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New Day Sunday

U.S. Ebola Patient in Critical Condition; Coalition Airstrikes Kill 35 ISIS Fighters; Marine Is 1st U.S. Death in Fight Against ISIS

Aired October 05, 2014 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: We are grateful to be the ones to wake you up on this Sunday morning. I'm Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. Seven o'clock here on the East Coast, 4:00 out West.

And first up this morning, Thomas Eric Duncan is now in critical condition with Ebola at a Dallas hospital.

PAUL: Yes, the Liberian national and first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. had been in serious condition. Obviously that has worsened over the past day. Now, his partner, her son, and two nephews are at a secure undisclosed location now.

BLACKWELL: An Ebola survivor knows firsthand what Duncan is going through. Dr. Rick Sacra is back in the hospital with a cough and fever. Test results are due back tomorrow. On Friday, he talked about his experience with the disease. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RICK SACRA, EBOLA SURVIVOR: This is an infection in which there are no books written about how do we treat this infection, you know, in an advanced medical setting. They were essentially writing the chapter, I think, as I was going through my care.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Frightening moments, too, for more than 250 passengers aboard an international flight that landed in New Jersey yesterday from Brussels. They were held for more than 90 minutes because a man had been vomiting. This was on united Flight 998.

Officials ruled out Ebola, but we just talked to a passenger who was sitting next to him who said we were on the plane for 90 minutes, but we were pretty much contained for about 4 1/2 to 5 hours --

BLACKWELL: Yes, the whole thing.

PAUL: -- before they were released.

BLACKWELL: Stretched out much longer than 90 minutes.

PAUL: So, let's get the latest on Thomas Eric Duncan's condition right now.

BLACKWELL: Yes, CNN's Nick Valencia outside the hospital where Duncan is being treated.

We understand there's been a downgrade of his condition down to critical, Nick.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Victor.

We got that news yesterday afternoon from Texas Presbyterian Hospital that Thomas Duncan had slipped from serious condition to now critical condition. We don't know exactly the details of what the hospital is doing to treat Duncan. We know that he's isolated. We know that he's in intensive care, and from past cases, we know a lot of it has to do with hydration. Part of these classic symptoms, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, checking the fluids of the patient, making sure they're hydrated.

So, we're asking the hospital to get those details to us, expecting an update later today, seeing if he's still critical. But as far as we know, he is -- Victor, Christi.

PAUL: Do you know how officials are tracking everybody who had contact with him?

VALENCIA: Well, from past media briefings, we know that they started from the inside, worked their way out, lots of boots on the ground, CDC sent 10 people here. They've got five people in the field, five people at the hospital, lots of interviews, talking to medical workers, talking to people that were in the ambulance.

And, you know, there's been lots of inquiry as well. Yesterday, CDC briefing, they talked about the sort of paranoia across the country about possible Ebola cases. Dr. Frieden, the CDC director, spoke about that yesterday. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS FRIEDEN, DIRECTOR, CDC: We have already gotten well over 100 inquiries of possible patients. We've assessed every one of those with state and local health departments, with local health departments and hospitals, and just this one patient has tested positive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: Certainly, the fear of the unknown all across the country. Right now, it is a critical period to check these nine who had direct contact with Duncan there. The incubation period being 21 days.

This family of four, we know they're being checked on up until October 19th. So, right now, a critical time to look at how they're doing to see if they're showing any signs. But again, to reiterate from the Dallas County health officials, state officials and federal officials -- only Thomas Duncan, he's the only person here on American soil showing symptoms or signs of having Ebola -- Victor, Christi. PAUL: All right. Very good to reiterate. Nick Valencia, in

Dallas for us this morning, thank you, Nick.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Nick.

A 21-year-old Marine is believed to be the first American casualty in the fight against ISIS.

PAUL: Corporal Jordan Spears bailed out of an MV-22 Osprey, just like the one that you see here.

When it appeared that it might crash into the Persian Gulf and he disappeared. So, the Pentagon released a statement yesterday saying he is now lost at sea.

BLACKWELL: And the Human Rights group says coalition airstrikes killed at least 35 ISIS militants yesterday. Kurdish forces are pushing back against ISIS fighters in the key border town of Kobani.

PAUL: Let's bring in CNN's Phil Black. He's on the Syrian- Turkish border.

