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Mega Typhoon Slams Philippines; Jobless Rate Inches Up to 7.3 Percent; Obama Apologizes To People Losing Their Insurance Plans Under Obamacare; CBS Reporter Admits "60 Minutes" Benghazi Attack Report Was Wrong, Apologizes; Toronto Mayor Video Released; Secretary Kerry in Geneva For Iran Talks; Redskins' Name Protested Before Game; Rivalry Express: LSU Versus Alabama; Inside A U.S./Mexico Drug Tunnel; Attorney: Jonathan Martin Harassed By Teammates During Time With Dolphins
Aired November 08, 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: Take a look at this dramatic video of a shipwrecked crew being pulled from the churning sea, and you see sheets of metal being ripped off roofs like in these pictures posted on Instagram. Across the Philippines, we're getting reports of flooding, power outages and landslides. The super typhoon has already killed at least three people. More than 700,000 people have reportedly fled its path and what's worst, hundreds of thousands affected are still recovering from a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that hit just last month. Australian reporter, Kathy Novak joins on the phone from the Philippines with more. Good morning.
KATHY NOVAK, REPORTER (via telephone): Good morning, Carol. Well, I can give you a sense of the kind of size of this storm. It's been said this storm covers an area about as large as the distance from Washington, D.C. to Miami. And if we compare it to Superstorm Sandy, which as you know caused so much destruction, that was a category 3 storm when it hit Cuba and category 2 storm when it crossed into the U.S. coast.
This is a category 5 storm, and the only reason it's classified as a category 5 is because the ratings don't go any higher than that. This is the power of the storm we're dealing with. It's expected to impact this country for the next 10 to 12 hours before it heads off towards Vietnam. Now the Philippines is made up of many small islands and the typhoon has been hitting at six different points making land fall and hitting areas on the coast where a number of homes are built.
Including as you mentioned, an area that was just hit last month by a major earthquake, which killed more than 200 and left more than 5,000 homeless. So these are people having to be evacuated into these evacuation centers. As you mentioned, roofs are being ripped off buildings. One of those roofs actually came off an evacuation center in one of these areas, and those people had to be moved again -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Sad story. Kathy Novak, thanks so much for your reporting this morning. Now after it passes over the Philippines, the super typhoon is expected to make landfall in Vietnam. That should happen within 48 hours. Now let's take a look at your money this morning, Wall Street is pretty sluggish. Just about 90 minutes after the feds released a job report that mixed at best. This morning, we learned that 204,000 jobs were created in October. That's much better gains than expected, but the nation's unemployment rate crept up to 7.3 percent.
So let's take a closer look at the numbers and what they mean for all of us. CNN's Poppy Harlow is in New York with that. Good morning.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. There was a big upside surprise in this number. As you said, 204,000 jobs added last month. Economists surveyed by CNN Money had thought it would be just 120,000. So we are higher, that is a good thing, but the unemployment rate, as you said, ticked up just a little bit from 7.2 percent to 7.3 percent.
Now, the big question in this number was it going to be way off very skewed because of all those federal workers that were furloughed for a few weeks in October because of the government shutdown. That really didn't play out. That may be one reason. It may be why that unemployment rate ticked up slightly higher because some of them were included in that, but we're not sure on that. But it's not a big jump like we expected in unemployment.
Take a look at what's on your screen. What you're seeing is the fact that this last month, October, was the third best month in terms of job gains for this entire year. We'll take the jobs, but I've got to give this caveat, Carol. You've still got 11.3 million Americans out of the work and 4.1 million of them have been out of work for six months or longer.
That situation for them is not getting better. There's still a lot of pain in the labor market, Carol. But overall, this number, again a big improvement from what we expected. I'll also mention August and September, two other months, those jobs report were revised significantly higher 60,000 higher than we thought. So that is also helping a bit, but the market is not reacting to it so much, really flip-flopping this morning.
COSTELLO: All right, Poppy Harlow, reporting live from New York this morning, thank you.
In the face of reports that millions of Americans are losing their insurance after the Obamacare launch, President Obama is apologizing. He's apologizing for telling the nation repeatedly that that wouldn't happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I am sorry that they, you know, are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me. We've got to work hard to make sure that they know that we hear them and we're going to do everything that we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: The president also took responsibility for the technical problems affecting the web site saying it's his job to get it fixed and vowing the site will be working probably by the end of this month.
A CBS correspondent now apologizing for a "60 Minutes" report on the attack last year in Benghazi, Lara Logan is now admitting she was wrong. She says she and her producers were lied to by a source who claimed to have been a witness to last year's attack on the consulate in Benghazi. Logan appeared on CBS this morning to apologize.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARA LOGAN, "60 MINUTES" CORRESPONDENT: The most important thing to every person at "60 Minutes" is the truth and today the truth is that we made a mistake. That's very disappointing for any journalist. It's very disappointing for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: During her appearance, Logan also denied a claim made in other reports that the source asked for cash in exchange for his appearance.
