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CNN NEWSROOM

U.N.: Climate Change is Real and Happening Now; Storm Slams Northeast Economy; Convictions Tossed for Friendship Nine Activists; Deflate-Gate Dominates Super Bowl Media Day

Aired January 28, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thank you for sharing your story with us. I appreciate. And Wolf's documentary "VOICES OF AUSCHWITZ" airs tonight 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The first blizzard of 2015 was one for the history books. Worcester, Massachusetts got 34.5 inches of snow -- that would be an all-time record. Boston set a record for January with 22 inches at Logan. Providence, Rhode Island set a daily record with 16 inches falling yesterday. And the United Nations says intense storms like these are going to be much more common. Even Bill Nye the Science Guy knows we're getting distracted by things that perhaps don't matter as much.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL NYE, THE SCIENCE GUY: Climate change is real. We're all obsessed with deflate-gate. Let's keep in mind that there's something about which you should give a (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Just like Tom Brady the world is getting hotter and hotter and you know why? Because we humans are pumping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere every time we burn fossil fuels when you burn in your cars and when Tom Brady and Bill Belichick start talking for two and a half hours at press conferences spewing out carbon dioxide making climate change that much worse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, yes, climate change also means more intense storms. Let's put aside deflate-gate and talk about climate change and how it's affecting our lives. I'm joined by a climate expert and American Progress fellow, Joe Romm. Hi, Joe.

JOE ROMM, CLIMATE CHANGE EXPERT: Hi. Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So explain to our viewers how climate change will bring more intense storms in the future.

ROMM: Well, one of the basic facts is as the climate gets hotter, the atmosphere gets warmer and it can hold more water vapor. And so the oceans get hotter and more water vapor ends up in the air and the net result is that when a storm does sweep in over hundreds of miles, it can suck in vastly larger amounts of water which then get dumped. And of course if it's warm enough for rain, we get rain. But we still have winters. And in the winter, particularly the midwinter, like now, we will see monster snow storms.

COSTELLO: The United Nations put out a report warning of more intense winter storms like the one we just experienced and stronger hurricanes. What will that look like?

ROMM: Well, it's going to look like a combination of things. So you're going to see more huge storms like super storm Sandy was the largest hurricane ever seen, you know, in the north Atlantic so that's one thing. The storms will be larger. They'll get more northern as was in the case of Sandy. And of course, because of sea level rise, the storm surge from the storms will be more destructive and the sea level rise on the East Coast is up a foot.

So you'll generally see more intense precipitation particularly falling over 24 or 48 hours. And you'll see worse storm surges and they will probably take place over larger areas.

COSTELLO: All right. Joe Romm, thanks for your insight. We appreciate it.

Massive storms like the one we saw this week don't just disrupt lives, they disrupt entire economies. New York City was virtually shut down. Travel bans were in place for states like Connecticut and Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York. Everybody shut up inside, not going out to work or out to dinner or to the movies. One group says that cost the northeast economy $500 million. We have to pay attention to these more intense storms that will come our way because of climate change.

Christine Romans is here with more on the economics of this storm.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, winter happens; Mother Nature happens no question. But when it is intense like this and you have cities shut down, it costs a lot of money and most of that money is not recouped. $500 million is the estimate so far. I mean you had a major American city shutdown for almost a day -- lost sales, clean up. And as you branch out to what is still digging out in New England, those numbers are most likely going to rise.

Talking about lost wages, shuttered business, lost tax revenues for state and local governments. And just think of this, in New York City alone Carol, a million dollars an inch -- a million dollars an inch to clean up the snow. So 10 inches a big deal here but it could have been much, much worse.

Now, let's talk a little bit about the canceled flights. More than 8,500 canceled flights Monday and Tuesday. That was 400,000 travelers. Those are people who had to stop their work, not get where they were going. $230 million is the economic loss the U.S. travel association says from that. That doesn't count the airlines. That's just us travelers who were left in the lurch -- $230 million there in economic loss. COSTELLO: That's insane. Probably more to come this winter -- I

think that's safe to say.

ROMANS: It's only January.

COSTELLO: I know. Christine Romans, thanks so much.

