Transcripts For CNNW Starting Point 20130528 : vimarsana.com

0 marijuana, but she says she s innocent. we ll speak with her husband live here on cnn. plus we re monitoring a fast-spreading wildfire in california. a thousand acres up in flames. thousands forced to flee. we will have the latest out of santa barbara county. good morning, i m christine romans. i m john berman. it s tuesday, may 28th, welcome to starting point. happening right now, 2200 angry, frustrated passengers stranded in the bahamas waiting to be flown back to baltimore after a near disaster at sea. their cruise ship royal caribbean s grandeur of the seas caught fire yesterday after the coast of freeport. one vacationer called it the most terrifying day of her life. erin mcpike is live from baltimore international airport with the latest. good morning, erin. good morning, john. those passengers will show up here starting in about four hours, and they will continue on through tomorrow on chartered flights from the bahamas. that s, of course, after many were up all night on sunday night, and into monday morning, after this fire raged for more than two hours. the entire back end of a massive ship scorched. more than 2200 passengers aboard a bahamas bound cruise were roused by a terrifying wake-up call early monday morning. boats have been lowered around deck around 3:00 a.m. and our life jackets. not a drill. not a joke. everyone is freaking out. reporter: for the third time this year, mechanical problems caused a major cruise ship to upend a caribbean vacation for thousands of passengers. this time it was a fire aboard royal caribbean s grandeur of the seas. passenger katie coleman told cnn it s the most terrifying thing in my life. reporter: in february it was an engine room fire on the carnival triumph shutting down power and the ship s sewage system for days. one month later carnival s dream lost power from a generator failure while in port. and now rival royal caribbean has its own set of problems. royal caribbean said in a statement, on monday, may 27th, at approximately 2:50 a.m. grandeur of the seas experienced a fire on the mooring area of deck three. the fire has since been extinguished. but, in an abundance of caution the captain deemed it necessary to muster all guests at their assembly stations. all passengers were found and safe, but some took to the message board of cruise critic and complained there was fainting and vomiting as they waited for hours. the grandeur of the seas was just renovated last year. it was rerouted on monday to freeport for evaluation, and royal caribbean s ceo adam goldstein already surveyed the damage. the national transportation safety board, and the coast guard, will investigate. now, the good news for these passengers is that royal caribbean is issuing a full refund, and, john, if they can stomach another cruise, royal caribbean is giving them a voucher for a free one in the future. we will see about that. erin mcpike at baltimore washington international airport where some of those passengers i m sure will be flying today. danielle miller is the passenger who shot that footage on her cell phone as the ship s guests were being called to the deck. she joins us on the phone along with her friend katie coleman. they were they are both still on board the cruise ship. danielle, you said you went to bed, it was sort of stormy seas, 2:50 in the morning this all starts to unfold. you actually thought, danielle, you thought that maybe the ship was sinking or something. it was a little chaotic. walk me through what happened. the first thing i thought was the boat could have been sinking because when we went through that it was extremely wavy and we were rolling around in our beds. i m sorry, they re making announcements right now. i can barely hear you. that s all right. keep telling me what you thought was happening. i mean you, at what point did you realize it was a fire? we were on the deck for about a half hour before they announced that it was a fire. but when we did get on the deck, we saw the life 3 boats being lowered. so we were just freaking out and we saw a light sparking and catching on fire. but other than that we didn t see any smoke coming up from deck three, and we didn t know it was a fire until they announced it. katie, if you re on the line, i mean, what, what, what did you think when you were told to put on your, your life jacket i mean your life invest i mean this obviously a scary situation in the middle of the night. what were you thinking? honestly had no idea. the night before it was really rocky on the boat. so at this point, knowing that we had to get our life jackets on and seeing the lifeboats being lowered we honestly didn t know if the yeah if we were getting off the boat, if the boat was sinking, we honestly had no idea. i mean obviously before you took this cruise, you had seen the headlines of carnival cruise problems. were you i don t know were you wary at all about taking a cruise? we honestly didn t really yeah we never thought it would happen to us. like 1 in a million chance that things like this would happen. so, we honestly weren t that nervous. we weren t expecting anything. danielle, what have you heard from royal caribbean at this point? what are they telling you? they re just telling us that they re incredibly sorry for what happened and they really want to make this up to us by having another great trip on another one of their boats. so you re going to get a full refund for this one, right, and then they re offering you a new cruise at their at their at their expense. you guys drove from ohio to baltimore to get this