Checking other top stories at six minutes past, the mayor of Toronto caught on tape threatening to kill someone just days after admitting he smoked crack cocaine. The video was released by the "Toronto Star" and it does contain some bad language.
Now, we don't know the full context of the video or where it was shot. Ford told report hers he was extremely inebriated at the time. He's still continuing to refuse to resign amid all of the scandals.
Secretary of State John Kerry has just arrived in Geneva amid hopes that a deal can be reached on Iran's nuclear program and we just learned that Kerry says he'll meet directly with the Iranian foreign minister. Secretary Kerry says there is still some distance between the two sides. Earlier today, Iran's foreign minister told CNN that an agreement is expected to be reached before talks end tonight.
The push to get the Washington Redskins to change their name follows the team outside the nation's capital. Hundreds protested last night in Minneapolis just before the Vikings hosted the Redskins. The American Indian Movement called the protest an attempt to raise racism in sports. The Redskins owner has defended his team's name.
This week's rivalry express takes us to one of the fiercest rivalries in all of college football so let's head to Tuscaloosa, Alabama where the LSU Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide square off tomorrow. Hi, Carlos Diaz.
CARLOS DIAZ, "BLEACHER REPORT": Hi, Carol. Let's talk about the elephant in the room, shall we? Always right here, it's Big Al, the mascot for Alabama. And "Forbes" magazine has called this rivalry the biggest of 2013. And you have number one Alabama taking on number 13 LSU. And when these two teams come together, they're always out for blood.
And Saturday night should be no different here in Tuscaloosa. Alabama is fighting for their third national championship a row and LSU is going to do everything they can to stop that streak. Speaking of national titles, these two teams have been buying to win five of the last 10 BCS title games.
Tomorrow night's game in Tuscaloosa is going to be amazing, but the Tigers aren't scared, they took the win the last time these two teams played on Alabama's turf. That happened, of course, two years ago and it was dubbed the game of the century. Now on to last night's action, if Alabama makes it to the BCS championship game, the Crimson Tide probably will not be taking on the Oregon Ducks.
That's because last night, third rate Oregon got beat by fifth rank Stanford. Stanford crushed the Ducks at their national hopes. It was a very bad game for Oregon. They were down by 20 early on and could never recover. And to show Alabama how amazingly nice we are in Alabama, they printed up these T-shirts. Instead of we want Bama, it's we want to be Bama. It's a very rivalry express this week. Carol, back to you.
COSTELLO: OK, we'll let you get back to tailgating, Carlos Diaz.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, they are insidious as they are invisible, underground tunnels that smuggle illegal drugs into the United States. We'll take you on an extraordinary journey deep beneath the earth.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Along the U.S.-Mexican border, drugs flow into this country and most of those drugs don't slip through the border, they go underneath it. CNN's Miguel Marquez takes us inside one of the newly discovered tunnels that served as a drug pipeline.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the non-descript warehouse where this latest drug tunnel was found. This was the cover for this particular drug operation toys. They would move them from this warehouse to another far into the state of California. This is the plug for the tunnel, pretty simple stuff, just a very heavy piece of cement on a big wire connected to a man that could pull it up. This is the tunnel, down this hole and 600 yards away is Mexico and a whole other world. This is the air system.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct and this is the --
MARQUEZ: This would go to the Mexico side?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and you can see it not done really well. They have a power system to use for the spade and lighting.
MARQUEZ: And for lighting. So this is the sled on mining tracks they would move dirt out of the tunnel and drugs across the tunnel. They would have gone 1,700 feet, six football fields into Mexico to bring it into this area here.
(voice-over): The tunnelers weren't exactly on target as they dug.
(on camera): I take it, Joe, they came up here, thinking they were inside the warehouse and this is just outside the warehouse?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are absolutely 100 percent correct. Yes.
MARQUEZ: They -- how many times did they miss their targets?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That we can see, they missed it like about three times.
MARQUEZ: Digging through clay, the estimate it took about nine months and up to $2 million to construct. They get one shipment through, it worth it. You must assume one of these tunnels is always at some stage of being built.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do. We operate on that.
MARQUEZ: We're 35 feet, 40 feet below the ground now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.
MARQUEZ: And this was dug clearly with pretty rudimentary tools of some sort.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. These that you see here are exactly the markings that a pneumatic spade, a hand held tool would do. The other tools we found down here believe it or not are a pick ax and a shovel.
MARQUEZ: This is amazing. You descend and when you get here it a hole.
(voice-over): Tunnels like this ever more important in the drug trade as border security increases, Mexican drug cartels have to work harder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are pushing them literally into the air, under the ground and into the ocean.