Phil, what have you seen there, you know, in the last few hours?

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christi, Victor, good morning.

We just want to show you the scene behind us. This is where you can see the city of Kobani and in particular, that southeastern corner. We're standing just across the border in Turkey, and it is into that southeastern corner that we have witnessed a very constant artillery bombardment into Kobani. We have seen it for several days, very heavy shelling today.

And these contacts inside the city that tell us around that corner, on that southeast approach to city, there are a number of ISIS tanks maneuvering, firing repeatedly.

Now, as I stand here as well, I can hear small arms fire in the distance. This is coming from the south. And you can see the hill just above Kobani. Everything we're hearing from inside the city tells us the main ISIS thrusts, the main advance, its main attempts to take the city is coming from the south. They're trying to climb the southern side of that hill overlooking the city.

So far, though, the Kurdish fighters that are left behind in the city, both men and women as well as civilians who have taken up arms, we are told, have managed to hold them back, to not let them take that very strategic high ground there.

BLACKWELL: Phil, who has momentum here?

BLACK: Sorry, Victor. Repeat that, please.

BLACKWELL: Who has momentum. The Kurdish fighters have been able to hold them off. Does it seem they'll be successful or are they being aggressive in pushing them back?

BLACK: At the moment, they've been successful at holding them off at that point. I don't believe they can hold them off indefinitely. In fact, the fighters we've spoken to inside the city say they are preparing for street fighting, for urban warfare, house to house, street to street. They think they'll have a bit of an advantage unto those conditions because they know the streets so well, but it is certainly approaching a showdown here, we think. It is a very dire time for the fighters inside that city. They are running out of places to fall back to.

BLACKWELL: All right. Phil Black there for us at the Turkish- Syrian border, just outside of Kobani -- Phil, thank you so much.

PAUL: It will be frightening if that city falls, because remember, if they take Kobani, if ISIS takes Kobani, that means that they will now have taken 60 miles of territory in Syria. So, it's really important to be watching that today.

BLACKWELL: Retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona joins us now. He's a CNN military analyst.

Let's talk more about that, and start there with how crucial the city of Kobani is on this war on ISIS.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's a border town. It's a key border crossing between Syria and Turkey, and it's one of the remaining Kurdish holdouts there. Once ISIS takes it and it appears that they're going to, they'll control almost that entire border region there.

And as Christi mentioned, they own now from Raqqa, all the way up to the Turkish border, that gives them yet more control. And from there, that allows them to be in position to push further to the west as they move toward Aleppo, which is one of their main targets. They've been going after it for a long time. As Phil said, it doesn't appear the Kurds are going to be able to hold that city. They are vastly outgunned and vastly outnumbered.

BLACKWELL: Explain how this fight to push ISIS away from Kobani and their advance on the city will appear differently or will be executed differently than what we've seen in other cities in Syria and Iraq over the last several months.

FRANCONA: Well, this appears to follow their standard modus operandi. They like to get to an area, and surround it, choke it off, and then pound it with artillery. If they need to, they'll run a bunch of suicide bomber trucks inside, and then they'll take the city.

What we have here is a unique situation where the border forms a northern edge of the town. So, the Kurdish population has been -- mostly has been able to escape into Turkey. Of course, that puts a lot of burden on the Turks.

But the city itself is almost empty. There's the Kurdish fighters there. So, it's a little bit different situation here. Hopefully, the Kurds will be able to escape to Turkey as well, because you do not want to be a prisoner of ISIS.

BLACKWELL: Certainly not. Let's get back to the death of 21- year-old Corporal Jordan L. Spears, the first U.S. military death in the war on ISIS. Spears has been declared dead, but the Pentagon has not classified Spears' death yet and why and do you know when they'll get that information.

FRANCONA: Well, they'll do an investigation and it depends on how they want to classify, what kind of mission was he on, were they taking off to go conduct operations in Iraq. They were taking off from one of these amphibious assault ships. So, it's unclear what the action was. That might help determine whether they call it a combat death or an accident.

What happened was as the pilot was experiencing difficulty, he was afraid they might crash, so it's standard procedure to have your crew -- the nonessential crew bail out. And the pilot and co-pilot attempt to recover the aircraft, which they did. But this is standard procedure. And they were standing by in case anything like this happens. But as we say, I mean, these accidents unfortunately happen.

