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CNN NEWSROOM

King of Saudi Arabia Has Died; President to Cut Trip to India Short to Visit Saudi Arabia; U.S. Embassy Remains Open in Yemen; ISIS Continues to Hold Two Japanese Prisoners for Ransom; Europe Continues Crackdown on Suspected Terrorists; NFL Investigating Deflated Game Balls in AFC Championship Game; Architect Builds Floating School in Nigeria; Popularity of "American Sniper" Film May Affect Trial of Man Accused of Murdering Chris Kyle

Aired January 24, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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


CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Change of plans: President Obama cuts his trip to India short, and adds Saudi Arabia to the schedule. The motivation behind the move, to pay respects in person, following the death of the Saudi monarch.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Deadline expired, but the fate of two ISIS hostages still unknown. What options Japan has right now as it tries to bring the men home alive.

PAUL: And new terrorr arrests overnight. Just how close how close Spanish authorities say four men were to pulling off a Paris-style Attack.

(MUSIC)

PAUL: It's always good to have your company with us. Good morning. I'm Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

PAUL: We want to begin this morning with news that President Obama is cutting his visit to India short so he can travel to Saudi Arabia. This is a time, of course, when there's so much unrest in that region. So here's the map of where he is going to be. The change in plan, though, comes after Saudi King Abdullah died this week at the age of 90.

BLACKWELL: The president left this morning for New Delhi to visit India's prime minister. You see the first lady there alongside him. CNN's White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski has details for us. Good morning, Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Christi and Victor. All right, this is somewhat unexpected news, especially since it seemed like the schedules had already been established. In fact, the question initially when we learned of King Abdullah's death was, what does this mean for the president's trip to India? Is he going to have to cancel that? Would he go to Saudi Arabia? And the White House established that, no, Vice President Biden would be the one to lead a delegation to Saudi Arabia and that the president's plans in India would continue.

But then news broke in India from officials here that the president had cut his trip short. Not by a long period of time, in fact, less than a day. He'll still be able to give remarks on Tuesday. And once that broke, then the White House did release a statement early this morning saying that was the case, that they -- they said they looked at the schedules of when the vice president would land in Saudi Arabia versus when the president was scheduled to leave India and they decided it was just too tight a window of time. Why not just have President Obama then continue on to Saudi Arabia on his way back to the U.S., again, not cutting his trip here short by much?

Our question was, why decide that now? Weren't these schedules known in the beginning when this was all being planned? So that leads to questions of maybe the White House just thought it would be better for President Obama to attend with other world leaders there in Saudi Arabia to pay his respects. But they're not giving any more detail, just saying that now schedules allow it and the president and first lady will go to Saudi Arabia. Christi and Victor?

PAUL: All right, Michelle Kosinski, appreciate it. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Now to another story we're watching very closely, the fate of two hostages in ISIS hands. On Tuesday, ISIS demanded Japan pay $200 million or it would kill both men within 72 hours. That deadline has now come and gone. Will Ripley is following developments out of Tokyo. Will, what's the latest on the hostages this morning?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Things here in Tokyo have been eerily quiet since the ISIS deadline came and went with no new information about Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa two Japanese men caught in the middle of a horrible ordeal when they appeared on that ISIS video with an executioner standing in between them.

This has been a very difficult time for Japan, and the Japanese government since Tuesday has been trying to open a line of communication, a direct line of communication, with ISIS. They've been using diplomatic channels. Prime minister Abe had a conversation with the king of Jordan. He's been speaking with officials in Turkey. Intelligence sources on the ground are trying to use back channels to see if they can connection with ISIS. No success. An ISIS spokesperson has exchanged some e-mails with the Japanese broadcaster but very few questions were answered, and a statement that was promised has not yet materialized.

Meanwhile, officials are also monitoring social media accounts, but none of the major accounts have posted any credible information about the status of these two hostages, which means that even now that this deadline has passed the uncertainty and the anxiety for the families and for this country continues to build because people here know that at any moment a video could surface, some news could break, but all that they can do is wait and worry.

BLACKWELL: All right, Will Ripley in Tokyo for us. Will, thank you.

PAUL: And a breaking news story in Spain this morning. Authorities have arrested four men in Spain's North African territory of Ceuta. Officials say they're two pairs of brothers who were strongly radicalized and prepared to carry out an attack and possibly blow themselves up. Spanish officials say there are, quote, "many similarities" with the two brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi who carried out the recent attacks in Paris that killed 20 people.

