet.
CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray is up to her waist in this story. She's in Buffalo with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Christine, welcome to South Buffalo.
This is lake-effect snow in full force. You can see the blowing snow. Snow is coming down, sometimes at 2 inches per hour. There are areas around Buffalo that have received almost 50 inches of snow, another two feet possible tomorrow. Bit time this is said and done, low-end estimates could be 70 inches.
And just look at this, cars over here, completely buried. We passed cars left and right that were completely stuck. And look how powdery this is, you just get it in and it's so fluffy. We're estimating this is a ratio of 50 to 20 to one, that means you take 15 to 20 inches of snow and melt it down and it equals one inch of water.
So, this is very, very powdery. The plows have been out here all day, though. Driving is just treacherous, though, and it is very dangerous out here. Most folks are staying at home, which is a good idea.
We are going to get another round of this Thursday, into Thursday night. So, this could be one of the worst lake-effect snow events this area has ever seen -- Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: Wow. That's something. All right. Thanks, Jennifer.
Along with the heavy lake-effect snow, widespread cold temperatures. In fact, temperatures dropped below freezing in parts all 50 states last night, including Hawaii. They're expected to do the same this morning.
Let's get an early start with today's forecast with Chad Myers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: A very cold early morning to you in New York, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston. Temperatures are all the way down, even into the single digits upstate, around 19 to 20 in New York City right now. Minneapolis, lows going to be down around 5 degrees in some spots, especially up north into Ramsey County, for the next couple of mornings. New York warming up.
This is the coldest morning we're going to see for a while. It begins to warm up before the next cool-down, at least we warm up a few degrees. But I'll tell you what, it is cold out there today.
Lake-effect snow machine still going on in New York. Buffalo, New York, some spots (AUDIO GAP) feet of snow in (AUDIO GAP). It's just insane up there. I don't know how you dig all of that out. I grew up in Buffalo, but still, there's a lot of snow to dig out.
It's heavy snow. It's heart attack snow as we call it. So, please be careful out there today and make sure the pets -- make sure you can find them it's so deep. They don't want to dig around on that stuff. They can collapse on them.
Thirty-one in Chicago, 21 in Minneapolis for today, and 32 in New York City.
For tomorrow, things don't change very much, although a front does combine and it moves colder air back into a frigid area already. But that warm-up we had in Chicago for one day goes away tomorrow as the cool-down comes.
Still sunny and nice in the Southwest. A little windy in L.A. today. But watch out for that, red flag warnings going on out there. No burning outside if you don't have to, of course.
Guys, back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Thanks so much, Chad.
All right. We know more about the deadly terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue. Two Palestinian cousins barged into a temple in the western part of the holy city. This is Tuesday. They had a gun and butcher knives, that killed four rabbis and a police officer.
The Israeli prime minister calling the attackers, quote, "human animals" on Tuesday night.
For the latest, let's turn now to CNN's Atika Shubert. She is live for us in Jerusalem -- Atika.
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It was a tense night here in the city, but fortunately, relatively calm, although people are still on edge as you can imagine. They are trying to go about their regular daily businesses. In fact, at the synagogue, where the attack took place, they still continued with morning prayers today, undeterred by this attack, insisting that their lives would continue as normal.
So, we're waiting to see now what the security response will be. Of course, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will deal with this with a heavy hand, and has said that the homes of the attackers will be demolished. We could see further arrests. We're basically waiting to see how the authorities will deal with this further.
ROMANS: What do we know about the two cousins who perpetrated this -- who police say perpetrated this, and the -- I guess, the response, from Israeli officials on those now deceased perpetrators?
SHUBERT: Well, what they're doing is they've gone in and arrested a number of family members. I believe it was about 13 family members, to find out more about what triggered this attack. Did they had have -- what was the motive behind it? What exactly led up to it?
It does seem to be more coordinated than the previous attacks. And the fact that it was targeting a synagogue in the middle of morning prayer, this is frankly unprecedented in many ways here. We haven't had an attack like this in Jerusalem for many years.
And that is what has really shocked many residents of West Jerusalem, because they felt relatively safe before this. There had been a string of attacks that there had been mostly on public transportation spots. Not on a synagogue, a place of prayer.
And so, this is what police and investigators are really focusing on. Why was this a particular target?
ROMANS: All right. Atika Shubert for us this morning in Jerusalem -- thank you, Atika.
Seven minutes past the hour.
A Virginia woman is behind bars this morning for her alleged ties to ISIS. Police say 29-year-old Heather Coffman conspired and attempted to provide materiel support to the Islamic terror group. Investigators built their case against Coffman with information from a series of undercover interviews and from her inflammatory social media posts.
