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Coast Guard Rescues Man Overboard On Carnival Cruise Ship; Warrant Issued For Friend Of American Woman Who Died In Mexico; China Doubles Down On Strict Zero-COVID Policies As Anger Mounts. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired November 25, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Hey there, I'm Victor Blackwell, welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

We are following an incredible and improbable rescue in the Gulf of Mexico. A cruise ship passenger is alive and responsive after going overboard and floating alone in the water for hours. The man's sister says that she last saw him Wednesday night. They were on board the Carnival Valor. It was around 11:00 p.m., they were sailing from New Orleans to Mexico. Cruise officials searched the ship Thursday afternoon. They discovered the passenger was gone.

Well, the Coast Guard launched a multi-crew search effort by air and sea. A mariner spotted the passenger and a helicopter aircrew -- air crew pulled him to safety. This is a remarkable story. Let's go straight now to CNN's Nick Valencia. He joins me. What more are you learning about the passenger and this rescue?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is a remarkable story. And all the more remarkable here it's got all of his talking here, Victor. It's all the more remarkable when you consider that this 28-year-old man could have been floating alone in the Gulf of Mexico for more than 12 hours, perhaps 15 hours. Realistically, it could have been up to 20 hours when we just got the timeline from the Coast Guard. They tell us that he was a passenger on the cruise ship, the Carnival Valor. They had left on Wednesday from New Orleans bound for Mexico on a five-day cruise.

And later that night, on Wednesday night, he was at the bar with his sister. She says that he -- at one point says that he was going to the bathroom and he never came back. She goes to bed, wakes up, and notifies the crew that he's missing, they check the vessel and it's two hours later that the Carnival Cruise notified the U.S. Coast Guard.

At about 2:30 on Thursday, a search and rescue operation was launched. The boat actually stopped and retraced its route trying to contribute to that search and rescue operation. He was eventually spotted floating in the water by a bulk carrier. And listened to the lieutenant from the U.S. Coast Guard describe what kind of condition he was in when he was found.

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LT. SETH GROSS, SEARCH & RESCUE MISSION COORDINATOR, U.S. COAST GUARD: He was able to identify his name, and confirm that he was the individual that fell overboard. He was showing signs of hypothermia, shock, and dehydration, but like I said, he was ambulatory and communicative but gave really no clear indication of why he fell overboard.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: What do you think might have made the difference? How was he able to survive?

GROSS: Will to live. I think for this particular case, you know, we were we -- we're out there doing what we practice, what we joined the Coast Guard to do. And the fact that he was able to keep himself afloat and above the surface of the water for such an extended period of time, it's just something you can't take for granted and certainly something that'll stick with me forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: And stick with a lot of us forever. The man is listed in stable condition at a local hospital in New Orleans. That same Lieutenant with the Coast Guard telling us that the family was unable to get off the vessel, so they continued on to Mexico, but this individual, Victor, is going to have a story for the rest of his life. We're told that the U.S. Coast Guard is going to release a video of this rescue operation later this afternoon. We can't wait to get those details to you, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Up to 20 hours. It's unbelievable. Hopefully, we get to hear him tell his own story one day soon.

VALENCIA: Yes.

BLACKWELL: All right, Nick Valencia, thank you.

VALENCIA: You got it.

BLACKWELL: There are new developments today in the shooting out of Virginia Walmart. The man who murdered six of his co-workers bought his handgun the day of the shooting. That new detail is coming from Chesapeake city officials who also revealed the man left with a calling a Death Note. They say he killed himself after he started shooting inside the Walmart break room. CNN's Brian Todd has been covering every development of this story. What do you know about this note, Brian?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, this so-called Death Note that officials found on the shooter's phone could advance the investigation of his possible motive. According to the city of Chesapeake, the note discusses God the Holy Spirit, and how the author felt that his colleagues at work were mocking him. One passage reads "the associates gave me evil twisted grins, mocked me, and celebrated my downfall the last day that's why they suffer the same fate as me." And here's another quote from that note. "I wish I could have saved everyone from myself. My God, forgive me for what I'm going to do."

Now, this note also addresses how the author wished that his parents had paid closer attention to what he called his "social deficits." And he said that he felt like he was "being led by Satan." And the note says the attack was not planned. City officials say the shooter identified as 31-year-old Andre Bing used a nine-millimeter handgun that it was purchased locally on the same morning of the attack, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Brian, Chesapeake police, they've now released the name of the underage victim who was killed. What do you know about this 16- year-old?

