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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Tornado Hits Eastland County, Texas; Mississippi Police Officers Killed; Pope Meets Castro At Vatican; Picasso Painting Could Smash Records. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired May 11, 2015 - 05:30   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- big search and rescue operation underway, officials now telling us that everyone has been accounted for at this point. Still, we are waiting for more word on the condition of those who have been hurt.

I want to bring in meteorologist, Pedram Javaheri, who is following the storm system. It is an immense system for us. Good morning, Pedram.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. It is impacting so many people. I was just counting how many tornadoes we've touched on so far since last Wednesday, five-day period, we are talking about 128 tornadoes touching down, ten of them in the past 24 hours.

You see multiple north and east of Dallas. This particular one we are touching on here in Van coming down at around 9:00 p.m. local time last night. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning towards this town at 8:55 p.m.

We know dozens of people going to your local churches there to get away from the storm system. But fortunately as you know now, all people accounted for.

But take a look, about a million people now in the tornado watch that is in effect over this region that is just to the east of Van from Shreveport towards Little Rock. This tornado watch is in effect for another 30 minutes.

This line of active weather upwards of 1,000 lightning strikes per hour coming out of this region so the storm certainly is still pretty powerful and some rotation is still possible with the storm system.

So we zoom out the perspective for you and show you the active weather. That pushes to the east. Of course, we touched on the tornadoes over Texas, but there was about ten over Texas.

Besides that, another 14 tornadoes in Oklahoma and Iowa and South Dakota, 24 in total. We had 24 severe hail reports and over 50 damaging wind reports, but pretty incredible story coming out of areas of South Dakota.

Because you know, we often talk about the clash of air masses. Look at areas 125 miles apart, from Pierre, significant snowfall. We had multiple reports of tornadoes in parts of South Dakota.

You look at the snow depth and not unheard of in the month of May, but still pretty impressive around Aspen and Telluride. Denver has picked up 6 inches as well.

Here is the threat for Monday. Stretches from Houston all the way out towards Cleveland, 57 million people live here. On a scale of 1 to 5, this is a 2 as far as the severe weather threat. It was 4 on Sunday.

At least it is lessened a bit, but of course, it expanded to more people. You look at the drought monitor. Texas has had much drought over this region improving conditions with regard to that in the past couple of days with the rainfall that has come down -- guys.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, when you get so much rainfall so fast on dry soil that gets rough in terms of flooding.

All right, thanks for that, Pedram. You know the tornado in Van, as he said, not the only severe storm overnight. Three powerful storms systems slamming different parts of the country Sunday, heavy rains, flooding, snow, and more tornadoes.

BERMAN: Yes, I want to show the Atlantic hurricane season, the preview. The official season starts June 1st, but Tropical Storm Ana came early and made landfall north of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. You can see the damage caused by the heavy rain and wide spread flooding in some of the low-lying areas.

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

BERMAN: Much Colorado is digging out from a late season snowstorm this morning. The snow covered branches snapped power lines. Look at those trees, just hanging so low. The wet snow is dragging them down, power out to about 40,000 homes and businesses this morning. Forecasters are warning that there could be flooding throughout the week as all the snow melts.

ROMANS: South Dakota got snow and they got 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. In the eastern South Dakota town of Delmont, a tornado damaged 20 buildings. No serious injuries.

BERMAN: Another tornado tore through the Iowa town of Lake City ripped the roof off the local high school. It's a pretty stunning picture there. There are about 100 people inside at the time for an award ceremony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There goes the school. There goes the school. That's the school. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Officials say the tornado sirens gave people time to evacuate. That is why no one was injured. There are no classes at the high school today in Lake City.

ROMANS: Another storm in Texas, this one in Denton County, North of Dallas. Severe storms dumping heavy rain. Look at rescue helicopters pulling six people from their flooded homes.

BERMAN: A tornado in Eastland County, Texas caused one death and a few serious injuries. CNN's meteorologist, Jennifer Gray is there with the latest.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John and Christine, we are a couple of miles south of Cisco. This is west of Dallas. This is one of the areas hard hit by the storms on Saturday. You can see the trees behind just snapped in half.

In fact, preliminary reports are saying that it is an EF-3 tornado that came through here and caused extensive damage. Three quarters of a mile wide with a path 7 miles long.

[05:35:09] We are at a higher elevation and you can see the trees snapped. Clear where the path was. A couple of miles in that direction, we are told three homes are 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 last report, one of the people was in critical condition.

We talked to the public information officer from the area. He said they had tornadoes before, but none has really impacted many structures. This is the hardest they have been hit in the area. More storms are forecast in the area later today -- John and Christine.

BERMAN: All right, Jennifer Gray, thanks so much.

