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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Report: Missouri Teen Shot By Officer; Christmas Storms Create Travel Mess; Dow Hits All Time High; Sony to Release "The Interview" in Limited Theaters

Aired December 24, 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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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning. Police shoot and kill a teenager overnight in a town next to Ferguson, Missouri, tensions spiking yet again. We have the very latest on that.

Deadly storms tornadoes tear through several states killing at least four people. And the rough weather is not over yet. A travel nightmare is in store for 98 million people this morning.

And a big day for the Dow topping 18,000 for the first time in history. What does this mean for the economy? And more importantly, what does it mean for you? Can it last into next year?

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. John Berman has the week off. It's 29 minutes past the hour.

Let's start with the breaking news overnight. Police in Berkeley, Missouri, near Ferguson, they say one police officer shot and killed a man at that gas station after a man aimed the handgun at an officer. This was just after 11:00 p.m. Central Time. "The St. Louis Dispatch" reports the victim is 18-year-old Antonio Martin identified by his mother Toni Martin.

The scene at the gas station, it is tense. A small explosion taking place, as officers guarded the scene. There's no information on the cause of that blast.

Berkeley police say St. Louis County detectives are now conducting an investigation. They're investigating that shooting. We're going to bring you details as we get them. But again, police say this man, this 18-year-old man pointed a gun at police. He was shot and killed by police. His body and the weapon later removed from scene. At least 60 people are still milling about that gas station right now/ We'll bring you the latest as it develops.

Meantime, fierce weather ushering in the holiday travel this season this morning, a line of severe thunderstorms spawning deadly tornadoes on the gulf coast. One twister ripped through Amite, Louisiana, damaging several homes, knocking down trees, taking out power lines, no injuries reported there.

But the tornado system that tore through Marion County, Mississippi, that system skilled two people and two more in nearby Jones County.

Another tornado tore the roof off his day care center in Mississippi. Luckily, the 35 children and the seven staffers in that center reported unharmed. They were moved to a nearby bank for safety.

Mississippi's governor declaring a state of emergency in the wake of all of these storms. And all of this is just the beginning of a weather nightmare for holiday travelers.

CNN meteorologist, Ivan Cabrera, joins us for the latest on the storm system and the Christman forecast. Good morning, Ivan.

IVAN CABRERA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Good morning. We'll get to that as well, a terrifying scene there for Mississippi and Louisiana. National Weather Service crews will be out there and letting us now based on the damage what kind of intensity we were at with those tornadoes that touched down.

It's unusual stuff for December, no question about it. I do not think we're going to see those kinds of scenes repeat today, the severe weather threat diminishing as we speak.

But we will see very heavy rainfall and some very gusty winds now will impact lots of travelers not only on the roads but also up by air. So that's going to be the forecast as the storm continues to push to the east.

But we are on the warm sector here so that means it is going to be wet and windy but not snowy. On the back side of the storm, Chicago does get in on some snowfall here, anywhere from 3 to 5 inches. In fact, they have winter storm watches as we speak right now.

So it will be a white Christmas for them there. And the next system that's moving into the Pacific Northwest. In fact, it's raining in Seattle right now, that will dive down to the south and east and Christmas day itself it will be snowing across parts of the Rockies.

And then finally high pressure moves here in Atlanta and the rest of the southeast will try off for Christmas day itself. Merry Christmas to you.

ROMANS: Merry Christmas to you, Ivan. Thank you.

Nearly 99 million Americans are going to travel at least 50 miles for this Christmas holiday. Whether you're hitting the highway or heading to the airports, chances are you are not arriving at your destination exactly on time.

I want to bring in Rene Marsh monitoring the holiday travel mess. She is live from Reagan National Airport. Give it to us straight. If we're getting in a car, getting in a plane today, it's not go to be smooth?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: It's not going to be smooth. Let's start with the roads first, Christine, you mentioned that. There's going to be a lot of heavy rain on the I-95 corridor, especially in the south anywhere from the morning to afternoon hours. You just want to be careful on the roads.

Because again, that heavy rain, I-10 corridor as well, you're going to see rain. As it relates to air travel, if you're leaving early, that was a good move because right now things look good here.

At Reagan, for example, we're seeing very few cancellations or delays. Everything is looking on time but again, that's because it is early. As we get later on in the day and that system continues to move up the east coast, we're going see the delays and cancellations continue to build.

