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American Missing in Mexico; Are Iranian Ships Heading Near U.S.?; Will Problems Continue to Plague Sochi?; Secret Service Infiltrated Credit Card Hackers; Castaway Rescued After More Than 13 Months; The Week's Must-see TV and Movies; Player Apologizes for Shoving Fan; Accused Murderer Faces Trial

Aired February 09, 2014 - 18:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. It's the top of the hour.

And this hour, we are fast-forwarding to the week ahead. I want you to take a look at some of the stories that we're going to be talking about and hearing about in the coming weeks and we're going to begin with our five questions for the week ahead.

All right. Question number one, what's being done to find a missing New York man last seen on a motorcycle in a very dangerous part of Mexico?

Right now, a desperate search is under way on two continents. Harry Devert has not been heard from since January 25th. He was traveling in an area known for deadly clashes between drug cartels and vigilante groups when he sent a chilling text message to his girlfriend.

Alexandria Field is here and Nick Valencia is here as well. They are tracking the search.

Alexandra, what are U.S. officials, authorities doing right now to find Harry.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, this is an area of Mexico that the State Department warns tourists shouldn't travel to. What State Department officials tell us they are able to do is launch a social media to Facebook and Twitter, trying to spread the word about this case, trying to drum up some attention here.

This is particularly concerning because Harry Devert was in a dangerous part of Mexico. He had sent a text message to his girlfriend saying he had just had a military escort because he was in the area that was too dangerous for him to be in. That was the last that she or anyone else heard from him. That was back on January 25th. And he had, in fact, said to her that day that he was planning on calling her or texting her later that night.

LEMON: All right. That was U.S. officials are doing.

What about in Mexico, Nick Valencia?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Don. I just got off the phone with (INAUDIBLE). That's the equivalent of the attorney general's office there and they tell us that the search is ongoing. The focal point is finding this convoy, this military convoy that escorted them out of this dangerous part of (INAUDIBLE). To be frank, though, we don't know how legitimate this military convoy is.

As Alexandra mentioned, this is a dangerous part of Mexico, parts of it, anyway, where sometimes they dawn military gear and put on the fatigues and they pass themselves off as officials when actually they are not. So, that's going to be a main point here is trying to figure out this army convoy that escorted him out -- Don.

LEMON: The question is to Alexandra, I'm sure people are going to say, and -- me as well, a lot of people go missing. A lot of people go missing every single day. Who is Harry Devert and why is this missing person so much more important because people go missing all the time?

FIELD: The particular concern really is the area that he disappeared from this, is what's giving people concern about his safety at this point. He's a 32-year-old. He's a New Yorker.

He quit his job in finance to travel the world. He has traveled extensively in the past so his family believes that he sort of has his wits about him, he's savvy when it comes to travel, but in this case something has gone horribly wrong. He had planned to go from Mexico into South America and eventually down to the South Pole.

This was something he was trying to do full-time. He was adventurous. He would blog about them. He has traveled the world, but he's always been in touch with them during his travels or let them know that he would be out of pocket.

LEMON: OK. You heard, Nick, what Alexandria said because of the part of Mexico. What makes this part of Mexico so dangerous?

VALENCIA: Let's start with the travel advisory, first and foremost, from the State Department which essentially they are not allowed. State Department employees aren't allowed to go there, and if you're an American or someone else who happens to get caught up there, the likelihood of them going in to help you out is very slim.

As you know, Don, I covered the drug war for a number of years for CNN.com, and a lot of the stories that we followed came out of Michoacan. When Felipe Calderon, the former president of Mexico, launched the drug war back in 2006, he initially sent 10,000 troops into his home state here in Michoacan. You have seen vigilante groups pop up, the Knights Templar, which is the faction of (INAUDIBLE), which is now dissolved, is very active there. So, this is a place you need to know where you're going or have a sense of safety in your surroundings, which were not clear if this one American that's missing, if you understood the conditions, he was going into -- Don.

LEMON: Nick, Alexandra, thanks to both of you. Question number two now, is Atlanta about to get winter slammed again? It's not even two weeks since a rare ice and snowstorm triggered a monumental disaster around that city. Thousands of kids stranded overnight in their schools or spent the night on school buses. City officials were overwhelmed, underprepared and now another storm is coming in just a couple of days. In a few minutes, or just a few minutes ago, I talked to a weather expert who is on a brand new task force that is trying to avoid a repeat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BURNS, CHIEF METEOROLOGIST, WSB-TV: This is a whole different ball game here. What we had two weeks ago was a minor event. This is likely to be a major event, a rain, they're going to have them, rain mixing with snow and sleet. Then you're going to have freezing rain, changing to rain back to freezing rain. It is going to be a major event.

