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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Tornadoes Across Texas; Two Officers Remembered in Mississippi; Houthi Rebels Agree to Five Day Ceasefire; Raul Castro Visits Pope Francis; Picasso's Pricey Art. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired May 11, 2015 - 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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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[04:31:42] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John Berman here with Christine Romans. We do have breaking news this morning, a possible tornado in Van, Texas. That's about 70 miles east of Dallas. Emergency officials there call it a mass casualty event. What we know so far, at least 26 people injured, 20 plus structures damaged or completely destroyed.

I want to bring in meteorologist Pedram Javaheri following the latest for us. Pedram, what do we know?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, the storm system, guys, coming into Van with a population of 2,600 people. We had seven reports of tornadoes on Sunday across Texas, some of them just north of Dallas, some of them just south of Dallas. This particular town, as you mentioned, 70 miles to the south and to the east of Dallas.

And we just spoke to the National Weather Service in Dallas-Ft. Worth. They said they issued a tornado warning for Van at 8:55 p.m. local time. Police reporting the tornado touching down sometime around 9:00 p.m. So a five minute warning. You know, the First Baptist Church there, a lot of people going into the shelter there in First Baptist Church. But some officials there saying in parts of town trees almost entirely flattened across parts of town. So pretty incredible scene taking place there.

And again if you are familiar with Tyler, Texas, that is just east of the region; Van is just off of the Interstate 20 there. So certainly a lot of damage right around the interstate. But you take a look. The particular storm, of course, has had a history of producing tornadoes. We have tornado watches in effect right now with the storm that is producing upwards of 1,000 lightning strikes per hour. So talk about a night that is going to be challenging to sleep in. Around Shreveport, all out towards Little Rock, that is where we have the tornado watch in effect until 5:00 a.m. local time there. So this particular line of active weather, again, can't rule it out for some more rotation to be left in those storms over the coming couple of hours.

But we zoom out the perspective for you and this active line of weather will migrate off to the east. As it does, we know that 54 million people are going to be in line for more severe weather on Monday afternoon. But here is the national perspective. Look at this, 24 reports of tornadoes on Sunday and I just counted this because we touched on tornadoes in the last couple of days. Since last Wednesday, 128 tornadoes across the United States. You think that's a lot? Well, in the month of May, it is peak season. We get about 300 or these every single May. About 100 or so so far in the first 10 days; not unusual by any stretch of the imagination.

But rainfall has exceeded 10 inches north of the city. South of Dallas, also 10 inches. Corsicana picked up almost 9 inches on Sunday afternoon. And I don't know if you can see this, but that's Van right there on the edge of 7 to 8 inches of rainfall from Saturday into Sunday. So this storm coming into the evening hours. We know, of course, getting dark at 9:45, 8:45 p.m. local time there. And then heavy rain potentially obscuring the storm makes for a very dangerous situation out there. Guys?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And Pedram, very dangerous too because in that part of the country, people might not know this, not everyone has a storm shelter or a basement. A lot of the housing built without basements in that part of Texas. So it's not as if you can just go to the basement, which is the standard operating procedure for other parts of Tornado Alley in this country. That would be why so many people would go to the church or go some place else that would have a shelter.

JAVAHERI: Good point. I understand that police out there are going door-to-door right now kind of checking on everybody. But of course the sun comes up in a couple hours and we will learn a lot more about what happened across this town.

ROMANS: All right, thanks, Pedram. Thanks. We have a team on the way so we will bring you the latest developments in Van, Texas.

[04:35:02] BERMAN: There's a lot of weather to tell you about. Severe weather systems across the country bringing heavy rains, flooding, even tornadoes, as we just spoke, to places other than Van and Texas as well.

The Atlantic hurricane season doesn't start until June 1std but Tropical Storm Ana came early, made landfall north of Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The heavy rains obviously causing widespread flooding in some of the low-lying areas.

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

Much of Colorado though digging out from a late season snow storm this morning. Snow laden branches snapped power lines, blacking out more than 40,000 homes and businesses. Forecasters now warn of flooding through midweek as all that snow has to melt.

BERMAN: South Dakota got snow as well, and a tornado. Blizzard-like conditions Hit the Black Hills in the western part of the state with more than a foot of heavy, wet snow. Look at the lawn furniture right there. In the eastern South Dakota town of Delmonte, a tornado damaged 20 buildings. Luckily no serious injuries.

