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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Tornado Leaves 26 Inured in Van, Texas; Severe Weather Across the Country; Threat Levels Raised with Homeland Security Concerns; Ceasefire to Begin Tuesday in Yemen; Raul Castro Visits the Vatican. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired May 11, 2015 - 04:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[04:00:23] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Our breaking news, a possible tornado in Texas east of Dallas, about 73 miles of Dallas. A large scale search and rescue operation under way right now. Significant damage, according to authorities there, to multiple homes. It is a possible tornado. It has been a wild night, frankly, of tornadic activity.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: There were all sorts of warnings in that regions. Let's get straight to Pedram Javaheri for the latest. Pedram, what can you tell us?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Guys, another day of active weather and we will touch on exactly what is happening in Van. But 54 more million people in line here for severe weather. Three was about 30 million people dealing with severe weather on Sunday afternoon, but from Houston up towards Cleveland, the same line of active weather will begin to migrate off to the east. As it does so, of course the active weather will continue.

But take a look. 24 reports of tornadoes on Sunday across this portion of the country. And I want to zoom in towards areas just south of Dallas. You guys talked about Van with the 26 injuries. We know potentially a gas leak across the region as well as this line of storms moved through at 9:45 local time last night. But notice, 4 reports of tornadoes north of Dallas, 3 of them south of it. From Turnersville out towards Abbott out towards Van, we have severe thunderstorm warnings still in line over this region. The storm now clearing this area, so the next area of interest going to be around anywhere from, say, Shreveport out towards Little Rock. A tornado watch has been issued.

We know that this particular storm has had the history of producing tornadoes over the past 24 or so hours. In fact, incredible to think we've had 800 to 1,000 lightning strikes in a one-hour period over this region, and these storms certainly going to begin to move in toward Shreveport. Some rotation possible with them. This will continue until 5:00 a.m. local time. So up towards even Little Rock, one of the areas that we're watching very carefully.

But of course this has had a cold side to it as well; we will touch on momentarily. But look at the tremendous rainfall that has come down over Dallas and points northward in the last couple of days. Gainesville, just north of Dallas, had about 10 inches of rainfall. And we have of course Sacana (ph) out there, just south of Dallas as well, picking up in excess of 10 inches. Pretty incredible stuff when you think about the severe flooding that will now be in the forecast over this region.

But look at this, because you go to South Dakota -- Pierre, just about 125 miles west of where we had tornadoes, we had significant snow accumulation. And so it kind of shows you the divide, where the clash of air masses we often talk about when it comes to severe weather where you have significant snow, upwards of 2 feet, coming down on Mother's Day across portions of South Dakota, across the high Rockies. Not unheard of but still pretty impressive to think about all this active weather that is in line.

And again we're going to be looking at 50 more million people, guys, in line for severe weather. And the threat on Sunday was on a scale of 1 to 5 with 4 for severe weather. It has dropped down to 2. But now it's expanded out to 50 plus million, so we're going to watch this throughout the morning hours.

BERMAN: All right, Pedram, thanks so much. And again the news we're just getting in right now, one of the tornadoes apparently hit a town called Van, Texas, about 70 miles east of Dallas. At least 26 injured. We are hearing from authorities as many as 20 structures plus destroyed, ranging from completely wiped out to just damaged. We also know there's search and rescue teams on the ground right now in Van. We should be getting much more information throughout the morning; we'll bring it to you as soon as we get it.

ROMANS: As Pedram mentioned, the tornado in Van, Texas, not the only severe storm overnight. Three powerful systems slamming different parts of the country Sunday with heavy rains and flooding, snow and tornadoes

BERMAN: Yes, the Atlantic hurricane season does not officially start until June, but Tropical Storm Ana came early, made landfall north of Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. You can look at the heavy rains there, caused some widespread flooding in low-lying areas.

ROMANS: Ana causing some rough surf, up to 12 foot seas, that pushed officials to ban ocean swimming up the coast into Southern North Carolina. Once Ana was onshore, she quickly weakened to a tropical depression but continued to drop some heavy rain.

BERMAN: Much of Colorado digging out from a late season snowstorm this morning. Snow laden branches snapping power lines. This is a heavy, wet snow, as you can imagine; about 40,000 people without power this morning. Forecasters now warn of flooding through midweek as this snow melts.

ROMANS: And South Dakotans got snow and a tornado as well. Blizzard- like conditions hit the Black Hills in the western part of the state with more than a foot of heavy, wet snow. Look, the lawn furniture's out and so is the snow. The eastern South Dakota town of Delmonte, a tornado damaged some 20 buildings there, but no serious injuries, thankfully.

