found in sandwiches on delta planes flying into america. one passenger was hurt. this morning, find out what the airline is doing about it. big bus. two continents, three tons of cocaine, and 200 pounds of marijuana. it's happening right now. cnn will take you aboard that ship. caught on tape. a breathtaking rescue as a 7-year-old dancing on a third floor window air conditioning unit trips and falls. hear from the guy who caught her. and how would you like to lose a few pounds? a new weight loss pill is about to be approved. average weight loss, 23 pounds. we'll tell you who it's for and why there was such a fight to get it to your drug store. "newsroom" begins right now. and good morning. thank you so much for joining us this morning. i'm carol costello. we begin with an ongoing investigation. after a food safety scare at 30,000 feet. we're talking about sewing needles found in sandwiches served on four separate delta flights. the planes were heading from amsterdam to minneapolis and seattle. and also on two flights into atlanta. one passenger aboard the minneapolis flight was hurt by a needle, but did not need medical attention after the plane landed. so is all of this coincidence or is it something more? sandra endo is in washington to tell us. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, carol. that's certainly something authorities are looking into. the fbi and local law enforcement in the netherlands are trying to find out how those needles got into those turkey sandwiches. two of the needles were found by passengers, and one was discovered by an air marshal. when delta found out about the needles in the food, the airline says it notified all 18 flights from amsterdam to stop serving the sandwiches. here's what one passenger who got one of the contaminated sandwiches said when he spoke to station kstp. >> i bit down on it so that i wasn't biting down on the sharp side but on the flat side. it could have been, you know, a bad injury. orally. but had i taken a big swallow and swallowed that down, i would have a needle inside. and that would be very concerning to me. >> gate gourmet is the company that provided the sandwiches, and a spokesman for the company says that the sandwiches were prepared in amsterdam. she goes on to say, this is a terribly upsetting situation. first and foremost is the safety of the traveling public. there's nothing more important to us at all than the safety of the passengers and crews. now the transportation security administration says it's closely monitoring the investigation into what happened as well as the security protocols being conducted by the air carrier and the airport authority. carol? >> so the company that makes the sandwiches says it also provides food to other airlines. is there a concern about food on those other flights? >> yeah. that's a good question. gate gourmet says it's fully cooperating with the fbi and local authorities in the netherlands and also conducting its own full-scale investigation. now the company says it does provide food to other airlines but have received no other reports or complaints. >> let's hope they don't. sandra endo live from washington this morning. also this morning, no sign of two missing iowa girls. one family member says it's as though they disappeared into thin air in broad daylight. 8-year-old elizabeth collins and 10-year-old lyric cook are cousins, and they have not been seen since going on a bike ride on thursday. their bicycles were found by a lake, but the mother of one of the girls doubts they would have gone there on their own. >> it's not an area that they frequented. they didn't go far from home, either of the girls. they mainly stayed around the evansdale area that my sister lives in. so it's just not kind of like them to go that far. >> definitely out of their character. >> cnn's jim spellman is covering the search effort in eva evansdale, iowa. any luck yet? >> reporter: unfortunately, no, carol. take a look at this lake, it's called myers lake. they began draining it yesterday. they think perhaps by late tomorrow or thursday, they'll have all the water drained out of here into the river. it's really grasping at straws, though. i spoke to an investigator a few minutes ago who told me it's like these girls evaporated. they don't have any sign of foul play. they had about a thousand volunteers over the weekend searching through fields and trails, everything they can think of around here, with absolutely no sign of the girls except the two bikes and a purse found near the biekes. no sign of struggle near there. they want to drain the lake just in case -- they don't think they'll find anything else in here. but without much to do, that's the focus today, carol. >> so no witnesses saw the girls on their bicycles getting off at the lake, or no clues like that? >> reporter: no clues like that at all. take a look at this, carol. this far corner of the lake over here is where the girls were. and it's such an unlikely spot for somebody to be abducted from. there's a bike path that runs along the edge of the lake, and you can see an interstate just on the other side of it. you can clearly see most of the bike path from the interstate. and just along the side of the lake here are people's homes. and there's people all around here. if you were to take somebody from that wooded area where the bikes were found, you would have to walk about 15 minutes just to be able to get out of this area. and so it's just a very unlikely scenario that somebody would be able to just, say, snatch them off of the bikes. so they're looking for a new way to approach this case. but without any clues to go on, it's going to be tough. they have brought the fbi in