good morning, everyone. i'm deborah feyerick. search crews are out looking for more than a dozen people after a cruise ship ran aground, killing three. we'll take to you italy for the latest. plus mitt romney digs in his pocket and hands over some cash to a woman he doesn't know. we'll tell you why and hear what the woman has to say. we start with the rescue from that italian cruise ship sitting on its side right now. there are as many as 17 people still missing. one who isn't missing anymore is one of the ship's crew, found in a restaurant on the ship this morning. this comes more than 24 hours after the ship hit a sandbar, ripped a hole in its hull, and rolled over. earlier, we heard from some of the survivors. >> the crew member ran through the lobby yelling, abandon ship. >> we were in the theater when we heard the noise of the ship hitting the rock, and we felt a shudder in the ship. it was a magic act actually at the time, and the performers did a disappearing act. they just ran off the stage and took off. there was no communication at all about what was going on. >> two other people were found huddled in a cabin overnight. journalist barbie nado is near the island. and she joins me by phone. first, what do we know about this korean couple who was rescued this morning in their cabin? >> reporter: they were on their honeymo honeymoon, and they were trapped in their room. it took 90 minutes to get them out of their room. the rescuers have been banging on doors, looking for signs of life to see if anyone was trapped in the wreckage. they called out for help. they described to rescuers, who then described to journalists on the ground here that, they heard helicopters above and they heard the banging of metal below, and they were just hoping someone would find them alive. the korean couple then was taken to a hospital for observation because they were obviously very cold, hadn't eaten, and they were in a condition that was obviously very distressful for them. then there was the rescue of an italian purser who was found in the restaurant section of the ship. he was suffering from hypothermia. they lowered a doctor in to him early this morning, around 7:00 a.m. local time, and lifted him to safety around noon local time here. it was very dramatic to see him being lifted from the ship in a helicopter. >> is the rescue effort, are there rescuers still on the boat going from cabin to cabin? are they still looking, especially in the area near the hull where some crew members still potentially could be? >> reporter: yes. there are rescuers up above. let's start with 50% of the ship is under water. there are two phases of rescue operation going on. there are rescuers above the water going door to door looking for survivors, looking for people who may be trapped in their cabins. then there are divers with the italian coast guard who are scanning the area below, the underwater area, which is a huge segment of the ship at this point. the problem for them is the ship is not secure yet, which means, if there's a heavy wave -- it's been very calm seas. if the weather changes for any reason, the ship could actually slide. they're very, very concerned for the safety of these divers. they're in limited numbers and under water for a limited period of time. but they're scanning this gigantic ship to see if there are any bodies below. the mayor of giglio and the port authority here has confirmed there are 17 people still missing. the number of people that came forward in rome and the cities over the last 24 hours to identify themselves, including four japanese tourists in rome who said, wait, we were on board that ship, and nobody knows we're alive. they were taken off the missing list and now are accounted for. 17, though, are still officially unaccounted for. >> and for all intents and purposes, this is a criminal investigation now. italian authorities are sitting with the captain and interviewing passengers to find out specifically what happened. what's going on with the captain? >> the captain of the ship, the first officer of the ship are basically in custody being questioned, we understand, on two charges. charges of manslaughter and charges of abandoning ship because they both got off the ship before the last of the passengers and crew, and that is a serious maritime offense. we expect on monday morning or tuesday, when the offices of the judiciary open back up, that we'll have a magistrate make some sort of ruling on whether or not they can be kept in custody and to see what's happening with the investigation. presumably, they'll apply to be out during the investigative phase of this. both of these officers have -- the captain and the first officer have lawyers in place that are ready to defend them. it is a criminal investigation, manslaughter and abandonment of the ship. >> barbie nadeau reporting to us from italy there. thank you so much. we'll check back in with you in just a little while. to give you some perspective, the costa concordia is three times as large as the titanic. it measures 3 1/2 football fields. it was at cruising speed, moving 25 miles an hour. when it hit the reef, it appears to have come to a dead stop. when it was christened in 2006, it was believed to be the biggest cruise ship in all of italy. it's owned by a company called costa cruises, whose parent company is miami based carnival, the biggest cruise line in the world. costa did not have a good year in 2010. one of its cruise ships slammed into a cargo ship in china, injuring three people, and another costa ship slammed into a dock in egypt, killing three passengers. in nome, alaska, the city of 3,500 residents was dangerously close to running out of fuel. but a massive fuel tanker and icebreaker were able to chop through the waters. this was the first time a delivery like this has been made through the winter ice to a western alaska town. an american icebreaker led a russian fuel tanker to nome. soon they'll start pumping the 1.3 million gallons of petroleum products. and to politics now. the south carolina republican primary is less