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CNN NEWSROOM
California Wildfire Explodes In Size; Devastation In Tornado Alley; Chasers "Astonished" By Comrades' Deaths; Your Money, Their Dance Lesson; Issa: Washington Directed IRS Targeting; Senator Frank Lautenberg Dies; Stocks Jump To Kick Off June; Home Builder Worker Shortage; Obama Speaks On Mental Health; Report: Rutgers Postpones Athletic Director Meetings; 112 Killed In China Plant Fire; Turkish Police, Protesters Clash; "A Threat To The Entire World"
Aired June 3, 2013 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, deadly chase.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go south. Brandon if you don't go south, we're going to die.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on, brother. Hold on.
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COSTELLO: Storm veterans caught and crushed by the violent storms that struck Oklahoma. This morning, new questions about the risks these scientists take.
Plus, caught on tape --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is their story.
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COSTELLO: The IRS two-step, $50 million of your money spent on conferences. This new team building dance tape released and remember "Star Trek?"
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right, sir, pennies on the dollar.
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COSTELLO: Or "Gilligan's Island?" These people handle your money. This morning the agency heads to Capitol Hill to defend itself over targeting the Tea Party.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a problem that was coordinated in all likelihood right out of Washington headquarters.
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COSTELLO: Also, a fire powerhouse.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole thing what is going to blow up. We're going to be screwed.
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COSTELLO: California on alert and on fire, a massive unpredictable blaze doubling in size over the weekend. We are live from the front lines and you are live in CNN NEWSROOM.
Good morning. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Carol Costello. As the sun rises over California, we are getting a clearer picture of this dangerous wildfire that is burning out of control. The fire exploded in size yesterday reaching a massive 25,000 acres, taking six homes with it and threatening thousands more.
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MONIQUE HERNANDEZ, LIVES NEAR WILDFIRE: The flames were 200-feet high. It was horrible. We couldn't breathe. It was nothing but smoke. Seeing the pictures of the house above on the ridge gone, it's really scary. I just want to -- I keep looking at the news wanting to see a picture of my house.
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COSTELLO: Stephanie Elam is live in Palmdale, California. That's north of Los Angeles. She has the latest. Stephanie, you have good news?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I do have good news. We are actually in Lake Hugh. This area is one of the areas has been active throughout the night. It's one place that we have been watching, but we've got good news now coming in from the Los Angeles County Fire Department. They are saying this fire is now 40 percent contained and that it did grow to 29,500 acres burned.
But fire officials are cautiously optimistic that that number is not going to grow any more as long as the winds stay on their side so that is very good news here. They are also saying that if things continue in this way then they are likely going to allow people who bit evacuated from this area back to their homes. Some of which have been damaged, 15 homes we do know, 15 homes have been damaged, six completely destroyed. We do know that already at this point -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And New Mexico is also dealing with wildfires, tell us about that.
ELAM: Right, there are a couple wildfires that are burning in New Mexico. At last check the main one, zero percent containment. People there obviously very concerned. They're saying it just normally doesn't come this close so that fire having burned some 7,200 acres is something they are keeping an eye on here in the western region.
COSTELLO: All right, Stephanie Elam reporting live for us this morning.
Now to the latest in tornado alley where six people are still missing after two days those deadly tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma City, rather, in El Reno. This morning, we have learned 13 people in all died in Oklahoma. That number has now been revised. Those deaths include a family of three from Guatemala who tried to wait out the tornado in a storm drain.
The damage following these storms extensive, homes, schools, even churches reduced to rubble. The destruction not just limited to Oklahoma. In Missouri, a family is lucky to be alive after a gas station canopy collapsed on top of their car as they waited for the storm to pass. Meteorologist Chad Myers joins us now from El Reno. Good morning, Chad.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol. How are you?
COSTELLO: I'm good. I hope you're doing -- well, I see the damage behind you. So folks in Oklahoma aren't doing so good this morning?
MYERS: You know, we are picking up the pieces now. This was an EF-3, maybe an EF-4 tornado. I've seen a very wide path. This is a mile wide at times up here in El Reno. I tell you what I am surprised that the death toll is only 13, considering it went over I-40 for quite some time. You have to understand that people are really driving there, driving all back and forth.
COSTELLO: I'm just looking at this incredible picture and thinking of those storm chasers who died. Of course, you personally knew them. It just makes you wonder why, why, why, people do that?
MYERS: Well, there are storm spotters and they are official people that will send the data to the National Weather Service, phone calls directly to them saying I am a tornado on the ground. Here's it is. Here is where it is moving, that gets the warning out sooner, gets the direction better, makes the warnings safer and people out here safer.
