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Castro Pleads Guilty; Fast Food Workers on Strike; Keeping Babies in Clean Diapers Proves Difficult; New Movie, Familiar Plot; Memorial For Victims of Train Crash in Spain; NASA Finds Hole in Sun; Actor Fights for Sperm Donor Rights

Aired July 29, 2013 - 13:30   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome back. His father will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to 937 counts, including murder and kidnapping.

Now Anthony Castro, Ariel Castro's son is speaking out. Ariel Castro accepted a plea deal for the abduction and rape of three Cleveland women he held captive for a decade. The deal allows him to avoid the death penalty.

Anthony Castro, the son, says his dad needs to be in prison forever. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY CASTRO, ARIEL CASTRO'S SON: I think it's the best possible sentence. I think that if he really can't control his impulses and he really doesn't have any value for human life the way this case has shown, then behind bars is where he belongs for the rest of his life.

Right now I can't see any scenario where I would go visit him. I -- he's been lying to his family for the past 10, 11 years at every possible turn. I have no trust in him. I can't see myself going to visit him and giving him the opportunity to face me and lie to me again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Anthony Castro says he didn't know what was going on inside that house in Cleveland and he finds it hard to believe that anyone would commit such horrible crimes, much less his own father.

In some cities getting your fast food may be a bit slow this week. Fast food workers are walking off the job in several big cities across the country. They are demanding higher wages and want the right to join unions. Today they are protesting outside of McDonald's and Wendy's locations across New York City and parts of St. Louis.

The rallies will hit Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Missouri and Flint, Michigan, the rest of the week. CNN's Zain Asher is working the story for us from New York City. She's joining us now.

Zain, currently what the median wage for nearly 50,000 fast food workers in New York City is, what, $9 an hour. That comes out to about $18,500 a year. That's below the poverty line for a family of four.

So how much are the workers asking for?

ZAIN ASHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Wolf. In an ideal world, they would want about $15 an hour and they are more than willing to walk out on their shifts in the middle of the afternoon to get it. Now what they are asking for double is pretty much what they are paid now, which is roughly around $7.25 an hour. New York is actually one of the states where the minimum wage is equal to the federal minimum wage.

I went to these protests earlier on today, just a few hours ago. And I saw about 50 workers hitting the streets, telling me that they really want these large fast food chains, McDonald's namely and Burger King and Wendy's to just listen to what they have to say.

One of the guys I spoke to says that he thinks that these fast food chains view their workers as completely disposable.

I'm just going to show -- just come back to me for just one second. Here is one of the signs that these workers actually held up. It's in Spanish. And I'm going to translate it for you on the spot.

It says, "Strike for a larger wage in order to survive in New York City." And that's really the bottom line. They really feel as though they cannot survive on $7.25 an hour, especially when you consider that $11 an hour is what you need to be above the poverty line and the living expenses in New York, they believe, warrant a higher wage.

Take a listen to what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKLIN LAPAZ, STRIKING WORKER: I have a second job and I'm trying to catch up on bills. And this is -- living in New York City is so expensive. You have to think about transportation, high taxes, food. Everything is just so expensive here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ASHER: Right. And lastly, Wolf, McDonald's and Burger King both told CNN that many of their restaurants are franchises and so they don't have direct control over what employees are paid.

Wolf?

BLITZER: The minimum wage, $7.25, it hasn't been raised in several years. Zain Asher in New York, thanks very much.

The fast food worker protest comes just as Congress gets set to go on a month-long August recess. And one of the big issues for the Obama White House had been trying to raise the minimum wage.

Can these fast food workers live off of $7.25 or $9 an hour? Let's discuss with Dave Jamieson. He's a labor reporter for "Huffington Post." Dave, the White House mentioned the low wage worker protest in a blog written last week by Gene Sperling, the director of the National Economic Council. And among other things, he wrote this.

He says, "Marking four years since the last increase, Americans across the country are making the case for why raising the minimum wage is good for workers and the economy."

So why are these protests bubbling up right now?