This afternoon, two Mississippi police officers will be honored at a memorial service. Officials say they were killed during a traffic stop, the first officers to be shot in the line of duty or killed in the line of duty in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in more than 30 years. Suspects are already in custody. Rosa Flores has the latest.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, you know, we hear this from law enforcement experts all the time. There is no such thing as a routine traffic stop. 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. This involved a vehicle with three people inside.

He called for backup. Officer Liquori Tate responded. Investigators say the suspect shot and killed those two police officers. Now, they also say the suspects took one of the police cruisers and used it as a runaway car.

Now, of course, police later apprehended the suspects. Here are their names, Marvin Banks and Joanie Calloway, both charged with two counts of capital murder. You have 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 and asking people and trying to figure out what happened here.

Again, they have not released a motive. I did talk to Officer Tate's father. 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. His son's dream, he says, was to be a police officer -- John, Christine.

BERMAN: What a tragedy. All right, thanks, Rosa Flores.

The mayor's office says a fourth suspect has been arrested on Sunday and charged with obstruction of justice.

ROMANS: Happening now, federal officials are 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're very definitely 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 inspire possibly others.

So our 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 spent a lot of time these days talking to police chiefs and sheriffs around the country. We did that in a video teleconference just on Friday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Federal law enforcement officials say the FBI is increasing monitoring of suspected ISIS supporters in the U.S. One official told CNN, quote, "We're trying to shake the trees more aggressively." The Pentagon is also tightening security at military bases in the United States from force protection condition alpha to bravo.

Time for an EARLY START on your money this morning, Asian shares are higher. Chinese central bank over the weekend announced a new interest rate cut to boost that country's economy.

European shares are down right now. Eurozone finance ministers meeting today to talk about Greece and its debt problems. Greece has to pay the IMF 750 million euros tomorrow. U.S. stock futures are not moving much yet. The Dow climbed

267 points on Friday. The jobs market is getting back on track.

Top tech companies are sitting on stunning amounts of cash. According to a new report, look at this, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Oracle, they together have $430 billion in cash.

Apple alone has 40 percent of that. The large majority of that money is held overseas. As long as tech companies don't bring that money home to reinvest it, they don't have to pay U.S. taxes on it, a lot of money sitting over there at the bank.

[05:40:08] BERMAN: All right, 20 minutes to the hour right now. We have breaking news out of Texas. A tornado has left dozens injured overnight. We will bring you the latest update on that.

Plus, the pope meeting with the Cuban leader, Raul Castro. We will tell you what President Castro said after that has so many people talking. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Our breaking news this morning, a reported tornado in Van, Texas, east of Dallas. Officials say at least 26 people injured. More than 20 buildings damaged or destroyed.

Emergency crews have finished a large scale search and rescue operation going door-to-door. Now officials say everyone has been accounted for in this town of 2,600, no one missing.

Van is not the only Texas City hit with a tornado. In Eastland County, a reported tornado killed one and injured at least three others. Elsewhere storms spun tornadoes and dropped heavy rain from Colorado to Iowa all the way to the Carolinas.

It's 15 minutes until the hour right now. There was a special meeting at the Vatican with Pope Francis and Cuban leader, Raul Castro. Castro was there to offer his personal thanks for the pope's role in bringing the United States and Cuba together to end the frosty relationship or warm the frosty relationship.

Let's bring in senior CNN international correspondent, Ben Wedeman, live in Rome this morning with the details and some of the surprising comments from Raul Castro.

[05:45:10] BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, indeed, John. That meeting lasted only 55 minutes. The Vatican said it was very cordial afterwards. Raul Castro seemed giddy about it. It is reported he told the pope this was the most important meeting of his life.

Afterwards, he went to a press conference with the Italian prime minister where he said and I'll read this, "If the pope continues to speak like this, sooner or later, I will start praying again and I will return to the Catholic Church. I'm not saying this jokingly," he stressed. "I'm a communist of the Cuban Communist Party."

Now during the press conference, he also pointed out he as well as his brother, Fidel, went to Jesuit schools and of course, Pope Francis is a Jesuit as well.

Now the official media in Cuba, in fact, has not mentioned these remarks that he made. Given the fact that, of course, Cuba is a communist country and according to communist ideology, religion is the opiate of the masses, but I guess, he is partaking in a bit of that opium himself at this point -- John.

BERMAN: Ben Wedeman for us. Thanks so much, Ben. I appreciate it.

ROMANS: Let's see what is coming up on "NEW DAY." Chris Cuomo joins us now. Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Happy mother's day to you, belatedly.

ROMANS: Thank you.