Then there are people that want to do it for scientific reasons. There are just maybe 90 percent of the people are out here in their little cars driving around not so much getting in the way, but getting themselves in the way and not really knowing the direction of the path of the storm, where it's rotating.
Some people are sitting look straight up at the tornado, coming down at them, having to get out of the way. That's what happened this week. So many people, because it was close to Oklahoma City, I believe this had a big thing to do with it. It was 30 miles away. Anybody could get in their car, drive 30 miles and go look at a tornado.
Probably only seen in the storm shelter. The problem is as the tornado moved to the east, all these highway roads turned into city streets and everybody came to a standstill, those people were caught in their cars. We are lucky this wasn't an F-3 going downtown Oklahoma City with all those people parked on either I-35, I-44, or 40 because they were stopped. They couldn't move. There was nowhere to go. All the cars in front were stopped as well.
COSTELLO: All right, Chad Myers, thanks so much.
Let's talk about the death of those storm chasers, Tim and Paul Samaras and Carl Young. Their deaths still a shock to their fellow chasers. This morning on "STARTING POINT," fellow chaser Reed Timmer said this was not something these storm chasers could have predicted.
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REED TIMMER, STORM CHASER: It's a freak incident. This tornado had an erratic path, moved east-southeast, took a sharp turn to the left. I think -- I just hope it never happens again. No storm chaser has ever lost their life directly from the storm chasing before, but this was a weird storm. It was a powerful tornado. It had an erratic path as we said and something like, Tim, I never saw it coming. I just can't believe we're talking about this.
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COSTELLO: Timmer says, Tim Samaras has a well earned reputation for safety, but his vehicle was destroyed, it's in bits and pieces.
Learning the Cuban shuffle on your dime, the scandal rocking the IRS just got bigger. At the center of the latest controversy, excess spending on hundreds of conferences to the tune of millions of taxpayer dollars.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their dream, to become the next great dance sensation. This is their story.
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COSTELLO: This newly released video shows some IRS employees learning how to dance the Cuban shuffle. It was one of two videos that cost about $50,000 to produce. They were used in a 2010 conference in Anaheim, California. As for that other controversy, the IRS targeting conservative groups, Republican Congressman Darrell Issa is pointing the finger directly at Washington.
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REPRESENTATIVE DARRELL ISSA (R), CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE: The reason that Lois Lerner tried to take the fifth is not because there is a rogue in Cincinnati. It's because this is a problem that was coordinated in all likelihood right out of Washington headquarters and we're getting to proving it. We have 18 more transcribed interviews to do.
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COSTELLO: And by Washington headquarters, I assume, Dana Bash that he means the White House. Of course, that has got a reaction on its own.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean, I think that he was very careful to say coordinated by Washington and not the White House.
COSTELLO: But everybody knew what he meant, intimating.
BASH: That's a key, key question, Carol. You are right because what Democrats are saying is that that suggestion is insinuating it was the Obama White House or the Obama administration. I just talked to his office this morning. They said, no, he was careful in saying Washington.
Here's why this matters. The reason this matters is talking to -- by the way, this is a bipartisan investigation, so Democrats and Republicans are in on these interviews that they are doing. They have done two already with a Cincinnati IRS employee. The way the Democrats I talked to see it is that, yes, there was direction from Washington.
So far, what they, their take-away is that the direction was from a unit that answers questions, they're tax attorneys in Washington, that answers questions about how to apply the law, how to decide whether or not a group such as Tea Party who is involved politically, should get tax exempt status?
So the question of Washington being involved still could have been more bureaucrats and not administration officials. The key question to who first decide to do this, who first decided to target, who first decided to lump these groups together, which everybody now says is inappropriate. They still don't know the answer to that, Democrats and Republicans can see they will continue to try to find out.
COSTELLO: There will be a couple more hearings on Capitol Hill this morning. Back to that cupid dance idea that we showed viewers a couple of minutes ago, you broke this story. You got the first video for CNN. So what kind of reaction is this getting?
BASH: It's just, you know, the hits keep coming for the IRS. This is going to be a part of an inspector general report that we expect to come out tomorrow about excess spending. Now this is back in 2010. It's not recently, but still, what this inspector general report is going to talk about is spending close to 50 million taxpayer dollars on 225 conferences between 2010 and 2012 and also, sort of reminiscent.
Remember the GSA conferences in Las Vegas where they had clowns and mime readers. It doesn't go that far even though they have some "Star Trek" characters there in this video. But they do -- this IG report is going to talk about IRS employees staying in presidential suites that generally cost people between $1,500 and $3,000 a night.
