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Midwest, East Coast Hit With Early Season Snow; Daytona 500 Winner Trevor Bayne Has M.S.; California Real Estate Markets To Watch; Dolphins Owner To Meet Martin Tomorrow; Toronto Mayor Booed At Veterans Event; Sea World Challenges Swim Ban; Gas Prices Slip Below $3/Gallon; Couple Finds $98K Stashed In Desk; Prosecutor: Husband Pushed To His Death May Have Been Blindfolded
Aired November 12, 2013 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: But everyone else, seeing it's their first chance of these snow flurries really anywhere from the mid-Atlantic all the way down, yes, trying to even get into the south. Unbelievable, that is like a month early to be seeing some of these snow flurries. We talked about the heavier stuff around the Great Lakes, so maybe two inches to seven inches kind of about the rain between three inches to five inches, of course, around some of the other lakes today.
The big story of course, being the cold air behind the cold front. You can actually see the front making its way through early this morning where rain switched over to snow. A lot of people were taken by surprise. Temperatures like in the 50s this morning. Cold front came through and temperatures quickly dropped.
Behind it, let's talk about the cold air. Look at this high pressure. It's spreading even into the east. Here go these temperatures and Chicago is cold enough at 35. But look how low this cold air goes. We're talking about through Texas. Dallas, a high today of only 47 degrees. Nashville, same thing, 20 degrees below normal at 43 into tomorrow it stays.
You don't even get the pretty snow. You just have cold air hanging in place. Boston tomorrow your high of only into the 30s and then we all get up and go to work. I could actually wear a dress without a jacket today. And tomorrow we're talking 20 and 30s from Texas to a little place called Georgia? You might be familiar with it -- Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: At least I won't be alone in my pain.
PETERSONS: Me neither.
COSTELLO: Thanks, Indra. We appreciate it.
Now to the bombshell announcement rocking the NASCAR world this morning: The 22-year-old Daytona 500 winner, Trevor Bayne, has been diagnosed with multiple scleroses. He says he's going to continue to race, though. "Bleacher Report's" Andy Scholes is here and our chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, is just walking on to the set because we want him to explain what MS is and what it will mean to this talented young driver -- Andy. ANDY SCHOLES, "BLEACHER REPORT": Yes. It's sad for Trevor Bayne because he was the youngest winner in the Daytona 500 history. He is expected to have a very promising career and he still might, but you know, M.S. is a very debilitating disease as I'm sure Dr. Gupta will explain to us here in a minute.
But you know, he's had problems before. In 2011, he was admit the to the Mayo Clinic because he had fatigue, nausea, and they thought that was all stemming from an insect bite he got while racing at the Texas Motor Speedway. But of course, now we're learning more. They said they thought, you know, back then it was an inflammatory condition, but of course, we are finding out now that it is in fact M.S. as he announced today.
COSTELLO: He's determined to continue racing, right?
SCHOLES: Yes. He is determined to continue racing. We actually have a quote from him. He said, "I've never been more driven to compete. My goals are the same as they've been since I started racing. I want to compete at the highest level. And I want to win races and championships. I am the best -- I'm in the best shape I've ever been in and I feel good." So he's in good spirits. It's look like he is going to try to continue.
COSTELLO: And of course he's a fighter. We know he is a great competitor, but of course, he is a fighter. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here. So explain to us first, M.S. is a neurological disease, right?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Basically, you have nerves in the body and there's a coating around -- think of them like wires. If you lose a coating around a wire, it doesn't conduct as well. It's the same sort of thing with M.S. That coating deteriorates in certain parts of the body and sometimes it comes back and sometimes it goes to other parts of the body. That's how M.S. is sort of characterized.
COSTELLO: Can it affect your physicality?
GUPTA: It can. People can develop numbness and weakness. And one of the hallmark sort of an M.S. is you may have, for example, blurriness in your left eye and then it goes away, and then numbness in the right foot. It can really affect anywhere in the body.
COSTELLO: So that's scary because this guy drives cars for a living at very high speeds. Why is it safe for him to continue driving?
GUPTA: Unlike with a stroke, it's not that these things come on suddenly. So you know, I think obviously he's going to be monitored very closely for any neurological changes. There are certain medications that can help stave off for how long symptoms return. Right now, it sounds like he is symptom free, very important. And also, other things, for example, heat can really bring on symptoms. So by keeping the inside of that car really cool, there will probably be special things done for him to help him out.