Meanwhile in Yemen, the U.S. is already reducing its personnel after the fall of the Yemeni government. The embassy is still open we know, but officials say they will reassess the situation as things on the ground change.

Also, Kurdish militia are battling ISIS on the outskirts of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. And these are some of the most recent pictures we've gotten in. The Pentagon tells CNN it's now prepared to recommend a small number of U.S. military advisors join the upcoming Iraqi assault to retake that city if needed. Now the possible recommendation would need to be approved but President Barack Obama. So U.S. military advisors could be going near the front lines in Iraq as the terror crackdown ramps up across Europe with even more arrests. A lot overnight.

BLACKWELL: And of course there's political chaos in the capital key ally and militant hotbed Yemen. We've discussed that. All this unfolding this morning. Let's bring in CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen. First, Peter, how significant are these arrests by Spanish authorities?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONALS SECURITY ANALYST: Well, this Spanish enclave on the coast of North Africa has been a frequent kind of incubator of militant Islam. And, you know, we don't really know yet the details about this plot. But this is not the first time that we've seen people from the small Spanish enclave getting involved in militant Islam and they probably won't be the last, Victor.

PAUL: We also know, when we talk about Yemen -- let's move to Yemen now, because it's particularly chaotic there -- we know several hundred diplomats and U.S. military personnel are there in Yemen. So wondering, should the U.S. evacuate the embassy in Yemen and how easy or how ready are they to do so?

BERGEN: I think they're ready to do it but I think it would be a very bad idea to do it unless it was absolutely, you know, under siege in such a manner that it was mandatory. This is not the Benghazi consulate. This is a well-defended embassy that's been the subject of frequent protests and attacks in the past. There were standards after the embassy attacks in Africa that were implemented for a lot of embassies in high risk areas. You know, it's a very tough place to attack.

And also, you know, we've seen in the past, Christi, when we've closed American embassies in Sudan in the mid-90s we lost the fact that Al Qaeda was forming there in a very serious manner. We just didn't have eyes on the place. Similarly when we closed our embassy in Afghanistan in 1989 we really kind of missed the importance of the rise of the Taliban that followed. And, of course, they harbored Al Qaeda. So there's some real costs in closing our embassies, and we've already

closed a lot of them around the Middle East -- Syria, and in Libya. You know, I don't think it sends a particularly good message. And I think also American diplomats in these posts know that these are so- called hardship postings, and they are hardships, they are -- you're on a short relatively short tour, you don't come with your family. People going into this want to serve in these places and, of course, this is the critical place to get the information about Al Qaeda in Yemen, and it's critical to the drone program that has been very detrimental to Al Qaeda in Yemen over the past several years.

BLACKWELL: I want to ask about the news we got this morning that President Obama would be going to Saudi Arabia instead of Vice President Biden. The White House explains this as schedules becoming clearer and it makes more sense to send the president, but possibly, probably there's more than that. Why do you think the decision was made?

BERGEN: It's a very good decision, Victor, because, you know, Saudi Arabia has since, you know, since Roosevelt met with the Saudi king on the deck of the destroyer in the Arabian sea at the end of World War II this has been the closest ally the United States has in the Middle East. And basically there's been, you know, we have some fundamental disagreements with the Saudis on a lot of issues. They are extremely concerned about our negotiations with Iran. They are very opposed in those negotiations. They're very concerned that it would allow Iran some kind of nuclear capability. We are concerned about their human rights record. We've had this blogger who's been flogged and has caused quite consternation here in the United States about the way in which they treat their dissidents.

King Abdullah was very unhappy about the fact that we pushed to get Hosni Mubarak out as Egyptian president there. The Saudis are rightly concerned about the fact that there's absolutely no progress on the Israeli/Palestinian kind of negotiations. So there's a whole raft of issues that we have some disagreements about, and I think it's the right thing for President Obama to go and meet the new king and sort of validate the succession plan.

But the other big story here, Victor, they've appointed a deputy crown prince who is a completely a different generation, and he's 55. Prince Muhammad bin Nayef. He's the minister of interior. He's a very close kind of -- he's cooperated very closely with American officials on counterterrorism. And I think that's another thing to go over there and validate and say this is a great decision.