Her neighbors are in shock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD LAUTERBACH, NEIGHBOR: As astonished by the sight, can't even believe that literally something like this is happening in my backyard. Horrifying what they're doing. I mean, it's one of those things where I can't even comprehend someone sympathizing. It's just sickening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Coffman is expected to appear at a hearing today in Virginia.
Secretary of State John Kerry has reportedly pushed back his trip to Vienna as negotiators there look to hammer out a nuclear deal with Iran by a November 24 deadline. Kerry originally scheduled to join Western diplomats in the Austrian capital today. Iran says it will resist extensive restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for relaxed trade sanction. Now, Kerry is delaying his arrival in Vienna until sometime later in the week.
A critical setback for the supporters of the Keystone XL oil line. But the controversial project is by no means dead. Senate Democrats shooting down a bill that would approve construction by a single vote, they shut down that down, 59-41.
Louisiana's Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu was a leading proponent of the measure, hoping to get it passed, in order to boost her chances of winning a runoff election December. She insists the fight for this pipeline is not over yet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: It's been on my agenda, and it's staying on my agenda. And I'm going to do everything I can to help America become energy independent and to use the assets and resources that we have. And most importantly be a partner with our best ally which is Canada.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Republican leaders are already promising to bring up the Keystone project next year after they take control of the Senate.
New details this morning about President Obama's immigration plans. Under an executive order, the president will allow undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to stay in the country. This is according to Bloomberg. The president's order is expected to stop short of including the parents of children brought to this country illegally.
Police caught the man suspected in a fatal subway shoving in New York City. Kevin Darden was arrested Tuesday at his mother's house. Authority say the 34-year-old has a long rap sheet, who's also accused of pushing another man unto subway tracks earlier this month. Wai Kuen Kwok was killed Sunday when Darden allegedly pushed him in front of an ongoing train while his wife watched.
All right. Congratulations going out this morning to CNN's Hero of the Year, Pen Farthing. The former royal marine founded a non-profit that reunites soldiers with stray dogs they befriended during combat tours in Afghanistan. The group now has dogs that's named after a stray they adopted -- he adopted during the war. Pen Farthing will be a guest on NEW DAY later this morning.
You can see the entire event, wonderful event, "CNN Heroes: An All Star Tribute." It will air Sunday, December 7th, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.
Congratulations to him and all the other heroes who've done such great work this year.
All right. Time for an early start on your money.
Stock futures pointing a bit lower. Is it finally time to snap that record sweep? The S&P 500 climbed to a record close yesterday, number eight in the last 10 trading sessions. This just goes on and on. The Dow closed also at a high.
Another stock that set a record, Apple. Apple closed at about $115 a share, The highest price ever. The stock is up, look at this, 47 percent this year.
And Apple is the most valuable company in the world, worth about $670 billion. That is an astronomical amount, $300 billion more than rival Google, for example. So, could Apple one day be worth more than a trillion dollars? Legendary investor Carl Icahn thinks so. But some argue that talk of a trillion dollar valuation is a sign maybe another tech bubble. You decide.
All right. Eleven minutes after the hour.
Another, another accusation of sexual assault against comedian Bill Cosby. This time, a well-known supermodel comes forward with details of what she claims the comedian did to her. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: All right. Yet another accusation of sexual assault against iconic comedian Bill Cosby. TV host and former model Janice Dickinson tells "Entertainment Tonight" she met with Cosby in Lake Tahoe in 1982 to discuss a possible role on the Cosby show.
Listen to her described what she claimed happened at the end of that ending.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANICE DICKINSON, FORMER MODEL: After dinner in my room, he'd given me wine and a pill. And the next morning I woke up and I wasn't wearing my pajamas. And I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Cosby is not commenting. And CNN has learned Netflix is postponing the release of the comedian's stand-up special "Bill Cosby 77". It was scheduled to begin streaming the day after Thanksgiving.
New video this morning that appears to show Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson getting involved in an altercation on the job back in 2013. It comes as an embattled Missouri town awaits a grand jury decision on whether to indict that officer, Officer Wilson, for the shooting death of the unarmed teenager Michael Brown.
Listen as Wilson approaches a resident for having a derelict vehicle on his residence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FERGUSON RESIDENT: What's your name, sir?
OFFICER: If you want to take a picture of me one more time, I'm going to lock your ass up.
FERGUSON: Sir, I'm not going to take a picture. I'm recording this incident, sir. Do I not have the right to --
OFFICER: No, you don't.
