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Newtown 911 Calls to be Released Today; Paul Walker's Ride; 20- 30 Whales Stranded in Everglades; New Home Sales Surge in October; Flu Blamed for Three Deaths in North Carolina

Aired December 04, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

Taking a look at our top stories this morning at 32 minutes past. Celebrity chef, Nigella Lawson, has admitted to using cocaine twice -- once when her late husband was dying and one other time years later after, quote, "Her ex-husband Charles Saatchi terrorized her." Lawson is testifying in the trial of the two former assistants accused of stealing money from her family. The alleged thieves say Lawson allowed them to take the money to cover up her drug use.

A large group of pilot whales stranded in Everglades National Park. Florida Wildlife officials and park rangers are trying to rescue the whales. About two dozen are in the water and they're confused. Ten others have beached themselves. Four of those beached whales have now died. But rescuers managed to get the others back into the water. They say it may take a few more days to get the whales to move.

Temperatures across most of the country plummeting as a massive arctic storm system moves through the United States. Snow, ice, freezing rain expected to cause major problems. Temperatures are about to change drastically too like in Dallas, today they are seeing a high of 80. But temperatures there expected to drop to 31 degrees by Friday. That's a 50-degree difference, so brace yourself.

They are the calls so many do not want to hear. And now, today, after a long legal battle, the 911 tapes from the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre will be released to the public this afternoon. A Connecticut judge ruled the tapes should be released upholding an earlier decision that said there's no legal basis to keep those tapes private.

Joining me now from New York to talk about this: Pamela Brown and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan. Good morning to both of you.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Pamela, I want to start with you because you just talk to the father of one of the Sandy Hook victim. How is he feeling this morning knowing that these tapes are going to be released later this afternoon?

BROWN: Well Carol, he's very upset about this. And he told me he believes that it's unfortunate that they're going to be released today and he said that he's going to do essentially everything that he can to shield his children from listening to the tapes today. So he's going to protect his family by basically avoiding the media.

And he told me -- he says, "We don't want to hear them. I hope my children don't have to listen to that. This is a unique case and deserved unique treatment. It's unfortunate they weren't able to see that."

And he also told me Carol that the potential harm in children listening to it outweighs any definable good we can think of. And this is from Mark Barden. His son Daniel was killed during the shooting spree last December at Sandy Hook Elementary. And it seems like Carol that is sort of the -- the consensus among the families in Newtown today.

COSTELLO: Paul, reportedly only land line calls from inside the school will be released. What kind of restrictions are there on other types of calls like calls from cell phones?

CALLAN: Well, I think eventually Carol the cell phone records will be released as well. The reason for the distinction here is that the lawsuit that was brought by the press to force the release of these calls under the Freedom of Information Act was directed at local police.

Now most of the cell phone calls were diverted to the state police, which is Troop L. That's a separate state agency and would be subject to a separate lawsuit to compel disclosure of the tapes. Under most Freedom of Information Act laws, as long as there's not an ongoing criminal investigation that will be compromised, the law requires release. So I think ultimately we'll see all of these tapes.

COSTELLO: Well as a journalist I mean, just to be transparent here, I like transparency. I think it's important that we hear those 911 calls because it will tell us something at least about police response time. And we're all looking for ways to increase school security and maybe these tapes can help us. Is that a valid argument Paul?

CALLAN: It is a valid argument and it's the reason these freedom of information laws exist. We want our government to be transparent. We want people to understand how the case was investigated. And I understand the state's attorney he's opposing release because he's concerned about the emotions and the feelings of the families of these horrible tragedies.

But the law doesn't build that in. There's no section on not releasing things because it will cause anguish to families. If they're legitimate public records they have to be released. And I think the court has ruled properly here. I think the press should be sensitive on how this is handled. But nonetheless it's a matter of public record. COSTELLO: And Pamela Brown, you're going to be tasked with that later this afternoon. So tell us how you'll approach this when those tapes are released at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

BROWN: Well obviously Carol, like Paul stated, you know it's important to exercise sensitivity and only air, broadcast and talk about what -- what is necessary to achieve the good that can come from this. As you pointed out, how did law enforcement respond? Did they respond appropriately? What did they do well? What can be improved upon? And I think that's what journalists are really going to be focusing on today.

COSTELLO: All right. Pamela Brown and Paul Callan thanks so much for providing insight this morning. We appreciate it.

CALLAN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, its incredible speed is street legal. But some experts are sounding the alarm about the Porsche Carrera GT saying it's simply too dangerous to drive.

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COSTELLO: Production on "Fast & Furious 7" now on hold following the death of Paul Walker. The 40-year-old actor died along with a friend, Roger Rodas, in a fiery crash last weekend. Autopsy results completed Tuesday also on hold. The latest movie in the blockbuster series was set for release next July. Universal Pictures says it will donate some of the proceeds from the last installment to Walker's charity.