Do they really have a shot at changing much?

DAVE JAMIESON, "HUFFINGTON POST": Well, I think they are bubbling up now simply because a lot of workers are fed up. These workers at the very bottom of the economic ladder, a lot of them have been going backwards since the recession ended. Whatever raises they received are not enough to keep up with the cost of living.

And these workers are tired of it. They look around; they see a company like McDonald's, which had net income of something like $1.4 billion last year, a CEO making $8 million or $9 million.

So if you're a fry cook in Midtown Manhattan at a McDonald's, you got to put yourself in that guy's shoes. He's probably looking around. He sees the money executives are making and he sees the profits the company is pulling in, and he's wondering where his piece of the pie is.

BLITZER: But they're asking, what, for $15 an hour, going in some cases from $7.25 an hour or $9 an hour.

How realistic is that?

JAMIESON: Fifteen dollars, I think we'd be very surprised if we saw McDonald's giving that significant of a raise any time soon.

But the fact is that is closer to what you would need in order to really get by, especially in a town like New York. The minimum wage, the federal minimum wage, which, by the way, prevails in a place like New York City, the most expensive place in the country by many measures, it's still $7.25 there.

I talked to a fast food worker up there, who the last raises he has received were all courtesy of minimum wage raises. So the president wants it to go to $9. Several years ago on the campaign trail in '08, he wanted it to $9.50 by 2011.

So we're already a few years behind and at a lower goal than the president was at a few years ago. But I think the president obviously is making a priority out of this and whether House GOP is going to go along with it, that's a different story.

BLITZER: Dave Jamieson, thanks very much for coming in.

JAMIESON: Thanks, Wolf. BLITZER: Having a child is, of course, a huge responsibility, not to mention it gets very expensive from the food to the toys to the diapers, so pricey, in fact, some mothers, they are now struggling to pay for the most basic necessities and they say the government isn't able to help.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Keeping your baby in clean diapers: a new survey finds it's an incredible struggle for a lot of mothers out there. Our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is joining us right now.

Elizabeth, this really disturbed us. These moms say they don't have enough diapers to change their babies as often as they like.

What's going on?

ELIZABETH COHEN, SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf, and there are real health risks to this. So first let's take a look what they found when they did this survey at Yale University.

They took a look at 877 low-income moms; 30 percent said they did not have enough money to buy enough diapers and 8 percent said they did things to stretch the supply, such as reusing diapers. Now the ramifications of that are diaper rash, also urinary tract infections are going to be more common if you're not using completely clean diapers.

And when you see the costs, Wolf, I think you'll see why they are doing this. The cost of keeping them in diapers is about $80 a month. If you have two children in diapers, it's $160. And you know what, Wolf, there are no diaper stamps from the federal government. There's no specific kind of aid to help these women. Wolf?

BLITZER: So what are these moms supposed to do?

COHEN: Well, you know, these authors are affiliated with something called the National Diaper Bank. And if you go to their website -- which I'll tell you how to do that in a minute, moms can see there's a state-by-state listing of places that might be able to help you out.

CNN.com/empoweredpatient, we have all that information.

BLITZER: And what about, instead of disposable diapers, the cloth diapers? Why not bringing back cloth diapers?

COHEN: Right. There's a couple of issues with cloth diapers. First of all, there's a larger investment that you have to put forth up front in order to use cloth diapers. They might save you money in the long run, but up front you have got to have the money.

Also a lot of day care centers won't take a child in cloth diapers. That's an issue for many of these moms. And also a lot of these moms, Wolf, they don't have washers and dryers so they use Laundromats. And many Laundromats, they won't let you clean soiled cloth diapers at their facility.

BLITZER: Wow. All right. That's a serious problem out there. Elizabeth, thanks very much.

An unarmed black man is shot and killed and we're not talking about Trayvon Martin. This man's story is now a movie called "Fruitvale Station." We're going to hear what the director has to say about it.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Much of the nation has been focused in on the death of Trayvon Martin and the trial of George Zimmerman in recent weeks and months. But before that killing, there was another one. Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man was shot and killed by a police officer in Oakland, California. Today the officer is free. He served less than a year in prison. The memory still stings and it's now the subject of a groundbreaking film. CNN's Nischelle Turner reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (from captions): "There's gunshots."

