Return to Transcripts main page
New Day Saturday
Helicopter Slams Through Roof of Scottish Pub; American Held in North Korea Issues "Apology"; Deadline Today for healthcare.gov; Black Friday Madness; Arrested for Trespassing -- At Work; Girl Cancer Free after Halting Chemotherapy; 2013 Movie Flops; Pro Coaches Accused of Cheating; "The Good Stuff"
Aired November 30, 2013 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN HOST: A crowded Scottish pub turns into a scene of chaos after a police helicopter crashes through the roof, at least one dead. Dozens are injured and many still trapped inside.
HOWELL: Plus, the nightmare before Christmas. Stores fill up and tempers flare. Unbelievable scenes across the country on Black Friday. Shoppers go wild. We'll have to show you what happened.
KOSIK: And the deadline is almost here. The questions is, will the Obamacare website be ready? Fingers are crossed at the White House as rollout number two is just hours away.
Good morning, I'm Alison Kosik.
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN HOST: And I'm George Howell. It's 7:00 here on the east. This is "NEW DAY SATURDAY." First, the frantic search and rescue effort that's happening right now in Glasgow, Scotland. Rescuers are trying to pull any survivors out that they can. People were trapped in a busy pub after a police helicopter smashed through the roof overnight. It fell on the crowds watching a band perform. Police say at least one person is confirmed dead but they expect that number to rise. CNN's Richard Quest has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: All night and into the morning, search and rescue efforts continued after a police helicopter crashed into the roof of the pub, filled with Friday night revelers in Glasgow in Scotland. A local member of parliament, Jim Murphy said he arrived moments after the crash.
JIM MURPHY, MP: Most of the helicopter appeared to be inside the pub with only part of it protruding from the top.
QUEST (voice-over): Murphy says he saw at least 10 people who were injured, including people who were struggling with consciousness and others with bleeding wounds to the head.
Christina O'Neill, who saw the crash from her apartment across the street, said she heard what sounded like a low-flying airplane.
CHRISTINA O'NEILL, WITNESS: (INAUDIBLE) couple of (INAUDIBLE). And then, as I said, a massive crash.
QUEST (voice-over): After the sound of the impact she saw smoke and people running from the pub.
One witness who was inside reported not hearing the crash because there was a band playing. And all of a sudden, there was a whooshing sound and a lot of dust that came down from the ceiling.
Then more of the ceiling fell. And people started running out. Hours after the crash and the helicopter bearing the word "Police" on its damaged tail was still smoldering.
There were three people on board. Two police officers and a civilian pilot. People remained trapped inside the one-story pub. Urban search and rescue specialists are working to make the Clutha Bar safe so firefighters can get to the victims still trapped, says the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
The British prime minister David Cameron tweeted about the situation, saying, "My thoughts are with everyone affected by the helicopter crash in Glasgow and the emergency services working tonight."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOWELL: All right. Right now, joining us by phone, CNN's Richard Quest from Glasgow, Scotland.
Richard, I understand your signal may be weak. We could lose you here. A couple of questions, what do you know as far as the latest on the death toll and the number of people they're searching for, trying to rescue?
QUEST: Well, the official number is still one. But everybody is expecting that number to rise higher because we know that there are bodies still inside The Clutha Vaults pub. And what was a rescue has now become pretty much a recovery operation.
Also, let me just paint you the scene as I'm walking around here at the moment, because what we have are various people coming up to the police barrier, looking at this one-story building just about a couple of hundred of feet away. They are relatives and friends who are searching for people that they know was in the pub last night.
I saw one man come here and fall to his knees in tears. There's another couple just in front of me, who are walking around with a piece of paper, which they've got details where they can find our number, anybody, for the help line.
There's one gentleman on to my right who is holding almost an impromptu press conference, describing what it was like in the pub when the helicopter crashed. One thing is clear, there wasn't a panic (ph) last night, but the dust, the noise and then ultimately the collapse of the ceiling as they all felt the force.
HOWELL: Richard, you say there wasn't a panic. I look at these images, it's just hard to imagine what it must have been like in that moment when the helicopter crashed.
What are you hearing about how this happened? Any idea about what caused the crash?
QUEST: No, none whatsoever. The British equivalent of the NTSB, which is the Air Accident Investigation Board, they are already working on this. They have world-class experience. And will be leading the investigation into this twin-engine helicopter.
We know that from eyewitnesses that it sounded like the engine was sputtering. The rotors apparently were not going around and then the helicopter just fell out of the sky. Now that's what eyewitnesses have said.
