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Deadly Tornadoes; FAA Boss Furious Over Naps; Libyan City of Misrata Shelled by Surrounding Pro-Gadhafi Forces; Stock Market Tumbles; Kate Middleton Chooses Designer for Her Wedding Dress; Actor Nicolas Cage Arrested

Aired April 18, 2011 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: CNN NEWSROOM continues now with Brooke Baldwin.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: No "Monopoly," no shellfish?

KAYE: No "Monopoly."

BALDWIN: Who knew, who knew, Randi Kaye?

KAYE: That doesn't sound like much fun.

BALDWIN: I know, not at all, not at all.

Randi Kaye, thank you. Have a great rest of your afternoon.

Hello to you, I'm Brooke Baldwin. Happening this very second, here, folks, there is a race against the clock to save a man right now who is trapped some 6,000 feet underground. Keep in mind this guy has not been heard from since Friday night when a rock collapsed around him inside of this mine.

So there are now new developments this afternoon out of Idaho as rescue teams dig and the man's family obviously anxiously waiting for word.

Also, they are calling it the perfect storm for wildfires. Folks across Texas bracing for the worst conditions in more than nine decades. And as those flames grow, the threats get bigger. We are on the ground coming up.

But first I want to show you some pictures here. These will be new pictures. We want to get them to you right now. Take a look at the destruction here. This is video. This was shot just this morning, Cumberland County, North Carolina, part of this seven-county cluster that really bore the brunt of these deadly storms. A horrifying weekend in parts of the Deep South from a system spawned in the heartland.

At least 45 people are dead. Take a look at all the states here affected, 45 people dead, two in Oklahoma, seven dead in Arkansas, seven in Alabama. And the storm saved the worst for last here. At least 28 people are officially counted as dead in both North Carolina Virginia. More storms are coming. We are going to get to that here in a moment.

But first, let's try to get a feel for what happened Saturday afternoon and into Saturday evening. Let's all watch this together.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. There goes to roof of a house. And yes. Hang on. I love you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The road just to the top side your frame there that is the main road that come into Deltaville, but Route 33 and you could see part of the spire laying of on the side of this church as the destruction of the tornado came through.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was panicking. I have got a newborn baby. I'm away from my husband and my daughter. I was scared. I was so scared. And all I kept saying is God, please don't let anything happen to my family.

And the windows broke out. The roof went. The walls went.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One hundred and sixty-seven homes in this county alone were torn to pieces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That whole side of that house is gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was the house that I said oh they keep it looking so nice look. They built on their own little garage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we were very fortunate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My daughter and my customers and my wife was the major thing to protect everybody first. Then I worried about the store. But I protected everybody first and got down when the storm hit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Words cannot describe the things we have seen here in Bertie County. I actually have lost count of the number of flattened homes we have come across. The one thing though that I will never forget are the survivors, the people here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I fell down on the floor. I felt the trailer was shook.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We got thrown. And we was thrown into the air we was flipped into the car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just picked up the boot and carried it several hundred yards into a neighbor's backyard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just picked it up and pushed it over to one side, but you can see right next to it is totally gone. Some of these homeowners are going to have to come back out and get back in here to try to salvage what they can. They are just looking for any of those little personal things that we all have, family mementos trying to save something, but you can see that this house has been totally destroyed. Very sad situation right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Can you imagine sifting through what is left looking for family photos? And if you have ever covered or been part of these storms, it is like one home is obliterated, the next home door barely touched.

Once again, at least 45 people are dead all the way from Oklahoma to Virginia. And we told you about this one of clusters of counties in North Carolina, the counties that took the brunt of these storms. The worst hit there you heard them mention that in that piece, rural Bertie County, where 11 people are dead.

David Mattingly spent his morning there at one of the many damaged homes -- David.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And this is what we have right here, this house in the direct path. You see it was knocked off of its foundation, pushed back more than a foot away from where it used to be standing.

