Protests In Iraq; Snowy Easter; Gerri's Top Tips
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Cameras on her house and has called the cops a few times, too. I'm not going to have this in my neighborhood.</s>HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And on that note, top of the hour, top at morning to you. I'm Heidi Collins.</s>HARRIS: And I'm Tony Harris. Stay informed in the CNN NEWSROOM. Here's what's on the rundown for you this morning. Is Iran raising the stakes in its nuclear standoff with the U.N.? Just in, word the country is launching industrial scaled uranium enrichment.</s>COLLINS: A people depressed. Iraqis seek relief from the pain of war and find their formula on the streets.</s>HARRIS: And looking for a longer life? Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has some tips in a new book and series. This hour, what supplements can and can't do for you. It is Monday, April 9th. And you are in the NEWSROOM. And at the top this hour, the fall of Baghdad four years later. Stepped up security is in place as that milestone is marked in the Iraqi capital. And south of Baghdad, a big anti-American demonstration in the holy city of Najaf. The protest called for by radial Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. To Baghdad now where CNN's Kyra Phillips is keeping track of the latest developments. Great to see you, Kyra. And so far at least it appears the demonstration is peaceful, correct?</s>KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and that demonstration has been peaceful. And that's what's so interesting, Tony. If you are back there in the states, at home, an you see this video, you see thousands and thousands of people walking through the streets. You see Iraqi flags. It looks like a form of solidarity. Iraqis are walking together. This is what it's all about. It's about freedom. It's about unity. It's about getting along. But there's an interesting underlying message here. This rally was called to come together through Muqtada al-Sadr. He's anti-U.S. troops being in this country. He calls them the occupiers. But this show what kind of power he has. This powerful cleric that could rally Iraqis and say, come together. Iraqi army, Iraqi police, join us. Be against the U.S. Of course, I can't confirm if indeed there are members of the Iraqi army and Iraqi police in this protest, but he has asked them to join all these Iraqis. Now apparently he has fled to Iran and he is not in this country. So you can look at this, Tony, as a message to the prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, and also to the U.S. government and U.S. troops, nose up at them. Look how much power he has, whether he's in Iraq or he's in Iran.</s>HARRIS: Well, and, Kyra, today is the day four years ago when we watched the Saddam Hussein statue come down. Just curious, what's there in its place now?</s>PHILLIPS: Well, we'll never forget it, right?</s>HARRIS: Yes. Yes.</s>PHILLIPS: The statue of Saddam Hussein getting pulled down by U.S. marines and Iraqis together, chipping away at it. Everybody wanted a piece of it. Wanted to be there. We remember the cheering in Firdous Square. Well, now I was able to go by there. Actually it was one of the first places I went to when I got here a number of weeks ago. I had to take a double take because I thought that was the square and that nothing was there anymore. But these artists here in Iraq, they call themselves The Survivors, made this sculptor. And it's of a family, a man, a woman and child, holdings up the sun and the moon representing the new Iraq and the ancient Iraq. So people come, they visit it, they leave flowers, ribbons. It's interesting.</s>HARRIS: Yes, it is. CNN's Kyra Phillips for us in Baghdad. Kyra, thank you.</s>COLLINS: Despite stepped up security across Iraq, more deadly violence today. In Baghdad, reports say a sniper killed a civilian and a police officer. And a mortar round killed one person and wounded two others. Both attacks in the southern part of the Iraqi capital. Just north of Baghdad, police say clashes broke out between unknown gunmen and al Qaeda fighters. More than two dozen people were injured. Popping pills. Iraqis stressed out by the ongoing violence look for relief. And they don't have to go too far to find it. We'll tell you about that coming up in the</s>NEWSROOM. HARRIS: Iran announcing this morning another bold step toward becoming a nuclear power. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran has begun industrial-scale production of enriched uranium. Enriched uranium is the fuel necessary for operating nuclear reactors. This latest step comes despite U.N.-imposed sanctions on Iran. The U.S. and its allies fear Iran is moving toward building nuclear weapons. President Ahmadinejad says Iran has an undeniable right to nuclear energy. The U.N. Security Council has set a new deadline of late May for Iran to suspend its enrichment activity.</s>COLLINS: Forget the blooms, instead spring snows covered the upper Midwest. Parts of the East as well. And freezing temperatures making for some pretty interesting Easter egg hunts. CNN's Reggie Aqui is live in Chardon, Ohio. It's just a few miles southeast of Cleveland. What is it there, the woolly bear, something-something, the maple something-something.</s>HARRIS: There you go, Heidi.