And the big, big difference here, it's going to be a much longer duration event. Two weeks ago, we had about four hours of snow. This could be 30-plus hours of wintry precipitation across Georgia. With that in mind, we just got off the meeting with the National Weather Service, the folks from the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, the people from the Georgia Department of Transportation, and this time we've had the local meteorologists involved, we've had the school superintendents involved in this decision-making process.

And I think being on the same page with everybody getting the same information is going to be key to how we respond.

LEMON: OK. So very simply, Glenn, are they ready? And your task force, will the task force be ready as well? Georgia officials, emergency responders, everyone?

BURNS: The task force was ready to go. But we really don't know which areas are going to need the most response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Question number three now, are Iranian ships really heading close to the U.S.? And if so, why? A senior Iranian official says Iran is sending warships toward U.S. maritime borders to send a strong message.

Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins me on the phone now.

Barbara, let's get right to it. Are Iranian ships heading to the news?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, Don, I have to tell you, I talked to U.S. military officials all weekend long. And they tell us they have no information, no intelligence at this point that shows them, Iran has warships headed towards the U.S., towards that 12-mile offshore limit in which international waters begin. Iran has made this claim back in 2011. They said they were going to do it. They are sending the message, but can they militarily really send their ships thousands of miles away towards the U.S. for an extended period of time? That's a pretty complex operation. It takes a lot. There's very few indication the Iranian navy would be capable of such a deployment.

And U.S. officials make the point, international waters, as long as they stayed 12 miles offshore, just like the U.S. Navy, legally, they could go anywhere they want if they could get there -- Don.

LEMON: Barbara Starr reporting -- Barbara, thank you very much.

Question number four, will Michael Dunn learn his fate this week? Testimony has been tense and fast-moving in his high-profile murder trial in Florida. Fighting back tears and visibly shaking on the witness stand, Dunn's fiancee Rhonda Rouer testified yesterday. She gave jurors her account of what happened the night teenager Jordan Davis was fatally shot after a dispute over loud music.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did the defendant say anything about the loud music after he parked his car next to the red car?

RHONDA ROUER, MICHAEL DUNN'S FIANCEE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what did the defendant say?

ROUER: I hate that tough music.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you hear?

ROUER: I heard pop, pop, pop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And when you heard those noises, did you know what they were?

ROUER: No, I didn't.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you woke up, was the television on?

ROUER: Yes, it was.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And did you see who was on the news?

ROUER: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And at that point of time, did you learn that a teenager was killed at the gas station?

ROUER: Yes, I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Although the list of upcoming witnesses, testimony is set to continue tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. If convicted, Dunn faces up to life in prison. We'll have much more on the testimony a little bit later on in this hour, including the possible fallout from Rouer's comments.

All right. Question number five now, how will Eric Holder's comments on same sex marriage echo nationwide in the week ahead? Last night in New York, the attorney general said his new mandate to all federal employees is that straight and same sex couples who are legally married will be treated equally. That means all federal benefits, privileges and rights will be applied to all married people, even in the 34 states where same sex marriage is not yet allowed.

I talked with our regular contributors Ana Navarro and L.Z. Granderson about it just a few minutes ago. And for once, they actually agreed with each other.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think much different is going to happen next week because of Holder's comments. This is just one more federal benefit that the Obama administration is extending to same sex couples. This is what they said they were going to do. This is what they are doing. It is the reality of the world we live in today.

Gay marriage is here to stay. Deal with it. It is not going anywhere. Gay couples, gay families are part of America. They deserve the same protections as every other American.

L.Z. GRANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I can remember being a reporter, a young reporter back in 1998, when news had broken that Matthew Shepherd was murdered in the fashion of which he was murdered, a hate crime. And I remember thinking then how difficult it was going to be for the American culture to accept LGBT people without this sort of violent reaction.