TODD: Right, Victor. According to a tweet from the city of Chesapeake, the 16-year-old who was killed is identified as Fernando Chavez- Barron.

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We can also report that according to the Chesapeake police, none of the names that are redacted in the so-called Death Note belong to any of the actual victims killed in this attack, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Brian Todd, covering that shooting and the aftermath in Virginia. Brian, thank you very much.

Let's go to Colorado now. And supporters of the Club Q community, they say they were determined to show that love always wins, so they held their annual Thanksgiving dinner at Pikes Peak church. Club Q is still a crime scene since the Saturday shooting that left five people dead. More than 150 people were reportedly expected at the Club Q Thanksgiving. Organizers say they received more donations of food than they ever expected.

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JOSEPH SHELTON, PRESIDENT, UNITED COURT OF THE PIKES PEAK EMPIRE: So many people are coming together because they care about this community. They care about what's coming out of this community. They're not looking at it as black, white, gay, or straight. They are looking at it as this is my community.

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BLACKWELL: The community support has also extended to one of the Club Q heroes. You remember Richard Fierro. He took down the shooter. And with the help of two others, beat the gunman that stopped the rampage. Fierro and his wife own Atrevia brewery. Now in a Thanksgiving Day message, they thanked supporters and said they're being flooded with company T-shirt orders. Our local affiliate KKTV also reported that dozens of people showed up there at the brewery on Wednesday hoping to patronize Fierro's business, but it was closed.

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JESSICA FIERRO, SURVIVOR OF CLUB Q SHOOTING: We are overwhelmed by the love and support EVERYONE is giving us and we feel it. All the comments are just an outpouring of love and it's beautiful. And we just want to thank everyone.

RICHARD FIERRO, HER0 & SURVIVOR OF CLUB Q MASS SHOOTING: We are very, very, very, very grateful for every one of you. As part of the -- you're part of that, we'll be the family now. Our intent is to feel everybody's request and get everybody assured it may take us a year and may take us 10 days. Who knows?

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BLACKWELL: All right. So, let's even get one of those T-shirts. Let's go now to some other shopping. People are rushing to find Black Friday deals despite inflation driving up prices. The National Retail Federation expects more than 166 million people in this country will do some shopping this weekend. Now, that's a significant increase from last year. CNN's business correspondent Alison Kosik is at the Herald Square Macy's in New York City. What are the expectations for this weekend, and what are you seeing?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Victor, great to see you. You know, despite persistent inflation, the expectation is that Black Friday will still be one of the biggest shopping days of the year with 115 million people just today across the country expected to go out and shop, with half of them -- actually, more than half 67 percent expected to shop inside stores like the one behind me as you said Macy's here at Herald Square. But we just got some new data from Adobe analytics showing that consumers actually got a big jump on the holiday shopping season. On Thanksgiving itself, they weren't only eating turkey, they were shopping a lot too. It turns out that consumers spent more than $5 billion in one day talking about Thanksgiving.

Now, shoppers I've been talking with, they've been saying that this year requires more of a strategy for shopping since inflation is really in focus. And it's cutting some of their spending power. So, many shoppers that I've talked to said they're sticking to budgets, they're using discounts and deals to figure out which gifts to give to their loved ones and friends. Still, the National Retail Federation is pretty upbeat about how this holiday shopping season will end up saying that they believe that Americans will spend 8 percent more than last year adding up to $940 to $960 billion for the month of November and December, Victor.

BLACKWELL: People still spending that money. Amazon, let me ask you about this, the biggest online retailer facing some strikes and protests at the start of the holiday shopping season. What can you tell us about it?

KOSIK: Yes. I mean, the tradition on Black Friday is usually just to go out and shop. Well, the tradition for a lot of Amazon workers is to protest and strike in what they're calling this a global day of action. And this is happening for the third year in a row. Amazon workers not just here in the U.S., but in 30 other countries are protesting. They're demanding better pay, they're demanding better working conditions, they're -- specifically at issue here is safety at warehouses and fulfillment centers. That is really one of the key issues.

The idea here is to have this one big global event on a day that is really focused on shopping, the very essence of what happens at Amazon. And there has been a lot of unionization, at least a movement toward unionization, especially here in New York. Earlier this year, a warehouse on Staten Island became the first fulfillment center to unionize. And for its part, Amazon does defend its safety record, Victor.

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BLACKWELL: All right, Alison Kosik in the middle of it all, Alison, good to see you. Thank you very much.

KOSIK: Same to you.

