At home. The rock icon talks politics, family, and beauty of workinwith people hes loved for decades. Its friday, october 25th, 2019. Heres todays eye opener, your world in 90 seconds. The wind coming down the canynyon from here, is sounded like a rocket. I could see the whole structures on fire. Im not getting stuck behind that. Thousands flee from californias wildfires. It was outpacing us, and we just couldnt really keep ahead of it. Mike pence weighs in on the nba versus china saga. In silencing free speech, the nba is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime. Reporter the Houston Astros have fired their general manager for a locker room outburst at female reporters. The truth is the comments were inappropriate, and we werent going to tolerate that. Confronted by two young performers at a new york bar. I would to stand four feet from a [ bleep ] rapist and nobodys going to say anything. Attorney general william barr has launched a criminal investigation into how the russia probe looking into the 2016 election got started. Laughter turned to horror after a bear attacked its handler. The vikings versus the redskins. A College Baseball player dressed as tom hanks has gone viral. Run, forrest, run. And all that matters you are an unflappable master interviewer. R. Kelly yes i never thought that he was going to hurt me, guys. He was spitting, the spit fell on my lip right here. Oh no thats what i said. On cbs this morning. Democrats are prepping. Public hearings on the case for impeaching President Trump as early as midnovember. Just in time to ruin thanksgiving. Hi, aunt margaret, can you pass the turkey . Trump was right about turkey and ukraine, witchhunt, you want gravy with your honey baked scam, honey . This mornings eye opener is presented by brought to you by toyota lets go places. Thanksgiving conversation could be interesting this year. Fun around there we love our relatives. Welcome to cbs this morning. Were going to begin with this the wildfires that are raging in california. Theyve damaged or destroyed dozens of homes and other buildings, punishing santa ana winds spread flames through curb divisions in southern california. Now the socalled tick fire is burning out of control near santa clarita, north of los angeles. Thats one of 13 active wildfires burning in california. More than 200,000 people in the state have been evacuated from their homes. Carter evans is in santa clarita. The house right behind you is burning as we speak. Reporter this home right now is fully involved. Take a look. You can see the fire in the window upstairs. Firefighters making entry right now. Now this fire had calmed down this evening. The wind had calmed down, and then all of a sudden right around 1 30, 2 00 a. M. , the winds picked back up. The fire exploded again, and this is what you get. Now heres the main problem. You see all these flying embers in the air . The concern, these embers could land on another home and catch it on fire. And in fact, thats whats happened down the street. We also have another home where firefighters are making entry. The goal now to try and keep more homes from catching fire. Everybody in this community had to evacuate overnight. The firefight in the canyons north of los angeles continued into the night as structures burned forcing evacuations. Dozens and dozens of families on this block here. Reporter the fire started just before 3 00 p. M. , quickly growing into a major threat. Gusty winds are blowing these flames through the canyon. You can see fire erupting as it hits heavy brush. The concern are the homes on the other side of this hill. Its nerveracking. Pretty scared right now. Reporter when we spoke with maree hill, the fire was just 50 yards from her home. She barely had time to get back from work to rescue her dog. Just started crying really hard thinking, oh, my god. Shes at the house. Weve got to get her. Reporter after offshoot of the same fire shut down a major freeway, destroying at least one home. Firefighters were juggling multiple blazes throughout the day. Sometimes their best option was to take a step back. The brush is essentially a lost cause. Were going to let it burn. Until it starts affecting peoples homes, thats when were going to step in. Reporter statewide utilities cut power to more than 209,000 customers to minimize the fire risk. In Northern California the cause of the kinkade fire which consumed more than 10,000 acres is still unknown. Pg e says a hoevoltage transmission tower had not been turned off and broke near the source of origin. The transmission line was not among the lines we deenergized in Sonoma County. We still at this point do not know exactly what happened. Reporter back live, firefighters inside on the first floor, on the second floor as we tilt up. You can see this house still fully involved. Flames erupting out of the roof. This is a big concern. This is not the only home to burn in this fire. May not be the only home to burn tonight. All of this took off a couple of hours ago. Firefighters rushing to the scene. People rushing to get out of their communities. Firefighters here trying to put out these flames. Tony . Wow. Imagine if thats your house. Incredible pictures there. Please stay safe for us. Thank you so much. Cbs news climate and weather contributor Jeff Beradelli is here what are the conditions looking like for today . The worst is in southern california. Were already seeing wind gusts of 55 miles per hour. Thats where those wind gusts will be for the next several hours. 