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CNN NEWSROOM

Metro-North Train Too Fast?; New Video of Walker Crash; Sales Tax Online; Coaches Behaving Badly; Loyal Customer? Your Prices Could Rise; Fighting for the Rights of Chimps

Aired December 3, 2013 - 09:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The Paul Walker crash. New video and a new perspective.

ANTONIO HOLMES, CRASH WITNESS: There's nothing. We tried. We went through fire extinguishers.

COSTELLO: Walker's father speaking out saying he's proud of his son.

PAUL WALKER SR., ACTOR'S FATHER: I'm just glad every time I saw him I told him I loved him.

COSTELLO: Plus, seismic Seattle. Seahawks fans so loud they registered on the Richter scale.

And animals are people, too. No, really, they are. The new push to get chimps the same rights as human.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

Investigators now say a train that derailed in the Bronx killing four people was going nearly three times the posted speed limit. The train's event recorders clocked at going 82 miles per hour when it should have been going 30. So the big question this morning, why was it going so fast?

CNN's Rene Marsh is following the investigation from Washington.

Good morning.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The focus today, speed and the train's brakes. As you mentioned, why was this train going so fast? This morning that's the critical question investigators have for the train's engineer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): NTSB investigators continue searching for clues this morning and questioning train engineer William Rockefeller for a second day in hopes of learning why this Metro-North train was going so fast.

EARL WEENER, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: The train was traveling at approximately 82 miles per hour as it went into a 30- mile-an-hour curve.

MARSH: That's nearly three times the speed limit for this curving stretch of track. The train's speed is even higher than the maximum speed of 70 miles per hour in the straightaway north of the crash site.

Deepening the mystery, the NTSB says the train inexplicably went from 60 to 82 miles per hour in two minutes before hitting the curve and jumping the tracks.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: For a train to be going 82 miles an hour around that curve is just a frightening thought.

MARSH: Mechanical problem or human error? It's still too early to tell. Investigators say the train made nine stops before jumping the tracks and there were no reports of brake problems. According to a law enforcement official, Rockefeller said he tried to brake but the train didn't stop.

The 20-year railroad veteran appeared coherent, another official said. Results of drug and alcohol tests are not yet known.

The NTSB will also look at whether fatigue was a factor.

WEENER: We will be developing what we call a 72-hour timeline so that we have a good understanding of what sort of activities preceded this accident.

MARSH: Sources tell CNN Rockefeller's phone records have been subpoenaed but based on a preliminary review, it's not believed the engineer was on his phone at the time of the derailment that killed four. Among them, Jim Lovell, who was commuting to work on Sunday morning.

FINN LOVELL, VICTIM'S SON: My dad was not a victim. He was a loving father, a great dad, best friend, uncle. I am so proud and blessed that I was able to call him my father.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: So not only was this train going too fast, but power to the engine wasn't cut and brakes were not applied until seconds before the train came to a stop. That is far too late. And today investigators, they are evaluating the train's brakes. But they say there's no indication that they were tampered with. The NTSB's interview with Rockefeller, it was cut short yesterday because of his emotional state. We know it resumes today.

And, finally, Carol, we the Bronx District Attorney's Office is now involved. So if any criminal charges are brought, the Bronx D.A. will likely be the one to do it.

COSTELLO: Rene Marsh, reporting live from Washington this morning.

Now to the sudden death of "Fast and Furious" star Paul Walker. Drag racing has now been ruled out as the cause of that deadly car crash.

This morning new surveillance video to show you. This was obtained by "OMG Insider. It shows the moment that Walker's Porsche slammed into a light pole on Saturday. The video appears to refute claims that another car was involved.

One witness said nearby -- said nearby drivers pulled fire extinguishers from their cars and ran towards the vehicle to try to extinguish the flames.

Overnight friend and co-star Vin Diesel broke his silence during a visit to the crash site. He thanked fans for their support over a police loud speaker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIN DIESEL, ACTOR: Thank you. Thank you for coming down here and showing that angel up in heaven how much you appreciated him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Also new this morning, Walker's father choking back tears as he remembered his son's life and legacy during an interview with CNN affiliate KCAL.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: I was proud of him every day of his life. He was always doing stuff for us. Big gestures. His heart was so big.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Autopsies for Walker and the driver, Roger Rodas, who was also killed, are scheduled for today.

CNN entertainment correspondent Nischelle Turner is in New York with more.

Good morning.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Carol.