PAUL: Yes. He's actually Ali Ahmed, who is a critic of the regime, said the west has praised him as being a hero in the war on terrorism, but inside Saudi Arabia he's known as an oppressor. What do you take of that?

BERGEN: Well, I mean, I know both gentlemen and, you know, some things can be simultaneously true. Certainly Saudi Arabia has a record on suppressing dissent that is quite, you know, wouldn't pass muster in any country like the United States. That said, Al Qaeda really staged almost like a domestic insurgency in

Saudi Arabia in 2003, 2004. It wasn't just a terrorism campaign. They attacked American facilities. They attacked oil facilities, they attacked pipelines. And Prince Muhammad bin Nayef was critical to basically ending that and the reason we have Al Qaeda in Yemen is because they were all in Saudi Arabia and the Saudi pressure on this group forced them into -- in Yemen, their neighbor to the south.

So, you know, it's obviously quite a different system. It is an absolute monarchy. There's no disguising that fact. Crown Prince Abdullah and the king Abdullah who has recently died was instrumental in moving the country incrementally, very incrementally in a slightly more kind of I would say pluralistic direction. But I mean we're talking very, very minor steps. But it's also a country which is very conservative. Many of the people are more conservative than the monarchy. They don't necessarily want the things we would assume that anybody would want, which is women to drive and more access to jobs. That's kind of a radical position in Saudi Arabia for a lot of people.

BLACKWELL: We will see if the incremental reformation and the reforms continue under now King Salman. Peter Bergen, thank you so much for the insight.

PAUL: Thank you, Peter.

BERGEN: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Take a glance at the screen. Look at this devastating scene in eastern Ukraine. Violence breaking out again between rebels and government forces. It's intensifying now. Up next we'll have the latest on the conflict.

And photojournalist Tom Guric (ph) is chasing a winter storm that's hitting the northeast. He's been out there all morning. The rain, the ice, the snow -- right now he's in Stanford in southern Connecticut. He's going to continue heading north along with this storm and keeping us apprised of what we need to watch out for.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: We're following breaking news this morning. At least 16 people, including children, have been killed after shelling in eastern Ukraine. It comes just days after intense fighting between rebels and government forces. We have new video. You're watching it now. It shows the aftermath of some of the devastation.

On the phone with us from the capital city of Kiev, Victoria Butenko. Victoria, tell us more about where this is happening and what you're hearing there from the capital?

VICTORIA BUTENKO, JOURNALIST (via telephone): Well, the city of Mariupol itself is a very strategic city. It is first of all almost half of the people. Secondly, it is on the way from the rebel pro- Russian separatist controlled areas to the Crimea, which was annexed by Russia last year. And some of the analysts indicate that Russia might want to do a land corridor towards Crimea and Mariupol is definitely on the way. So we do have a lot in mind of the civil population, but local authorities say they see no movement of troops or militants towards the city and say the situation is under control, Victor.

BLACKWELL: What more have we learned about the victims? I understand that some of or at least one of the 16 killed was a young child?

BUTENKO: Well, we do have a confirmed death of one child, five other children have been hospitalized. And most of the victims actually are people who were on the street during the shelling. It is important to know the weapons used is called the grad multiple rocket shelling system. A launch of artillery fire from this weapon destroys the area that is equal to soccer field, totally destroys. And so a lot of the people in the suburbs of the city who were on the street who were inside, not in protective buildings, they were actually hit by the fire. And there is a lot of -- there is a great number of people trying to evacuate from this area at the moment, Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Journalist Victoria Butenko giving us the latest from the capital city there in Kiev. Thank you so much, Victoria.

PAUL: Meanwhile, Victor, the terrorism crackdown across Europe continues in the wake of the Paris attacks. Now there's new video of a suspect who is the subject of an international terror manhunt. CNN Justice Correspondent Pamela Brown has this for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Belgium authorities are trying to hunt down the man seen here reportedly walking behind suspected French Algerian ISIS fighter Mehdi Nemmouche. Officials say Nemmouche allegedly killed four people at the Brussels Jewish museum last May. Now the prosecutor in Brussels says this man may have been one of Nemmouche's accomplices in the museum shooting. This as authorities in Belgium continue efforts to track down Abdul Hamid Abaaoud, the alleged ringleader in a foiled attack targeting police officers earlier this month. According to Interpol secretary general there is increased concern of Islam radicalization across Europe.