And that was in 1998. And slowly over time we have got on the point now in which we are now discussing equal protection of the raw, at least in the federal level. I think this is a tremendous step forward. We cannot get complacent, though, if we look at what happened in India, if we look at what happened in Australia, just because one administration has made moves to this right does not mean that these moves cannot be reversed. So, it's important that we look at this for what it is and I'm going to step forward and we have to be diligent to make sure we don't go back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Problems have plagued the Olympic Games in Sochi. But as the competition moves into a new week, will the glitches continue to overshadow the events?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right. So, there you go. That's a live picture of Sochi right now. It looks like everything is still standing, even the hotel.

So, hello from Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow, right? Because it's tomorrow in Sochi, a little after 3:00 in the morning in Sochi, Russia, home of the 2014 Winter Olympics and some of the highlights from the week ahead. The highly anticipated snowboard half pipe on Tuesday. Pairs figure skating on Wednesday, and the women's freestyle aerials will be held on Friday.

How are Americans doing at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games?

Well, here's where everybody stands. Norway leads with 7 medals, followed by the Netherlands and the U.S. with four medals two. Two gold medals courtesy of Team USA's sweep of the snowboard slopestyle. Canada and Russia also have four medals. Austria rounds out our list with two medals.

You know, we are enjoying the cheering on of the Team USA, but we have been a little distracted so far by something called Sochi problems. The Twitter page has shown us some really outrageous things including an American bobsledder getting locked in his bathroom. So, will the problems continue this week?

Here's CNN's sports anchor Rachel Nichols -- Rachel.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Well, Don, the venues here in Sochi have been beautiful. It's not always full of fans. And most of the Sochi problems with the run-up to the Olympics have now been handled, but not one of them.

U.S. bobsledder Johnny Quinn took one of the most buzzed about pictures of the games this weekend after he had to break through his jammed bathroom door. This picture has been re-tweeted more than 25,000 times. And today I caught up with Quinn who told me exactly what happened after he got out of his shower at the Olympic Village and discovered he was trapped.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNNY QUINN, AMERICAN BOBSLEDDER: My neighbors, or my two other teammates with on the bobsled, so I was banging on the wall trying to get their attention and nothing. And nothing.

NICHOLS: Did you have a panic moment?

QUINN: Not so much panic because I was running water, but I had nothing. And I was sitting there banging on the random parts of the wall to see if I could catch somebody's attention, and as I'm banging on the random parts going around the bathroom, and I kind of hit the door, and it cracks. And so I go a little harder and my fist goes through the door. And so --

NICHOLS: Are you surprised at that? Do you normally punch through a door?

QUINN: No, no, no. So I see light and I was like, OK, it's time to get out of here now. (END VIDEO CLIP)

NICHOLS: Quinn said the people at the Olympic village were very nice about the whole thing, and actually brought him a whole new door. Don, he also told me that for the rest of his team here at the Olympics, when he goes to take a shower, he'll be bringing his telephone into the bathroom with him.

LEMON: Good idea. Thank you, Rachel.

The man partially responsible for revealing the news that the NSA is spying on you says he's just getting started. He claims to have a lot more revelations and he's going to make them public in the week ahead. His interview with CNN, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: More shocking revelations about the NSA expected this week from Glenn Greenwald. He's a "Guardian" reporter who helped Edward Snowden reveal NSA surveillance programs last year.

Rosa Flores is here now with us.

When can we learn about the new discoveries, Rosa?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, we could learn about them tomorrow or throughout the week when Greenwald is expected to release a series of Web site that would have these shocks revelations. Now, these Web sites don't have a name just yet that have been released.

But Brian Stelter from "RELIABLE SOURCES" here from CNN, interviewed him today and asked him about, OK, so what are these revelations going to be about? Is it just about the NSA document that is have already been released or other stuff? Greenwald did not exactly answer that question, but Stelter asked about sources. So, is it just going to be about Snowden or other government workers who are unhappy with their jobs, with what they are seeing that the government is doing?

Here is Greenwald's response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN GREENWALD, JOURNALIST: I definitely think it is fair to say there are people who have been inspired by Edward Snowden's courage and by the great good in virtue that is achieved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, Don, he didn't quite expand as to what all other topics will be included in these Web sites, but he said it will include the topics he's interested in, civil liberties and also criminal justice abuses. So, we'll have to see.