BERMAN: A tornado tore through the Iowa town of Lake City, that ripped the roof off a local high school. There were about 100 people inside at the time for an awards ceremony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There goes the school. There goes the school. That's not Casey's; that's our school.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:05:00] BERMAN: Pretty stunning pictures right there. Officials say sirens, tornado sires, gave a whole lot of warning. Enough time to evacuate. No one was injured. People from Iowa, Christine Romans, they know how to deal with these types of situations.

ROMANS: On the spring wild weather, definitely. But can you imagine -- I guess people were running into the locker rooms looking for some shelter there in Lake City at that high school.

BERMAN: Yes. No classes today, by the way, at Lake City.

ROMANS: Let's go down to Texas. Severe storms dumped heavy rain on Denton County north of Dallas. Rescue helicopters pulled six people from their flooded homes. In Crum, a swollen creek swept away cars, but the Texas Highway Patrol reports no injuries from the weather in that incident.

BERMAN: Yes, but as we've saying, there is tornadoes that have been on the ground in Texas right now, including the town of Van where there are at least 26 people injured. We are getting information from there.

Jennifer Gray in the region with the latest.

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JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John and Christine, we are just a couple of miles south of Cisco. This is west of Dallas and this is one of the areas hard hit by the storms on Saturday. You can see the trees behind just snapped in fact. In fact, preliminary reports are saying it was an EF-3 tornado that came through here and caused extensive damage, three quarters of a mile wide with a path seven miles long.

We are up in a little higher elevation and you can see all of the trees that are snapped. It's clear where the path was. And just a couple of miles in that direction, we have been told that three homes were a total loss. We can't get to them. We don't have access because trees are down, power lines are down covering the road and we can't get to those. Unfortunately, one person died in the storms on Saturday. Three others injured. At least report, one of the people was in critical condition.

Of course we talked to the public information officer from the area. He said they've had tornadoes before, but none have really impacted many structures. This is the hardest they've been hit in the area. And unfortunately more storms in the forecast later today. John and Christine?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Yes, and again we do have some breaking weather news overnight. Tornadoes east of Dallas as well with many people injured there. We will bring you that news throughout the morning.

First though, there is some other news. This afternoon, two Mississippi police officers will be honored at a memorial service. Officials say they were shot during a traffic stop. They were killed during a traffic stop. They were the first officers killed in the line of duty any Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in more 30 years. Suspects are already in custody. Rosa Flores has the latest.

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ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, Christine, we hear this from law enforcement experts all the time. There is no such thing as a routine traffic stop and this is a perfect example.

Now three suspects are in custody and two police officers are dead. Here's what we know from authorities. According to police, what happened here is that Officer Benjamin Deen made a traffic stop, nad this involved a vehicle with three people inside. He called for back up. Officer Liquori Tate responded and then investigators say that the suspects shot and killed those two police officers.

Now, they also say that the suspects took one of the police cruisers and used it as a runaway car. Now, of course, police later apprehended the suspects. Now here are their names: Marvin Banks and Jonie Calloway, both charged with two counts of capital murder. And then you've got Curtis Banks, charged with two counts of accessory to capital murder after the fact.

Now this investigation is in the hands of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. We've learned from authorities that they are scouring through evidence, making interviews, asking people, trying to figure out what happened here. Again, they have not released a motive.

I did talk to Officer Tate's father and he says that he is broken. He had a very close relationship with his son and that the one thing that's helping him at this point in time is knowing that his son was living his dream, because his son's dream, he says, was to be a police officer. John, Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Thanks to Rosa. Our hearts go out to those families. His dream was to become a police officer.

The Hattiesburg mayor's office says a fourth suspect, a man named Cornelius Clark, was also arrested, charged with obstruction of justice. ROMANS: Happening now, federal officials ramping up efforts to stop

lone wolf terror attacks in the wake of the assault last week in Garland, Texas, by two gunmen who were inspired by ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEH JOHNSON, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We are in a new environment because of ISIL's effective use of social media, the Internet, which has the ability to reach into the homeland and possibly inspire others. And so oour government and our state and local law enforcement are having to do a number of things to address that, which is why FBI Director Comey and I spend a lot of time these days talking to police chiefs, sheriffs, around the country. We did that in a video teleconference just on Friday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:10:16] ROMANS: Federal law enforcement officials say the FBI is increasing its monitoring of suspected ISIS supporters inside the U.S. One official told CNN, quote, "We're trying to shake the trees more aggressively."

The Pentagon also tightening security at military bases in the United States from Force Protection Condition Alpha to Bravo. National correspondent Sunlen Serfaty has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, he said it's because of this online campaign by ISIS that he believes that the threat is greater than in the days after 9/11. Here's what he said on CNN "STATE OF THE UNION".