MARQUEZ (on camera): Despite this being a sophisticated tunnel, it's not as sophisticated as they have been. There are rough stairs up to the surface here. Presumably they say there would have been an elevator. You can really feel the lack of oxygen, as you make your way in through it. It's quite an experience.
This tunnel never got fully operational. They busted it before it went online. They say had it been operational, millions if not tens of millions dollars of drugs could have moved through there daily. Miguel Marquez, CNN, on the U.S.-Mexico border.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, you've heard of bring your kids to work today and bring your dogs to work today. What about drink your parents to work today? It's a growing trend. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: We all know about take your kids to workday. Junior gets a day off from school to see what mom and dad do at the office. But would you want to take your parents to work? Have mom and dad follow you around when you make photocopies? Does anyone make those anymore? Who wrote this script, seriously? Anyway, that very thing just happened on Thursday with a networking site LinkedIn serving as the sponsor of "Take your parents to work day." But before you knock it, meet someone who loves it. CNN digital correspondent, Kelly Wallace. Kelly, welcome.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello. The person who wrote that script might be mom or dad, right?
COSTELLO: Exactly. But seriously, when I first heard about this idea, I thought of helicopter parents wanting to be involved of every aspect of their kid's life and that was the real meaning behind this idea.
WALLACE: Exactly. I mean, I had that same feeling. We have stories about parents calling up admission counselors to get their kids into college and get their kids jobs, but now, mom and dad going to the office? But then I talked to parents. And guess what, it was less helicopter parenting. Many of these parents say, no way are we helicopter parents. They just say they really don't know what their kids do and I think in this kind of digital age, a lot of parents frankly don't know what their kids do, essentially those in the tech profession.
COSTELLO: My parents have come to my workplace and they've been in the control room. But do we really need a day for that? Don't most kids want their parent -- do we really need a day for that, Kelly?
WALLACE: Come on. Here's one thing. The survey by LinkedIn did find that 50 percent of the parents said that they could help their kids a little more --
COSTELLO: Come on, there it is.
WALLACE: I know. But maybe just help them a little bit. If they say, I'm having a problem at work or I'm trying to go for this promotion, but I don't know what to do. How can they help if they don't know the difference between a web designer or someone else in the field. Also, one of the women I talked to, my parents said they don't have any place of a workplace right now.
She works in a place where they sit on yoga balls. And when I talked to my parents -- and they were so lovely -- she said I don't think they really kind of understand where I am and what I'm doing. In a way for relating, she thought be fun for her for them to have a better sense to see her everyday life.
COSTELLO: I'm going to try to rethink things. Kelly Wallace, thanks so much.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the bullying case, it's turned a glaring spotlight on the NFL and what is one of the richest business brands in America. Just ahead, a special 30-minute look at the sport, the scrutiny and the men who have made it their lives.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO (voice-over): The National Football League, the league of Aaron Hernandez, Sean Peyton, and Richie Incognito, the Miami Dolphins and the ever-growing spotlight in what America's favorite sport has become on and off the field.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, at this level, you're a man. You know, you're not a little boy.
COSTELLO: Concussions, cover ups and culture.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The type of culture that I championed since the day that I walked through these doors has been one of honesty, respect, and accountability to one another.
COSTELLO: From touchdowns to take downs. What we see when we turn on the big game on Sunday afternoons? A billion dollar-backed bullet proof brand, a NEWSROOM special report starts now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: And good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. For the next 30 minutes we'll be taking an in- depth look at the NFL, the brand, players and all of this, after a bullying incident thrust Miami Dolphin's offensive lineman, Richie Incognito, into the national spotlight.
This morning, a close up, big picture look at the culture within the league, I'll be tweeting during the show, by the way or you can drop a comment on my Facebook page. It's facebook.com/carolcnn. But let's start with this, brand new bombshell accusations in the Miami Dolphins bullying saga.
For the first time we're hearing Jonathan Martin's side of the story through his attorney. Martin's attorney releasing a strongly worded statement bashing his teammates saying in part, quote, "Jonathan endured harassment that went far behind the traditional locker room hazing, beyond the well publicized voicemail with his racial epithet. Jonathan endured a malicious physical attack on him by a teammate and daily vulgar comments."
The attorney also slammed any claims that Martin just wasn't tough enough for the NFL locker room culture. Quote, "Jonathan has started every game with the Miami Dolphins since he was drafted in 2012. At Stanford, he was the anchor for Jim Harbaugh, and he protected his blind side." Several Dolphins players have recently spoken out about Martin's claims of harassment specifically against offensive lineman, Richie Incognito. Many claimed the two were friends. CNN's John Zarrella is in Miami with more on that. Good morning, John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know Wednesday out at Miami Dolphins training camp, after practice, the players were very, very open. They had something they wanted to say and they said their piece. Now the coaching staff has not been open at all throughout this or very, very little has been said by the coaches, but even yesterday the players decided that was it. All they wanted to talk was football.