LEMON: Everyone is on the Internet now and people, many of us don't want our information being -- even though we know it's happening, right? FLORES: We know it's happening. Absolutely. Let's be real.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: The people on social media protest these programs in the past. Have you heard anything? Have you been checking that out?

FLORES: There's another one expected this Tuesday. It's called the Day We Fight Against Mass Surveillance. It's pretty much what you can expect is there will be banners on thousands of Web sites. They are going to say, please support the U.S. Freedom Act.

And it is pretty much a law that would limit the collection and use of information. So be on the lookout. It's going to happen on Tuesday. You're going to see it on a lot of Web sites, because this organization is allowing the code to be downloaded for free. You'll see a lot of this call on Congress to pass the law.

LEMON: Yes. So many people feel that I'm not shocked that my information is being looked at. I'm not shocked at all.

FLORES: But I'm talking to my mom and to my husband, who cares?

LEMON: Yes, go ahead and look at it.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Still to come here on CNN, CNN goes inside the hack. An exclusive investigation for the world of cyber crime.

And in the week ahead, why you may hear that a group of undercover Secret Service agents may have used your stolen data.

But first, this -- if you are an animal lover, you're going to understand this next story. One man says his dying dog turned his life around.

Tom Foreman with this American journey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This may look like an animal rescue, but for James Giuliani, it is more like redemption.

JAMES GIULIANI, RESCUES DOGS: I was a bad person my whole life, and now I have good about waking up in the morning and I feel good about going out.

FOREMAN: It was so bad and now it's so good. His turn-around is the focus of a new reality show on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

GIULIANI: I used to deal cocaine and marijuana, I used to stick people up.

FOREMAN: Giuliani used to work with the toughest mob bosses around New York, until one day, he found a small dog neglected and sick. He nursed it back to health. And much later when the animal died, the self-professed gangster discovered something newborn in him.

GUILIANI: And from that day on, you know, I've been sober, not a drink, not a drug. It gave me a purpose in my life. It gave me a reason to live.

FOREMAN: For almost a dozen years now, he's taken in countless lost, abandoned and hurting animals trying to ultimately find new homes for them and always at the very least keeping them safe.

GUILIANI: Every animal that comes here can stay here for their entire life. Until they find the right home.

FOREMAN: The work is time-consuming and can be expensive. Giuliani helps pay the bills for the dog-grooming business called Diamond Collar.

He doesn't make mobster money anymore.

GUILIANI: Hello, everyone!

FOREMAN: But in many ways, he suggests he's never felt richer.

GUILIANI: Some people never figure out what their purpose is. I figured it out from a small dog on the street.

FOREMAN: Tom Foreman, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So there's a fair chance that you're one of the millions of Americans whose personal information was compromised in one of the widest security breaches ever. At the Target chain alone, as many as 110 million may have had their credit card data stolen. It happened at other companies, too, like Neiman Marcus and Michael's.

Well, CNN investigated the security breaches and we put some faces and names to the hackers behind the crime. And here's CNN's Drew Griffin right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: This is the story of how it happens, how your credit card gets swiped from a retailer. Then that credit card number is bought and sold literally across the world and used again, often before you even know it's been hacked. And all of this we are told organized by an unassuming geek.

Don't let this baby face fool you, if you want too know who is behind the hacking, stealing and selling of your credit cards, Maxim Yastremski of the Ukraine is about as good of an example as you can find. Up until the recent Target store breach, Maksik as he was called, was the king of the hill, the most prolific credit card trafficker in the world, organizing and operating a worldwide credit theft ring that hacked into nine major retailers, stealing and then selling the data from more than 40 million credit cards, data that would be sold to other criminals who would go on buying sprees. They would sell whatever they bought with your stolen credit and turn it into cash. This criminal was one of them. He knew the ins and outs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if a person had good credit, you could potentially take $25,000 from a particular credit card.

GRIFFIN: And it was relatively easy, perfect looking fake credit cards bought online, machines doing code and emboss credit cards bought online, and also available online, freshly stolen credit card information that this cyber criminal was buying straight from a baby faced Ukrainian tech geek.

(On camera): You had the material to make the cards, you had the plastic to make the cards and then you got the data to actually make the physical cards real and active. Just to be clear you didn't do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): That's because this guy isn't a real cyber criminal at all. He's an undercover Secret Service agent who for three years became part of this massive cyber criminal network befriending Maksik and even traveling to Ukraine, Turkey, Southeast Asia to immerse himself into one of the fastest growing criminal schemes in the world.