Both Rodas and Walker were car buffs and racing teammates. Rodas was driving a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT like this one. And though it's not necessarily a race car, it's about the closest you can get -- it's about the closest you can get to a race car and still be street legal. But it may be so powerful that it becomes difficult to drive.

CNN's Kyung Lah went for a test drive.

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KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Riding in a Porsche Carrera GT is simply visceral, so low to the ground. I'm at once exhilarated and car sick. It's like flying on the road and it is terrifying. But strangely, fun.

(on camera): So we're going out for a bit of a joy ride.

(voice over): I'm the lucky passenger on Michael Weinreb's Porsche. He's an attorney by day and amateur driver by night. One of the few owners of the nearly 1,300 2005 Carrera GTs ever made.

MICHAEL WEINREB, RACE CAR DRIVER: It's more of a zero to 100 time that's more impressive which is under seven seconds. The steering on this car is so tight and responsive. There's almost nothing like it in terms of road feel.

LAH: Top speed, 208 miles per hour. Weinreb's super car has been souped up from 612 horsepower to 660.

(on camera): Is it easy to do something stupid?

WEINREB: You know, it is because it's just having so much power under your foot that, you know, that things can happen. There can be a loss of control.

LAH: Weinreb doesn't know what happened in actor Paul Walker's car crash. But being the owner of the exact same vehicle, he guesses it might be this. A cold car, cold tires, not race track conditions. Was it a super car simply pushed too hard on a city road that it was never designed for?

WEINREB: Whoever was driving went beyond the capability of the adhesion of the tire.

LAH: When you say "adhesion", what do you mean by that?

WEINREB: The tire is not connected to the road.

LAH: In some respects, are you afraid of this car?

WEINREB: Yes, you really have to be with this car with all of the power that it has. You have to be reserved and restrain yourself. I mean it's like kind of taming a wild animal. And so if you were taming a wild animal, you would be afraid of it. So you have to be afraid of it to really be safe in the car.

LAH: The line between the thrill and real danger.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Let's head back to the Everglades right now shall we for a breaking story. I've been telling you about those pilot whales stranded in the Everglades National Park. Florida Wildlife officials and park rangers are trying to rescue these whales. About two dozen are in the water and they appear to be confused. Ten others you can see them they have beached themselves four of those beached whales have died. But rescuers did manage to get other whales that had come onto the shore back into the water.

Blair Mase is an NOAA marine mammal expert. She joins now by phone from Miami. Thank you so much for being with me.

BLAIR MASE, NOAA (via telephone): You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: Blair, why are these whales doing this?

MASE: We don't know. And that's something we're going to try to find out. Once we do a thorough assessment of what's going on, on key and we've just have our first team of responders getting on site this morning. It is a very, very remote area. It's on the western boundary of the Everglades National Park. The closest -- you have to get there by boat. It takes about an hour and a half. And as I said, I just heard back from our first team who says there are a total of 49 whales. Four are dead on the beach. And the remaining 45 are still alive and free swimming nearby.

COSTELLO: These are pilot whales, right? Are they friendly? Do they trust humans?

MASE: These are pilot whales and these are our most common species of whales that mass trans (ph) in Florida. They are a very cohesive species, which means they stay very close together. So even if we have one or two pod members that are sick or ill that beach themselves, the others typically will remain close by or beach themselves as well just to be with the other group.

So these animals are very far from their natural habitat. They're pelagic deep-water species and the closest deep water is literally miles and miles away -- maybe 25 to 30 miles. So they're very far out of normal range. We don't know why they're there. And our teams are going to do their best to assess the live animals and see what our options are.

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COSTELLO: Yes. Let's talk about the options because -- let's talk about those options. So biologists they have just arrived on the scene. Their mission is to coax these whales back into the deep water. How do they do that?

MASE: Well, their mission is really to assess the situation to see what is in the best interest of the animals and what's feasible with the resources and logistics that we have.

So these animals are free swimming from what we're hearing. I'm not -- I can't -- I'm actually not in direct contact with the team. But it doesn't look like the animals are in a situation where they can be obtained by hand. So the live animals, they may not -- we may not be able to actually get them offshore into their normal habitat. We may have to do other things, such as remove the dead animals from the beach or move them out of visual sight to see if the whales will leave on their own.

This area is like a maze basically. There's a lot of shallow water for miles and miles. There's a few deep water channels that they can navigate through but it will be difficult. So I think the outcome is very uncertain for these whales and the resources are very limited on what we can do, it sounds like.

COSTELLO: Well, we really --

MASE: So I'm waiting to hear back to get a better idea and hopefully we'll know more in a couple of hours.

COSTELLO: Well, we thank you for your efforts and thank you for being with us this morning -- Blair Mase, we appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the flu turns deadly in North Carolina. I'll talk with an infectious disease expert about what you can do and should do to protect yourself.

