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Tornadoes Hit Parts of U.S.; Pentagon Raises Terrorist Treat Level for U.S. Armed Forces and Police; ISIS Claims Responsibility for Jailbreak in Iraq; Practice of "Revenge Porn" against Women Examined. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 09, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:11] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: It's 2:00 in the East. Happening now in the Newsroom, dozens of prisoners and terror suspects break out of prison after a deadly fight with guards. ISIS is now claiming responsibility. And homegrown terror concerns have U.S. military bases across the country on heightened alert today. The FBI now investigating hundreds if not thousands of suspected ISIS sympathizers.

Plus, massive hail, tornadoes, flooding, thousands of people without power today as more dangerous storms are forming in the plains. You're live in the CNN newsroom.

Glad to have you with us. I'm Ana Cabrera. Thanks so much for joining me.

Let's get right to that threat of severe weather, that storming bringing hail, flooding, possibly tornadoes taking shape across a big portion of the nation today. Nearly 17 million people are in the path of the extreme storms in a region already hit by severe weather. CNN's Ryan Young is joining me from Oklahoma City where you have been talking to families, I know, who have been hit hard and may get hit again. How is everybody coping, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, when you talk to these people it really breaks your heart, because you understand the fear that they face when these storms came through this the last few days. One woman telling us what do you do when the place you want to call safe, your home, gets torn apart? This is where so many people were staying, this Extended Stay. And one guy was telling us it was going to come down to this stairwell. And you can see this is gone. The roof of this building has been blown off. In fact there is a garbage container that's on top of this roof that was blown in this direction.

And as we walk this way with people who live here, they said they had very little warning. In fact, the first notice they had is they heard the sound, that train noise, and then all of a sudden you can see the destruction. The glass here was no match for the power of this storm. If you look in here you can just see what's left behind. The roof is caved in because of the weight of the water. We talked to a family who said they put a mattress on top of them, got inside the bathtub, and held on for dear life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRIAN ISOM, TORNADO SURVIVOR: It was like a rumble. It was like a freight train, you know. All you could do is do what you could, you know. We prayed.

JIMMY O'QUINN, TORNADO SURVIVOR: We prayed. Nobody -- there's a handful of injuries here but everybody survived. I don't know how they did up front. I think God laid his hand across us. It's the only way we made it out. I mean, it had to have been an act of God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: You can understand why they were thanking God. Now there's the double impact of this storm. You're already living here. There were three or four people inside that one apartment unit. That's all gone. Everything they had has been lost. Then you see what's happened to most of the people's cars who were here. They lost these as well. So now how do you get to work? You lost your home and you lost your transportation in the same three to four hours.

In fact if you look up here, look at the roof that was just taken off of this building. The people here say now they have nowhere to go because no one has offered them assistance to stay place else. They are looking for somewhere to go, especially before the next storm hits.

CABRERA: And we're looking at the clouds forming behind you. It looks ominous out there, Ryan. What's in store this evening?

YOUNG: Repeat that question for me again. Sorry.

CABRERA: What do you expect to happen this evening? What are people preparing or expecting?

YOUNG: That's what we consider talking to so many people who were here trying to grab whatever they could out of this building because what they're scared of is the next few hours. Everyone is talking about the clouds and the reports that heavier storms are heading our way. So everyone is walking up to us and saying, hey, the is this storm coming? We hear the radar is starting to pop again. Everybody is watching it. It looks like an hour and a half or two hours before the heavy rain hits in. And then from there who knows what's happening next. People are expecting the strong wind. But I can tell a lot of people here are crossing their fingers that something like this doesn't happen again like this.

CABRERA: Absolutely. Ryan Young, thank you so much, in Oklahoma City for us.

The U.S. State Department is responding today to North Korea testing more missiles. The South Korean defense official tells CNN that North Korea launched three ship-to-ship missiles off its eastern coast this morning, and that follows what North Korean state news reports what was an underwater launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine last night. The U.S. is calling those North Korean launches a clear violation of several U.N. Security Council resolutions. [14:05:03] CNN correspondent Sunlen Serfaty is live at the White

House. Sunlen, has the White House officially said these missile tests happened, has that been confirmed now?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They haven't confirmed that, Ana. The State Department has been calling for restraint, but I should note that they are doing so without confirming outright these reports of these new missile tests by North Korea, only saying that they're aware of the reports and noting broadly speaking that if true that it would be in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.

A State Department official telling CNN, quote, "We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further raise tensions in the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitment and obligation."