one. are you going to do it again? i think we are. we were talking about it last night. and we would definitely give it another chance. the first few days started out great. so, we would definitely cruise again. all right, katie coleman, danielle miller. well, sit tight. i hope it ends better next time. nice to hear from both of you. thanks for sharing your cell phone video danielle. really appreciate it. those pictures of the fire on the boat, much worse than i thought. a lot of damage. yeah. six minutes after the hour. developing story we re following this morning. an american woman accused of smuggling pot in mexico may find out today if she will go free or remain in jail in mexico until her trial. yanira maldonado says she s completely innocent and now a mexican state official believes her, saying she might have been framed. mother of seven is behind bars in mexico accused of smuggling marijuana. yanira maldonado from phoenix, arizona, she was traveling to mexico with her husband gary to attend her aunt s funeral. while returning home the couple s bus was stopped at a military checkpoint. police allege they found marijuana beneath gary s seat and charged him with smuggling. then, they released gary and arrested his wife instead. saying the marijuana was actually under her seat. a mexican state official with extensive knowledge of the case believes maldanado was framed telling cnn she would not have been able to carry twelve pounds of pot onto the bus without being noticed. gary visited his wife over the weekend at the women s jail in nogales where she s being held. she just kind of like started jumping up and down and giving me a big hug and we just cried. reporter: the couple who have seven children and two grandchildren between them have denied the charges. gary claims they never told or even used drugs. their daughter, 21-year-old anna soto is pleading for her mother s release. i know there s people out there saying or asking did she really do it? are you sure? you know, it hurts. you know. to see that. if you would have known my mom, if you just would have met her you would have known that she had nothing to do with that. bottom of the hour we re going to talk to her husband, also her father-in-law, about this dramatic case, and their efforts to get her released from this mexican jail where she is right now. george zimmerman will be back in a florida courtroom today just two weeks before he s scheduled to gone trial for the shooting death of trayvon martin. zimmerman s attorneys are expected to ask judge deborah nelson to delay the start of this trial and would also request jurors be allowed to visit the scene where zimmerman shot and killed martin last year. finally, they ll attempt to block testimony from an audio expert who says he heard martin begging for his life in the background of a 911 call. victor blackwell live from sanford, florida. good morning, victor. good morning, christine. the defense team for george zimmerman, they re asking for an additional six weeks. mark omar ra says he needs time to review the qualifications of an expert who could be introduced by the state. the big decision made today will be if the jury will be allowed to see photographs and text messages taken from trayvon martin s phone. they show pictures of martin with gold fronts, they re false gold teeth. also holding up his middle finger, smoke, thick smoke coming out of his mouth. there s also pictures of small pot plants growing in plants also a picture of a gun. now let s talk about these text messages that were taken from the phone a week before, a month before, as well, that were sent then, let s show the first one and it mentioned possibly marijuana. it says i heed my weed. there s another one that mentions it s wrapped. and there are also texts suggesting that martin was actually trying to sell a gun. someone asks through texts, you want 150 for the .38? and the response is naw, i m fixen to get it two late. the assistant state attorney in this case, the lead prosecutor, has not spoken about the new evidence, not spoken about his strategy moving forward. but the attorney for martin s parents, ben crump, has spoken. also zimmerman s attorney mark o mara has spoken. listen to what they say. i m not sure if it s recreation or whatever but he s very used to fighting. that he has used some drugs in the past. and again, many 17-year-olds have. but that he has as well. are they trying to stay george zimmerman was justified in killing trayvon martin because of the way he looked? it s that same stereo typical mind-set that caused george zimmerman to get out of the car and chase trayvon martin. and that s just isn t acceptable in america. the question is, are these texts, are these photographs, relevant? well, o mara has said that if the state goes after the character of george zimmerman, then he believes the jury needs to see this side of trayvon martin. the state is trying to keep these texts out of the courtroom. they filed a motion to keep those out, as well, today. christine? all right, what s next in this case, then? well, o mara has asked for an ef den shari hearing before the start of jury selection. he also speaks about the jury, the state has askedttorneys they say it s going to be very difficult to get an impartial jury if mark o mara continues to get in front of cameras and talk about trayvon martyr and characterize his client, as well. victor blackwell, thank you. ahead on starting point, senator john mccain s daring trip. the 76-year-old sneaks into syria to meet with rebel leadership. what did he accomplish? we ll tell you. and passengers forced to use shoe laces and belts after a passenger inexplicably tries to open the plane door in midflight. that story and much more. and tea parties. i ll have more awkward conversations than i m equipped for, because i m raising two girls on my own. i ll worry about the economy more than a few times before they re grown. but it s for them, so i ve found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we re owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your future? 