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After-Christmas Sales Starts; UPS Blasted for Christmas Delivery Failure; American Hostage Pleads for U.S. Help; Americans to Congress: You're the Worst; Controversial Parenting Stories of 2013; Target: No Evidence PIN Data Was Hacked
Aired December 26, 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: LeBron's amazing dunk after dunk after dunk. King James heating up the Lakers Miami style.
And this. Queen B, Bieber, "Breaking Bad," the must-see, most talked about, tweeted, Facebooked, Vined, Instagramed, Snapchated entertainment stories that got us talking on 2013.
NEWSROOM starts now.
Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.
Christmas presents open. Wrapping paper discarded. Now it's time to buy more stuff, and retailers are certainly ready. They're offering massive discounts to get you through the door. Savings up to 70 percent in stores like Saks Fifth Avenue. Best Buy is offering a free iPhone 5c with a two-year contract. Amazon has 32 inch TVs for just $180. And Sears is offering 40 percent off appliances over $500 if you pay with your Sears credit card.
In the meantime thousands of angry families are still waiting for their gifts to arrive. UPS is in full damage control mode as irate gift givers take to social media blasting the shipper over ruined Christmases.
We're covering both stories for you this morning.
Margaret Conley is outside Macy's Harold Square in New York, eyeing those deep discounts. And Nick Valencia is eyeing the outrage at UPS.
But let's start with you, Margaret. Lots of people in the stores?
MARGARET CONLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, today is the day for deals and discounts. Now Christmas sales were down about 3 percent compared to last year, but that hasn't stopped a lot of stores from extending their hours and offering more discounts.
You mentioned a few of them. Toys 'R' Us, they're open for 14 hours today. Wal-Mart, they're offering sales 25 to 50 percent off, and JCPenney, they're giving out coupons. Macy's right here in Harold Square, they were open at 6:00 a.m. this morning. And here's what the shoppers had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From Australia. And we're here to do a little shopping and feel the tourist attractions. And yes, we're going on a helicopter flight over New York today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we're from Sweden and we're going back home today. And we had one shirt and it was the wrong size, the wrong figure. Everything was totally wrong. So we had (INAUDIBLE). He was coming home and he was just, oh, my god. It's so small. I can't have this one. I will look like a sausage.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go to Saks to do -- you know, biggest store.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You hit that store. My son is at Champs and I'm over here getting some things, you know, some last-minute gifts, and we're just having a good time doing it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CONLEY: Now those returns can be costly for retailers, Carol. On average, retailers can get about 2 to 10 percent in returns.
COSTELLO: All right. Margaret Conley, thank so much.
And while excited shoppers are hitting stores, enraged customers are lashing out at UPS. Many gift givers are treating the shipping firm like the Grinch who stole Christmas going online to vent what they believe is an epic fail. UPS couldn't get all the packages delivered in time for the holiday, blaming the weather and high demand.
Don't blame the drivers, though. One driver told "USA Today" he delivered 505 packages on Monday alone. He said, this has been the worst Christmas ever. Some people are pointing fingers at customers. Trade Tricks tweeted, "People should shop and ship earlier. Don't say #upsfail for poor planning. There are 364 days in a year so take responsibility for your actions."
CNN's Nick Valencia joins us now and -- I'm sure UPS is hoping lots of customers feel that same way but there's a lot of anger out there, too.
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So many enraged. And this is an issue for thousands of people. We've heard from a lot of them on social media and thousands of viewers still looking out your front windows waiting for your UPS driver to arrive with those Christmas gifts that didn't quite make it under the Christmas tree.
UPS and FedEx apologizing to scores of angry customers today, but the two companies say it's not all their fault.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VALENCIA (voice-over): UPS trucks are back out in full force this morning trying to deliver packages that were supposed to be delivered by Christmas morning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I waited around for hours and hours for it to show up and it never did.
VALENCIA: Thousands of gifts not delivered on time waiting in UPS warehouses to be shipped. UPS says they've already delivered an estimated 132 million packages in the last week alone. Blaming the backlog on an unprecedented surge in online sales and bad weather.
UPS released a statement saying, in part, "The volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our network, immediately preceding Christmas so some shipments were delayed."
But many are still unhappy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they're still blaming it on the ice storm which was 2 1/2 weeks ago. It's terribly disappointing because we ordered these things on December 1st.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got to the front of the line after waiting for about an hour and they said it hasn't been processed yet.
VALENCIA: Disappointed customers stormed online customer support tweeting, got same message. Still waiting for the response from this morning along with my granddaughter's Christmas gift. And, "Busy during December? Who would have thought it, #BunchofClowns."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you doing today?
VALENCIA: UPS isn't the only delivery company experiencing delays. People lined up at this FedEx shipment center in Oregon on Christmas day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They left me a note and I thank God they're open so I can go to my parents and give my mom her gift.