I've got breaking news to share with our viewers right now.

All right. This breaking news is out of South Carolina where convictions for a group of men known as the Friendship Nine have been tossed out. The men staged a sit-in at this South Carolina lunch counter during the Civil Rights Movement, an action that provided a blueprint for other activists. They were charged with a crime by simply sitting down to lunch.

CNN's Victor Blackwell joins us now from Rock Hill, South Carolina with more. Tell us more -- Victor.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the judge really summed up the feeling and the sentiment inside the room. The purpose of this vacating of the charges -- we cannot rewrite history but we can right history. That was the purpose of today's hearing to vacate the charges.

I'll take you back to 1961 the height of the civil rights movement. The sit-in protest had already begun in Greensboro, North Carolina and the protesters, black protesters most of them, would go to the white- only counters and would be arrested. They would pay the bail and then go home.

What made the sit-ins here in Rock Hill, South Carolina so fundamentally transformative is that they decided to adapt the "jail, no bail" philosophy in which they were sentenced to 30 days on a chain gang instead of paying the bail which shifted the financial burden from the coffers of the civil rights organizations to the local government. And by the end of that summer in 1961, the jails across the south were filling up with protesters.

You fast forward 50 years to 2011, there was a reunion of the Friendship Nine named for the Friendship College where they were students back in the 60s. And there was an author -- a children's author who said I'll write a book about this but something more needs to happen. And that's where she met with the solicitor here in Rock Hill and they began the plan to vacate charges. Most of the men were here in court today. It was a very emotional time. 250 seats but there were more than 200 people in the overflow spaces here at the law center -- Carol.

COSTELLO: That's just really -- it took 53 years for this to happen. That's just not right.

BLACKWELL: Well, it didn't take exactly 53 years for the idea to start. Initially the solicitor said people came to him saying that the charges should be -- that they should be pardoned. But he said a pardon is for people who need to be forgiven. So they went with the option of vacating the charges insofar saying that they should have never been charged in the first place.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. Victor Blackwell, many thanks to you. I appreciate it.

BLACKWELL: Sure.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it's a super week for football. The Seahawks and the Patriots not getting ready for deflate-gate 2 but Super Bowl XLIX. Rachel Nichols live in Glendale, Arizona.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS: Yes Carol. There's plenty going on here in Phoenix including Tom Brady getting asked questions at a press conference by a puppet. We'll have all of it and a little deflate- gate too coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The Super Bowl is just four days away. And for a brief moment, we were all distracted from the controversy of deflate-gate at yesterday's media day thanks in large part to the Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch. Here's why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARSHAWN LYNCH, SEATTLE SEAHAWKS: I'm here so I won't get fined. I'm here so I won't get fined. I'm here so I won't get fined.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: He's there so he won't get fined. Lynch who has a history of not cooperating with reporters repeated that a total of 29 times, one time for each question he was asked.

Really, everyone is actually talking about deflate-gate and some of the game's biggest personalities will not let it drop. So let's bring in CNN sports anchor Rachel Nichols.

Good morning -- Rachel.

NICHOLS: Good morning, Carol. I have to tell you, I have covered a lot of Super Bowls, this is one of the most unusual run-ups to the big game that I can remember. We have a player from one team taking shots at an owner. We have that owner taking shots really at the league office. And then why not add a little crazy in there too. We had media day yesterday.

Take a look at what was going on here in Phoenix.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICHOLS: Super Bowl media day is known for colorful characters, crazy costumes and even some dancing. And this year did not disappoint.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you explain media day? As a frenzy. It's great. You take the experience and you enjoy it. Rachel, you know, really it's something special.

NICHOLS: But along with the light tone lingered the harder issues that had framed this year's run-up to the big game. On Tuesday "Sports Illustrated" released a first person piece by Seahawks corner Richard Sherman in which he wrote, quote, "I look at the NFL today and I'm as disappointed as ever in its management." This comes on the heel of Patriots owner Robert Kraft challenging the NFL over deflate- gate.

Kraft is usually so close to Roger Goodell, a recent article quoted a league executive calling Kraft, quote, "the assistant commissioner". But this time Kraft was defiant.