BLACKWELL: Now, in this search for Corporal Spears, are these uniforms, these suits, are they equipped with beacons to help in the search?

FRANCONA: He probably wasn't wearing anything more than like a life vest, and that would have a beacon and a locator on it, yes.

BLACKWELL: OK. All right. Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, thanks so much for helping us understand this morning.

FRANCONA: Sure.

PAUL: Well, the crowd is smaller, but the anger is growing in Hong Kong over how the government is treating protesters.

BLACKWELL: Plus, searchers are scouring in a new area in the hunt for missing Flight 370.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Welcome back to NEW DAY. Let's get you caught up with your "Morning Read".

PAUL: New developments in Hong Kong this morning. Pro-democracy protesters there had just tweeted that they're withdrawing outside of the executive offices. Demonstrations in that area have been a key point of tension with authorities. The group says protesters at another site where clashes have taken place will relocate to the main protest site now.

BLACKWELL: Today, crews are expected to start the next phase for their search of missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. The commercial flight went missing March 8 in the southern Indian Ocean. At least that's where they believe the flight ended.

And be sure to watch "Vanished: The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370", Tuesday night at 9:00 Eastern.

PAUL: In business news, a ground beef recall to tell you about this morning. Sam Kane Processor of Corpus Christi, Texas, is recalling more than 90,000 pounds of ground beef after customers complain of finding metal -- yes, metal in the meat. USDA says one person reported a chip in his tooth. The metal pieces reportedly were about an eighth of an. All the meat were shipped to stores in Texas.

BLACKWELL: In sports, number 11 Ole Miss stuns number 3, Alabama. Alabama had the game under control until the fourth quarter, and that's when the home team took advantage of some big plays and turned Bama's lead into a 23-17 reveled victory. It's the first time Ole Miss has started its season with five wins since JFK was president.

PAUL: Oh, my goodness.

Feeling a little nippy this morning?

BLACKWELL: Oh, yes. A little bit.

(LAUGHTER)

PAUL: And you know what? We're feeling nothing here in Atlanta like y'all are doing in Chicago. We know people are bundled up because they saw their first snowflake yesterday.

BLACKWELL: I can't. I can't with Chicago and the snow already.

PAUL: Oh, I love it. It's the best.

Jennifer Gray, don't you think? In the CNN weather center, of course.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, yesterday, Victor was saying it wasn't that cold, so we made even colder this morning. But, yes, make sure --

BLACKWELL: Got it.

GRAY: -- make sure you feel the chill.

Atlanta, we are in the mid-40s, but a gorgeous, gorgeous sunrise. It is clear and cool. We're going to warm up to around 70 degrees. So, it's actually going to end up to be a picture-perfect day.

But, yes, feeling the chill all the way up to Minneapolis and as far south as Nashville. We have frost advisories in place, we have freeze warnings in places, and that includes West Virginia. We're also going to see those as far south as Tennessee.

So, temperatures right now, 39 in Roanoke, 45 in D.C., 40 in Pittsburgh. Chicago, you're at 40 degrees, New York, 46.

So, we're all in the same boat here. We're going to see temperatures rebound though. Temperatures today will actually be a little bit warmer than yesterday -- 61 in New York. We'll be warming up to 70 by Tuesday.

Temperatures in D.C. around 65, warming up to 75 tomorrow.

Chicago, 57 is your high temperature today. But by tomorrow, you'll be at 60, and then, Tuesday at 66. So, warming up nicely.

Across the Southeast, much of the same story. A lot of places around 65, 70 degrees today. We'll be warming up to around 80 by Tuesday. So, a very fast rebound for much of the country.

I want to touch on the West Coast just a bit. That fire threat does remain high for today. Santa Ana still a problem. Staying very, very hot here. No relief in sight.

We are going to see temperatures stay warm today. However, gradually starting to taper off over the next couple of days, 86 today in L.A., 83 tomorrow, 81 on Tuesday. Things are getting a little bit better.

We're also watching Simon. This storm is going to continue to weaken as it bends to the north and east, and then just being downgraded to a low most likely by Friday. But this is going to bring even more moisture into areas that have seen so much rain, guys, including places like Phoenix. We've seen major flooding several times already this year.