We do expect, Carol, the acting IRS commissioner to testify for the first time, Danny Ruffel, he was just put in a couple of weeks ago. He is going to be on Capitol Hill for the first time. We do expect if he does address this to say that this is the past.
There are now guidelines and rules and regulations that make sure that this kind of excess doesn't happen, and has been for the past couple of years, but that will be a very interesting hearing to watch, but this and of course, the Tea Party targeting now on his plate.
COSTELLO: Dana Bash, thanks so much. Also this morning, we are learning about the death of veteran Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg. A source in Senator Bob Menendez' office and senior Democratic strategist tell CNN Senator Lautenberg passed away on Sunday night. One of his big passions was fighting for consumers and the products they use. The World War II vet was 89-years-old. He was the oldest member of the Senate.
About a half an hour to the first trading day of June as investors hope a six-month winning streak continues. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange. Good morning.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. And that winning streak continuing, June looking like it is starting off on a high note as we see all the major averages in the green. What a marvelous May it's been for the major averages, the Dow and the S&P 500 each gaining about 2 percent in May. The Nasdaq jumped 4 percent.
Investors have really been buying in because they just don't want to miss out on the rally. Now the big focus this week, though, Carol is going be on jobs. Several employment reports are coming out this week.
The biggy happening on Friday, that's the monthly jobs report for May from the government. The expectation is that employers have added 164,000 jobs in May. Not much more in April so it would still mean another sluggish month for the labor market -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Speaking of jobs, you know, positive news from the housing market has helped the stock market. But some builders, they say they can't find the right workers?
KOSIK: Yes, this is an interesting twist. It's a part of the housing recovery that you really don't hear very often. So it seems that the market for new homes is booming, but builders can't find enough workers to keep up with the demand.
The National Association of Home Builders did a survey in March. Here's what it found almost half of home builders in their have fallen behind schedule on projects, 15 percent of them, they've had actually to turn down jobs and not build, and 9 percent have lost or cancelled sales because they can't find enough workers.
See the problem with this new phenomenon is that with fewer houses going up, it means it will create tighter inventories, and with the demand, the way it is, demand growing to buy homes now, tighter inventories, that means higher prices. So if you are a seller, that's good news, but it could make it a lot tougher if you are the buyer to get what you want -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Alison Kosik, reporting live from the New York Stock Exchange.
Just ahead in the NEWSROOM, a protest against a demolition of a city park mushrooms into a Missouri against the prime minister. We'll take you live to Istanbul, Turkey, next.
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COSTELLO: It's 17 minutes past the hour. It's time to check our top stories. President Obama says he wants to reduce the stigma of mental illness. He made remarks moments ago as the White House host the National Conference on Mental Health.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The main goal of this conference is not to start a conversation. So many of you have spent decades waging long and lonely battles to be hurt instead it's about elevating that conversation to a national level and bring mental illness out of the shadows.
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COSTELLO: This meeting is in response to last year's shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
In sports, a new development surrounding Rutger's controversial hiring of Athletic Director Julie Hermann. The "Newark Star Ledger" reports that meeting Hermann was scheduled to attend on campus this week has now been postponed. The newspaper was the first to report that players on Hermann's 1996 University of Tennessee Women's Volleyball team accused her of verbal abuse.
In China, rescue crews are looking for people who may be trapped inside a burning poultry processing facility. So far at least 112 people are confirmed dead. That's more than one-third of all the workers. Officials said the death toll could rise. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Anti-government protests are simply exploding across Turkey. Police fired water cannons and tear gas dispersing protesters in Ankara today. The demonstrations began last week over a plan to demolish a city park in Istanbul. They have the largest demonstrations against the prime minister in his decade in office.
CNN's Ivan Watson is in Istanbul. Things appear to have calmed down behind you.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, during the day the pattern here has been since Saturday people kind of mill around. They have protests. It gets bigger in the evening with speeches and stages set up here in Istanbul's Taksim Square. Before dawn this morning, I was out covering some pretty nasty ugly clashes, where I would estimate there were more than 10 million young Turks, half of them women, I might add, hurling themselves at riot police.
They were determined to brick through to the office here in Istanbul of the Turkish prime minister and chanting for him to resign, our CNN correspondent in the Turkish capital Ankara has witnessed within the last few hours Turkish riot police firing tear gas and water cannons at high school kids who come out into the streets there to also protest against the government.
And this repeated use of excess police force, of tear gas that has been a daily occurrence here, I've certainly gotten my share of it in the last three to four days is part of what is driving the anger even further. People say, why is the police attacking us, just because we're trying to go out in the streets an say we don't agree with our elected prime minister?
