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No Reported Cases of Ebola in Ohio Despite Possible Exposures; Survivalist Wanted for Killing a Police Officer Possibly Sighted; Hurricanes Threaten Bermuda and Hawaii; South Dakota Senate Race Surprisingly Close

Aired October 18, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: And just last night, a federal official said that the CDC will issue new protective equipment guidelines, in their words, "very soon." There's been a lot made over whether the protective gear was sufficient.

Let's go to CNN's Susan Candiotti in Akron, Ohio. And Susan, just a short time ago, news broke that the number of people being monitored has grown again. What have you learned?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, most importantly, we should start off by saying, once again, there are no cases of Ebola being cited by officials in Ohio, nor is anyone exhibiting any Ebola-like symptoms in the state of Ohio.

Now, they are, however, saying that they are increasing the number of people who they say have had some level of contact with nurse Amber Vinson while she was making her trip to Ohio just one week ago today. She stayed only with her parents, her stepfather and mother, and now -- and she also made a visit to the bridal shop. So the number of people with whom they say she had contact with at the bridal shop has now grown to a number of 28 people, 29 people, if you count the stepfather with whom she was staying at the house.

And Deborah, for the first time they are also telling us the number of people with whom she had some level of contact with on the flights that she was on, identifying 87 people who are currently in the state of Ohio but not necessarily live in the state of Ohio who were sitting with her on one of those airplane flights. They didn't say which one. And it really depends on whether she was close to them, far away from them. They haven't given us that level of information.

But all of these people are being monitored to some level or degree by the health department, monitoring them for any change in body temperature, this kind of thing. And if they have any change, any symptoms at all, they should report them to the health department. Deborah?

FEYERICK: And obviously Ebola is not airborne. It's passed through larger droplets. You can actually be exposed, but not infected. We understand there's a lot of sort of sanitary measures being taken right now. But what did the governor say about banning travel from countries that have been affected by Ebola? CANDIOTTI: Well, there's been a lot of discussion, as we all know,

over the past few weeks about whether the president should institute a ban on travel to countries from Africa to try to control -- as one way of trying to control the spread of Ebola. And so Governor John Kasich was asked that today here in the state of Ohio at a press conference, and he said in his opinion there should be a travel ban. Here's what he -- how he added on to that, explained it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOHN KASICH, (R) OHIO: When I have decided what we wanted to do with protocols, I have to make that decision. My sense is that if the president were to call me and ask me, I would say I think it makes sense to have that ban in place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: So this is what his opinion is. In the meantime, he said that the state of Ohio is continuing to do the best it can to exercise protocols to keep an eye on the situation here in the state of Ohio. Again, no cases of Ebola here. Deborah?

FEYERICK: All right, Susan Candiotti there for us in Ohio. Thanks so much appreciate that.

And two hurricanes are barreling through the Atlantic and pacific oceans. In the Atlantic, hurricane Gonzalo made a direct hit on Bermuda, downing trees and flooding streets. And 80 percent of people are out of power. And in the Pacific hurricane Ana is expected to narrowly miss Hawaii. Chad Myers has more on this double threat.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Deb, Gonzalo is now obviously dying off as it's getting into colder water. It will affect parts of eastern Newfoundland later today. Then it rolled right over, the eye rolled right over Bermuda, both sides of the eye. The eye wall on the north side and south side hit from different directions, and then the eye, at least for a while in the middle, was very calm. Winds, 96, down to 29, and then an hour later, up the 113-mile-per-hour gusts. That's when you know you got the eye, the eye right over that island for many hours. And 80 percent of the island now without power still, and they're going to have a number of hours, a number of days to pick up the pieces there. Still, a category one storm until its makes its way towards Newfoundland, and then down to a tropical storm at 70 miles per hour.

Ana in the Pacific could have been a land-falling hurricane. It was forecast to be a couple of days ago. That's why you have to watch the cone and not the line. The line was right over the Big Island. But the cone was not. The cone was south of the Big Island and also north because it was so far away. Well, the storm did miss all the islands, although missing with the wind and the eye, but not so much missing with the waves and also the potential for an awful lot of flash flooding. We could see six to eight inches of rain, and some spots on the mountains up here, obviously the volcanos, could get much more than that, could get a foot of rain. That could cause mudslides and could cause washouts. And so if you're going to be driving around, especially after dark tonight in the Hawaiian Islands, could be an awful lot of weather you still have to deal, even though Ana missed you. Deb?

FEYERICK: All right, Chad Myers, thanks so much for that.

And now to new evidence in the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting. Forensic tests are showing that blood from the victim, Michael Brown, was found on the police car of the officer who shot him. "The New York Times" reports that Brown's blood was also found on Officer Darren Wilson's gun, and the officer told investigators that Brown hit him repeatedly trying to grab for his firearm, leaving bruises on the officer's face and neck. The 18-year-old's August 9th shooting death prompted weeks of protests on the streets of Ferguson, raising serious question about police response in St. Louis and elsewhere.