JURGEN STOCK, INTERPOL SECRETARY: We have independent cells within our countries, maybe not in any command and control structure, and, of course, we have the lone wolves. And we have those returning from the conflict zones who are posing threats to the countries where they come from.

BROWN: In the weeks following the Paris attacks at least half a dozen European countries cracked down on terror cells arresting associates of the French attackers as well as those believed to be planning separate attacking.

STOCK: It's very difficult to detect plans, to identify plans before terrorists can take action against innocent people.

BROWN: In France authorities are scrambling to prevent another terrorist attacks. The FBI is assisting French authorities with their investigation into the Paris attacks, analyzing forensics, laptops, fingerprints, and running names through data bases as they look for other potential accomplices of the suspects, Amedy Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers. Sources tell CNN it's believed several of their associates are hiding in Syria, including Coulibaly's wife Hayat Boumeddine, last seen in Turkey. A defensive Turkish prime minister spoke to CNN's Richard Quest.

AHMET DAVUTOGLU, TURKISH PRIME MINISTER: We discovered that lady. We informed France. If we --

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But you lost her?

DAVUTOGLU: No, because it was -- we were not informed in advance. We were not informed in advance. Can you blame Spain because she went to Spain? If you cannot blame France and Spain you cannot blame Turkey.

BROWN: Pamela Brown, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: Thank you, Pamela.

Well, the NFL is talking now about deflate-gate.

BLACKWELL: Deflate-gate.

PAUL: Deflate-gate. Hear what the league has to say about their ongoing investigation into the New England Patriots.

BLACKWELL: It's a gate now. Plus a live look at the I-95 corridor in southern Connecticut. Guess whose he's making OK time. Photojournalist Tom Guric (ph) is chasing the winter storm that's bringing rain, ice, and now snow to the northeast. Where it's expected to hit the hardest, we've got that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Our friends in the northeast, they may have just wanted to stay inside today because of the brutal storm that's making a mess of that area. Here's a live look at the highways of Connecticut this morning. Photojournalist Tom Guric (ph) is out there on the streets for us chasing this storm as it makes its way up to Boston. Tom, do take good care of yourself there. He said it's slippery but it's not horrible.

BLACKWELL: And he's the only driver on the road here.

PAUL: That's why it's not horrible.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: Let's go to Manhattan. Snow is already falling, has been for a couple hours now. The New York's Office of Emergency Management has issued a travel advisory for the five boroughs. We have got Massachusetts. State emergency operation centers are open and tracking the storm. You can see why, a more serious situation here. They've got a little more cover. Live pictures from Boston suburb. The city could see up to a half foot of snow today.

PAUL: Ivan Cabrera.

BLACKWELL: Ivan Cabrera.

PAUL: You go ahead.

BLACKWELL: OK. He's in the CNN weather center tracking the storm. So it looks like Boston is getting hit the worst.

IVAN CABRERA, METEOROLOGIST: Boston is getting hit. Tom was going at a pretty good clip there. I want to see the speedometer to see if we're staying under the speed limit. But that's a good sign. That means the roads are clear as far as any icing here, and I don't think that is going to be an issue for us.

Here is at this point the rain-snow line. Notice it has moved up a little bit towards Boston and now collapsed again to the south. So I think in Boston we're just going to continue the snow over the next several hours and we're going to probably pick up a couple more inches there over the next couple hours and heading into later this afternoon.

And it is a Boston event at this point. We're done in Philly, we're done in New York. I'll show you some of the snow totals in a second here. But there you see on the backside of it here as the storm pushes to the northeast, the snow continues to move back down to the south and so that by 5:30 we're still snowing in Boston and then we'll get rid of this.

We have a nice day on Sunday. So we'll clear the roads on Sunday and get ready for the next storm, which I think is more of a southerly track for this one. So Philly, New York, Washington, D.C., get ready for that, and that's going to be coming in on Monday morning. So that's going to be a mess for us, so we'll watch for that.

So winter storm warning posted at this hour from Harrisburg continuing up into New York and into Boston. But I think at this point here this is the area that we're going to be most concerned about in Boston as the snowplows will be out there and I still think they're going to have more to contend with as we head into later this afternoon. Snow totals anywhere from where from to six to 10 inches. And we picked up some records. Look at this, 3.1 in Islet, but New York, JFK, 3.4 inches. They have never snowed that much on January 24th in January. So there we are, some pretty good totals, eight to nine inches from Butler to Highland Lakes in New Jersey. So this could have been worse. It could have been a big icing event. It has not been. It has been a snow event which, as you have mentioned, that we can deal with because that can be removed and it's less slippery on the roads.