COSTELLO: We don't agree with them demolishing a city park. It seems like a small thing for the government to come in with strong arm tactics. You can see why these protesters are angry. I'm wondering, though the prime minister there is democratically elected. I know people are calling him a dictator in these protests. Why?
WATSON: Well, he is democratically elected. He got more than 50 percent of the vote in the last elections. He has been saying, how dare you call me a dictator? I have supporters. Let's see if you guys can beat me in the elections in 10 month's time. But I think he's also had some big successes in his 10 years in power. He's gotten some generals in the army.
He's basically broken their strangle hold on politics. That's been one of his big successes, but I think one of the criticisms is it seems that he has amassed too much power over the past decade, that there are very few checks and balances, which means when it comes to an issue like this park.
I mean, could you imagine President Obama speaking daily about the construction of a shopping mall in New York City and perhaps the destruction of Union Ware Square Park. That gives you a sense of how much he is micromanaging Turkey's largest city. How he really does not like criticism in any way, shape, or form. That's part of what has gotten all of these young Turks out into the streets -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Ivan Watson, reporting from Istanbul, Turkey this morning.
A new SARS-like virus has emerged and the World Health Organization calls it a threat to the entire world. Is it? We'll talk about that next.
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COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for being with me. It's 24 minutes past the hour. The World Health Organization calls this a quote, "threat to the entire world." We're talking about the Middle East respiratory symptom corona virus or MERS for short. There are 53 known cases now, 30 people have died from the infection since September. Areas affected include the Arabian Peninsula, Tunisia and some European countries. In fact, this weekend, we learned of three Italian patients that were just discovered. At this point scientists still don't know how the virus is spread.
Joining me now to talk more about this is Dr. Anthony Fauci from the National Institutes of Health. Welcome, Dr. Fauci.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Good to be here with you.
COSTELLO: Thank you for being here because this sounds scary. Really, is it a threat to the entire planet?
FAUCI: Well, whenever you have a new emerging infection where you are not really sure about what its origin is and how it is transmitted. Obviously it's a threat. The problem with using that word is that people sometimes over interpret it like as imminent doom. That's not the case, but it's something that we take very seriously as we do all emerging and re-emerging infections that have lethal potential.
This one has already shown that it has because 53 individuals who have been infected, 30 have died so it's very serious. It does not spread readily at all between person to person. There has been a couple of -- well, more than a couple, about five or six clusters where close family members with very close contact and some health care workers in Saudi Arabia who are very closely involved with the person in health care got infected.
But an infection that spreads readily the way, for example, seasonal flu does, it is not doing that right now. But we are carefully keeping our eye on it. The WHO and the CDC and others are looking at it carefully to make sure that it doesn't evolve in a way that would spread more rapidly.
COSTELLO: That's really fascinating. So we don't know how it spreads, whether you breathe it in from another person or if it's a fluid exchange? I mean, how do you determine that?
FAUCI: Well, since it's a respiratory infection the people that have gotten sick have gotten pneumonia and severe respiratory symptoms. So it is extremely likely that it is spread by the respiratory root in the rare cases where it is spread from one person to another in a close family cluster.
What is not known is how the people got originally infected. This virus is a corona virus. It's the same class of virus as SARS that we faced in 2003, but it is very different from SARS. It is very similar to corona viruses that you see in bats. So bats are a suspect whether or not it's being directly transmitted from exposure to a bat to a human or if there is a secondary host where the bat infects a mammal, for example, and then a human comes into contact with that secondary host.
That's the big unknown. We don't know how it's getting originally to the human. When have you the cluster in the family, very likely that is spread through respiratory.
COSTELLO: So there is no way to determine, you know, how to keep yourself safe from this virus?
FAUCI: Well, for example, people in the United States right now should not be concerned about right now about getting it from somebody who is their neighbor because it isn't in the United States. There have been case, all of which have originated in the Middle East countries, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, who have then gone from the Middle East to European countries, such as the U.K., Germany, France, and most recently Italy who have gotten infected in the Middle East and gone to a European country and then in those situations, for example, there has been very, very close family contact that is spread.
But for a person right now in the United States should not be concerned. However, if someone travels to the Middle East and comes back with respiratory symptoms the fact that you have been in an area where there is a risk, you should report that to the physician and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention can do the appropriate tests to determine if, in fact, you have been exposed, in fact, individuals that have come from the Middle East with respiratory infections and checked out. There is no evidence they have this new MERS virus.
COSTELLO: That's good news. Dr. Fauci, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We appreciate it.
FAUCI: You are quite welcome.
COSTELLO: Coming up in the NEWSROOM, the Supreme Court makes an important ruling on sexual assaults and when police can ask for your DNA.
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