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CNN NEWSROOM

Twitter's Public Trading; FDA Plans Ban; Powerful Storm Haiyan; Outlawing Workplace Discrimination; Satellite Falls to Earth

Aired November 7, 2013 - 14:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Doughnuts, cake, cookies -- big news, the government looking to ban transfats in all foods, foods you love.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

A woman, looking for help in the middle of the night, knocks on a door and is shot to death by the homeowner. We're on the case.

A satellite expected to fall to earth soon, but no one knows where or when.

Plus, revealed, new videos from the gym where a teenager was found dead inside a wrestling mat. But the thing is, one video doesn't look like the rest.

And a picture that has everyone talking today.

And we begin. Great to be with you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And we begin talking food and this major announcement from the FDA that could soon affect a lot of the food you, I know I, love to eat. I'm talking fried food. I'm talking doughnuts, frozen pizza, dessert, you name it. If the FDA has it way, and it is likely it will, artificial trans fats will be banned from the food supply in the United States. That involves your favorite canned, frozen, or baked processed foods as well. Regulators say a major source of trans fats, that's partially hydrogenated oils, is no longer recognized at safe. So, you have the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, saying this, that the ban could prevent up to 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 coronary heart disease deaths each and every year. Now, once this ban is official, food companies would then have to get approval from the FDA to add trans fat to food. We'll talk live to a dietician in a moment to see what this means for you and me.

Meantime, I want to take you to Detroit and to the case here that has everyone talking today. This 19-year-old woman is shot in the back of her head after family members say she knocked on the door of a home while looking for help. The woman had been in a car accident in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights. This is the early morning hours of Saturday. The family says she was shot with a shotgun as she turned to leave, and they want charges filed now against the homeowner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want? CROWD: Now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do we want?

CROWD: Justice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When do we want it?

CROWD: Now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do we want?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Family members and friends of Renisha McBride held a vigil, this is last night, outside the home where she was shot. And they told "The Detroit Free Press" that McBride walked four blocks looking for help after she hit another car. You see her cell phone had died. And prosecutors say the case is still being investigated to determine if charges will be filed. McBride's family believes she was racially profiled.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNITA SPINKS, MCBRIDE'S AUNT: If people would stop identifying, instead of judging people, this would be a better world. There's so much violence here. We need peace. I need peace. I need justice for my niece.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's unfortunate in the city. We just had a murder of a young woman at Wayne (ph) State and we would hope that somebody could go to somebody's door at 4:00 in the morning and seek help and not end up dying and leaving their family grieving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: McBride's aunt told the free press the homeowner was arrested but later released. She said she didn't know why McBride was driving in the area to begin with.

It is the most anticipated IPO of the year. Social media giant Twitter went public today, # people rushing to buy a piece of this company. Twitter originally priced its shares at $26, giving it the value of more than $18 billion. But you heard the opening bell. It opened trading today much, much higher. Nearly double that amount at $45. So just, you know, for the sake of comparison, I want to show you this. Compare that to other social media stock prices since their IPOs. You see FaceBook started at $38 a share, only to tank and then recover at its current price. Linkedin, for example, more than quadrupled from its initial offering. And Google, the Googles, the success story here, with shares now going for more than $1,000.

Alison Kosik is live for me right now from the New York Stock Exchange on the first day of Twitter's IPO.

Looking pretty good so far I'd say. ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Looking very good. You know, you thing about what the heavy hitters got in on with this stock. They got in at $26. Heavy hitters meaning the mutual funds, the pension funds, the hedge funds, that's the price they got. You know what everybody else got? $45. That's what a share went for when this stock opened. It's up - it's up more than 70 percent, almost 80 percent right now, trading at $46 a share.

You know, I talked with one trader. He said this is insane. This is coo-coo. This is overvalued. But nonetheless, there was a lot of demand for this stock. Interesting because Twitter has yet to even turn a profit. Look at this, Twitter's lost $134 million so far this year. But many people believe that for IPOs it's more about what's to come than where it's been, meaning where the company has been.

