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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Ebola Breach in Protocol; Warning of ISIS Attack in U.S.; Smoke Bomb Scare; St. Louis Overnight Protests; Oscar Pistorius Heads Back to Court

Aired October 13, 2014 - 04:30   ET

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

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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A new case of Ebola in the Texas hospital that treated the first patient in the United States with the deadly virus. Why officials are calling it a breach of protocol.

The battle rages for the key Syrian city of Kobani. And new threats from ISIS surface. New threats why Americans need to be on guard.

And the search is on for this man popping up from a subway grate and throwing a smoke bomb into a trendy New York City restaurant. What this video says about the security of New York City's subway and tunnels and its passengers.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. Thirty minutes past the hour. John Berman has the morning off.

Ebola sparking concern in the United States and around the world this morning, as the global death toll from Ebola climbs above 4,000 for the first time.

In Dallas, officials are baffled by the first case contracted in the U.S., a nurse who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan. Now, Duncan, of course, traveled from Liberia to Dallas and fell ill and died last week.

Officials say this unnamed nurse had extensive contact with Duncan and wore full protective gear -- a gown, gloves, mask and face shield at all times. But somehow, she contracted Ebola anyway. Officials are blaming the breach in protocols that governed contact with Ebola patients and are looking into exactly what that breach was.

Meanwhile, hazmat teams decontaminating the nurse's apartment and car. Officials explaining the situation to worried neighbors while downplaying the possibility of a wider health threat. And one person, a close contact with the nurse has no symptoms, but is being protectively placed in isolation.

Nearly halfway around the world from Dallas, U.S. troops are going into battle against Ebola in West Africa, where deaths -- most of the deaths of the current outbreak have happened. On Thursday, 90 U.S. marines and airmen arrived in Liberia, bringing America's total deployment of Ebola fighting troops to 334, with another 700 scheduled for later this month.

There is new concern this morning about attacks on U.S. soil by ISIS- inspired terrorists. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warning law enforcement personnel and warning the news media that they could be targeted by ISIS militants. Law enforcement officials tell CNN, a security bulletin with the warning is based on chatter, extremist forms and on social media. It is not intelligence on any specific threat.

In Syria, ISIS is still tightening its grip on the Kurdish city of Kobani on the Turkish border. But the city has reportedly fallen eerily silent. One Kurdish fighter in the city says he fears the Islamic terror group is planning a major assault.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh live now on the border for us between Turkey and Syria.

And, Nick, does it seem like ISIS is about to finish the job in Kobani?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Extraordinarily difficult to read, Christine. Behind me, we have just seen in the last few minutes what must have been a quite substantial airstrikes. We are hearing jets overhead. You can see the remains of the smoke over there, and that is consistent of what we have been hearing for the last hour really. Those planes and continued explosions around the town. It is hard to determine the source of those blasts.

And they are in a predominantly different location to where we've been seeing a lot of the fighting in the past few days. They are father towards the east and towards the south, which would suggest that those positions previously held by ISIS currently being hit. Whether that means the Kurds pushing them back, that's unclear.

At the same time, there used to be a Kurdish flag to the far west to the city, one of the tall buildings. That's not there anyway. And just near there, an explosion in the last hour.

Remember, this is tense street-to-street fighting. So, it doesn't move in nice easy waves back and forth. This is messy. It's been going on for days. Clearly, according to those inside, a lack of ammunition for those Kurdish fighters. That's going to be getting worse and worse simply by the moment. And ISIS are the ones who can resupply themselves anytime.

But, clearly, after a day of eerie calm, frankly, yesterday, we are seeing the clashes and the consistent noise of jets with explosions back up by explosions pretty much across the town -- Christine.

ROMANS: The response from Turkey is still no response. You still have tanks masked on the hillside, but Turkey not involved.

WALSH: At this stage, Turkey has said they are willing to permit the coalition to use air bases on their territory. That's one substantial change. Bear in mind, it's hard to criticize Turkey too much. The last three

years, they have seen this war continue. This is one of many chapters for them and they are far from friendly. They consider to be terrorists.