Maksik in the Ukraine would hire hacking teams across the United States. These are the cyber criminals who electronically break in, into stores, retailers, any company with large amounts of credit card information. The undercover agent would pretend then to be a buyer who could use the stolen numbers and literally create credit cards that looked and act exactly like the card in your pocket.

(On camera): And before you'd even realized your credit card numbers had been stolen, crews were out buying up merchandise and selling it on the black market.

How many cards were available? How many credit lines were available?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, millions of credit cards.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): The Secret Service was buying up stolen credit cards in bulk on a weekly basis all in a well-planned ruse to reel in Maksik's trust and eventually Maksik himself.

(On camera): Did he seem like a criminal?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of them came off as looking as, you know, a mafia figure or as this -- the next big criminal. They're ordinary individuals.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): After a night out in Turkey he brought Maksik back to a hotel where, as planned, they were both arrested. For more than a year the agent continued the charade even as Maksik was sentenced to 30 years in Turkish prison. (On camera): So what did the Secret Service do with those thousands and thousands of stolen credit cards they were buying up on a weekly basis? Well, they pretended to use them to the criminals but secretly were notifying your bank and canceling them, saving untold Americans the misery of going through having their credit card hacked.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Drew Griffin, thank you very much for that.

You know, a man who claims he spent 13 months drifting in the Pacific Ocean could return home tomorrow. Jose Salvador Alvarenga's boat washed ashore in the Marshall Islands nearly two weeks ago. Doctors must clear him medically before he's allowed to return the nearly 6,000-mile home to Mexico, that trip.

Miguel Marquez joins us now by phone and he is in the Marshall Islands.

So, Miguel, you know, you're going to talk with the foreign minister there in just a few minutes. What's next for this guy? What do you expect to hear from the foreign minister?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Well, we know that Mr. Alvarenga is going to have a medical checkup today. We're not exactly sure when that will happen but he -- that will be the final check before he is on a plane and ready to go. We suspect, and perhaps this is something that the foreign minister can help us understand better, we suspect that he will be on a plane tonight from Majuro to Honolulu and then onwards toward El Salvador.

Everything indicates that this is a man who really wants to get home. Diplomats from the U.S., El Salvador, Mexico and the government here in the Marshall Islands have been meeting for several days now trying to figure out the best way to deal with him and help him out. So we do believe that that is all in the motion and it looks like his health has stabilized now to the point where he can actually travel and make that last long flight, but short compared to the way he got here home -- Don.

LEMON: Yes. OK, so I understand that you found out some more information about the way he washed ashore. What do you know?

MARQUEZ: This is perhaps the most incredible piece of this story. So this is a guy who on the 30th of January washed ashore on a small island right off Ebon, which is 200 miles from Majuro. They found him there. He was -- he had a pair of underwear on that were completely almost torn off of his body.

He was wielding a knife at people across the other island. They were kind of having a yell conversation. The woman who he was talking with told him to -- gestured him to put the knife down. He did. They ran to him and helped him, gave him clothes, he was extraordinary weak and then they made him pancake after pancake after pancake, and the man ate and ate and ate. They communicated with him via a Norwegian anthropologist who happened to be on the island who spoke a little Italian. They used pictures, they used Charade, and one the mayor's son on Ebon Island new Dora the Explorer. And through all of those means they were able to communicate with him and get his information about, you know, who he was and what was going on.

An unbelievable story that this man had to tell -- Don.

LEMON: OK, so listen, not that I'm being a skeptic, right? But there's -- it's been out there that many people are skeptical about whether his story is real. When you look at what happened, there's someone else in the boat, that person is gone. Some people he's a little bit too heavy to be -- have been missing for so long even though he said he ate fish and seaweed, or what have you.

So what's going on -- is there anybody looking into the possibility that something may be -- may have run afoul here?

MARQUEZ: Yes, look, the El Salvadorian officials, the officials here, Mexican officials have all looked into this guy. Everything checks out. The strongest piece of evidence is the boat itself, which found its way from Mexico, Chiapas, Mexico, all the way to here in the Marshall Islands.