VALENCIA: Meanwhile, UPS says they expect the vast majority of packages to be delivered today.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VALENCIA: And it's not just UPS and FedEx that are in trouble with their customers, it's those online companies, Carol, that rely heavily on their services. Amazon.com, for instance, they say they're going to be refunding shipping charges, sending out gift cards, $20 gift cards. So who knows what the estimated impact for their company is going to be financially but they're trying to make up for this blunder.
A lot of people very upset this morning -- Carol.
COSTELLO: You know, if they had just sent out some kind of message saying --
VALENCIA: Right.
COSTELLO: You know, we're backed up. Your gifts may not get there in time, just a warning. VALENCIA: And it's not just gifts, Carol. It's medications for people with diabetes, insulin, important medications that people rely on. So this is a big deal. It goes beyond the superficial Christmas gift.
COSTELLO: Yes. And we did reach out to FedEx and UPS this morning. No response yet.
VALENCIA: We're waiting to hear back.
COSTELLO: Yes, we are. Nick Valencia, thanks so much.
VALENCIA: You bet.
COSTELLO: A Christmas cruise has taken a turn for the worst. A Polar Expedition ship is trapped in ice near Antarctica. None of the 74 passengers on board has been hurt and three ice breaking ships are now heading their way. Help could be at least a day away, though, but luckily the passengers have plenty of food on board while they wait.
It is the day after Christmas and thousands of people are waking up to another day without power, but there is some good news for those in Michigan. The power is slowly being turned back on. Power crews are braving ice and freezing temperatures to get those lights back on and the heat, too. One man says instead of calling to yell at the power company, do something nice for the hard-working crews.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RANDY HARLESS, LOST POWER IN STORM: The more you get upset about it, try to argue with somebody at customer service to get the power back on. It's not going to help. Just wait. Let it happen. If you see a crew out here working, you know, treat them nice. Bring them some coffee. You know, see what you can do for them because it's cold out here. They're stuck out here. So be nice to them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Yes. It's not their fault.
Chad Myers is keeping an eye on the cold and icy conditions. He's live in New York this morning.
Good morning, Chad.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Carol, good morning. Not only was it icy and the power is out, but it has just been brutally cold. Look at the last three mornings in Detroit, 23, 12, and 11. We're up towards Burlington. This entire area, right through Toronto, where Hydro Canada just put so many power lines back up I didn't even they can count them all.
All the way back up to Burlington where the morning low yesterday was zero. Now it is going to be warming. This is the coldest of the rest of the week. We warm up a little bit. I'm talking three to four degrees. So barely getting anywhere. But when the power lines come back, at least your heat comes back. Silver City up in the UP for the upers, 16 inches of snow in 24 hours. At least they had power there.
Some snow coming into New York, into Binghamton, also into Scranton, into Buffalo. No big surprise the snow is going to move into Buffalo.
Could see some delays across the northeast. There were some deicing. I think you're going to have to get some of that light snow off the plane's wings anyway.
And then on up toward Maine we'll see some snow. The next couple of clippers coming down from the northwest. I do believe there is a potential for a storm to run up the East Coast and really mangle Sunday afternoon and Monday traffic here especially if it gets cold enough. We'll have to see.
Every progressive storm is just a couple of degrees colder so what was a rain event two weeks ago will now be a snow event as we see highs only in the 30s, even Chicago 15. But it feels like right now in the windy city it is windy. It feels like zero -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Just makes me shiver.
Chad Myers, many thanks.
Also this morning, a heartbreaking plea from an American who was taken hostage in Pakistan more than two years ago. In a video released by al Qaeda on Christmas day a former U.S. government contractor, Warren Weinstein, calls on President Obama to negotiate his freedom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN WEINSTEIN, AMERICAN TAKEN HOSTAGE IN PAKISTAN: Now I need my government. It seems that I have been totally abandoned and forgotten.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: CNN's Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon with more on this story.
Good morning.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Worth recalling what happened to this man working in Lahore, Pakistan as a U.S. government contractor. 72-year-old Warren Weinstein was taken captive, kidnapped out of his house when gunmen broke in and overpowered his security team.
The head of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, claimed responsibility for that attack. There have been previous videos, photos, signs of life but this latest video shows Weinstein really in pretty poor shape. He is a man who is making a plea for help. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WEINSTEIN: I'm now over 72 years of age. I'm not in good health. I have a heart condition. I suffer from acute asthma and the years have taken their toll. I have been cut off from my family. My wife, who's over 70, my two daughters, my two grandchildren, my son-in-law and perhaps new members of the family whom I have never met.