to try to bring their resources to bear and try to make some sort of progress, carol. >> jim spellman live in evans doll evansdale, iowa, this morning. george zimmerman facing new allegations. he is already charged with second degree murder of trayvon martin. now a woman claims that he sexually abused her for about a decade and says the abuse started when the two were children. a florida judge has released an audiotape of her accusation. >> it started when i was 6. he's almost two years older than i am. he would reach under the blankets and try to do things. and i would try to push him off, but he was bigger and stronger and older. it was in front of everybody. and i don't know how i didn't say anything. but i just didn't know any better. >> the woman identified as witness number nine said the abuse went on for years. cnn has reached out to her father, who said the family would not be speaking to the media. in the meantime, zimmerman's attorney, mark o'marra, spoke exclusively to cnn's piers morgan. >> on the face of it, you're right, they seem damaging. of course, as you mentioned, my frustration is that they are absolutely not relevant to anything that is at hand in the true case. they are not admissible. they can't get it into a courtroom or before a judge in any way. so the frustration that i have is these allegations which george contends are untrue. now we need to spend our resources and time rebutting them, and actually we're in a difficult if not delicate position of deciding how much we attack the source of this story, or just leave it be and move on to what really counts. >> the judge says zimmerman can disclose the nature of his relationship with witness number nine, but her identity cannot be publicly revealed. the actress jada pinkett smith is on a personal mission to give voice to victims of human trafficking and sex slavery. in about 20 minutes, she'll be testifying about the problem on capitol hill. she says she used to think of it as an over the problem, wherever there is. but her daughter willow saw the kone 2012 video about a ugandan warlord, did some research, and then she told her mom that the trafficking problem is also happening here. she's right. the state department says as many as 27 million people are enslaved worldwide, and the fbi estimates that 15,000 to 18,000 of them are right here in the united states. the senate foreign relations committee is holding the hearing. the panel wants to develop a strategy to try to stop human trafficking over the next 10 years. pinkett smith went on cnn's "starting point" before she headed to capitol hill. >> i think at this point it is about educating yourself, and realizing how it exists. and today we'll be talking about the tvpa, the trafficking victims protection act, which has not been reauthorized on a federal level quite yet. and so we want to push to make that happen. and then of course we have the case act in california for this november. we'll be pushing to make sure that that bill gets passed. it will be the toughest anti-trafficking law in this country. and so those will be our two actions. >> you can see her daughter, willow, beside her. we'll bring you some of pinkett smith's testimony live. we expect to hear from her in just about 20 minutes. we are all suffering through record heat this summer, and a drought is already gripping more than half the country. the end result, fewer crops making it to harvest, and awful us likely will be paying high food prices. higher food prices, i should say. the agriculture department says only 46% of iowa's corn crops are in good condition. compare that to 82% just a year ago. this problem is front and center in iowa. in less than an hour, iowa's governor, terry branstad, will meet with several agencies. chris welsh is joining us by phone in mt. pleasant, iowa. tell us what it looks like there. >> reporter: well, carol, a lot of people, primarily farmers, are on edge of their seat. it's that heat in combination with that drought, making for very poor conditions for crop. farmers hope to have more information about what state and federal agencies are doing after this meeting that will take place this morning. now, as for the drought, experts are calling it the largest drought since 1956. it's almost unbelievable. almost 3/4 of the country is abnormally dry or worst as of june. and we really haven't seen much rain since june. so the numbers, experts feel, will keep getting worse. many states here in the midwest, especially here in iowa, farmers are really already seeing signs of damaged crops. >> so, chris, can the crops be saved? are we past the point of now return? >> reporter: you know, most farmers i spoke to in iowa say all is not lost. i spoke to one who said, you know, in a good year, he can get, say, 200 bushels of corn per acre. this year, he still thinks he'll have a harvest but will be reduced by about 25%. and that hurts him in a new ways. take a listen. >> this is our personal business. it's right out our back door. as soon as we walk out of our house, we see our investment. and when it goes downhill, it does take a toll out. you know, when the hardest part about this is you can do everything just right, work hard at putting in a good crop, have a good stand established, and when mother nature works against you, then it all seems like it was for nothing. >> and that farmer, derek mullins' saving grace is the fact that he has crop insurance. but he says that really only goes so far. >> chris welch live from iowa. thank you. cronyism. that's mitt romney's new attack against president obama. but would mitt romney bar donors from his administration? 