Transcripts For KGO Good Morning America 20140125 : comparem

Oh, and good morning, everyone. Dan is taking some well deserved time off. But its great to have nightline anchor dan abrams joining you. Its been a while since weve been together. Nice to be with you on another chilly day. Yes. Extremely cold. I want to take you away from that. It is great to be here, but take a look at this. From freezing cold to giant waves, giant. Up to 50 feet high. Oh, my gosh. Not a weather story, one of surfings biggest events. Weve got all the highlights from the gnarly mavericks competition at half moon bay. Its in california. Just hearing dan abrams say gnarly. Is that a legal term . I didnt even sort of give it my full sort of effort. Oh. Were just getting the show started this morning. Thats our biggest tease coming up. Weve had a lot of coffee as you can tell already. Thats one of the few bodies of water not frozen in this country, by the way, after looking at that. Theres a lot more cold weather coming up. Well get to that in just a few moments. We do begin with a stern warning for u. S. Olympic athletes. With the games now less than two weeks away, theyre being told to be more low key and not wear their red, white and blue colors around sochi where they could be prime terror targets. Plus, the u. S. State department has a new travel alert right now. Abcs kirit radia is in sochi with more. Reporter good morning, bianna. Imagine youre an olympic athlete, youve trained your whole life and you finally made it here to sochi to represent your country. But now for security reasons, even the u. S. Government is warning you and the rest of team usa to avoid looking too american in public. Team usa may have new outfits designed by ralph lauren, but the u. S. Olympic committee wants athletes to be careful where they wear them. In a security memo to athletes, the Committee Suggests they not wear their team logos outside the olympic zone. The fear is that americans could become targets. That advice came straight from the u. S. State department. We generally give this kind of guidance around Big International events, particularly if there is some kind of threat like weve seen here. Reporter that threat appears to have grown in recent days. The sochi olympics were already on edge after russias most wanted terrorist urged his followers to attack the games and again just a few weeks ago when twin bombings rocked a nearby city, but the state department issued a new travel alert on friday warning americans about reports of socalled black widows. Russian authorities are hunting for a woman they say is a suicide bomber who slipped through the massive security ring. Its enough for some olympic athletes to tell their families to stay home. He wanted us to stay home so that he wouldnt have to worry about us, one less thing to be concerned about. Reporter others say theyre taking precautions. Were big fans of the buddy system on our team, so thats you know, for starters we have that. Other than that, were going to be pretty sheltered staying in the village where we are. Reporter and i have to say, theyre taking security extremely seriously here in sochi. The stadiums will be on lockdown, and the u. S. Government will have security teams with the athletes at all times. Dan and bianna. All right, thanks, kirit. Now to the dangerous and relentless arctic air covering the midwest and northeast. Its plunging temperatures to record lows with snow and ice even in the deep south. Were happy to have meteorologist bill evans from abc here in new york with us tracking it all. Hey there, bill. Good morning. Nice to be here. Thank you very much. That cold air has worked its way all the way down into the deep south all the way down to mccomb, mississippi. Now, im from mississippi, and i can tell you, when it snows there, its a big deal. First thought i saw it snow there, i thought the grits factory had exploded. Were looking at what will be snow all across that area. Brittany from wabttv sent that in. Thats our fine abc affiliate there. Well, across the country, were seeing a deep ridge of arctic air coming in. We take you now to where that deep arctic air has been surging in in san antonio, texas, and houston. Yes, thats one of houstons finest trying to navigate the ice. We take you to san antonio where its very slippery on roadways and highways. Expressways have been filled with ice. Its tough driving there. They dont get to do it that often, and they dont get used to it. So theres been accidents everywhere. Sterns county, minnesota, we take you there. Well, there theres been accidents all along the roadways. This is another one in a series of snow events that have been coming through the area. It looks like detroit is going to set an alltime record snowfall for the entire season. So as the snow comes from chicago to Detroit Heading eastward today, another round of snow showers, 1 to 3 inches are going to be common across the area throughout the ohio valley into the northeast. This arctic blast is another in a series that will come in dropping these temperatures to some dangerously low levels. 