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ISIS Releases a Video on YouTube Today; Is There Any Cure for Baldness?; Fourth Grader Sues Another Fourth Grader; Electric Bike by Harley

Aired June 20, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

On Iraq here, the terror group ISIS has shocked Iraq and grabbed the rest of the world's attention with its ruthless sweep from Syria into Iraq's Sunni heartland. Shock number two has been the unexpected launch of the social media blitz that shows ISIS is not your average gang of heavily armed thugs. In fact, these thugs are quite social media savvy.

And now we have this. Perhaps the group's most polished production yet, a video circulating online today. Apparently shot in Syria in English, aimed at luring new recruits from the west.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the land of jihad and the land of Hiya (ph), the land of living. We have brothers from Bangladesh, from Iraq, from Cambodia, Australia, UK. We have nothing has gathered us except to make a with the Hayas (ph). That's all we came for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Jim Clancy joins me from CNN international.

Just quickly, we just got word that now You Tube -- let's show it, guys. You Tube has yanked, here we go, the video has been removed. It violates the policy on vie lance. But as you were saying, Clancy, you know, they will find other places to put that video out.

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Plenty of other places that video is going to be seen. You're right. It's to recruit new people. Right now there's a whole what they call a twitter storm. All eyes on ISIS. It's out there. That's the hashtag that they're using. And people coming in, yes, we support you from all over the world. These are mostly people that have never done much of anything in their lives. And they see this as very exciting.

BALDWIN: But in English.

CLANCY: Yes.

BALDWIN: Are they trying to recruit disaffected Europeans, Americans? CLANCY: They're trying to get anybody that they can. They need

numbers. You know, we estimate them to be about 10,000 strong. That's not that -- that many. And they lose a lot of people in these suicide bombings. And I have looked at the recruitment process. When U.S. troops were in Iraq, they captured data from the al Qaeda in Iraq, the precedent for this group. And it showed very clearly that they got young men in, they were sponsored, they had money for training and they sign add form. And they didn't need them to fight. They needed them to be the suicide bombers. And the young men that sign up for this are going to, indeed, be suicide bombers.

BALDWIN: That's what they're signing up for whether they realize it or not.

CLANCY: Whether they realize it or not. Now --

BALDWIN: Let me read this quote to you. This is from a Middle East analyst about this ISIS propaganda campaign. It says this. There's money behind it. They aren't just idiots. These idiots have somebody controlling them and providing them with equipment that is very expensive. Nouri al-Maliki says this week that ISIS is they're getting the money from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is saying no. Saudi Arabia is a friend of the U.S.

CLANCY: There's no doubt. They have so much money. When I looked at these records that they have from al Qaeda in Iraq, they had so much money they were sending it back. They had too much. It's coming in from donors in Europe, in the Middle East, private donors, they are funneling all of this money in.

Now add to that, ISIS has captured huge arm stock part-times right there in Iraq.

BALDWIN: And banks. Mosul. And cash.

CLANCY: You know, I've heard tens of millions I've heard hundreds of millions. But they're looting. They use extortion. They put a tax on Christians. So they have to pay into the organization. All of these things, they are not poor. They have the money to carry it out. They can pay their fighters more than the Iraqi army.

BALDWIN: Jim Clancy, thank you. At least You Tube took it down. As you point out, it will be elsewhere. Thank you so much.

Coming up, a cure for baldness? This is his head before and this is his head now. That's quite a difference. What happened? Apparently, it's a special kind of drug not for baldness at all, but something else, Arthritis?

And then a fourth grader says he was threatened, beaten up, bullied. And now he's taking action, suing another fourth grader and his school. Can you really do that, sue a fourth grader? We'll discuss with lawyers, coming up here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: A drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis is showing promise as a cure for a severe form of baldness. So here's the example. A totally bald 25-year-old re-grew a full head of hair and more. Look at that after the doctor gave him the drug. So before you try to get this drug, you need to know a few things.

