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U.N.: Blame Humans For Climate Change; Detroit To Get $300M In Federal Money; Security Council Could Vote Today On Syria; Colorado Farmers Face Charges; Montana Rapist Released After 30 Days

Aired September 27, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Uncle Sam's hand to help Detroit, but is it anything more than a drop in the bucket for a city in serious financial trouble?

Plus, two cantaloupe farmers are facing charges after one of the deadliest outbreaks of food-borne illness in U.S. history so why now, two years later?

And Apple's newest software turns heads and apparently stomachs, too. Some customers say it's making them sick. The second hour of NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining us. We begin this morning with a blockbuster report on global warming, just released by the United Nations. It shows that the world is indeed getting hotter, sea levels are indeed rising, and humans are mainly to blame.

Scientists say they are 95 percent sure the things we do have contributed to a jump in temperatures across the globe during the last 60 years. Some of the more dire predictions suggest that some cities like Miami might be under water within a few decades, and Miami is where we find CNN meteorologist Chad Myers to tell us more about this. Good morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol. You know, on Wednesday, we drove here and I saw water in the streets on Miami Beach. There was water in the streets. I said you know what, it hasn't rained all day, what's going on, is there a water main break and they all looked at me and said no, dude, it's high tide. I went high tide, how can it possibly be flooding just because of high tide.

Well, in the fall, the water is warm. Warm water expands. The tides are higher because of the moon and the sun interaction and literally, Miami Beach is already flooding. There's no denying the fact that this is going on. I talked to some experts and some of their predictions are pretty scary.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS (voice-over): The ocean is rising quicker than in decades past and predictions made by some research scientists make the situation sound pretty dire. HAROLD R. WANLESS, DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: By the mid-part of the century, 2050, 2060, most of the barrier islands in the world are going to have to be evacuated.

MYERS: And that includes Miami. It's hard to imagine, iconic Miami Beach deserted, but it is obvious that rising water is already a common problem here. On a sunny day, a high tide is enough to flood some streets.

JAMES MURLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTH FLORIDA, REGIONAL PLANNING COUNCIL: We live on lime stone. It's like a porous sponge. We really can't use levees to hold back the water.

MYERS: While the city continues to find ways to deal with the excess water, many experts say there's no way to stop it.

(on camera): We saw barricades and sandbags all along Alton because the water sits there during high tide. Let's put one more foot of water on top of this for just a one-foot sea level rise from here from Miami Beach. Every single street that's blue will have water in it if we get a one-foot rise in sea level?

PETER HARLEM, GEOGRAPHIC INFO SYSTEMS CENTER, FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY: Yes.

MYERS: That's a problem.

HARLEM: The king tides, it will be higher than this, but this is seasonally showing you the places that are going to be affected first.

MURLEY: The important thing is, is to keep observing what's happening, to look at all the ranges and projections and then come back to the policymakers and say here's the actions you have to take.

MYERS (voice-over): The Southeast Florida climate change compact has been created to monitor and mitigate the harsh consequences of climate change.

MURLEY: They're not sticking their heads in the sand. They know this is a real problem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS: Carol, it's happening. It's here. We can see it. I saw it with my own eyes. In fact, I didn't even believe it, but it is warming. The water is going up. We can see it on the piers. We can see it on the pilings. We can see it on the growth on some of the pilings from where we were in 1945 to where we are now, 2013.

Now, we're talking about one foot. That was one foot. There are climate scientists that are talking six, not just one. So western part of Miami Beach may look more like Venice, how do we stop that, fix it, and work with it? No one really knows. I'm talking about Galveston and New Orleans and Tampa and Fort Myers, not just South Florida. All the cities along the coast, everybody wants to live on the water. The water's getting more dangerous. COSTELLO: All right, Chad Myers reporting live from Miami this morning.

A Detroit bailout from the federal government, you decide. Today, several members of President Obama's cabinet will be in the city of Detroit to hand out $300 million in federal grants. The money is just a drop in the bucket to what's needed. The city is $18 billion in the hole, but you'll remember back in July, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said the federal government would not bail out Detroit.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, ANCHOR, CNN'S "STATE OF THE UNION": Is there a federal bailout for Detroit?