The boat incidentally when the islanders found it on this island where it washed ashore, they found a seabird in the boat tethered alive and its foot tethered to the boat as though it was the next meal. They also found turtle shells in the boat. This is a man who says that he survived drinking the blood of turtles, getting the occasional rainwater, he was eating birds that he was able to capture on the boat, and sometimes having to resort to drinking his own urine.

Thirteen and a half months, 6,600 miles drifting from Mexico to this place. As unbelievable as it is, it has happened before with a few other Mexican fishermen. It took them about nine months to make that journey. It has happened before and there is -- you know, the balance of fact tips in Mr. Alvarenga's favor, certainly. It appears by all means that this actually happened to this man. What an unbelievable story.

LEMON: My gosh, what an incredible story. Thank you, Miguel Marquez.

And Miguel is going to join us live from -- tomorrow. Make sure you join Miguel live tomorrow. He's going to speak about what he just spoke with the officials about -- he's looking to talk to the foreign minister now. Monday morning, 11:30.

Thank you very much, Miguel, for that.

And then coming up, you may not recognize this guy but chances are you will. He's touted as a future NBA great, but may be riding the bench after what happened in the game last night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Well, from going for the gold in Sochi to Valentine's Day, this is shaping up as a packed week for pop culture.

Samantha Schacher hits the highlights for us -- Samantha.

SAMANTHA SCHACHER, SOCIAL COMMENTATOR: Thanks, Don. Lots going on next week in entertainment, so what should you tune into? Well, here are my top five. I did the research so you don't have to.

Coming in strong at number five, the highly anticipated second half of season four of "Walking Dead" returns tonight. I cannot wait. But rumor has it yet another one of our beloved main characters will be killed off this season. Yikes.

Number four is sci-fi fans rejoicing, or maybe not, because finally the reboot of "Robocops" hits theaters this Wednesday, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Gary Oldman, but the question on everyone's mind, will the reboot live up to the 1987 original success? I think it's definitely worth checking out to see.

Number three, if you're in a relationship, mark your calendars because this Friday is Valentine's Day. Let's not forget. The perfect date night movie is Russell Crowe's new film, "Winter's Tale," a love story, how appropriate. Also starring Jennifer Connelly, Colin Farrell, and Will Smith. And if you're single, don't fret, order in, get comfortable at home because "House of Cards" season two premiers on Netflix also on Valentine's Day.

And number two, the "NBA All-Star Game" airs on TNT at 8:00 Eastern next Sunday. And everyone will be tuning in to see how the Pelicans' Anthony Davis does filling in for an injured Kobe Bryant. At least he has the support of his hometown as they will be playing in New Orleans.

And finally coming in hot at number one on Tuesday, you don't want to miss the snowboarding halfpipe event at the Sochi Olympics to air on NBC as all eyes will be glued on our very own Shaun White who dropped out of the slopes' element last week to focus on the halfpipe in hopes to bring home his third gold medal in this event. The pressure is certainly on. We will all be watching. And if history is any indication, I believe he will prevail.

For CNN, I'm Samantha Schacher -- Don.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, Ms. Schacher. Appreciate that.

We're following a developing story for you from college basketball. This all involves this incident from yesterday's basketball game between Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Marcus Smart of Oklahoma State shoved a fan who had been taunting him.

Here's the very latest, the Big 12 conference has just suspended Smart for three games. He's been suspended for three games. And earlier this hour, Marcus Smart met with reporters. Here's what he had to say. Take a close listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARCUS SMART, OKLAHOMA STATE BASKETBALL PLAYER: First off, I want to apologize to the fan, whose name is Jeff Orr. I want to apologize to him, you know, and I want to apologize to my teammates, my coach staff, Coach Ford, my family, Oklahoma State University.

This is not how I condone myself. This is not how this program is run. This is not how I was raised. You know, I let my emotions get the best of me. You know, just can't let that happen again. It's something I have to learn from, a lesson I have to learn from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. Let's bring back Terence Moore now.

Terence, you heard what he had to say. Of course -- he's a sports contributor for CNN.com and a columnist for MLB.com.

Terence, you told me just a few minutes ago that Marcus Smart deserved to be suspended. So what do you think of this suspension, his apology? Is this issue over?

STEPHEN MOORE, EDITORIAL WRITER, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, you know, shy of, say, Jimmy Swaggart's I have sinned and the big tears, this was one of the better apologies. You didn't get the sensation he was reading, like, say a prepared statement from Syria. He was very sincere with what he said.