BLACKWELL: Hitha Herzog is a retail analyst and the Chief Research Officer at H Squared Research. Hitha, good to see you, too. Black Friday has now become this catch-all for every sale in the month of November. They may start in October. So, are there really good deals to get today?

HITHA HERZOG, RETAIL ANALYST: I think you're absolutely right. This Black Friday really started on September 30. And if we want to go further back, it started, you know, in July with Amazon Prime Day. And according to an Oracle study, consumers were preparing -- have been preparing to the tune of 77 percent of the people that we interviewed for Black Friday -- for holiday shopping and they've been getting really organized. To Alison's point, they've been doing a lot of research.

But there are deals to be had, mostly because a lot of these retailers have a lot of extra inventory. And that's the one thing that retailers don't want to go into the next year with, tons of inventory. You remember that backlog that we'd seen last year with all the supply chain glut, all those containers on the coast of New Jersey and Long Island -- and Long Beach, excuse me, in California, all of that merchandise is now in the stores. And so consumers are seeing discounts all the way up to 95 percent, Victor. I just saw an ad in my e-mail. It was shocking but actually makes complete sense.

BLACKWELL: I almost went out today, almost, but I don't really have anything to buy. How many people go out just because it's tradition it's because it's the thing to do?

HERZOG: You know, I think a lot of people. And obviously, we heard Alison talk about the NRF number of around 166 million people going out and shopping. Now, that's online and going to brick-and-mortar stores, but it's become a national pastime.

But I have to say I really think that we're going to start seeing a lot of the numbers online starting to overshadow what's happening offline. We were looking at another study from Data Catalyst Institute, a lot of the rural small businesses are extremely optimistic. These are the small businesses that have platforms -- online platforms that utilize Amazon, et Cie, even Goldbelly, to get their products out. And to just give you a fact, some of these rules small businesses are making gross sales revenue online from the web stores and third-party marketplaces to the tune of almost $65,000. This is trumping all the -- all the brick and mortar sales and a lot of the wholesale sales as well.

BLACKWELL: But, Hitha, inflation is still high. We've talked a lot about how inflation is impacting grocery sales, but people are still going out and spending money on Black Friday on these gifts or things for themselves. Explain that.

HERZOG: Inflation is certainly there. And I think there's a lot of FOMO that is attached to spending. And we were saying that this has become a national pastime. There was a happiness study that came out again through Oracle and they were saying that people -- 45 percent of people have not felt happiness in two years. So, I think when you start incorporating that and you incorporate this national tradition of going out and shopping, people just want to stick together. They want to be with their families. They want to have fun.

So, when you incorporate that into shopping -- and then you have this extended way of paying a lot of these consumers, around 71 percent of them are going into stores and getting this payment plan and utilizing that. Some 25 percent of them have just used that. So, I think when it becomes very easy to spend money, people go ahead and do it.

BLACKWELL: Are we back to the pre-pandemic in-person sales because a lot of people, of course, went online in 2020 and 2021?

HERZOG: There's definitely a distinction between how we shop prior to the pandemic and how we shop post-pandemic. Now that things are so easy to get set to our homes, I think people are just completely taking advantage of that. And that's a good thing.

I always say -- you know, I'm also a professor at Parsons, I always say to my students, if I can't -- if I have to walk across the room and get my wallet, that card is abandoned for me. I need to be on my sofa with my phone making that purchase or it's not happening. And I think I'm not alone with that. People just want it very easy. They want it to shop in one click. And they want it sent to their home directly within 24 to 48 hours.

BLACKWELL: My credit card number is -- I probably shouldn't say this on television, saved. All I need is a fingerprint and it's already purchased. I don't even find a wallet.

HERZOG: Exactly.

BLACKWELL: Hitha Herzog, thank you so much. Thanks for being with me.

HERZOG: Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: Mexican Prosecutors say the death of an American woman vacationing in Cabo was not an accident. They now have issued an arrest warrant for one of her friends. We have the latest on that investigation.

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Also, the matchup that soccer or football fans, depend on who you ask, they have been waiting for England and the U.S. face off at the World Cup. We're live from dueling watch parties ahead.

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BLACKWELL: Mexican authorities issued an arrest warrant and started extradition proceedings for a friend of the North Carolina college student who was found dead inside her vacation rental last month. Investigators say Shanquella Robinson was vacationing with six friends in Mexico when she died in "a direct attack, not an accident." Well, now we're hearing from Shanquella Robinson's family. CNN national correspondent Ryan Young is with me now. Talk to us about what you're learning from investigators and who's this friend?