Needles to say, I have been suffering deep anxiety every part of every day, not knowing what is happening to my family, not knowing how they are and because I am not with them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: This 13-minute video obviously made under some conditions of duress as he is being held. No response yet from the Obama administration, but he does make that direct plea to the president, Secretary of State John Kerry and the American public for help in getting him out of there. Al Qaeda has been asking for a release of its prisoners in exchange. No reason to believe that the U.S. position has changed, which is it does not negotiate -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon this morning. Thanks so much.
Still to come on the NEWSROOM. "Duck Dynasty" and white privilege Jesse Jackson takes aim at the show's star and his controversial comments next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: The Reverend Jesse Jackson weighs in on the "Duck Dynasty" flak with some harsh words. He says Phil Robertson's controversial comments about gays and African-Americans smacked of, quote, "white privilege". The decision by A&E to suspend Robertson ignited a firestorm on both sides of the issue. Organizers of an online petition are calling for his return, reportedly close to its goal of 250,000 signatures.
Next year's midterm elections may be a big deal for Washington, but for much of the nation's voters it's shaping up to be one big snooze fest. That's according to a new CNN/ORC poll which showed 43 percent of registered voters are not enthusiastic about voting in the upcoming election, that's compared to 30 percent who say they're jazzed.
And when it comes to who voters prefer in office, Democrats appear to be losing ground. Forty-nine percent now say they would choose Republicans in the midterms up seven points from just October. Democrats coming in at 44 percent. That's a decline of 6 percentage points.
But before Republicans get too giddy about their lead over Democrats, there's one other number we should point out. A majority of Americans think the people running Washington are the worst ever.
Story from our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Freshmen Angus King and Joe Donnelly just wrapped up their first year in the Senate. Their take on the institution is telling.
SEN. ANGUS KING, JR. (I), MAINE: It's still pretty bad that we haven't been able to get more done.
SEN. JOE DONNELLY (D), INDIANA: The more cooperation we can get, the better off we'll be.
BASH: A new CNN/ORC poll shows 67 percent, 2/3 of the country, call this the worst congress of their lifetime and nearly three-quarters of those people, 74 percent, have lived a long life, they're 50 and older. Seventy-three percent say Congress has done nothing to address the country's problems.
(on camera): The public approval of Congress is still pretty low. Does that surprise you?
DONNELLY: No, because what we see every day on television is deadlock, and fights and screaming. What you don't see every day is large groups of both Democrats and Republicans coming together saying, how can we work through this process?
BASH (voice-over): One thing that is bipartisan, the blame, the public doesn't trust either party. Fifty-two percent say policies of Democratic congressional leaders will move the country in the wrong direction. Republican leaders fare only slightly worse, at 54 percent saying the GOP will move the country in the wrong direction.
Moderate Republican Susan Collins spent the year organizing bipartisan discussion to solve big problems. She wants Americans to have hope for 2014.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: I hope that the American people will realize that there's some of us who are trying to build bridges and bring people together and solve problems.
BASH (on camera): Congress did leave for the year on a higher note than when it started, passing a bipartisan budget through the House and Senate. Several senators told me they had people coming up to them all over their states thanking them for being reasonable.
One told me that first, he thought it was a nice compliment but then realized that's a pretty low bar.
Dana Bash, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And in about 15 minutes, our political panel will take a look at the impact of a tough political year on Washington and how Republicans are trying to purge their party of, quote, "fools".
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, whether kids were making questionable choices or just doing the right thing. We've got all of this year's most controversial stories for parents. That's coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: Some of this year's most controversial stories involved kids and the decisions they made. A 6-year-old boy who chose to kiss a girl, a teen punished for going to pick up a friend who was drunk, but another story that got everybody talking was an essay in "TIME" magazine about choosing not to have children and the judgment involved in that decision.
Earlier, I asked CNN correspondent Kelly Wallace why the child-free life and other parenting stories struck such a nerve this year.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY WALLACE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: So much of the discussion is about moms, right? We talk about working moms versus stay-at-home moms, how many kids moms are having. We don't often talk in a national way about women who choose not to have children.
And I really applauded "TIME" magazine for this article because I think too often, and I will admit, I'm sorry to say, sometimes I even think about it, when I first hear a woman who says, I don't want to have kids, we make a judgment.
But you know what? There is a growing number of women who are saying, I don't want to have children and it should be OK and I shouldn't be judged for it.
COSTELLO: Well, a CNN iReport went viral on this topic. I want to read you a portion of one woman's report to CNN. She said, quote, "I have a hard time identifying with people who do have children and have been the brunt of many of their judgments. I have been called selfish, materialistic, and worse, I don't believe that I am selfish by any means. I think it would be far more selfish to have a child for the wrong reasons.
Now, Kelly, you know I also chose not to have children. And many times people will say to me, do you have children? I'll say no. They'll say, oh, I'm sorry. What's wrong with you?
WALLACE: Right. They'll think something's wrong with you. They'll think, are you selfish? They'll think, wow, maybe you can't have children and you're not revealing that.