PAUL: Very good point.

BLACKWELL: Ivan Cabrera, thank you so much.

PAUL: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right, the NFL is finally saying something about what's being called "deflate-gate."

PAUL: Deflate-gate.

BLACKWELL: But did they really shed any light on this scandal that's casting a shadow on the Super Bowl?

PAUL: And think about these families now. Nearly a month after AirAsia flight 8501 crashed into the Java Sea, crews were out there today troughs to raise the wreckage to the surface. They ran into some problems, though. We'll talk about that.

BLACKWELL: And we take you into a flight simulator where we show you the rapid change in elevation levels and what could have gone wrong.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any time we get to talk about Tom Brady's balls is a good day for me.

(LAUGHTER)

JIMMY KIMMEL, LATE NIGHT TELEVISION HOST: Gloria Allred is now representing nine of the 11 balls Tom Brady allegedly squeezed.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: That's funny. I hadn't heard the second one. That's good.

All right, so all jokes aside, though, the NFL is trying to figure out if there was any intentional wrongdoing in the, what is being dubbed deflate-gate. The league says the Super Bowl bound New England Patriots the league says used football that did not meet specifications in the first half of the AFC Championship game last Sunday. Let's bring in Sara Ganim. She's following the story from the home of the Patriots. So the NFL, has it now figured out why the balls were deflated, if not who's responsible?

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, that was actually pretty funny. I'm still laughing from that. But the NFL is taking this seriously, finally breaking their silence and saying that there is evidence that some of the balls that the Patriots used during their AFC championship game were underinflated. So now, like you said, the question becomes how did that happen, and was it deliberate? Is someone to blame?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK: I have no knowledge of anything. I have no knowledge of any wrongdoing. BILL BELICHICK, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS HEAD COACH: I have no knowledge

whatsoever of this situation.

GANIM: Their head coach and biggest star, quarterback Tom Brady, have both denied any knowledge or involvement, but deflate-gate continues to dog the New England Patriots on their way to the Super Bowl. Yesterday the NFL released a statement saying evidence suggests the Patriots did use under inflated football during the first half of the AFC championship game. The league says it's investigating the matter, quote, "to determine the explanation for why footballs used in the game were not in compliance and specifically whether any noncompliance was the result of deliberate action."

The Patriots are cooperating with the investigation according to both the NFL and to Patriots owner Robert Kraft. The controversy began last weekend during the game against the Indianapolis Colts. Reports surfaced that 11 of the 12 footballs provided by the Patriots were under inflated by about two pounds per square inch each. An underinflated ball is easier to grip, giving the passer and his receivers an advantage.

BRADY: I didn't alter the ball in any way. Once I approved the ball that's the ball I expect out there on the field.

GANIM: According to NFL rules a referee inspects each football about two hours before kickoff and again at halftime. The league says the footballs were properly inflated for the second half of the game. As the investigation continues, Patriots' players are downplaying the controversy and looking ahead to the Super Bowl.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm done with all that. Like I said my focus is Seattle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GANIM: Now, as part of this investigation, the NFL says that it's conducted more than 40 interviews, but Tom Brady, the quarterback, said on Thursday, that he had not yet been interviewed by the NFL. Of course that investigation is ongoing. And aside from interviews they're looking at physical evidence, but they have not put a timeline on when this investigation could be complete. Victor?

BLACKWELL: All right, Sara Ganim reporting for us outside Gillette Stadium. Stay warm.

Let's bring in CNN sports analyst Christine Brennan. Christi?

PAUL: Yes, Christine, we want to bring her in. There she is. Hi, Christine, good to see you.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Great to see you both. Thanks.

PAUL: Thank you. So the league responded. Give us a percentage here, 50, 60 percent, if that, as to whether we're going to hear a final result on the investigation this coming week? BRENNAN: Oh, I think the odds are less than 50 percent that we will

hear a final word on this, Christi. I think if you ask for a percentage, some ways I think almost zero percent, although there's always a chance. Let's say 33 percent or so.

