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At This Hour

Public Wake for Slain NYPD Officers; Seven Arrested for Making Threats; Obama Visits Troops in Hawaii; "The Interview" Banks $1 Million on Opening Day; Hackers Take Down Gaming Systems

Aired December 26, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: @THIS HOUR, the ongoing crackdown on threats against New York police officers and officers across the country, New York people -- or New York police arrest seven people after they allegedly make threats against the force in the wake of the assassination of two officers. We've got the very latest.

Xbox and Sony hacked. You heard it. Hacked again? A group named the Lizard Squad takes responsibility for hacking gamers across the country. We've got the details right ahead.

And from the fight against Ebola and ISIS all the way to the ice bucket challenge, the stories that had us talking this year, and it all starts right now.

Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Nice to have you with us. Thanks for being here. John Berman and Michaela Pereira are off today.

Any minute now, we expect to hear there the widow of one of those two New York city police officers who were shot in cold blood last weekend as they sat in their patrol car.

The wife of Wenjian Liu is due to speak at a press conference any moment. We have our live cameras trained.

A New York foundation expected to announce it will take over the mortgage payments on the homes of both Liu and his partner, Rafael Ramos. We're going to bring you her comments as soon as she steps up to the podium.

And as we wait, we want to tell you about a series of alleged brand- new threats that were made against NYPD officers since Liu and Ramos were gunned down a week ago.

Police say that they've arrested seven people now -- seven -- in connection with threats made via phone and social media. And one stands out as especially vile.

According to the NYPD, a man called the precinct where Liu and Ramos has been stationed. That person asked whether the bullets had been removed from the dead officers' heads so that, quote, he could "kill more cops."

That caller, police say is a 41-year-old man, and he has been arrested on charges of aggravated harassment and making terrorististic threats.

In the meantime, officers from across New York and the country are expected to converge in Queens this afternoon. There's a public viewing scheduled for Officer Rafael Ramos scheduled to begin at 2:00 Eastern time just ahead of his funeral, which is set for tomorrow morning.

And our Miguel Marquez is live outside the Christ Tabernacle Church. So I thought that it was a misprint when I saw 25,000 officers, just officers, are expected to be in attendance. That's just a miraculous number, Miguel.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is spectacular. The last time they had a funeral in 2011 for an officer killed on the job, they had about 20,000. They know that there are going to be police coming from all over the country. This case has been so big and has touched so many people, they're planning for 25,000 police officers/

This area in Queens very tight in here, fairly small streets. It's going to be an ocean of blue when they get going here tomorrow. Add to that the family, the friends, and the public that will show up here, you're looking at upwards of 30,000 people packed into this tight area in Queens. It's going to be an impressive show of emotion.

BANFIELD: But at the same time, with that many police officers in one location, is there a concern about the possibility of additional threats against them, or let's just say maybe even terror threats unrelated to this particular story?

MARQUEZ: Yeah. Well, look, they have been looking at every single threat that they can. John Miller, the official with the NYPD, told the "New York Times" the other day some of these threats are just pranksters, some of these are just drunks sending out ridiculous texts, and they are sort of going through all of those.

I think NYPD is confident they have a good sense of what's serious, what isn't. And this is not the first time they've done this. They know what to expect at these funerals and how to protect them and they will certainly be on the lookout for anything that may be coming down the pike.

Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: I know that there were a number of threats that were made against the NYPD and I think they determined about half were credible and needing serious follow-up. Now we have been seven people who have been pinpointed.

What more to we know about the kinds of threats that were made and how serious they were?

MARQUEZ: They kind of range the gamut. Some of these were people who made fake 911 calls about other people who they said were making terrorististic threats against NYPD. Two people arrested there.

Some people posted online, social media, not very smart in this day and age and context to be posting threats online. Three people arrested there. Two others, one a person overheard threatening the 104th precinct. That person was arrested for a gun possession.

The other one was the one you mentioned. This 84th Precinct call, this came in, the very precinct where these two police officers worked, with where this massive memorial is growing, someone calls in to issue a threat there.

Idiotic doesn't begin to explain it, as shocking as it is, but that person was arrested and will be tried. Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: Miguel Marquez, reporting live for us in New York at the site of where the funeral services will be held. Miguel, thank you for that.

Other news to update you on, former president George H.W. Bush is sending a third day at a Houston hospital after experiencing shortness of breath this week. A spokesperson says the 90-year-old remains in, quote, "great spirits and his prognosis is very positive."

Two years ago, the 92-year-old spent two months in the hospital after suffering bronchitis and a persistent cough. But the spokesperson says this case is nothing like that.

U.S. troops stationed in Hawaii got a special Christmas Day visit from none other than -- that's right -- the president and the first lady. That's pretty nice. How about that? The president on vacation with his family there, of course going home for Christmas, because that's where he's from.

