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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Unmanned Rocket Explodes On Liftoff; Dallas Nurse Survives Ebola; Paying For An Ebola Cure; The War Against ISIS

Aired October 29, 2014 - 05:30   ET

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

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news overnight, sources telling CNN that Ferguson, Missouri police chief could soon be forced to resign. This follows the controversial police shooting of unarmed teenager, Michael Brown.

The town is now preparing for what could happen if Officer Wilson is not indicted. We'll have the very latest developments this morning just ahead.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: An unmanned NASA rocket explodes in the sky just seconds after liftoff. Investigators are now trying to figure out just what went wrong.

BERMAN: Terror watch at thousands of federal buildings. The government beefing up security after threats of lone wolf terror attacks. We'll tell what you we're learning this morning ahead. Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It's 31 minutes past the hour this morning. We have breaking news from Ferguson to tell you about. Word this morning the police chief there could soon step down.

Government officials familiar with ongoing discussions are telling CNN Chief Thomas Jackson's departure would be part of efforts to reform the Ferguson Police Department after the shooting of unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by Officer Darren Wilson. Chief Jackson and the mayor of Ferguson are flatly denying those reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there a plan in place to have Chief Jackson step down.

JAMES KNOWLES, MAYOR OF FERGUSON, MISSOURI: No, no.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And are you getting any pressure from any --

KNOWLES: They've been saying that for months about him stepping down. But they stood by him the entire time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So nothing --

KNOWLES: There's no change on that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: No change on that. There is growing concern in Ferguson about what might happen if Officer Wilson is not indicted in the Michael Brown shooting. School officials in St. Louis County, they're writing to the prosecutor, Bob McCullough, asking him to announce whether or not Wilson will be indicted at night or a weekend so as to avoid putting students in the middle of any possible protests.

Residents telling CNN's Sara Sidner if there's no indictment, the reaction could be violent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY DAVIS, PROTESTER: That's what some people say. I've heard a lot of people saying -- some people say they'll be a part of blowing it up, you know, if he doesn't get indicted. I just hope it doesn't get bad. I hope they don't like -- I hope nobody gets hurt.

GABRIELLE HANSON, PROTESTER: I know they're going to be really upset with the government buildings. I've heard about curfews that are going to happen. People are still thinking they're going to be able to out protests. Some people are scared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Officer Darren Wilson has not been seen in public since shooting Michael Brown. At least six felony drug cases have been dismissed because Wilson failed to show up in court.

BERMAN: This morning, key questions about what caused a rocket crucial to the future of NASA to explode just after liftoff. This unmanned NASA-contracted rocket exploded at the spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia.

The debris crashed down on the launch pad spewing fiery wreckage everywhere. Luckily there were no injuries, but it did cause significant damage to property and vehicles.

The Orbital Sciences Antares rocket was carrying 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station. This had morning, NASA and its partner are trying to determine just went wrong.

Let's get more now from CNN's Tom Foreman.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, Christine, this was really a cataclysmic launch that happened just moments after this Antares rocket took off. People who were watching over from across the way, you could hear them just gasped out loud as they felt the explosion.

That's about three quarters of a million pounds of thrust being released all at once as this thing blows up in an unexpected way. The company that was contracted to do this, Orbital Sciences, has a $1.8 billion contract to get supplies up to the ISS over a number of trips.

This was the third of those trips. It has vowed that it will look into this and figure out what went wrong saying, of course, right now, it's far too early to know what happened.

They do know that nobody was hurt. There's safety protocols in place to keep everyone far away from any sort of rocket launch like that which is unmanned. But there is a real cost to this, there was about 5,000 pounds of gear going up.

Some of it food for the ISS crew, a lot of the rest of it, space gear that they needed, and experiments, experiments that are obviously important to all the researchers who are sending them up towards the ISS.

The plan was for this to fly on the first stage of this rocket for about 4 minutes and then that stage would release, the second stage, which was a new design, is would release the payload called Cygnus, which would then be grabbed by a robotic arm from the ISS and pulled in.

That payload is not going to come back until December. But now, of course, it was all lost. So the space community has to regroup and figure out how to make up for that loss.

There are other launches coming up fairly soon from Russia that will take some supplies up, that could make a difference. No sooner than December, there could be another private launch here, a contract launch, by Spacex. That would be out of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

But for the time being, they not only have to figure out what went wrong with the rocket, but whether or not it did damage to the launch facility, which is very important here and whether or not that will have a future impact on supplying for the ISS and the privatization of the space program.

BERMAN: All right, our thanks to Tom Foreman for that report. So one of those launches that Tom was talking about actually already happened overnight from Russia, Russia successfully launched a resupplying mission a few hours ago.

The unmanned progress 57 spacecraft took off atop a Soyuz rocket from the Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It was carrying three tons of supplies. It is due to arrive at the International Space Station in about 9:00 Eastern Time.