So to do that, let's bring in our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

So give me the caveats.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: OK. The biggest caveat here is that that gentleman that you just saw had a specific disease. He actually had an autoimmune disease. And his doctor said, I'm wondering if maybe the treatment for you is already in the pharmacy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

E. COHEN (voice-over): This is Kyle Rhodes' head before. And here it is after, a thick, full head of hair.

KYLE RHODES, HAIR LOSS PATIENT: I've gotten a lot of comments about how great my hair is coming in and how lovely of a hair color it is. I find myself a lot of times just playing with it.

E. COHEN: What was the trick? No, not Rogaine or Propecia. They grow hair only on parts of the scalp. And it for sure wasn't whatever Homer Simpson took.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have hair. I have hair!

E. COHEN: It was a pill. A drug called Zeljans that's actually already on the market for, of all things, arthritis. Kyle's doctor at Yale University decided to give it a try and eight months later, voila. Kyle, who's 25, started losing hair all over his body at age two because of an unusual form of alopecia.

RHODES: The neighborhood kids, school, just jokes. Rogaine comments. One thing I did get when I was completely bald is called a skinhead which I found very offensive.

E. COHEN: But now, even his eyelashes and eyebrows are back. 6.5 million people have a skin disease like Kyle's. His doctor says the drug may one day help them, too. But what about the tens of millions of men who've just gone bald as they've gotten older? The doctor doesn't think the drug will help them, but he does think it's worth doing a study to find out. The drug can have serious side effects. Kyle hasn't had any, and he's enjoying his new head of hair.

RHODES: I've always wanted an '80s hockey mullet, so maybe going towards that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Oh, my God. I love him. E. COHEN: I had to look up what an '80s hockey mullet was.

BALDWIN: I can only imagine.

E. COHEN: I wanted to talk a little bit about why would an arthritis drug, you know, do this.

BALDWIN: Yes. Connect the dots.

E. COHEN: So Rheumatoid arthritis is an auto immune disease. And the kind of alopecia he has is an autoimmune disease. So they have a similar basis.

BALDWIN: So if you don't have this kind of autoimmunity, therefore you won't have the hockey mullet that he got.

E. COHEN: Right. The doctors don't think that you will. The doctors I talked to. Now, one of them said, look, we should study it because who knows? You never know what you're going to find out. Another doctor I talked to said, no way. This would never work for regular old male pattern baldness. But this could be great news for people with his form of alopecia.

BALDWIN: Love that. Love his sense of humor.

E. COHEN: He is adorable.

BALDWIN: And his do. He's rocking it.

Elizabeth, thank you very much.

In this week's human factor a young woman uses the tragedy that left her paralyzed to help others. Here's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DOCTOR SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At 14 years old, Sabrina Cohen was your average teenager. She was building a social life, simply trying to fit in. So when a few older boys offered Sabrina and her friends a ride to a party, they jumped at the chance.

SABRINA COHEN, SPIRAL CORD INJURY SURVIVOR: I just remember being concerned with things like not putting my seat belt on, because I wanted to look cool.

GUPTA: Getting into the car and not buckling up was a decision that would cost her dearly.

S. COHEN: Within minutes they took off drag races down one of Miami Beach's most dangerous streets about 90 miles per hour. The other car lost control, hit the car I was in. We hit a tree and I instantly bake a quadriplegic.

GUPTA: Sabrina spent the first several months in denial.

S. COHEN: You know, I was more like I'm going to work out and I'm going to walk again.

GUPTA: It wasn't until she saw others in her condition that the reality set in. After several months of grueling rehab and soul searching, Sabrina decided to use her experience to help others.

S. COHEN: My principal approached me and said to me, would you do the school a favor and talk to the seniors about reckless driving. And that was the start of my mentorship and public speaking and motivational speaking.

GUPTA: She graduated at the top of her class from high school on time. Then she went tout get a dual degree in advertising and psychology from the University of Miami. A few years after college started the Sabrina Cohen foundation.

S. COHEN: My mental and fitness well-being has always played such an important role in keeping me healthy and active and able to do what I do. So my focus now is to basically allocate funds to people who can't afford to get the best therapy.

