Charges in Cruise Ship Accident; Questions About Pet Food Recall; Suicide Truck Bombing Kills 35 People in Ramadi
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so, take me out to the ball game. Um, maybe not. Check this out. This snowy scene from Cleveland, and they're not alone in this Easter eve big chill.</s>T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Also, a dramatic river rescue after four people go over a dam and survive. Two of them were children. Stick around for that video. We're going to show you much more of it. Also, this.</s>DON IMUS, MSNBC HOST: Some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they've got tattoos, and some hard-core hoes. That's some nappy- headed hoes there, I'm going to tell you that.</s>NGUYEN: What did he say? Did you hear that right? Well now Don Imus is apologizing, but is it too little, too late? It's a talker this morning, we'll be covering it from the CNN Center here in Atlanta. Good morning, everybody, I'm Betty Nguyen.</s>HOLMES: And hello to you all, I'm T.J. Holmes. This is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. So glad you can be here with us. Up first, some new info just into us. You remember this scene from that big cruise ship there? Well, charges being filed against the officers of that great cruise ship that sank in the Aegean Sea on Thursday. Net TV is now reporting a Greek prosecutor has brought charges of negligence, breeching international shipping safety regulations and polluting the environment. And facing the charges now, the ship's captain and five of its officers. This cruise ship struck rocks in a sea field volcano crater and sank off the island of Santorini. 1,600 people had to be evacuated, two of them, a Frenchman and his daughter are still missing. Now, a number of Americans were aboard that ship, but like we say, 1,600 people were plucked from that water and were able to be evacuated. But two still missing. But now we've got charges against folks who were supposed to be in charge there, the captain and at least five of the crew. Developing story there. We'll stay on top of it.</s>NGUYEN: In the meantime, you might want to forget the Easter bonnet and grab the snow boots and gloves. Believe it or not, I know it's April, but get ready for a cold Easter weekend.</s>HOLMES: Look here, waiting in line for tickets to the annual White House Easter egg roll requires winter survival skills. We should be talking about Easter bunnies, not snowmen. You see kind of a snowman there. People woke up to temperatures this morning in the low 30s this morning and they also woke up to snow flurries.</s>NGUYEN: Yes, these are pictures from Knoxville, now, Tennessee, where snow fell overnight. Expect temperatures to dip below freezing again tonight and this picture from Atlanta. Well, no snow there.</s>HOLMES: Looks great.</s>NGUYEN: But believe it or not, overnight, Hot-lanta, yep, had a few flurries.</s>HOLMES: Hot-lanta, not right now. Interesting home opener here to show you for the Cleveland Indians. Now their game with the Seattle Mariners finally postponed. The batters couldn't see through the snow. Hard to see anything, really, through that snow.</s>NGUYEN: Yes.</s>HOLMES: Certainly not a 90 mile-per-hour fastball, which is hard to hit, anyway, on the clearest day.</s>NGUYEN: On a clear day, yes.</s>HOLMES: Now the plan is to play a double-header today. But unfortunately, for the fans there, more snow in the forecast. Don't know if they're going to get that one in.</s>NGUYEN: Well I can tell you this, it is cold in much of the nation, so let's check in with Reynolds to see if this is going to hang around throughout the Easter weekend. Reynolds?</s>NGUYEN: We do want to show you though a big-time rescue near Houston, Texas. Check this video out. Four people in a boat actually dropped 150 feet over a dam on the Colorado River. Two boys, five and seven-years-old, among those who fell. The Coast Guard was able to swoop in for the save. Two of the people did have to be taken to area hospitals. Their conditions unknown this morning. We are going to get more details next hour when we check in with the coast guard, so keep it right here.</s>HOLMES: Also, need to tell you -- well, look at this scene, this video here of a fire. It's an apartment fire. Dozens of people in Nashville now homeless after a huge fire tore through their complex. Took about two hours for firefighters to knock down all these flames, and by the time it was over, 76 units were damaged or destroyed. Now the fire officials now believe it started with a kitchen fire in a single unit. High winds are blamed for spreading that fire so quickly.</s>NGUYEN: Well, that's not the only thing on fire. Check this out in New Mexico. You see that train headed straight toward the fire? Well, imagine being a passenger on this high-speed train, suddenly racing into a wall of flames. The train operator chose to keep going, rather than risk stopping right in the middle of that blaze. Passengers, get this, say they could actually feel the intense heat as they ran the fiery gauntlet.</s>HOLMES: Well, from the train going through fire to some fiery language on a plane. Airline flights often canceled for foul weather, but foul language? This happened in Vegas. Now, we've all been on a flight from Vegas and got a little hung over, and a little drunk passengers, maybe still. Well, this was actually a pilot. Passengers in first class overheard a Northwest pilot using some pretty raunchy language on a cell phone. When a passenger scolded the pilot for his language, he allegedly let loose even more profanities.