ROMANS: Another tornado tore through the Iowa city that's not southern California. (INAUDIBLE) Southern California High? That'd be Southern Cal High? Anyway, ripping the roof off the local high school. About 100 people inside for an awards ceremony.

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Officials say tornado sirens gave plenty of time to evacuate. No one injured. Needless to say, no classes today at the high school in Lake City.

BERMAN: Some pretty stunning pictures right there. In Texas, we've been telling you about the tornado that hit that town of Van, but there were also severe storms that dumped heavy rain in Denton. That's north of Dallas. Rescue helicopters pulled about six people from their flooded homes. In Crum, swollen creeks swept cars away. The Texas Highway Patrol reports no injuries. Well, no injuries from those storms. We know of at least 26 injuries in Van, Texas.

ROMANS: A tornado that tore through Eastland County, Texas, caused one fatality and a few serious injuries there. CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray is there for us right now 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: All right, Jennifer Gray right there. She was west of Dallas right there. Now, east of Dallas in the town of Van, we have been telling you about where a tornado hit. Officials now say everyone is accounted for. That's some wonderful news there. They had said that the tornado touched down at 9:00 last night. At least 26 people, we understand, have been injured, but now we are just learning that everyone at least has been accounted for.

ROMANS: That's a long night in Van, Texas, no question, as they're probably trying to sift through the damage now and more forward. We'll bring you more of that. We have a team on the way there.

Meantime, this afternoon, two Mississippi police officers will be honored at a memorial service. Officials say these two officers were shot to death during a traffic stop, the first officers to be killed in the line of duty in Huattiesburg, Mississippi, in more than 30 years.

Correspondent Rosa Flores reports that suspects are already in custody. She has the latest for us.

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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, and 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.

[04:40:05] 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) ROMANS: Our thoughts are with the families this morning. The Hattiseburg mayor's office says a fourth suspect, Cornelius Clark, was arrested Sunday, charged with obstruction of justice.

Time for an EARLY START on Your Money this morning. Asian shares are higher. Over the weekend, China's central bank announced an interest rate cut to boost the economy. And that's boosting the markets there. European shares are lower and U.S. stock futures aren't moving very much yet. But Friday, wow, what a big day. The Dow climbed 267 points Friday, the jobs market looking like it's back on track.

Top tech companies sitting on stunning amounts of cash. According to a new report, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Oracle altogether have $430 billion in cash. Apple alone has 40 percent of that pie. The large majority of that money is overseas. As long as tech companies don't bring that home and reinvest it, they don't have to pay a U.S. repatriation tax on it. So that money sits offshore. And some people say if that money were put to use in the U.S., it could create more jobs. It could create more economic activity. But instead it's sitting out there in the bank.

BERMAN: All right, about 42 minutes after the hour. We have breaking news out of Texas. A tornado we believe has left dozens injured overnight in the town of Van, Texas. We are getting late reports from that town. We will have the very latest coming up.

First, though, happening now, a temporary cease-fire in Yemen following weeks of intense fighting. We're live with the details there. Will this cease-fire hold? Stay with us.

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[04:51:08] BERMAN: We do have breaking news out of Texas. A tornado that apparently hit overnight in the town of Van, east of Dallas. Officials there telling us at least 26 people injured. But in just the last few minutes, we learned that there's been a large scale search and rescue operation, and as of now everyone has been accounted for. At least no one is missing at this point. We are trying to get more information out there about the condition of those who have been injured. We will bring that to you as soon as it comes in.

Van is not the only Texas city that is hit by a tornado. In Eastland County, a tornado killed at least one person, injured three others. Elsewhere, the storm system there very dangerous, other tornadoes hit, and also there was heavy rain from Colorado to Iowa to the Carolinas.

ROMANS: All right, 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 the country since March. It is scheduled to take effect on Tuesday, allowing humanitarian aid to reach the civilians in desperate need.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen monitoring developments from London. Fred, what can you tell us?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Christine, and certainly that cease-fire is something that's very badly needed and humanitarian aid is very badly needed as well. The U.N. believes that up to 300,000 people have been displaced in the military action that's been going on for about six weeks. They also believe that about 1,400 have been killed so far; the majority of them are civilians, they say.

Now, one of the things that's going to complicate the delivery of aid, and again the cease-fire is only supposed to be in place for about five days, is the fact that a lot of the ports have been damaged by the air strikes, but also that a lot of the airports have been hit as well. Of course that's one of the things that's been going over the past six weeks.