Now that being said, there is no way that this is over.

LEMON: No -- why do you mean there's no way that this is over?

MOORE: Well, let's start with this. Everybody's talking about Marcus Smart and rightfully so. But we also have to talk about Travis Ford who is the head coach.

Now earlier this season Marcus Smart also lost his temper kicking a chair. And if -- and according to Travis Ford, the head coach, he told him that he has to control his emotions, which means that he apparently has tuned his coach out because the coaches got to make these situations, handle these situations appropriately.

The other thing is, after this incident took place last night, instead of sending him back to the locker room, he had him sitting on the bench. After the game was over, you've got the Texas Tech fans storming the court. That could have been a very ugly situation and the coach could have been responsible for that.

LEMON: Yes. Any word from Texas Tech?

MOORE: Well, there is, as a matter of fact. The gentleman -- I've got the statement right here, Jeff Orr, said that he will voluntarily agree not to attend a Texas Tech home or away basketball game for the remainder of the season. This is a super fan of Texas Tech.

But here's the big thing, Don. He said that -- that he never used a racial slur, that he basically called Smart a piece of crap. Now whatever that crap entails, we don't know. But again, it goes back to what I said earlier, it doesn't really matter what the fan says in these situations. If you're the player, you've got to control yourself because you can't control the fans. Fans are going to be fans and fans are often idiotic.

LEMON: So -- what if the player had said that, maybe -- and listen, I'm not making excuses for the coach. What -- not the player. The fan had said that, right?

MOORE: Yes.

LEMON: And -- it puts the coach in an odd position because if he's player is saying hey, you know, someone said the N word to me, and then he kicks the guy out of the game, and it turns out he said that, and the coach is like, oh my gosh, I'm involved in this N word controversy. Maybe that's why he let him sat on the bench.

I don't know. I'm just trying to get inside the coach's head --

MOORE: Well --

LEMON: -- to figure out why he let him stay there and didn't kick him out of the game.

MOORE: Let's go back to April 15th, 1947. There was a guy named Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson can handle everything that he has to deal with, then these guys in the 21st century surely can handle these sorts of things.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: That is the smartest thing you have ever said in your entire life. And you are a smart man.

MOORE: Thank you very much. Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you.

We're going to talk about -- speaking of that, the N word, we're going to talk about thug now. Is that the new N word especially when it comes to a Florida trial involving possibly Stand Your Ground? We'll see.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right. This is a story everyone is going to be talking about next week. This is the next big trial that's happening now. Testimony has been tense, it's been fast-moving, in the high-profile murder trial of Michael Dunn. The Florida man charged in the -- 2012, I should say, shooting death of teenager Jordan Davis.

Much of the case is centered around the loud music that was allegedly coming from the teenager's car and if that dispute led to the teen's death.

On the stand yesterday, Dunn's fiancee, Rhonda Rouer, gave jurors her account of what happened the night Davis was shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When the defendant pulled into that parking space, could you hear any music coming from the red SUV?

RHONDA ROUER, MICHAEL DUNN'S FIANCEE: Yes. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you could tell it's coming from that car?

ROUER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From where you were sitting inside of the car, could you hear any of the lyrics of the music?

ROUER: No, I couldn't make out the lyrics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you tell, though, what kind of music it was?

ROUER: Yes, I could.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you hear the bass?

ROUER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now from inside the car, was -- was anything in the car rattling from the base?

ROUER: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did the defendant say anything about the music when he parked the car next to the red car?

ROUER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what did the defendant say?

ROUER: "I hate that thug music."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what was your response to the defendant?

ROUER: I said, yes, I know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: OK. There he is, Marc Lamont Hill, CNN political commentator.

Marc, you and I have been talking about thug for what? It seems like a year on CNN now?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Absolutely.

LEMON: Finally everyone is catching up to us about this word.

HILL: Exactly. LEMON: And I said that I don't think that every single time this word is used that it's racial, but in certain cases it is. And now you just have someone in their testimony saying, hey, listen, I don't like that thug music.

What is the impact on this trial and what do you think he meant by that? Did he mean the N word?

HILL: He absolutely meant the N word. And you're right, Don, you were way ahead of this. You're way in front of this story. And the use of racially quoted terms like thug allow people to prosecute a kind of rationalized case by other means. You don't have to say the N word, you don't have to say black. You just say thug music and everybody knows the deep encoding that's inside of that word.