The national outlook right now, we're slowly creeping towards the 2,000 mark as it relates to delays and it is still pretty early. Considering we are approaching 2,000 delays at this hour. As far as the cancellations go, we're now over 400 cancellations. But the key that we're going to be watching today --

ROMANS: And not smooth even for a live shot. Rene Marsh doing a great job for us at Reagan, but for some reason, we had a technical difficulty. Thank you for that, Rene. We'll get back to you.

Let's talk about money here. The Dow topped 18,000 for the first time in history on news the U.S. economy grew at 5 percent last quarter, 5 percent growth in the third quarter. That's strong. That's the fastest pace in 11 years.

It shows an American economy that's shifting into higher gear. The S&P 500 record high close. You're forgiven if you think that this sounds like a broken record because it is, 51 record high closes for the year.

The S&P is up more than 200 percent since bottoming out in March 2009, making this the fourth longest bull market in history. Joining us to talk about what this good news means for the nation is Carl Riccadonna. He is an economist at Bloomberg. It's so nice to see you this morning.

I've seen these polls. CNN has a brand-new polling that shows that for the first time in seven years, the majority of Americans think the economy is good. Are they right?

CARL RICCADONNA, U.S. ECONOMIST, BLOOMBERG: They are absolutely right. This has been a good economic recovery. People in higher income brackets who tend to own more stocks have benefited more fully and completely from the upturn in the economy.

It's been slow to spread throughout the other components of the economy, but finally we are moving in the right direction. This 5 percent GDP number is really off the charts, but we shouldn't be that surprised because if we look back to prior economic cycles, this is how an economy in recovery should look.

This cycle has been different. It's been very, very sluggish. So people are conditioned to just this very slow-moving economy. Finally, we're starting to see an economy breaking out of the doldrums. The good news is if we could print 5 percent in Q3, just imagine what's possible in the current quarter where we've had this massive decline in gasoline prices.

So economists are a bit too conservative for the current quarter. I'm not saying we're going to top 5 percent in the current quarter, but economists are looking for only half that growth rate. They are going to be surprised.

ROMANS: You look at the second quarter with 4.6 percent that tells you the best two quarters since 2003. That's very good news. You talk about it's been mostly people with higher incomes who have felt things and you're absolutely right because the stock market has been so good for the past three years.

When I look within the CNN polling, you can see the biggest jump in growth of optimism was among lower income folks that's because of gas prices?

RICCADONNA: That is testament to decline in gasoline prices. Lower gas prices are effectively a tax cut. And lower income households are much more sensitive to gas prices than upper income households.

ROMANS: So does it keep going into the New Year? Is it the end of the burst of economic activity or does it keep driving to 2015?

RICCADONNA: This is not a sugar high, one-time economic gain, no. This looks like solid economic fundamental.

ROMANS: We can't blame the fed anymore?

RICCADONNA: We can't blame the fed. Now the economy is finally getting legs of its own. Its consumer spending that should continue to strengthen as the labor market continues to mend. Business investment is picking up.

The housing sector still depressed but coming back. So we've a lot of sectors of the economy that actually look better next year relative to this year.

ROMANS: I'm hoping the housing looks better next year because I think that there could be some easing of some of these very strict lending standards for next year and rents are going to rise. So you're going have first time home buyers who are going to say wait a second, I think this may be my chance.

RICCADONNA: You're spot on. Mortgage credit is tight still. It's easing, but it has a good ways to run before it's called normalized. Rental inflation is one of the hottest components as we look at inflation pressures in the economy and there's really not that much supply of inventory around.

Home builders sentiment is very high right now so home builders know something that the rest of us to don't seem to fully understand. It's a tight market, there's lots of pressure and there is not much supply.

So it's a great time to be a home builder. We see that as sentiment. You see the home builders top as well.

ROMANS: Wait until the millennials start paying down their student loan debts and start getting really good jobs. They're going to be out there trying to buy. It's been less than a week the Dow went up 1,000 points. Is that reasonable? Are we talking about those kinds of levels for stocks?

RICCADONNA: Well, 1,000 points in one week is a little crazy. We know at year end, we tend to have the Santa Claus rallies, and the market gets a little ahead of itself. I think we shouldn't expect gains like that going forward.

And maybe if we go a little too far now, it's just going to make the returns for next year a little bit softer. But if the economy is finally growing at a faster pace, we have very low inflation. Low input costs for most businesses. This is a strong positive for corporate profits and corporate profits --

ROMANS: Wages, do wages go up? We need wages to go up.

RICCADONNA: Wages aren't going up yet. Everyone is scratching their heads why this is the case. Wages is an indicator. It's a lagging indicator. We'll be there when we get to $5.25 or 5.5 percent on the unemployment rate.

We're not there yet. We're at 5.8 percent. As we cross through, we'll get wage pressure. It's a story for next year. It's something we shouldn't be looking for just yet.

ROMANS: All right, it's so nice to see you. Carl Riccadonna, U.S. economist at Bloomberg.

RICCADONNA: Thank you.

ROMANS: I hope you're right on all of those things especially housing.

All right, the plot thickens for Sony. "The Interview" getting its Christmas day release after all. That release, why did Sony reverse course? We've got that for you next.

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ROMANS: Breaking news overnight, former President George H.W. Bush has been taken to the hospital complaining of shortness of breath. A statement from his office said the 90-year-old's trip to Houston Methodist Hospital purely a precautionary measure.

Bush was hospitalized two years ago, you'll remember, for bronchitis. The White House said President Obama has been made aware of the elder Bush's hospitalization adding that the Obamas send the former president and his family their good wishes.

Sony Pictures, controversial satire "The Interview" canceled last week, now un-cancelled. The comedy about an assassination attempt on North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un has had a rough month with a massive cyberattack on the studio and then threats of a possible real world attack on theaters showing the film.

When major theater chains dropped it, Sony said it had no choice, but to pull it from distribution but now a reversal. More than 200 independent theaters are set to open "The Interview" on Christmas Day. Senior media correspondent, Brian Steltzer has the latest on the story.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Christine. One theater owner called this the best Christmas gift anybody could ever give us and now those gifts are on the way to the theaters.

They are actually being shipped out overnight to movie theaters across the country. Films these days come on hard drives so they had to be mailed to theaters in time for Christmas day.

And there are over 200 theaters that have signed up to receive "The Interview," after not believing it was going to be shown at all last week when Sony cancelled the movie.

Now back then Sony had lined up about 3,000 screens to show this movie on. Obviously, a much smaller number are going to be able to show it on Christmas now because instead of having a very big movie theater chain supporting the movie, it's independently owned cinemas mostly screening it.

I do wonder if some of these big chains are going to help sign up and show the movie in the coming weeks if it does well at those independently owned cinemas. That might be what Sony is hoping for, you start small and then you get bigger for this movie as time goes on.

The other big question is whether Sony is able to make a video on demand for this movie. There has been talk about maybe a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu or Amazon signing up and agreeing to distribute it online on Christmas day or shortly thereafter.

Sony has made no announcement about that but talks are ongoing. I think we might hear about some sort of on-demand deal later today. Christine, back to you.

ROMANS: All right, Brian Stelter, thanks for that excellent reporting throughout this controversy over the film.

President Obama is enjoying a nice bounce in the polls heading into the New Year, with the economy ticking up and the president taking decisive action on immigration and Cuba.

The latest CNN/ORC poll puts his approval rating at a 20-month high. Here are the numbers, 48 percent of Americans now approve of the president's job performance and 50 percent do not. President Obama is enjoying increased support among women, independents and millennials.

A former Navy SEAL, who claims he killed Osama Bin Laden is now under investigation. CNN has learned the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is trying to determine whether Robert O'Neill revealed classified information. The former SEAL Team 6 member made several television appearances last month retelling the story of "Operation Spear" the incursion into Pakistan that led to Osama Bin Laden's death.

All right, let's take a look at what's coming up on "NEW DAY," Chris Cuomo joins us now. It's Christmas eve, my friend, but a very, very busy news day.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": It is. There is a lot of news to tackle before Christmas comes our way properly. We have a shooting overnight in Missouri. An officer involved. A teenager involved.

Of course in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, there's a lot of sensitivity here. People from the community came out. We are told by police that this situation fit a very simple fact pattern.

The police officer approached two young men on the side of a gas station grocery store. One of them was armed, pointed the weapon at the officer, and the officer fired. The wounds wound up killing one of the people involved, and the second fled.

Those are the facts from the police. We're reporting in and around that story to get as much as we can. Obviously, shootings happen very often in policing, but the sensitivity in that area demands a closer look.

Also we are going to be taking you through the economy. By any measure it is improving, a strong third quarter revised and very impressive way up to 5 percent growth.

New poll numbers show a bump for the president as a result. No real surprise there, but we'll look at who is moving in terms of their opinion of the president and why. We'll also speak to his former Press Secretary Jay Carney about what that may mean strategically going forward.