But here's why. This, of course, is the marquee week for the National Football League in the most troubling year it has had probably ever with the Ray Rice video, domestic violence, all the things that obviously everyone knows, and now here we are with this. I cannot imagine the NFL on a Wednesday or a Thursday wants to drop the bombshell of suspensions and fines on one of the two teams that is playing in the Super Bowl.

The flipside of that, though, would be to say, hey, we're dealing with it, this is important to us. We can mete out punishment quickly. And in that case you could see this scenario, which I guess is why there's still that chance, but what a distraction and this story will just continue through the next week in Phoenix.

PAUL: Let me ask you this. If it's found out that either Belichick or Brady did, in fact, know what was going on, is there any indication what punishment they could face?

BRENNAN: That would be a very big deal, because that would mean they lied, that they went out and willfully lied in their press conferences. And that would be surprising to me because they looked like they had talked to PR people and they talked to lawyers and, you know, they were ready for this.

So the fines and suspensions, absolutely. I don't know about -- I think it would all go to next year. It certainly wouldn't involve the Super Bowl. But a fine, absolutely, maybe draft choices again. I think the NFL would be very upset if those two people went out will and lied to their fans, to the media, to the basically the world watching this kind of bizarre story, and I think they would mete out some significant punishment.

PAUL: I'm wondering if the same phrase is standing out to you that I think stood out to so many people, "I had no knowledge of," not an outright denial but both of them the "I had no knowledge of." And I've heard a lot of people talk about the fact that if this did happen an equipment manager would never do this of his own accord, they do not believe. An equipment manager would go with the guidance given to him by the quarterback. Do you believe that to be true?

BRENNAN: I do, yes. I have covered the NFL and covered a beat on the NFL for close to 30 years. And there is no way that a lonely equipment manager, important as that person can be, is doing something on their own without the guidance or at least thinking that they're doing it for the quarterback or the player or the coach. That would be almost unimaginable that a renegade, rogue equipment manager would be responsible for all of this.

PAUL: For all of this on his own. All right, Christine Brennan, always appreciate your insight. Thank you for being here.

BRENNAN: My pleasure. Thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: Officials believe areas of flight 8501 made a steep climb and then stalled before it crashed into the java sea. Up next we'll take you inside a flight simulator to show you what it may have been like for the pilots inside.

But first --

PAUL: This month on the "Ones to Watch" series, we're looking at architecture. Today you get an up close look at the work of a Nigerian architect who's building around water.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kunle Adeyemi has been selected by the prominent architect David Adjaye as one to watch. His work is focused on building on and around water. One of his major projects is here in the community of Makoko in Nigeria.

KYNLE ADEYEMI, ARCHITECT: Makoko is a settlement in the lagoon area of Lagos, and that is really right in the heart of the city. And it's a settlement with houses built on stilts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Adeyemi was happy to help when Makoko needed to put its community school on a firmer foundation. And so the floating school was built.

ADEYEMI: This is the school bell. So we're on the ground floor of the floating school. And this is basically 100 square meters, it's 10 meters by 10 meters wide, and it is basically floating on about 256 barrels.

DAVID ADJAYE, ARCHITECT: All the criticism of a shantytown are valid, but the one thing that you can't level against it is its ability to respond to a human condition, which is to create habitation. And nothing we've invented can react as fast as these shantytowns react.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: Watch the full show at CNN.co CNN.com/OnesToWatch.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: High winds and rough waves forced divers to call off an operation to lift the wreckage of AirAsia flight 8501 out of the water.

PAUL: Dive teams are going to make another attempt tomorrow using lift balloons. That's the same technique that they had used to raise the tail of the plane. In the meantime search crews have now recovered a total of 69 victims, which means 93 people are still missing.

BLACKWELL: We've got CNN Aviation Analyst Mary Schiavo on the phone with us. She's also the former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mary, good to have you with us on the phone. First, let's talk a about the recovery effort. Using these balloons, is this usually the first option tried, and if so, what are the alternatives?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I wouldn't say it's the first option tried, but where they have a fuselage largely intact it does make sense because the balloons would hopefully, the flotation devices, bring it up to the surface with the least amount of crushing and further damage to the remains inside.

That being said, in other crashes into the water they've used recovery vessels, ships that are typically used for bringing up, for example, submarines or heavy objects from the bottom of the floor, sea floor. So that's additional assets that could be used, but those, a lot of those are in the United States and those have not been requested. At this point that's their best and the only option they're working with.