Well, a suspected killer on the run may have been spotted in Pennsylvania. In the last hour, police say they believe a woman saw Eric Frein last night near a high school in the Poconos in the northeastern part of the state. That's near where he went to high school. Police say the person was dressed in all black and had his face covered in mud and was also carrying a rifle. Police have been searching for Frein since last month. They believe that he ambushed a state police barracks with a sniper rifle, killing a corporal and hurting another trooper. And today, Governor Tom Corbett said Frein will be caught.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TOM CORBETT, (R) PENNSYLVANIA: It is a community, it is a commonwealth, and a nation coming together over somebody who would assassinate is police officer, a state police officer in this case, and who is out there in those woods, woods that he knows very, very well, trying to avoid capture. That's not going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Frein is described as a survivalist, somebody who knows how to live in the woods, and somebody who also hates law enforcement.

Well, Election Day is a little more than two weeks away. You were counting, weren't you? CNN's Dana Bash is in South Dakota with a look at one unusual race.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here in South Dakota, we found a country crooner and a cowboy poet. Believe it or not, I'm talking about the Senate race here that could determine control of Washington. I'll have more on that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Midterm elections are just two weeks from Tuesday. Control of the U.S. Senate is at stake. Today we take a look at a race in South Dakota that wasn't supposed to be competitive but it has turned out to be just that. Here is CNN's chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash. BASH: Deb, the Senate race here was supposed to be a sure bet for Republicans, but their candidate just hasn't been able to put it away, giving fresh opportunity to his opponents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK WEILAND, (D) SENATE CANDIDATE: My vote is not for sale or rent. I just won't listen to the one percent.

BASH: Democrat Rick Weiland singing for his U.S. Senate seat.

Definitely not a usual tactic.

WEILAND: It's definitely creative, but it's also who I am.

BASH: He hardly has the corner on creative in this South Dakota race. Independent Larry Pressler reads cowboy poetry.

LARRY PRESSLER, (I) SENATE CANDIDATE: Your friend may have to take you on home, or remind you something, that you're not alone.

BASH: You're trying to send a signal about who you are in this race.

PRESSLER: Yes, who I am. I want to work with both sides.

BASH: Neither of these quirky candidates was supposed to stand a chance. This open Democratic seat was going to be an easy GOP pickup.

What happened?

MIKE ROUNDS, (R) SENATE CANDIDATE: We continue to tell them the same thing. Number one, South Dakota is a purple state. You take nothing for granted.

BASH: His message is actually like the others, change Washington.

ROUNDS: I have no intentions of going to Washington, D.C. and sitting on my butt. I want to see changes.

BASH: But Republican Nike Rounds has been under fire for abuses on his watch as governor of the federal program to swap green cards for business investments.

Did you do anything wrong, illegal?

ROUNDS: No. And in fact, that's been part of the challenge is refocusing the discussion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've heard about Mike Round's citizenship --

BASH: Not if national Democrats can help it. They had ignored the state but are now airing TV ads which forced Republicans to do the same. But Weiland is trying to keep it local and personal.

WEILAND: I want to get there on my own terms. I don't need the president of the United States. I don't really need the Democratic Party.

BASH: Weiland is a populist, and, some Democrats worry, too liberal for South Dakota.

You're left of center with your views, and this is a right of center state.

WEILAND: See, that's the national, conventional wisdom.

BASH: Still, Washington Democrats are hedging their bets. Independent Pressler, a former three-term GOP senator, won't say whom he will caucus with, but doesn't sound Republican.

You support Obamacare, which is anathema to Republicans.

PRESSLER: Yes, but isn't that strange, because if Romney won the election it would be Romneycare and then all the Republicans would have loved it.

BASH: His shoestring campaign touts his integrity with this ad, a 30- year-old report from Walter Cronkite on Pressler refusing to take a bribe in the Abscam scandal made famous by the movie "American Hustle," just one more reason this offbeat race is so in flux.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And there is a fourth candidate, Gordon Howie. He's a Tea Partier who hasn't gotten much traction, but even if he can take just a few points away from the rounds, that can hurt him here and the GOP chances in Washington to take over the Senate. Deb?

FEYERICK: Dana Bash, thanks so much for us.

And still to come, he called it the honor of a lifetime, but that honor was short lived. Why the vice president's son Hunter lost his job in the Navy Reserve.