Walking into the living room here, everything has been ruined. Every bit of furniture is soaked by rain, covered with debris, the windows blown out, water damage all over the place. Fortunately the people who live here were not at home at the time. The husband tells me that his wife became ill. He took her to the emergency room and that is where they were when the storm hit. Otherwise, they would have been sitting on this couch watching TV and with a much more terrible story to tell today if they had stayed here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: David, thank you. We will hear more from David Mattingly next hour. We will also talk to Chad Myers here in a second, because there is news of possibly more storms coming in tomorrow night. We will get to that momentarily.

But have you heard -- I know you have -- what happened to the Lowe's Home Improvement store? Take a look at the pictures here. These stories, the pictures tell the story. This is I say really what is left of the Lowe's. There were dozens of people. I think I heard as many as 100 people inside this shopping store when the storm hit Saturday evening.

Amazingly, everyone survived, including Gary Hendricks his wife. They were some of the folks there inside of the store.

Gary is on the phone with me from North Carolina.

And, Gary, I understand that you have been looking for a car all day today . That all pertains to what happens here with this store. We will have you explain that in just a moment, sir, but if you can just take me back to when you were inside the store, checking out with the cashier when you looked out the windows and, Gary, tell me what you saw.

GARY HENDRICKS, SURVIVOR: Yes, it was quite surprising because I was looking -- I am one of the people that don't like to stand in a line, so when my wife was at the cashier, I went to the window.

I saw a strange almost a swirling mist. It looked nothing like what you would expect a tornado to be. I turned around to the cashier and I said, is that a tornado?

BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.

HENDRICKS: And when she looked, her jaw fell open. And she started yelling and some more employees came over. And they said, oh, my gosh, that looks like a tornado. We all started moving away from the windows.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Yes, you realize this is a tornado. At what point -- was it the employees that ultimately ushered you all into a safe place in the store?

HENDRICKS: Yes, they -- immediately they said everyone needs to get to the back of -- head to the back of the store. And they announced on the paging system, everyone move towards the middle of the store. And we all started moving back. When we got back, there were more employees there that ushered us into a back narrow hallway with cinder block walls.

BALDWIN: Gary, how much time did you have to go from the front of the store to the safe place? I think I heard someone say something as quick as 90 seconds you had to essentially hit the deck.

HENDRICKS: Well, from the time they said move to the back, I would say we might have been 45 seconds to get to the back. When we hit the hallway, they said everyone down. And immediately, a wind came through the hallway. This is inside of the store that almost blew me off of my feet.

BALDWIN: Gary, what did it sound like when it passing through? We have seen the pictures of the Lowe's. Half of it, it is just demolished.

HENDRICKS: What is interesting is, I never heard any of the sounds of the destruction of the building. I never heard tearing metal, I never heard falling things. All I heard was this terrible wind and a roaring up over the top of the building.

And quite honestly, it lasted for less than 10 seconds once we were in that protected area. And it was over and quiet.

BALDWIN: Ten seconds, but I bet it felt like an eternity, so by the time you and your wife brush off, you realize you are OK, everyone is OK, you go out looking for your car and what do you find?

HENDRICKS: Well, the big shock was we really at that point weren't sure what happened because the area we were in looked pretty normal. And we walked out of the back of the store and the whole parking area behind the store where the trucks load and unload was total rubble everywhere.

We walked around to the front. It took us quite a while to maneuver through it. We found a vehicle upside down. The whole front of the building was gone. We went to our vehicle. Another car had actually been pushed sideways through the parking lot and crushed our passenger side. And the odd thing was in my front seat was a part of the traffic light that sits probably several hundred feet away at the intersection.

BALDWIN: So the traffic light landed in your car. Your car totaled, totally wrecked, totally gone?

HENDRICKS: Yes, and right after paying the last payment three weeks ago.