CUOMO: You too, Berman. So we have the latest pictures showing what six dozen tornadoes did hitting the U.S. stretching all the way from Texas up to South Dakota. Reports of damage as you can imagine are just devastating.

Communities are beginning to pick up the pieces. We will show you what they are facing. We will go live in a Texas town this morning and show all of the different things that were effected and what's going to happen next.

And then we have a bombshell report on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Not a term I use lightly. The man behind it, Seymour Hersch, one of the best known investigative reporters there is and he says that the story about the raid of Osama Bin Laden's compound is completely false.

What the U.S. has been saying isn't true and we will have the famous investigative reporter on. He will tell us what he heard and we will test it. I have to tell you, it is shaking a lot of trees this morning of people who have been reporting on this and thought they understood it before. It is one report. We'll take it on.

BERMAN: With decades of experience in shaking things up. Chris Cuomo, thanks so much. Looking forward to that.

It's about 47 minutes after the hour, new developments this morning in the death of Freddie Gray. There are growing calls for a new prosecutor in the case. We'll tell you about it ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:51:35]

ROMANS: More breaking news this morning, emergency officials reporting two weather-related deaths in the city of Nashville, Arkansas. A suspected tornado hit a trailer park community killing two in Arkansas. We will have more on this as details become available. Still moving dangerous system of storms now with two more fatalities in Arkansas.

BERMAN: In Baltimore, fallout from the death of Freddie Gray. There are calls by some for an independent prosecutor after lawyers now, the lawyers for the six police officers charged are asking the judge to dismiss the case or assign it to someone another than the state's attorney, Marilyn Mosby. These attorneys for the police and the union say that Mosby has multiple conflicts of interest.

The Baltimore Orioles will return to Camden Yards for the first time since the riots. You remember after the riots, they played the White Sox with nobody in attendance.

Other news out of Baltimore, Prince played a rally for peace concert in Baltimore. Some footage here of that. People went to the concert and asked to wear some gray in honor of Freddie Gray.

ROMANS: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic candidate heading the Sunday talk show circuit explaining why he thinks he can beat Hillary Clinton despite her major financial advantage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton voted for the war in Iraq. I voted not only against it, but I helped lead the effort against what I knew would be a disaster.

In terms of climate change, I helped lead the effort against the Keystone pipeline. I'm not sure that Hillary Clinton has come out with a position on that. So those are just some of the areas where we differ.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Sanders says he is confident he can raise the money to run a strong campaign.

BERMAN: Also in the race for president, Jeb Bush is refusing to allow any distance between himself and his brother. In a Fox News interview, the former Florida governor said if he had been president in 2003, he would have acted the way George W. Bush did in deciding to go to war in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On the subject of Iraq, obviously controversial. Knowing what we know now, would you authorize the invasion?

JEB BUSH, FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: I would have. So would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody, and so would everybody confronted with the intelligence they got.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't think it was a mistake.

BUSH: In retrospect, the intelligence that everybody say, that the world saw, not just the United States was faulty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Interesting. Bernie Sanders talking about. Jeb Bush talking about it. Bush says the United States made a mistake by not following security after the invasion. Jeb Bush said his brother, George W. agrees with that.

ROMANS: All right, 54 minutes past the hour, this little doodle right there could be the most expensive piece of art ever sold. How much are people willing to pay for it?

BERMAN: At $11.

ROMANS: Does it go above the dining room table?

BERMAN: At $17.

ROMANS: No. It is more than that. I promise.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:58:06]

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. Let's get an EARLY START on your money. Records in the stock market mean records in the art world. 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.

So Christie's puts the estimate at $140 million, but these things tend to go for more than estimate. Picasso's work is in high demand. Usually sells for much more than anticipated.

The art market is on fire. Christie's could have a record week. This could beat out one sold for $142 million. This particular Picasso, in case you are interested, it is an homage to Matisse, who died in 1954. This was painted in 1955.

BERMAN: I don't have space in my office.

All right, severe storms across the country turned deadly overnight. "NEW DAY" with the latest now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get inside!

ROMANS: A reported tornado this morning in Van, Texas. Officials say at least 26 people are injured.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can hear the howling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I haven't seen anything like that in a long time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you do it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Suspects are in custody and two police officers are dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my baby. I am just trying to come to grips.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Attorneys for the six Baltimore police officers want the case dismissed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prince singing for unity in Baltimore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When Prince does something, people pay attention.

ROMANS: The FBI is increasing its monitoring of suspected ISIS supporters in the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The so-called lone wolf could strike at any moment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Monday, May 11th, 6:00 in the east. This is the aftermath. Dozens hurt this morning after a tornado strikes the town of Van, Texas, just east of Dallas. Homes reduced to sticks, pieces damaged schools, toppled power --