</s>ERICA GENTNER, PASSENGER: We were on the flight, and the first class people said that the pilot was up in the cockpit and he was having a fit, swearing up a storm, telling F-this, F-that, said you know, some of the people in first class had heard, and they said you know, we don't appreciate that. He almost had the people in first class ready to walk off the plane and some of them ended up walking off of the plane.</s>HOLMES: What in the world was he talking about?</s>NGUYEN: I have no - and you're about to fly a plane?</s>HOLMES: About to fly a plane. I don't want my pilot that upset.</s>NGUYEN: Is that air rage? Would you call that air rage?</s>HOLMES: Air rage, Betty just coined one for us this morning. Well police were called in, the pilot yanked off that plane. The flight was canceled unfortunately for those passengers. Feds now looking into this, saying they're not going to take action until Northwest announces whether they are going to punish that pilot.</s>NGUYEN: Well in the meantime, pet owners, many on edge today. So many questions now about what is safe to feed your pets, and on top of all that, there are new concerns about how it all happened. How did melamine get into the food? Was it intentional? CNN's Joe Johns takes a look.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When will it end? Del Monte Pet Products announcing it is extending its recall to a variety of treats, snacks, and beef sticks for dogs -- the company called it a precautionary measure -- another day in what could turn out to be the largest pet food recall in history. And the one thing everyone can agree on is that a chemical called melamine was found in wheat gluten that was used to make the food. The chemical simply isn't supposed to be there, but it appeared at levels of 6 percent or higher, which would be considered a very large amount if this were a random -- in other words, accidental -- contamination. All of the companies that bought or sold the gluten deny adding melamine, but one theory FDA investigators are exploring is whether the melamine was introduced intentionally into the wheat gluten. Why would somebody do that? (on camera): One answer is that this whole thing could have been about money, in other words, to make it look like the wheat gluten had higher levels of protein than it actually did, and, therefore, could be sold for more money. (voice-over): That's right. More protein is considered good. So hypothetically, at least:</s>DAN WATTS, NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: You're trying to convince your customer that you have higher quality protein than you actually have.</s>JOHNS: Dan Watts is a chemist with the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He says melamine is rich in nitrogen. Protein is rich in nitrogen. High levels of nitrogen would make wheat gluten appear to have lots of protein. But the chemical wouldn't actually raise the protein levels at all. So, basically, the theory FDA is investigating is that someone could have been trying to run a scam, with no reason to believe any pets would get sick as a result of it.</s>WATTS: And not necessarily setting out to do anything that was going to be harmful, perhaps setting out to do something that was a commercial fraud.</s>JOHNS: Until now, no firm research has ever suggested that melamine could be harmful to dogs and cats. And the government is still not certain whether the chemical itself has actually sickened or killed the pets, or if melamine is actually a so-called marker for some other toxic substance. The research is spotty, and there's not even a basic clearinghouse to track all the pets sickened or killed. The FDA has turned to one indicator, though, the chain of 600 Banfield pet hospitals across the U.S. plugs information into a database every time an owner shows up with a sick pet. Like the FDA, Banfield says it is starting to see fewer reports, so the worst for pet owners might be over. But the FDA is just beginning to get to the bottom of why pets all over the country got sick or died from eating contaminated food. Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.</s>NGUYEN: Do want to let you know that we have posted the entire list of recalled products, including the most recent additions, on our Web site. Check it out at CNN.com/petfoodrecall. And then look at ticker at the bottom of the screen right now. We are listing all of the affected brands throughout the morning.</s>HOLMES: All right, well, he said he's sorry, but this time we don't know if that's going to get her done, Betty.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're talking about girls, college girls, who tried their best to win a championship, and he degrades them by calling them nappy-headed hos.</s>HOLMES: Yes, we're going to take a closer look at this controversy over Don Imus's outrageous comments.</s>NGUYEN: Also, what if there's an election and nobody votes, not even the candidates? We're going to tell you where that happened this week. And this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the light fixtures to the hot water heater, everything is gone, including the kitchen sink.</s>HOLMES: Literally took everything including the kitchen sink.</s>NGUYEN: This is a wild story.</s>HOLMES: Yes, when cleaning house is a crime. That story, a little later on this CNN SATURDAY MORNING.