Saluting the troops, they're saying the world is safer and more peaceful because of their sacrifices. He also said their work the drawing to a close in Afghanistan.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is an important year. We've been in continuous war now for almost 13 years, over 13 years, and next week we will be ending our combat mission in Afghanistan.

Obviously because of the extraordinary service of men and women in American armed forces Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country. We are safer. It's not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The president reiterated that some very difficult missions remain around the world, including the battles against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria.

And still ahead @THIS HOUR, was your Xbox on the fritz last night? Could you be a victim of a hack attack? How about all the other people who were livid that they couldn't game with all their new Christmas toys? Also, speaking of hacking, Sony firing back and releasing "The Interview." After all the international back and forth, how actually did it perform at the box office?

There's two tickets there. How many other tickets were sold? Find out next.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I felt it's a movie that we should see. That nobody should be allowed to stop us from freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Moviegoers, boy, are they embracing the first amendment. As the controversial comedy "The Interview" hit hundreds of theaters on Christmas Day, despite FBI warnings of threats against theaters, screening New York to L.A., all of them went off without a hitch, more or less.

It also wasn't a bad day for the bottom line, either. The Seth Rogen film about a fictitious plot to assassinate the leader of North Korea banked almost a million dollars at the box office.

And joining me right now to talk about that and how it actually happened, Rosa Flores at the theater yesterday, watching the theatergoers coming in and out, along with senior media correspondent Brian Stelter.

So some breaking news just coming in to us?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Sony is talking about the box office totals for the first time, so we can show you part of their statement.

That say, "The audience reaction was fantastic yesterday. The limited release, in under 10 percent of the amount of theaters originally planned, featured numerous sellouts and a first-day gross over $1 million."

So that's a nice mark for Sony to hit, the $1-million mark on their first day. That's something for them to celebrate after what has been a very rough month for them, ever since that cyber attack.

BANFIELD: Was that something they were always planning to release or were they waiting to see if it was good news and then release it if it's good, keep it under wraps if it's --

STELTER: The statement, do you mean? What do you mean?

BANFIELD: The money, the statement --

STELTER: I think they're trying to put the most positive spin they can on this. They were going to premiere this film in 2000 to 3,000 theaters. That's why they say it was under 10 percent of the original plan.

So they're happy to have made any money at all off of this. For being in only 300 theaters, a million dollars is pretty good.

BANFIELD: There was one theater that was critical to this whole story, and it was the one you were at.

I only say that because you were there and I got a chance to talk to you when it actually opened. I really actually loved seeing the comments of the people going in and then coming out.

And they were very profound, a lot of people saying this was their exercise of free speech, whether they wanted to actually see this particular script or not.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, right, right.

And a lot of people said this is probably the best thing that happened to Sony with this particular movie, because a lot of people were not planning on watching this movie if it were not for the fact that they wanted to exercise their patriotic duty and support free speech.

As a matter of fact, the woman that specifically told us that, here's what she said when she walked out of the theater. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIE JASSO, MOVIEGOER: I certainly enjoyed it. It's not the greatest comedy ever made, but it was funny, funnier in some places than in others.

I think my overwhelming conclusion is that it would have been much funnier if no one had died.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: That's great. She loved it.

FLORES: Although she did say it made her feel uncomfortable, laughing throughout the movie, knowing that someone was going to die at the end. She's like, there's nothing funny about someone dying.

BANFIELD: Well, there is that controversy. We keep bringing that up. We all talk about how no one should try to suppress free speech, we should be a little bit responsible with our free speech as well.

STELTER: I had the head of one of the biggest media company say that to me this week.

He said, "I understand the film. I understand it's supposed to be funny. I understand it might be funnier to make it about a real life person. But if it had come across my desk I would have suggested making it a fictional dictator." FLORES: And I think they didn't have to kill him at the end for it to be a good comedy. That's the other thing. After watching it, it's like why did you have to kill him?

BANFIELD: For all three of us, the Twitters are going to be lighting up with, "Come on! How could you three people have any sympathy for a guy like Kim Jong-un?" And it's not about that.

It's about having respect and the same respect due back to your president, your leader, and anybody else around the world, because we would be incensed if someone blew up our president, our real, sitting president, not a fictitious character.

STELTER: If there were a movie involving Obama or Putin or any other world leader, it would have been a different story than it would have been about Kim Kong-un.

But we should point out it was incident-free yesterday. There were no security issues at theaters across the country.

BANFIELD: Well, kind of. I heard there was a power outage at one theater.

STELTER: There was. That's right. In northern New Jersey there was a power outage that affected the movie theater at a pivotal moment for the film. It made people a little nervous for a few minutes. Some people started heading for the exits. It turned out it was just a neighborhood blackout.

