[Alison Kosik, Cnn Anchor:] Good morning, I am Alison Kosik.
[Carol Costello, Cnn Anchor:] And I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining. It's 9:00 on the East Coast, 6:00 out West, this is NEW DAY SATURDAY. And we begin this morning out West where temperatures this weekend could climb to a staggering 129 degrees.
[Kosik:] Incredible.
[Costello:] That's the forecast for Death Valley.
[Kosik:] I know. It's got Phoenix and Las Vegas, they're not going to be much cooler, either. The mercury there expected to hit 118 degrees.
[Costello:] The heat wave already causing, as you might expect, public health problems, almost 200 people treated for heat-related injuries at an all-day concert in Las Vegas. Thirty others ended up in the hospital. So guess what officials are telling people to do? Drink water.
[Kosik:] Stay inside.
[Costello:] Stay inside, turn on the air conditioner if you are lucky enough to have one, and they're trying to avoid that worst-case scenario, you know, if the air conditioner goes out, the power grid goes out, that would be awful.
[Kosik:] It is awful out there. Our Casey Wian is in Palm Springs, California. Casey, you know, it's really hard to imagine these super hot temperatures. Try to help us understand how really hot it is.
[Casey Wian, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, Alison, yesterday it tied a record temperature of 118 degrees here in Palm Springs, but what is really incredible how long throughout the day this heat lasts. At 7:30 last night when I got done with dinner, it was 113 degrees. At 5 o'clock this morning, when I was on my way over here, it was still 88 degrees. So it hardly cools off at all, at least relatively, at night. It's really, really hot. Today the forecast expected to be 120, 121, and that could set another record. You can see over here we have got some golfers who are out here early to try to beat the heat. This golf course tells me that on a normal day in the summer, they get a little more than 100 players reserving tee times. During the winter they get as many as 600. Today they have just got 42. People are definitely planning on staying indoors. Another issue that this heat is causing is with aircraft. Private airplanes have been grounded in the Palm Springs area because it's just too hot to fly. Here is what one expert told us.
[David Shapiro, Aviation Expert:] We will be out of business this afternoon. It's just going to be too hot to fly. When it's 110, 115 degrees, the air is thinner, and the thinner the air the less lift on the airplane. We can get it off the ground, it's not that we can't, you just shouldn't.
[Wian:] Now larger airports like the Palm Springs International airport, they say they are still operational and they are designed to handle the heat. In fact, they say they have got a lot of tourists coming in from places like Europe, places like Canada, people who actually come here seeking these incredible record-high temperatures, Alison and Carol.
[Costello:] I can't believe you are wearing a nice shirt. I would be in a tank top. Do you at least have shorts on?
[Wian:] I don't have shorts on. I didn't pack any for this trip, if you can believe that. I was prepared for something else. But it's all right, we will stay cool today.
[Kosik:] Good luck with that, Casey.
[Costello:] Oh, you are not kidding. So, Alexandra Steele, how long does Casey have to suffer with these long pants, the only thing he has packed?
[Kosik:] [Inaudible].
[Alexandra Steele, Ams Meteorologist:] The funniest thing was what you said to him, Carol, was what I was like, I wonder what he is wearing? What is happening down there? Are there shorts or flip flops? He is going to actually have to endure an incredible amount of heat and for a very long time. That's the problem with this heat wave, the duration of it to the extreme and the length of time. And here's why. It's a jet stream extreme, really, an explosion. Here's the jet; we have got this ridge in the west. Now high pressure, sinking air. That's what that means. That means compressing air, and that means the air warms. It's kind of like pumping up your bicycle tire and then when you touch the rubber on the tire it kind of feels warm to the touch, that's what is happening out there. Degrees, it's not just a record for the day or a record for the month. Some of these places, with eight states seeing some type of heat advisory for the next couple days, are going to hit temperatures that they have never seen before. And I will show you a few places. So Phoenix right now waking up early, walking out the door, 93. Phoenix should be at 107 this time of year, so they are in the hundreds usually. So they are used to that. But flirting with 120, 118 today, two degrees shy, it only has been 120 in Phoenix since records have been kept three times, and you can see all the way through Wednesday still at 110. Places like Las Vegas, right now, waking up, going in, coming out, whatever you may be doing, 90 degrees there. Now Vegas should be at 103, but well above that as well. And here are the records, 116, the high temperature. These are the records, 115, 115, and 116; Saturday, Sunday and Monday, well above that. And certainly warmer, 117 on Sunday will be the all-time record high that Vegas has ever been at. So it's incredibly substantial, these temperatures. Death Valley, all right, here is where we stand. Now no one lives in Death Valley. Carol mentioned that. She's right. It's the largest national park in the U.S., about 3.4 million acres of desert, but 128 today and 129 tomorrow, and you guys, the highest temperature ever recorded on the planet, 134, and it was actually almost 100 years ago to the date that we hit this temperature here.