COSTELLO: And I would assume, Andy, he's gone through many, many tests. NASCAR required him to do that.
SCHOLES: Yes. Like I said, he had that condition in 2011. He had a spinal tap while he was in the hospital while they were trying to figure what was going on with this and it wouldn't be safe for him to be out on the race track if he's going to be numbness in any of his limbs.
COSTELLO: Definitely so. So you said you can take drugs to control symptoms, but the symptoms may not be apparent for many years.
GUPTA: They may not come back for some time. It's not like he's in the middle of a race and he's suddenly going to develop that problem. It comes on more slowly. At some point, MS can progress to something that's known as progressive ms meaning the symptoms never go away you just start getting more and more symptoms.
COSTELLO: He's just so young. He is 22 years old.
GUPTA: That's 20 to 40 is often when people are diagnosed.
COSTELLO: It hurts. Andy Scholes, Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.
In 2006, housing bubbles were the big problem in real estate. Now the property prices are starting to recover, there are signs they're starting to reappear in some parts of the country. Sounds pretty scary, right?
CNN's Christine Romans is in New York hopefully to calm us down.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I can tell you it's pretty isolated. If you live in California, you know what I'm talking about because you might be seeing where you live. There are some potential housing bubbles forming. This is a Zillow Research. They're showing four different neighborhoods looking a little bubbilicious right now.
When you take a look at it, it's San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. Those are the areas where you're seeing home prices rise and you're not seeing wages necessarily going up in tandem. You're seeing a lot of investor interest in those markets, Carol. I want you to listen to what Stan Humphries, the chief economist at Zillow, told me about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STAN HUMPHRIES, ZILLOW CHIEF ECONOMIST: When rates go back up to 5 percent or 6 percent, people in San Jose are going to be spending more than half their incomes on their mortgage, which is way above what they ever had historically and when that happens, prices go flat or start to fall again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Now there is no national housing bubble he says and he points out to a one thing in particular, the percentage of our incomes that we're spending on housing right now is lower than the historical average. That means housing prices have come down so much that we're not paying quite so much historically for the cost of our homes.
That means that you're not seeing bubbles in most of the country. He also says things aren't back to normal yet, Carol, for the country as a whole in housing. We're not back to normal. Not only is it not a bubble, we're not back to normal? Why are we not back to normal?
We need more first time home buyers to be able to take advantage of these low mortgage rates and buy into the market. Until that happens, it's not yet a normal housing market yet -- Carol.
COSTELLO: You know what the problem is with that. It's very difficult to get a loan. I mean, you can like have low mortgage rates. That's great, but if you can't get a loan to buy the mortgage, it doesn't really matter.
ROMANS: And a lot of banks requiring 20 percent down, you have to have really good credit. You have to have steady income, two people with steady income and been . It's interesting, ironically, Stan Humphries says, if mortgage rates start to rise, maybe the banks will loosen the purse strings a little more.
A few banks have already started lowering some of the requirements. There's a great story about how if you're getting a jumbo loan, your interest rates are lower than regular folks because the banks want to bring in people who have more money so jumbo loans actually are being cheaper right now than conforming loans.
COSTELLO: Christine Romans, thanks so much. We appreciate it.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, what really went down in the Miami Dolphins locker room? The team owner wants to find out. Joe Carter is covering that story this morning.
JOE CARTER, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, Steven Ross, the Miami Dolphins owner, he wants to get to the bottom of this. He wants to get the facts and the first step in doing so will be a face to face meeting with Jonathan Martin tomorrow. We'll explain how that can impact the entire Miami organization coming up.
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COSTELLO: Miami Dolphins owner, Stephen Ross, wants to clean up the mess in his team's locker room. So Ross is flying in tomorrow to meet with Jonathan Martin, who as you know, left the team two weeks ago, triggering an NFL bullying investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN ROSS, MIAMI DOLPHINS OWNER: We want to get to the bottom of it. We want to get to hear all of the real facts are. There's been so much said and done to date, that, you know, I don't think anybody really knows what's happened because no one has spoken with Jonathan Martin directly.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: CNN's Joe Carter is in Tampa where the Dolphins lost in Monday night football. Adriana Midence Scott is an attorney who specializes in employment litigation, but Joe, I want to start with you. So media reports say, an NFL investigator will meet Martin later this week after he meets with the Dolphins owner. How will these meetings affect Jonathan Martin's future do you think?