Now, the real work begins, though, Brooke, for the company to go ahead and turn a profit and prove to investors that this was money well spent, Brooke.

BALDWIN: But let's talk perspective. I mean we talked about FaceBook and how they have evolved through time. You know, we remember the messy morning, you know, how botched that was initially. You talked to a CEO today. How does he think everything went?

KOSIK: Yes, I actually spoke to the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange Euronext and he seems pretty pleased with how things went. It actually went very seamless. You know, and this was a huge get for the New York Stock Exchange to get the listing of Twitter right here because, you know, the Nasdaq and the NYSE, they've been -- they were duking it out for that listing and the NYSE got it. Duncan Niederauer was pretty pleased about it. Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUNCAN NIEDERAUER, CEO, NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE: We're really proud of it because as I said to my team at a town hall meeting a couple of days ago, you don't have to go back that far to a time when we were winning one or two out of every 10 technology IPOs. Now we're winning six or seven out of every 10 technology IPOs, including a lot of the important ones. So I think the wind's in our sails. No time to get complacent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: So with the NYSE getting this one right, you know that they're going to try to get even more listings, especially since this was a very hyped up, anticipated IPO.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Alison Kosik, thank you so much.

And like I mentioned, back to food and this trans fat news today. The FDA, if they have its way, and it's likely it will, artificial trans fats will be banned from the food supply in the United States. And that involves your favorite canned and frozen and baked processed foods. So here to give us a little perspective is Julie Schwartz. She's a registered dietitian and obesity expert. So she rushed on over to talk to us about what this means really for us right now.

But first, can I just get a trans fat 101? I mean what does this stuff do to us if we consume it?

JULIE SCHWARTZ, REGISTERED DIETITIAN & OBESITY EXPERT: Pretty much trans fats has been shown to be bad for our health. It's bad for our heart health. It creates high cholesterol, especially our LDL cholesterol, which is our bad cholesterol. And it also makes foods really, really tasty. And the problem with that is then we want to eat more. And there can be some contribution there to our obesity and overweight epidemic.

BALDWIN: So if this artificial trans fat is removed from, let's say, your favorite frozen pizza, what has it been replaced with and does it affect the taste?

SCHWARTZ: Well, it may go back to older formulas, which a lot of food companies have already started to do that in the last several years. It will affect the taste. It will affect the texture. And that might be a positive for some people, a negative for others, because if we all have different taste buds. However, it may make it healthier, but what if they replace it with the saturated fat, which we also know leads to the same issues.

BALDWIN: Not good.

SCHWARTZ: Not good. So are we going to replace a not good with a less not so good?

BALDWIN: Another not good.

SCHWARTZ: Or maybe, in my opinion, we might be missing a message all together.

BALDWIN: Do you think though, at least so far if this happens, the FDA is moving in a right direction? Do you support this?

SCHWARTZ: You know what, I do support it. And part of the reason I do support it is because we do know that trans fats are negative on our health. And that they are tasty foods. They're convenience foods. And since we, as the American public, aren't making the best choices and the best accountability, somewhere I do believe that we need to be a community to come together in the best interests of all of us, which is a little far-fetched a little bit, but at the same time it is a positive for our country. And doesn't mean that people are going to stop eating those foods?

BALDWIN: No.

SCHWARTZ: No, not at all. But it will make them potentially a little healthier for us, or at least make us aware.

BALDWIN: When we talk about those foods, somebody jokingly handled me a honey bun today and I said, thanks but no thanks. But, I mean, what are the foods that have the highest amount of these artificial trans fats?

SCHWARTZ: The ones that have the highest amounts are the ones that are obviously not the healthiest for us.

BALDWIN: Like what?