ROBERT KRAFT, OWNER, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: If the Wells investigation is not able to definitively determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs, I would expect and hope that the league would apologize to our entire team and in particular Coach Belichick and Tom Brady for what they have had to endure this past week.

NICHOLS: Patriots players say seeing the owner challenge the league has had a galvanizing effect on the team.

ROB GRONKOWSKI, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: It means a lot. He's a great owner. It's great to see him on our side and just shows how much support he has for us players and obviously when you have doubters, you always want to prove your doubters wrong. We want to go out there and show everyone what's up.

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: We've always, you know, done a great job overcoming obstacles and being mentally tough. We just got to do it for one more game.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NICHOLS: Now, behind the scenes, Carol, a lot of Patriots players I spoke to said that while they're ignoring these allegations in public in private they do talk about them as a way of using them for motivation. Sort of that idea of hey, if everyone thinks we had to cheat our way to get here, we'll show them that we belong in the Super Bowl on Sunday. So that could actually be bad news for the Seahawks although Robert Kraft when asked about things yesterday says he thinks most of the players think that these allegations are quote, "hogwash". They got all kinds of adjectives floating around here and all kinds of things that people are talking about how this is going to affect the game on Sunday.

COSTELLO: Can you tell us a little bit about the new allegations coming out as to who may be responsible for deflating the footballs?

NICHOLS: Well, there's multiple reports out about what's on the videotape that is shown in the bottom of the stadium there at Gillette. And of course, there are cameras everywhere. Those were installed into a lot of the stadiums after September 11th. And according to the report from Fox News, the ball boy who was responsible for taking the footballs from the officials' locker room to the field, which is what he's supposed to do, made a stop in quote, "another room".

Now there's another report from NBC saying that that other room was a bathroom and that he was in that bathroom for approximately 90 seconds. I can't tell you, Carol, what he was doing in that bathroom. There's obviously speculation about whether he was using the bathroom or whether he was using that closed room where, of course, there are no cameras. It's one of the rooms where there are no cameras to tamper with the footballs.

COSTELLO: Ok. So Rachel --

NICHOLS: So now we get to speculate about what the ball boy was doing in the bathroom. Good morning -- America.

COSTELLO: Good morning -- America, right. Ok. Stay with me, Rachel.

I want to bring in Chad Brown. He's a linebacker for both the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. Good morning -- Chad.

CHAD BROWN, FORMER NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS/SEAHAWKS LINEBACKER: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh, you're standing right beside Rachel. I love this.

BROWN: Yes. Like prom dates, yes.

COSTELLO: So what do you make of this theory of the ball boy in the bathroom?

BROWN: You know with 90 seconds --

COSTELLO: Go ahead.

BROWN: I'm sorry -- go ahead.

I was going to say 90 seconds is not a lot of time to put a needle in the ball and take out just a certain amount of air. It's so fascinating because of the Patriots history and because of spy-gate again they are automatically assumed to be guilty here instead of really letting due process play out and let all the facts reveal themselves.

COSTELLO: So is Robert Kraft right? Should we all apologize to the New England Patriots?

BROWN: Well, if they are proven to be innocent, I certainly think we should. Again Tom Brady again automatically assumed to be guilty. Bill Belichick automatically assumed to be guilty. The entire Patriots organization automatically assumed to be guilty in the court of public opinion. And it's really unfortunate. Even Super Bowl winning quarterback Kurt Warner came out and said he has concerns that when the Patriots beat his Rams in the Super Bowl that somehow they may have cheated and that starts to taint the Patriots victory in his mind. So, even former players are buying into this automatically guiltiness on the part of the New England Patriots.

COSTELLO: Rachel --

NICHOLS: Carol, it's interesting. People who -- yes. People who have said Tom Brady is guilty before there's evidence, yes I think a lot of those people would owe the Patriots an apology. But it's interesting to hear Robert Kraft call for the NFL to apologize if there is no evidence found here. The NFL is supposed to investigate these things. It's a little bit interesting to hear him take such a strong stand against the league.