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i put out as much as we're going to put out. >> what is mitt romney hiding? >> joining me now is barbara comstock, the co-chair for the romney campaign in virginia. welcome. >> good morning. good to be with you, carol. >> thanks for being here. first off, let's talk about that new obama ad. i know mr. romney said he would only release two years of tax returns. but is that his final, final word? >> yeah. he's gone beyond the law, and he's going to be releasing his tax returns from 2011. and it's hundreds and hundreds of pages. and he's done what's required by law and beyond. this is a distraction because this president doesn't want to talk about the truth of his sorry economic record, as well as the fact that he has been outsourcing our jobs overseas, and he's been giving it to friends and family, as in the inspector general who looked into his department of education loans, and the solar loans. >> before we get to the cronyism charges, and -- >> well, there's a lot of kronyism. >> i want to ask about the tax returns because some people are fixated on this. some voters are. so why not just deflate mr. obama's accusations and release more tax returns and be done with it? >> well, see, carol, one nice thing since i'm a local legislator, i actually talk to real voters and get out there. they are not fixated on this. i talk to them every day. they are fixated on the tax increases that barack obama will put on them come january 1. i live in northern virginia, where we'll be ground zero for the president's tax increases and those 21 tax increases in obama care. so people are upset about that. they are upset that their tax dollars have been wasted, thrown away by this administration. over at the department of energy, where they gave $500 million to solyndra. flushed down the toilet. given to cronies of the president who raised millions for him so he got millions in green from these donors. then the donors and their friends in turn got millions for their companies that are now failing on our tax dollars. that's outrageous. and there's all kinds of abc -- i don't know why the president has been asking about it. abc has done stories on this. >> you know, the romney camp does accuse obama of crony capitalism, which is rewarding people who donated to his campaign. >> yeah. >> so what policy would mr. romney put into effect to prevent such corruption? what would he do? >> we're not going to be picking winners and losers in the economy and handing out millions in tax dollars to anybody's friends. we're going to allow the entrepreneurs in america to get out there, to keep more of their own money, to invest and to grow jobs in this economy. this president has failed for three years -- >> but would mr. romney put into place a policy that says i will not appoint lobbyists or donors to my administration or give them money to create their own companies out there, et cetera, et cetera. will mr. romney put in a policy to prevent that? >> well, the policy of this president is to have his bundlers in charge of handing out tax dollars to other bundlers and other cronies and friends. no. we will have a policy that's nothing like that. we will do nothing of the sort. that's outrageous to be giving our tax dollars out to friends and family. so, no, we will have nothing like that whatsoever, because it's failed. you want to have private investors having incentives to invest in these companies. 23 of the 27 companies that got money from the department of energy were junk bond status. you had people who had been bundlers for barack obama who were putting money into junk. and it was for their friends. >> i want to go back to my original question. just to the point on day one of a romney administration, will he say, i will not, and this is my policy, i will not name any cabinet members who donated to my political campaign, i will not name any lobbyist to my cabinet? >> no, you're missing -- >> he will say that? >> you're missing the point on. day one, he willal totally chan the way we distribute american tax dollars and choose winners and losers. romney believes in the private sector, and this president fundamentally doesn't understand it which is why he's run the economy into the ground. this president never ran anything before he was president. now he has run the economy into the ground. an american middle class is suffering while he is giving payoffs to his big donors while middle class is getting layoffs. it's an outrage. and that will certainly change on day one of a romney administration. >> ok. before you go, i have to ask you about the vp pick. because it's all the rage right now. so a lot of people think it's going to be rob portman. is it? >> i don't have any inside information. what i'm thrilled about is we have so many talented people for governor romney to pick from. and i know he's going to have a great pick, who again believes in making jobs job number one. this president hasn't done that for four years. and we're going to have a president and vice president who will turn around this country, put us back to work, and create prosperity again so we can actually have -- this president -- obama can't run on his record because he doesn't have one. at this point, ronald reagan was talking about -- >> let me go back to the vp question so i can needle you on that one. will mr. romney announce his pick this week, do you think? >> that's up to him. i don't have any inside information on that. but i'm confident that any of the picks that you've been hearing about are stellar picks, and will be a lot better than joe biden who again is another person who never worked in the private sector and doesn't get it. we need people who will focus on jobs as job number one. we'll have