GUPTA: And she says leading by example especially when talking to children is key.

S. COHEN: I think I am an example that life can go on, and you can a full life, as I do.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A family in a Chicago suburb is taking legal aim at the source of their bullying problem. The alleged bully, who happens to be a rising fourth grader. You heard me right. A fourth grader is being sued here. And his alleged victim's attorney told TV station WMAQ that he would go as far as to garnish, take the boy's future earnings, his wages. This boy referred to as C.A. in the court documents with parents, school, principal, they are all named in this lawsuit (INAUDIBLE) and his mom and dad.

They say they repeatedly went to the principal of this Robert Frost elementary school about C.A., attacking Joaquin. They even filed police reports. The lawsuit lists 12 different incidents of Joaquin being pushed, kicked and elbowed. Even more, they say, during this past school year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEVERI DEL CORE, JOAQUIN DEL CORE'S MOTHER: It escalated in events, sometimes as much as threats on my son's life as well as spitting, hitting, kicking. One time he was choking him and told him he was going to go home and get a knife and come back and stab him until he was dead.

MATTHEW DEL CORE, JOAQUIN DEL CORE'S FATHER: He became consumed more with fear rather than a willingness and a want and an eagerness to learn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's have a big discussion about this. CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos is joining me as is our CNN digital correspondent and mom, Kelly Wallace.

Listen. When you read the allegations, they're horrendous. But, Danny, legally speaking, can a fourth grader sue a fourth grader?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: A fourth grader can absolutely sue a fourth grader. Assault and battery in the civil context doesn't make a distinction when you get to a -- when you get to human versus human. Certainly the level of intent of a child has to be questioned. But the cases have gone back many, many years. Some of the seminal cases in law school are children committing assault on another child. The real question is can you hold a school, which is usually a government institution, liable for the assault and battery. Remember, those are intentional tor torts, the assault of another child.

The school does stand at some level as what we call parents patriot (ph). They are the legal parents while the children are there. At the same time, they enjoy a significant amount of what we call immunity. It is exceedingly difficult to sue a government entity, much easier to sue the UPS truck than a post office truck.

BALDWIN: OK. Kelly, I want your reaction. I'm dying for your reaction. First let me read this from the school district. This is what they say as part of the statement.

As a district and at each of our schools we value the safety and security of each and every one of our students and staff members and take bullying and prevention seriously. It goes on. We work diligently to provide a healthy, productive environment for all our students to learn and grow.

My question to you really, Kelly, is more overarching that, you know, to think in this society in 2014 that we have fourth graders suing fourth graders.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. I mean, exactly. My reaction to this was just such sadness, right? What is the world coming to? And you both will remember, right, not too long ago where a mom was so frustrated that, you know, her daughter was being repeatedly bullied on the school bus, the school was doing nothing about it, so she posted this video on facebook, if you remember, of that girl, tearful video of this girl because she felt like that was the only way to get people's attention.

So, to me, this shows a desperation on the part of parents when they feel like the school is not doing anything, the principal is not doing anything, and the school district is not doing anything. And right, Danny, you have to agree, it shows that we clearly have to be doing more in some way to prevent families like this one from feeling like their only recourse is a lawsuit.

BALDWIN: You bring up parents. And I want your thoughts on the parents' issue. I'm wondering onus on the parents as well. They also, Danny, if you read through this lawsuit, the alleged victim's family went as far as to saying to the bullier's parents, you need to take your kid and report him to the department of children and family services. To me, and I understand their complaints, that sounds so extreme.

WALLACE: Yes.

CEVALLOS: Yes. Especially reporting to DHS or whatever the government agency that watches over our children. Because once you -- it's an unreasonable request. Because once you report a child to DHS, they open a case, and that case could potentially end with the termination of parental rights.

So the idea that another parent might actually turn their kid into the department of whatever the appropriate services are, child services, depending on the state, is a little unrealistic. So, too, is the idea that you might garnish a 6-year-old's future wages. Garnishing an adult's wages is difficult enough.