BLACKWELL: Do you expect they'll try to bring up the fuselage again, or they'll try to recover these bodies for more than 100 families that are waiting to lay these victims to rest?

SCHIAVO: Well, I think they're going to try again. Rough seas, again, is wreaking havoc with the efforts, but I think they will try again to bring up the fuselage. Otherwise it's pretty rough work for the divers to go in the fuselage and try to collection the remains. So they might take another try to bring the fuselage and see if they can get it that way once again.

BLACKWELL: You bring up the difficulty these divers are facing. Can you expound upon that and just it tell us really what dangers are they facing, the challenges they're facing, especially under these rough conditions?

SCHIAVO: Well, in addition it's a terribly traumatic endeavor to bring up at this point over 90 people, or remains I should say. But you have to remember a modern jetliner literally has miles, hundreds of miles of wires and cabling, sharp, jagged metal pieces, you know, proposes a danger not just to the divers themselves but to their equipment, and it's easy for someone to become entangled in the wreckage of the plane itself. So it's a risky life event for them to go down and do this, and that's why I'm pretty certain they're going to try to bring the fuselage up as a whole.

BLACKWELL: So once the crews get the wreck am out of the Java Sea, where does it go next some?

SCHIAVO: Well, because the Indonesians are keeping control of the accident they will send it off to the investigators there. But it's not just the Indonesians. Probably at this point one of the most important components of the investigation is the team from Airbus, and this being an Airbus, there's already tremendous numbers of clues and probably the answer to really what caused this accident on the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recording. But they are going to want to look at the plane as well. So the team of Indonesians plus the Airbus crew that are sent from Airbus will all be pouring over it and they will be looking for clues. However, because they have the black box and cockpit recorder I don't think the wreckage will play a big role.

BLACKWELL: All right, CNN Aviation Analyst Mary Schiavo, thank you so much for helping us understand what's going on at the bottom of the Java Sea as they continue to try to lift this fuselage. Thanks, Mary.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

PAUL: The movie "American Sniper" is raking in millions of dollars at the box office. Not everybody is celebrating its release, though. Some legal issues may be at play here. We'll talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me ask you a question, Chris. Would you be surprised if I told you that the Navy has credited you with over 160 kills? Do you ever think you might have seen things or done things over there you wish you hadn't?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's not me, no. The thing that haunts me are all the guys I couldn't save.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Seen there from the blockbuster "American Sniper" which has already grossed more than $150 million worldwide. But controversy continues to follow the Oscar nomination about Navy SEAL marksman Chris Kyle. Now the attorney of Eddie Ray Routh, the Iraq War veteran accused of killing Kyle at a gun range in 2013, says he's concerned his client might not be able to get a fair trial in the wake of this film's success.

HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson joining us now. Lots of films, Joey, are based on true stories. The timing of this, though, have you ever seen anything like this, with a film this popular coming out just weeks before -- or actually at this point a few days still now while it's in theater of a murder trial? And how do you think it really will affect it?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Sure. Good morning, Christi. I think Hollywood certainly considered that in the release of the movie. Why? Because then you get excess publicity, and Hollywood, of course, is in the business of making movies popular, not necessarily in the business affecting the constitutional rights of people who are accused of crimes.

So will it have an effect? I think it does have an effect on your Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. Why? Because you have people who are really focused on the movie. The movie is making all sorts of waves, very popular. I've seen the movie, it's very good. And so, therefore, if you have a jury pool they could certainly be affected by what they see, particularly as it portrays Chris Kyle as the hero that he is and the sniper that he is in the movie. Anybody who would be responsible for taking his life, certainly that jury would want to ensure that justice was meted out. PAUL: What options does a judge have to ensure a fair trial? When

you think about changing venue, this is a national movie.

JACKSON: Sure. Christi, I think there are really three options. The first and most obvious is to select a jury which would be fair and impartial. A lot easier said than done, but, remember, you can get a huge jury pool. And just to keep in mind, not that I'm saying the two trials are similar, but if you look at the Boston Marathon case, 1,350 potential jurors called in. Can you get 12 at least to sit on a jury? That's the open question.