SCHWARTZ: Fried foods, doughnuts, packaged foods, some of our frozen foods, the honey buns, the cakes, the cookies, the sweets, the desserts. But it's also in our margarine. So there gets to be -- that's where I do have a little bit of a conflict as a dietician is, you know, a little bit of margarine, I really don't have a problem with people using that over butter, especially if they have heart disease, and especially if it's labeled so you know if you're getting trans fats or not.

BALDWIN: Sounds like it's going to happen, Julie Schwartz.

SCHWARTZ: Right.

BALDWIN: So we'll see if people -- whether or not they don't pick up the honey buns, at least they're more aware, to your point, right?

SCHWARTZ: Right. Right. And I think that awareness is really important because right now we may not be as aware and at least we can make an honest choice instead of not really knowing what's in our food and being ignorant.

BALDWIN: Julie Schwartz, thank you very much for coming in. I appreciate it.

SCHWARTZ: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up, ripping video of a former NFL player being shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go on to the back. There might be a hostage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Find out why police have busted through this door. We will tell you what happened next.

Also very soon, a satellite will fall to earth. And the thing is, no one knows when or where. This as we get this warning about meteors What's going on? Stay right here. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Got some dramatic video. This is police video I want to show you here. So this is Daytona Beach Police firing on former NFL player Jermaine Green, who was there holding his girlfriend hostage at knifepoint when they arrived. Police had gotten a call that some sort of fight had broken out, that Green had gone, quote, "crazy." See for yourself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go on to the back. There might be a hostage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let her go, dude (ph), let her go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a knife over there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) now and give you these?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This happened back in September. This was at the home of the father of Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry. Green was shot six times. His girlfriend once. Both are OK. Green remains in jail on two felony charges and is scheduled for trial in January. His girlfriend may sue Florida police. Criminal defense attorney Janet Johnson joins me here in studio.

And, I mean, we don't know, but police may have saved her life.

JANET JOHNSON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right.

BALDWIN: If she sues, would she have a case?

JOHNSON: You know, I think she has a case, but what it tells you is she's the victim. She was being held at knifepoint.

BALDWIN: Yes.

JOHNSON: And I don't know that she's a willing participant in the criminal defense trial. And that's what's interesting is, she's not against the guy who was holding her hostage, she's against the police who came and shoot her.

BALDWIN: That's what makes this bizarre.

JOHNSON: Yes, yes, exactly. So, yes, I think she might have a case, but, quite frankly, you know, what were the police going to do? She was getting a knife dug into her.

BALDWIN: What about just the video here itself? How would this play out if used in court?

JOHNSON: Well, what's interesting is, I'm a Florida criminal defense attorney so this is right in my neck of the woods, a lot of times victims in these situations, whether it's because they're battered spouses and they just don't know any better and they don't know what to do, they recant a lot of the time. So the video -

BALDWIN: Why? JOHNSON: You know, there's two schools of thought. One is, it didn't happen. And I have clients who say, look, this isn't what happened. This is wrong. She's lying. And they come forward and they say, I was lying. The alternative explanation is, they're battered and they're afraid. And if they prosecute the guy and he doesn't go to prison, then what's going to happen, he'll come back and he'll finish off the deal. So, you know, this woman may be reacting, but, quite frankly, there is a video -

BALDWIN: Video proof.

JOHNSON: Yes. So it's going to be a hard thing for her to not show up and say this didn't happened. If I do show up and the video will be used either way.

BALDWIN: OK, Janet Johnson, thank you very much.

JOHNSON: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: I appreciate it.

And we have some breaking news now. It is being called one of the most powerful storms ever and now this super typhoon is intensifying.

Chad Myers, talk to me. What are you seeing?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's called Haiyan. Winds now up to 195 miles per hour. It is an amazing storm. I've not seen one like this in a very long time. This would be one of the top 10 storms ever on the planet.

BALDWIN: Wow.

MYERS: We had Wilma and we had Gilbert. Those were the biggest ones in the Atlantic. This is the Pacific, so it's called a typhoon. It's the same thing.