55, maybe 60 miles per hour. This is where the fire is right now. Right along the 14, as you can see, near santa clarita. You can see the winds coming down the mountain. High pressure is located about there or so. Thats spinning in winds with the clockwise wind flow across the mountains, accelerating downward, causing gusts to 55, 60. Across the state, we have a high wind warning in effect for southern california. And obviously a red flag wind really cranks up behind that cold front. Look at that wind gusts over hurricane force. I think well see gusts to 80 miles per hour, especially in the higher hills and terrain areas as we head into sunday. A very dangerous day in certain parts of Northern California. A lot to be concerned about. Thank you. Cbs news confirms the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation to find out how its own probe of Russian Election interference began in 2016. The fbi and intelligence agencies found russia acted to help President Trumps campaign. But the president claims he was the investigators original target. Paula reid is at the white house. What does there mean for the president . Reporter cbs news has learned that the prosecutor overseeing this case will now have the power to subpoena witness testimony, documents, even empanel a grand jury and file criminal charges. So this is a political win for President Trump who for two years has railed against the legitimacy of the russia investigation, insisting that it was started by deep state intelligence officials who wanted to prevent his election. But in a statement, House Judiciary Committee chairman jerry nadler and house intelligence Committee Chairman adam schiff said these reports if true raise profound new concerns that the department of justice under a. G. Barr has lost its independence and become a vehicle for President Trumps political revenge. Attorney general william barr has closely overseen this investigation. He even traveled to italy to personally secure its assistance. He also asked President Trump to reach out to foreign leaders including australia to ask for their help in this matter. Paula, where could this criminal probe lead, and could there be charges . Reporter its unclear what criminal charges could be filed against the officials who were involved in the early months of this probe. Sources have suggested its unlikely any criminal charges will be filed. But that opening a criminal investigation and gathering just enough damaging information, the attorney could still hand President Trump a political win right in the middle of the 2020 campaign season. All right. Thank you. This morning, nearly all Senate Republicans are backing a resolution condemning the house impeachment inquiry. Senator Lindsey Graham introduced the measure after a demand from the president for more support from his gop allies. The resolution accuses democrats of, quote, denying President Trump basic fairness and due process, end quote. Theres a right way to do it and a wrong way, and this is a dangerous way to do it. He says impeachment is a political process that does not require the same Legal Protection as a trial. Republicans say president bill clintons lawyers were given access to evidence in his impeachment probe and President Trump should have the same privilege. The Trump Campaign has forcefully force fel, rather, responded to a request for an interview with jibe. The former Vice President says its improper for President Trumps children to have offices in the white house. The candidate spoke with cbs evening news anchor norah odom at his home Norah Odonnell at her home. He spoke about his son and the campaign and his standing as a frontrunner. Lets talk about the state of the race because it has tightened. Do you still consider yourself the frontrunner . I know im the frontrunner. Find me a National Poll with a notable exceptions the last four that come out. Look, this is a marathon. Yes. This is a marathon. You can look at the last Campaign Finance filing, we looked at that. You have less than 9 million in the bank. Bernie sanders has nearly 34 million in the bank. Elizabeth warren has 26 million. How do you compete against that . I flat beat them. Were on course to do extremely well. Im not worried about being able to fund this campaign. I really am not, truly. And Norah Odonnells back. Welcome back to the table. Good to be back, hey, guys. What are you thinking, Norah Odonnell, about sunday . Look, its a pretty stunning interview. Its a wideranging interview. You hear the Vice President declaring himself the frontrunner in a poll. He said he got this race because its a bad for the soul of the nation a battle for the soul of the nation. Now its a battle for the soul of the democratic party. Joe biden declares himself a moderate. He says health care for all, what about truth for all . Biden is promising steady leadership. You have warren and sanders promising bold change. Hes fluctuating in the polls. How is he competing against sanders . Hes been consistent in the National Polls. What we see is hes not doing as well in iowa and new hampshire. Strong in south carolina. But this is the larger strategy which is why i asked about fundraising. Biden can do well in the first four states, not necessarily have to win because its about 150 delegates. He has to do well super tuesday. Right, which is about 1,400 delegates. So you need the money for the long haul, and thats where hes having difficulty. How did he respond to the controversy surrounding his son, hunter, and his business dealings with crane . Thats a big part of this interview, as well. Thats also the focus of this impeachment inquiry, right. So the former Vice President insists that hunter did nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong in his view. Then he takes the opportunity to talk about how he would do his own white house differently. The children will not serve in the white house. He specifically attacks Jared Kushner, the soninlaw of the Vice President. When i asked do you think he should be negotiating middle east peace, he said, what credentials does he bring to that . And interestingly enough, as you mentioned, the Trump Campaign put out this lengthy statement late last night by their Campaign Manager defending the qualifications of Jared Kushner to be serving in the white house and negotiating things like middle east peace. Even ivanka who, of course, has an office in the white house, as well the children are off limits. That certainly changed on both sides this time around. Absolutely. Yeah. Is biden doing things differently . He ran in 1988, in 2008 this is his third run for president. Think about that. He turned 77 in november. He addresses the issue of age. He addresses the issue of whether hes slipped at all and the gaffes he makes in debates. He says the debates are a learning curve for him. So well see a lot of that. I think its a wideranging interview, as i mentioned. You see how confidently he said, i know im the frontrunner. Yes, hes confident that not only will he beat his democratic rivals but he will beat trump like a drum, as weve heard. Third time around. Something tells me that the white house will be watching that interview, too, on sunday night. No doubt. Norah, good to see you. Always good to have you here. You can see norahs interview with the president ial candidate and his joe bidens going to be there, too. Joe biden this sunday on 60 minutes here on cbs. The u. S. Is planning to send additional troops to northeastern syria to protect vital oil fields even as American Forces withdraw from the north of the country. If approved by the Trump Administration, a combat unit armed with tanks would be sent into an area along the euphrates river. They would reinforce about 200 lightly armed troops already deployed there to protect oil fields from isis. The syrian regimes main backer, russia, is demanding that all u. S. Soldiers leave the country. The Trump Administration revealed far more Migrant Children were forcibly separated from their families at the border than previously known. The government said in court yesterday an additional 1,556 families were separated before the administrations socalled zerotolerance policy went into effect. It previously identified 2,814 families separated under zero tolerance. So all told, that means more than 4,300 families were separated before a judge ordered the practice stopped. The aclu which is suing the government thinks the number could be even higher. We may find out that there are additional separations. I suspect that we may find that there were separations that slipped through the cracks. The aclu also says its working to reunite the newly identified families. Former president jimmy carter is back home in plains, georgia, after a short hospital stay. The 39th president fell on monday causing a pelvic fracture that his spokeswoman calls minor. Mr. Carter is 95 also fell a few weeks ago. He hurt his eye, and that required 14 stitches at the time. The oldest living president in u. S. History had hip replacement surgery earlier this year after another fall. They dont come more resilient unanimous jimmy carter. Congressman Elijah Cummings will be laid to rest in his hometown of baltimore this morning. Former president S Barack Obama and bill clinton are scheduled to speak. Cummings laid in state in the capitol yesterday. Visitors included fellow congressman and fiscal rights leader john lewis, william barr, Supreme CourtJustice Sonia sotomayor, and Vice President mike pence. Earlier in the day colleagues from both sides of the aisle praised cummings during an emotional memorial service. Elijah was truly a master of the house. He respected its history and in it helped shape americas future. I was privileged enough to be able to call him a dear friend. Perhaps this place in this country would be better served with a few more unexpected friendships. I know ive been blessed by one. Cummings who served in congress for 23 years is the first africanamerican lawmaker to lie in state in the capitol. He died last week at the age of 68. An amazing thing to bring washington together like that. Sure is. Good to see. Two people have been charged with capital murder in the death of a 3yearold alabama girl. Patrick stallworth and Derick Irisha brown are being held without bond. Kamille cupcake mckinney was abducted at a Birthday Party back on october 12th. Her remains were discovered tuesday in a dumpster. The cause of death has not been released. Investigators are still trying to determine a motive, as well. If convicted, the pair could face the death penalty. The Houston Astros have fired their assistant general manager. This follows controversial comments he made after the team clinched the American League pennant. Newly released video shows Brandon Taubman the night the incident happened. Thats when he turned to a group of female reporters in the astros clubhouse and yelled, thank you got we got osuna. Roberto osuna was accused of Domestic Violence in 2018 perfectly joined the astros. The team initially accused Sports Illustrated of making up the story. The astros general manager is now apologizing. That original reaction by the astros was wrong, and we own it as an organization. Earlier there week, taubman conceded he used inappropriate language and said he was embarrasse