Looking at the building at the moment, I can tell you, we can see the rotors that are now covered by a tarpaulin on the roof of the Clutha Vaults. The building itself, obviously, is barely standing.
And one of the core difficulties now in the recovery of those who may be inside is the instability of the building. The rescue workers have to be so very careful, because the slightest little move could bring a building which is already very badly damaged completely down.
HOWELL: A developing story. CNN's Richard Quest joining us live in Glasgow, Scotland.
Richard, thank you for your reporting.
KOSIK: An American is supposedly confessing his crimes against North Korea. In a new video released by Pyongyang, a man thought to be 85- year-old Merrill Newman is seen apologizing. He's apparently accused of killing civilians and troops during the Korean War. In his apology, he said Western governments aren't telling the truth about North Korea.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERRILL NEWMAN, KOREAN WAR VETERAN: The document written with their addresses and email addresses to the guide in the Yonkokdo (ph) Hotel, it's the DPRK government and the Korean people. Again, on this trip, I can understand in U.S. and Western countries there is misleading information and propaganda about DPRK.
KOSIK (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE) has not explained why it was holding Newman. He's been held for about a month and he's one of two Americans currently trapped in North Korea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: Back here in the United States, today is the big day for healthcare.gov. November 30th, the day that President Obama promised that the website would work for most Americans smoothly, despite his eroding poll numbers. He told ABC's Barbara Walters last night he doesn't feel the website's disastrous rollout has hurt his credibility.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA WALTERS, ABC HOST: A lot of the criticism, it's personal, people just don't think you're trustworthy.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I don't think that's true, Barbara. The truth of the matter is I got reelected in part because people did think I was trustworthy and they knew I was working on their behalf.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
KOSIK: It is going to be interesting. And we're going to see more today because the Obama administration says healthcare.gov is and will be a work in progress. Tech experts took parts of the site down overnight for maintenance, but it's back up now.
CNN's Tory Dunnan tells us programmers worked right through Thanksgiving, right through the holiday, to make today, they hope, a success.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TORY DUNNAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's been a frenzied race to fix healthcare.gov. And today, November 30th, is the day that President Obama promised the website will be running smoothly for the vast majority of users.
OBAMA: By the end of this month, we anticipate that it is going to be working the way it is supposed to, all right?
DUNNAN (voice-over): It's been two months since the botched rollout on October 1st, sparking a firestorm in Congress and forcing the administration to set a self-imposed deadline.
KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, HHS SECRETARY: The assessment that we have made is that it will take until the end of November for an optimally functioning website.
DUNNAN (voice-over): The latest from Jeffrey Zients, the man the president brought in to turn things around, is that the fix is "on track," that the website should be able to handle 50,000 users at the same time, double what it once could and, overall, more than 800,000 users per day. But there's a caveat.
JULIE BATAILLE, CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES: To be clear, November 30th does not represent a relaunch of healthcare.gov. It is not a magical date. There will be times after November 30th when the site, like any website, does not perform optimally.
DUNNAN (voice-over): And too many people trying to log in could still spell trouble. The administration says they will be put in a virtual queue and will get an email with a better time to sign on. Troubleshooters have been working around the clock, including at this commander center in Columbia, Maryland. One expert we talked to says even if the 50,000 concurrent users goal is met, how much time they're spending on the site could be a headache.
LUKE CHUNG, SOFTWARE DEVELOPER: So the challenge isn't how many lanes you have on the highway, it's how fast the cars can go down the highway because if there's any breakdown, you'll have a big traffic jam, a pileup behind you.
DUNNAN (voice-over): Republican critics like Congressman Fred Upton aren't letting up. He's taking aim at the administration's claim that running smoothly for the vast majority of users means an 80 percent success rate, saying, quote, "The situation is so bad that a 20 percent failure rate is the goal."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOWELL: CNN's Tory Dunnan joining us live from Washington, D.C.
So, Tory, we were talking about this, so how do you judge whether this website is really working?
If you're on the outside, how do we grade this website to know if it's effective?
DUNNAN: You know, George, that's really a great question because the simple answer is, it's going to be really tough to tell just how smoothly it's actually functioning. We do know that the administration has ways to measure the site's success or its failure.
But by the same token, they're really not expected to release those numbers right away. So as you said, they're leaving outsiders to guess. One thing to point out, we know the conference call is going to happen tomorrow with reporters and Jeffrey Zients is supposed to be on that call.
We're told that they're billing it as an opportunity to discuss the progress made through November. So, Alison and George, hopefully today talking to tech experts, we'll get a sense of how it's working but tomorrow we'll hear from the administration.
HOWELL: We will see.