than a week away. that means there's going to be a lot of action on the campaign trail this week. there are two debates coming up, and today two major tea party groups kick off their first state convention. cnn political reporter shannon travis joins me from myrtle beach. what are we seeing, and what can we expect? >> reporter: right now we're not seeing much activity at this spring beach resort behind me. they're going to kick off in a few hours from now. but what you can expect are a couple of things. you can expect this to be political. you're going to have two presidential candidates, newt gingrich and rick santorum, and governor nikki haley of south carolina. she's a big tea party booster. but we expect the tea party to say, we're still relevant. we used to see the rallies and them out in the streets, but you don't see that much anymore. they're trying to move into a new phase, a lot of back door meetings. this meeting here is private, is not open to the public. basically, they want to be power brokers heading into this 2012 race. that's what you'll see, some politics, but also the tea party movement saying, you know what, we're still power brokers in politics right now, deb. >> they're really on some levels trying to prove their relevance and trying to get behind a single candidate? >> reporter: yeah. i mean, the tea party movement not as much. the tea party movement likes to say we're all grass roots, we're from the bottom up, not top down. however, you have seen some tea party leaders kind of come out and publicly endorse some different candidates. you saw yesterday some christian evangelicals, and you can find of argue there's co-mingling between evangelicals and tea party movements. you saw 150 evangelical leaders yesterday saying they should coalesce around rick santorum. that's interesting because a lot of them don't like mitt romney, feel he's too moderate, so they're trying to corral the conservatives to take on mitt romney, and they think it should be rick santorum. >> we'll check in with you in a little bit, getting the latest. an interesting moment on the campaign trail in south carolina. while shaking hands after a rally in sumter, mitt romney took out his wallet and gave the woman about $50. he met the woman earlier in the week. she told him she had no job and was having trouble paying her bills. here's what she told cnn political reporter rachel strayfield after yesterday's rally. >> he was worried about me and made governor haley and them come see me. >> later on? >> no, after the rally. he told governor haley to help this woman find a job. >> she first met romney earlier in the week, and she says god told her to pray for him. after that first meeting, she started working as a volunteer at romney's campaign office in columbia, south carolina. and she says south carolina's state treasurer personally paid her electric bill. rick santorum has picked up high profile backers in the republican race. a group of leading christian conservatives picked rick santorum over newt gingrich. the group includes tony perkins from the research council and focus on the family founder james dob son. a boost for rick santorum less than one week before the south carolina primary. joining me now, patricia, head of the group family politics. >> it's a very good sign. it's no xwarn tee they're going to follow his lead. just as we saw in 2008, they're not a monolithic group. they don't go with the same candidate every time. there is a worry among candidates in south carolina, as happened in 2008, the conservative vote split between and eventually ended up having john mccain become the winner in south carolina. they felt like that opened the door for him to walk through over their objections. about 60% of voters in south carolina are evangelical, and they want to use that power to keep mitt romney from becoming their nominee. >> write is really fascinating when you think about it because it's not just the evangelicals but also the tea party. they're having a state convention that kicks off in myrtle beach, and they also are trying to figure out who do they get behind? can they just get behind one person without splitting the vote? >> that's a big question. that's what they're trying to do going into saturday's vote. they don't know if they can do it. they're desperate to beat mitt romney, and they're splitting their vote between rick santorum, who puts all the family issues front and center. he begins his rallies and town hall meetings with a prayer. he puts his anti-abortion record right out there for people to coalesce behind. but conservatives in south carolina are also fiscal conservatives, and the tea party appeals to them. the tea party seems to be getting behind newt gingrich and ron paul. there's a lot of candidates for them, but are they going to do themselves a disservice by splitting the vote and letting mitt romney walk through the door? >> also quite interesting because rick perry was in town hoping to get the conservative christian vote. obviously, they went to somebody who was a little bit more electable, or nominatable, if that's a word. >> some conservatives are still supporting rick perry. that's just a bigger part of their problem. can't get behind one person. >> terrific, patricia. appreciate it. be sure to tune into cnn thursday night to hear the candidate ins their own words. the words have been pretty nasty, but will the candidates keep up the pressure face to face. the southern republican leadership conference debate comes your way thursday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. there's been a big push to legalize same-sex marriage in the u.s. why do some same-sex couples say they want a divorce also, and they can't get it. regrets but no bitterness. joe paterno opens up in a new interview talking about the penn state abuse scandal and his role in the aftermath. ♪ ♪ baby, baby, come along ♪ baby, baby, come along with me ♪ [ air horn blows ] ♪ i love you and i need you ♪ just to hug and squeeze you ♪ baby, why can't you see? 