Look at the image here. Look at the eye. The three-dimensional eye moving right toward the Philippines. Now, most of the people in the Philippines live farther to the north, up Luzan (ph). There's Manila. But this storm will be within 150 miles of that very large city.

The storm surge could be tremendous, 30 to 40 feet. This is a bigger storm that what Katrina was when it made landfall. It's a cat five. It's the wind speed of Andrew with a larger wind field. A wind -- think of Andrew and Sandy combined, where Sandy had so much water and so did Katrina with the storm - with the surge. This has the wind, the surge, and the destruction. Last time something hit this big, 1,900 people perished. That was only a couple years ago. This has not been a pretty year for the Philippines. This is now the sixth storm to hit.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: That is incredibly frightening. Do you have any kind of ETA as far as when it would hit? MYERS: It's within hitting the outer islands within the next 10 to 12 hours without a doubt. It's coming. And then if it does -- the worst thing that could possibly happen would be a slight right turn toward Manila. That would be the exact worse thing that could possibly happen. Here are the other typhoons that have hit the islands - the nation for a while. This thing, though, if it keeps going through, because there are some mountains here, but it's going to continue into the South China Sea. What's the next country to hit? Vietnam.

BALDWIN: OK. We know you're keeping an eye on it. Chad Myers, thank you very much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

BALDWIN: We'll check back with you.

And now a warning to be on the lookout for falling meteors. Find out why the world could expect to see more meteors hitting the earth. And I will talk to a woman who survived being hit by space junk.

Also, Pope Francis proves yet again he is the pope of the people. Have you seen this photo today? The story behind this picture coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Breaking news because right now history is being made in the U.S. Senate with a vote on outlawing workplace bias against gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. I want to take you quickly to Capitol Hill to our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash.

And, Dana, just tell me what's happening there.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The headline is that this bill just passed the Senate by a vote of 64-32. Ten Republicans, by our count, 10 Republicans joined Democrats in voting to support this, including some Republicans who are known as pretty staunch conservatives, but felt that it is time for various reasons to support a bill that specifically ends discrimination in the workplace based on people's sexuality, people's - their personal relationships, probably the best way to put it.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BASH: That is certainly a significant move in the Senate. The obvious question now, Brooke, is, what happened in the House? The House speaker has said and repeated again, at least through a spokesman to our Deirdre Walsh today, that he doesn't intend to bring this up. Why? Because he believes that there are already protections in place for everybody, including homosexuals and other gay Americans, who -- they don't need special protection.

BALDWIN: OK. BASH: So that's why the House Republican leader is saying that he's not going to -- excuse me, the speaker is saying that he's not going to bring this up for a vote, despite the fact that there are five Republican co-sponsors in the House and they're, by all accounts, probably would pass the House if it was put on the floor.

BALDWIN: You point out some of the Republican support, but I want to take it back to the Senate, because really this is a push by Senate Democrats. Tell me, where is Senator John McCain on this. Back and forth a little bit.

BASH: This is really interesting if you sort of look at the evolution, the change in gay issues and gay rights in America. A good example of the change is John McCain. He campaigned very much against gay marriage when he was running for president. He is a conservative on social issues across the board. But he voted yes on this today. And it really does show you the changing demographics and the changing attitude in this country. I mean he has a wife that's very outspoken on gay rights issues. He has a daughter who's outspoken on gay rights issues. And we know that, from people around him, he knows people who are gay and in gay relationships and also in the workplace and want protections who are gay. So that is, I think, a really prime example of how things are really shifting despite the fact that, of course, there were still 30-plus Republicans who voted no on this for various reasons.

BALDWIN: Evolving.

BASH: Again, many of them say - many of them say that they don't believe that this is a federal issue, that it should be left to the states, and that many of these people already have protections under other laws.

BALDWIN: OK. Dana Bash for us in Washington. Dana, appreciate it.