All this of course comes as there's growing around about the size of North Korea's nuclear program. There's suspicions that their leader Kim Jong-un might be taking steps to ramp up the nuclear arsenal, spending lots of money, lots of time investing into potentially building up a nuclear weapon. The big question looming out there, of course, Ana, is what they intend to potentially do once they reach this technology. Back to you.

CABRERA: So Sunlen, if, indeed, North Korea is in violation of several U.N. Security Council resolutions, as you mentioned, what can be done, if anything?

SERFATY: That's the great question, because, to put it simply, there's not much that the U.S. can do at this point. They really haven't had a lot of sway with North Korea in the past. North Korea of course views the United States as an enemy.

But the other big question is why doesn't the U.S. sit down and try to negotiate about drawing down the nuclear facilities like they are doing right now with Iran? U.S. officials tell CNN that they are open to having a dialogue with North Korea about this as long as the North Koreans show a commitment to drawing down, and that's of course a commitment that they say they have not demonstrated yet.

CABRERA: All right, Sunlen Serfaty at the White House, thank you.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak could soon be a free man. The 87-year-old has been in prison on corruption charges for the past three years. And now an appeals court says he will get credit for time served. Mubarak controlled Egypt for 30 years before he was overthrown in that 2011 Egyptian revolution, the Arab spring. In his first trial he was actually sentenced to life in prison, but a new trial was granted and then he was only given a three years sentence. It's still not clear, however, when he will be released from prison.

The Pentagon raising the threat level of all U.S. military bases. It now stands at threat level bravo, and that means there's an increase and more predictable threat of terrorism. This follows growing concerns over ISIS' use of social media to recruit homegrown terrorists in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Now what you have in 2015 is ISIS saying it's more defensible to persuade people, especially young Americans, not to go against civilians, women and children, but to go against the people who are sending troops to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. That's military, and they put police into this context. So the backdrop is go after military. In the midst of that you drop in a tweet that talks about a military target.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: To give you some perspective on this, the threat level hasn't been this high since 2011, the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Monday CNN goes deep inside ISIS. We explore who are these people, what do they want exactly? Be sure to watch "Blindsided." Fareed Zakaria reports, CNN Monday night at 9:00 eastern and pacific.

Coming up, terror suspects on the loose. This is after a prison break near Baghdad. And now ISIS is claiming responsibility.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:12:27] CABRERA: We have a developing story in Iraq right now. A major prison break happened outside of Baghdad. Some 40 inmates escaped. Several guards were killed after an apparent riot inside the prison. Nine of those prisoners were facing terror charges according to Iraqi authorities. We're talking about some very dangerous people, and what could be more troubling is that ISIS is now claiming responsibility for this. Senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is following the story from Beirut.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Differing accounts of exactly what happened in the jail in the outskirts of Baghdad in the Diyala area. And it clearly is, and according to ISIS, a quite complex operation from their perspective. They claim that this started when 15 IEDs were detonated on military and security vehicles in the outskirts of that particular jail, enabling of course chaos around the inside, and then to, what they refer to, liberate 30 they say of their knights.

Now, differing figures from officials, though, perhaps suggesting it actually was a riot inside the jail that triggered unrest and allowed people to launch this jail break. We don't know exact numbers. There are clearly dead in this, and there are I think it's fair to say 40 inmates who have escaped. Nine of them according to officials were facing terrorism offenses. Now, we don't know who they were or what level of significance they have in the ISIS hierarchy, but obviously it's significant now for ISIS to seek to use this level of resources to try and liberate them here. Now, obviously a manhunt is underway. It's difficult, though, given the nature of terrain and how close ISIS held areas are to where this actually happened. And it is to some degree significant, too, geographically. This is an area, Diyala, that was supposed to be free of ISIS presence. Clearly they were able to project power to the outskirts to launch this jailbreak, too. And clearly as well, ISIS, after not breaking no territory in the past, losing control of Tikrit in the north of Iraq, clearly here keen to be showing their on the offensive or able to at least get their people out of Iraqi detention.

Once again, no clarity on who they managed to release, but it goes back to a tactic they used at the very start of ISIS' campaigns in 2013 that liberated many extremist militants in the Abu Ghraib facility on the outskirts of Baghdad. They're back at it again, perhaps looking for fresh manpower or to get veterans back in their ranks. A troubled time certainly for the militant group here, but clearly able to project power on the out skirts of background.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Nick Paton Walsh reporting, thanks.