BALDWIN: Oh.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Bless your heart, Gary Hendricks. Well, we are glad you and your wife are A-OK today. And if the worst thing of all this is buying a new car, I think you are doing all right. Gary Hendricks, thank you so much for calling in and sharing your story.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

BALDWIN: And another weekend, did you hear, another air traffic controller caught sleeping on the job. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says now he is taking action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY LAHOOD, U.S. SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: We have not been sitting around crying in our coffee. We have stepped up. We have worked all weekend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We will tell you what new rules he has put in place for all these air traffic controllers nationwide.

Also, a mine collapses in Idaho. Two brothers were inside. One of them gets out. Now the race is on to try to make contact with the other.

Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Talk about a close call in China. Take a look at this video here.

Cameras were rolling as this semi, look at this, comes barreling down. This is a crowded intersection. You see that motorcyclist in the middle? Let's re-rack it, watch it again. A couple of others from another different way -- just about overturning there.

This truck there speeding toward this four-way intersection just about hits the person who you saw a second ago on the bike. Here is a different vantage. Just barely misses that guy before it flips over. Amazing.

The bosses of all of the nation's air traffic controllers, they are flying all over the country this week. That is after another case emerged just a couple of days ago of another controller caught sleeping on the job. This time it happened in Miami.

We are told that the controller didn't miss any calls, didn't put any planes in danger, but that didn't make the news sit any better with of the head of the FAA, who says he is infuriated.

So Randy Babbitt is meeting with controllers face to face nationwide. He started today in Peachtree City, Georgia, because it is one of the busiest airspaces in the world.

CNN's homeland security correspondent, Jeanne Meserve, is THE SITUATION ROOM -- Jeanne.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Air traffic controllers tell us that fatigue is part of the job and it always will be. The question, they say, is how to mitigate it.

The head of the FAA, Randy Babbitt, and the head of the controllers union, Paul Rinaldi, came here to this radar center, the first stop of a series of stops where they're talking to controllers to get their ideas on what to do about it. They also had a message of their own.

Part of it was, we know most of you are great, doing a professional job. The second part of this message, we cannot let these instances of falling asleep on the job continue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY BABBITT, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION: Just because 99.9 percent of us do it right, we have got to have all of us doing it right. This is a businesses where one mistake is one too many. And we can't ever let our guard down on that.

PAUL RINALDI, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION: At the end of the day, we run almost a flawless system. Over two million passengers are moved through the national airspace system everyday, and not even a bleep happens, but we have a couple of situations and the ball is dropped and all of a sudden, we become a butt end of the joke. We don't deserve it. We don't like it. And we will stand together and fix it.

MESERVE: Now some changes in scheduling have already been instituted, including a requirement that controllers have at least nine hours between shifts. FAA Administrator Babbitt estimated that the cost of the changes already made will run between $2 million and $9 million a year.

Some additional things are being looked, including further modification to the way traffic controllers are scheduled. They're also developing a professional code of conduct and I'm told they're looking at the question of fatigue education, teaching controllers how to recognize when they are tired and what to do about it.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Peachtree City, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Jeanne Meserve, thank you.

They are working around the clock in Idaho to try to save this trapped miner. He was down underground next to his brother when this mine collapsed on Friday. Now, his brother made it out. We will take you there, tell you to that story next.

Also, in Tennessee, the FBI says he is probably from the community, from this tight-knit community and he probably knew her routine. They are talking about the person who snatched 20-year-old Holly Bobo from her home just last week. There are new developments in this case today. We are staying on it. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Right now in northern Idaho, there are crews. They're racing to reach this miner trapped more than 6,000 feet underground. He is 53-year-old Larry Marek. He has been down there since part of the mine, the roof really collapsed back on Friday.

But get this. The name of the mine, Lucky Friday, not so much for Marek here. Marek was one of the two men working in that part of the mine. The other guy who got out is his brother. But now here is the deal with regard to the rescue effort. Crews do not have to dig all the way down 6,000 feet deep into the earth.