Let's talk about the earth now because the earth is bombarded daily by meteors. November, a peak month for meteor showers. Professional sky watchers - yes, there are professional sky watchers -- they say this bright object over southern California last night was likely a meteor. The vast majority of these shooting stars, they're pebble-sized or smaller.

Remember this? This one over southwest Russia. This is back in February. It took astronomers by surprise. It was about 60 feet across. That is smaller than what scientists are trained to look for. No one saw it coming. The latest calculations reveal that Russian meteor smashed into the atmosphere with the force of more than 30 Hiroshima atomic bombs. If it had hit near a major city, the results could have been catastrophic.

Chad Myers is with me here.

Chad, we're going to talk about this here. Lottie Williams is also with me from Tulsa, Oklahoma. And as far as we know, she's actually the only person on earth to have been hit by space debris.

So, Lottie, let me begin with you. This happened in 1997? Tell me about it.

LOTTIE WILLIAMS, HIT BY SPACE JUNK (via telephone): Yes, it did. Well, we saw the rocket -- the remnants of it coming back, returning to earth. And I believe it malfunctioned that night. So that's the reason a small piece of it hit me.

BALDWIN: How small of space junk hit you, Lottie? How big?

WILLIAMS: About the size of my hand. And it weighs a little less than an empty soda can.

BALDWIN: Did it hurt?

WILLIAMS: Nope, but it got my attention.

MYERS: Did you get to keep it?

BALDWIN: I know, a souvenir?

WILLIAMS: Yes, I did keep it. Yes, I did. Yes.

BALDWIN: Let me -- Chad, let me ask you, this European satellite, it is supposed to be, you know, dropping from the skies in a couple of weeks, right?

MYERS: Right.

BALDWIN: So what do we know?

MYERS: Could be as early as Sunday.

BALDWIN: As early as Sunday?

MYERS: Yes.

BALDWIN: Look up.

MYERS: The irony is, this satellite was put up to find the earth's gravitation, and now it's going to get drug to the ground by the gravitation itself. There's so much space junk up there, though. This is going to be a weekly, monthly occurrence that we talk about these things where satellites are coming down.

Let me show you -

BALDWIN: We're thinking Lottie should be playing the lottery.

MYERS: Well, I'll play with her. I'll split it - I'll split a Powerball ticket with her.

Look at the stuff in the sky. Not all of this is junk. Many of these are actually operating satellites. But, eventually, all of this is going to have to come to the ground because every satellite at some point is going to run out of fuel, it's going to have to go down closer and closer to the ground and eventually they're all going to fall away. So we had that up, but that went away. We were going to show you where it was on our Apple TV. Shaun (ph), can you get that back? There we go. Sometimes it goes back to where we think we don't want it to be.

BALDWIN: There we go.

MYERS: This is what it looks like. Kind of looks - like of like high- tech. So, as you'd expect because it is a satellite.

BALDWIN: That's what's falling?

MYERS: That is what's going to fall. And there will be one piece, they believe, that will be about 200 pounds when it finally hits the ground. And so that's going to be part of the problem is that a 200- pound piece of anything hitting the ground could put a dent in your house. But the likelihood of it hitting the water is much higher because there's much more water on earth than there is land, and there is very few people that have ever been even close to what Lottie has gone through, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Chad Myers, thank you.

Lottie, you, me, Powerball, I'm in. Lottie Williams, thank you so much for calling in. How rare for that to happen to her.

Coming up here, more fallout today in the Miami Dolphins bullying scandal. Up next, new questions on what Dolphins coaches knew before the apparent victim here in this case, Jonathan Martin, left the team, and some teammates are stepping forward to rally behind the accused, Richie Incognito. We're going to talk about that.

And from average joe to mayor elect. You heard about this? We'll be talking to one stay-at-home dad who has just won his town's mayoral election, and his name wasn't even on the ballot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)