JACK LEW, TREASURY SECRETARY: Candy, Detroit's got serious financial problems. They have been a long time in the making. We stand with Detroit and have been working with them, technical advice, working with the kind of programs the federal government has to see if there's anything we can do to help.

CROWLEY: But no major federal help that you can see for Detroit?

LEW: Through the normal federal programs, we will continue to work with them.

CROWLEY: Detroit is just sort of shrunk before our very eyes. This is something Detroit has to work out?

LEW: Detroit has serious challenges. We support Detroit in its efforts, but Detroit's going to have to work --

CROWLEY: Kind of moral support.

LEW: -- it out with their creditors.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Poppy Harlow has been covering what's been going down in Detroit. So how would you characterize this? I mean, is this normal channels for the federal government or is it a bailout that might get bigger over time?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. No, I want to make very clear here this is not a bailout. This is not going to be a bailout. I would call this like an emergency band-aid for Detroit for the services it needed most. I'm told by the Emergency Managers Office in Detroit that they were told unequivocally by the White House in April you're not getting a bailout. Politically we can't get the votes and every other city in need would come to us for a bailout if you got one.

Let's look at what Detroit is getting this morning, about $300 billion in federal grant money, $150 million to go fix what you're seeing on your screen, which are those blighted properties, abandoned homes, 70,000 of them in Detroit. They will try to clean those up because they are dangerous for the city, $140 million will go to transportation like city buses and a light rail system, $30 million in public safety. That's really important.

They are going to beef up the police. They are going to beef up firefighters, 150 new firefighters, new emergency equipment, things that Detroit residents really need and are really suffering from, but this is not a bailout. I want to make it really clear, when we were talking about the bankruptcy back in July when the city filed for the biggest bankruptcy ever in American history. We talked about city workers and city retirees.

This isn't going to change their situation. They're not all of a sudden going to get more of the pension money that they were promised or their health care benefits that are likely going to get cut. It's not going to fix that. This is going to fix the emergency situation in the city of Detroit right now in about an hour's time.

We will have a lot of representatives from the White House meeting with the governor of Michigan, the mayor of Detroit, the emergency manager, sitting down at the table to discuss this and then publicly announce it at about 1:00 Eastern.

COSTELLO: So why did the White House decide to get involved at this particular time?

HARLOW: So Kevin Orr, who is the emergency manager of Detroit who took over the city's finances a few weeks after he started his job, he went to the White House and basically asked for help. They said, as I mentioned, no bailout, that's not happening, but what's interesting is that in August, about a month after the bankruptcy announcement, Senator Karl Levin I am told from Michigan went to Kevin Orr, the emergency manager, and said here's a list, I'm talking dozens and dozens of grants where I think Detroit could get some money.

So that list was taken to the White House and I'm told that that's when the discussion to help Detroit really began in a concrete manner and they have been able to pull money from these different entities to help Detroit. Whether this is going to get bigger or not is yet to be seen. This is not going to be a federal bailout. It's not going to change the situation for the city workers there.

It's not going to change the situation for the creditors, but hopefully it's going to help the people that are waiting too long for police to come, that are looking at all these abandoned properties and that are really suffering in the city right now.

COSTELLO: Poppy Harlow reporting live this morning. Thanks so much.

Checking our other top stories at 9 minutes past the hour, the United Nations Security Council could vote on a draft resolution that would eliminate Syria's chemical weapons program. Last month, 1,400 people were killed in what the United States and other western nations say was a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government. If this resolution is approved, Syria could face legally binding obligations if it does not comply. But breaking the resolution may not automatically mean military action. It's a nightmare scenario for every airline passenger and it played out overnight in the skies over Idaho. A United Airlines flight had to make an emergency landing when the pilot suffered a heart attack. The flight was heading from Houston to Seattle when the co-pilot diverted the aircraft to Boise, Idaho. Once the plane landed, paramedics rushed the pilot to the hospital. Sadly, he later died.

A man tumbles off a subway platform in Boston. He walked off the edge of the platform and was lying on the tracks. You see him there. But you see three people rushing to help him and they managed to get him to safety. A spokesperson for the transit authority says trains were stopped so the man was never in any danger of being struck.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM their cantaloupe farm was linked to one of the biggest food-borne illness outbreaks in U.S. history. Now the two men that ran that farm are facing criminal charges. We'll talk about that after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Owners of a Colorado cantaloupe farm are facing federal charges this morning. This after a deadly listeria outbreak killed 33 people and sickened nearly 150 more. This all happened two years ago. Ryan and Eric Jenson face various misdemeanors after both the Centers for Disease control and the FDA linked their facility to the illness.