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RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, that is the big question here. Could you think of six friends traveled with you to Mexico and something happened? One of them would come forward and tell your family exactly what happened. Well, it seems like that's not been the case, so far. We know the FBI is involved in this investigation. And according to WBTV, our Charlotte affiliate, we are told that the mother was actually initially told by those friends that she died because of alcohol-related issues. So, you imagine when they found out that the cause of death might have been because of a spinal fracture and her neck being broken, there are a lot of questions.

Now, there is a video online, Victor, that I can only describe to you right now because we have not authenticated the video. But we have talked to her father and he identifies his daughter in that video. But you can see it plays out for over a minute where she's being hit constantly. And someone's actually recording it with the cell phone. So, there are so many questions about that. Listen to the mother talk about not only her pain, but the idea of the story hasn't always matched up.

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SALAMONDRA ROBINSON, MOTHER OF SHANQUELLA ROBINSON: On Saturday evening, they called and said she wasn't feeling well. And they was going to call a doctor. And -- but when they call the doctor hadn't arrived yet, but they said she had alcohol poisoning. We received the autopsy report on Thursday, and you see that her neck had been broke.

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YOUNG: Now, Victor, you know, this just doesn't match up. And a lot of people on social media have been talking about this. I'm not sure you got the same situation with your DMs but people have been asking us, why have we done more about this story than me keeping me alive since late October. Well, now we're starting to that information because you can see prosecutors in Mexico started moving the ball forward with this warrant. But we still don't have a name for the person they want to arrest or whether or not that person is in custody. And what about the other friends who apparently witnessed this or whoever shot the video? So many questions here but at the end of the day, you have a 25-year-old who traveled to Mexico with friends she went to college with and ended up dead.

BLACKWELL: Yes, you're right. I've been tagged in a lot of photos and tweets with pictures of or just the name of Shanquella Robinson asking for more coverage of this. Investigators say this was, as you said, a direct attack. Are they giving much more -- any more about the details of the cause of death?

YOUNG: No. And when you watch that video and Joey Jackson actually talked about this earlier, you can see her being hit over and over again, and then someone called a doctor to the situation. So, it'd be interesting to figure out when they lay out this timeline, Victor, can we finally find out what happened to this young lady?

BLACKWELL: All right, Ryan Young, thank you for the reporting.

YOUNG: No doubt.

BLACKWELL: All right, China just recorded its highest number of daily COVID cases since the start of the pandemic despite strict lockdown measures. What this means for the global fight against the virus? We'll get into that next.

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BLACKWELL: Anger in China is growing over the government's unrelenting zero-COVID policies. Officials there say that the restrictions are necessary to protect lives, but some who have lost loved ones say it's not the virus that's killing them, it's the medical delays caused by the lockdown. CNN's Selina Wang has the story. Selina, what's the latest?

SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor, anger is rising and tragedies are mounting, but China is showing no sign of budging on zero-COVID. And for the second straight day, China reported its highest number of new COVID cases since the start of the pandemic, reporting more than 30,000 new cases. And authorities are responding with more lockdowns, mass testing, and quarantine, and people here are getting more and more frustrated.

Adding to that anger is a fire that broke out in the capital of China's far-west Xinjiang region on Thursday night. 10 people were killed and nine injured in a fire at an apartment building. Most parts of Xinjiang have been under lockdown for more than 100 days. The deadly fire sparked nationwide outrage because widely circulated videos, which have now been censored in China show that COVID lockdown measures very likely delayed firefighters from getting to the scene. State media claims that people in the compound were allowed to leave the building. However, videos show fire trucks unable to get close to the scene because the compound entrance was partially blocked.

The video shows it's blocked with fences, tents, and metal barriers that are normally used as part of COVID measures. The video shows smoke and flames coming from a high floor of the building, but the water failing to actually reach the fire. What adds to the tragedy is that those who died in the fire likely spent their last three months largely confined to that building, if not entirely.

This tragedy really struck a chord with the public here because the scenes of suffering and tragedy have played out over and over again since the start of the pandemic. So, many stories of people struggling to get enough food, necessities, and emergency care in locked down. Three years into these harsh policies, frustrations are more frequently turning into protests, which are normally rare in authoritarian China.

So, last week in the southern city of Guangzhou, some residents revolted during lockdown by tearing down barriers and marching through the streets. Then there were violent clashes at the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou this week. But still, there is no end in sight to zero COVID, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Selina Wang for us there, thank you so much. Let's talk now with Dr. F. Perry Wilson, an associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine.