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Van Flips Off Overpass Near Bronx Zoo; Activist's Location Unconfirmed; Sports Bar Tent Collapses; Defense Plan Alarms Londoners; Witness: Second Shooter in RFK Case; Sudan Attacks South Sudan; Nigeria Shooting Spree; "The Scream" Painting to Be Auctioned; Pit Bulls on President's Joke Menu

Aired April 29, 2012 - 14:30   ET

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

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alison Kosik in today for Fredricka Whitfield.

We begin with breaking news out of New York. As many as seven people have been killed after a van flipped off an overpass on to a transit facility near the Bronx Zoo. Three of the dead are children.

CNN's Susan Candiotti joins me now by the phone. Susan, what's the latest on this?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, it's a terrible, terrible accident, certainly, Alison, but we're hearing from the police that it's either a car or a van with four adults and three children inside, all dead.

They were on an expressway called the Bronx River Parkway, and the car crossed over the median into the opposing lanes of traffic, flipped over the bridge, and fell quite a sizable number of feet. We don't know how far, but it was quite a big drop. No one survived. No one survived.

Now, where this happened, it fell over just inside the southeast perimeter of the Bronx Zoo, which is huge, 265 acres. But it happened according to a spokesperson for the zoo, far away from any public area, not near any animals nor exhibits, nor did it affect any visitors.

In fact, I'm told that if you're a visitor in the zoo, you would not be able to see where this accident occurred. So right now, police are trying to put the pieces of this together to figure out exactly how this could have happened.

Again, a vehicle with four adults and three children inside, dying when their vehicle flipped over the bridge and down, a long way down, right inside the southeast perimeter of the Bronx Zoo.

KOSIK: Susan, let me ask you this, because most of us don't know about the Bronx River Parkway, that it's sort of a 19-mile parkway, isn't it? It's very long and it kind of changes from mile to mile.

What kind of barricades, if any, were sort of near that ramp that the van or the car could actually flip over? Was there anything maybe protecting, keeping that from happening, or was there just such liftoff from the vehicle in the first place?

CANDIOTTI: Well, we're still en route there, so we can't paint the picture for you precisely at this time. All we know is that it flipped off a ramp and fell into this transit facility for the trains that run in that area.

So we don't know how far the drop was. We don't know what kind of protection there might have been on other side of that ramp, that it fell over, or how far it fell. Those are all the details we'll be getting for you. Just as soon as we know more, as we approach this accident scene.

KOSIK: All right, Susan Candiotti, heading to the scene right now. Thanks for joining us.

OK, still no official confirmation from China or the United States that a prominent human rights activist is under American protection in Beijing.

Questions about the exact whereabouts of Chen Guangcheng are swirling just a few days before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives for annual talks with Chinese officials. CNN's Stan Grant is in Beijing.

STAN GRANT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of speculation that, in fact, is behind these walls here at the U.S. embassy. Now, according to an activist, a friend of Chen's, whose spoken directly to CNN.

He says that he brought Chen here after he escaped from his captors in his village just a matter of days ago. And this activist says that he has the photos to prove it.

These photos show Hu Jao and his wife meeting Chen Guangchen. Hu says these were taken just in the past few days.

KOSIK: Back in the U.S., fire officials in St. Louis, Missouri, are launching an investigation after a sports bar tent collapsed during a severe storm over the weekend.

One person was killed, 16 were seriously hurt, and almost 100 others suffered minor injuries. Officials say 50-mile-an-hour wind gusts lifted the tent off of the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF DENNIS JENKERSON, ST. LOUIS FIRE DEPARTMENT: They got hit with the metal pipes, the standards that hold these things down, the wires. We've got electric inside this tent, so it's -- we had a mix of about everything that could have happened here. We had live wires laying on the ground. We've got some severe injuries to quite a few people.

DEPUTY CHIEF JOHN ALTMANN, ST. LOUIS FIRE DEPARTMENT: We understand there was about 100, 150 people under the tent, by the time the weather came in. The music was loud. People had been in attendance in a ball game all afternoon. I don't think they were really aware of the seriousness of the situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Three people are dead. A fourth is missing after an accident during a California to Mexico sailing race. Race organizers say the sailboat likely collided with a much bigger vessel. Rescuers are still searching for that missing fourth crew member.