BANFIELD: I'd have been more than a little nervous, knowing that there was a terror threat.

FLORES BANFIELD : I would have bolted out of that theater.

BANFIELD: So something I expected, but I didn't expect it on this kind of number, 750,000 illegal downloads of this movie yesterday. That's huge.

STELTER: That's just the ones we can count, the English-language versions. In China this film is also being pirated and getting review there as well, on their -- on the illegal file-sharing websites there is.

That may cut into the profits Sony makes on YouTube and elsewhere, because now that they're releasing this online, it's a real test to see, are people going to pay for it, or are they going to watch the stealed pirated version

FLORES: And the other thing is that if you were able to use it through SeeTheInterview.com, I think you were able to even just give the link to somebody else via e-mail, so those you can't count either because you get access to it for 48 hours and if I just say, hey --

STELTER: You share it.

FLORES: You just share the link, how do you count that? BANFIELD: It's like TV ratings. How many people are sitting in that

living room? Because -- there's one person paying the six bucks, and how many eyeballs are on that screen?

STELTER: That's right. We'll never really know how many people actually chose to watch it, and partly because Sony doesn't have to release data about these rentals unless they're so strong they want to brag about it. But you know, it is a landmark movement for movie industry regardless of how people actually chose to pay for the movie, because it does show that there can be a simultaneous release in theaters and at home. And that's something we will see more of in the future even though big movie chains don't want it to happen.

BANFIELD: Lest anybody watching us right now, thanks. Boy, you guys really missed the bigger headline. It's the hack of PlayStation and Xbox. We did not, because actually, if you could stick around, I know you have some excellent reporting on this and some specifics about it, as well. Lizard, really? The lizard hackers?

STELTER: I'll try to explain it.

BANFIELD: Okay. So that's coming in just a moment. And also ahead, this year in medicine, we're going to tell you why the future is looking a lot brighter and your future may be looking longer, specifically if you or anyone you know has been afflicted with cancer.

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BANFIELD: If you're one of those thousands of online gamers who got a Christmas visit from the Grinch, sorry, folks, hackers apparently took down networks that let players compete in the virtual world. Operators of Xbox say their system is mostly restored now. Sony saying PlayStation engineers working on a fix.

Back with me now, our senior media corespondent Brian Stelter. The Lizard Squad. The Lizard Squad saying that they're the ones responsible for taking down those systems.

STELTER: Which is some sort of hacker gang. And it goes to show how strange dark corners of the internet can be, Ashleigh, that there's a group out there --

BANFIELD: But what's weirder, they're not saying that it has anything to do with the movie "The Interview."

STELTER: That's right.

BANFIELD: And yet, those are the two places you get "The Interview." Those were the threats being made.

STELTER: That's right, we should say that up front. This seemed, you know, at first glance that it could have been connected to the release of the movie online, you know, a historic moment where the movie's available on Microsoft Xbox video store and it has been released by Sony Pictures, which is a sibling of Sony's PlayStation division. But it does seem unrelated. This gang, this hacker gang, the Lizard Squad, have been threatening to do this for weeks and they've also been behind other outages of the PlayStation Network and of Xbox Live. And we're talking about a pretty big media story here because there's about 50 million people that have Xbox Live subscriptions. There's about 110 million that have PlayStation Live accounts. So we're talking about something that's very mainstream at this point. You know, the Internet is like a utility these days, so when you can see a gaming network taken down by hangers for the better part of a day, it's pretty eye opening.

BANFIELD: I can just see you in your mom's basement yesterday after you opened up one of your new games under the tree yelling mom, meatloaf, and trying to play Xbox and it's locked out.

STELTER: You got me from ten years ago, Ashley. But my younger brothers actually were affected by the outage.

BANFIELD: That's the story. Seriously, that's the story. Christmas, all of these people getting games, it's one of the busiest gaming days of the year. And this happened. And didn't the Twitter universe go ballistic?

STELTER: They did, in fact. I mean, these hashtags, like #SonyPSLDown, are still trending on Twitter this morning because you've got a lot of folks that are very web savvy that can get on online, they just can't get on to their video game console in order to play that way. And even though it's not connected to the release of "The Interview," it might affect the release of The Interview" because if you can't get on to your Xbox Live system to watch the movie, to rent the movie, then it could actually dampen Sony's totals for selling that movie online.

BANFIELD: So I like the conspiracy theories, I made one up myself, and I'm going to test it on you. So just last block you and I talking with Rosa Flores talking about how there were 750,000 illegal downloads yesterday of "The Interview," just on one day. But at the same time, all those people with Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox couldn't get.

STELTER: Couldn't get the legal version.

BANFIELD: Couldn't pay for the legal version because they were down. Might they then have gone over and illegally downloaded it if then that means financial damages?