[Costello:] No wonder nobody lives in Death Valley.
[Steele:] A lot of sightseeing to be done, though, you know. So but to give you some more perspective, if you order a rare steak, the internal temperature is 125; 130, the medium rare steak. So they are cooking out there any way you slice it.
[Kosik:] [Inaudible] piece of meat today [inaudible].
[Costello:] I actually was hoping Casey Wian would try an egg on do the old fry an egg on the sidewalk.
[Steele:] He probably has never done that as a reporter. So [inaudible].
[Costello:] Oh, no, never. Thanks, Alexandra.
[Steele:] Sure.
[Kosik:] Jurors are getting the weekend off in the George Zimmerman murder trial.
[Costello:] A good thing, too. It has been a busy week for them. They've been hearing from witnesses all week about what they heard or saw the night George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. Some neighbors actually witnessed part of the fight, others approached Zimmerman immediately after the shooting. CNN's Martin Savidge is outside the courthouse in Sanford, Florida, to tell us more. Good morning, Martin.
[Martin Savidge, Cnn Correspondent:] Morning, again, Carol. Yes. There were a number of key witnesses that took the stand yesterday and one of them was Jonathan Manalo, and what makes him really crucial in this case is that he was the first person to go up and speak to George Zimmerman literally seconds after that fatal shot that killed Trayvon Martin. So he is the first to interact with him, the first to even ask anything, and one of the points that the prosecution wants to make is what is George Zimmerman's state of mind, because that's crucial to try and to convict him on second-degree murder, which is why Bernie de la Rionda, the prosecutor, was very aggressively going after this particular witness, because he wanted to get at what was George saying, and was there anything strange about the way he was saying it. And the point that is brought up is a phone call this witness made on behalf of George to George Zimmerman's wife. Here is the exchange.
[Jonathan Manalo, Zimmerman's Neighbor:] I said your husband has been involved in a shooting, he is being handcuffed and he's going to be held for questioning at the Sanford Police Department. And around that time he kind of cut me off and he says, "Just tell her I shot someone."
[Bernie De La Rionda, Prosecuting Attorney:] OK. When you say he cut you off, the defendant cut you off?
[Manalo:] Yes.
[De La Rionda:] And he told he said what, now?
[Manalo:] "Just tell her I shot someone."
[De La Rionda:] Did you respond to that?
[Manalo:] Yes.
[De La Rionda:] What did you say?
[Manalo:] "OK, well, he just shot someone."
[Savidge:] And the prosecution is trying to point out that isn't that kind of an odd phone call or a way to summarize what has been just a tragedy taken place? Of course, the defense tried to come back and say, well, it wasn't that odd. But key testimony, again.
[Costello:] Well, you know, Alison and I were talking about that, and everybody I am sure Zimmerman was in shock after that happened, right? And everybody reacts in a different way.
[Savidge:] Correct. Yes. And I think that that's the point that the defense was trying to bring out, and in fact the defense came back and talked to a number of police officers that also talked to George very quickly after that event, and they said, well, did he sound strange? No. Was he combative in any way? No. Did he refuse your orders? No, he didn't. And did he sound angry? No. So that's how the defense countered and said it might have been an unusual-sounding phone call but that doesn't mean that in any way his mind was off or he was deranged.
[Kosik:] All right. Martin Savidge in Sanford, Florida, thanks.
[Costello:] Next hour, friends and family will begin to gather for the funeral of Odin Lloyd.
[Kosik:] And while they mourn him, the man accused of killing him, former NFL player Aaron Hernandez, sits behind bars along with two of his so-called confederates. Our national correspondent Deborah Feyerick is in North Attleboro. Deb, at this point do investigators know about a motive? Do they have any idea why Hernandez would have allegedly done this?
[Deborah Feyerick, Cnn Correspondent:] You know, that's exactly what they are looking into right now. The big question: did Odin Lloyd have information possibly linking Aaron Hernandez to that double drive-by murder that happened last summer? And did Hernandez fear that perhaps he was in jeopardy of losing this 50 this 40 million-dollar contract, I should say?