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two years before the Trayvon Martin shooting became nationwide news, the Bay Area erupted over a case with disturbing parallels.

Oscar Grant was young, African-American and unarmed. Despite committing no crime, he wound up shot to death by a figure of authority -- in his case, a Bay Area Rapid Transit cop.

Grant`s death in Oakland`s Fruitvale BART station was caught on cell phone cameras and triggered local riots. But, it faded from national headlines and might have stayed that way if not for 27-year-old Oakland native and budding filmmaker, Ryan Coogler.

Coogler wrote and directed "Fruitvale Station," a fictionalized look at the last 24 hours of Grant`s life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shot fired. Prepare.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm just trying to get home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is going on?

TURNER (voice-over): I spoke with Coogler and his cast at the Sundance Film Festival, where he told me Grant`s killing hit him and Oakland hard.

RYAN COOGLER, FILMMAKER OF "FRUITVALE STATION": It really shook us to our core and to be totally honest, we haven't recovered from it. If this is capable of happening here, you know, it's capable of happening anywhere. And it does. You know what I mean. It still does.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Next stop, Fruitvale Station. TURNER (voice-over): Coogler and his stars, Michael B. Jordan, who plays Grant, and Octavia Spencer, who plays Grant`s mother, see a connection between the deaths of Grant and Trayvon Martin.

MICHAEL B. JORDAN, ACTOR, "FRUITVALE STATION": I think it goes back to the quick judgment, you know, putting stereotypes on people.

OCTAVIA SPENCER, ACTOR, "FRUITVALE STATION": These were young men who deserved, you know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness just like everybody else. They were human beings.

TURNER (voice-over): Coogler filmed part of his movie at Fruitvale Station, where Grant was killed.

COOGLER: It was very moving, you know, a very emotional process for everybody involved.

TURNER (voice-over): The Oscar Grant he portrays is neither all good nor all bad, but a human being, who was struggling to get his life together.

JORDAN: Really tragic was that this guy didn't come home to the people that he loved most. The tragedy was that this 22-year-old dude didn't get a full chance to figure out his life out.

TURNER (voice-over): A life, like Trayvon Martin`s cut short -- Nischelle Turner, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: The police officer argued that he thought he was shooting him with a Taser as opposed to a real gun. That's why he served a year or so in prison. "Fruitvale Station," by the way, was shot in 20 days and its small budget was supported mostly by grants. But in nationwide release this past weekend, it ranked 10th at the box office and it's raked in more than $6 million.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER (voice-over): Take a look at this picture of the sun. It's got a giant black hole on it. That's a new discovery scientists have found. We'll explain what it means.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER (voice-over): A memorial service is getting under way this hour for the 79 people who were killed in last Wednesday's train crash in Spain. We're showing you live pictures, coming in from the scene right now. Two American women were among those who died.

The driver of the train is now charged with 79 counts of homicide by professional recklessness. A court has granted the driver conditional release, but his license to operate a train is suspended for six months. He also has to report to a court every week and he has surrendered his passport.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Police have restored order in Huntington Beach, California, after a brawl broke out in the streets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER (voice-over): The violence erupted at the end of a surfing and skating event. When officers first tried to disperse the crowd, the fight moved into the downtown area. Police arrested eight people and are looking for more suspects. They're asking the public for any video or pictures of the disturbance. No injuries were reported.

There could have a major tragedy in northern Arizona after heavy rain hit the region; 33 people were on board a tour bus from Las Vegas when it got caught in a downpour. The bus was pushed nearly 300 yards by floodwaters before it tipped over. The water was up to 8 feet deep. The passengers and driver all made it to safety without any injuries. One of the rescuers says they're all beyond lucky.