And when we talked about this story months ago I said, people never come up to me and said, Kelly, why did you have children, right? They don't flip the question. It's assumed, of course, every woman wants to have children and I think it's important for us to respect the judgments of every woman whatever decision she wants to make.
COSTELLO: That's why I like you so much, Kelly Wallace.
We also -- we also saw a 17-year-old boy suspended for a year simply because he hugged a teacher. That story, too, got people really worked up for obvious reasons, I guess.
WALLACE: Obvious reasons, Carol. We've seen a number of these stories where people say, are you kidding me? After a hug, the kid gets a year long suspension?
There are people who say in some ways they feel that schools have the zero tolerance policy against certain things but that it goes in the way of common sense and any of those kinds of stories that we saw this year really got people fired up because they say, you know, years ago the principal might have called the mom and said, you know, maybe he shouldn't have hugged the teacher. Now, he's slapped with a year-long suspension.
COSTELLO: But you're right. There are a lot of these stories, a lot of them happened this year. We all heard about the 6-year-old who kissed the girl on the hand.
WALLACE: Yes.
COSTELLO: He was charged with sexual harassment and it went on his school record.
The school later changed, you know, I guess the charge to misconduct but you talk about common sense and you wonder why schools come to these conclusions.
WALLACE: And you know what's been hard, actually, is reporters on these stories, it's not always black and white, right? There are always sort of these gray areas. In the case of that 6-year-old Colorado boy, the mom said, oh, the girl was fine with it. She considers him boyfriend/girlfriend, but the girl's mother reportedly said, no, the girl isn't fine with it and she wants him to cut it out.
So you often hear a little bit more to these stories. And schools I think sometimes feel limited about how much they can communicate because of, you know, fears of lawsuits or complaints. So, we don't always get all the facts.
And once you hear all the facts, there might sometimes be more understanding of the school's decision.
COSTELLO: Well, the other thing, it's really confusing to students, even teenagers. For example, in Massachusetts, a 17-year-old honors student was suspended bus she went to pick up a drunk friend at a party. The school said she violated their zero tolerance policy.
She was trying to do the right thing.
WALLACE: I know. And this one is saying, what message do we want to send our kids, right? If a girl's friend calls her up and says she's drunk, can you come get me and take me home, should she be thinking, well, no, I shouldn't go to that place. Alcohol is being served. There's a zero tolerance policy. If I go, I'll get suspended from playing volleyball?
Of course not, right? She wants to help a girl saying, I'm drunk, I can't get behind the wheel.
So, it's important we all think that schools -- we understand their policies. We understand their rules, but I think common sense in a lot of these cases needs to prevail. At least that's what the general consensus has been online.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Thank you, Kelly Wallace.
For more families about family, career and life you can head to Kelly Wallace's page on CNN Living.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
COSTELLO: OK. So, we have some better news to pass along to you about Target and that massive hacking scandal that went down a couple of weeks ago.
Alison Kosik is in New York.
This involves the PIN data.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right. So what's been happening now is "Reuters" has been reporting possibly, in addition to the 40 million credit cards and debit cards that were possibly put at risk because of this hacking at Target that "Reuters" is also reporting that possibly PIN numbers could have been at risk as well.
But Target just coming out with this statement now saying that Target is in very early in an ongoing forensic and criminal investigation being conducted by law enforcement and an independent forensic team -- to date, there's no evidence that unencrypted PIN data has been compromised.
But, once again, this "Reuters" report is saying the direct opposite. It's quoting its source saying that that could have been the sort of impetus for JPMorgan Chase to limit how much its customers could withdraw from ATMs and how much money they can spend.
So, this sort of -- we're hearing two different stories. Target saying no PIN data was compromised -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And the reason this is so important is because if someone has your pin number, they can use your credit card or your debit card at will.
KOSIK: That and/or they could just -- you know, the crooks could just dip into your -- let's say you have a debit card linked into your checking account, that crook could then get into your checking account possibly and take out money. So, yes, I mean, it's a huge red flag. Hopefully Target is right in saying this. We shall see because, you know, this is still in the early stages of the investigation.
You have to remember, this happened over a three-week period from November 27th through December 15th when these hackers got into these cards. So, every time you went to a target during November 27th and December 15th, you could have been at risk if you use your debit card or credit card, Carol.
COSTELLO: Yes, I'm just rereading this statement that you read to our viewers and it says that this investigation is being conducted by law enforcement and an independent forensic firm. Target says unencrypted PIN data has not been compromised.
So, we'll just assume they're right. We'll see.
KOSIK: We shall see.
COSTELLO: Alison Kosik, thanks so much.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM: the current Congress has managed to go where no one before them has gone, at least in the minds of the American voters. A new CNN poll shows most of you think this Congress is the worst ever. We'll break down the numbers for you.
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