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Target CEO out After Massive Data Breach; Nine Performers Hurt in Aerial Circus Stunt; Six Hurt after Severe Turbulence Hits Flight; Oklahoma Wildfire Kills 1, Destroys 20-Plus Homes; Sterling's Wife OKs Plan for New Clippers CEO

Aired May 05, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to all of you, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you for joining me. We begin with breaking news.

There is a horrifying turn in the case of those 200 Nigerian girls who were abducted from their school last month. A man claiming to lead the terror group that abducted those girls from a rural school has issued a chilling warning. He will sell those girls. The statement issued just minutes ago says, quote, "There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I will sell women."

Unbelievable, right?

CNN's Vlad Duthiers is in Lagos with more.

This is just -- it's just mindboggling.

VLADIMIR DUTHIERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is, Carol. But, in fact, this has been what Boca Haram has perpetuated on the Nigerian people since 2009. Rights groups say that they've killed thousands of people, just this year alone, 1500 people have been killed in Boko Haram-related violence.

This latest atrocity, the abduction, and now as you heard, the leader -- the supposed leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau, saying that he -- not only has he abducted these girls, he's going to sell them. So the parents' worst fears realized. These are parents who sent these children, April 14th. They were in their dorms sleeping in the middle of the night. These armed assailants stormed into the classroom, woke these girls up, after a shootout with some security guards, carted them away into the forest after setting fire to the school.

We had suspected for quite some time that they may have been trafficked into neighboring Cameroon and in Chad, and now for the parents, this can't be -- if you thought it couldn't get any worse for them, it just has because their worst fears are being realized -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So what's the point? What do they want? Why do they hate these girls?

DUTHIERS: Well, Boko Haram means Western education is forbidden, Western education is a sin in the local house of language. They are against anything Western. And women getting an education is an anathema to them. They -- and also what's particularly troubling and sad about this story is that where these girls were taken, Carol, is one of the poorest regions in Nigeria and one of the least educated regions in Nigeria.

These are parents who sent their kids to school to get an education, to better their lives, in a country, quite frankly, where life is challenging for everybody. And to find out one morning when you wake up that your child has been abducted, I don't think any parent can imagine that. And that's what this story is about. It's about the taking of these girls in the dead of night, and a military and a government who so far has been ineffective in bringing these girls home.

In three weeks, we've just yesterday only had statement and remarks made by the president on camera. So people that we spoke to, the families that we've spoken to on the ground are angry, but more importantly, they are heartbroken and are in agony -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Vladimir Duthiers, reporting live this morning. Thank you.

Also this news just in to CNN. The CEO of Target is out. Gregg Steinhafel has left the company effective immediately. And the wake of last year's massive data breach, where the credit card numbers and personal information from as many as 110 million customers were stolen. It was possibly the biggest hack of its kind in history.

Poppy Harlow is here to tell us more.

Good morning.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This was -- is a very big deal. You know, you've sat down, you interviewed him. You're one of the few people who has interviewed this CEO. He's a man who has been at the company for 35 years. This is a Minnesota-based huge company, again more than 100 -- they think 110 million people affected by this hack that you'll remember happened over that Black Friday weekend, Thanksgiving.

You know, what happened here at Target, the fallout of this was extensive. Not only a public relations fallout, you had their earnings hit, significantly. It cost Target about $61 million. They saw fewer people coming in over that key holiday season, because we found out about this sort of between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So what's interesting in this release that just came out is that the company is not saying that this is tied to the breach. They're saying, quote, "Now is the right time for new leadership at Target." That coming from the CEO, saying this came after extensive talks with the board. But they're not tying this directly to the data breach. However, this was a massive data breach, again it hurt them from a PR standpoint. It affected how many people have come into their stores. It cost them millions of dollars, and it hurt their earnings.

COSTELLO: But one word about this CEO. He was a man of few words. He wasn't exactly the most effusive CEO in the world. HARLOW: Right.

COSTELLO: So when that hit them, when that controversy hit them --

HARLOW: Right.

COSTELLO: -- he should have been out there like cheerleading Target. But that never really happened.

HARLOW: It's very interesting you say that. I reached out to Target pretty much every week or every other week after this. Still up until last week for an interview with him to come on and talk to us and they said, you know, not right now. We're not doing that. He did one interview with the business network, CNBC.

But I think, you know, a lot of people may have wanted to hear more because this is a very front-facing consumer-facing company. I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is the Minnesota company. You know, but Target has made changes to their credit. They have made changes to protect customers. We also know that they gave customers that were affected if they wanted it a free year of credit monitoring.