1 and 2 below for chicago. Tomorrow and monday. Minneapolis 23 degrees below on monday, and you see its cold, boston all the way down to atlanta. Well talk more about that coming up. Bianna, back to you. Neverending winter season. I want to hear more about that grits factory, bill. Youre going to have to tell us about that. Ill fill you in. Well turn now to a social media milestone. Grunge rocker Courtney Love winning a decision in the first ever twitter libel trial. A jury saying the singer did not defame one of her former lawyers in a tweet. Abcs linzie janis has the details. Take everything reporter this morning, the queen of grunges legal headache is finally over after a los angeles jury decided in her favor. The case, which has become known as the twibel trial, the nations first libel trial that started because of a tweet. They really want you the verdict handed down after three hours of deliberation as the jury weighed eight days of testimony centered on the social media postings of late nirvana front man kurt cobains widow. In this 2010 tweet, Courtney Love suggested her lawyer, Rhonda Holmes, had been, quote, bought off when she wouldnt help love in a legal battle with the managers of the late cobains estate. Love told media outside of the l. A. Courthouse that it was her fame that landed her in front of a judge. Famous people tend to just pay people and just pay people and just pay people. I didnt know if the system works, and it does. Reporter love was at times emotional on the stand and told the court shes useless with computers, thought she was just sending a direct or personal message and quickly deleted the tweet that she called, just an opinion. The attorney for holmes said that despite being awarded nothing by the jury, his client was the true victor in this case. A jury of her peers have determined on listening to all the evidence that Rhonda Holmes was not bought off. Well, holmes had been suing love for 8 million in damages. And, dan, you know better than anyone why this trial was seen as so significant. Well, it was the judges ruling early on that made this so important. It was by the judge saying, im going to let a jury decide this case, and as a legal matter im going to treat what you write on twitter the same way that we would treat something that you write in the new york times. Thats what made this so important, and it became the first case based on a tweet that went to trial. Because he could have just dismissed this from the getgo. Absolutely. And said, no, were still going to go forward. Many people thought he might and treat the two differently. So is this indicative of future cases, were such a social media driven world. Well, in particular, based on what people say on twitter, right, the awful things people sometimes say on twitter and how offended people get, i would expect well see a lot more cases. The moral, dont tweet if youre emotional or drunk. Yes, be quiet. Three times. Yes, yes. Dont drink and tweet either. Right. Okay, thanks, linzie. Time now you heard ron, yeah, at the other end. With a piece of advice. Good morning to you, bianna and dan. Good morning, everyone. In the news a california man has been detained in egypt where bombings have rocked cairo on the third anniversary of that countrys revolution. Overnight a car bomb blew up outside of a Police Headquarters there in cairo, and on friday an Al Qaeda Linked militant group claimed responsibility for four bombings that killed six people. Meanwhile, 26yearold jeremy hodge, a translator from los angeles, and an egyptian filmmaker that he was with have been arrested. No word on why. And in ukraine, violent antigovernment riots overnight as protesters set fire in the capital city kiev. The interior ministry is now accusing the demonstrators of capturing two of its officers. The unrest has spread across this Eastern European nation with protesters seizing a government building in another city. Ukraines president is now promising a government reshuffle. And on wall street, stocks ended the week taking a slide or rather a bit of a nosedive on friday. The dow jones fell 318 points closing below 16,000. That is the biggest oneday loss since back in june of last year. The dow is now down almost 500 points just over the last two days as investors fear a slowing global economy. And a federal judge has ordered a texas hospital to remove a brain dead pregnant woman from life support. Marlise munozs husband told the judge that his wife had made it perfectly clear to him that she did not want to be kept alive if she were ever in this condition. The hospital had argued it is required to keep treating a pregnant woman as long as the fetus is viable. They now have the hospital until monday to take her off of life support. And in sports chinese tennis star li na has won her second grand slam title with a victory over slovakian Dominika Cibulkova at the Australian Open down under. Na won in straight sets. 60, in fact, in the second set. In 2011 she won the french open to become the First Chinese woman to become a major tennis title. Finally, arod may not have to put away his cleats just yet. Despite being suspended from Major League Baseball for the Upcoming Season he has another possibility. The torrington, connecticut, titans, a new England League are offering him 5,000 along with free coffee and all the doughnuts that he can eat to be their batting coach. Not a bad deal but a far cry from his yankees salary, which is about 25 million bucks a year. I have a funny feeling he is not going to take this offer. Maybe it wouldnt be a pr move that was bad. Something to do for awhile. Exactly. A way to kill a baseball season. Right . You got to figure something out. Did they specify the brand of coffee because that could be a deal breaker for me. Dunkin donuts, i believe. Dunkin im in. Thank you. Youd do it for that . She would. 