When he says, I heard thug music, he meant black music, he meant dangerous music. And they are arguing as if that's exculpatory, as if thinking that somebody playing black music actually makes them worthy of lethal force.

LEMON: Is it black music? I don't know, because I think -- if the research is true or that you hear that, you know, white kids listen to rap and hip-hop way more than black kids, not to buy the bulk of it, then wouldn't it be white music, too, or the music of youth?

HILL: Well, no. In fact, and those numbers are a little skewed. When people -- what they say is white people consume it more, what they mean is consumer consumption, that means they go to the store and buy it more, but black people are still listening to it. And more importantly, we become the taste makers. We're the ones who decide that it's cool.

So even those black kids that are nodding their head to Chief Keef or Rick Ross, they're nodding their heads to it because they think that's what black popular culture is. We see that embodied in somebody like Justin Bieber right now.

So even when a white kid is listening to it they're considered to be acting black and that's where it gets dangerous because when they see black people acting black, they start pulling out guns.

LEMON: OK. Let's -- can we look at the lyrics? Because --

HILL: Yes.

LEMON: Not that -- listen, we're not saying that this -- this kid should have been shot at all because of the lyrics in the music or whatever, but the words in the music, 300 B-word, that's a team, it's going on and on and on, and it says the F, N word, you don't want no beef. And then it goes on. Does that even matter what the lyrics are?

HILL: It doesn't matter. I mean, if you subject the lyrics to a serious scrutiny and -- an expert from Harvard's hip-hop archive did that, and said this is really a love story -- love song to one's friend, it's an ode to one's team, to one's squad, to one's crew. It's not really about violence in the way that they suggest. But it doesn't matter what the song actually said.

If I listen to --

LEMON: Right.

HILL: -- rock music, if I listen to lyrical poetry from the 18th century or if I listen to blues tones, I can find all kinds of wild, crazy lyrics, it doesn't mean that you can shoot the people listening to it.

LEMON: Yes. And listen, I love old school R&B. There's some hip-hop I listen to. And there are some old school rock-n-roll that I like. Classic rock.

HILL: Yes.

LEMON: And there are some lyrics in there when you go, oh, my gosh, and I didn't even realize they were saying it when you crank it up and you realized when they were saying.

HILL: Exactly.

LEMON: So no one should be shot or harmed for the lyrics and the music that they are using.

Listen, I want to say in the opening statement of the prosecutor mentioned the exchange between Dunn and his fiancee. But then the defense told a different story saying his client was verbally threatened.

Is that going to matter in this case? Because most of the people there are saying they didn't hear anything, she's saying she didn't hear anything, she didn't see a gun, she just wanted to get out of there and go home and get the dog.

HILL: Well, we've seen this in the Zimmerman case, we've seen this with Sean Bell. We've seen so many other cases where black unarmed teen -- unarmed teens are still seen as violent, still seen as dangerous. And we still give their killers the benefit of the doubt. So yes, that will matter or that could matter.

I hope it doesn't but that could matter because we're always looking for reasons to let people off the hook for killing black boys because too often we see their bodies as dangerous even unarmed they seem dangerous. So that's an issue here, but I hope that they keep hanging their heads on these rap lyrics because I'm hoping we have a country that's smart enough to know -- banging rap lyrics out of your car even with a 12-inch subwoofer doesn't mean you should die.

LEMON: Yes. There's a lot of music that I don't like. But I don't go up to people and say, can you turn that down, please?

HILL: Exactly.

LEMON: It's like, who the heck do you think you are?

Thank you. Thank you, Marc.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: Well, that's what other people think, too, Don. That's just the old people think black and white. You're not quite old enough for that yet.

LEMON: Yes. We'll be right back. Thank you, Marc.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: OK, look, so you see right here? It's snowing in New York City. Everything is still moving. That's New York City when it snows. This is Atlanta when it snows. Can we show you? Oh, my gosh, one to two inches we're going to get here in New York, and everything keeps moving.

I say that because my team in Atlanta has left. Already because the snow is coming in just a few days and they don't know what is going to happen. They may not be able to get home for years.

I'm just having a little fun. I am Don Lemon. "Freedom Project: Everybody in Cambodia" begins -- "Every Day in Cambodia," begins right now.