The spokesman for the company that owns and operates the mine says what they do is they take this elevator almost all the way down and then they go north a mile, up a ramp towards the site. Now, workers have already moved about half the dirt, the rocks, the debris that fell from that roof collapse. Now they are getting some high-tech help. They have got this remote controlled digger that they are using. Crews took it apart. They brought it down to that collapsed site and they are now putting it back together and putting it to good work.

So, we will keep watching this one for you and hopefully they are able to get Marek out of there, out of Lucky Friday.

A Tennessee community reeling days after a 20-year-old nursing student was kidnapped right out of her own home. Investigators have now expanded their search for Holly Bobo. She was last seen Wednesday morning by her brother, who says he saw a large man wearing camouflage lead her out of her home and into the woods.

So, just this past weekend, more than 1,100 volunteers, they combed through this area, a very heavily wooded area, as you can see here, right around Bobo's house, where her lunch box was discovered some eight miles from her home.

Bobo's cousin, country music singer Whitney Duncan, is tweeting about this. She's also now speaking about it for the very first time and in this emotional interview today about her cousin, Duncan told ABC's "Good Morning America" prayer and community support are really helping her family pull through.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITNEY DUNCAN, COUNTRY MUSIC SINGER: The family right now is trying to be strong. It doesn't seem real. That is the last phone call you ever expect to get. It is a close family, so we are just trying to hold it together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The small community gathered there for prayers on Sunday. And the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is urging people to take notice of anyone suspicious whose whereabouts were unaccounted for last Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTIN HELM, TENNESSEE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: If somebody is feeling very anxious or acting suspicious, behaving abnormally, feeling a lot of anxiety, these are all things that would lead us to believe this person could be a suspect -- maybe, maybe not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: A $25,000 reward is offered for information in the case of this 20-year-old. And authorities say they have received more than 250 tips thus far. Stay with me here on CNN, because coming up next hour, I will be speaking to the director of the TBI, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Mark Gwyn. He will give me the very latest on the investigation as it stands this afternoon. So stay tuned for that.

Also, this. If you were watching Friday, do you remember this moment Sunny and I had?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Match.com, if you're watching, do the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Did Sunny Hostin get the popular dating Web site to change its policies? We're going to tell what they announced just two days after Sunny said that. BALDWIN: Also, we will take you live to Texas, where there is still no end in sight. Ed Lavandera just getting back from the front line, where he has been, as he told me just now here in an e-mail here , with a strike team. So what does that mean? What did Eddie see? I will talk to him right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Have you heard? Match.com changing the way it does business. Specifically, the dating site is going to start checking existing and new subscribers against the national sex offender registry.

This moves comes after a California woman sued the company saying she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on the Web site. So, the company says it had been thinking about making the change for a while, but until now the technology to do it just was not sufficient.

Now they are saying this -- quote -- "In recent conversations with providers, we have been advised that a combination of improved technology and an improved database now enables a sufficient degree of accuracy to move forward with this initiative, despite its continued imperfection."

And my colleague Sunny Hostin says it's about time. I actually just spoke with her about this precise case on Friday Take a listen to that conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOSTIN: They are not doing enough. I think if they want to be a good corporate citizen, it does not cost that much to do these sorts of background checks. Let's face it. They can pass it on to the consumers. We want women, we want men to be safe from sexual predators.

Match.com, if you are watching, do the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, Match.com says it plans to put the changes into effect in the next 60 to 90 days.

And here is the safest way to test for radiation at Japan's damaged nuclear reactors. Stay away from them as far as possible. Remote controlled robots now in there operating inside the reactors. Today Japanese safety officials report these robots found very high levels of radiation there at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant both inside around two of those reactor buildings.

Hundreds of wildfires, they are burning across Texas. And the conditions, it's dry, it's hot. And the droughts are worse than they have been there in nearly 100 years.

And listen to this here. The state forest service says this battle will likely play out not weeks, for months. A man is under arrest right now, suspected of starting a fire that destroys at least eight homes in Austin.