KOSIK: OK. Yes, we will. Tory Dunnan, live from Washington, D.C., this morning, thanks.
HOWELL: Thanks.
Now if you went out to stores on Black Friday, you really had no idea, no idea, of what you were getting into.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOSIK (voice-over): Ah, yes, that, my friends, is two women kind of duking it out at the mall. And you're -- yes, that's a real stun gun. And that wasn't all that was happening out there. It got downright nasty.
Isn't that right, Alexandra Field? ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alison, nasty is an understatement. There was a stabbing in the parking lot, a shooting, pepper spray and a whole lot of short tempers.
I'm Alexandra Field live in New York City. I will have the Black Friday stories that you just can't believe coming up on NEW DAY SATURDAY.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: You know, I'm thinking that's not the retail therapy that's sort of positive at this point.
This is a Wal-Mart. And saying that those Black Friday sales, they were bigger, faster and safer than ever. But I'm not thinking that it is looking pretty safe with that Wal-Mart.
HOWELL: All right. So what do we see there? We see bargain shoppers literally pushing and shoving and elbowing to get their way to flat screen TVs. Security officers are practically wrestling with customers to get things under control there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: That Wal-Mart was certainly not the only one where the crowds got rowdy. We heard reports of tussles over TVs, chaos over computers, even pepper spray used to break up a mob of bargain hunters.
HOWELL: You know, we joke about these things. But it really is unfortunate to see these things playing out.
KOSIK: And people get hurt.
HOWELL: They do.
Alexandra Field was following all of this.
The Black Friday madness, Alexandra, so what's the best and what's the worst?
FIELD: All right, it holds true year after year, the best deals seem to bring out the very worst in people.
Let's start in Virginia when two men were arrested. One was stabbed in the arm. The second man was arrested for threatening him with a knife and a rifle in the parking lot of that Virginia Wal-Mart.
In the parking lot of a California Wal-Mart, a police officer broke his hand and his finger trying to break up a fight.
And two more unruly Wal-Mart shoppers were arrested in New Jersey, but the chaos, it continued all across the country.
There were fist fights in North Carolina, brawls in Texas, even a shooting in Las Vegas, after one shopper tried to steal another successful shopper's deal.
But by far the most memorable image of this year's Black Friday festivities come from a mall in Philadelphia, check this out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL NAPOLITANO, WITNESS: I was definitely taken aback for it, because everybody is out trying to save money and shop for everybody and get stuff for themselves. You just don't think that people are going to do stuff like that.
I always wonder what drives somebody to get in a fight like that; you don't just walk away. It's a holiday, everybody's got to get along.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FIELD: All right. He's talking about two women there, who were involved in a fight in that Philadelphia mall. You can see them here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoa!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no!
FIELD (voice-over): And, yes, you can believe what you saw there, that was two women, two female shoppers, who were fighting. It ended when one woman pulled a stun gun on another woman.
Safe to say, the whole thing left other shoppers stunned.
The CEO of Wal-Mart spoke on Friday morning, he said on Thursday, there were 22 million shoppers in Wal-Mart stores. He said the problems were down compared to previous years -- George, Alison.
HOWELL: Alexandra, you look at that, it's just...
KOSIK: It's stunning, it's sad. I wonder if they wake up the next morning and think, what the heck was I doing out there?
HOWELL: Yes.
Alexandra, thank you so much. That's (INAUDIBLE) --
FIELD: You got to be waking up with that pit of shame.
(LAUGHTER)
HOWELL: Thank you so much. That's why we were talking about it, online shopping.
KOSIK: It's the way to go. HOWELL: Not a bad thing.
OK. So you survived the madness on aisle 6. What's next?
KOSIK: Yes, one expert is going to tell us how to shop without all the drama coming up.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
KOSIK: And good morning to you, Washington, D.C. Ah, nice, quiet, peaceful morning, the sun's just starting to come up on the Capitol building there. Is it going to be a big day? A big day for the Obama administration as it plans to relaunch the healthcare.gov website tonight.
HOWELL: Definitely all eyes will be on that sight.
So Hillary Clinton, she has largely owned the media's attention when it comes to the 2016 Democratic presidential race.
KOSIK: But what about Joe Biden? Brian Todd is in Washington.
Good morning, Brian.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alison and George, the vice president is going to need all the momentum he can get to overtake Hillary Clinton in all these speculative races that we're running right now.
Still, Joe Biden has got enough experience, gravitas and political skill to bear that we have to take his potential candidacy very seriously.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TODD (voice-over): He's a natural handshaker and back slapper, evidenced on Inauguration Day. That common touch, combined with decades of experience in the Senate, an impressive portfolio as vice president and some recent subtle political moves have analysts talking about a potential Joe Biden presidential run in 2016.
