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NEW DAY

Severe Wet Weather; 75 Egyptians Killed In Cairo; Pope Speaks About Women And Gay Catholics; Jewelry Heist In Cannes; Sprint Boat Crash; Professor Facing Murder Charges; Buried Alive, Now Full Of Life; "Wolverine" Slices Competition; "Sharknado" Scandal; Stepping Into The Pantsuit; Merger To Create Largest Ad Agency; Rumors Of Budget iPhone

Aired July 29, 2013 - 07:30   ET

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


MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: -- wet weather causing problems all across the country, record rainfall in Philadelphia Sunday, some seven inches falling within four hours. In North Carolina, a 10-year-old girl and a 48-year-old man drowned swimming in a rain swollen creek.

And a bus got dragged more than 300 yards when it got caught up in floodwaters north of Kingman, Arizona. Right now, Hawaii is bracing for Tropical Storm Flossie. Indra is keeping an eye on that for us.

More violence in Egypt to tell you about, more than 70 people killed in Cairo over the weekend, most of them supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsy. Those supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood, are calling for a million man march tomorrow. The army says it will use force to remove any protesters in East Cairo. Last night in Rafah, a soldier was killed and eight others wounded in an attack on a military base.

Moments ago, Pope Francis making some historic groundbreaking statements about the role of women in the church and about gay Catholics, speaking to the press for more than an hour on the papal plane, he said, quote, "women should play a more prominent role in the church but not as a priest." When asked about homosexuality in the church, he said it isn't a crime to be gay and added, quote, "who am I to judge a gay person who follows God?" He said his next trip will probably be to the holy land.

A $53 million worth of jewels stolen from the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, France. Police says an armed robber simply walked into the hotel Sunday morning with his face covered by a hat and scarf and threatened to open fire. Unarmed security guards could do nothing to stop them. This is the third significant heist in Cannes since May.

One second things were going as planned. The next a high powered sprint boat careened off course crashing into crowd of spectators. It's hard to watch. It happened on Sunday at a racing event in Albany, Oregon. The frightening scene captured on video. Amazingly, there were no serious injuries. We're told that just one person needed medical attention.

And from that to a little lighter stuff, some fun video, kind of short. Pay attention shortly. Really why walk down the stairs when you can slide. I've often operated on this assumption. The chocolate lab puppy indulges in a little stairway surfing, head first.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Boy or girl?

PEREIRA: Sadly, it's a boy. That's tough stuff right there, people. The tail is still wagging. I know, don't try it.

CUOMO: That is -- there are men all across America right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Cringing.

CUOMO: Who are happy they're not that dog.

BOLDUAN: All right, let's get back. I want to take you to the really shocking story.

A University of Pittsburgh research professor faces an extradition hearing in West Virginia later today. He is wanted on homicide charges in Pennsylvania for allegedly killing his wife with a lethal dose of cyanide back in April. John Berman has been following this story. Hi, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What a bizarre case, Kate. You have a nationwide man hunt, two high profile doctors in the medical research community, and allegedly you have cyanide. All that, and tragically you now have a 6-year-old girl with a dead mother and a father in custody.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (voice-over): Dr. Robert Ferrante is expected to waive extradition and be transported back to Pennsylvania where he faces criminal homicide charges. His arrest in West Virginia on Thursday ending a nationwide manhunt.

SGT. WILLIAM TUPPER, WEST VIRGINIA STATE POLICE: He was relatively quiet. He knew there were warrants for him, said he was en route back to Pittsburgh.

WILLIAM DIFENDERFER, FERRANTE'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: He is anxious to defend himself, have his day in court, and prove his innocence.

BERMAN: Ferrante, a medical researcher and professor at the University of Pittsburgh is accused of poisoning his wife, Dr. Autumn Klein, with cyanide in April. Dr. Klein, seen here in an interview on the Discovery Channel, was the chief of women's neurology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Police investigators scoured the couple's home, collecting evidence there and at the university lab, where Ferrante worked. A three-month investigation led to this criminal complaint against 64-year-old Ferrante, documenting an alleged text conversation with his wife, urging her to go on a creatine regimen to help with fertility.

The substance investigators believe he laced with cyanide. The complaint also documents Ferrante placing an order for an overnight delivery of cyanide two days before his wife collapsed. DR. KARL WILLIAMS, MEDICAL EXAMINER: The amazing amount of subpoenas and investigation that went into determining, in fact, it was a homicide, that's what took so long.

BERMAN: Klein leaves behind their 6-year-old daughter, her death sending shock waves throughout the community.