Ed Lavandera has been out all over this story all day. He's been with fire crews who are trying to beat back the flames in Graham, Texas. That is just west of Fort Worth. He's now on the phone.

Eddie, I know in your e-mail you said to me you were just getting out of the woods. You have been with a strike team. Talk to me about that. What did you see?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are just a few miles outside of the town of Graham, Texas, which is west of Fort Worth.

And a lot of the major roadways are blocked off by authorities as they kind of get into the wooded and rolling, rocky areas just south of this town to battle the flames that have been coming dangerously close over the last few days to this town.

Several towns south of where we are have already been evacuated. And we went out with a deputy from the Young County Sheriff's Department, who took us out to see some of the volunteer firefighters that are kind of fighting in the front woods. I'm telling you this is incredibly difficult work. The terrain is rough, rocky and rolling. It's easy to kind of lose your bearings as to where you are.

And it's also easy to lose track of exactly where the flames are. So, there is a lot of communication going back and forth between the various firefighters that are out there on the ground, kind of everyone watching each other's backs as these flames can fire up. And we saw it as soon as we pulled up with a hot spot that flamed up into the ground jumping six to eight feet high, and that happened in a matter of seconds.

So you can see what firefighters are battling against, strong winds gusting up to 30 miles an hour in some places. It's over 90 degrees, so it is a very, very hot out here and the sun is very punishing on the firefighters in this area.

This is a massive fire that is kind of stretching over three counties west of Ft. Worth, and some 50,000 acres have been burned in the last four or five days, and last count, we heard from the Texas forest service that 25 percent of it is contained at this point. So there is a lot of people still on edge watching this closely.

They have aerial support dropping water and fire retardant on the flames as soon as it pops up, and you know, but there is a great deal of, a great deal of work still to be done on these fires west of Ft. Worth.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: I can't help but think about all of the firefighters out there who are clearly on the defense today. You mentioned the conditions. It is windy. It is hot. It is humid. There's been a drought there which is also an issue, but when I look at the picture, Ed, and you are in the thick of things, quite literally, because they are low rolling fires and you have the flames low to the ground, but the smoke is -- I mean, it must be spectacular to see in person?

LAVAVDERA: Well, we spent 30 or 45 minutes inside of one of the areas and the smoke quickly gets to you, and we were in fact shooting a little video at the end and one of the volunteer firefighters came running up to us, and said we have to rush out, we have to rush out, because the winds were starting to shift on them.

When we got back up to a higher ground, you can really get a sense of looking back to where we had been, the smoke rising from that area, and how quickly it moves directions, so that really tells you how quickly these flames can move and how dangerous that can be for the guys and working in the thick of those woods that are burning.

BALDWIN: I have total respect for those guys and gals. Ed Lavandara, thank you and your crew for hoping on the phone with me.

I'm getting in breaking news from Washington on General Stanley McChrystal and it has to do with the "Rolling Stone" article that cost him his job as the top commander in Afghanistan. We will take you live to the Pentagon with more on the breaking story, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, just into CNN here, we have news on General Stanley McChrystal and the controversial "Rolling Stone" article that cost him job. I want to bring in Barbara Starr. I remember talking about it last June. What is the news from the Pentagon today?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, it has been about a year and this may be the final chapter. The general inspector of the Pentagon has issued a final report today saying they could not substantiate and could not find sufficient evidence of wrongdoing by General McChrystal and the top staff mentioned in the "rolling stone" article. They say there was insufficient evidence to substantiate any allegations of violations of military rules, policies, behavior, any of it.

This all goes back to the "Rolling Stone" article which had extensive quotes by General McChrystal and the senior staff while he was commander in the war in Afghanistan and making disparaging remarks about the president and the vice president and various public officials and insufficient evidence and very important to note that neither General McChrystal nor the "Rolling Stone" editors agreed to talk to the inspector general for this report. Brooke?