An attorney for 46 families affected says he was happy that the U.S. attorney realized criminal charges were appropriate. Now, the son of one of the victims is speaking out about his final days and the men the government says are responsible.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER (voice-over): When 92-year-old Paul Schwartz Senior ate cantaloupe contaminated with listeria at a restaurant back in August 2011, his health quickly collapsed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the morning of the 19th, he woke up and he couldn't move his legs. His condition gradually got worse. He didn't know us. The last time he spoke my name --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Paul died in December, a victim of one of the largest food-borne disease outbreaks in U.S. history. Farmers who grew, cleaned and shipped the tainted melons were arrested in Colorado and now face federal charges.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Way overdue. Way overdue.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Paul's son says the six years in jail the two men may face aren't nearly enough.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their life would be better, but you've got to be realistic and follow by whatever the law is.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Now he's become an advocate for more expansive food safety legislation. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A piece of cantaloupe shouldn't kill you. It shouldn't lead to your death.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Thanks to our affiliate, KMGH, for that report. The Jenson brothers, the farmers, have entered pleas of not guilty. They were released on $100,000 bond, but I would like to talk about this because it's so unusual. CNN legal analyst Paul Callan is here this morning. Good morning, Paul.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So criminal charges like these are rare but gosh, I can't count how many -- how much food in the United States has been affected by things like listeria and nobody has ever been charged. Why in this case were these farmers charged, do you think?

CALLAN: Prosecutors had a hard time coming up with charges, actually. As serious as this case is, it involved 33 deaths in 28 states, lot of people sickened and killed by this, they really could only come up with two charges that applied and those were both misdemeanor charges. Now they're facing six years in prison and $1.5 million in fines, but the charges the federal prosecutors finally came up with are charges that say if you put adulterated food into the system, you can be charged.

You don't have to have an intent to do it even if you do it accidentally. That's what they're charged with. It was basically they were using unclean equipment that wasn't spraying the cantaloupe to kill the bacteria properly, and they sold the cantaloupes, put them in the system, and 33 people dead, 46 families suing.

A CDC, Centers for Disease Control, investigation that reads like a medical novel. In the end, they tracked it back to this one farm that the Jenson brothers operated and they're now going to be prosecuted.

COSTELLO: So is the government alleging that they did this on purpose or was it accidental?

CALLAN: No, they're only alleging that they did it, and what happened was they bought some kind of a machine that's normally used to process potatoes and clean potatoes, and they didn't put the right type of chlorine, which is a cleaning agent that's used to clean the cantaloupe into the machine. Then they went on and sold the product, but that's enough under the statute, because you have a responsibility as a food processor to know what you're doing.

We think the FDA was involved in this. We think about the FDA investigating drugs. Well, food can be more dangerous than drugs if it's not processed properly. That's why we have these laws. But it's very, very rare to see a criminal prosecution. I can only find a record of four in the last ten years across the United States.

COSTELLO: So if this prosecution is successful, could it impact food safety laws in the country? CALLAN: Well, I think it will, because I think there are a lot of farmers out there who are probably unaware that they could be led away in handcuffs if they don't run a clean, safe facility. As a matter of fact, when these guys were arrested, even though it's a misdemeanor trial, misdemeanor charge, they were brought into federal court in shackles as if they were charged with homicide. So the federal government has taken this very, very seriously and I think it sends an important message.

COSTELLO: Paul Callan, thanks for your insight. We appreciate it.

CALLAN: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're welcome. We'll be right back. Americans take care of business.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: If you own an iPhone or iPad, Apple's newest software may be enough to turn your stomach. Customers are saying all the movements and zooming around are leaving them reeling from motion sickness. Some are even reporting vertigo-like symptoms. Come on, Alison Kosik.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: They are. They are. You know where they're reporting this? People are flocking to Apple's online forum complaining about this motion sickness while they use the new IOS operating system. It turns out this operating system animates the apps, they fly in and out of the screen and get you all over the place. Some people are saying it's making them nauseous.