FERGUSON RESIDENT: -- to record?
(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: The video of the confrontation is grainy, but CNN has obtained a Ferguson police report confirming that was Wilson responding to that home last fall. This as the Justice Department panel begins reviewing the police response to 16 days of protests in Ferguson, those days after Michael Brown was killed.
The death of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham has officially been ruled a homicide, but according to the medical examiner, how she died is still undetermined. The 18-year-old vanished in September after a night out with friends. Her remains were discovered following a month-long search some ten miles from where she was last seen in Charlottesville. The suspect in her disappearance, Jesse Matthew Jr., currently being held in jail on charges in an unrelated case.
A Texas judge rejecting a defense motion to have felony abuse of power charges against Governor Rick Perry dismissed. Perry's lawyers argued the special prosecutor had been sworn in improperly, rendering his work on the case invalid. But the judge declined to throw out the case over paperwork technicalities. Perry is accused of publicly threatening and carrying out a veto of state funding when a Democratic D.A. refused to resign after a drunk driving conviction.
Breaking overnight, a Cuban doctor in Sierra Leone, now the latest Westerner to be diagnosed by Ebola. Felix Baez Sarria is being sent to the University Hospital of Geneva in Switzerland for a specialized treatment. The physician came down with a fever of more than 100 degrees on Sunday and was diagnosed with Ebola the following day. It is unclear how the surgeon got the deadly virus.
The head of the Centers for Disease Control making his pitch for more than $6 billion for federal emergency funding to find Ebola. Thomas Frieden telling the lawmakers the CDC working on borrowed dollars. He says the only way to protect Americans from Ebola is to stop it at the source in West Africa. He likened the spread of the Ebola virus to a wildfire.
A nationwide recall of vehicles for a faulty device, as much as 20 million. What you need to know to keep your family safe.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Twenty-two minutes past the hour. Welcome back to EARLY START this morning.
Government safety regulators now calling for a nationwide recall of vehicles with Takata airbags that could potentially explode. This expanded recall could affect some 20 million vehicles from ten different carmakers. Folks, that is a lot of cars out on the road right now.
Airbag explosions have been linked to at least five deaths. Now, the regulators are demanding more information from the Japanese airbag manufacture which has been so far dragging its feet on the request.
CNN's Will Ripley is live in Tokyo. And we should be clear here, we're talking about a defect where the inflater of these airbags actually explodes in some cases and can become like shrapnel -- a very dangerous situation, Will.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A very frightening scenario for millions of drivers already. You know, Christine, 8 million cars affected in the last two years. If this recall becomes nationwide, you said 20 million vehicles, that is a huge problem for Takata.
I stopped by their Tokyo headquarters here today, they turned me away. And said they didn't have anyone to speak to us in person but they did e-mail us a statement saying that lives could be at risk if this recall expands.
And here's why. It all comes down to the fact that they're having a difficult time keeping up with the command for these repair kits. They might even have just a third of the repair kits needed for the regional recall ready by February. But if you're talking about a nationwide recall, Christine, there are going to be millions of drivers on the road wondering when they're going to be able to get the parts to get their cars fixed, to get the airbags fixed.
ROMANS: You know, another issue about the airbag safety, you have some dealers who are suggesting turn off the airbags until this can be fixed, which is also a dangerous situation in case you're in some sort of accident. People still need their cars to drive if there's no repair kit available.
We know that the initial recall, Will, was in the Southeast states of the United States, where there was high humidity. Why the expansion to other states? This was a humidity problem in the beginning.
RIPLEY: Yes, because the NHTSA has learned of a case over the summer that there was a car in a non-humid area, in North Carolina, that had the same problem, where people were injured because of his defective airbag. And then, if piecemeal regional recall, what if somebody drives their car to a high humidity area? When you decide one car is at risk and another is not? That's the problem with a regional recall.
That's also equally a problem for Takata here, because now they have an even bigger problem on their hands. Their stock prices plummeted 64 percent this year. Their credit rating is in jeopardy. They've already set aside $750 million to try to handle this. But the expended recall is going to cost the company a whole lot more money and there's questions about whether they'll be able to deliver.
ROMANS: Meantime, millions of drivers on the road trying to figure out what exactly to do.
Will Ripley, thank you for bringing that to us this morning.
Twenty-five minutes past the hour.
Coming up: snow, snow, slamming parts of the Northeast. And the rest of the country is feeling the impact of this huge system. Is there relief in sight? We've got your forecast for you, right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