</s>REGGIE AQUI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the Maple Tree Festival had to be postponed, Heidi, because of the weather. Tony is very familiar with that Maple Tree Festival. And apparently the bathtub races that happen annually. But we'll get to that in just a second. I want to tell you about an interesting conversation I had inside the coffee shop this morning. Certainly folks here are used to a lot of snow, but they're not used to it happening this late in the season. The woman behind the counter said to the man who came in, how did you like your holiday? And he said, Christmas? It was great. Certainly looks like Christmas and not Easter, doesn't it. We're going to show you what it looks like this morning at the town square. Two and a half feet of snow now covering where they usually have their Easter egg hunt. So what did they have to do? Well, they had it anyway. We understand they had 150 kids out here on Easter trying to get these eggs and basically, if I can show you what that would look like. I mean, basically all they did was they took these plastic eggs and they just threw them into the snow and the kids went diving after it. Want to show you the headlines today in "The Plain Dealer," Cleveland's paper. It says "Spring's Wild Pitch." It shows one of the Mariner players surrounded by snow. They had to cancel the home opener here. And the Indians still haven't played that home opener. Not Friday, not Saturday, not Sunday. They're going to try again for a doubleheader tonight at 4:00. We understand that the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, he's even thinking today about moving the rest of this week's games, supposed to be against Los Angeles here in Cleveland, to L.A. to avoid this whether. Because I don't know if you can see it. It's very small. The flakes that are coming down. But it is still snowing here in this part of Northeast Ohio. Certainly this section of the area got the most snow. But, Heidi, 12 inches of snow in Cleveland over the weekend was much more than they expected. And it kind of came out of nowhere. So a lot of folks are hoping that this is going to be the end of it. That the rest of spring is going to be easy going.</s>HARRIS: Yes.</s>COLLINS: Wow. I bet that's what they're hoping. And, you know, this just in, Reggie. We learned that Tony Harris was actually the king of the maple play -- what was it?</s>HARRIS: No, it's the Maple Tree Festival.</s>COLLINS: You were like the king of it, right? The banner, a sash and everything?</s>HARRIS: Well, I enjoy -- you tap those trees and you get that -- that's OK, Reggie.</s>COLLINS: Oh, we lost Reggie.</s>HARRIS: We moved on, Reggie.</s>COLLINS: We may have lost several others. I don't know.</s>HARRIS: Chad Myers. Chad, you know, you tap that tree.</s>CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: Yes.</s>HARRIS: You get that maple syrup flowing.</s>MYERS: Well, you get the sap flowing.</s>HARRIS: Well, you get the sap flowing, yes.</s>MYERS: Right.</s>HARRIS: And then what happens, you would just turn it around right out there, there's this whole set up, and you turn it around into syrup and you go right to the pancakes and some beautiful . . .</s>MYERS: No, it's not sweet enough. There's no way.</s>COLLINS: He wants to be back in Cleveland.</s>HARRIS: Yes. I'm telling you.</s>COLLINS: You've got to do all kinds of processing.</s>MYERS: You have to boil it down for like 50 hours.</s>HARRIS: There is a set-up there where all of this happens. Where it is all processed during the -- I'm telling you -- during the events of that weekend or that week. There are a couple different ones.</s>MYERS: Yes, but you know what, if you pour chocolate, sugar and a little cream on one side, you get a ho-ho out the other too, but that doesn't make it good for you.</s>HARRIS: Excellent point, as always, Chad.</s>COLLINS: Yikes.</s>HARRIS: As always.</s>COLLINS: Oh, boy, we have so gone down hill. It's only Monday.</s>MYERS: That's right.</s>HARRIS: And when we come back we'll talk about the woolly bears and the centipedes and everything else.</s>COLLINS: Good because that is what I really want to know about.</s>HARRIS: Well, there you go.</s>MYERS: And I do love maple syrup. I'm not taking anything away from that. But there is a long process and that's why maple syrup is so expensive.</s>HARRIS: There is a process.</s>MYERS: You just don't tap a tree and put it on your pancake. There's a lot of boiling going on there.</s>COLLINS: Coming up next, illegal immigration. The debate rages on in Washington and grows even more invasive in border states like Arizona. Phoenix police say smugglers are now preying on nondescript neighborhoods to set up so-called drop houses for illegal immigrants. Dozens of men, women and children crammed into a vacant home and seemingly abandoned. This morning, President Bush is in Yuma, Arizona, to rally support for his immigration reform plan. The issue ignites bitter division in Washington and his fellow Republicans have offered some of the most fierce opposition. So the president will use the controversial border fence as the backdrop for his proposals. They include tougher security measures to guard against terrorism, while promising fair treatment for illegal workers already here.</s>HARRIS: Candidate on a mission. Bill Richardson is half a world away from the campaign trail and hoping to brings closure for a half- century old war. That is coming up in the</s>NEWSROOM. COLLINS: She called herself the Gazelle, but can this woman out- run six centuries of French prejudice to become a world leader? That's ahead in the</s>NEWSROOM. HARRIS: Live to be 100? Can dietary supplements help you get there? Good question. Dr. Sanjay Gupta begins his week long series called "Chasing Life." It is also the title of his new book. And we will tell you how to get an autographed copy absolutely free. You're in the NEWSROOM.