So, they don't need any more rain. If that could shift a little bit farther to the north and west, California could really use it, you know?

PAUL: Thank you, Jennifer.

GRAY: All right.

PAUL: All right. I think about this -- artificially inseminating oysters.

BLACKWELL: No, no. I don't want to think about that. I really don't, sorry.

PAUL: Performing in a Vegas show. No?

BLACKWELL: I'll think about that.

PAUL: All right. These aren't dirty jobs, but you know what? Somebody's got to do it.

BLACKWELL: And it could be a dirty job depending on the show in Vegas. You know how Vegas is sometimes.

PAUL: Mike Rowe, by the way, is taking the working world's unsung heroes and letting us know what it's all about.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: CNN has a new original series that debuts this week. It's called "Somebody's Got To Do It". It's with Mike Rowe and it profiles really the heroes of all kinds of jobs across America.

But these are not necessarily undesirable gigs. Listen. Here's how Mike Rowe described it to me earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE ROWE, CNN HOST, "Somebody's Got To Do It" is a continuation of a segment I used to do about 10 years ago called "Somebody's Got To Do It", where we weren't looking for the dirtier, the dangerous or the nasty work so much as for people that were driven in some way, almost afflicted to do whatever it is they do -- whether they were inventors, or entrepreneurs, bloody do-gooders. Just people who wake up a little annoyed that the world is not exactly the way they want it.

BLACKWELL: You know, you and I have something in common, both born in Baltimore, have a connection to Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay. There's an episode -- I've been reading the episode guide this season in which it's featuring an oyster orgy. I don't know if I can say "orgy" in the morning. What is that about?

ROWE: You just said it, twice. Congratulations on that.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, thank you.

ROWE: It's about the Chesapeake Bay is as you know is maybe the most important estuary in the country and generates many, many millions of dollars in revenue for people who work on the bay and depend on the bay and the seafood that comes out of the bay, et cetera, et cetera. It's a really huge part of the environment and a really important part of the ecosystem and it's been in some degree of peril for the last 50, 60 years.

One of the problems in the bay is the fact that the oyster population has been slowly eroding over time. Not so slowly, in fact. They've been overfished and they've suffered from all kinds of diseases and all kinds of problems.

So, there's a guy we met called Mutt Merritt (ph). His whole life's purpose is to reinvigorate the oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay. And so, to do that, he's embarked on this massive artificial insemination campaign that involves hundreds of oysters pulled out of the bay, put in these containers where they breed, and he creates these things called spats which he puts back into the bay.

Long story short, they're creating about, well, billions more oysters than they used to have. So, essentially the oyster orgy is the way to tell a story about a guy who's dedicated his life to saving the bay and at the same time wrangled all the politics between the elected officials and the watermen and the consumers and the price of an oyster and a whole lot of other stuff. It's a really fun look at the backyard I grew up in through a totally different lens.

BLACKWELL: Mike Rowe, thanks for speaking with us.

ROWE: My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Really looking forward to this one. Catch the premiere of "Somebody's Got To Do It" with Mike Rowe this Wednesday night at 9:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.

PAUL: Thanks, Victor.

So, let me ask you -- how much could you get done around the house, say, in six hours? A lot, right? Well, the Giants and Nationals, they couldn't get play a baseball game in that amount of time. The epic game that has everybody talking.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: All right. Today's must-see moment for you. Last night, the San Francisco Giants broke the record for the longest postseason game in history -- 18 innings!

BLACKWELL: Yes, it took six hours and 23 minutes. Look at this. San Fran's Brandon Bell hits the home run and lets the bat fly. We are done with this. We couldn't believe so many fans stayed for all 18 innings.

PAUL: Right. So, think about how long it was. We came up with other things you could do in six hours and 23 minutes. You could take a nonstop flight from Salt Lake City to Honolulu.

BLACKWELL: Yes, you cold roast two Thanksgiving turkeys back to back.

PAUL: You could watch 17 episodes of "Modern Family", if you wanted.

BLACKWELL: Or you can walk the entire length of Manhattan and back.

PAUL: Just food for thought.

Thank you so much for starting your morning with us. We'll see you back here in half an hour.

BLACKWELL: "SANJAY GUPTA, M.D." starts right now.