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: He is reaching out; he's keeping in contact with key Democrats in states like Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire. That is critical because if he does decide to run in 2016, that's the support he's going to need.
TODD (voice-over): He's also about to head to China and Japan and South Korea for key strategic talks. What Biden is not doing, fund- raising; that would be poor political form this early in President Obama's second term and before the midterm elections.
Analysts say there are two other things Biden hasn't done that may help him. He was sidelined by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during stalemated talks over the government shutdown and debt ceiling. And he was almost nowhere to be seen during the disastrous ObamaCare rollout.
NOAM SCHREIBER, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": He can look back at the Obama administration and point to the initiatives that he's been involved in, the stimulus, foreign policy, things that actually went pretty well. And I think he can point to a record of accomplishment. Being involved in the Affordable Care Act rollout would be a blot on that. It would take that record of accomplishment.
TODD (voice-over): But Joe Biden's awkward public moments and speaking gaffes, like this one on C-SPAN, are inescapable.
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You cannot go to a 7- Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. (INAUDIBLE). I'm not joking.
TODD (voice-over): Then there's the most obvious impediment to a successful bid from Joe Biden or just about any other Democrat, a potential Hillary Clinton run. She's 51 points ahead of Biden, who is in second place in the latest CNN/ORC Poll of potential candidates.
TODD: Is the only way he can way in 2016 if she doesn't run? Is that the only way he can win?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, at this moment in time, if Hillary Clinton runs, nobody can win. She is clearly the front-runner. She will be the Democratic presidential nominee.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TODD: And from the Obama camp, there seems to be real ambivalence over Joe Biden. He's said to have built good relations with the president and some of his key advisers, but one analyst says the Obama team is still seething from last year's moment, when Biden overstepped on gay marriage, voicing support for it, before the administration was ready to make an announcement -- Alison and George.
KOSIK: Brian Todd, thank you.
HOWELL: Definitely an interesting race.
KOSIK: Oh, yes.
HOWELL: So imagine getting arrested if you will, not once, but twice.
KOSIK: But every week for years. That's what happened to a Florida man. Now he's fed up, and you're not going believe where he was arrested over and over again.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KOSIK: Bottom of the hour now, welcome back, I'm Alison Kosik. HOWELL: And I'm George Howell.
Here are the five things you need to know to start your new day.
Number one, at least one person is dead, dozens are hurt and an unknown number of people are still trapped inside a pub in Glasgow, Scotland. A police helicopter came crashing through the roof last night. The pub was full of people who were listening to a band perform. Rescuers are trying to get those people out. We're continuing to watch the story.
KOSIK: Number two, by the end of the day, healthcare.gov is supposed to work smoothly for most people trying to sign up for health insurance. The ObamaCare site was down overnight for maintenance. Officials say it should be able to handle 50,000 users at the same time and 800,000 users per day.
They are warning, though, there will still be some technical hiccups.
HOWELL: In at number three, commercial airlines are being warned to notify the Chinese government if they plan to fly through China's newly created air defense ID zone. This even as the U.S. government isn't officially recognizing the zone, China announced last week -- this is as a nasty fight came through with Japan over control of this area.
KOSIK: Number four, 18 people staying at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas were taken to the hospital for a flu-like illness. Most are kids traveling with a youth football team. Affiliate KVVU reports authorities initially thought it was food poisoning. Now they say the people who got stick didn't all eat the same meals.
HOWELL: In at number five, a nasty storm bearing down on the Pacific Northwest, at a terrible time, one of the busiest travel days of the year.
We want to go right over to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri in the Severe Weather Center. Pedram and I used to work together at KOMO TV in Seattle.
And Pedram, you know they're not happy about this.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: They're not, as you said, George, their busiest -- one of the busiest times of the year, we know some 43 million people traveled on Wednesday and the vast majority of them going to be traveling by cars. About 2.5 million traveling by air, but this gives you a perspective of what we're talking about as far as the weather for next week, from Tuesday towards Saturday.
Expansive area, very cold air pushing into the Pacific Northwest, the Central Plains, even the Southwest where Los Angeles goes from the 80s to the 60s in the coming days. And we'll touch on that shortly.
But some warmer weather returning for this time of year, a couple of degrees above average across the Southeast and the Mid-Atlantic states, at least for the next few days. But here's the culprit, across the Gulf of Alaska, massive storm system, arctic air associated with it, pushing in towards the Pacific Northwest. Initially, your Saturday starts out cloudy with a few showers eventually push in.
