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Utah Boulder Vandal had Sued for Disability; U.S. Couple Wonders if "Maria" is their Child; Woman Faints During Obama Speech; Apple Expected to Unveil New iPads Today; Dick Cheney Feared Cyber Attack on His Heart; Mystery Face of Obamacare
Aired October 22, 2013 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Why would a plaintiff in a personal injury lawsuit post his own video tipping over an ancient rock formation? People do the darndest things with cell phones.
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's a strange thing that people will file these claims. And you'd think they would avoid the camera like the plague but instead they don't seem to think anyone will ever see it or any repercussions will ever come of it.
LAH: Or hear their excuses.
GLEN TAYLOR: Some little kid was about ready to walk down here and die and Glen saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way.
LAH: The Boy Scouts not buying it, booting these two leaders for irresponsible behavior.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, could a baby who vanished from her Missouri home several years ago really be the little girl rescued from a gypsy camp in Greece? You'll hear from the mom wondering if it's her missing child.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: A little girl rescued from a gypsy camp in Greece has parents in several nations wondering if she could be their child. She's known as Maria. And her picture has been circulating worldwide after the arrest of a couple who say they adopted her.
But a Kansas City family wants to know if Maria is their kidnapped daughter. CNN's George Howell is live in Kansas City this morning. Good morning George.
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol good morning. So we went over and knocked on the door here at the family's home. And either they're not home or choosing not to speak at this time. But we confirmed through their attorney that the FBI has reached out to officials in Greece to compare similarities between their missing daughter and a girl known as Maria. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL (voice over): This morning, there are new questions and perhaps new possibilities. Could this young girl, found in Greece, actually be from Kansas City?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like she's OK.
HOWELL: The parents of Lisa Irwin, the missing Kansas City toddler who vanished from her bed after an apparent home invasion in 2011 -- they reached out to the FBI who contacted Greek authorities. Because they believe this striking blonde-haired blue-eyed girl found in this gypsy camp could be Lisa.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no such thing as a tip too small.
HOWELL: The second anniversary of Lisa's disappearance was two weeks ago. And a new photo was released of what she might look like today. Similar to the girl found in Greece called Maria.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I dream about her all the time. And this is -- this is what I see in my dreams.
HOWELL: Some things don't add up. Lisa would be three years old. And medical tests indicate that Maria is five or six. But all possibilities must be ruled out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The claiming that we never abduct this child.
HOWELL: The couple claiming to be Maria's parents were arrested on suspicious of abducting a minor. DNA results confirm they are not her biological mom and dad. But Greek authorities are getting calls from around the world offering leads on the possible identity of the mystery girl.
So far, they're taking about ten of those leads seriously, including some cases from the U.S. one of them, Baby Lisa.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: Carol, so at this point, it's important to point this out. According to the group Smiles of a Child, Maria would be five or six years old, Lisa would be just three years old next month. Just seeing someone pull up here so after this live shot I'm going to go over and speak with them to see if the family wants to talk. So we'll get back to you after that -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right we'll let you go George Howell.
How heartbreaking for that family. It's unbelievable.
Checking other "Top Stories" this morning what's probably the most memorable moment during President Obama's health care speech yesterday. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The one illness -- you're OK. I'm right here. I got you. You're OK. This happens when I talk too long.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Wow, embarrassing. Now, the woman's name is Karmel Allison. She's a type one diabetic from San Diego who is also 20 weeks pregnant. She opened up to CNN's Piers Morgan about her headline making moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: The whole world was watching. And absolute horror as you suddenly teetered backwards but what was going through your mind?
KARMEL ALLISON, NEARLY FAINTED DURING OBAMA SPEECH: Mostly, oh, no, don't faint. And then the next thing I knew was being caught by the President and thinking, wow, that just happened. So you know -- it was an incredible honor to be there and I'm really happy to have been there today to support the President as he, you know, takes a stand and reinforces the importance of the ACA and the act and how important health care is for all of us. And I'm extremely embarrassed that I fainted but honored still to have been there and happy that he caught me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Yes she was a type one diabetic, which means she dependent on insulin which means she has a preexisting condition which is why she's for Obamacare. She also said she didn't have enough water that morning and the sun made here a little lightheaded.
Supporters of Daisy Coleman plan to hold a demonstration in Marigold, Missouri tonight. Coleman is a teenager who says a teenage boy raped her when she was 14 years old. A prosecutor previously dropped charged because he said Coleman and her relatives refused to cooperate. Now a special prosecutor is taking up the case and promising a thorough review.