Londoners say they're shocked to learn that the British Army may set up surface to air missiles in their neighborhood. It's part of security preparations for the summer Olympic games.

The army passed out these leaflets that you're looking at in the east London neighborhood of Tower Hamlet, warning them that they may see anti-aircraft missiles as the games get closer. Some residents say it's an overreaction.

It's one of the great American tragedies, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, but now there's a new account of what happened that night in 1968.

As you know, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to life as the lone shooter, but his attorneys are hoping for a new trial. Among the evidence they may present is the story told by Nina Rhodes-Hughes.

That's her on the left with Robert F. Kennedy. She was there at the Ambassador Hotel the night Kennedy was shot. And in an exclusive interview with CNN, she says there's part of the story the FBI has ignored all of these years. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NINA RHODES-HUGHES, WITNESS TO RFK ASSASSINATION IN 1968 (via telephone): There were more than eight shots. And interesting that you read whatever the FBI issued, everybody said eight shots. Not! I wish there were some recordings of me that night.

I know I did give an interview to someone with a microphone, where I said, there were at least 12, maybe 14, and I know there was, because I heard the rhythm in my head. You know, and I know with the first two or three shots.

I wasn't aware, as I said, I thought they were flash bulbs. What has to come out is that there was another shooter to my right and Robert Kennedy was also to my right, where Sirhan Sirhan was almost straight ahead and a tad to my left, standing on some steel plat -- you know, raised platform and that there were two shooters.

That must come out, and who they were. It must come out who the other shooter is, because there definitely was another shooter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Now, Rhodes-Hughes was never called as a witness in the original trial, but she says she just wants to get her story out. A federal judge is reviewing that story right now. I'm going to be speaking with Nina Rhodes-Hughes in our 5:00 hour. One of the world's most iconic works of art is up for sale. We'll find out why the last privately owned version of "The Scream" is going on the auction block. An author who has a connection with the painting talks to us live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOSIK: Happening overseas today, fighter jets from Sudan attacked military units across the border in South Sudan.

Soldiers and this TV news crew ran for cover during the air strikes. Several South Sudanese troops were hurt. South Sudan split from Sudan last year, after a long civil war.

The two nations are still at odds over where the border should be and how to share oil production.

Elsewhere in Africa today, a campus shooting free at a university in Northern Nigeria. No word yet on casualties, but witnesses say gunman opened fire and threw bombs inside a lecture hall used by Christians for Sunday worship services. Police are on the scene. We are, of course, watching for more details.

It's haunting and has fascinated many. We're talking about Edgar Munch's iconic painting, "The Scream." On Tuesday, one version of this famous artwork will be up for sale at Sotheby's in New York.

Sue Prideaux knows this painting very, very well. She's the author of the biography, "Edvard Munch: Behind The Scream." She joins us now from Chicago.

Sue, hello. How are you?

SUSAN PRIDEAUX, AUTHOR, "EDVARD MUNCH: BEHIND THE SCREAM": Hi, Alison. Fine, thanks.

KOSIK: What is it about "The Scream" that's really created such a fascination just overtime? Even so much though that -- that there have been thefts of this artwork, one from the Oslo Museum itself.

PRIDEAUX: That's right. That's right. Well, I think it's one of the world's icons, isn't it, along with the Statue of Liberty and the Mona Lisa. It just relates to us all. To me, it relates to how we all feel at 3:00 in the morning.

KOSIK: We all want to rip our hair out, right?

PRIDEAUX: Exactly.

KOSIK: It's the last privately owned version of the painting. So why is the owner selling it at this time?

PRIDEAUX: It is, indeed. Well, the owner is selling it. He feels that it's such a great thing. It really should be in the public domain, rather than in private hands. And with the money that he's raising, he is going to build a new museum devoted to the work of Edvard Munch.

KOSIK: Tell me your connection to this painting.