ROMANS: All right, the Department of Homeland Security is ordering security tightened at nearly 10,000 federal buildings across the country. A department official tells CNN there is no new intelligence or specific additional threats to the government buildings secured by the federal protective service.

Officials describe the move as a precautionary, a precautionary measure following two attacks last week on Canadian government targets. Specifics on the new security measures are not being disclosed. I think for obvious reasons.

BERMAN: News this morning in the fight against Ebola. Good news, Nurse Amber Vinson was released from the Atlanta hospital. Vinson, of course, caught Ebola while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

At a news conference, Vinson thanked those who helped save her life and stressed that the fight against Ebola is not over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMBER VINSON, FORMER EBOLA PATIENT: As a nurse and now as someone who has experienced what it's like to be cared for through a life- threatening illness, I'm so appreciative and grateful for your exceptional skill, warmth and care.

While this is a day for celebration and gratitude, I ask that we not lose focus on the thousands of families who continue to labor under the burden of this disease in West Africa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Vinson's release from isolation leaves just one person hospitalized with Ebola in the United States. That is Dr. Craig Spencer who got the disease working with Ebola patients in Guinea. He is still in serious, but stable condition here in New York's Bellevue Hospital.

ROMANS: The nurse released after a weekend spent quarantined in New Jersey says she will not agree to mandatory isolation in her home state of Maine. Kaci Hickox treated Ebola patients in West Africa.

She was isolated against her will after she flew into New Jersey even though she had no symptoms and tested negative for Ebola.

Now, her lawyers say she will not comply with Maine officials, Maine health officials' demands that she remain in quarantine for 21 days.

Governor Christie remains unapologetic about confining Hickox to a tent. He dismissed her threat to sue.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like you'll have to defend this in court?

GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Well, whatever. Get in line. I've been sued lots of times before. Get in line.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor, you can comment about the tent and those conditions.

CHRISTIE: Kelly, the tent was inside the hospital. It's called an isolation tent because she needed to be isolated because she was suspected to have Ebola. So I have no concerns.

By the way, neither did the CDC who is on the ground in university hospital monitoring the condition she was in. She had access to the internet and we brought her take-out food.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: Meanwhile, health officials in New York apparently softening their quarantine plan. New guidelines called for travelers arriving from West Africa were allowed to choose where they want to be held in isolation.

Somewhat different from Governor Andrew Cuomo's warning last week travelers might held at a government-regulated facility.

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, while President Obama is calling for monitoring instead of quarantine, the U.S. Army has decided to put troops returning from these three nations in West Africa dealing with Ebola, the military has decided to put them in mandatory isolation.

They will not be able to have physical contact with their families for 21 days. The administration explains the treatment between soldiers and civilian volunteers as a matter of efficiency.

ROMANS: And Ebola treatment can be the next billion-dollar drug. Pharmaceutical companies scrambling to produce vaccines and treatments to fight the outbreak. It's unclear if any company can release a drug quickly on a mass scale.

The U.S. government alone is expected to award contracts worth more than $1 billion to fund mass production. That's based on the government's stockpile of drugs for other potential disease outbreaks like the anthrax vaccine.

It's 40 minutes past the hour, more on "Your Money" this morning. Asian shares much higher. European stocks up as well. U.S. stock futures not really much yet, but they had a great day yesterday. The Dow rose 187 points and closed at above 17,000 for the first time since early October.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking news, new help, reinforcements arriving in Kobani in the fight against ISIS. But not the reinforcements that a lot of us expected. We're live with who is on that battlefield this morning coming up.

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ROMANS: Breaking news from Kobani this morning. The first reinforcements to back up Kurdish fighters in the strategic city that just recently arrived and they're not the Peshmerga troops from Iraq that we've been telling you about.

Instead, they're about 200 Syrian rebel troops bringing light weapons including mortars and heavy machine guns. Those Peshmerga troops are close behind, some traveling by air, others bringing in heavier weapons by land.

The initial Peshmerga reinforcements are expected across the border into Kobani later today. I want to turn now into CNN senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson in Erbil, Iraq.

He's been following these developments and these movements towards Kobani. What can you tell us about just this remarkable effort now on multiple fronts to try to make sure this town does not fall?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, just one little correction. The Free Syrian Army rebels who are believed to have crossed from Turkey into Kobani this morning, the numbers are being disputed.

We have Syrian rebel defenders in that town who say there were only about 35 fighters who came through. Another reputable source saying it was only about 50. And these rebels have gone in at a time when the Iraqi Kurdish deployment of Peshmerga, about 161 fighters are on their way, they've landed by air and are quite close.

And there's a much slower moving convoy moving across Turkey, bringing in what looks like mortars and military vehicles and some heavy weapons like machine guns, is also inching its way towards Kobani.