They've come out and announced that they're changing their credit cards to chip and pin-based credit cards. They're the first major U.S. retailer to do this. And also to be fair, this is one of the biggest if not the biggest data breach, but this has affected other major consumer-facing companies.

This, I think, Carol, is the new reality of technology and what we face in retail and other companies when you're using your credit card or your debit card, and companies, I think, are still trying to figure out how to best protect consumers. But a major headline this Monday morning, the CEO of Target who has been there 35 years is out.

COSTELLO: You're not kidding. Poppy Harlow, many thanks.

It was supposed to be a day of clowns and high wire acts and fun memories at Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus until a midair stunt went terribly wrong. I want to warn you, the video you're about to see is kind of disturbing. So here it is, and you can feel this video out of nowhere. Eight acrobats all in perfect place, all hanging by their hair, some 25 feet in the air in a stunt called the human chandelier.

They suddenly plummeted to the ground in the middle of the show. It was such a surprise, some witnesses actually thought it was part of the act until the music stopped. And people realized the horrifying scene they just witnessed. Another performer on the ground and two other people were hurt.

In just a few minutes, I'll be joined by a woman who shot that frightening video. But first, CNN's Alexandra Field has more on the accident.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A circus act goes horribly wrong. Eight acrobats suspended by their hair more than stories from the ground suddenly plunge when the apparatus holding them fails. Eleven people injured, one critically.

STEVEN PARE, PROVIDENCE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSIONER: At this point it doesn't appear to be life threatening. But they are serious injuries from that high end fall.

FIELD: The fall, a frightening sight for the thousands of spectators including many children.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody didn't realize at it was an accident -- you know, we all thought it was part of the show. But then soon realized it was an accident.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole metal, it came on top of everybody. It was scary.

FIELD: Promotional video shows what the stunt is supposed to look like. One of the highlights of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's "Legend Show." They're working with local and national officials to make sure this doesn't happen again.

LAWRENCE LEPORE, DUNKIN DONUTS CENTER: We will do whatever it takes to come to the bottom of this, make sure that when the show goes -- to perform again, that it's safe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: And a spokesman for the circus say they still don't know what caused this accident, what caused that failure that you saw in that dramatic video there but they did immediately cancel the shows yesterday and they have now cancelled today's shows as well -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, I was just going to ask that. The show must go on and all of that, but --

FIELD: A lot of work to do before the show can go on.

COSTELLO: OSHA is investigating, I would assume, right?

FIELD: OSHA has been called in to investigate. Local authorities are investigating. A spokesman for the circus says that they are participating in whatever ways they can. They tell us that they personally inspect their equipment every time it's delivered to a new arena so when it arrived in Providence, they would have looked at it. They say again that safety is the utmost priority here, but the question is, what happened?

COSTELLO: I can't imagine hanging by my hair anyway. But I have new admiration for this trapeze artist.

Thank you very much, Alexandra Field.

Terrifying moments for passengers on a U.S. Airways flight headed from Orlando from Philadelphia. A patch of severe turbulence just moments after takeoff forced the pilot to turn the plane around yesterday. Six people were hurt, including two flight attendants. One passenger said it felt like a drop at the bottom of a roller coaster. She said shoes and apples, all sorts of things went flying through the air.

Here is the control tower just moments after the pilot called for help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somewhere hitting 070. Is this going to be a medical emergency?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 735, do we have to call any type of ambulance and can you give me the genders of who this hurt?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The airline says the fasten seatbelt sign was on at the time. A passenger told CNN's "NEW DAY" what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, the airplane, you know, dropped. Obviously hit a strong down draft. The airplane, you know, kind of rotated a little bit. Everybody kind of let out a collective "Holy crap, what was that." Because it had been bumpy. You know, it was -- it was pretty much slight turbulence, choppy turbulence the whole flight. And frankly, I was surprised to hear that anybody was injured because I don't know who would have had their seatbelt off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Some people apparently did, though.

Rene Marsh, live in Washington. It's 17,000 feet this happened. So everybody should have had their seatbelts on.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Right. And that audio you played just a little while ago, Carol, that was as they were making that emergency landing because of all of this. I can tell you, it was a heart-pounding seconds for the 265 people on board U.S. Airways Flight 735. You mentioned that they were 17,000 feet in the air, right above Delaware, when all of a sudden a violent mid-air shakeup.

Listen to the passengers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Feet down, shoes were flying, cell phones are flying, people were screaming. And it was very, very, very scary.

MARSH (voice-over): A frightening scene on a U.S. Airways flight as passengers were jolted around, injuring six people, sending five, including two flight attendants, to the hospital. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought we were going down. I really did.