PRIDEAUX: Well, my great uncle, my grandfather's brother, was Cole Thomas Olson. And he was a great friend and patron of the artist, Munch. And when Hitler came to power in Germany in 1983, Hitler hated what he called degenerate art, which was any modern art like Picasso, Van Gogh, Munch.

And he confiscated these works of art from museums and he said he was going to either sell them or burn them. And so Munch went to Thomas Olson, and he said, save my children. So Olson bought Munch's paintings, including "The Scream," which he bought in Sweden in 1937.

Brought I back to Norway, where he lived, and then, of course, in 1939, Hitler invaded Norway and occupied Norway, and so what Olson did, very cleverly, he collected up his paintings, including "The Scream," took them in very innocent-seeming vehicles to his farm north of Oslo, and there, would you believe it, they spent World War II in a hay barn, completely safe.

KOSIK: That's amazing. Why do you -- do you know why Munch created four different versions of "The Scream"?

PRIDEAUX: Well, his own answer to that, with he would get quite cross when people asked him that. He said, look, Raphael's allowed to paint a lot of Madonnas, why can't I paint more than one "Scream." He said, such an important theme, I can't just work it out on one canvas. And if you look at them all, they're all quite different.

KOSIK: Yes, yes, they are. So this painting is going to auction at Sotheby's this week. What is going to be the opening bid for it?

PRIDEAUX: Well, they have put the highest ever pre-sale estimate on it, which is $80 million, and frankly, I think the sky's the limit. It's going to be the only chance anyone gets to buy "The Scream."

KOSIK: All right, Sue Prideaux, thank you so much for joining us. Very interesting.

PRIDEAUX: Thank you.

KOSIK: This guy is trying to make a break for it. He's a drug suspect being transferred through an airport. He didn't make it though. I'm going to tell you how he got caught, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOSIK: And you're looking at some new video from our affiliate New York 1. This is part of the scene of that terrible accident off the Bronx River Parkway, where a car or a van flipped off of a ramp, falling into a transit facility near the Bronx Zoo. That's according to the New York Police Department.

All the victims, the NYPD says, were inside the vehicle. The crash happening right near the zoo, which is quite large. No animals or visitors at the zoo were affected, but you're looking there at some aerials of the area there and of police investigating the scene right now.

This accident apparently happening around 12:30 this afternoon. As we get more information, we will bring it to you.

And we are also getting new details today about that bunker standoff near Seattle. It ended yesterday when the SWAT team blew a hole in the underground mountain bunker and found the body of Peter Keller.

He was accused of killing his wife and daughter. Here's what they found once they got inside the bunker, supplies of food and other things, but mostly a lot of guns.

Police said that Keller had been dead for some time. He hadn't been seen for a week since the death of his family. Police he died from a self-inflicted gunshot.

In Arizona, it was like the scene from a Hollywood movie. U.S. Airways employees are being hailed as hero after nabbing an escaped prisoner at the Phoenix airport.

The drug suspect was being extradited from Detroit. He managed to remove an ankle bracelet and get away from two deputies. Airline workers eventually caught him on the tarmac as he was trying to steal one of those trucks that pull airplanes.

Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown is facing a tough challenge in his re-election bid, but it seems he may have grabbed a few more supporters with a long shot. Take a look.

Yes, that was him sinking a half-court shot while visiting a community center in Massachusetts. You can see that the kids went wild and mobbed Brown. Great reaction, great support. Though, unfortunately for him, none of those kids can vote.

On the menu at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, pit bull jokes. Coming up, you'll hear President Obama's take on what the real difference is between a hockey mom and the dog breed with a bad reputation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOSIK: Severe storms in St. Louis, Missouri, turning deadly this weekend. One person was killed and more than a dozen people were seriously hurt after a 50-mile-an-hour wind gust tore through a sports bar tent.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is now in the CNN Weather Center. Gosh, Jacqui, the hail with this storm also causing a lot of damage, right?