And what is clearly being done here is an attempt to show a united front of Syrian Kurds, Iraqi Kurds, Turkey, to some degree, and other Syrian Arab rebels backed by U.S. airstrikes, showing that there is a collective effort to combat ISIS and to not let it capture this border town that has become such a symbol over the course of the last month.

And also quite a topic of disagreement between Turkey and the U.S. to NATO allies between Turkey and the Syrian rebels. It's a messy, geopolitical struggle that is taking place right now.

But now a clear effort to at least show a symbolic united front, even though the actual numbers of reinforcements are actually quite small at the end of the day -- Christine.

ROMANS: Interesting. All right, Ivan Watson, thank you, Ivan.

BERMAN: All right, just one piece of news that's been developing overnight. A lot going on this morning. Let's go to "NEW DAY" and Chris Cuomo, and see what they have in stored. Hi, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Hi, JB. Hi, Christine. We're going to be really extending a lot of these story lines that are going on right now. First, we have this unmanned rocket that was carrying supplies to the International Space Station like $200 million of cargo, payload on board as you can obviously see the spectacular explosion.

The good news, it was unmanned so no lives were lost. And yet, we still have to figure out why this is going, and the obvious question about why this is going on with companies. And did you know how many different companies are involved with the space mission in the U.S. we'll tell you.

Also, why are they beefing up security at 10,000 federal buildings? Homeland security sending out a message specifically targeted to one security group. We'll tell hue they are and why, and what this is based on.

Because John and Christine, that's the concern, is this just about an extension of what happened in Ottawa, or is this about new information? There's been competing theories. We'll give you both.

BERMAN: Yes, you always wonder if there's something going on underneath the surface that we don't know about. All right, Chris, look forward to that.

ROMANS: Even for Ottawa, there have been concerns about lone wolf attacks that is clearly front of mind. All right, thanks, Chris.

President Obama is on the campaign trail trying to turn out the vote in a hotly contested gubernatorial race. Republicans hoping to get control of the Senate. They're getting a new helping hand this morning. We've got that for you next.

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BERMAN: A late shift in political donations this campaign season. Business groups backing Republican candidates in these later months more than Democrats in some of the most competitive Senate races, in some cases they're even betting against incumbent senators.

This is according to "The Wall Street Journal." An expert tells the paper a change in heart for business political action committees in part a signal of policy preferences, but just as importantly, a sign of who they think is most likely to win.

ROMANS: All right, President Obama on the campaign trail with the countdown to the midterm elections. He spent yesterday in Milwaukee trying to give Mary Burke a boost in her race to the governor of Wisconsin.

She's trying to unseat Republican Scott Walker in a race that could go down to the wire. The president is less of a liability for Democrats in Wisconsin. A recent poll showed his favorability rating about ten points higher. He's been going to the bluest parts of blue states for his campaign.

BERMAN: Hillary Clinton in Iowa today, a purple state, trying to rally Democrats and put Senate candidate, Bruce Braley over the top. Braley in a tough battle with Republican State Senator Joni Ernst, they are vying to replace Democrat Tom Harkin retiring after 30 years.

Democrats are trying to hang on to the seat, but it is Joni Ernst with a slight lead in most recent polls. Bill Clinton going to that state this weekend to campaign for Braley.

ROMANS: All right, Facebook stocks sinking. We'll tell you what has investors so mad. We'll have an EARLY START on "Your Money" next.

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BERMAN: All right. It's 57 minutes past the hour. Let's get an early start on "Your Money" this morning. Stocks are up ahead of news from the Federal Reserve. Asian and European stocks both much higher. U.S. futures not moving much, but you know, they had a great day yesterday. The Dow climbed 187 points and closed above 17,000 for the first time since early October. Now the attention focuses on the fed. The Central Bank will make its policy statement later today.

The fed expected to end its bond buying stimulus program that has propped, frankly, the market for years. We're also going to look for any hints on the time line to set things with the raising interest rates.

Facebook shares are down 7 percent before the bell. The social network reported huge success in the coveted mobile advertising space. Executives warn that Facebook's expenses will rise steeply next year. Costs will come from new hires, improvements to services and more investment in Oculus and WhatsApp.

AT&T is in legal trouble over its unlimited data plan. The FTC said the wireless carrier md led customers into thinking they had unlimited data to use. The unlimited plan, when really AT&T reduced connection speeds by up to 90 percent after users hit a certain limit. It's called throttling.

It makes certain functions like browsing the web and GPS navigation very hard to use. AT&T said that this is always been transparent with customers about its data use policies, the government disagrees.

BERMAN: I don't think you ever want to be throttled.

ROMANS: I don't want to be throttled.

BERMAN: All right, "NEW DAY" starts right.