BLITHE RUNSDORF, NEIGHBOR: We were stunned. I mean, she was young. She was vibrant. She has a young daughter. We were just stunned.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Ferrante's attorney tells CNN affiliate KDKA that he is devastated by his wife's death. They say he is innocent and he will fight the charges -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, John, thank you very much. Joining us right now, Paul Callan, CNN legal analyst who's worked both as a prosecutor and a defender, and has a very good shirt tie and pocket square combination on today. Thank you for joining NEW DAY. Now this is no slam dunk case, right? Even though it's very mysterious to hear it, what is the best chance of proving that this is the man who did it, it wasn't a suicide. It was a death by cyanide?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, there are no slam dunks in circumstantial evidence homicide cases. So I think he's going to put up two possible approaches here. One, he had a legitimate reason to have cyanide. He's a brilliant university researcher, pharmaceutical industry uses it. It's used in industry. So maybe he'll come up with the excuse that he ordered a half pound of cyanide two days before his wife's death.

CUOMO: The amount matters, by the way, right, because he can say why would I buy so much on my own credit card?

CALLAN: That's right. He put it on a university credit card. If he's this bright, would he be planning to kill his wife in such an obvious way? So he may be able to say this is an accidental death in that I was mixing an energy supplement and somehow I mixed in the cyanide. The second issue that has been raised is suicide by her, but I'm telling you, that one's a rough one. I'm reading about the cyanide scream, convulsions, a bloody froth before you die. If it you're going to kill yourself, that's not the way to do it.

CUOMO: There are a couple of other turns here. One, you have no body. The victim here was cremated very quickly. What does that mean? And text messages about creatine and how to get pregnant. Tell us about the intrigue here.

CALLAN: Very, very interesting background. Ferrante, the defendant in the case, 61 years old, the victim 41 years old, 6-year-old child, and supposedly they were trying to get pregnant. He was suggesting that she should use creatine to help with the pregnancy. Now, anybody, nutritionists, scientists, will tell you creatine has nothing whatever to do with pregnancy.

CUOMO: It's a protein recovery supplement for weight lifters.

CALLAN: Exactly. Weight lifters take it. You can buy it in any supplement place, but you don't take it to get pregnant. Nonetheless, she was taking this drug, and he was mixing the drug for her. That's a very, very bizarre aspect of the case. On the other hand, law enforcement authorities mentioned there may have been an affair with the 41-year-old, and that could have supplied a motive for Ferrante to want to kill his young wife.

CUOMO: No body because the cremation. What does that mean here?

CALLAN: This is really bizarre because here you have a death under very suspicious circumstances, cyanide death of a prominent, brilliant physician, and she's cremated at the husband's request shortly after the death. First of all, I don't know how law enforcement authorities allowed the cremation to occur so quickly, but I suppose they decided it's definitive. It's cyanide poisoning so there's no need for a further autopsy.

CUOMO: Now you said early on, this is a largely circumstantial case, no direct witnesses who saw it happen. No forensic evidence to put somebody in a position of having murdered her. So for all the confidence in the case, how tough is this going to be?

CALLAN: These cases are always difficult, but I will say, even with circumstantial evidence cases, prosecutors will sometimes tell you they're very strong cases because, when the evidence, when the clues all lead in one direction, homicide, and you're not worrying about eye witness testimony being unreliable, a lot of times a very strong circumstantial case can be put together. And we have to go back to, would she have killed herself with cyanide, A? And, B, he's the only one who gets access to cyanide. So those are two very, very big points in favor of the prosecutors.

CUOMO: On his side, the big question right now would be why would I kill my wife? They're going to have to figure that out.

CALLAN: It's called love makes you crazy, and I happen to see that in so many homicide cases where the motive is this, comes out of an affair.

CUOMO: Paul Callan, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

CALLAN: Thank you.

CUOMO: Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, coming up next on NEW DAY, they call is a medical miracle, a 6-year-old who survived being buried under an avalanche of sand for hours. We'll hear from his parents about his road to recovery.

CUOMO: Also, actor, Jason Patrick playing a very different role these days. He does not like to do interviews, but he's doing this one because he's stuck in a custody battle that could rewrite the rules of parental rights. You do want to hear about this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back, everybody. This is NEW DAY. It's money time. Christine Romans is here with all the business news that we need to know.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Futures are a little bit lower this Monday morning. We got a big week ahead of us though today. The market closed up Friday for the fifth week in a row. Wall Street is waiting on a string of corporate earnings. Later this week, we're going to get the big jobs report. Big discussion this week, the quality versus the quantity of jobs we are having in this economy.