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COSTELLO: I know you want to hear some good news this morning. This just in to us: new home sales soared last month -- and I mean soared. Alison Kosik is here to tell us how much. Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol.

This is an eye-popping number. The sales of new homes in October jumping 25 percent in October from September; you look at it compared it to a year ago, that's up 21 percent -- more than 21 percent. It's actually winds up being the biggest monthly increase in 30 years.

And you look at the number of homes -- the number of homes that were selling is like what we see in the summer months. You usually see these new home sales slow down in these winter months. And this is despite higher mortgage rates. You know, mortgage rates have been ticking higher. So you may be seeing Americans getting out there and trying to buy new homes now because the worry is that the Fed may look to raise interest rates.

One thing to keep in mind, though, new home sales only account for about 10 percent of the overall housing market. So they're only a small piece. But the good news is that this were to create a domino effect because when these new homes go up, that creates a lot of employment -- construction workers. And once those people move in to these new homes -- guess what they're doing -- they're going to Lowe's, they're going to Home Depot and buying stuff. So this kind of helps the economy overall. Once again, new home sales in October up 25 percent from September -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Well, thanks for that little bit of sunshine this morning. Alison Kosik.

I'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: Health officials in North Carolina confirming three adults have now died of complications from the flu -- the first flu deaths in a year in that state. Dr. Buddy Creech is an infectious disease expert with Vanderbilt University. He joins me now from Nashville. Good morning, Doctor.

DR. BUDDY CREECH, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Good morning.

COSTELLO: OK. So when you hear these things, it's pretty scary. People die from the flu every year, we hear. Will this year be particularly bad?

CREECH: Well, it's difficult to know because we're still very early in the season. It's important to realize that the flu season has come very much earlier than what we would typically see. Often we see it late December, early January. So these deaths are very telling for us that we may have an early season and potentially a deadly one. COSTELLO: And do we know what strain of flu it is?

CREECH: Right now we know that it's Influenza A, which is the most common form of influenza that we see in the United States. And while there are different strains of influenza, we don't have any evidence right now that somehow this has escaped from our vaccine or that it wouldn't be prevented by our normal vaccines this year.

COSTELLO: OK. So I was talking with my team earlier this morning and more than one said they were not going to get the flu shot because they were afraid it would make them sick. I keep telling them it's a myth but they don't believe me.

CREECH: It is one of the common myths that continues to be out there. And what we know is in the way we make that flu vaccine, it actually is physically impossible to get influenza from it. Now, what you can get are those feelings of your immune response gearing up in sort of a way to protect you. And so yes, you can have fever and muscle aches, and feel poorly for a few hours. But if I had to choose between that and having a potentially deadly infection with influenza, that's an easy choice.

COSTELLO: Well, the other thing is, you know, members of my team are fairly young, they're healthy. These peoples who died in North Carolina had underlying medical conditions and they were more at risk for dying from the flu. But please, tell my team members that they should take that flu shot anyway.

CREECH: Well, we learned it in 2009 during the pandemic. We certainly learned it throughout human history. That influenza, while it targets those who have with underlying medical conditions like diabetes or heart difficulties, what we know is that it disproportionately affects those who are young. And even young adults who are very healthy can have very severe reactions to influenza.

And not only that they can get bacterial infections following influenza and I think the take on is that in 1918 when we had the worst pandemic of influenza, it was really those young adults, those older adolescents and young adults who were affected the most.

COSTELLO: Interesting. OK. So I know the FDA had approved three new vaccines. Can you tell us about them?

CREECH: Well, this is an exciting year for us because historically there have been those who legitimately simply could not simply get influenza vaccine because they were allergic to eggs or to egg proteins. And so now for the first time this year we have a vaccine that can be given to those who are allergic to eggs. That's number one.

Number two is we have an expansion of the number of influenza strains that are available in some of our vaccines. So instead of covering for three strains of influenza, we can protect against four. And I think it's important to realize that the vaccine it can be given in higher doses to those who are older who need just a little bit more of the vaccine to get a good response. And it doesn't have to be given as a shot. It can also be given as a nose spray for those who may be a little needle phobic.

COSTELLO: So no excuses, Elaine Walker (ph) -- are you listening to me.

Dr. Buddy Creech of Vanderbilt University, thanks so much for coming in.

CREECH: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: And thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: Well, it might look real pretty in Colorado at the moment. But it is about to get ugly as the snow, ice, freezing rain and the extreme cold barrels eastward making trouble from Texas all the way to New England. Find out what is coming your way and soon.

Also this hour, 911 calls from the Newtown School shooting about to go public. But why now? And what will they reveal, if anything? How are the families dealing with this painful reminder of their unthinkable tragedy from a year ago?

And we are live in Florida where there is a desperate effort underway at this moment to save an entire pod of stranded pilot whales.