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It was amazing. Take a look at the pictures we have for you, Alison. This is out of O'Fallon, Illinois. Numerous reports of softball to baseball-sized hail. Lots of damage, it knocked out windows and windshields on cars. This is from Kathy Bollington in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville had very large hail, golf ball to baseball-sized hail reported in that area as well. So there were about 220 severe hail reports, all across the Midwest.

And when we say severe hail, we're generally talking about 1-inch in diameter or more, and that's about the size of the quarter. So when we're talking about tennis ball-sized hail, baseball-sized hail, that's almost 3 inches across. That can do a lot of damage.

When that's coming down at you at about 150 miles per hour from tens of thousands of feet above, that can cause a lot of damage and certainly injure you, and why you need to stay inside when there's a severe thunderstorm warning because hail can be deadly and damaging as well.

We're watching for threats of hail today. Right now, just general showers and thundershowers across the Midwest, but there is a chance this afternoon that things will get kicking across parts of Texas, Oklahoma, into Colorado, and then stretching into some of these same areas, including St. Louis. We have this frontal boundary that's been parked there and bringing such an incredible difference in the temperatures too.

Look at those 50s and 60s in the northeast, while we're looking at near records in the southeast with those 80s. One other top story we do have to mention besides those cool temperatures in the northeast too is we've got a lot of heavy rain and flood threat going on across parts of South Florida. Miami-Dade County could get up to 8 inches in the next 48 hours.

KOSIK: All right, thanks, Jacqui Jeras.

For one night, all the dirt of politics, all the scandal, all the one- upmanship is played for laughs. I'm talking, of course, about the Annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Last night, President Obama put pit bulls on his joke menu. Here he is taking aim at his GOP critics who recently the dug up one of the president's own admissions that he was fed dog meat as a child in Indonesia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Even Sarah Palin's getting back into the game, guest hosting on the "Today" show, which reminds me of an old saying. What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? A pit bull is delicious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Last night's dinner was Obama's fourth as president.

And checking today's top stories. A tragic accident in New York, seven people were killed when a van flipped off an overpass and fell into a transit facility near the Bronx Zoo. Three of the victims were children. All of those killed were inside the vehicle. We're going to be having a live report soon from the scene. That's coming up.

Planning a trip with your family can be consuming, especially if you're looking for places to stay that allow pets. But one vacation hot spot that's going to the dogs is South Carolina's Hilton Head Island. CNN producer, Jaime Maglietta reports for this week's "Travel Insider."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MAGLIETTA, CNN PRODUCER: Hi, I'm Jamie Maglietta. I'm producer at CNN, and this is Rambo, our little mini poodle. My husband and I, we live in Atlanta, Georgia, and we've been looking for some pet- friendly vacations, good for Rambo. Our favorite is Hilton Head, South Carolina. Go get them, Ram.

(voice-over): If you're looking to book a pet-friendly trip, I suggest you search for pet-friendly hotels or rentals at bringfido.com. Out of all the web sites, this one is the most reliable.

We booked a condo instead of a hotel for a low rate. Just keep in mind that if you bring Fido, it could cost more. Some places require a dog fee.

And if you want your pooch on the beach all day, plan your Hilton Head trip before Memorial Day or after Labor Day. During the summer, your pup can only be on the beach leashed before 10:00 a.m. and after 5:00 p.m.

If you think planning a dog vacay is hard, think again. Besides hotels, there are also pet-friendly restaurants. We found a few in Hilton Head that offer a dog menu.

And consider this, if you travel with your pet, you don't have to find someone to watch him. And Hilton Head made it easy to enjoy a weekend away as a family.

(on camera): That's Hilton Head, South Carolina. I'm Jamie Maglietta, CNN. Rambo!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSIK: And that's this week's "Travel Insider." Again, the web site Jamie Maglietta searched for, for her trip was bringfido.com.

Coming up at 4:00, I'll talk politics with Ron Brownstein and look ahead to the week in business with a market analysis. Also, more from Fredricka Whitfield, who's on assignment in New Orleans at the Jazz Fest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The voice of the wetlands is not just a stage name, but instead it symbolizes their commitment to the Louisiana coastline. Face to face with them, coming up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Stay with CNN. "YOUR MONEY" starts after the break.

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