So, for them, it is a lose-lose situation. They try to stay out of the Syrian war for a long period of time. But we've seen along the border ourselves how towns inside Syria now run by ISIS are right next to Turkish cities. People can wave back and forth to each other from ISIS-held land back into Turkish-held land. They have a very serious problem here, but they want to fix it in their own terms, and those terms right now don't involve getting involved in that particular brutal street battle -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Thanks so much, Nick, for that.

Thirty-five minutes past the hour.

Hillary Clinton getting heckled during a speech Sunday night in San Diego. Clinton was addressing the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and that she was interrupted by a man in the crowd carrying a bull horn. Listen.

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HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Millions of our children are at risk. Though, there are some people who miss important developmental stages.

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ROMANS: The man was taken out of the room by security officials. Officials say he had a one-day badge for that weekend conference.

This morning, police in New York City asking for the public's help finding this man, this suspect who threw a smoke bomb into a crowded, crowded trendy restaurant. It happened Friday night. Authorities say the man emerged from a subway grate, tossed the device on the patio dining area then escaped underground.

Actress Rose McGowan was there. She tweeted this, "Someone just threw two red smoke bombs into a restaurant I was eating in. Eyes are burning."

The incident threw a real scare into other patrons.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought it was ISIS because of what's going on, it's scary. It's nerve wracking, as a native Long Islander, coming to this city for dinner with friends and family. I'm glad I did not bring my daughter.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: Police say the suspect is a man in his 30s with blond hair, he was wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt with an American flag on it.

It's been a weekend of mostly peaceful resistant in St. Louis, and in Ferguson, Missouri. Thousands taking part in marches in vigils during a four-day event which wraps up today. Protesters are calling for police officer Darren Wilson to be charged in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Seventeen people were arrested early Sunday. Police used pepper spray to subdue some of these protesters, staging a sit-in outside a convenient store in St. Louis, where another black teen was fatally shot by a white police officer last week.

Some 1,000 protesters rallying overnight in St. Louis. They started out as just 200 who wanted to remember Vonderrit Myers. The teenager shot and killed by a St. Louis police officer last week. Police say Myers shot first.

CNN's Sara Sidner live for us in the Shaw area of St. Louis.

Sara, what's happening this hour?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm actually on the St. Louis University campus at this hour. All night, some of the protesters, now a few dozen, down from 1,500 earlier, just a couple of hours ago, they decided to stage a sit-in here right underneath the clock tower here on the St. Louis University campus.

They are here for many reasons, but mostly they are here to talk about what they say is police brutality, police profiling, particularly against young black men. They have been carrying signs throughout the city saying "black lives matter". They took over an intersection for about a half hour where they were writing in chalk "black lives matter" and they were chanting. And their chants are very pointed at police.

This all stems really from the shooting of Michael Brown back on August 9th in Ferguson, which really unleashed a protest movement is what it turned into. But back in August, the numbers were enormous. The police reaction actually agitated folks there. These folks have come for something called Ferguson October. It was a planned scheduled event going on from Friday, Saturday, Sunday and into Monday.

Also, thinker and philosopher Cornell West coming. There were speeches from different interfaith groups today as well before the protesting started. So far, very peaceful. There is a concerted effort to make this particular protest a very peaceful protest. That is what has happened overnight here in St. Louis -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Sara Sidner for us this morning, just a really another weekend of a lot of emotion there. Thank you.

Thirty-nine minutes past the hour. Let's get an early start on your money. Stock futures are down. Markets in Asia and Europe are lower. One fear is the weakness in global economy, especially with those big multinational corporations, those companies could be hurt by slowdowns in China and Europe.

With the recent drop in stocks, you may be checking your 401(k). New data show women are likely then men to put a bigger chunk of their paycheck into retirement accounts. That's good.

But when it comes to total savings, men are still ahead. Female savers have an average balance of $78,000, far below the male average balance of $121,000. That's according to Vanguard. The wages gap is partly to blame, but also women an average of 12 years less than men. Sometimes because they have to take care of aging parents, sometimes because they take time off in the middle of their career to care for children.

All right. Thirty-nine minutes past the hour.