You know, you talked about that new video from "OMG Insider." It seems to show the moment of impact of the crash. And so while sheriff's -- the L.A. County Sheriff's Department continues to investigate what happened, friends, family and fans of Paul Walker and Robert Rodas continue to mourn.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) TURNER (voice-over): Fast cars and high octane driving. The keys of the "Fast and Furious" franchise. And possibly the cause of death for one of its own stars.

Investigators say they believe the fiery crash that killed Paul Walker and a friend on Saturday involved a single speeding car. His "Fast and Furious" co-star Vin Diesel visited the crash site Monday night. He addressed a crowd gathered at the memorial.

DIESEL: Thank you for coming down here and showing that angel up in heaven how much you appreciated him. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TURNER: "OMG Insider" obtained this surveillance video showing the moment the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT, driven by Walker's racing team partner Roger Rodas, slammed into a light pole.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have confirmed two DOA.

TURNER: The L.A. County Sheriff's Department investigated and ruled out a tip that the crash may have been the result of a street race. An eyewitness backs up that conclusion.

JIM TORP, PAUL WALKER'S FRIEND/CRASH WITNESS: When they passed us, there were no other cars around them at all. And there was only one car and we were listening for it. And when they -- you know, when they hit it a little bit, you can hear their exhaust. There's only one car.

TURNER: The pavement where the crash occurred is scorched with skid marks, though it's unclear if those were left by the car Walker was riding in. And law enforcement sources say the oval-like street has a reputation for being popular with fast drivers.

Walker himself spoke about the kind of dangerous driving depicted in the "Fast and Furious" back in 2001.

PAUL WALKER, ACTOR: There's nothing to be worse than 120-mile-an-hour blowout on a surface street, you know, with pedestrians lining up and down. You know, it's just -- it's just common sense. It's just not worth the risk factor.

I'm in St. Mary's Hospital. I've got a baby on a ventilator who needs a rescue team.

TURNER: Walker's new movie "Hours" will open as planned on December 13th. He'd been working on the seventh installment of the "Fast and Furious" series at the time of his death. The future of that film now in question.

But this ominous scene has been leaked online showing Walker at a funeral.

TYRESE GIBSON, ACTOR: Promise me, bro. No more funerals.

WALKER: Just one more.

TURNER: Walker leaves behind a devoted fan base, friends and close- knit family. His dad says they are overcome with grief.

WALKER: As a father, that's a fear you always have, that one of your children will go before you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TURNER: Now I will tell you, Carol, early on sources close to Paul Walker were telling me that they did not believe in any way, shape or form that street racing or elicit drag racing had anything to do with this crash. They said that Paul had a motto. And he was a race car driver. They said his motto was cars are to be raced on the track and not on the street.

I also spoke with one of his representatives yesterday who says they are still trying to work out plans for a memorial and also the autopsies for both Paul Walker and Robert Rodas will be performed later on today.

COSTELLO: All right. Nischelle Turner reporting live from New York this morning.

A massive eight-alarm fire lit up the early morning sky in Boston today. The situation now under control but firefighters are still battling flames in the five-story commercial building. Boston Fire Department tweets that everyone who was inside escaped safely without injury.

Now to a legal decision that could have a big impact on your money and the U.S. -- and the U.S. states that want them to collect sales taxes from you. And that means you're probably going to pay more.

I'm talking about being taxed on your Internet purchases. I'll put it more simply for you.

CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans is in New York to tell us why that's more likely this morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Internet shopping taxes, Carol. You know, Monday was the biggest online shopping day ever, the very same day the Supreme Court decided it would not hear a case regarding something that affects all -- everybody who shops online, sales taxes, and you should be paying those sales taxes.

In order words, folks, it was probably the last Cyber Monday without sales tax for millions. It's the biggest issue in retail.

States want tax revenue, Carol. Online retailers want tax-free shopping. Brick and mortar retailers want the online guys to have the same rules as the stores. Shopper, we were all lured online by no tax in the first place. And now the Supreme Court has punted on this. States lose about $23 billion a year in uncollected sales tax, so the states want to find ways to get that tax revenue from Web retailers. The Supreme Court decided not to get involved in appeals, Carol, from Amazon.com and Overstock.com. The court let stand a ruling from a New York court requiring that Internet retailers collect sale taxes even if they have no physical presence in the state.

This effectively ends, Carol, ends tax-free shopping online for many people and it gets other states thinking about how they can bring in more tax dollars, too -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Christine Romans reporting live for us this morning. Thanks.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Let's talk a little sports now, shall we? Seattle Seahawks fan base has done it again.