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[ male announcer ] switch and you could save $480 bucks with state farm. welcome back. happening now an army of about 700 firefighters getting ready to tackle a fast and furious wildfire in a national forest near santa barbara, california. this fire started yesterday afternoon, possibly at a carve site. it s burned about 1,000 acres since then. it s only about 5% contained. up to 6,000 people had to evacuate a popular camp ground. 6,000 people on memorial day had to leave that camp ground. firefighters hope today s weather will help. just in cnn reports that two rockets fired from syria have hit lebanon. one of them in a residential area. this news coming just minutes after syria s state tv said that russia will go through with a plan to send air defense missiles to the assad regime. a lot going on there. israeli leaders very concerned about this. nick paton walsh is live in beirut. first, what have you heard about the rockets hitting lebanon? well, these rockets have been a reasonably regular occurrence, landing in a predominantly pro-hezbollah town. hezbollah having thrown their weekend in this weekend behind the assad regime joining the conflict against the syrian rebels. you refer most importantly to the russian announcement on state media saying they will go ahead with the supply of something called the s-300 missile system to the syrian regime. those weapons haven t arrived yet but u.s. and israeli officials deeply concerned about their potential to interrupt any future, perhaps unlikely nato intervention, and israelis saying they have offensive capacity, too. they re high tech. they could perhaps even hit tel aviv s airport. great concerns on the ground here now that each day we keep seeing another step that seems to regionalize this conflict. that russian delivery of high-technology coming on the back of a cancellation of sanctions against the syrian opposition by the european union to allow them to supply arms. there seems to be a tit or tat going on diplomatically. the other big news is 76-year-old u.s. senator john mccain sneaking over the border, into syria, to meet with rebel leaders yesterday. what do you make of that meeting? i think we lost nick paton walsh in beirut, lebanon. of course there was that news that 76-year-old senator john mccain of arizona did cross the border in to syria. he did meet with part of the opposition leadership right there. john mccain has been calling for much greater u.s. support of syrian rebels, really, for years. a lot of people think this was a little bit of a an attempt to show up the white house for their lack of support for the syrian rebels. he wants a no-fly zone. he wants american assistance. but not necessarily boots on the ground there. he is the highest profile american, certainly, to get into syria. all right. the supreme court watch is on between now and the end of june the high court is expected to issue 30 rulings. that list includes several politically explosive cases. the supreme court will rule on same-sex marriage, the use of affirmative action in college admissions, the future of the voting rights acts and gene patents. the justices have scheduled five public sessions over the next month to announce their decisions. the odd couple is back. in just a few hours, president obama and new jersey governor chris christie will team up again for a tour of hard-hit areas by superstorm sandy. this time the emphasis will be on recovery. they re getting a firsthand look at just how far coastal communities have come back from the devastation. of course you will recall just days before last year s election the president, a democrat, and the republican governor, with a picture of bipartisanship inspecting storm damage there. an arizona man who allegedly tried to open an emergency exit door during an air alaska flight will make his first court appearance today. witnesses say 23-year-old alexander herrera began making some strange comments, then he tried to pry open an exit door as the flight approached the runway at portland international airport yesterday. passengers quickly took action. i put him in a a choke hold, and kind of kind of went up over the seat a bit and brought him down to the ground. herrera was subdued. he was tied up by passengers with shoelaces and seat belts. the flight landed safely and herrera s father tells cnn affiliate kgw his son has a history of mental illness. ahead on starting point an american woman jailed in mexico after mexican authorities say she was trying to smuggle pot. she denies these allegations. her husband will join us. and then for all the coffee drinkers out there, good news coming your way that pertains to your cup of joe. details straight ahead. everybody has different investment objectives, ideas, goals, appetite for risk. you can t say one size fits all . it doesn t. that s crazy. we re all totally different. ishares core. etf building blocks for your personalized portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus, which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal. how d you d9 out of 10.iz today? 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