Coming up on EARLY START: officials are questioning the ability of the hospital handling the Ebola case in Spain. The city of Boston waits to hear if a patient there tests positive for Ebola.

And Ebola scare in the air. A flight to LAX has flyers on edge as one passenger falls ill. How a miscommunication terrified a planeful of people.

That's all coming up.

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ROMANS: A Spanish nurse infected with Ebola virus is showing marginal signs of recovering this morning. Health officials in Madrid say Teresa Romero is slightly improved, in critical but stable condition. They are also concerned the hospital where she is being treated is not prepared to handle a crisis like an Ebola outbreak.

I want to bring Nic Robertson live from Madrid.

What's the concern about the hospital and not being able to sort to handle an outbreak?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the European Center for Disease Control had an inspection of the hospital. They say it is not fit for containing Ebola and for treating Ebola. They say that it doesn't measure up to the standards they expect and are required.

Now, that the special committee here in Spain has gone on to add to that, they say, and this is the committee set up to investigate this outbreak of Ebola, they say that there isn't adequate space to put on and take off the protective equipment that the nurses and doctors are required to wear, that the space is too small, which raises the possibility of contamination.

The nurse assistant herself, Teresa Romero, according to some reports, she had something of a rough night last night. We have been told by a source who in the hospital has knowledge of her treatment who says that she has a respiratory problem, that she has a lung infection.

But we are also getting reports and the special spokesman for the special commission here in Spain has said there is some reason to be hopeful about her condition. This is what he said.

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FERNANDO SIMON, SPOKESPERSON, SPECIAL COMMITTEE FOR EBOLA CRISIS (through translator): The amount of the virus Teresa has seems to be lowering. It is important to believe there is hope regarding her case. We have to be careful. It is a good sign for hope, but a person who's contracted Ebola is always in critical condition.

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ROBERTSON: What the experts here believe the 14 or 15-day mark after someone is first showing symptoms is a critical turning point period. Teresa Romero is reaching that stage right now. They believe she first showed the symptoms of September 30th. So, it is 15 days. They feel this could be a pivotal time one way or the other right now, Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Certainly wish her well. Thank you so much for that, Nic.

Forty-six minutes past the hour.

An Ebola scare on the United Airlines flight from New York's JFK airport to Los Angeles International. This started with the passenger with flu-like symptoms begun vomiting on board and that prompted the fire department to respond.

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CAPT. JAMIE MOORE, LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPT: The patient has been assessed by the Los Angeles Fire Department, as well as Los Angeles County public health officials. And there is no reason to believe this person has been exposed to an Ebola virus.

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ROMANS: A miscommunication fueled all this. I mean, the airline officials initially believe the sick passenger had been to West Africa. Turns out it was South Africa.

Fear of an Ebola outbreak also rattling nerves in Boston this morning. Dozens of workers and patients at Harvard Vanguard medical center quarantined for hours after a man who recently visited Liberia entered the facility, complaining of a headache and body aches.

According to one patient, things got a little hectic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We didn't get to wash our hands. We didn't get to do anything. And no one has really told us what to do. They just said take a shower and check your temperature for the next 21 days.

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ROMANS: Late last night, hospital officials announced the patient likely does not have Ebola, but he is being kept in isolation as a precaution.

A second child's death is blamed on Enterovirus D68. This is 21- month-old Michigan girl Madeline Reid. She died at Children's Hospital in Detroit. Last week, New Jersey's medical examiner confirmed a 4-year-old boy had died from the virus. According to the CDC, this strain of Enterovirus has sickened nearly 700 people in 46 states.

After months in the courtroom for killing his model girlfriend, it is sentencing day for Oscar Pistorius. We are live in South Africa as the Blade Runner learns his fate.

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ROMANS: The murder trial that gripped a nation entering its final phase. Oscar Pistorius today back in court for sentencing in the killing his girlfriend.

Now, last month, the athlete was convicted of culpable homicide, of killing model Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius faces years in prison, potentially, although the judge could go easy on him. There are no minimums or maximums here.

CNN's Kelly Phelps following the latest development. She is live for us from Pretoria, South Africa.

Kelly, explain the process for us now. How can a sentencing hearing take days potentially?