But by the time we get to Saturday night into Sunday morning, rain picks up in intensity, snow showers Sunday afternoon into Sunday night. So, George, Alison, if people are planning on traveling back late Sunday, that's where the concerns really come in across this area, because heavy rainfall, gusty winds and heavy snowfall in the mountain passes going to be an issue (INAUDIBLE).
(CROSSTALK)
KOSIK: Right when everybody is coming back from the holiday.
HOWELL: Yes. And you know Snoqualmie Pass, no place to be during a time --
JAVAHERI: Not at all, whiteout conditions, yes.
HOWELL: Thanks, Pedram.
KOSIK: So imagine this. Imagine heading into work for the day and wondering if you're about to be arrested for no good reason.
HOWELL: Well, for a man in Miami Gardens, Florida, that has been his daily reality for years. Now, he's fighting back. John Zarrella has more on the case that's putting police on the defensive.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Take a look at this surveillance video. It shows Earl Sampson being detained in a Miami Gardens, Florida, convenience store and then led away.
Now get this, Sampson was arrested 27 times at this convenience store and convicted of trespassing. He's been detained many times more. There is, says Sampson, and the store owner, a bit of a problem here; you see Sampson works at the store. He spoke with CNN affiliate WFOR.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EARL SAMPSON, QUICKMART EMPLOYEE: They always stop me, going in my pocket, ask me for my ID and my name.
ZARRELLA (voice-over): In all, Sampson has been stopped and/or arrested at various places 288 times. A year and a half ago, store owner Ali Saleh decided he had had enough, so he installed the surveillance cameras. Over and over again, Saleh says his cameras recorded police stopping and frisking and detaining not only his employees but customers, too.
ALI SALEH, STORE OWNER: I believe that's abuse. I believe in living in America, and America has a constitution, it has to be to protect the citizens. ZARRELLA (voice-over): Saleh, Sampson and several local residents this week filed a federal lawsuit against, amongst others, the city, the mayor and the police chief, charging civil rights violation.
The suit reads in part, quote, "Miami Gardens police department officers have used and continue to use race and/or national origin for the purpose of stopping, frisking, searching, seizing and arresting principally black males."
Before the suit was filed, Miami Gardens police issued a statement to local news stations, saying they are investigating the allegations and that they take seriously complaints against their officers.
During the past couple of years, Miami Gardens has been going through a rash of shootings and killings. The store sits in a high-crime area. It's not clear whether the store is being singled out more than others and if so why. The city's mayor says there's a zero tolerance policy.
MAYOR OLIVER GILBERT, MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA: He knows that his store is a source of problems in that community and he knows that we're trying to clean up that community.
SAMPSON: It say on the card you're supposed to protect (INAUDIBLE) not protecting or serving, you're harassing.
ZARRELLA (voice-over): The lawsuit seeks a change in city policy and financial compensation for Sampson, Ali and the other plaintiffs. According to the suit, if you took all 288 times Sampson has been detained and/or arrested, that amounts to about once a week for the past four-plus years -- John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOWELL: John Zarrella, thank you.
KOSIK: I just don't know what to say.
HOWELL: 288 times -- what, you're arrested that many times?
KOSIK: I know. Hey, it makes for a great story.
HOWELL: It's fascinating, to say the least.
KOSIK: And here's another one for you, the family of an 11-year-old Amish girl who left home to avoid her chemotherapy and now they're saying she's cancer-free.
HOWELL: The Amish family is now in hiding after a court appointed a nurse as the girl's guardian. The judge ruled that after the family halted chemotherapy treatments that it claimed were making her sick. And they want to try alternative medicine instead.
CNN's Nick Valencia has been following this story, spoke to the family's attorney.
How do we know, Nick, if she's truly cancer-free now?
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't. That's the thing, is there's no way for us to confirm that. As you guys were mentioning, the family is in hiding. They say -- they tell the attorney that they've done CT scans and this holistic clinic helped clear her of her cancer.
I spoke to the attorney yesterday and I asked him to confirm that for us. He says he's -- there's no way for him to independently confirm that. But he did say that this case for the family comes down to one thing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAURICE THOMPSON, FAMILY ATTORNEY: I think the most important principle at stake here really is not just the constitutional rights, but the moral right to refuse conventional medical treatments that carry their own risks that may be as great as the harm from the disease itself.
It's really about the right of parents to keep their family together and for parents to control their family, rather than for government to control their family and for individuals to control their health care decisions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VALENCIA: So the attorney said it's not so much about the family refusing chemotherapy. They just don't want it forced on them. They want it as a last resort option. And they want to go down and pursue this path of holistic medicine.