Loud, right? Fans set another Guinness World Record for crowd noise during Monday night's game against the Saints. But that's not the coolest part. All that yelling and stomping actually registered as an earthquake in the one to two magnitude range. That's according to a professor from the University of Washington.

That is insane.

Something else insane. You know that old saying in sports if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying? And while we're used to athletes crossing the line to get the upper hand, two head coaches are in trouble for cheating, or allegedly cheating, I should say.

We have new video to show you this morning of the Pittsburgh Steelers' head coach Mike Tomlin allegedly stepping on to the field on purpose on Thanksgiving night to deliberately interfere with a player returning a kickoff.

This, in addition to NBA coach Jason Kidd's last-minute stunt of spilling a soda. Actually he told a player to bump into him so that soda could be spilled on to the floor because he was out of timeouts.

Andy Scholes is here to tell us which man is the bigger alleged cheater.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Well, you know what, the Mike Tomlin controversy here, I was on the other side. I was like I was just watching the Jumbotron, you know, he --

COSTELLO: (INAUDIBLE).

SCHOLES: He wandered out on the field. It was an accident. But this new video, you can clearly see him take a huge step to the right, closer to the field, if you check it out again. If you watch the left side of the screen closely, when Jacoby Jones gets closer to the sidelines, Tomlin takes a huge step to the right.

Now this has me thinking -- you see, right there? This has me thinking well, maybe he planned it all along. COSTELLO: Maybe.

SCHOLES: But who knows? He could be in for a very hefty fine as we're hearing from the NFL. They're talking maybe six figures, maybe taking a draft pick away from the Steelers. So that's some serious stuff, so in the NFL's mind, I'm guessing they think it was intentional.

COSTELLO: I'm just wondering why Jacoby didn't ran over him.

SCHOLES: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Couldn't you run over him? It's like you want to step on to the field, Coach? Well, there you go.

SCHOLES: Yes, now that had been definitive evidence right there.

COSTELLO: Exactly. That would had been apt punishment.

OK, so, we were wondering this morning, because we've been talking about this and we were comparing this to the Kidd incident on the basketball court where he had a player run into him and he spilled the soda on the court to go on timeout. That was clear cheating in my mind. There was no -- I mean, you -- I mean you could see his lips move. That was cheating. So the NBA fines him what? $50,000?

But the surprising thing to me is all of the support that he's been getting for his actions. Other NBA players saying, everybody does that.

SCHOLES: He's -- I mean, he flat-out admitted it, yes, I did it. But I probably shouldn't have. But this end, it was funny, Mark Cuban afterwards tweeted, we've seen this before. And he actually tweeted the video of Adel Harris, a former NBA coach. He's actually an assistant with the Chicago Bulls, did it in a game that Jason Kidd was in when he was playing with the Mavericks. So he maybe learned that trick from one of those old coaches and it's been done before.

It of course frowned upon but --

COSTELLO: But accepted, celebrated even, I just find that kind of appalling because I'm naive.

SCHOLES: I mean, it was quick thinking at the time.

COSTELLO: Come on.

SCHOLES: Again. Like you said, you ain't cheating, you're trying, well, you know.

COSTELLO: But it happens in football, too. So in your mind, Mr. Sports Guy, who is the bigger cheater?

SCHOLES: Well, we're still not sure if Tomlin really meant to step on the field. So you got to go with Jason Kidd right now.

COSTELLO: OK. I'll take that.

(LAUGHTER)

I'm still up in the air, too.

Andy Scholes, thank you. We'll see you in a little bit.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the White House getting ready to roll out a new Obamacare PR campaign. CNN's Brianna Keilar at the White House this morning.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Carol. With some improvements to healthcare.gov under his belt, President Obama is making a pitch once again for his signature health care program. But is it too soon? I'll have a live report coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking our top stories at 18 minutes past the hour.

Another deadly shark attack in Hawaii. A 57-year-old man was bitten as he was fishing from a kayak in Maui. The man's feet had been dangling over the side of the boat -- the side of the kayak rather. The friend who was with him wrapped a tourniquet around the man's leg, tried to get help from a passing charter boat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM DUNAWAY, WITNESS: We all helped to get the entire kayak with the body into the boat. My wife who is a physician determined as well as she could that the person had passed away some time before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: There have been 13 shark attacks in Hawaii this year alone.

A 58-year-old mother seriously injured and rushed to the hospital after a rare black bear attack in central Florida. The woman was walking her dogs when she was attacked. But she managed to escape the bear and called 911. Officials are now searching for that black bear.