[14:15:00] Also ahead, revenge porn -- one of the ugliest aspects of the digital age. But if you thought it was just bitter ex-boyfriends posting women's naked pictures, think again. It could be happening to you without you even knowing it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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[14:20:20] It all happens in this building. It happens quickly and it happens in a way where you get the true feel of the product that's so important.

To really know what your customers are going to use and love you have to feel it. You can took at any design on a screen or a printout, or you can get it in your hands right away and you can know what does it feel like. If you took the current product and surface three it would probably go through thousands of iterations of the details that needed to happen to bring the product together.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Now to the dark side of technology and the cyber war on women known as revenge porn. Frequently it's an ex-boyfriend posting naked pictures or other compromising photos of a former girlfriend online. The images sometimes taken with her knowledge are then posted without her consent. But in other cases women never knew they were being photographed. CNN's Laurie Segall spoke to one of those victims.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You can just hang.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What if I busted out and did the running man now?

SEGALL: This is Nikki. She's young. She's beautiful. You would never know she has this secret, that every time she meets you, every time she applies for a job, she wonders if you know, if you've Googled her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are ones that he recorded of me.

SEGALL: If I were to Google your name, what would come up?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You would feel close to me. You would feel like maybe we even slept together. You'd see me naked.

SEGALL: It dates back to this guy she sarcastically calls "Mr. Wonderful." You'll see why.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had some troubles doing accounting homework. And he popped up and he said, hey, I just took accounting not too long ago and was pretty good at it. I can help you with some of the basics. And within two and a half months of spending time with this gentleman, he lost it.

SEGALL: The strangest thing happened. Nikki started seeing red lights all around her room. One of them was coming from a pen holder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know what made me unscrew it because I never heard of a pen cam at that point in time, and as soon as it opened up and there was a memory card in there, my world started spinning. I felt as if nowhere was private anymore. It never dawned on me that would be put online with my personal identifiable information in a campaign against me.

SEGALL: The images taken without consent were posted all over the web. Her case is an extreme example of what's known as revenge porn. Advocacy groups refer to it as nonconsensual pornography. For the next few years Nikki's most private images would flood websites devoted to revenge porn. It would be picked up by third party sites. Her naked images were where ever where.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Law enforcement straight up told me, how do you want us to help you?

SEGALL: And that's the million dollar question when it comes to revenge porn. So what law is being broken? That's not always clear. And that's why states are beginning to pass laws to criminalize this type of online harassment. For Nikki's lawyer Eliza, the cases are pouring in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's becoming an epidemic. So what did we do with Nikki? We asked her what page is your information on. Give us the URLs. She has hundreds.

SEGALL: Has it affected your ability to get a job?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It affected my ability to walk into any interview. The second I walked in and looked them in the face I just wanted to look away and crawl under a rock and die because I don't know what they've seen and I didn't know how to bring it up.

SEGALL: If you could look at him right now, what would you say to him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would tell him thank you for absolutely forcing me to become the most amazing version of me that I never ever would have expected or known existed or would exist. I love me for the first time in my entire existence. And it's because of the character building that I was forced to do because of this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: Obviously it took her lot of courage to be able to speak out about this. And it gets weirder. As part of the series, I also spoke to a hacker who actually hacked into women's inboxes to steal nude photos. Those photos were posted all over the web. You can watch the whole special. It's called "Revenge Porn, The Cyber War on Women." That's tonight at 7:30. Back to you.

CABRERA: Definitely tune in for that. Again, in case you missed it, 7:30, Set your DVR right here on CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:41] CABRERA: I want you to take a look at your screen right now because just in to CNN the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for eastern Colorado and Southwestern Nebraska until 9:00 mountain time tonight. So this is beginning, all that severe weather we've been talking about. And forecasters say a few tornadoes are likely along with very large hail, possibly up to two inches in diameter and damaging winds of up to 70 miles per hour. We'll continue to keep a close eye on this developing situation.

Other top stories today, police in Australia have arrested a 17-year- old and charged him with terrorism offenses. They say he was planning an imminent terrorist attack. They say found they found three bombs after searching a home outside Melbourne.

And an event dubbed the Million Moms March is taking place in Washington right now. Dozens of African-American mothers from around the country are marching to the Justice Department, and their goal is to draw attention to children who have been killed during interactions with police. The event is organized by the mother of an unarmed man who was shot 14 times by cops in Milwaukee. Michael Brown's mom, by the way, is among those attended this event.

That's going to do it for me. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. I'm Ana Cabrera. "Vital Signs" with Dr. Sanjay Gupta begins now.

[14:30:00]