MARSH: The Orlando bound flight hit severe turbulence shortly after taking off from Philadelphia International Airport. Passengers say the drop in altitude came out of nowhere.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were going and all of a sudden there was just like a drop like you're going down the bottom of a roller coaster and things just flew up in the air.

MARSH: One passenger described seeing a woman flying out of her seat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I saw the lady three rose in front of me, she bashed her head like all the way up to the plastic, and to describe it, the plastic was broken.

MARSH: This photo shows cracks in another overhead compartment after a passenger crashed into it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was crazy experience. We were just up in the air like lifted out of our seats.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: So, Carol, pilots depend on other pilots ahead to report turbulence. There were some reports of light turbulence in this area, but nothing as severe as what they actually ran into. We do know that turbulence injuries, they're pretty common when it comes to commercial aviation, roughly 32 every year, according to the FAA. But injuries are virtually nonexistent if -- if, if, if, you are wearing your seatbelt. So that's the important thing.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: I can't believe they took off their seatbelt. The other thing, I just want you to calm people down because, you know, these turbulence is like hitting a speed bump in the sky, vertical air, right? You hit vertical air and the plane bumps. Is there any danger of the plane actually coming apart when that happens?

MARSH: No. The planes are built to handle turbulence. You know, if you talk to any pilot, they will say this comes with the territory. Now severe turbulence, that's a little bit more rare. But when we talk about turbulence, you don't have to worry about the plane crashing. You're going to be safe. The only problem is if you're walking around, you're not in your seat, you're not -- you don't have your seatbelt on. That's when you start to see the injuries.

And I can tell you, when you look at the injuries, most of them tend to be the flight crew because they're up walking around the cabin. So the takeaway here is always have that seatbelt on to ensure that you don't get hurt in that instance.

COSTELLO: Will do. Rene Marsh, many thanks.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM, dry temperatures and strong winds fueling wildfires in Oklahoma. At least one person has already died and authorities warn at least 150 homes could be at risk.

Up next, how a controlled burn burned out of control.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Right now, firefighters are trying to contain a fast-moving wildfire in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Authorities say at least one person was killed after refusing to evacuate his home. The fire started as a controlled burn but dry temperatures and high winds fueled the fire. At least 20 homes have been destroyed and officials warn many, many more could be at risk.

We're joined now on the phone by fire chief Eric Harlow.

Hi, Chief.

ERIC HARLOW, GUTHRIE, OKLAHOMA FIRE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

Can you bring us up you to date on the latest?

HARLOW: Well, really not a whole lot of change from last night. We're still looking in the area of 3,000 to 3,500 acres that have been burned. We're holding fast, confirmed six occupied homes that have been lost. We know that number will go up, but we have been waiting on daylight to truly get in and assess an accurate number on a total. We have seen from the air, we're well in excess of 30 structures lost. But from the air, we couldn't tell for sure whether those were occupied or some of them may have been out buildings or abandoned homes.

COSTELLO: Chief, we're told the fire started as a controlled burn, which means firefighters started the fire. So can you give me more specifics on how this thing got out of control?

HARLOW: Well, with the wind conditions we had yesterday, any fire that was burning would have easily gotten out of control. We had humidity next to zero and very high winds and hot conditions, definitely not a favorable day to be burning. But unfortunately out in the unincorporated areas such as this, there is not a whole lot of controls in place to prevent those.

COSTELLO: But it was a controlled burn, right?

HARLOW: Correct.

COSTELLO: So, should they have done that in the first place?

HARLOW: Common sense would have told you probably not. But like I said, there is very limited lulls in control unless there is a burn ban in place to prevent folks from doing that.

COSTELLO: So, I would assume there is an investigation into why they decided to do this controlled burn. HARLOW: There will be. But unfortunately, other than punitive action civilly between landowners, there is no criminal action that can be taken.

COSTELLO: I keep saying "they." Who started the controlled burn?

HARLOW: We still don't know with 100 percent accuracy. We know it was one of two different properties, which that will be part of our work today, is determining exactly where it started.

COSTELLO: Understand.

Chief Eric Harlow, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

HARLOW: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Coming up in the NEWSROOM, 59 days and still no sign of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Investigators are gearing up for a new phase of this search, and they're about to go where no one has gone before. We'll talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Donald Sterling may be keeping silent about his plans for the LA. Clippers, but his wife is talking about the team. Co-owner, Shelly Sterling, says she supports the NBA's move to ban her husband and to look for a new CEO. Hmmm.

CNN's Ted Rowlands is in Los Angeles.

What does that mean exactly, Ted?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I don't know, Carol. Kind of looks like she is distancing herself from Donald Sterling and maybe wanting to keep the team for herself. The bottom line is the Clippers are enjoying the best season they have had in franchise history and now looks that both Mr. and possibly Mrs. Sterling would like to try to keep the team.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS (voice-over): With a win this weekend, the Los Angeles Clippers are moving on to the next round of the NBA playoffs.