Remember, he's one of the owners who pays the salaries of all those people in that league office. For him to say they should apologize just for investigating, that's a shot across the bow.

COSTELLO: Yes. Shouldn't Robert Kraft want the NFL to investigate such things, Chad?

BROWN: I certainly think he should. I think he's trying to, you know, play both sides of it. Trying to get the public on his side and poke at Roger Goodell a little bit and try to win some of that public perception back.

But to Rachel's point, he should demand a thorough investigation whether it's his team or any other team within the NFL.

COSTELLO: So who are you going to be rooting for? I bet I know -- Chad. You're going to be rooting for the New England Patriots -- right?

BROWN: You know what -- neither one of those teams last time I checked with my accountant give me a paycheck anymore. So I'm just expecting a fantastic game and hopefully we can start moving past this deflate-gate stuff and really talk about what's going to be a great football game on Sunday and not all this off the field stuff.

COSTELLO: Rachel, that's not going to happen. We're going to be talking about deflate-gate all the way through the game.

NICHOLS: Yes, I think that we will definitely continue this as the topic of conversation. And you will see a lot of camera shots of those footballs on Sunday although just so everybody knows, the procedure for footballs is different for the Super Bowl. This is not new for this year. This has been going on for a long time. There are 100 footballs that are gathered for the game. They are with the league all week. They are not with a particular team and they're supplied and kept in the custody of the league. At least we know that the footballs being played this Sunday in the Super Bowl are legit. If they're not, it's the NFL's fault.

COSTELLO: Rachel Nichols, Chad Brown -- thanks so much for being with me. I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking some other top stories for you at 56 minutes past. The crashed drone that prompted a Secret Service lockdown on Monday may have been a drunken mistake. According to sources, the high flier being interviewed by the Secret Service is reportedly a U.S. government employee who admitted to throwing a few back before taking off.

Marissa Alexander is no longer behind bars. You may remember her case brought new attention to Florida's stand your ground law. Alexander was originally sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing warning shots in the direction of her husband. She says she was acting in self-defense. Her conviction was ultimately overturned under a new plea bargain. She will spend two years under house arrest.

Take a look at this dramatic helmet cam video. Four Fresno firefighters are being hailed as heroes for saving three young girls from an apartment fire. The men were able to locate and remove the kids within four minutes of arriving on the scene. Officials are now investigating why the children were left at home without supervision.

While millions of people dig out from yesterday's record snow, others are simply taking digs. Jeanne Moos is tracking the blizzard jokes trending.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amazing grace how sweet the sound --

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actually, it was the lack of sound that was amazing with New York City streets shut down. One guy laid down in Times Square. NBC's Matt Lauer was able to get down in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And do snow angels.

MOOS: But reporters, beware, not of snowdrifts but of idiots in a car drifting --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Only time will tell. Reporting live from Nassau County --

MOOS: Or snowplow --

UNIDENTIIFIED FEMALE: Sixteen miles an hour gusts here in Stony Brook.

MOOS: Crashing your live shot doing donuts. Storms don't deter dumb criminals.

New York City police arrested a suspect who broke rule number one. Don't break into cars during snowstorm leaving your tracks.

There was no trace left behind of this garden gnome. A reporter for the Salem News posted this 12-hour time lapse video.

In New York and New Jersey, the blizzard that fizzled was mocked. A trace of snow on the lawn, we will rebuild. God help us all.

A few meteorologists even apologized one saying this forecast is deflated as much as New England Patriots footballs.

But there was nothing deflated about the tourists.

(on camera): Where are you, guys, from?

CROWD: Uruguay?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We never see snow.

MOOS: Ever?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ever.

MOOS (voice-over): No wonder they were impressed with our blizzard.

But even a few inches can be treacherous as CNN's Brian Stelter discovered entering the subway.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN: Hurricane most recently --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoa. Careful, careful, Brian.

MOOS: He managed to right himself. But --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Brian, your shot is upside down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We thought you were walking on the roof.

MOOS: Maybe we should let dogs give the forecast.

Check out this Bernice (ph) mountain dog forecasting icy conditions even before the storm hit.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

Another hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.