But first, time for our weekly series "Tomorrow Transformed," which looks at how technology is changing society. This week Richard Quest shows us a new device that breaks the language barrier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It wasn't long ago if you wanted to talk to somebody who spoke another language, it required a lot of patience. You painfully looked up those words you couldn't pronounce or didn't understand in multi-language dictionaries like this. Today, it is adios to the book, because there are computer programs and mobile apps that will do all the tricky translation for us.

Machine translation research began decades ago. Only in the past 10 years has it become mainstream.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I do is just point it at that sign and it translates the sign.

QUEST: With mobile apps and websites, you enter text, such as "where's the kitchen," and it's translated instantly.

Good evening, Chris, this is Richard in Madrid.

This is the future. I'm having a conversation with Chris Wend. He works on translation technology for Microsoft. Chris speaks German, I speak English. Skype, a division of Microsoft, is doing the translation.

The Skype translator is scheduled to be out in beta at the end of the year. I had an opportunity to demo the new device.

It's not just family or friends. This could be used for serious business negotiations.

GURDEEP PALL, CORPORATE VP, SKYPE: The idea that people don't understand each other, and it's just going to be a thing of the past. We never think about, wow, those are the dark ages where you couldn't understand each other. That's where we're headed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: The younger son of Vice President Joe Biden has been dismissed from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine. The revelation came after a "Wall Street Journal" report. Here's CNN national correspondent Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HUNTER BIDEN, SON OF U.S. VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Vice President Joe R. Biden, Jr., my dad.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And 44-year-old Hunter Biden, Vice President Joe Biden's youngest son, was discharged from the Navy reserve after testing positive for cocaine. Hunter was commissioned in May of 2013 and assigned a coveted position as a public affairs officer in Norfolk, Virginia.

But U.S. officials confirm the very next month after reporting to his unit Biden was given a routine drug test, which he failed. Biden's brief military career ended with this statement -- "It was the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy and I deeply regret and am embarrassed that my actions led to my administrative discharge."

Hunter Biden comes from a proud military family. His older brother, Beau, is a major in the Delaware Army National Guard and served a year in Iraq. Military service has been a big part of the Biden family's public platform.

JILL BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT'S WIFE: I'm looking forward to standing with our son, Hunter, when he is commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy. He follows in the footsteps of two of his grandfathers who have also served in the Navy.

MALVEAUX: A source familiar with Biden's case confirms Biden received two waivers to join a special Navy Reserve program. Because of his age, the cutoff is 42, but Biden was 43 when he applied. The source says his strong academic record pushed him through. The vice president joked about his son's timing, unknowingly just a month before Hunter was discharged.

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a lot of bad judgment in my family. My son, who's over 40, just joined the United States Navy and is about to be sworn in as an officer, Hunter Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

MALVEAUX: The source says Hunter was granted a second waiver for a drug-related incident that took place in the late '80s, when Hunter was a teen, the source saying, "It's not uncommon because the incident it happened so long ago."

Hunter Biden, the lesser known of the vice president's two sons, is a married father of three, a managing partner of an investment firm, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Earlier in his career, he worked as a lawyer, lobbyist, and policy maker under President Clinton before joining his father on the campaign trail in 2008.

MALVEAUX: Sources familiar with Biden's case tell me that the Navy never contacted the vice president's office about the discharge because, like handling other 44-year-old Navy reservists, they wouldn't call their mother or father to tell them they were kicked off. It would be a private matter up to the individual. The vice president's office also sees this as a private matter and is not commenting.

Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: And there's a lot more on that story. You can logon to CNN.com. And also, still ahead in the newsroom, our Kyra Phillips talks to America's top military officer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So at what point do you say to the president, sir, I now recommend U.S. combat forces on the ground?

GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Yes, well -- want

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Well, from fighting ISIS to the battle to contain Ebola, the U.S. military has been very, very busy. CNN's Kyra Phillips sat down with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, and she asked him about the Ebola crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIPS: Are you, General Dempsey, worried about Ebola here in the U.S.?

DEMPSEY: I've been worried about Ebola globally for about 90 days. And I have had some on my staff that were probably a little more worried than I was even a few weeks or months before that.

PHILLIPS: Why?

DEMPSEY: I'm worried about it because we know so little about it. You know, you'll hear different people describe whether it could become airborne. If you bring two, you know, two doctors who happen to have that specialty into a room, one will say, no, there's no way it will ever become airborne, but it could mutate so it would be harder to discover. It actually disguises itself in the body, which is makes it so dangerous and has that incubation period of about 21 days.

Another doctor will say, if it continues to mutate at the rate it's mutating and if we go from 20,000 infected to 100,000, the population might allow it the opportunity to mutate and become airborne. And then it will be an extraordinarily serious problem. I don't know who's right. I don't want to take that chance, so I'm taking it very seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: All right, well, always a pleasure spending Saturday together with you. I'm Deborah Feyerick. "CNN MONEY" starts right now.