BALDWIN: Barbara, what does this do for general McChrystal? He lost his job as commander of the war in Afghanistan. Essentially does this just clear his name?

STARR: I don't know that it has much impact clearing his name one way or another. General McChrystal has gone on to be a lecturer at Yale University. He is writing a book. He has a consultancy that he works on. Just a few days ago we saw him back at the White House working on a program with the president and first lady to help troops and their families. Still, he's a very controversial figure. And I think that people will probably come to their conclusions about him and stick to whatever their opinion is, to be frank, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Thank you.

And today, markets if you have taken a look at the numbers, they are ugly. Take a look -- down all of the way around. We are coming up on the closing bell, and the Dow is down and S&P is down, and we may be seeing the biggest one-day loss. Let's go to Paul La Monica, the assisting managing editor of CNN money. And Paul, a down day, what is the reason?

PAUL LA MONICA, ASSISTING MANAGING EDITOR, CNNMONEY.COM: Well, yes, this can really all be blamed on the Standard & Poor's important credit rating agency, who put out a report to spook the markets by saying that they were putting the U.S. credit rating on a negative outlook and revised from the previously a stable outlook.

I want to point out that does not mean they have cut the U.S. credit rating yet, but it could mean that there is a credit rating cut in the future, and they are worried about the fiscal problems we are facing as a nation, and the lack of resolution between Congress and the president in the next few years.

Mary Miller, the Treasury assistant secretary of the treasury took issue with the report and said that S&P's outlook does not look at the ability of the nation to come together to face the fiscal outlook. But obviously a lot of investors are worried about politicians playing nice and actually fixing the budget.

BALDWIN: Clearly, and it's and reflected on the street. Yes, and when we see something else going down and instead of that it is going up. National average of gas prices $3.81. Paul, dare I ask, when is the $4 mark?

LA MONICA: Unfortunately I don't think it will be that much longer, because the gas prices tend to spike higher into the summer as we get closer to memorial day and you have all of the reasons with the oil prices rising because of the turmoil in the Middle East and north Africa which is not going away. The dollar is weak which puts pressure on the oil and gas prices as well, and I don't want to make a bold prediction that turns out to be wrong, but it would not shock me if we have $4 gas memorial day nationwide and it is at several states at or above $4 a gallon.

BALDWIN: People are tweeting me the gas prices and it is up, and up. Paul La Monica, I have a sense that your predictions will come true.

And look at this lovely picture, Nicolas Cage's mug shot. We have new video of him in a tattoo parlor just before he was arrested. What did he do allegedly? That is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Apparently it was a wild weekend for a Hollywood star in the big easy. Talking about Nicolas Cage jailed in New Orleans, and you won't believe what put him there and who got him out. Oh, and did I mention there is surveillance video that captured part or that? That is trending today. You are talking about that one.

Also, counting down days -- 11 days remains before the big day, and what will Kate Middleton be wearing? There is a new name. Kareen Wynter, what is trending. And from what I have read about nick cage, the street is the French quarter, and nothing good happens there after midnight.

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: And poor nick cage and this is a weekend that it is a safe bet that he would rather forget, but it won't happen any time soon. Brooke, we know what went down in New Orleans right before midnight. Nick Cage was there working on a movie, and arguing loudly with his wife, and her name is Alice Kim, in the French quarter. They were disagreeing and fighting and quite bizarre over the location of the house they are renting, which so odd, Brooke.

Cage then, police say, grabbed his wife by the upper arm and tried to pull her to what he believed was the correct address, and then he began to strike vehicles and tried to hop in a cab. When the cops got to the scene, they reportedly found Cage, quote, "heavily, heavily intoxicated." And the police ordered him out of the cab and that got the actor quite fired up yelling and causing a huge scene.

The officers took him to central lockup, and the bond was set at $11,000. It seems really that this whole story like a scene out of one of his films where he is playing the bad guy, but it actually happened for nick cage.