And the other thing is the cease-fire, even before taking hold, is already quite shaky. The Saudis and their led coalition conducted some 130 air strikes against Houthi targets, they say, on Saturday alone. They say they were trying to hit about 17 Houthi leaders, but apparently also what was hit was the house of the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. He is allied with the Houthi rebels. Of course, this is something that could hurt the cease-fire.

The other information that we've gotten just in the past couple of minutes is that, apparently, an F-16 fighter jet from the Moroccan Royal Air Force was downed over Yemen. Morocco is part of the coalition. It's unclear at this point in time what the fate of the pilot is. The Houthis have said that they shot the plane down, but of course at this point we are trying to get more information.

So you have that cease-fire that's supposed to take hold which could potentially be a breakthrough, but you still have a lot of fighting, it seems, until the very last minute before that cease-fire takes hold on Tuesday. Christine.

ROMANS: And certainly the people there need that humanitarian said. I mean, it's just been unbelievable and unrelenting for the population. Fred Pleitgen. Thanks for that, Fred.

BERMAN: 48 minutes after the hour right now. Cuba's leader meeting with the Pope at the Vatican. We will tell you what the two discussed and the promises from Raul Castro, surprising promises. Stay with us.

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BERMAN: Special meeting at Vatican. Cuban leader Raul Castro offering his personal thanks to Pope Francis for the key role he played in bringing Cuban-American relations -- or making them better.

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is live in Rome. He offered his thanks, Ben, but it's what else he offered I think that raised a lot of eyebrows.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this was a visit that was rather something of a surprise to start with. It was only announced last Tuesday. And when it was over, the Cuban leader went to a press conference with Matteo Renzi, the Italian Prime Minister, where he made a variety of rather surprising statements.

He said that 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, during this press conference, he also pointed out the fact that he and his brother Fidel like Pope Francis. They went to Jesuit school -- before, of course, in the case of Fidel and Raul, they became communists. He also said that when the Pope will be in Cuba in September, "I promise I will go to all of his masses and with satisfaction." He said ,"I left the meeting this morning extremely impressed, very impressed, by his knowledge, his wisdom, modesty, and by all the virtues that we know he has."

Now it's also being reported in some Italian media that he told the Pope that this was the most important visit -- or rather meeting of his life. Now, significantly, these particular comments about perhaps praying again , about going back to church, have not been reported in the official state media in Cuba. It may be simply a case of Raul Castro doing in Rome as the Romans do. John?

BERMAN: Still interesting to hear him say those words. All right, Ben Wedeman, thanks so much.

ROMANS: When in Rome, do as the Romans.

[04:55:00] You say that every morning.

BERMAN: Every morning.

ROMANS: This painting could soon be the most expensive piece of art ever sold. Look at that, the most expensive piece of art. How much money are we talking about? And how much are people willing to pay for this? It's a Picasso, John. That's --

BERMAN: I know it's a Picasso!

ROMANS: -- a really famous Spanish guy.

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ROMANS: All right, it's Monday. New week. Let's get an EARLY START on Your Money this morning. A mixed bag for stocks. Asian shares are up after an interest rate cut over the weekend. European shares are down. U.S. stock futures look a little wobbly here. You know, stocks have been climbing for six years so what will it take to keep pushing higher? A strong April jobs report on Friday was a good start. Also looking for strong corporate earnings to justify record stock prices here. And just a reminder, we are very, very close to records for these major averages.

A growing trend in real estate -- secret listings. It's a seller's market in many parts of the country but real estate agents say more homeowners are skipping the official listings. Instead, the agents try to find a buyer without any advertising. Why would a homeowner sell in secret? Some want privacy or they're just trying to gauge interest. Others think exclusivity can draw higher sales prices. But in some zip codes, you're seeing a lot of these private listings.

All right, this Picasso painting could soon be the most expensive work of art ever sold. It will be auctioned at Christie's in New York today. It's estimated to sell for $140 million. And that's likely the low end here. Picasso's work is in high demand, usually sells for much more than anticipated.

[05:00:03] Picasso painted this piece in 1955 in memory of his friend and rival Henri Matisse.

BERMAN: Happy Mother's Day. I'm thinking about getting that --

ROMANS: The art I got this weekend looks kind of like that.

BERMAN: Yes, no, exactly. That's what I was going to say. My boys clearly already Cubsits.

All right, EARLY START continues right now.