KOSIK: Is the hospital coming out and saying anything about it?
VALENCIA: They are, they're completely discrediting alternative medicine. And there's no track record, there's no proven track record that holistic medicine in terms of cancer treatment works. So the hospital, the chief medical officer for Akron's Children's Hospital, they're at the court of this controversy with the family, they spoke to NEW DAY this summer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROBERT MCGREGOR, CMO, AKRON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: And the child did have some side effects which would be certainly expected. And then the decision initially was they wanted to have additional complementary medicine, which is something that we would certainly be supportive of.
Then the decision shifted that it would be only using the alternative medicine or the herbal medicine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VALENCIA: The last chemo treatment that this little 11-year-old girl, Sarah (ph), had was in June. And doctors are convinced; they say if she doesn't get chemotherapy soon, there's a strong likelihood that she will die.
KOSIK: At some point, you step back and you say, come on, parents, think of what's in the best interest for the child?
VALENCIA: That's right, Alison. I talked to the attorney and I said, listen, there are doctors that want to try to help this little girl.
Why aren't you accepting the help?
And he said it really comes down to the constitutional right of these parents, that they want to be able to choose health care.
The State of Ohio, the laws there are very -- give a lot of freedom to the parents in terms of the types of health care that they can pursue for their children, except in cases of life and death. And there's an 85 percent chance that she will survive if she goes down this path of chemotherapy. But the family, an Amish family saying they're not -- they're very skeptical of conventional wisdom here.
KOSIK: Maybe someone should ask the 11-year old, I bet she'll say she wants to live.
VALENCIA: Yes, that's probably right.
KOSIK: All right. Nick Valencia, thank you.
HOWELL: Thank you so much.
VALENCIA: You got it.
HOWELL: Changing gears, what was the worst movie you saw this year? The movie, you go in there and you're like, why did I just spend this money? I want my money back.
KOSIK: And it is a lot of money for a ticket these days. We're taking a look at the year's biggest box office duds, after the break.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two people and a secret. The beginning of all conspiracies. More people and more secrets. But if we could find one moral man, one whistle-blower, someone willing to expose those secrets, that man could topple the most powerful and most repressive of regimes.
HOWELL (voice-over): It's a clip from the Touchstone DreamWorks movie "The Fifth Estate." And according to "Forbes" magazine, it was the biggest flop of the box office in 2013.
KOSIK: But the movie about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange certainly isn't the only fop out there. According to "Forbes," this year's biggest box office turkeys include films full of A-listers, like Sly Stallone's "Bullet to the Head" and Harrison Ford's "Paranoia."
Kim Serafin is the senior editor of "In Touch Weekly". And she joins us now from New York.
So what do you make of this list?
KIM SERAFIN, SR. EDITOR, "IN TOUCH WEEKLY": It's interesting, you know, of course, if you paid attention to the box office over the summer, there was a lot of talk about all of these big budget flops.
"The Lone Ranger," I think, is one that people talked about a lot, a movie that people expected to make a lot of money because it had the right players. It had Johnny Depp, it had the right director, everyone thought this was going to be a huge movie and then it didn't do too well.
There were a lot of movies like this, whether it was "After Earth" or "White House Down" or a lot of these other big movies with huge stars, it seemed like they had the right formula but then yet they did not do well.
So there's a few missing from the list but also I think, yes, "Paranoia" on that list, for sure. I mean, you have Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth, people who have been in some huge franchises, yet the movie did not do well at all, probably I think Harrison Ford's worst performing movie ever.
So a lot of these movies, maybe because it was timing; maybe it just wasn't marketed well for a lot of these movies; people didn't know what it was about in terms of the ads, so yes. But WikiLeaks, "The Fifth Estate" for sure. And I think definitely is the number one.
HOWELL: "The Fifth Estate."
KOSIK: OK. Let's go ahead and talk some new movies, Kim, you know, a lot of films out there trying to knock off the popular "Hunger Games" sequel, which I happened to see and loved.
HOWELL: It was good.
KOSIK: I want to hear what your must-sees are.
SERAFIN: Oh, well, yes, if you have to talk about "Catching Fire," "The Hunger Games." Definitely if you have not seen this movie, you should go see it; it's not just for girls, people of all ages will like this movie. Male audience will like this movie.
And of course Jennifer Lawrence just shines in this movie. She is the it girl. She was the it girl last year, certainly this year. We'll be seeing her again in "American Hostile."