BALDWIN: Real life story here, and we have seen the mug shot.

WYNTER: Yes.

BALDWIN: Quite a mug shot. So we know he was arrested, and what was he charged with?

WYNTER: Well, he was charged with domestic abuse, battery, disturbing the peace and public drunkenness and we should note according to the police there were no visible signs of injury on the wife's arm, and he is free to have contact with her if he chooses, so she is OK.

BALDWIN: You mentioned the $$11,000 bail, and who bailed him out?

WYNTER: Well, listen to this. This is strange. Anything that involves Dog the bounty hunter, and right, Brooke, he actually bailed cage out of jail Saturday afternoon. We are all familiar with the A&E reality show star, and his real name is Duane Chapman, and he came to his rescue, because he is a huge fan of cage's and he insisted he is doing his job as a bail bondsman and this is no way connected to the show.

Now, Dog told us that, quote, "There are two sides of my job. I release my clients after they have been arrested and pick them up if they do not show up in court. I do not believe that the latter will be the case for Mr. Cage." Cage is due back in court may 31st and we have reached out to the attorneys and reps, Brooke, but we haven't heard back from them.

BALDWIN: As you say on that one, and I can't let you go without talking about royal wedding, and specifically everybody has been wondering who is designing? Who is designing? And now today a new designer. Who is this?

WYNTER: Well, wondering for weeks and we are finally hearing who it may be, and according to the "Huffington Post," it may be Sophie Cranston who has been chosen as the designer.

BALDWIN: I have not heard of her.

WYNTER: Well, a lot of people have not, and she has been tapped to design Kate Middleton's wedding dress, and she is not well flown, but she has been chipping away on this for months. There have been a handful of names as possible designers, even Victoria Beckham. But in the end, Sophie Cranston landed the highly coveted job. And reports that Kate could be making her own dress that she will wear at the wedding --

BALDWIN: That is what I read this morning.

WYNTER: And she is a busy lady.

BALDWIN: She is a busy gal, busy gal. We will all know the name of the designer in 11 days. Thank you, Kareen Wynter.

WYNTER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Speaking of countdown, it is counting down to the most anticipated wedding in decades it has begun, and we have it covered here on CNN like no one else. It begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern Sunday, and CNN presents "The women who would be queen." And then Friday at 4:00 a.m. on Friday April 29th, the royal wedding. Watch it, DVR and participate and join Anderson Cooper, Richard Quest, Piers Morgan, and Cat Dealie as they bring you every unforgettable moment from London.

Now this.

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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These men from Ghana are just a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of people desperate to get out of Misrata, a city that Barack Obama, himself, has said is under a Medieval siege.

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BALDWIN: Well, some of those desperate people are getting out. Ben Wedeman went with the team as they were evacuated from boat, many of them very severely injured. The boat just docked. We will hear from Ben Wedeman about this whole experience, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: I want to take you to Libya now where more shelling in Misrate is causing more misery and suffering. Pro-Gadhafi forces are intensifying their attacks. At least 21 people have been killed in the last 24 hours there.

But there is more to the story than the shelling and the deaths. These attacks have left thousands of people with no way out. Many of them are clearly critically wounded, many of them children. Food and medical supplies is keeping them from docking, but some ships are making it through. CNN's Ben Wedeman was on board one of those aid ships that just docked moments ago. Watch this report with me.

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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: One after another after another, the wounded arrive in Misrata's port to be carried gingerly on a ship bound for Benghazi. Some are fighters, other civilians, all in grave condition. Here, 27-year-old doctor is overwhelmed.

DR. NABIL MASRATI, TENDING TO WOUNDED: His home was bombed and hurt his lower limbs, also below the knee. I will show it to you. Amputation below the knee and amputation above the knee. Other limbs are also crushed, amputation of the ring and little finger.