BALDWIN: Right. To think of a child's upcoming wages. And then, Kelly, what about mom and dad? Mom and dad for both sides.

WALLACE: Right. I mean, you know, we talk about this and we do story after story. You know, sometimes children are modeling behavior that they see from their parents. And I'm not here on national television saying that the alleged bully's parents are bullies. But I think the onus is really on parents in terms of how we treat other people and how our children watch that.

And also really, in terms of empowering bystanders, right? Kids who are watching bullying to take action and having the students get involved in the solutions to bullying. So often schools have these zero tolerance policies, you know. You bully, you're out. And it's -- it's coming from the top down. And I think many people feel like, we got to get the students involved, to have them kind of coming up with the solutions. That's one way that they might, you know, create a better climate of empathy and compassion and not having lawsuits where students are suing students because that's -- they feel like that's their only action.

BALDWIN: It seems like, we talk so much about instances such as bullying across the country. At least it seems like some schools are doing the right thing. We'll watch and see if the lawsuit has legs.

Danny Cevallos and Kelly Wallace, thank you both so much this afternoon.

Still to come, Harley Davidson, anyone, taking a new hog on the road? The motorcycle manufacturer is charging up with a new design. I don't know if you have a Harley if you're going to like this one. Also ahead, you see this? The CIA apparently planned to turn kids and

their parents against Osama bin Laden by handing out this doll in Afghanistan. How the creator of G.I. Joe helped design this devilish looking OBL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. Listen, I don't have a Harley. I know some people who do. And I think this is going to make them cringe. So my apologies.

Part of the allure, I hear, of a Harley is the rumble of the engine. And the Harley crowd isn't exactly a Prius crowd, you know, quiet. However, that could be changing because Harley Davidson is now testing an electric motorcycle, a quieter fuel efficient hog, if you will.

So Alison Kosik, let me bring you in in New York. I was trying to find a parallel. It is like a Porsche that goes 50 miles an hour. Just to keep thing to go together.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That's an insult to what Harley is doing. But hey, you know what, call it how you see it, right?

I tell you this much. Harley said that the sound that this electric bike is going to make is cool. They say cool. I really don't know what cool is. We'll have to find out at some point for ourselves.

Also, one other thing about this electric bike, if you want to kind of ride on the open road with the wind going through your hair and just riding endlessly --

BALDWIN: No. We have helmets on, Alison. No wind through our hair.

KOSIK: That's true.

BALDWIN: I'm with you.

KOSIK: Anyway, the point here I'm trying to make is that you're going to need more charging stations. Because this test bike, right now it's just a test bike, can only go 53 miles. Even though Harley says it's planning on installing other charging stations across the country once it really gets this bike in motion. This is just a test bike right now. It's going to fan out 33 bikes across the country starting on Monday. Actually in Manhattan it's going to start testing out these bikes. They are not for sale yet.

BALDWIN: Not for sale yet. I'm just messing with you because I adore you. And while I have you, Alison Kosik, speaking of motorcycles, have you seen this crazy video? Watch this with me, motorcycle accident. This thing was caught on camera so we'll spotlight it for you. The motorcycle goes through this intersection.

KOSIK: Oh, my God.

BALDWIN: I know! Gets clipped by a car. The guy tumbles over the car. I'm sure we'll watch it again. Here he goes. Over it. Like an acrobat. Almost --

KOSIK: Speaking of helmet, Brooke, look, he's not wearing a helmet. Thank God he's not wearing flip-flops. I've seen what that can do. This is the reality of a motorcycle. But this guy gets up, what is he, a cat? He has nine lives.

BALDWIN: He wasn't hurt. That's obviously why we're showing it to you. He was OK. And police say the car actually turned after the light was red. But he's a-OK. But just stunning.

KOSIK: And his bike was totaled. But he walked away. Amazing.

BALDWIN: Amazing. Alison, thank you. Have a wonderful weekend.

KOSIK: Sure.