Meanwhile, off the court, the drama surrounding team owner Donald Sterling continues to grow. In an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, V. Stiviano, the woman heard with Sterling on the now infamous recordings, defended the Clippers' owner and claims she is still close with him.

BARBARA WALTERS, ABC: Is Donald Sterling a racist?

V. STIVIANO: No. I don't believe it in my heart.

WALTERS: What is his state of mind right now? STIVIANO: Confused. I think he feels very alone.

ROWLANDS: Meanwhile, Sterling's wife, Shelly, who was at this weekend's game, says she thinks the NBA's plan to hire an executive to run the team is a great idea. Releasing a statement that seems to indicate she would like to hold on to the Clippers, which is part of a family trust.

A statement says in part, "As a co-owner, I am fully committed to taking the necessary steps to make the Clippers the best team in the NBA. That has been my aspiration ever since 1981."

IRA BOUDWAY, BLOOMBERG: She is saying, essentially, that you can do what you want to my husband. He is a racist, maybe. You can strip him of his control as the board of governor.

But this is a piece of family property, and you can't just take away our property. We didn't do anything. We didn't say anything. This is not us.

ROWLANDS: As for Donald Sterling's next move, it's still unclear if he will be willing to sell. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on CBS' "Face the Nation" says after speaking to Sterling, he doesn't think he'll go down without a fight.

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI, LOS ANGELES: I think he thinks he's going to be the owner for a long time. That he wants to stay the owner. And I said this will be a long, protracted fight and a painful thing for a city that is a great city, great American city.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS: The bottom line, Carol, anybody who looks at this doesn't really see an option for either one of the Sterlings to own this team, if the NBA owners move forward with their plan and vote to have them sell it. That 10-member committee that met last week is expected to meet again this week to move that process along.

COSTELLO: Ted Rowlands reporting live for us this morning.

Let's talk more about this -- this notion that Shelly Sterling might one day own the team. I want to bring in Michael McCann. He's a legal analyst and writer for "Sports Illustrated" and SI.com.

Welcome.

MICHAEL MCCANN, LEGAL ANALYST: Hi, Carol. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm glad you're here.

So, Shelly Sterling at game seven. She was shaking hands, releasing statements. It does sound like the Sterlings have a plan to keep the team. What does it sound like to you?

MCCANN: Well, it sounds like there could be two different legal strategies that complement each other. One would be the legal strategy we talked about last week with Donald Sterling, that he could file a lawsuit, he could seek an injunction. There are different recourses he has to turn to.

Now, the other is the possibility that Shelly Sterling could seek her own legal action to block the NBA. She could argue that it's -- it's a family trust, that removing one family member from the Clippers doesn't remove the entity, the family. And as a result, she would then take the team. It would revert to her if Donald is removed.

So, we could see possibly two separate lawsuits against the NBA by different members of the Sterling family.

COSTELLO: So, has Shelly Sterling been involved in the Clippers at all, and does it matter?

MCCANN: It doesn't necessarily matter. Her involvement has reportedly been limited. But if she has equity in the team and if the trust is configured in a way that removing one family member reverts the rest of the trust to the remainder of the family, then whether or not she is active or passive won't dictate her equity in the team. And she will argue that her lack of involvement perhaps over the years was just because she was more of a passive owner. But that doesn't mean she wasn't an owner.

COSTELLO: Interesting.

So, in Ted's package, his piece, he said, Shelly Sterling released a statement. And in that statement, she welcomes the commissioner's search for a CEO, who promotes equality and inclusiveness. It's clear the NBA doesn't want her input, but can it keep her out of this in the long term? Can it say, Mrs. Sterling, we think you should stop releasing statements?

MCCANN: Well, Adam Silver said in his press conference, the NBA commissioner, that any action the league has taken is against her husband, Donald Sterling. It doesn't appear as if Shelly Sterling is the target of any league action.

So, given that comment, it would seem that the league cannot take any action against her. She appears to be exercising her rights as a co- owner of the team. There is no clear reason why she cannot do so.

Now, granted, her past in terms of racism and her husband, she is implicated, as well. But again, the NBA didn't do anything about it for years. So it's hard for the league to now argue, years ago, you were implicated. We didn't do anything, but now it counts against you.

COSTELLO: Michael McCann, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

MCCANN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Coming up in the NEWSROOM, two months have passed, no debris, in fact, no signs at all of Flight 370. Now, investigators are regrouping. Could a second look at satellite data shed new clues into the plane's disappearance? We'll talk about that next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)