Sochi Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
BALDWIN: Ready or not, the Olympic Games are under way, but not without a new terror threat here today. This Turkish industry believes this man -- wait for it and you will see -- he's in a hockey jersey -- is the hijacker here who tried to take over a plane and -- here it is -- fly to Sochi, Russia. CNN has not independently confirmed that, in fact, the man here in the hockey jersey is the hijacking suspect, but passengers say this is the man who was yelling that there was a bomb in the cargo hold of this Ukrainian plane, all of this happening, keep in mind, mid-air. The Turkish government scrambling F-16 fighter jets to intercept the plane which landed safely in Istanbul. And the backdrop of all of this news today, the Olympic Games itself. The opening ceremony, I can tell you, going off without a hitch, that is if you don't count the failed lighting of the fifth Olympic ring there, but you know, potatoes, potatoes. One of the acts to perform at the ceremony is t.A.T.u. Just a reminder to folks at home who these young ladies are. That's right, amid all of Russia's anti-gay law controversy, this duo made famous for their perceived homosexuality, all part of an opening act there. Joining me now, Rachel Nichols, host of unguarded. Nice to see you, my friend. Before we get into the ceremony itself, were there rumblings that you heard about the plane among the crowd there.</s>RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN HOST, "UNGUARDED": I saw a mention of it on my phone on Twitter. I'm sure many other people around the stadium saw the same thing. There was not any kind of large conversation about it. I have been at sporting events where major news events have happened. You can see the crowd in this age of cell phones, a wave of information passes over them and it becomes a big buzz. That didn't happen here. The focus was on the athletes and the ceremony. People were treated to quite an interesting spectrum of events. Russia celebrated the history, the literature and artistic contributions and even a nod to the Soviet era. People were not sure what to expect. The graceful moments came not in the pageantry and the fireworks, and there were plenty of fireworks, but really in the athletes marching in together. We saw a delegation from Israel march in a few feet ahead of a delegation from Iran, really symbolizing what these Olympics are about in the shadow of so much war and terrorism, as the report you were just referring to. And, also, we saw the spirit of Olympic toughness. An American skier, Heidi Kloser, was practicing yesterday when she tore her ACL, can you imagine, ripping up her knee the day before the games started. She is now out of the Olympics. And in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, her father says that she looked at him and said, Dad, am I still an Olympian? Just heartbreaking. He said, Of course you are, and so did Team USA. You can see in this picture, if you guys put that up, it's her with ice on her knee on the bus on the way to the Olympic stadium. And she did, on crutches, march in with her teammates. It was really a nice moment of and really what the Olympics are all about.</s>BALDWIN: We wish her well. I tore my ACL skiing, once upon a time. It is not fun. But from the athletes and the performers, too, what about the crowds, Rachel Nichols? I know with all the fears and security, were the seats filled?</s>NICHOLS: Not every seat was filled. We did see some empty spots here and there, but it was much more full than we have seen at the venues where there have been big patches of empty seats. So the real test is going to come in the coming days to find out how popular these Olympic, whether tourists come, whether the locals have embraced them. But the opening ceremony is always a hot ticket, a relatively full stadium tonight, not completely full, and they didn't feature the delegations from visiting countries, including the U.S. Brian Boitano, who said just by stepping off the plane with the U.S. delegation as an openly gay athlete, he was making a statement. A new controversy, though, I have to tell you, you discussed the anti- discrimination issues here. New controversy, one of the people who lit the Olympic flame, a former figure skater, has been accused of racism and racism towards President Obama in the past. So we'll have to see if that picks up any legs over the next few days and becomes an issue as well. The IOC did praise diversity as an Olympic ideal in his speech, which was considered a little bit of a shot at what's going on here in Russia. So, it's interesting to see politics come into the opening ceremonies, just a little bit.</s>BALDWIN: OK, Rachel Nichols, enjoy your time there. We'll be in close touch, Rachel Nichols, host of "UNGUARDED." Coming up next, two words for you, Justin Bieber, and new photos. Hanging out with pals P. Diddy and Rick Ross and Jermaine Dupri in Atlanta a couple nights ago as prosecutors are trying to figure out whether Justin Bieber should face felony charges. But, first, if you are a bookworm, take a look at this. The folks at Amazon actually compiled a list of a hundred books that say everyone should read them sometime in their lifetime. We'll show you 10 of them -- "Angela's Ashes," a memoir by Frank McCourt; "All the President's Men," by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; "Alice in Wonderland," by Lewis Carroll; Alice Munro, "Selected Stories" by Alice Munro -- I remember this one -- and "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle. I can hear some of you saying if you've read some of these books, we will see how well you do when I show you some the others. That's after this quick break.