Two deaths are blamed on the flash flooding in North Carolina. The bodies of a man and a child who were swept away by the floodwaters were found over the weekend. Parts of the state's Piedmont region got up to a foot of rain in just 12 hours.

The flood swamped homes and businesses and knocked out roads and bridges. Rescuers were called out after dozens got trapped in their vehicles. In one county some roads might not be open again for three months.

NASA says it has spotted a giant hole in the sun. Chad Myers is joining us to explain what's going on.

Chad, what is going on?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's a dark spot on the sun. Now I do not want you, anyone, please, to go out and look at the sun.

This dot, this spot, this black area, is not there to the visible eye. It's not there to the visible spectrum. You have to have a special telescope looking at special wavelengths.

What typically happens is the magnetic field flies out of the sun and it's recaptured back down here. But this large black dot, coronal hole, is an area where all the magnetism continues to flow away from the sun and doesn't get captured back down. This was discovered about three or four weeks ago here, a large black hole, coronal hole, has rotated around the other side.

Another coronal hole is here. This is not a sunspot. This is not actually there. This is a cool spot on the sun, kind of cool to look at. You can go to spaceweather.com and see these all the time on the left side of the screen. Coronal homes, though, some of this wind, some of this coronal wind, this coronal, almost mass ejection coming at us, could approach the atmosphere of the Earth in a couple of days. That could affect maybe some radio frequencies and things. But, otherwise, it's just kind of cool to look at, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes. Kind of cool, indeed. Good explanation, Chad, very smart guy indeed, you know all that stuff. Thank you very much.

The actor Jason Patric is fighting for more parental rights for sperm donors. We're going to hear in a moment why this fight is very personal for him.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The actor Jason Patric is making a high-profile push for new legislation in California to protect sperm donors. His crusade stemmed from a custody dispute with a former girlfriend. The new bill would allow donors to sue for parental rights. He told "NEW DAY's" Chris Cuomo about what happened in his own case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON PATRIC, ACTOR: Well, that's a known donor sperm form, which means you waive all your rights if you have a known donor.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Right. But what was signed by you and Danielle is an intended parent form.

PATRIC: Right.

CUOMO: That's like 20-plus pages --

PATRIC: That's right.

CUOMO: -- of your signatures. It says in here that obviously you're intended parents, that you have to notify the state if you change your partnership.

PATRIC: That's right.

CUOMO: And that if the -- God forbid something happens to the mother, the embryos would go to you?

PATRIC: That's right.

CUOMO: And all of this was signed by you and Danielle?

PATRIC: And a witness at the fertility firm, yes.

CUOMO: And to you what does this mean?

PATRIC: That I intend to parent this child. The word "parent" means to beget, birth, nourish or raise a child. So if I'm signing Jason Patric intends to parent and Danielle Shriver is signing intended parent next to me, not only are we the parents, but she's in effect confirming that she wants to raise this child with me.

CUOMO: But the judge, like, kicked you right out of court. He didn't -- why didn't he regard this as the contract for parenting?

PATRIC: Because he misinterpreted this. And that's the whole point of this bill that Senator Hill is putting out.

It's not really a new law. It's a clarification of the law's original intent. It was never meant to stop someone who just wasn't married and have to use IVF from proving he's a father in another way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Patric speaking with our Chris Cuomo earlier today.

That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back later today, 5:00 pm Eastern in THE SITUATION ROOM. But for now, it gives me great pleasure to welcome back Brooke Baldwin. She picks up our coverage.

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: It's a brazen crime right out of the movies, $130 million plus in jewelry stolen. And now the international search is on for this armed robber.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give it up for Amanda Berry!

BALDWIN (voice-over): Two victims kidnapped in Cleveland trying to get back to normal. Amanda Berry surprises crowds at a concert. And Gina DeJesus speaking publicly about a unique gift.

Plus, the pope candid and controversial.

POPE FRANCIS (through translator): If a person is gay and accepts the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge them?

BALDWIN (voice-over): His comments on gay priests and women in the clergy have people all around the world talking.

Plus, what's a million-dollar-plus payday worth?