KELLY PHELPS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is unusually long for it to take days. Usually, it would wrap up within a day, maximum two. But as with everything else in this trial, both sides have been at pains to canvas all the evidence that they can possibly canvas.

So, for that reason, we were told today we're expecting to hear from at least five witnesses during the sentencing hearing. And, of course, with each witness that takes the stand and each cross- examination of that witness, it prolongs the process even more. But we do still expect it to wrap up by the end of the week.

ROMANS: Some of the testimony, I guess, from his therapist. I mean, she painted a picture of a man who is completely broken.

PHELPS: Yes, absolutely, completely broken. She also interestingly spoke about the impact of the media coverage of the trial with respect to that, saying that he had been humiliated and vilified by the media and had essentially left feeling worthless in the wake of that. Of course, Gerrie Nel took the opportunity to counterbalance that argument by drawing the court's extension to the extent to which Reeva Steenkamp's family have also been broken in the wake of this tragedy.

ROMANS: What about the range of possible sentences? I mean, it seems as though there is no minimum, there's no maximum here. This is up to the discretion of the judge.

PHELPS: It is up to her discretion. But equally, that discretion is guided by pre-existing sentencing principles and jurisprudence. We can look to other cases to get an idea of at least the sort of spectrum that we're speaking of. We know in other very serious cases of culpable homicide, the offender has been given a sentence of up to eight years in prison. Equally in cases of accidental death leading to a conviction of culpable homicide, some sentences have been wholly suspended. So, it will be somewhere in between those two points that his sentence is going to fall eventually.

ROMANS: All right. Kelly Phelps, it could be a couple of days here for the sentencing phase of this. We'll talk to you again very soon. Thank you.

A national security adviser Susan Rice, revealing what she knows about North Korea's Kim Jong-un. In the interview on NBC's "Meet the Press", she said there is no proof the leader is out of power.

Listen.

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SUSAN RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Chuck, obviously, we are watching carefully what's happening in North Korea. It's a country that we monitor with great attention. We have not seen any indications of a transfer of power at this point in North Korea that we view as definitive. But we'll continue to watch it carefully.

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ROMANS: Kim has not been publicly seen in more than a month. Last time he was seen, he was limping. There are rumors he was deposed or he is ill. A group of defectors even says they believe his younger sister may be running the country while he recovers.

All right. Stocks tanked last week. Is the selling over or is your money at risk? We get an early start on your money, next.

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ROMANS: All right. Time for an early start on money this Monday morning. It's reality check time for stocks.

This week, crucial for investors. Stock futures have turned a little bit higher right now. But the Dow suffered its worst-point loss of the year last week. And the NASDAQ and S&P 500 had the worst performance weekly in two years.

A swift selloff, though, may be healthy for the market. Did you know the last correction took place a thousand days ago? It took place in 2011. A correction is a 10 percent pullback from a recent peak.

Stocks need to pull back to move higher. It is natural in the market and many analysts telling me this one is so long overdue for a drop. The Dow has already fallen 4 percent from its recent high. S&P 500 down 5 percent from its record. So, you're halfway there at the moment.

Stocks are dropping, but so are gas prices, now the lowest of the year. AAA says the national average for a gallon of regular, $3.20. That's 9 cents lower than last week, and 26 cents lower than last month, as many as 20 states could soon see averages below $3 a gallon. Missouri and Mississippi are already there. Gas Buddy predicts that prices on the West Coast and Rocky Mountain states could drop another 15 cents to 30 cents over the next two months. You can thank oil prices, they've been plunging on fears of weakness in the global economy.

The drop in gas price follows a steep decline in crude, down 25 percent from its peak earlier this year. Good news for home owners. The Energy Department says heating bills could drop 5 percent to 10 percent this winter. Those in the Northeast who use oil to heat their homes could see even bigger savings. Other commodity prices like natural gas are down too, which could also provide relief to other parts of the country this winter. Roughly half of U.S. households heat their homes with natural gas, so those prices dropping because of fears of weakness in Europe and China, plus a stronger U.S. dollar.

All right, EARLY START continues right now.

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