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[ laughs ] hey! a big happy birthday to muhammad ali. ♪ happy birthday dear muhammad happy birthday to you ♪ >> that's what greeted the champ at his 70th birthday party in his hometown of louisville, kentucky. ali is battling parkinson's disease, but it didn't stop him from enjoying the party. the three-time world champ actually falls on tuesday. there were 50 guests at the private party, which doubled as a fund-raiser for ali's cultural and education center. to the nfl now, in an end to tim tebow's season, he just didn't have it late last night against the new england patriots. the patriots dominated the game from the first drive. with tom brady definitely overshadowing his broncos counterpart. prayedy threw for six touchdowns. tebow had none. it was a real thriller in the other saturday game, though. boy, this was a nail biter. the san francisco 49ers scored with less than ten seconds left in the game to beat the new orleans saints. they will move on to play the winner of the packers-giants game later today. the ravens and texans square off in the other playoff game this afternoon. we are now hearing some of the first words from joe paterno on the sexual abuse allegations that ended his 46-year coaching career at penn state. paterno is back in the hospital. his family says he's having minor complications with his cancer treatment. the 85-year-old paterno has lung cancer. before going back to the hospital, he spoke to "the washington post" about the scandal and about his reaction to the original allegations against his assistant coach, jerry sandusky. >> i called my superiors, and i said, hey, we got a problem, i think. would you guys look into it? i dependent knidn't know. i had never had to deal with something like that, and i didn't feel adequate. >> paterno was essentially fired for his handling of the sandusky scandal and the original allegations. in the interview, paterno said he thought he told the right people who would follow up on the situation. he also says he's not bitter about the way things ended. after "the post" published the interview, cnn got this statement from jerry sandusky's attorney. he says the sanduskys are extremely saddened by the events which have occurred since jerry's arrest. we have been greatly dismayed by the knee jerk reaction of the penn state board of trustees in summarily dismissing coach paterno. sandusky faces more than 50 charges in the case. he has denied doing anything wrong. half a dozen states recognize same-sex marriage, but can same-sex couples divorce after they tie the knot? you might be surprised with what they found out. we are exploring this just ahead. since i've lost weight i have so much more energy than i used to, when i'm out with my kids, my daughter's like, "mom, wait up!" and i'm thinking, "shouldn't you have more energy than me? you're, like, eight!" [ male announcer ] for every 2 pounds you lose through diet and exercise alli can help you lose one more by blocking some of the fat you eat. simple. effective. advantage: mom. let's fight fat with alli ♪ let's get back to the top story now. the search for survivors from that crippled italian cruise ship and the investigation into what went wrong. joining me now from rome are amanda and brandon warrick. both were on that ship when it hit ground and they're here to talk about it. aman amanda, tell us what happened when you realized something was terribly wrong. >> basically, i looked to my brothers, and we kind of just went into survival mode and headed to our rooms, got our life jackets and anything that we could grab as soon as possible and just waited for further instruction from any of the crew or anyone to tell us what to do. >> brandon, did you hear an announcement made over the p.a. system? we understand that initially the passengers were told there was an electrical problem, but then there was a scraping sound and the lights went off. what were you told? what were you led to believe? >> it was pretty much like that. everything was fine. they said there were electrical problems but then that their technicians were sorting it out and we should be fine in no time. that's one of the reasons i had almost like nothing when i got off the ship. i thought we were going to get to go back to our rooms, but that's when panic happened. >> do you feel on some levels that the crew -- that they lied to you, underplaying, or playing down the situation? >> the crew -- i don't think the crew did. i think the fact that the captain abandoned ship and everything. he wasn't informing anybody. the crew actually, they did really well in evacuating people in a situation where their leader, or their boss was gone. like our rescue ship was actually really helpful. >> looking around you -- and, amanda, looking around at what was going on the moments where you sort of got upstairs and tried to get off the ship, did you see certain people and think, oh, my god, they're going to die? was there that sense of panic that people were just trying to get off as fast as they could? >> yeah. as soon as we saw people gathering in the muster stations, we knew that, okay, maybe we should start getting outside into life boats. and so once we did, that was when -- those were the most chaotic moments because everyone was pushing, shoving each other, trying to get on a life boat. it was chaos. >> all right. well, amanda and brandon, thank you so much. we really appreciate you both joining us. we know you were heading to meet your parents. hopefully, you will meet your parents soon, and i know they're relieved to know that you and your other brother are very safe this morning. thank you so much. members of the washington, d.c. city council want to make it easier for same-sex couples to divorce. it turns out couples who got married in the nation's capital then moved somewhere else are being denied divorces because those jurisdictions don't recognize the marriages. d.c. councilman phil mendelssohn proposed the bill. he's joining us now. what are you hearing from these couples and their attorneys? why not just return to washington, d.c.