It is a dream come true and an incredible story. Zach Hodskins is a star high school basketball player from Georgia who was born missing the lower left half of his left arm. Now he's getting a chance to play NCAA division one basketball. He's actually got a verbal commitment to play for the University of Florida as a preferred walk on. And Hodskins tells ESPN that they said he'd be treated just like every other player. Good luck to him. That's awesome.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the countdown is on. Will Apple unveil a new batch of iPads today? And what cool new features could it have? A look at what to expect next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Set your time, in less than three hours, Apple is expected to unveil a whole bunch of new iPads and as always rumors are swirling of even bigger surprises like an Apple Smartwatch or maybe even a new iPod. Joe Brown is the New York editor at Wired. Welcome Joe.
JOE BROWN, NEW YORK EDITOR, WIRED: Thanks. I'm happy to be here.
COSTELLO: I'm happy to have you here. So do you expect any incredible features on this new iPad?
BROWN: I mean I'm a big fan of things getting smaller and lighter. So for me that's a big deal. The new iPad is going to be smaller and it's going to be a little thinner. It will probably look a lot like the iPad mini you know it has less of the flare around the edges and more of a rounded square shape to it. It should have the same beautiful screen. And we should see a new iPad mini also with a higher resolution display.
COSTELLO: Well you know it's interesting I read an article the other day that saying like wow, what more can you possibly add to the iPad -- wings? I mean how much better could it possibly get?
BROWN: That's an interesting question. You know when you're looking at a tablet you sort of want it to disappear. You want it to be just this beautiful object that gets you focused right on the screen. And so getting the bezels really smaller is going to be key for Apple to keep making these things a desirable object and to keep making it new and exciting for people.
COSTELLO: -- which is getting harder and harder because it has competition now.
BROWN: Yes.
COSTELLO: Because Microsoft and Nokia they're also expected to announce new tablets this week.
BROWN: Yes and bigger competition, you know we have the Android tablets which are everywhere from a bunch of different manufacturers that are gaining a lot of traction because they have beautiful screens as well and they're a lot less expensive. I mean you can get the Nexus 7 which is a 7-inch table that competes directly with the iPad mini for, you know, almost half the price and it's a beautiful machine.
COSTELLO: Well and that brings up -- well let's talk about cost. Because Apple's thing, if you will, has been to you know provide the best products and they don't want to drop the price too much because that will tell consumers --
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Right.
COSTELLO: -- that maybe it's not as good.
BROWN: Well Apple has always occupied the sort of premium gadget space. And the thing that they do very well is they keep that price the same over a number of years. So the new iPad, when it came out, was $500 and for the lower -- lower level Wi-Fi and lowest number of gigabytes of storage. And this new iPad will also likely just be $500. So they've kept that price pretty consistent which is kind of a good value add right?
COSTELLO: Yes $500 bucks is still a lot of money. But I get what you're saying.
BROWN: It's a lot of money.
COSTELLO: I get where you're going. Wired New York editor, Joe Brown thank you so much for joining me this morning.
BROWN: Thanks for having me.
COSTELLO: In health news a team of British and American scientists claiming to be closer to a cure for baldness after growing human hair from tissue samples taken from seven people. The group says more research is needed but the procedure could, in their words, transform the medical treatment of hair loss.
Still to come, Dick Cheney and the terror threat that is not nearly as outlandish as it sounds -- cyber attackers targeting the heart device that keeps Cheney alive. It's possible. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: I just wanted to clarify something I reported earlier today on Obamacare. Companies like Trader Joe's and Home Depot have not reduced hours for their employees. Instead they're eliminating health insurance benefits for some part-time workers suggesting these workers get their insurance through Obamacare exchanges. I just wanted to make that clear.
By almost all accounts, the 9/11 attacks radically changed Dick Cheney and left the Vice President virtually obsessed with preventing another terror strike. And now we know that he feared becoming a target himself in a most unusual way. Terrorists would turn his lifesaving heart device into a weapon.
Brian Todd shows us the cloak and dagger scenario became an iconic TV scene made even more disturbing because the threat is very real.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): New concerns about a so- called body hack -- a cyber terror nightmare. Hackers send a signal to the heart device of American's vice president triggering cardiac arrest. It's a legendary scene in the fictional Showtime drama "Homeland".
Dick Cheney now says he once thought it could happen to him. Here is what he tells CNN's Sanjay Gupta on CBS' "60 Minutes".
DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was aware of the danger, if you will, that existed. But I found it credible because I knew from the experience we'd had and the necessity for adjusting my own device, that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible.
TODD: While in office, Cheney had an implanted defibrillator, a device in his chest that could shock his heart into rhythm. When it came time to replace his device in 2007, his doctor ordered the manufacturer to disable the wireless feature out of concern that hackers could remotely shock the Vice President into cardiac arrest.
(on camera): This is the device that was inside Dick Cheney's chest, an implanted defibrillator.
I'm with Dr. Susan O'Donoghue. She's an electro-physiologist here at the Med Star Heart Institute in Washington.
Doctor, why would this even need wireless capability?