But "Catching Fire," definitely go see this. It will break another record this weekend. It already broke records last weekend when it opened. It will break another record for the best Thanksgiving weekend ever, projected to make $100 million just this weekend alone. So that's number one, if you haven't seen that yet, go see that.
But, of course, the other movie that really is the movie to see this weekend is Disney's "Frozen." And for sure if you're an adult, you would like this movie; if you're a kid, you're going to like this movie for sure.
This is a classic Disney tale about two princesses; one turns the land into a never-ending winter. And the other princess, voiced by Kristen Bell, goes on to search for her. Great music, Broadway-caliber types of songs. And everyone is liking this movie.
And you can tell everyone is liking this movie because this is now also on record to break a record, this -- the Thanksgiving opening weekend record, making about $90 million it's projected to make. So a fantastic movie.
HOWELL: Kim, OK. The movie "Anchorman 2"; it's supposed to open December 20th, now the 18th. Why the change? A lot of people want to see it (INAUDIBLE)?
SERAFIN: Yes, and "Anchorman," I mean who doesn't want to see "Anchorman"? "Anchorman" for sure. Everyone is -- you know, if you had turned on the TV anytime, you would know that "Anchorman" is opening because you see have seen a Dodge Durango commercial.
You've seen the Ben & Jerry's ice cream that is being marketed for "Anchorman" 2." If you know anything about underwear, Jockey underwear is actually doing a line of underwear, retro '80s underwear lined with "Anchorman 2." So this is for sure the movie that you want to go and see. And I think people are so excited to see this movie.
KOSIK: But, Kim, do you think that the sequel is really going to live up to the original? You know how that goes.
SERAFIN: Yes, I don't know, I think this is going to be a tough one. Because you mention "Anchorman", and people just can quote any line from this movie. They know "Stay classy," they know every -- I mean, just, seriously, mention "Anchorman" to anyone, and people know all these famous lines.
So I think it's a lot of live up to, but I think they'll do a good job with it. It's been 10 years in the making.
KOSIK: All right. So one last one. Any big films that you're actually looking forward to next month and in 2014?
SERAFIN: I think for next month, for sure in December, a big month for more Oscar movies opening. "American Hustle." I think this is one that people are looking forward to. And then of course, Matt Damon and George Clooney, "The Monuments Men," opening in 2014, I think people have been waiting for that one. It was pushed from 2013 to 2014.
HOWELL: Kim Serafin, stay classy there in New York.
KOSIK: (INAUDIBLE) that phone. HOWELL: Yes, you hear that phone.
(CROSSTALK)
SERAFIN: I don't know. It's not my phone. I turned my phone off. I don't know where it's coming from.
KOSIK: (INAUDIBLE)
Interrupting us.
SERAFIN: I know.
HOWELL: As I said, stay classy there in New York. Thank you, Kim.
SERAFIN: Thanks.
HOWELL: All right. Still to come, in sports, you remember the old saying that goes if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.
KOSIK: But did the Steelers coach go way too far, actually getting in the way of a sure-to-be touchdown? More on the long and often hidden history of coaches cheating in professional sports.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Taking a drink and, whoa.
HOWELL (voice-over): All right. So all that happened in a matter of seconds. But that was Brooklyn Nets head coach Jason Kidd spilling his drink on the court. It was a bold move that snagged Kidd a $50,000 fine for cheating.
KOSIK: Kind of creative, sort of.
(CROSSTALK)
HOWELL: Yes, he is not the only professional coach taking heat for in-game antics this week.
KOSIK: Some are saying Steelers coach Mike Tomlin deliberately got in the way of an opposing player who was about to score a touchdown. CNN's Ed Lavandera has more on the long-running history of coaches behaving badly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. That old saying is alive and thriving in sports. That is Jason Kidd, head coach of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team. His team is down by 2 points with 8 seconds left and no timeouts. As one of his players walks to the bench, you can see him say, "Hit me," then spills his drink on the court.
Guess what? The game is stopped to clean up the mess, giving the Nets time to draw up one last play.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jacoby Jones gets by (INAUDIBLE).
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Then there's the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, accidentally or intentionally, you decide, getting in the way of a Ravens player streaking toward a sure touchdown at a crucial point in the game. Tomlin says he lost track of where he was on the field. The Ravens say it was deliberate.