5,000 bucks. I would have done it for free. Know anything about baseball . I dont think the offer stands. You never know. Dan, you never know. All right. Im just saying. Call sara, guys. Shes good. You know what, its a local doughnut shop. Ive been corrected. Thanks, duly noted. Well turn now to another shooting on a school campus. A South Carolina State University Football Player is shot dead leading to an entire campus on lockdown while Police Search for the killer. Well, this morning, a break in the case, and abcs Michelle Franzen is here with the overnight developments. Michelle. Reporter this week alone there were campus shootings in three different states, the latest at South Carolina State University claimed the life of a popular Football Player and sent police on the hunt for the gunman. Police made an arrest early this morning following a massive manhunt for suspects in the shooting death of a South Carolina State University Football Player friday. State Police Say Suspect Justin Bernard singleton was taken into custody in orangeburg and charged with the murder of brandon robinson. [ sirens ] the campus is locked down. Our students are secured and safe. Reporter the university, located 40 miles from columbia, went into lockdown after robinson was found shot inside one of the oncampus dorms. According to the police complaint, the suspect was seen arguing with robinson and pulled a gun and fired. The schools president tearfully mourned the loss. We, again, are extraordinarily sad about this. He was a very nice young man, and it hurts. Reporter friends and fellow Football Players say robinson was a great player who wanted to go pro someday. Its a shame when tragedy occurs. My condolences, you know, a shoutout to his family. They didnt deserve it. He didnt deserve it. You know, he was a goodhearted dude. Reporter this latest incident marks the third campus shooting just this week. Monday outside philadelphia, a student was injured after being shot at widener university. A day later at purdue university, police say an engineering student shot and killed a fellow student. Police at South Carolina state are now working to reassure students and parents that the campus is safe. And to help them do that, grief counselors have been brought in for students, and, meanwhile, there could be more arrests. Police are still searching this morning for the remaining suspects. Thanks, michelle. Now to the former Virginia Governor and his wife appearing in court for the first time, both accused of accepting pricey gifts and loans in exchange for political favors. Abcs jeff zeleny has the latest from washington. Reporter a republican power couple. Thank you. Reporter former Virginia Governor Bob Mcdonnell once set his sights on the white house. We need a big change this november. Reporter his wife, maureen, a Washington Redskins cheerleader turned first lady. So thank you all. The great people we have in virginia. Reporter partners in marriage and politics. Make room. Reporter but this morning, prosecutors say the mcdonnells are partners in crime. Come on, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. Reporter they appeared in court friday pleading not guilty to fraud and corruption charges. Theyre accused of using the prestige of the Governors Office to help launch a Business Venture for a wealthy virginia donor in exchange for lavish gifts, vacations and big loans. Prosecutors say Maureen Mcdonnell went on a madison avenue shopping spree while the donor picked up the tab. There were Oscar De La Renta ball gowns, armani dresses, handbags from louis vuitton, even a rolex watch inscribed 71st governor of virginia. A grand total of at least 165,000 in gifts and loans. The alleged payback was promoting the donors dietary supplement company. Mcdonnell says he committed no crimes. I will use every available resource to fight and prevail against these false allegations and the unjust overreach of the federal government. Reporter the prosecutors must prove the governor gave special treatment to the company. Im glad ive got great friends and family. Love you, governor mcdonnell. Thank you. Reporter the mcdonnells after 35 years of marriage could now face even longer prison terms. Now weve covered a lot of political scandals over the years, but this may be the first one that centered around a first lady and a shopping spree. But lawyers tell us prosecutors must prove that the governor gave special and improper treatment to that virginia businessman, and that could be a much more difficult legal burden when this case goes on trial in july. Bianna. Dan was saying just that, this could be a difficult case to bring forward. Yeah, this is not an easy case because of that exact reason. Right, okay. Our thanks to jeff. Well, were going to switch gears because theyve helped generations of kids learn their numbers and a, b, cs. Well, now theyre on a new mission to convince tots to eat the color of the rainbow all with the help of a new character abcs reena ninan is here with more. I like the new character. There is a new friend on sesame street, dr. Rooster teaching kids around the world now heading to the u. S. To whip the sesame street gang into shape and teach kids what it means to live a healthy life. Cookie monster . Mmmm. Reporter how about veggie monster. Because you also got to eat fruit or veggies or meat if you want to be healthy and strong yo reporter the famous sesame street characters may be trading in their favorite treats. Only cookies all wrong reporter for some healthier options hoping that young viewers will follow in the footsteps of their furry friends. And i am here with the world famous dr. Rooster. Reporter meet the newest addition to the sesame street family. Keep our body healthy and strong. Reporter mt. Sinai cardiologist dr. Valentine fooster partnered with the sesame street workshop to teach children around the world healthy habits. The results, a muppetized md fashioned after himself. Look, the rooster says to the muppets, first of all, take care of yourself. Health is important for your life. Reporter my old friends on sesame street may be getting a mini makeover. Well, give me five. I am so impressed. But will regulating the blue monsters cookie intake really do the treat . Ah cookies reporter when it comes to kids health, a threeyear experiment in south america put dr. Foosters theories to the test. We decided to teach health over a period of 70 hours in 6 months, and the results of this project have been outstanding. Reporter the study presented to the American Heart Association in november shows t