Speaking of that, Amazon hiring 5,000 new warehouse workers, they're going to get health care. They are going to get retirement benefits, and Amazon in its press release saying these jobs will pay 30 percent more than traditional retail jobs. We ran the numbers, by our calculation, still a little less than $30,000 a year, a third of Americans now working for jobs making $24,000 or less.

To Detroit now, its bankruptcy will not stop plans for a new hockey arena for the Red Wings. It's going to cost taxpayers about $450 million taxpayer dollars. The city's emergency manager says the stadium is going to bring jobs, Chris, bring people to Detroit. Critics say it's a bad use of scarce funds.

You know, right now, you've got 40 percent of the streetlights are dark because they don't have the money to run everything. They're moving forward with this big stadium. They think it's important for the revitalization and rejuvenation. It brings back the whole debate about are these big taxpayer funded stadiums worth it?

BOLDUAN: I think we'll see a lot of arguments in Detroit like this.

ROMANS: Every penny that get spent will be discussed.

BOLDUAN: That's what happens when you're in the hole. Christine, thanks so much.

The 6-year-old boy who spent hours buried under 11 feet of sand was back to his old self, it seems, at church over the weekend. Michaela has more on that story.

PEREIRA: A sight for sore eyes. Look at him. Thanks so much, Kate. Yawning, fidgeting, full of life, it's kind of hard to believe that days earlier he was in the hospital and in a fight to stay alive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA (voice-over): Nathan Woessner was warmly welcomed at his church Sunday morning just two weeks after surviving the unthinkable.

FAITH WOESSNER, NATHAN'S MOTHER: I remember that paramedic coming in and saying he's alive. Those were the sweetest words I ever heard.

PEREIRA: Nathan had been following his dad on a sand dune climb at Indiana Dunes Lakes Shore, when suddenly he slipped into a sinkhole and disappeared underneath a mound of sand. As rescuers frantically searched for Nathan, the Woessner's admit they feared the worst.

FAITH WOESSNER: We really did think he was gone. We were bracing ourselves for that.

PEREIRA: After nearly four agonizing hours, rescuers discovered Nathan 11 feet under the sand breathing, but unconscious and rushed him to the hospital in critical condition. He remained on a breathing tube for days while doctors worked to clear sand out of his fragile lungs. Nathan has since made a full recovery and was sent home Friday morning. Doctors say they believe an air pocket kept him from suffocating. His parents now thanking the rescuers, doctors, and nurses who helped save his life.

FAITH WOESSNER: You never know how much we appreciate what they did for us. They'll never know but thank you.

PEREIRA: The Woessners say this experience will always remind them to treasure every moment with their son.

GREG WOESSNER, NATHAN'S FATHER: Just to let him know how much strength he has actually given others and to never give up on that.

FAITH WOESSNER: You don't even realize how precious those little things are until you almost lose him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: Nathan's parents say the last thing he remembers is playing on the beach. He has no memory of anything beyond that. They say they're slowly filling him in on what happened, but they're doing it bit by bit as to not overwhelm him. You saw the shot of one of the first responders there, really shaken up by the whole incident. I would imagine it would do them a world of good to see the young man they saved, the medical staff at the hospital as well, because oftentimes those stories don't end like that.

CUOMO: Oftentimes. I don't know of another story that you have a kid that you don't know there's a reason they have oxygen. They get trapped in wells and mines.

BOLDUAN: There's no reason he'd have oxygen.

CUOMO: What I hear from some of my buddies who do first responder work, rescue work, they love this story because it puts into their mind an expectation of what's possible. If they save that kid in that situation, it gives them incentive to go that much harder every time.

BOLDUAN: We can say he was 11 feet under sand, but when you see the video of how far they had to dig down to get him out.

PEREIRA: It was a backhoe digging him out.

BOLDUAN: Amazing he's doing OK. What a great, great story. All right, coming up next on NEW DAY, we're going to show you troubling amateur video this morning that some say shows a stranded pilot whale desperately trying to get back into a pool at Sea World while trainers stand by and do nothing, sparking some controversy. We'll talk about it.

CUOMO: And then from a real life marine crisis to a surreal one, one of the stars of "Sharknado," which, of course, is based on real things that happened. One of the stars is dropping out. We'll have details ahead in our "Pop Four." Sharknado, weather risk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: I mean why not start a Monday off with this? Welcome back, everyone to NEW DAY. It is time for the "Pop Four," which means Nischelle Turner is here.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: You guys educate me every day. I learned a little something new every single day sitting here. OK, so I do want to start off with a question. All these ladies here, how did Chris Cuomo get to be with Hugh Jackman on Friday with all these ladies?

