Chimpanzees will have day in court

NEW YORK — Lawyers for two chimpanzees are heading to court to argue the animals have “personhood” rights and should be freed from the Long Island university where they are kept.

The Nonhuman Rights Project has filed the petition in state supreme court in Manhattan on behalf of Leo and Hercules. The chimps are kept at Stony Brook University, where they are used in locomotion studies. Stony Brook is part of the State University of New York system.

Their lawyers say in their petition the court should recognize the chimps as “autonomous and self-determining beings” who have the right to bodily liberty. They want to see them sent to a sanctuary in Florida they say is as close to living in nature as chimps can get in North America.

The state attorney general’s office is representing SUNY, and says the courts should dismiss the petition because it should properly have been filed in Suffolk County, not New York City.

Amtrak to add cameras inside cabs

WASHINGTON — Amtrak said Tuesday it will install video cameras inside locomotive cabs to record the actions of train engineers, a move that follows a deadly derailment earlier this month in which investigators are searching for clues to the train engineer’s actions before the crash.

The engineer, Brendan Bostian, suffered a head injury in the accident and has told investigators he can’t remember what happened. Northeast Regional train 188 accelerated to a speed of 106 mph in the last minute before entering a curve where it derailed. The speed limit for the curve is 50 mph. The crash left eight people dead and about 200 injured.

Cameras will first be installed in 70 new Amtrak locomotives that will power all Northeast Regional and long-distance trains between Washington, New York and Boston, as well as Keystone Service between New York, Philadelphia and Harrisburg.