TOM RIDGE, FMR. SEC'Y OF HOMELAND SECURITY: The appeal to the lone wolves, and we have seen them acting in Belgium and in France and in Canada and the United States, so the threat vectors and the nature of the threats are far more complicated and far more serious today than on September 12, 2001.

SERFATY: All the Pentagon on Thursday night put all military bases across the country on a heightened state of alert, increasing the threat level at 3,200 bases across the country. The concern here is that ISIS is reaching out, recruiting people in the U.S., to potentially target uniformed military and law enforcment.

The FBI director has warned there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of ISIS followers inside the U.S. and the FBI has been increasing monitoring of these suspected followers who may be influenced by these recruiters, and have hundreds of investigations ongoing.

Now the Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, he called this a new era in the country. He said because of this, the use of the Internet by ISIS, there could be little or no advanced warning of so-called lone wolf terrorists attacking here in the U.S.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Sunlen Serfaty at the White House. Thanks so much.

Happening now, the Iraqi government is training Sunni tribal fighters to take on ISIS. The goal is to slow the terror group's momentum in Anbar Province, west of Baghdad. The effort is backed by the U.S. Support from tribal leaders is key to create a Sunni force which is needed to battle the Sunni terrorists. More than 1,000 new recruits joined the fight against ISIS at a ceremony on Friday.

An apparent snub by the king of Saudi Arabia. He'll be skipping a U.S. summit. King Salman is expected to call President Obama today, explain why he is backing out of meetings at the White House and Camp David scheduled for this week, meetings he said he was going to attend as soon as last week. King Salman was supposed to arrive soon but now he plans to send his Interior and Defense Ministers to Washington in his place. State-run Saudi media claims the talks overlap with the humanitarian cease-fire in Yemen. However, there are plenty of people, including some in the White House, who believe the king backed out because he is upset over the U.S. discussions with Iran over Iran's nuclear future.

ROMANS: All right, 13 minutes past the hour. Time for an EARLY START on Your Money this Monda morning. Asian shares higher today; a lot higher. China's central bank announced a new interest rate cut over the weekend to boost the Chinese economy. European shares are down right now. U.S. stock futures aren't moving much so far to start the week. The Dow climbed 267 points, about 1.5 percent Friday, a big rally Friday thanks to a strong April jobs report. Looks like the job market back on track. But remember, stocks have been going up for basically six years. We've seen a plateau in recent months. What will it take the keep the bull running? The jobs report is a good start. Also watch corporate earnings very closely. So far, less than half of the companies have beat Wall Street expectations, earnings expectations. You need to see stronger results than that to justify near records for the stock market. Stocks not very far from record high.

BERMAN: I should say you had predicted -- you were exactly right on your predictions on the jobs report. I just want to get that out there.

ROMANS: Well, thank you.

BERMAN: I doubted you. I should never doubt you.

ROMANS: Never doubt me.

BERMAN: All right, 13 minutes after the hour. There is breaking news this morning out of Texas. A tornado believed to have left dozens injured overnight in the town of Van. Search and rescue operations under way right now. We will get you there as soon as we can.

Also, happening now, a breakthrough in Yemen. A cease-fire taking hold. The question this morning: will it last? We're live right after the break. [04:14:23]

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ROMANS: Breaking news this morning. A reported tornado this morning in Van, Texas. That's east of Dallas; about 73 miles east of Dallas. Officials say at least 26 people are injured. There is a large scale search and rescue operation underway right now in that town, the town of about 2,600 people.

Van not the only Texas city hit by a tornado. In Eastland County, a reported tornado killed one person, injured at least three others. Other storms spawned other tornadoes and dropped heavy rain all the way from Colorado to Iowa.

BERMAN: And we're getting more information on these weather events through the morning. We'll get it to you as it comes in.

Meanwhile, a breakthrough in Yemen. Houthi rebels have agreed to a five-day cease-fire offered by the Saudi-led coalition that has been conducting air strikes in that country since March , That cease-fire is scheduled to take effect Tuesday which would allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians who so badly need it.

Our Frederik Pleitgen monitoring these developments. Good morning, Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDNET: Yes, good morning, John. But certainly before that cease-fire takes hold, it seems as though it is already shaky. And certainly the Saudis have stepped up their air campaign over the weekend. They were saying that they conducted as many as 130 sorties on Saturday alone. They also conducted air strikes on Sunday as well.

And we just a couple of minutes ago got confirmation that apparently a Moroccan F-16 went down over Yemen on Sunday. It's unclear what the fate of the crew is. The Houthis are saying, two Houthi officials telling us, that they were the ones who downed the plane. But at this point, it is unclear whether it was shot down or whether it was some sort of technical malfunction. But again a big weekend of air strikes.

The Saudis were saying that they were mostly targeting Houthis officials as well as Houthi military commanders, but also the home of the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was targeted in an air strike as well. He was not there at that time. He later went on TV to condemn the air strikes. However, as you said, all this comes before the cease-fire is set to take hold, is set to last for five days, and allow much-needed humanitarian aid into the country. The U.N. estimates that some 300,000 people have lost their homes due to the military campaign that's ongoing. John.

BERMAN: 300,000 people in that country who badly need that help. Let's hope they get it within these next five or six days. Thanks, Fred, so much. ROMANS: All right, to Baltimore now where there's new fallout this

morning from the death of Freddie Gray. Calls for an independent prosecutor are growing after lawyers for the six police officers charged asked a judge to dismiss the case or assign it to someone other than the state's attorney Marilyn Mosby.

[04:20:02] They claim Mosby has multiple conflicts of interest.

Meantime, the Orioles return to Camden Yards tonight. It will be the first game on their home field since just after the riots. Remember when they played the White Sox with no fans in attendance, a game with no fans.

And Prince was the headliner on Sunday at this Rally for Peace concert in Baltimore. Concertgoers were asked to wear something gray in honor of Freddie Gray.

BERMAN: The penalty phase in the Boston Marathon bombing trial drawing to a close. The defense of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev expected to call its final witnesses today and then rest. The judge has not ruled on whether prominent death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean will be allowed to testify. Jurors will decide on life in prison or a death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. They could get the case as soon as Wednesday or Thursday.

ROMANS: It could be weeks before part of New York's Indian Point nuclear power plant is back online following a transform explosion and a fire this weekend. Entergy Corp, the plant owner, pledging to clean up thousands of gallons of oil that spilled into the Hudson River. The transformer failure triggered an automatic shutdown. Officials say the fire did not cause the release of any radiation and there was no threat to workers or the public.

BERMAN: 21 minutes after the hour. The Pope meeting with Cuban leader Raul Castro. Some surprising comments and promises from the Cuban leader. That's next.

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ROMANS: A special meeting at the Vatican. Cuban leader Raul Castro offering his personal thanks to Pope Francis for the key role he played in bringing Cuban-American relations in from the cold.

[04:25:08] CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman live in Rome with details. Good morning, Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Christine. That was the purpose of the visit that Raul Castro made to the Vatican yesterday, was to thank the Pope for his role in breaking the deadlock between the United States and Cuba.

But really the big surprise was when, afterwards, during a press conference with the Italian Prime Minister, Raul Castro came out and said the following, "I told the prime minister," that's the Italian Prime Minister, "if the Pope continues to speak like this, sooner or later, I will start praying again and I will return to the Catholic Church. And I'm not saying this jokingly. I'm a communist of the Cuban Communist Party."

Now we all know that Karl Marx described religion as the opiate of the masses, but it appears that in the presence of Pope Francis that perhaps Raul Castro took a few tokes of that opium himself. He's in fact reported in some Italian media as saying this was the most important meeting of his entire life. Now, it's not clear whether, when he returns to Cuba, he's going to put these words into practice. Significantly, these remarks returning to praying and possibly going back to the Catholic Church have not been published in the official Cuban media, but they're certainly making the rounds here in the Italy where there's a lot of sort of sardonic comment and amusement over this conversion of an 85-yaer-old communist to Catholicism.

ROMANS: Ben, there have been changes in recent years, right, to Cuban communism that people are allowed now to practice Catholicism in Cuba?

WEDEMAN: Yes, indeed. And this goes back to the late 1990s. In 1998, John Paul II visited Cuba, the first time a Pope went to the island after the Cuban revolution. And since then, there have been changes: Christmas has become an official holiday. Catholic churches are allowed to operate again.

And of course Pope Francis is going to Cuba in September, and it's expected that this, this would be the third visit by a Pope to Cuba, that as time goes on, as these visits become more frequent, more common, more routine, that certainly religion, and particularly the Catholic religion, will become more free to operate in Cuba.

ROMANS: And maybe Raul Castro will be saying his rosary when the Pope comes. Thank you so much, Ben. Ben Wedeman for us, live this morning in Rome.

BERMAN: That's so fascinating. I was in Cuba when Pope John Paul II arrived there in 1998. But so many changes since then, 19 years.

All right, 27 minutes after the hour. We are following the breaking news out of Texas where a tornado has left dozens injured overnight. Severe storms wreaking havoc across the country and there is more to look out for today. All the breaking news next.

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