STELTER: That's been the theory in media for a decade, hasn't it? Ever since Napster started to allow pirating of music, as if people can pay legally, lots of people will pay for content. But if it's not easy to pay legally, then they will go and find the illegal version. You know, and that's been true in music and in television and in movies. So I do think there's something to that.

BANFIELD: So Lizard Squad, do we know anything about them? Are they traceable? Is anyone trying hard to find them? Because if they can be found, would someone take action against them for this kind of --?

STELTER: We can be sure Microsoft and Sony are, to name two of the companies that are affected. You know, it's an anonymous band of hackers. You know, they find a sort of perverse joy in ruining some people's Christmases. It's sort of like Scrooge showing up, isn't it, and taking away presents? And the last time this happened - not the last time this happened, this is a relatively small hack compared to what happened in 2011 -- but when there was a takedown of the PlayStation Network in 2011, that cost Sony $171 million. Now I doubt this will end up being nearly that expensive, but they do real physical damage, you know, financially to these companies when they take down virtual servers.

BANFIELD: And, again, Lizard Squad claiming to be 2011, as well?

STELTER: I don't believe they were claiming that back in 2011, but they have been responsible for other hackings earlier this year of the PlayStation Network and of Xbox Live.

BANFIELD: Sometimes I wonder if they're going to be so happy that they crowed all over the Interwebs to get all that cred, when ultimately they get tracked, and then they end up in a courtroom. See how loud they crow then.

STELTER: You can do all the digital damage you want, but you're still going to end up in the physical court room if they can find you.

BANFIELD: If they can find you. Brian Stelter, thank you. Nice to see you.

STELTER: Thanks, you too.

BANFIELD: By the way, did your mom make you the meatloaf?

STELTER: We had delicious turkey for dinner last night. I brought leftovers home today.

BANFIELD: It was great seeing his mom, Donna, on the TV yesterday. If you missed it, Google. Thank you.

So just ahead this hour, we're going to take you from fighting Ebola to embracing marijuana. It has been an interesting year in medicine, banner moments. So in just moments, I'll take you through 2014 and if you have or know anyone who's fighting cancer, there is some really encouraging news. That's all next.

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BANFIELD: It's been a remarkable year in health news from the Ebola outbreak to the spread of marijuana legalization. Our chief senior medical correspondents Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Elizabeth Cohen count down the biggest stories of 2014.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF SENIOR MEDICAL CORESPONDENT: If you are what you eat, then what you probably are is confused. 2014 finally brought some transparency to our food. In February, the Food and Drug Administration announced proposed changes to nutrition labels. It was the first overall in more than two decades. MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Families deserve more

and better information about the food they eat.

GUPTA: In late November, the FDA ruled that establishments of self- prepared foods that have 20 or more locations have to post calorie counts clearly and conspicuously on their menus, their menu boards, and displays. Companies will now have until November, 2015 to comply.

BRITTANY MAYNARD, RIGHT-TO-DIE ADVOCATE: I will die upstairs in my bedroom that I share with my husband. With my mother and my husband by my side.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CHIEF SENIOR MEDICAL CORESPONDENT: In October, 29-year-old Brittany Maynard became the face of the controversial right-to-diet movement when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer and given just six months to live. Maynard didn't want her family to watch her die in pain, so she moved to Oregon to take advantage of the state's Death With Dignity law.

This is not a third world country, this is a major city in West Virginia. On January 9, the chemical spill at Freedom Industries released thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the Elk River and from there, into Charleston's water supply.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't wash with it, don't shower with it, don't drink it.

COHEN: Hospitals in the area told CNN they didn't know of any illnesses related to the contamination but the economic impact was real.

GUPTA: Heroin made a big comeback in 2014 as more people began using this as a cheaper alternative to costly prescription pain painkillers.

Use of an antidote for an overdose is also on the rise. The drug is called Narcan, and you're watching it in action right now. Naloxone, as it's also know, is now distributed to addicts, their friends and family, as well as first responders across the country.

2014 may go down as the year cigarettes went up in smoke. On February 5, CVS, the nation's second largest pharmacy chain, announced it would stop selling tobacco products in all of its 7,800 locations, doing this by 2015. The company made good on its promise early, and on September 3, pulled all tobacco products from its shelves. CVS said this would cost the company $2 billion a year, but that selling tobacco was also against its moral and ethical principles as a health care company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anderson, as you know, we've been reporting on your program on these delays and poor care at these hospitals --

COHEN: CNN has spent more than a year investigating delays in care at Veteran Affairs hospitals. Our Drew Griffin and his team exposed systematic problems throughout the V.A., and CNN's reporting found that thousands of veterans across the country were waiting months, even years, to see a doctor. CNN's reporting also uncovered V.A. workers cooking the books to cover up long wait times.