JACOBY JONES, BALTIMORE RAVENS KICK RETURNER: I'm looking at him the whole time. I'm like, does he know he is on the field. I'm running, I'm looking at him like (INAUDIBLE). Like is he going to move?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He knew where he was. And he knew where Jacoby was. He did. He pulled my move.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Cheating in sports is as timeless as the games. Some cheat for money, like the infamous 1919 Chicago Black Sox, eight players including the popular Shoeless Joe Jackson were accused of fixing World Series games for payoffs from shady gamblers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "NINE MEN OUT")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Say it ain't so, Joe.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): A made for the big screen saga in the movie, "Eight Men Out." Eight players were banned from baseball for life.
LAVANDERA: Then there are the aging athletes who cheat to keep up with the younger, faster, stronger athletes, like baseball pitchers Whitey Ford, Gaylord Perry, Joe Niekro, who used Vaseline, baby oil, sandpaper, turpentine, resin, whatever they could get their hands on to make that baseball move around.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Joe Niekro's sandpaper crime was so legendary it provided comedy gold for David Letterman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN, CBS HOST: So you got your tool belt on, huh, Joe?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I just thought I'd bring some stuff here for you.
LETTERMAN: You have the electric sander; you have a manicure hit, a wire brush. You're ready for business, aren't you?
LAVANDERA (voice-over): There are the performance enhancing drug- using cheaters, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Mark McGwire, Ben Johnson and Alex Rodriguez, to name a few. And those widely thought to have used drugs, but deny it, including Sammy Sosa and home run king Barry Bonds.
BARRY BONDS, FORMER PRO BASEBALL PLAYER: This record is not tainted at all. Period. You guys can say whatever you want.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): But if cheating is trying, it doesn't always work. Jason Kidd was fined $50,000 for spilling the drink and his team still lost the game. And Mike Tomlin and the Steelers, well, they also lost -- Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOWELL: You know, it's just a commentary here, but the guys that are cheating, it just makes it hard for the guys that are playing it straight, you know, obvious but very unfortunate.
KOSIK: Yes, one bad apple shouldn't ruin the whole bunch. But then again, these are our role models for our kids.
All right.
Doctors were shocked when one woman's cancer suddenly began to disappear.
HOWELL: That's right. Hear about her brush with death and what may have been a visit to heaven.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOWELL: Have you ever heard of someone who survived a brush with death and she comes out of it talking about seeing or even feeling something that she could not quite explain, something that she may have considered to be heaven?
KOSIK: This is pretty amazing. This Sunday, Anderson Cooper brings us the intriguing stories of three such people, including this cancer survivor, who talked with CNN's Randi Kaye.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: But you could still see your husband? And how was he reacting to the fact that you were in this coma and he thought he was losing you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was very distraught. He was there by my bedside. He was holding my hand. And I could feel he was willing me to come back.
KAYE: And you had a choice to make.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a choice as to whether to come back or not. At first, I absolutely did not want to come back because why would I want to come back into this sick and dying body? But then it was as though in the next moment I understood why I had the cancer, all the years of beating myself up, feeling flawed, had turned my own energy against me and manifested as cancer.
KAYE: Fear, in a way, poisoned your body.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it did. And I understood that now that I knew this, my body would heal.
KAYE: You had this huge revelation and Sony (ph) and your father both affirmed what needed to be done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Both of them said to me go back and live your life fearlessly. And it was around that time that I started to come back.
KAYE: So how long were you in the coma?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About 30 hours. I was in the intensive care unit, but within four days, they were able to take off the oxygen. They were able to take out the food tube and the tumors shrunk by 70 percent.
KAYE: And the doctors, they kept testing you, right? They kept looking for your cancer; they kept treating you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were saying there is no way that cancer disappears like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: Check out CNN's Anderson Cooper's special report "To Heaven and Back." It airs Sunday at 7:00 pm Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
KOSIK: Let's go to "The Good Stuff," shall we? And the sequel to the story of a homeless man we told you about last week.
HOWELL: Joel Hartman turned in a wallet that he found in a trash can at a hotel right here in Atlanta. And the hotel rewarded him with a place to stay and room service. But that was just the start. That was the beginning of his generosity.
Next, he got some much-needed cash from it. He got clothes and even a makeover and even job offers. Then the cherry on top, a Thanksgiving reunion with the family he lost, but who never lost hope that they would find him again.
JOEL HARTMAN, REWARDED FOR RETURNING WALLET: Very overwhelming. Very, very overwhelming.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have been looking for him. I have never stopped looking for him.
HOWELL (voice-over): Hartman says all of the love he has received over the past week has restored his faith in humanity. What a great thing.
KOSIK: It is.
HOWELL: And he says he is determined to, in his words, "get his life out of the gutter."
KOSIK: And thanks for starting your morning with us.
HOWELL: The next hour of your "NEW DAY" starts right now.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