WEDEMAN: This case, wounded while cooking, doesn't want his face to appear on television because his mother doesn't know how badly he was hurt. Misrata is surrounded by Gadhafi's forces on three sides. The only route of escape is the sea. Increasingly it's the civilian population that is paying the highest price.

WEDEMAN (on camera): United Nations Security Resolution 1973 talked about protecting civilians. Do you think civilians are being protected in Misrata?

MASRATI: They are not protected at all. Every day bombing. Today, more than 20 cases in one hospital. More than 20 death cases in one hospital.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Hundreds of migrant workers were trucked to the port to board the ship, organized by the international Organization for Migration. They've been sleeping in the open, exposed to the elements of incoming rockets and artillery.

OKRA AUSTIN, MIGRANT WORKER FROM GHANA: This is very, very bad, because we have been here for two months, no medicine, even food is a problem, and no water.

WEDEMAN: Their long wait is now almost over but they leave behind thousands more stranded in a city whose fate is precarious.

These men from Ghana are just a tiny fraction of the tens and thousands of people who are desperate to get out of Misrata, a city that Barack Obama himself has said is under a Medieval siege.

Much of Misrata is without electricity. There's a pervasive fear of infiltration of pro Gadhafi agents. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was in the floor of the house and shot with a bullet. Major injury, bowl injury.

WEDEMAN: At the clinic here the port, al lot the wounded are civilians. The doctors here struggle to get by with barely the basics, says this doctor. "Unfortunately," he says, "we're suffering from a shortage of medicine and equipment and anesthetics, and we're short of medicine for diabetes and high blood pressure."

Nearby, a school has been converted to a shelter for the families driven from their homes due to the fighting. Malika from Morocco fled her apartment in a hurry. "We left," she says, "because there was shooting, tanks and snipers firing around our house." This accountant abandoned his home after it was hit by a missile.

AL-RADI ABDALLAH, SUDANESE ACCOUNTANT: I want to live in Libya, by any means.

WEDEMAN (on camera): By any means?

ABDALLAH: Yes, by any means. I don't want to go.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Back on board the ship, hundreds of African workers sleep wherever they can find space. There may not be many such more rescue missions warns Jeremy Haslam (ph) of the International Organization for Migration.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are definitely doing one more. Beyond that, I'm not sure.

WEDEMAN (on camera): What's the constraint?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's financial right now.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): At least for a lucky few, they can sleep soundly for the first time in weeks, knowing that they've escaped this war in one piece.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Misrata, Libya.

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BALDWIN: As you saw, Ben was onboard that ship. We have just gotten word that ben has gotten off the boat. He's now in Benghazi and making his way to a phone right now. We expect him to call us at any moment to talk about that experience, that journey, and all of those people seeking safety.

In a matter of minutes, the frantic search for the missing nursing student, Holly Bobo, who may have been kidnapped by a man in camouflage. We'll talk about the latest on the search this afternoon.

Also, the White House just released the president's tax return. How much did the first couple make this year? Ed Henry is standing by with the news just in from the world of politics, the world of the White House. That is next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: And now let's go to my colleague, Ed Henry, live at the White House with the latest from the CNN Political Ticker. Ed Henry, everyone wants to know this time every year how much money the president made.

ED HENRY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's a great American tradition. The president's tax return comes out and adjusted gross income for last year just over $1.7 million for the first family. They paid about just over $450,000 in federal taxes, also, just over 51,000 in state taxes to Illinois. They've got a home there obviously.

They also gave a whopping $245,000 to charity, about 14 percent of their income. Significant because when you compare it to the Bidens, they made a lot less money and also gave a lot less money to charity. The Bidens reporting income of $379,000 and paid $86,000 in federal taxes and gave $5,000 to charity. That is just over one percent of their adjusted gross income.

We spoke to a Biden spokeswoman who said, look, this is what you're seeing in terms of what they give out of their checkbook to charity, but also they, quote, "contribute to many causes with their time," which you may be referring to, for example, the Bidens spent a lot of time with Susan G. Komen race for the cure.