Hong Kong officials have confirmed that the city's first case of bird flu. A worker has been hospitalized and placed in critical condition after contracting the potential deadly disease. One hundred thirty- five cases of bird flu have been reported in China since October. Of those cases, 45 people have died. Hong Kong is currently on high alert.

Today, a federal job is expected to rule on whether or not to allow the city of Detroit to allow Chapter 9 bankruptcy. If allowed, it would be the largest city to file in U.S. history. Detroit's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, has argued the city has nearly $18 billion in debt that must be seriously reduced to help get the city back on its feet. The judge's ruling is expected to come down 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

Here is a bizarre reward for being a loyal customer at your supermarket: higher prices. That's right. Thanks to a growing trend called personalized pricing, stores are keeping track of what you might buy next and how much you're willing to pay for it. The result? Paying a different price than the person next to you for the exact same item.

Alison Kosik is live at the New York Stock Exchange.

This doesn't seem fair to me somehow.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: OK. So, before you think it's unfair -- listen to this. You may want to, instead of thinking of it as higher prices for being a loyal customer, you may want to think of it as the lower prices that you can actually get.

So, just to make it clear, the sticker price on the shelf for everybody would be the same. But your previous shopping habits, that would dictate how big of a discount you would get off that price. To give you an example, Safeway has this app called Just For You. What this app does is it gives customers discounts based on what they've bought before, tracked on their club card.

So, let's say you frequently buy, I don't know, Tollhouse Cookies. What the store may send you a coupon for Pillsbury ones. Kroger has a similar program

Now, because these membership and loyalty programs are voluntary, no case can be made for discrimination. But these programs still have plenty of critics who are concerned that they cater more to those in a higher income bracket because not a lot of lower income people have iPhones or computers to get these coupons.

Then, there's a privacy concern. Some people don't like to be tracked on their every purchase. But what most supermarkets seem to say in this case is they say, consumers seem to be okay with their data being tracked as long as it means in the end that they're saving money -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Wow! That's different.

Alison Kosik, thanks for making it clear. We appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: giving chimps the same rights as people. One activist has filed an unprecedented lawsuit that could redefine what is considered a person.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It may sound like a farfetched idea, giving a captive chimpanzee the same rights as humans. But an activist group has filed a lawsuit on behalf of four chimpanzees. The Nonhuman Rights Project argues chimps should be recognized as legal people.

CNN's John Berman has more for you. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It may seem like an unusual statement, that an animal should be recognized in some ways as a person.

STEVE WISE, PRESIDENT, NONHUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT: We understand that they have choices, that they can make in how they want to live their lives.

BERMAN: Steve Wise founded the Nonhuman Rights Project, a group that says based on scientific evidence, chimps deserve some of the same rights as humans.

WISE: We want to show that the chimpanzees also have autonomy and that means that they can choose to live their lives in the way that they want, similar to the way that we can choose to live our lives the way we want.

BERMAN: In a landmark lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court, they want civil liberties for chimps held in captivity.

LONI COOMBS, FORMER CRIMINAL PROSECUTOR: They're using a time-tested legal maneuver called habeas corpus which means "free the body". It's been used throughout the years to free people from what's considered an unjust incarceration. Essentially under the law, a legal person doesn't have to be a human being.

BERMAN: The suit was brought on behalf of four chimpanzees being held in the state of New York. One of the chimps is 26-year-old Tommy, who lives caged on his owner's property in Gloversville.

WISE: No chimpanzee should live the way Tommy lives. He is in chimpanzee solitary confinement jail. All he can see is one bleak day after another in front of him, just the way we would if we were in solitary confinement.

BERMAN: CNN reached out to Tommy's owners but have received no response. The 91-page memory dumb filed by the NHRP refers to Tommy as a person illegally imprisoned, demanding he and the others be relocated to sanctuaries and says this court must recognize that Tommy say common law person, entitled to the common law right of bodily liberty.

WISE: We intend to file a wide variety of cases in which we argue again and again that certain nonhuman animals, such as Tommy, are so complex or autonomous they should no longer be seen as legal things without any rights.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That was CNN's John Berman reporting.

Now, CNN did reach out to all four of the chimps' owners in New York state and heard back from one. It's Stony Brook University where they have two chimps living at a research center. And they tell us, quote, "Stony Brook University has not seen any papers on this legal matter and, therefore, is unable to comment on the reference lawsuit," end quote.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it's fast, furious and quite dangerous. The Porsche Carrera involved in the crash that killed actor Paul Walker is known by experts as a car that's very difficult to drive. So, why is it allowed on the road? We'll ask a couple of professionals next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)