JOE CARTER, CNN SPORTS: Well, I got to tell you, Carol. If I could be a fly on the wall for both of those meetings, we would know a lot more. But at this point, like Steven Rose said last night. You know, we really don't know the full scope of what exactly took place inside or outside that locker room, within the offensive linemen group.
Something that happened to the point where it prompted Jonathan Martin, a multimillionaire athlete, to pick up and abruptly leave the team so I think tomorrow when those two meet face to face, Stephen Ross is going to get a much better picture of what happened with this player and how it affects the organization moving forward. I mean, is it something that the coaches overlooked? Is it something that the coaches approved?
Is it something that they didn't even do? We don't know the full scope of things until those two meetings and obviously anything that comes out of that, how he handles his team and organization moving forward will give us a pretty good indication as to what Martin said and where his position is.
Because at this point, all we've really heard is from his lawyer and numerous sources out there that there was harassment and bullying and hazing inside that locker room for over a year and a half. And it finally was enough for Martin to pick up his stuff and go home to his family in California -- Carol.
COSTELLO: So Adriana, I'll pose this question to you. So Mr. Ross is going to meet with Jonathan Martin. I would assume that Jonathan Martin's attorney would be with him.
ADRIANA MIDENCE SCOTT, EMPLOYMENT LITIGATION ATTORNEY: I would assume that as well. I think that the purpose of the investigation is to figure out what happened and who knew about it. There are allegations coming out now that the Dolphins management was aware of the situation and encouraged it, and that's probably going to be a very big focus of the investigation. Not just what happened, but who knew about it and was there direction given to the players on the team.
COSTELLO: I'm trying to think of it in a normal employee employment setting. If I had a problem here, I wouldn't go see, like, the owner of CNN, right? I would go to the Human Resources Department and we would go through that and so is this unusual that the Dolphins' owner wants to meet with Jonathan Martin?
SCOTT: Certainly it's unusual. Most of the people that we work with are not scrutinized to the degree that the NFL players are. They certainly don't want this case to become the domino that sets off complaints from locker rooms across the country. COSTELLO: Joe, after Jonathan Martin meets with Mr. Ross, you said he's going to meet with investigators. Do you know how many investigators will be in the room?
CARTER: No. As far as we know right now, it's just going to be Ted Wells who was appointed by the NFL. You know, he's handled other cases in the past related to sports and related to these types of issues. But as far as we know, it's going to be just Ted Wells interviewing Jonathan Martin. That's the independent investigation that goes on.
And then Jonathan Martin is supposed to meet as you said with Stephen Ross tomorrow. A lot can change and come out of this in the next couple of days. At this point we just don't know what Jonathan Martin's side is yet. We've heard from incognito, and we've heard from the dolphin player and the coach and people within the organization. But we haven't heard from Jonathan Martin.
COSTELLO: There have been rumors out there that Jonathan Martin was going to release a prepared video statement to respond to Incognito's allegations. I would be surprised if that happens. But when all is said and done, no matter what happens it will be difficult for both of these men to be accepted by another NFL team. Then what might happen? I mean, could either man sue the NFL because they can't get a job?
SCOTT: Well, it is a reality that employees face when they come forward with allegations of harassment as they can imagine, it will be extremely difficult for Mr. Martin to probably reengage for many of his prior teammates. Many of whom have come out obviously and sided with --
COSTELLO: Well, he doesn't want to return to the Dolphins. But wondering, if you have -- if you know -- I don't know. If you know that someone has a bad reputation or is a troublesome employee, I don't care what business you are, you're going to pause before hiring that person.
SCOTT: I think that that's a reality. Technically the law says you're not supposed to do that. You certainly can't retaliate against an employee that brings an allegation of harassment of this nature. But I think you hit on the reality, which is very it's difficult for employers to trust employees after something like this. It's just a fact.
COSTELLO: Especially when it's so very public. All right, Joe Carter, Adriana Midence Scott, thank you so much.