CUOMO: I feared for their safety. Actually, I feared for his safety.

TURNER: That's what it is.

CUOMO: Actually I feared for his safety.

TURNER: I am starting out with Hugh Jackman this morning. Our number four story, the "Wolverine" dethroning "The Condry," that's the Box Office winner over the weekend easily taking the number one spot raked in a $55 million and "Despicable Me 2" to third place.

And say it isn't so "Sharknado." Reports that Tara Reid may be out of the "Sharknado" sequel. This rumor is our number three story popping this morning. I want to know who at this desk will admit they saw it?

CUOMO: I lived it when it actually happened.

TURNER: That's your story and you're sticking to it.

BOLDUAN: Based on real events.

TURNER: All right, let's keep it moving. Does Gangnam Style have a dark side? This is our number two story, Korean pop star, Psy love to drink. He told the "Sunday Times" magazine, if I'm happy, I'm drinking. If I'm sad, I'm drinking. If it's raining, I'm drinking. If it's sunny, I'm drinking. That could be a problem, Psy. Get a hold of that one.

Our number one story, Diane Lane is flipping on the pant suits. The actress has been cast in a new mini-series called "Hillary." It's going to follow the former secretary of state from the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998 through the present day. There are a couple of things with this, guys, the first one, they don't know who is going to play Bill Clinton yet so I want to know who you guys would like to see play Bill.

BOLDUAN: I didn't think about that.

TURNER: The number two thing, when is it going to be released? Because if she decides to run in 2016, could it be seen as kind of a political ad?

CUOMO: Intriguing questions you raised.

TURNER: Make you think at the beginning of the week.

CUOMO: Hillary Rodham Clinton is feeling good about Diane Lane playing her.

BOLDUAN: I like that casting. Thanks, Nischelle.

CUOMO: Always a pleasure.

Coming up here on NEW DAY, he is caught up in a unique custody battle that could change the rules when it comes to parental rights for sperm donors. We're going to hear from actor, Jason Patrick live.

BOLDUAN: And wet weather across the country, record rainfall in the east as Hawaii is bracing for Tropical Storm Flossie. We'll have all the weather updates for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: That music means it is time for the rock block. A quick round up of the stories you're talking about today. First up, Michaela.

PEREIRA: First up in the papers from "USA Today," early graduation programs gaining traction across the nation. Nearly half the states in the U.S. allow students to complete high school in less than four years.

From the "Wall Street Journal," a powerful new source of energy, scientists hoping to tap methane hydrate, a crystalline form of natural gas. It's found below the arctic ice and at the bottoms of oceans.

In the "Las Vegas Review," Las Vegas is trying to attract more visitors downtown. Volunteers will soon hit the streets directing tourists to the downtown area, which often gets overlooked in favor of the strip in Vegas.

All right, time now for your business news with Christine Romans.

ROMANS: Good morning. A huge advertising merger, Omnicom and Publicis are joining to create the world's largest ad agency. Together they represent some of the world's biggest brands, AT&T, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, many others.

This photo making the rounds on Apple blogs, you can see the logo for an iPhone 5C on plastic iPhone boxes. Rumor is, the 5C could be a new budget iPhone. Speaking of Apple, it's sending a team to China to look into labor conditions. New reports claim Chinese factory workers who assemble those iPhones and iPads are not getting paid for their overtime.

Now let's get to Indra Petersons for the weather -- Indra.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I am. We're watching Flossie this morning. We're talking about Flossie heading for the Hawaiian island and expected to make landfall at 10:00 Hawaii time so 4 p.m. Eastern Time. They're looking for 6 inches to 10 inches of heavy rainfall even the threat of 15 inches of rain not out of the question. By the time it makes to Oahu anywhere from 4 inches to 8 inches of rain.

Did you happen to notice Philly, actually, the heavy amounts of rain, 8 inches of it to be exact. It's the highest amount of rain they've ever seen in one day, any day of the year. Unbelievable that low moving off the coast and they could get sunshine today and they need it.

BOLDUAN: They need it. Thanks, Indra. Thanks so much. All right, we're right at the top of the hour, which means it's time for the top news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I could only see the top of the car and I was like, my gosh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Under water, flash flooding coast to coast wreaking havoc. Drivers and residents trapped. Rescuers working nonstop to save them and the rains are not over yet. We're tracking it all.

BOLDUAN: Breaking overnight, a tour bus plunges 100 feet after veering off the road in Italy. Dozens killed. This as we get new details on what caused a deadly bus crash in Indiana.

PEREIRA: Sea World under fire. This video going viral, is it a whale in distress that no one will help? Viewers are outraged, but is it what it seems to be?