And the holiday travel getting off to a slow start. Look at that. Forecast is ugly. Not expected to clear up for a while. Nearly 100 million people are going to hit the road for Christmas. We'll give you the latest when "NEW DAY" begins at the top of the hour with me, you and Alisyn Camerota, of course.

ROMANS: And there she is. You know, it's so interesting on that polling about the economy, Chris, I was looking at the polling about how people feel if the economy is better.

The biggest jump in optimism came from people who make less than $50,000 a year. Gas prices, my friend. Everybody feels it. It's not just people in the stock market who say the economy is good, it's everyone, and that's because of gas prices.

CUOMO: You know, Christine, you've been ignoring the gas prices. I've telling you every time I see they matter to people. I've told you they're like a stimulus. And you said, that's a word, can I use that word? I said, of course not, it's my word. You find your own.

ROMANS: That's right.

CUOMO: But I'm glad you've come around.

ROMANS: I remember you always tell me it's like a tax cut, I know. OK, Chris, let's talk about it for the next hour. It's nice to see you. Merry Christmas.

It's Christmas Eve. One of the most popular places to visit this time of year, Bethlehem, the birth place of Jesus Christ, but with threats, how is the city preparing? We'll take you there next.

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ROMANS: The U.S. has paid $3.2 million directly to Alan Gross to settle a lawsuit by his company over his imprisonment in Cuba. The check was cut by the U.S. agency for international development.

Gross' firm developmental alternatives of Washington, D.C. had been seeking $7 million to recover costs related to Alan Gross' five-year incarceration in Cuba. The direct payment to Gross settles the company's claims.

The celebration of one of Christianity's holiest days begins in just hours depending on where you live in the world. In Rome, Pope Francis is set to lead Christmas Eve mass. This is formally known as the solemnity of the Lord's birth. That happens at the Vatican starting at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

And another renowned Catholic mass begins a short while later in Bethlehem. Midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity on the site that tradition says is the place of Jesus Christ's birth. That begin at 5 p.m. Eastern.

Our CNN's Ian Lee is there in Bethlehem live for us this morning. Good morning, Ian.

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine. Festivities are well under way here. Manger Square is buzzing. You might be able to hear the bands they're practicing for the grand entrance of the Latin patriarch. That's the head of the Catholic Church coming here for midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity.

Now Security is tight as usual because there are a lot of delegates that come here for mass including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He gave his Christmas message saying that Palestinian Christians are an integral part of our society and of our national movement.

Now I've got another fun fact for you this hour, Christine, last hour, I told you how the stable that we think of for the nativity is not made of wood but it was a cave.

Well, this hour, the Church Of Nativity is three churches, one for the Catholics, the orthodox and the Armenians. The Orthodox and Armenians don't celebrate Christmas today. They celebrate in January.

ROMANS: Another fun fact on this very holy for so many Christians. Ian Lee, thank you so much for that.

A different sort of Christmas tradition, Santa and the reindeer and the sleigh full of gifts they're on their way. That's on the same technology that the U.S. defense military uses to defend its sky, that's right, Norad tracking Santa.

The web address is noradsanta.org. It's fun to watch in realtime as Santa makes all of those deliveries. Here is a gift giver's wake up call. Keurig is recalling more than 6 million of its coffee makers. We're going to tell you why and we're going to get an EARLY START on your money that's next.

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ROMANS: Let's get an EARLY START on "Your Money" this morning. The Santa rally is here. The Dow above 18,000 for the first time in history on news the U.S. economy grew 5 percent last quarter, the fastest economic growth in 11 years. The S&P 500 hit a record. It has surged over 200 percent since bottoming out in March 2009.

You see all the pullbacks, not very recently, right? This bull market is more than 2,000 days old. The futures are higher right now. The stronger economy is not going unnoticed by consumers. For the first time in seven years, the majority of the Americans think that the economy is good.

It's a remarkable turnaround. You can thank crashing gas prices for that. They have fallen for a record 90 days straight, that's according to AAA. Average price dropped to $2.35 a gallon down $1.33 from the summer peak. That puts extra cash in Americans' wallets this holiday season.

You might want to think twice before putting a Keurig under the tree tomorrow. The company has recalled 6 million models. The model is the K-10 mini plus that can emit hot water while brewing. Keurig will ship new coffee makers.

Lot of breaking news, a deadly shooting in a town near Ferguson, Missouri. You still have people gathering around the gas station where it's happening. "NEW DAY" is covering that and all of the developments starting right now.