Here's the reality of this zoom animation. It's not brand new but for some strange reason it's more intense on this version of IOS. I want to show you some of the comments on this Apple forum. They are pretty descriptive. One person saying this is everywhere on the IOS 7, making me nauseous, giving me a headache. It's exactly how I used to get carsick if I tried to read in the car.

Another saying I have the same problem after using it for 2 minutes, I felt nauseous. A total of 183 comments so far on this thread. They are also chatting it up on Twitter. Some people say they have actually downgraded back to the previous version of IOS because you cannot turn this zoom animation off or you can do as I do, ignore the fact that the little red exclamation point is saying upgrade, ignore it which is what I'm doing until hopefully the bugs are fixed.

COSTELLO: You just showed that effect, that was making me nauseous. We'll take your advice and do the same thing. Is Apple saying anything? Has it addressed what's a problem to some?

KOSIK: Well, we did put in calls. We put in e-mails into Apple. We haven't heard back yet, but you can really sense that frustration from people on the forum. They are basically saying customer support is kind of sending it up the chain to Apple and those who are experiencing this are urging others to call Apple and leave more feedback to hopefully make an impact to try to change this. But you know how these things go. It's a low road.

COSTELLO: Yes, it is. Thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, is it still a happy meal if it's healthy? McDonald's unveils big, big changes to its happy meal menu and its marketing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining us. A former Montana high school teacher convicted of raping a 14-year-old student is now free. He's out of prison. Stacy Rambold was released Thursday after just spending one month behind bars. Not the mandatory minimum sentence of two years. That brief sentence sparked outrage across the nation, in addition to comments from the judge that seemed to pin the blame on the victim.

Kyung Lah joins me to tell us more. Good morning.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Stacy Rambold, that man you're talking about, is enjoying his first full day of freedom after that one-month sentence you were just talking about, but if prosecutors get their way, it could be a short-lived reprieve from jail.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAH (voice-over): Stacy Rambold sped out of state prison, a free man, checking in with his parole officer.

(on camera): Hi, Stacy. I'm Kyung Lah from CNN. Can I ask you a few questions? Are you checking in with your parole officer?

LAH (voice-over): He dashed in, his head down. A short time later --

(on camera): Can I chat with you a little longer, sir? Talking about your one-month sentence.

(voice-over): Left for home, a former teacher not answering any questions from CNN about his one-month jail sentence. Rambold was arrested in 2008 and as he awaited trial, his young victim was tormented by other students for being a rape victim. Before the case was heard, she took her own life. To add insult to injury, the man who was supposed to represent justice, Judge Todd Baugh, sentenced him to one month behind bars, saying the teenaged victim seemed older than her chronological age and was as much in control as the then 49-year- old Rambold.

The judge, who has also repeatedly ducked CNN's questions, has since admitted the sentence may have been illegal. State laws mandate a two-year minimum for this crime. Rambold is now a registered sex offender and faces this long list of probation and parole conditions, 59 of them, to be exact. He can't be around children, go to a bar, get on the internet or even open up a checking account. What's more, this may not be the end of his legal story. Prosecutors have filed an appeal with the State Supreme Court and hope to put him back behind bars.

MARIAN BRADLEY, NOW MONTANA: I see hope on the horizon. I think as long as we know that it's happening, we can acknowledge it and we can do something to change it.

LAH: Hoping to finally find justice that has so far failed Cherice Moralez.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: But the wheels of justice moving very slowly in this case, that appeal with the state Supreme Court is not expected to be heard for the next six to 18 months -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Kyung Lah reporting live from Montana this morning, thank you.

Checking our other top stories at 29 minutes past the hour, the world is getting hotter and a new U.N. report says that humans are largely to blame for that. Scientists who looked at the jump in global temperatures over the last 60 years said human activity is responsible for at least half of that increase. The report also says that even if greenhouse gases are stopped today, climate change would go on for centuries.

A college student has been charged with federal extortion. The FBI says he hijacked the web cams of young women and then blackmailed them after taking nude pictures, among his victims, the current Miss Teen USA. The man was released on $50,000 bond. He's now on home detention with electronic monitoring.

Caught on camera, a car going more than 100 miles per hour in a police chase on a Florida highway slams into another vehicle and then careens off the road and goes up in flames. The driver was ejected. His teenaged passenger trapped in the burning vehicle.