DR. SUSAN O'DONOGHUE, MED STAR HEART INSTITUTE: The wireless capability allows monitory of the device from home. The transmitter can check the device at night and transmit information to be sure the device is working properly, that there have been no serious rhythm problems and that there's no fractures of the lead for instance and that the battery is working.
TODD: Can this control this.
O'DONOGHUE: This cannot control this. This is a one-way communication.
TODD (voice over): O'Donoghue says there's only a slim chance to access those controls remotely. To trigger a shock, you have to hold a wand right over the defibrillator she says -- a wand attached to a programming machine. But those are all in the hospital. So to hack, you would have to be just a few feet away from the patient.
O'DONOGHUE: Once you've initiated contact with this wand, you can be in the same room but wireless. The transmission is over very short distance.
TODD: But other medical devices can be hacked into remotely from a distance. One expert recently demonstrated how an insulin pump can be compromised wireless from a remote location using a radio.
Brian Todd CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And as a postscript, Brian tells us the Food and Drug Administration is stressing its concern that these devices potentially can be hacked. In fact just this past June, the FDA called on health care professionals and equipment manufacturers to tighten their space guards (ph) and security measures.
Checking other top stories this morning at 52 minutes past -- New Jersey State police still investigating the case of a male New York Jets fan caught on video hitting a female New England Patriots fan. But we learned the Jets fan served three years in prison for stabbing a teenager to death. It happened during a fight behind a pizzeria in 1995. The mother of the Jets fan was at the game with him on Sunday and said the female fan attacked him and he was merely defending himself.
Dash cam video shows a terrifying shroud of smoke and flames from those wildfires in Australia. The fires have burned through an area nearly as big as Los Angeles with more than 200 homes destroyed. Officials say the conditions tomorrow are expected to be about as bad as it gets.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, who is that woman on the Obamacare website? Jeanne Moos solves the mystery, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: The Obamacare software fiasco -- why cry, when you can laugh?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY LENO, TALK SHOW HOST: Having a rough day today -- kind of a rough day. A friend of mine was given six months by his doctor. Not to live, to sign up for Obamacare. It took six months --
JIMMY KIMMEL, TALK SHOW HOST: They're saying that if you are in need of healthcare you have two choices. You can wait for them to get the site fixed or you can enroll in medical school, graduate and then just take care of yourself. It's probably faster.
CONAN O'BRIEN, TALK SHOW HOST: President Obama is urging Americans who are having trouble with the Obamacare website to sign up for healthcare by calling a 1-800 number. The number is 1-800-we didn't think this through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: I told you it was funny. Let's talk about a young woman whose face was become synonymous with the Obamacare Web site. Everybody wants to know who she is. And so did CNN's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Have you seen the mystery girl? She's not missing, but she is almost impossible to miss.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: The troubled launch of President Obama's healthcare law --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bust roll-out of health care has not only embarrassed the White House.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Credibility death spiral.
MOOS: She's been floating across our TV screens, smiling out at us from our computers.
(on camera): Online at least this isn't the face of Obamacare. This is.
(Voice-over): And critics are having a field day tweeting congrats, rapidly smiling healthcare.gov splash page stock photo girl, you're now the most despised face on planet earth.
How would you like having your face associated with phrases like "problem plague".
(on camera): Watch your back, newscasters. She's behind you. Screen left.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN EARLY START ANCHOR: Takes the heat for the Obama website glitches.
MOOS: Screen right.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The problems --
MOOS: When we asked about her identity, the company responsible for building much of the Web site didn't call us back nor did Health and Human Services.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This is not a sort of lickety-split process.
MOOS: A small company that originally worked on the home page told us she was part of the mockup from the design folks.
We checked stock photo files, but couldn't find her face as even being defaced. Does she have Obamacare, someone tweeted.
Obamacare girl isn't getting the love the original Obama girl got back in 2008.
Some are crushing Obamacare girl by comparing her to Joey on "Friends".
MATT LEBLANC, ACTOR: As of today I am officially Joey Tribbiani, actor/model.
MOOS: But Joey's dream modeling job became a nightmare when he saw his photo plastered all over New York on a poster warning "VD -- you never know who might have it".
Are Obamacare girl's friends snickering like Joey's?
LISA KUDROW, ACTRESS: We're just laughing. You know how laughter can be infectious.
MOOS: But Obamacare is the treatment, not the disease. While the original Obama girl sang of health care reform.
Poor Obamacare girl gets the cold shoulder. And all she does is smile. The enigmatic, normally sought health care.
Jeanne Moos, CNN.
(on camera): If this is you, call me.
(voice-over): New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: I really enjoyed that. I hope you did too. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.
"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: An illegal adoption or an abduction? A couple now under arrest in Greece charged with kidnapping a little girl known as Maria. Could she really be Lisa Irwin, though a Kansas City toddler who disappeared two years ago? And all of this as news breaks today of another little girl being removed from a Roma family in Dublin Ireland.
Facebook back on the hot seat.