You look at the Aurora, Colorado, shooting as it relates to Mr. Holmes who is going on trial, 9,000 prospective jurors, Christi, who are going to be evaluated. So if you get a huge jury pool, the issue is whether you can draw enough of that jury who perhaps hasn't seen the movie or doesn't know anything about "American Sniper" or Chris Kyle, and that's the first option.

The second, of course, as you mentioned is a change of venue. And, of course, we're in a day and age of cellphones and smartphones and Twitter and Facebook, that no matter where you go, someone, of course, would have seen it. But that issue becomes, are they as closely connected to Mr. Kyle, do they know him, do they have a connection to him as they may have in the county where of course the killing occurred? So perhaps if you further remove it from that area you have people who know of him but are not maybe as fond of him. And so therefore that could be an affect.

And then the third option, of course, the judge has would be to delay the trial until such a time as the movie has died down, the publicity has died down, and otherwise people are on with their lives. And so those are the three options that any court would be looking at.

PAUL: All right, well, a lot is being made about Routh's mental state. He pled not guilty by reason of insanity we know. But Kyle's widow doesn't accept linking his death to PTSD. This is what she told "The Los Angeles Times," "To try to even find an excuse is disgusting. I know people with PTSD and it's very real and very hard, but it doesn't change your core character." Could any of Kyle's comments break the protective order that the judge ordered in this case?

JACKSON: Well, remember this. There's a gag order and of course a gag order is imposed to protect the rights of a defendant who is accused. You don't want to inflame tensions. You don't want information out there. You don't want the case tried in the press. And gag orders are extremely effective as they relate to the parties of the action, the prosecution and the defense. You don't want to be disciplined by the court, held in contempt, disciplined by the bar association.

But as it relates to a family member it's far different. And although the court order would have covered family members, do you really want and expect a judge and a grieving widow who is expressing concerns and who really is going through it, do you want to punish her in any way? So I think gag orders are difficult to impose in and otherwise enforce against family members. PAUL: All right, Joey Jackson, your perspective is always

appreciated. Thanks for making the time.

JACKSON: Appreciate you, Christi, any time.

PAUL: Thank you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Check a few top stories now coming up on five minutes to the top of the hour.

PAUL: Number one, we're getting a preview of potential Republican presidential candidates in Iowa today. Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, all taking the podium at the Iowa Freedom Summit, courting Republican donors and voters, of course. Also notable, though, those potential candidates sitting this one out. Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio will not be in attendance.

BLACKWELL: A Colorado teenager has been sentenced to four years in prison after admitting she wanted to travel to Syria to aid Islamic militants. Shannon Connelly is one of the first Americans to be sentenced for conspiracy to support ISIS, and the judge in the case said that he hoped her sentence would discourage others from following in her footsteps.

PAUL: The U.S. Supreme Court will review Oklahoma's lethal injection procedures after a botched execution last year that left an inmate to die slowly and gasping for air. The case was brought by inmates who say the current system violates the constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Oklahoma's attorney general defends the practice, saying the state's process has been affirmed by two federal courts.

BLACKWELL: The Chicago Cubs mourns the loss of hall of famer Ernie Banks who died Friday night. Banks was the Cubs first African- American player and known as the greatest Cub in franchise history having played for the team for 19 season of his Major League career. That earned him the nickname "Mr. Cub." Officials at Wrigley Field paid tribute to the two-time MVP on the marquee at Wrigley Field. Ernie Banks was 83 years old.

PAUL: And a Reynoldsburg, Ohio, SWAT team went to bust an alleged gun thief, ended up playing patty cake. Earlier this month the suspect Juan Hamilton took off during a traffic stop after police say they smelled marijuana in his car. When they went to search his apartment he wasn't there, but a family was. A SWAT officer noticed a little girl sitting on the couch and she looked scared. So went beyond duty, playing games with her, asked her to sing. Hamilton, by the way, was eventually arrested.

BLACKWELL: The measles outbreak linked to Disneyland in California seems to be getting worse. The number of cases is now at 68, spread across several states out west. That's up from 59 cases that were reported just three days ago. About four dozen of those cases have a confirmed Disneyland connection. The CDC says people who have been vaccinated have no reason to worry about the highly contagious virus. PAUL: And lots going on overnight in Yemen with the reports that

President Obama has changed his plans and he will be going to Saudi Arabia. That was not on his schedule. So we're going to hand it over to our colleague, Fredricka Whitfield, who is going to take it over from here.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right, good to see you guys.