Checking other top stories this morning, embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford did not get a warm welcome at his first public event since admitting to a drug scandal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would like to invite to the podium Mayor Rob Ford.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: As you heard, Ford was booed at an event honoring veterans. He's been under intense pressure to step down after admitting that he smoked crack cocaine. This will likely be addressed tomorrow when the city council meets. Ford has steadfastly refused to resign or even to take a leave of absence.
The lawyers for Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are heading to court today. He's not allowed to watch TV, listen to the radio, or pray with other inmates. The ACLU wanted to argue on his behalf saying the strict conditions threaten his rights to a fair trial. But the judge would not allow the ACLU to get involved.
In Washington today, federal safety officials are hearing testimony from SeaWorld. The park wants a ban lifted that prevents trainers from being in the water with killer whales. The rule was imposed after a trainer was killed three years ago during a performance. SeaWorld says the rule is unfair because swimming with orcas lies at the heart of their theme park.
Here's are some welcome news for drivers about 20 percent of gas stations around the country are now selling unleaded regular for below $3 a gallon. Gas hasn't been that low for three years. One analyst credits cheaper crude from Canada and North Dakota for the drop.
Imagine finding $8,000 for something for 150 bucks. Well, finder's keeper's right? Not for some couple. They gave all of the money back to its rightful owner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RABBI NOAH MUROFF, FOUND MONEY IN DESK: We open it up and it's full of cash. We count it up and there's $98,000 cash sitting in the bag of the right away we looked at each other and said, we can't keep this money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: The Connecticut teacher and his wife were trying to move the desk through a doorway. When it didn't fit, they took the desk apart and that's when they discovered all that money. The original owner told them that she had stashed her inheritance in the desk and forgot that $98,000 was there.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, new details of the case of the bride accused of pushing her husband off a cliff days after they were married. Now prosecutors think the husband may have been blindfolded.
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COSTELLO: The mystery deepens in Montana with a shocking new allegation. Prosecutors say a newlywed was blindfolded before his new wife pushed him off a cliff. CNN's Miguel Marquez is live with the latest. Good morning.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's one thing they're looking into. Good morning there, Carol. It's not entirely clear that he was blindfolded, but that's one thing that prosecutors say might have happened. But bigger picture here, the defense is making very serious claims about the entire investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you kill Cody? Did you mean to push your husband off a cliff?
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Jordan Lynn Graham accused of murdering her husband a week after their wedding day now fiercely fighting to have the charges dismissed even before the trial begins. Her lawyers filing a motion to throw out a first-degree murder charge claiming prosecutorial misconduct.
Among other things, the defense claims that investigators used interrogation techniques meant to confuse her and distorted her words to make it appear that she pushed her husband to his death in Glacier National Park. Also in the court documents, they claim the investigators touched her inappropriately during polygraph testing and failed to record the entire interview.
Her public defender, Michael Donahoe, won the right for her to stay out of jail pending trial. They say now that the prosecutors poisoned the jury pool publicly calling her a sociopath. They're now telling her attorney that they have a new possible theory for the case claiming that she may have blind folded him before pushing him off the cliff.
The defense is arguing that they have overreaching and wants the trial date pushed back and some charges dismissed. Friends say the marriage didn't seem right from the start.
CAMERON FREDRICKSON, CODY JOHNSON'S FRIEND: When they were exchanging vows, Jordan was looking down and wasn't looking at Cody.
MARQUEZ: Jordan Graham says she doubted the wedding, but didn't kill her husband. The big questions on when and how this case moves forward.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARQUEZ: Now, this is a federal case because the alleged crime happened on federal land. Both sides now saying that they want to push this trial back into February if charges are dismissed in this by the judge, it will be an extraordinary event -- Carol.
COSTELLO: So talk a little bit more about this man possibly being blindfolded before he fell. How do prosecutors know that?
MARQUEZ: There was a piece of clots found near the body. They sent it off for DNA testing. This is all wrapped up in the defense's case saying that the investigators had been working on this long before they took it to the grand jury. They claim that that they tainted the jury pool by doing all of this investigation. Not letting the defense know. Now saying that the blindfold theory or possibility of that, all of that comes as a surprise to them and they are not ready to take this case forward.
COSTELLO: Miguel Marquez reporting live for us this morning, thank you.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, survivors are desperate for help in the Philippines, but relief is coming their way painfully slowly. Now a new storm is delaying aid even more.
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